Philippe Lazaro · Creative Director, Plant with Purpose | Philippe, Creative Director of Plant for Purpose, TEDx speaker, and illustrator, has spent his career centering conversations around communities both global and local.

After an enlightening interview with Olga M. Woltman of LemonSkies (queue it up next!) left us pondering the role of storytelling in the nonprofit world, we realized that our focus on advanced fundraising practices parallels the aspirations of ethical storytellers.

Namely, ethical storytelling is the future of the nonprofit story (and the heart and soul of nonprofit fundraising).

But to fundraisers searching for the perfect nonprofit campaign, ethical storytelling can feel elusive and fuzzy. Like, what exactly is it and how exactly do you do it? Today’s guest, Philippe Lazaro, is here to bring clarity and direction to anyone struggling with making space for ethical storytelling.

Philippe, Creative Director of Plant for Purpose, TEDx speaker, and illustrator, has spent his career centering conversations around communities both global and local. And his advice is exactly what nonprofits need to take their storytelling efforts to higher heights.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit!

After an enlightening interview with Olga M. Woltman of LemonSkies left us pondering the role of storytelling in the nonprofit world, we realized that our focus on advanced fundraising practices parallels the aspirations of ethical storytellers.

Namely, ethical storytelling is the future of the nonprofit story (and the heart and soul of nonprofit fundraising).

But to fundraisers searching for the perfect nonprofit campaign, ethical storytelling can feel elusive and fuzzy. Like, what exactly is it and how exactly do you do it? Today’s guest, Philippe Lazaro, is here to bring clarity and direction to anyone struggling with making space for ethical storytelling.

Philippe, Creative Director of Plant for Purpose, TEDx speaker, and illustrator, has spent his career centering conversations around communities both global and local. And his advice is exactly what nonprofits need to take their storytelling efforts to higher heights.

David Schwab Philippe, my friend, thank you again for joining us today. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast to share some of your wisdom, your expertise in storytelling with our listeners. I'm really excited to dig into today's conversation. But before we dive in, I'm going to ask you a question kind of a little bit, one of our go to icebreakers on the podcast. But my first question for you, just for our listeners to get to know you. If you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and then what brought you to the for good sector? And I mean, you've been here for a while now. What's kept you as long as it has?

Philippe Lazaro Sure thing. Yeah. So I am Philippe. I, live in San Diego. I live here with my family. Married, dad to three young kids, four, two and two right now. That's twins. And so, yeah, that, definitely has my life pretty active. And as we'll talk about, I work, at a nonprofit called Plant with Purpose. Actually, I just found out today is my seventh anniversary there.

David Schwab Congratulations.

Philippe Lazaro Thank you. And, yeah, I on the side illustrate. I, do improv, so I have a I've always had, like, this eclectic mix of hobbies and travel is another one. I guess it's kind of a bigger endeavor. So it's like scale and illustration, in terms of effort involved. But I've always wanted to, you know, work in a way that incorporated as many of my interests and curiosities as possible. You know, the idea of getting up and doing the same thing every day kind of put a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to kind of go to the opposite end of the spectrum and, mix it up a lot. And it turns out taking the role of being, you know, at least at the start of my tenure at Planet of Purpose, being a one person marketing team, I had a mid-sized but growing nonprofit. We'll have you wearing a ton of different hats at once. Yeah, but even before that, you know, I think I it was I was in high school when I found out what a nonprofit even was, and just seeing people who were working in this realm where folks were so energized by the mission that they were working towards, by the cause, I was particularly, excited by international causes that kind of went in line with, some of the travel experiences I had seeing that drive and that commitment, and also that just sense of purpose beyond just going to work every day out of necessity was motivating. It was the energy, the atmosphere, everything I wanted to be around, I wanted to be a part of that.

David Schwab That's awesome. Well, first off, congratulations on your anniversary. Seven years. Doing anything at this point is impressive. But let alone, man, I can barely fathom the cumulative impact. The stories you've told, the missions you've communicated, the campaigns you've run. I can't even imagine the cumulative impact of that over the last seven years. So congratulations. And even more reason why I'm excited to dig in with you today, because I think you're just going to be a wealth of knowledge, for our audience and and for us as we get to listen back to this and, and dig into the content ourselves. So thank you again for joining us. I want to jump in. I mean, there's so much for us to to go into in this topic of storytelling and specifically the angle of ethical storytelling, I think is such a critical piece in the next generation of for good leadership and for good storytelling as ethical storytelling, rather than me trying to to define it, I would love to get your definition and your overview of what even ethical storytelling is.

Philippe Lazaro Yeah, definitely. Oh, that question, and I don't know if I have like a single definition from it. So I'm just going to riff off off the dome here. But you know I think it's a process. First of all, there are some great resources out there. Plant with purpose. The organization I work for, I signed on to just the ethical storytelling pact that's on ethical storytelling.org, and that just outlines a lot of concrete steps that comprise, yeah, ethical storytelling practice. I think on top of the concrete steps of it, though, I think, is this constant sense of wanting to minimize harm and maximize upholding the dignity of the people you're telling stories of. Whenever one of our program participants shares, their experiences with me and I, one of the things I love about my role is I often, regularly have the chance to go out into the areas that we work and to hear stories firsthand. And whenever I have that experience, it's a big reminder that this is a really generous act on behalf of our participants, on behalf of those who are telling their stories with me. First of all, it's a generous act in terms of time. The people we work with are rural subsistence farmers, for the most part. And so the time they're spending with us is, is time away from their farm that's, vital for their livelihood. On top of that, they're. Yeah, being generous, just with their experience. It's a vulnerable act to share a story. And sometimes that vulnerability required is, multiplied. By the fact that it's across cultural barriers. There may be gender or age things going on, that increase that. So just remembering like that, is an act of generosity and an act of trust. And they're sharing that also for a reason for getting their experiences and stories out there with the aim of that broader awareness and connection, helping their community in the long run. And so, with that big picture in mind, when I am, given a story, I don't feel so much like I am the originator of a story. Kind of just having it to create a philosophy. I don't know if anyone ever is, but, in this scenario, I especially am not. I'm more so kind of a steward of it. Taking it from. Yeah, people who are willing to share and wanting it to land with the audience to foster and build that sense of connection.

David Schwab I began my career and spent most of my career as a fundraising consultant. And a lot of that is is telling the stories of lives impacted through an organization's cause in a way that motivates generous people to choose to be philanthropic in that direction, to give, to give to that cause. And so much of my experience, and it is the storytelling was scientific and meticulous and granular, and we choose this image because the person is looking in this direction, and it's going to cause the reader to feel this, or the person on the other end of the screen to feel this. But so little of it traditionally is how do we empower the person behind the story to be the hero of the story? Because they are, whether it's a homeless shelter and they're telling the story of a person who courageously stepped off the street, stepped through their front door, and joined a program to not just get a meal and shelter for the night, but to turn their life around. Or the story of a mom who is courageously standing in line to receive a box of food from a Feeding America location. How do we tell those critical stories without one sacrificing the impact of telling a story? Well, because these are stories that are emotional and are powerful and need to be told in a way that motivates people who have the ability to give, to give even more generously than they thought they could. How do we do that while balancing? You know, the term that is is really catching on right now. And that, I think is so telling of where we've taken it is poverty porn. It's a it's a strong image to depict the way that we've swung the pendulum almost too far in the story of leaning into the, the pain of and the power of the stories that we tell as fundraisers. So how do we balance that, that line between, you know, ethical storytelling, but not losing the power and the impact and the need?

Philippe Lazaro I love this question. There's a lot there to unpack. Yeah. First, one of the things that first comes to mind is this, thing that Luis Castellanos, he's the director of our Plant with Purpose program in Mexico, frequently says it's that poverty is not a character trait. It's not a personality. It's not part of someone's identity. It's just a condition. And so in remembering that if you're just going through, like the mechanics of what, how to set up a good story, how to frame it and everything, and if you're trying to flesh out a character and to build a character and to establish that, poverty isn't a character trait, you know, it's not, it doesn't add dimensionality to a character. It's an obstacle. That's kind of where it fits in. And it's, it's a set of conditions, but it's not core to that person's identity. And so, yeah, we're asking how do we balance like the, you know, telling an effective story. And you mentioned a lot of the kind of the frameworks and the structures that you can learn. And I actually really love learning about those things. They're fascinating. And yeah, I think in the long run, learning that stuff does make you a more effective storyteller and more empowered to tell stories that effectively move the needle where they need to be moved, if you have an understanding of how those things work. But to look at it that way, it helps you understand where these things go. Where does poverty fit into the story? Not as a character trait, not as a personality, but as the obstacle. And so it makes you realize like, well, we still need to flesh this person out with a full identity, not just as someone living in poverty, but what else is going to connect us to this person? What are shared things that people might be able to relate to? Is it that this person is a mother, a young mother? You know, I have twins. I frequently see stories of twins, and every time that happens, I'm like, oh, okay, I see you, fellow twin parent. And even more than just things that, you know, I love just the really very specific details that sometimes get thrown into our stories that oftentimes seem like they might. Not be core to explaining how our program and how it functions. But I realized by throwing in something like, I don't know a person's preference. Like the fact that someone has a passion for coffee in particular or something like that. Just adds that layer of humanity and, builds that. And having that I think is really core to having a story that's both ethical and effective. When I go on field visits and I get to spend time with participants, I often try and start filming days, as much as I'm able to, with something that can just really build rapport and humanize the situation. Yeah. And I've, I've loved being able to share cups of coffee that, people have brewed, that they've grown themselves, they've taken pride in. Yeah, I've. Yeah, I when I was last in Mexico, the, the gentleman who he spent time interviewing had also spent some time, as a migrant worker in the US out of necessity. And so he had a lot of work in that kitchens of restaurants. And so just being able to joke with him about things in restaurants, things like, you know, just establishing a rapport on the level of a sense of humor was excellent. And I think, yeah, just being able to see the humanity in other people, and that includes things like preferences and humor and all that is a foundation to build off of.

David Schwab I love that that you. Poverty is a condition, not a character trait. I don't think that I think that I'll stick with me for the rest of my career. So if you don't mind, I'm going to I'm going to take that. And every time I write a brief, for every time I tell a story, I'm going to be using that, because that is that's such a critical reminder in such a critical framework. When we are we're telling stories of people who are impoverished, but the person who is impoverished, that's not their character, that's not their defining trait. That is not even a trait that should define them. That is a condition that they are experiencing. I love that, so thank you for sharing that. The next thing I, I kind of want to dig into is more a little tactical then, philosophical issue. We've been talking about a tactical and this one is is going to stir up a lot of feathers, but there's a lot of good conversation happening right now about who who should be the hero, particularly when we're talking about marketing and fundraising. Who should be the hero? Should it be the organization? Should it be the donor, or should it be the people who are receiving the support of the organization? So, in your case, you know, you talk a lot about, people in rural Mexico or Africa, or the nations that you visit that are facing economic hardship because of climate change, you know, is that are those the people who are the hero here of the stories, or is your organization the hero of the stories, or is the donor who's reading the appeal? Do we make them the hero of the stories or what is that balance? I have an opinion. I'm not going to share it just yet because I don't want to to sway yours. But I really want I want to hear your take on this, because this is, I think, a really important topic that's and trend that's happening in storytelling right now.

Philippe Lazaro Sure. Yeah. I think it's not our organization. There's one way to look at it where you can see how, the donor is, is the hero. And there's also a way in which our partners, our participants, are the hero. I think both are valid. But I also want to highlight that sometimes I use the word protagonist, rather than hero. Partly because when you hear hero that's associated with, like, heroic qualities, super heroes or Greek heroes, even, you know, and, you might start that might start to set the stage where we're expecting superhuman things out of this individual when really like, an actual hero of a story and a protagonist. Is that because of their humanity, because of the things that make them human, the things they overcome, their vulnerabilities and uncertainties. So sometimes you use protagonist to go through the angle at which, like the donor is the hero or the protagonist, you know, there's this, you know, increasingly popular way of thinking of marketing, not just nonprofit marketing, but any marketing where the customer is the hero and and the organization that has the product is more like the mentor type that's guiding them. And this you're familiar with Joseph Campbell. It kind of follows like the hero's journey and all that. And again, this is in that category of kind of marketing nerd science that I actually love and I do think has a lot of value. And our team does try and map things out by that framework to see if we can make our messaging resonate more and to see how it's more effective. So in that sense, our donors are our heroes of that storyline. Our partners are also here is that story line too, though, you know, they fit the bill. There's that call to action, that moment where they they realize what they're up against. We're reversing two of the world's biggest problems in rural poverty and climate change and the severity of that, that our partners live with every day is this persistent call to action and this invitation that comes along that to to do something differently, to start planting trees and farming. Regenerative flea. And so seeing that, you know that those decisions do come with risk. It's always a risk to do something different than what you've done before, especially a lot of the folks in our program who are early adopters. And so there's a lot of, heroism and overcoming obstacles in that. And again, the our our organization, our local, our local leaders, there are again, in the mentor guide role. But we have this, phrase that's kind of been just this rallying cry of our organization, right? That I think kind of ties these two ends together. And it's partners, not projects. The fleshed out version of that is like the people we work with, our partners, not our projects. And I think maybe even more so than here, we're protagonists. That defines the process, like we're forming partnerships with these rural communities so that when a village in Thailand sees its ecosystem healed, its water source is restored, its forest expand. It's not just because we came in there and did those things, but it's also because that process was owned by the local community.

David Schwab Yeah, I love that.

Philippe Lazaro Because it was supported by people on the other side of the world who were making that possible through their funding and financial support. And so, yes, partners, not projects in the direction of our program for sure. We've also talked about how this applies to our supporters. They're also our partners. And not just our not just we've made an alternate version which we use more internally with all just shared our, you know, there are partners, not our pocketbooks. You know, they're not just, our sources of revenue, but they're really our partners in making this happen, too. And they provide, input and feedback, and they're on this journey as well. And so, yeah, that's I like that hero analogy, partly because I love just studying the art of storytelling and seeing where that overlaps with favorite movies and classic literature. But I also like to think of how that expands in multiple directions.

David Schwab Yeah, I really like reframing to even the word hero because, you know, in storytelling, choosing the words you use matters. So when we're talking about storytelling, even even intentionally like it is, it's it's not a hero. It's a protagonist who's whose perspective are we telling this story from? And I think that also reshapes some of it to allow us to focus on telling stories authentically, ethically, but to the from the lens of the person who we want to hear the story. Right. Because you you do want to you want to tell a story differently in fundraising than you do when you're telling it in a newsletter or an annual report, or even something as simple as an article on your website, you're telling that story differently than if you were putting it on a social media post or running, you know, running a fundraising ad or sending a campaign appeal. So I do think even reframing from the word hero to protagonist, I like that a lot. Felipe, I'm going to switch gears on us a little bit here. We've talked, you know, some tactical things, some philosophical things. But now I want to switch gears because you're not only just are you a fantastic storyteller, you're also a TEDx speaker. I had the chance to. And we'll link it when we share this episode. I got the chance to listen to your TEDx talk. I was fantastic, and one of the points you brought up in there reminded me of, a session colleague, Aaron Booker gave at the nonprofit storytelling conference last year titled Stories Move and Numbers Prove. And I kind of want to you. You had said it in a similar way in your TEDx talk, and I want to unpack that concept where as good storytellers in our sector, we need to use the power of the stories that we have in combination with the numbers, to show the efficacy of the way that we can partner with funders and people who are, on the other side of the mission. So I want to unpack this concept a little bit of how do we how do we successfully combine the emotional power of good storytelling with the logical connectivity of using numbers and statistics in a way that drive home the value of those stories?

Philippe Lazaro Yeah, I love that. In a lot of ways. I think you, underscored the way I started to think about the relationship more between those those two sides of the coin. You might have already gathered from some of my other answers, but I am not the type to put many things in a rigid box. And so I often remind myself and the team that in a way, data is storytelling, and storytelling is data. But, but of course, they take place in two different languages, often appealing to, two very different ways of thought. As we're recording this, we're, finishing up conducting this in-depth impact evaluation that we do across our program, every three years. It's only every three years because it's such a robust process, but it really applies these analytics to see. What's the actual impact of all our activities across the board? Is it having the results where we're intending and we try and learn from those things? And, just this morning, I was in conversation with a couple members of our monitoring and evaluation team, and we were talking about that relationship between the statistics and the stories. And it was essentially what you described. This the stories move and the numbers prove. And I see this dynamic where I receive stories from our partners internationally all the time. Part of what I do is process them and check the translations and, relay them to, our communications team of Aaj. But yeah, as I see these stories come in, they are incredibly moving and powerful, but. And then you want to make sure that, like, okay, are these stories just the outliers like the best of the best, or is there more where that came from? You know, any know, I often get the stories in a bundle of 4 or 5. So seeing more of them is helpful. That's good. That indicates, yeah, there's more than one. This wasn't just an outlier, but still is there more. And then we run the numbers and we look at the data and we see things like we have a 55% reduction in poverty in the communities we work with. We see increases in the amount of girls who are able to go to school because of the the changes in their community. We see, changes in behavior in adopting, healthier farming practices. And we know that the stories we're reading are not just these standout exceptions, but they're they're the norm. And, you know, all the stories we tell, our good ones. It's also highly likely that if you met a random member from our community, you know, you're similar stories, you'd hear similar accomplishments and similar struggles that they have overcome. You know, some might be more unique in terms of like, their family structure and how that adds to it. But a lot of times, the process, yeah, you can all tell that it's related. And that's highly encouraging. You know, and you see, see that verified by the numbers. And, since I have the opportunity to visit, too, it's, it's that kind of adds another dimension. And just seeing those, those numbers and that all come to life and. Yeah.

And now, enjoy this break from your friends at Funraise, the nonprofit industry’s most innovative fundraising platform.

Funraise provides exceptional, innovative, and friendly fundraising technology focused on nonprofit growth. Made for fundraisers by fundraisers, our state-of-the-art platform integrates every core aspect of front-and-back-end fundraising management into a convergent platform perfect for nonprofiteers like you.

Every day, we celebrate nonprofits like United Nations HCR and National Wildlife Federation as they trust Funraise to power fundraising campaigns around the world. (Warning: we go through a lot of confetti.)

Get started raising the funds and the fun at funraise.org [F-U-N-R-A-I-S-E-DOT-O-R-G]

Now that you’ve heard how Funraise can radically change your nonprofit’s fundraising game, let’s get back to the conversation.

David Schwab Yeah. So one of the things you talked about in your, your Ted talk that I thought is really broader, applicable, has broader application, you talked specifically in the context of global warming. And you're like, you know, you said you said essentially, you know, the numbers are so large and staggering that people don't really think they can make a difference. And I think that's that's something that I've seen a lot of for good professional struggle with in storytelling is like, hey, we've got this, cause it is a massive world problem. We're here to address it. Why aren't people leaning in with us? And my where where I see it is, is like, hey, we've got this massive global problem. But if you. If you can't materialize it to the perspective of one person's impact, then you've got you've got an issue that's not actionable. And the last thing we want is to are, is to be leading a cause where people don't feel like they can take the action that we know they can. So real tactically here spinning this is as we wind down real tactically. How have you successfully taken this concept of, you know, the impact of global warming across the world? That is a huge impact that is hard for probably almost anyone to fully fathom and understand. How have you made that something that, for lack of a better term, is digestible at the individual level?

Philippe Lazaro Yeah. Some wheels are turning. While you were speaking. I was just thinking of how funny. Measurement. Carbon dioxide metric tons of CO2 equivalent is. That's like a really common way that people measure, their, their, emissions. Right. But first of all, CO2 that's invisible, equivalence. So not just CO2, but things that are equivalent to it and then tons to the, the weight of an invisible thing. But it's also metric. So like especially if you're an American, now you have to jump through all these hoops that, lead you with this really abstract score. And I'm not trying to throw shade at the it's actually really helpful to have these numbers that can allow you to measure the impact, but that only means something if you have if you see what that number translates to. Yeah. And I think, you know, one thing that helps me is, being a sports fan, right? Like, sports fans actually care a lot about statistics. At least a lot of them do, right? People will debate over and over whether, like, players were better looking at different numbers, talking about like, how much does batting average really tell you, you know, and batting average if you start to unpack it, there's actually kind of an, an abstract thing, you know, like, you mean a really good guide. Only 60 to 30% of the time. But, that matters not because people are obsessed with, like, percentages measured to three digits, but because that translates to whether or not a team can win a game, whether or not this is a guy you want to be at that, when when the stakes are high. And so what does carbon what do you CO2, equivalence metric tons of those. What does that matter? It matters if a farmer you met is going to be able to feed his kids. You know, the next day, if the the birds that you've heard singing growing up are going to be around for your kids to be hearing in the same forest, as they grow up. These are concrete things that add weight to these statistics. And once you can feel that weight, then those statistics matter. Then you're like, oh yeah, every like slice of a degree of, of temperature change is important because within that degree that's representing ecosystems and species and lives and food and all these tangible things.

David Schwab Yes, exactly. And I just one thing totally unrelated, but, you talked about batting averages as well. That's why I chose to be a pitcher. I could be an average pitcher and succeed 80% of the time. But if you're an average hitter, you don't. So that was a total anecdote. But I'm right there with you on that. But yeah, it's it really is. It's I don't think one we properly grasp the magnitude of the need to be able to translate massive need into personal impact. But also I don't think good storytellers in our sector get enough credit for how well that they can paint the picture of abstract, global scale to the impact of an individual. Well, I just like you talked about that frame, that framing of, hey, your metric ton of CO2 equivalent is actually the could be the difference between walking your grandchildren through the forest you grew up hiking in. Like that is a powerful perspective to understand individually the impact that we're that that has globally. And you did that so eloquently and smooth because of your experience. But there are so many early for good professionals or people who are trying to establish themselves in storytelling. I think that's such an important piece, is understanding the ability to translate these massive goals into individual impact bite sized chunks. So thank you for walking us through that. Felipe, as we get ready to close here, I think, you know, we've covered even just such a short amount of time. We've covered a lot of ground between philosophical, perspectives on ethical. Storytelling to practically how we translate these large goals into relevant personal impact. The last thing I want to cover and this is just, you know, fun for me as much as it as I hope it is for our listeners is, you know, I just want to hear a story about one of your favorite stories you've gotten to tell and why it was your favorite.

Philippe Lazaro There's so many. It's going to be hard to choose from, but I'm going to go with one that probably has some recency to it. About a year ago, I got to visit a program in Ethiopia, one of our newer program sites. And I love I got to spend a week, in Ethiopia, incredibly fascinating country. You know, it's, more or less the only African country to never be colonized. And so there's so much cultural history that just stretches back, and, you know, has a little more. Yeah, just preservation around it. And, I got to see so much of that one thing that I found just so different while I was in the country was, just a very strong layer of separation in social settings between men and women, probably one of the more gender stratified, countries I've been to. And it was just something that, you know, in, like, physical spaces, you could observe, everyone kind of keeping to themselves, and, you know, that's about what one would observe in a week's time. But it, it also became clear that just one thing that translated to was just less opportunity for women overall to, advance economically and socially and everything. I met this, woman named Asmara, and she lived in, a rural part of the country, and she wanted to join our program. He wanted to earn an income. She had some business idea. She was a skilled weaver and wanted to expand her business to be able to sell some of her goods, in the city. And the thing that stood out to me was the amount of opposition she got from that, you know, she had this drive, she had the skill, she had all the right things, was willing to invest in herself. Members of her community gave her all kinds of reasons not to do that. Some of it comes from this fractured trust just between the NGO world and communities in Ethiopia that's gone back decades, long before we we've been there. So that was a contributing factor. The gender dynamic, for sure, was a contributing factor. And a lot of people were telling her to just just marry somebody and settle, essentially. And what stood out to me was just her strong, her fortitude and just her knowing her confidence and knowing that she had this ability and that this was finally an opportunity through which she would have the chance to act on it. And so she did. She participated in our group program. One of the components is a savings and lending program that allowed her to invest more in her weaving business. She did that. She also ended up supporting her, fiancé to get through school. He he became, he trained as a barber. So he ended up, starting his own, haircutting business. She was pregnant at the time that, we talked to her. So now she has a kid that she's supporting with these activities. And most of all, you've seen this flip in her entire community with how the community takes to, people and women participating in the program. We worked with an Ethiopian filmmaker to capture some of these stories. That's another thing we do is try and work with local talent as much as possible. And one of the reasons why I love doing that is because, you know, he was not only translating for us the direct interviews, but he could overhear the side conversations. And he said, yeah, there's been there's been skepticism of this sort of program in this community for a long time, and you can still hear evidence of it, but it's also clear that that has flipped. You know, that barrier has been broken, and there's now a willingness to to participate and a sense that things could really improve through doing so. And I think of, early adopters like Asmara Aki really going against the grain, really, doubling down in their, their own belief, you know, it's a leap of faith on their, on their and and seeing what can become of it. So it made me appreciate the who our partners are, what they're doing and yeah, where that leads.

David Schwab Awesome. Well, Felipe, as we get ready to close here, closing question going to bring us down to very tactical levels. But do you have, you know, a couple best practices or tips for someone who's, you know, listening to this podcast and going, you know, I really want to I want to level up my storytelling game. What are 2 or 3 things someone can do? Start trying now, to become a better storyteller.

Philippe Lazaro Oh, man. You're on. I'll, I'll go with some of the things that I've really stood out to me, though, is number one, create more space for it. And and that can be interpreted in a number of different ways. But the more you want to hear a person tell their own story in their own words, the more you realize that, yeah, you want to create the conditions for that to happen. A lot of storytelling, a lot of our storytelling that I started with was done through questionnaires, and that was fun. That was getting us some good stories we could work with or everything. But I quickly realized that, like these series of rapid fire, like 15 to 20 questions was getting very much like, let me just answer this question and and get you what you need. It wasn't prompting people to really think about their experiences and reflect them. And so we shifted. We ask fewer questions. We don't want to just ask questions for the sake of questions, especially when it's taking someone's time. You know, we really want want to prompt them. And our questions are, I think, moving in the direction of becoming more open so we can get a sense for, what people what's most important to people. We don't necessarily want to assume that, and so we want to give as much space for people to highlight that when we go on trips. I try and schedule in blocks of filming that aren't so much like, you know, I always get asked for a shot list beforehand, but I also say, like, I also want to spend time with the community and see what they're excited to show us and go film that, because their excitement is likely going to be an incredible story. When I'm working with somebody, making sure they have that, they've adopted that mindset of creating the space for it. You don't want to rush the process. You know, I I've worked with a lot of great filmmakers, and I know there's a lot of craft that goes into like setting up your equipment right and getting the right shot and stuff much throughout the day. We want to have the space to to yeah, make those connections. And then the other thing I'll say that practice that we've really found a lot of value in, that we're trying to build off of, is as much as possible, working with local talent. You know, I mentioned hiring an Ethiopian filmmaker last year. His name was, you know, and he was incredible. And just the level of proximity that he brought us to our partners, he was able to put our partners at ease while while conducting the shoots. He was he also had the sensibility for what makes a good story and how to capture that visually in everything, but to know that he had that insider insight, he was more perceptive to things, especially around age and gender, that us outsiders would have missed. And I know, like some places we work that's easier than others. But as much as we're we can, we try and look for that local talent so that to help move us closer and move the perspective a little closer to the one of our partners.

David Schwab Yeah, my two big takeaways there. One, no matter how much we deeply care about the people we partner with, the people we serve, the causes of our organizations, we are inherently outsiders to those causes and those people that we serve. So we need to champion the perspective of the insider. But then the other piece of that is, you know, particularly in storytelling, where too likely telling a story because we have an objective to tell it. And rather than telling our story through the lens of someone else, we need to be committed to telling authentic stories from the lens of the person who's telling it. Because I think that's going to be, like you said, it's the ticket to ethical, powerful storytelling. Felipe, thank you so much for your time today. I can't wait to share this episode with everyone and see the splash it makes as it as it goes live. So thank you for your time as we wrap. Is there is there a good place for people as they, you know, listen to this and go, I want to learn more from this guy. Where's a good place to connect with you going forward?

Philippe Lazaro Sure. Yeah. Plant with purpose.org is where you can find everything, plant with purpose and also on social media. And our YouTube channel I think has a lot of great examples. You can see some of the, the videos and the projects I've referenced. So our video from Ethiopia last year and other things that highlight what our, what our team is doing. For me personally, I try and grab at Felipe Lazaro on any platform I can. Thankfully I have a less common name, so there's not as much competition for that. So yeah, Instagram I think, is where I'm most active. But at Felipe Lazaro or Felipe lazaro.com is my website. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This is just the stuff I enjoy talking about. So this was effortless and fun.

David Schwab Awesome. Now, as a little Easter egg leave behind for for those of you who've made it this far in the podcast, Felipe mentioned his Instagram. His Instagram is full of these awesome illustrations and dynamic, creativity. Just, you know, as a bonus, leave behind for everyone. Will you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind that, why you started it? You know what that's about.

Philippe Lazaro Yeah. So I yeah, I'm an illustrator. I and my main subject are, are just humans. Which I think is kind of the, the tie in to my work is I love drawing, human portraits and people and my subjects, are all over the place. I think they're as eclectic as my interests. You know, I think I I'm. Thumbing through my most recent drawings. I have these mud wrestlers who I met in India one time. I have, Ben Schwartz, the comedian, and Joel Embiid. So, but, but I think I really started illustrating. There was a pandemic hobby of mine that just never stopped. And it really started. It was, you know, as a lot of upheaval was going on in the world, I would make illustrations that were at least somewhat related to, to that that were close to communities that were being affected by all kinds of, injustices that were happening. And I started to feel like just moving a pen back and forth almost felt like a different version of prayer beads to me. You know, it was just something that, like, kind of helped me channel some goodwill. And, you know, even when I couldn't quite find words to, like, respond to the intensity of some things. Yeah. Just being able to, to draw it out became responsive. And yeah, I think I've been just curious about where my own practice is going. And obviously some pieces are really light hearted, others are more serious, and sometimes I might try and portray things in a different way than it's used to be seen. But, these days, I think I just have been leaning into the eclectic ness of it and just the the different directions that it's going in, because that's kind of how life is. You know, some some parts are really heavy and you want to call attention to a series of injustice. Sometimes you're in a goofy mood and, you know, any person holds holds all of that.

David Schwab That's great. Well, thank you again, Felipe. This was awesome.

Philippe Lazaro Thank you so much. I had a great time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit! 

This podcast is brought to you by your friends at Funraise. Nonprofit fundraising software, built by nonprofit people. If you’d like to continue the conversation, find me on LinkedIn or text me at 562.242.8160. And don't forget to get your next episode the second it hits the internets. Go to nonstopnonprofitpodcast.com and sign up for email notifications today. 

See you next time!

‍