469. Case Study: How a Podcastathon Has Raised $2.2M for St. Jude Through Community Fundraising - Stephen Hackett

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Overview

Meet Stephen. He’s the co-founder of Relay FM, an independent podcast network for people who are creative, curious and maybe even a little obsessive🎙️Stephen combined his love for podcasting with his personal connection to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which led to the creation of the Relay FM Podcastathon. Since 2019, this initiative has raised more than $2.2 million for St. Jude❤️ He’s sharing his invaluable insights into partnership strategies and the art of forging genuine connections with your audience. This is a story about community, collective giving and a great source of inspiration as we are gearing up for GivingTuesday and end-of-year campaigns🎁

💡Learn

How the Relay FM Podcastathon got its start
How to co-build for collective impact
Tips for anyone launching their own campaign

Today’s Guest

Stephen Hackett, Co-Founder, Relay FM

“If you can tell a good story about the mission and show people you are putting your money where your mouth is, when a community buys into that and own it themselves that is when you see true success.”

— Stephen Hackett, Co-Founder, Relay FM

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

Stephen’s story and journey to where he is today (3:00)

Podcastathon - what can people expect (13:00)
Translating Personal Belief + Organizing a Movement (5:00)
Activation (22:00)
A powerful story of philanthropy in Stephen’s life that will stay with him (29:00)
Stephen’s One Good Thing: Center yourself and think about the reason that you're doing it. (32:00)
How to connect (38:00)

POWERFUL QUOTES

“Being able to take our podcasting, our content and our community and aim them towards St. Jude to raise money and awareness felt like a really natural move for us when we started about 5 years ago.” -Stephen

“It was important for this campaign to be bigger than our family.” -Stephen

“We realized we could plant this seed and root in my story, and then expand past that. Having a really good partnership with St. Jude comes in there. We can work with them to access scientists, researchers, doctors, patient families, and really tell the whole story.” -Stephen

“If you can tell a good story about the mission and show people you are putting your money where your mouth is, when a community buys into that and own it themselves that is when you see true success.” -Stephen

“We’re fortunate that community members have that much buy-in.” -Stephen

“We want people to be excited about the work of St. Jude and think about it more than just in the month of September.” -Stephen

“We’ve built that trust and relationship with our listeners.” -Stephen

“If we weren’t passionate about it, it would be really hard to see it through. Way more importantly, the audience knows if you are faking your enthusiasm.” -Stephen

“The work of St. Jude is universal. This is way bigger than us.” -Stephen