Episode 33

John Gomperts, President and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance:

Living Your Mission Through Events

You’re listening to Event CEO, a podcast for executives who are looking to maximize their event ROI through business strategy, technology, and innovation. Rebecca Linder: Hello and welcome to the Event CEO podcast. Thank you for listening and sharing part of your day with us. We’re truly honored and grateful as we know your time is precious. I’m your host, Rebecca Linder, Founder and CEO of Linder Global Events. Today we’re so pleased to have on the show John Gomperts. John Gomperts: Thank you. Rebecca: John is President and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance and we’re just going to jump right in John. What is America’s Promise Alliance?John: American’s Promise Alliance is a coalition of hundreds of organizations, national organizations, and communities all devoted to creating conditions of success for all of America’s young people with a special focus on those who are growing up in challenging circumstances and struggling to get a foothold. Rebecca: You just had a big anniversary, your 20th. Talk to us about the mission of the organization, how you thought about the events and drawing in your partners and celebrating this moment and what it was a catalyst for.John: So, throughout the event, we were thinking about how to balance celebration and forward motion. There’s only a limited audience for those who are interested in celebrating the fact that we’ve existed for 20 years and a much broader potential audience for those who are interested in what comes next, what that twenty years leads up to. We wanted to balance 20% historical looking backward and celebrating what had happened with 80% looking forward at what still has to happen. If you think about that in the context of our mission, over the past 20 years, we’ve made great progress with respect to helping more young people be in a position to take advantage of opportunities successfully. And yet, still, far too many kids struggle. They

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struggle in school. In getting into the workplace. With issues in their families and their lives. We don’t want to pretend like job done, mission accomplished. We have an important thing that we’re working on, we’ve made real progress and that shows us what’s possible, but there is a body of work yet to be done. Our real focus is on the body of work yet to be done. Rebecca: How did this get infused into the event? You moved it from here to New York. You tried to expand your universe. Talk about how the event supported the celebration as well as this forward momentum and what was infused into it? John: It’s a good question. We have this funny history. I grew up in Silicon Valley where the history of an organization is two guys in a garage. The America’s Promise Alliance is the total opposite. It was all the living presidents standing together in front of Independence Hall. A grandiose launch. It would be easy to spend a bunch of time remembering when, but we really worked hard to focus on where are we today, what have we learned across those twenty years, including our successes, but also the places we came up short. It’s not the case that every young person in Americas has a good path. There’s no cause for us to think “job done” in any respect. We wanted to take the opportunity of a lot of interest and excitement because of the anniversary to get people focused on not only the work still to be done but that Americas Promise had done this in the past and was well-positioned to help lead this effort in the future. The event went over 36 hours with one afternoon of the most inside people working in long working sessions on key topics. The next day involved a full day of 8am-3pm of stage time with everything from high-tone speakers to young people presenting and performing, then a break. Then in the evening more of a celebration, a gala, again with fancy people and fun events and great entertainment. Notably with some very serious talks. It was not a gala which was pure celebration, even though there was great music and fun people. People said interesting and provocative things in the course of the gala. Maybe the gala was 80 percent celebration and 20 percent work to be done, where the rest was 80% work to be done and 20% recognition of what had been done in the past.Rebecca: Was that a request from you with the speakers in terms of the gala? Was this just how you chose it? John: Maybe you’re not supposed to admit this on a show about events. It was a little bit of a surprise how serious the conversations were. They grew

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increasingly serious. We gave awards to five people on the work they’d done. The first one to a corporate leader who gave a fine but standard corporate talk. Then Arnie Duncan got the second. Arnie talked seriously about the work he’s doing. How hard it is and how much of a privilege, he says it’s almost selfish to get to do the work. Dorothy Stoneman talked about the kids who are still being left behind. It was building in its seriousness and next was Brian Stevenson, the famous civil rights lawyer and he talked beautifully about his own history and about how people need to behave in order to make serious social change. Could have been a downer, but people loved it. The last was Common, who’s famous, and is a star, but gave a really introspective talk about what it takes to help young people succeed. Even in the context of lots of glitzy people and Andra Day singing, there was serious talk at the gala. I think people thought that was great. Rebecca: One thing I find unique about your organization and events I’ve attended is you’ve managed to live your mission through your events. What are some components that come alive in your events that represent the constituents that you support and care for and serve? John: Two things come to mind. One, we have an unfair advantage because our founding chair is Colin Powell and our current board chair is Alma Powell and people rightly love the Powells. Anytime the Powells are in the room, it’s a special thing. They’re quite different, they’re energy is quite different, but people love being around them. That’s one thing. That includes fancy, famous people. The other thing is that we really work hard to have young people at the center of what we do. This is an organization that is about young people, but there are plenty of organizations that are about young people but old people are at the center. Whether they’re staff members or donors, and we really work hard to have young people at the center. At the event, the big event, we had this group called City Kids, who we worked with, who performed throughout the day of combination of spoken word and song and step, it was fantastic, but it wasn’t entertainment only. They were the ones who threaded the narrative. There was no person who said now you’re going to hear about this and now you’re going to hear about that, rather it was these young people who were through art expressing their own experiences and expressions were telling us, and that was very powerful. Great performers, great artists and a great way of keeping young people at the center of what we’re doing.

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Rebecca: One of the areas that I love, you know we produce videos all the time, but the way you introduce your awardees, will you talk about that? John: Sure, sure. We’ve done this the past couple of years, it’s fun. We have this group of kids who are not actors, not performers, but we have little videos, instead of the boring read their resume from the podium, or the boring, here’s the big video with the stirring music and all the pretty pictures and the person with famous people, blah blah blah, we have this sort of fun, lively thing where a young person is playing the person who is getting the award. With various props and other kids walking into the screen and telling the story of this person’s life, and each of the awardees loves it and it’s funny and it’s light and it puts kids at the center rather than blah blah about kids. Rebecca: It’s tremendous. And there are props and humor, but again, they’re conveying a pretty serious trajectory of a personal story. John: It’s a much more fun way to do an introduction than the standard issue read the resume from the podium or show some highly produced glitzy video.Rebecca: Let’s talk about funding and sponsorship. You’re a non-profit, you need partners and funders. How did you look at that as an opportunity for the 20th and sort of what you were trying to do, both to celebrate and for the momentum forward? And what were they looking for than what was different than how you engaged in the past? John: So, you would know more about this. I should be asking you this question, not the other way around. It is my perception that sponsorship of events has changed. That, no matter how good an event you put on, someone giving you a lot of money to have their banner hung at your event or their name go by on a screen is not that great a sale to those funders. It might be part of a package, but it’s not that people are that crazy about just “sponsoring” an event. That’s a challenge, you’d know better than I. That’s a big change. Maybe a good judgement by those funders, not so happy a circumstance from my perspective. I know people who run events from 300 people to 5,000 people and they all seem to be experiencing the same thing. Maybe if you put on the event where there are 20,000 people, they’re more interested in being “sponsors” and just having their name around. That wasn’t our experience. Our experience is sponsors are interested in the issues they’re interested in, if you’re going to feature those issues in the course of the event, they’re interested in supporting that event as part of

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their support of their work on that issue. Less standing alone and more as part of a broader plan to work on a particular issue. With the gala, you get sponsors, people who buy tables, it’s a little bit more like the old-fashioned sponsorship. Even that, it doesn’t pop the way it used to. You’d be a better source than I, I think we put on good events, they’re pretty fun, the Powells are there, but people are being more strategic or cautious with their funds. Rebecca: So as part of your value proposition to fund or partner however what you deem them, are you offering a full portfolio programmatically throughout the year? John: Yes, so one of the things we’re working on is high school graduation. Part of what will happen is some of those issues will be featured at this event. We’re helping young people be more prepared to enter the workforce and succeed in the workforce, these issues will be talked about at this forum. That will be part of propelling the issue forward. It won’t be a stand-alone thing. Rebecca: Will they participate in other events? John: Absolutely. But it’s not like we’re doing this thing on April 17th, give us all the money. We can say that, but it doesn’t work.Rebecca: The value proposition has changed. John: I don’t know if others have different experiences. Rebecca: It’s very similar, we’re finding the same thing. Across the board, sponsorship and funders, there’s two things changing. One, there’s more interest in the programmatic element in a portfolio of events and programs taking place, that it’s not a stand-alone. The second piece, there’s much more customization going on. People have particular interests, you’re not crafting a list of benefits. You’re now saying here’s our portfolio, here’s what we’re thinking, tell us how it will reach your goals – it’s much more collaborativeJohn: It’s very much our experience as well. I think maybe what has happened is that the success of events has caught up and those potential sponsors are over-taxed and maybe we need to invent the new thing that’s more interesting that people want to invest in. That’s not to say people don’t want to invest in the power of events to bring people together, to propel an issue forward, to gain attention to gain momentum, I think people get that.

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But now everyone is doing them. So, the differentiation is harder. I’m not sure again, you’d be smarter, what’s the next thing? The new thing that people would find interesting and find, like, oh, that’s a good way to bring people together to move an issue. Therefore, we’d be happy to support it. Maybe smaller and more elite is more interesting? More focused? Rebecca: I think we’re seeing a little bit more of everything, but note to the audience, we’ll find some of those funders and corporate sponsors and ask them those questions, that’d be a great episode. John: I think that would be interesting to know what’s in their mindsRebecca: So again, an event outside your normal annual gala, you have this 20th anniversary, how do you determine at the outset and the measure it post on the return on investment on the financials and how you monitored it at the end and what were you looking to get out of it and how did you measure it? John: Those are good questions. We went into it with a set of articulated goals that this would become an occasion to attract new partners, that it was. That it would build our brand, that it was. That it would be the occasion to intentional look backward, where did we come from, what did we accomplish, what impact could we articulate, and to look forward, what’s the work to be done? In all those respects, some of that adds up to elevating and enhancing and cementing our brand in positioning in the world. Our leadership in this particular sector. I think all of those things were successful. Strengthening our relationships with our current partners I think was very successful. On the financial side, it was good and it didn’t blow the doors off. It wasn’t like wow this is fantastic, we have all the money. Not hardly. Going back to that previous conversation, one of the things about events and this more collaborative thing with funders, is we should remember, people do events in order to raise unrestricted funds. If you’re a non-profit you need a mix restricted and unrestricted funds. If you only have programmatic funds, you have a hard time running your organization, a hard time planning and so forth.Rebecca: Can you make the distinction for the audience? John: Sure, so restricted funds are restricted for a purpose. You’re going to work on the high school graduation campaign and do these seven things, or they can be restricted for time, you have this money for 2017 and then 2018, so it can show on your books but you can’t access it. Unrestricted funds have

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no restriction. You can use them for whatever, you can use them to pay your overhead or rent, cover salaries for people not working specifically on those projects. You need a mix of those things. The world of funders has gravitated toward restrictive funds. Our corporation is interested in this and we’re happy to give you money and are eager to work with you on this or on that. True for foundations as well. The reason organizations like ours look to events is they’re your supporting the alliance. But, these events are becoming conflated with the more programmatic activities and then it becomes less of a platform, more one of the things you do programmatically, and less of an occasion to just get unrestricted funds. That’s a big tension. Rebecca: How are you going to deal with that going forward? John: That’s a good question. It’s particular to America’s Promise but by no means unique to America’s Promise. This is what non-profits are dealing with right now.Rebecca: We’ll do a funder conversation, they can’t sort of myopically pursue programmatic funding only, because organization will cease to exist. John: Organizations will cease to exist. I get it from a funder perspective, of course you want to know exactly what your dollars are going for. But from the organizations perspective, you need people to invest in the organization, otherwise the organization doesn’t exist and all those projects just go away. You could just hire a firm and a group of smart people to do that program or research endeavor. There’s a big tension and part of that plays out now on the platform of events. Rebecca: Let’s get back to the interesting aspects of your events. Another area you spend time thinking about external to the programmatic piece and the context is the context. You’re interested in creating a container that supported your unique view of events. Talk about the seating arrangement, the activities in the foyers, and those things that were of interest to you and to the organization. John: So, we were in this situation where we were doing an event with somewhere between 600-1,000 people in New York City. We talked to lots of people about this, including you guys, there just aren’t that many great venues in New York for that size. You almost inevitably end up in a hotel ballroom. And a hotel ballroom, god bless our friends who work in hospitality, it’s not the most interesting venue. There will be another event there the

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next day and the next day. That was real challenge to make this feel fun and interesting and distinctive to our flavor. That was everything from the staging to potentially even overemphasizing the performance of young people, to push the chairs nearer to the stage, to make it a more intimate experience even though we were in a cavernous ballroom, to the pacing of the event. If you have people in rounds, or in half-moons, you can have longer sessions, and so forth. If you have more theater seating, it’s harder to keep people in place. We also had a venue where it’s hard to get people back in. How do you contain them with interesting things so they don’t have side meetings or take a walk, etc. Pacing, look and feel, seating, and the actual nature of the program all influenced that. We made a really specific decision to have segments last 18-22 minutes, 15-20 minutes, instead of having 45-minute panel discussions. It left people hungry for more, which worst things can happen, as opposed to a collective experience of 650 people reading their telephones all at the same time, which is not what we were seeking. We kept things short, we punched them up with the performances and the longest sessions ran ninety minutes, the breaks were shorter, the food was more in the room than out of the room, people didn’t have as good an opportunity to escape. Rebecca: You had several types of seating configuration, from couches to traditional seating, to high boys, to interactive elements on the tables, it was very interactive. It was very accessible. It was easy to grab, the food was healthy, to keep the brain going which I know was important.John: We had the stage in the middle of the audience, so we tried to keep peoples’ eyes moving around rather than fixed on four white chairs on a stage, which is nice for a minute, but it’s more of a still picture than a moving picture. With your help, we tried to change it up, it was lively looking. It was fun to look at. We got a lot of compliments on how well produced and how, not only well executed, but well-conceptualizedRebecca: The pacing, you talked about. You were in the front of the stage, people were moving around constantly on the stage, but not in a frenetic way which would make people crazy, but in an intentional way where people were moving around.John: the young kids from City Kids were wearing these bright different colored t-shirts, it was visually arresting, and that’s not that easy to do it a ballroom setting in a hotel.

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Rebecca: Talk to us about social media and the role it plays, that’s a big thing in your organization and you do it very well.John: It’s hard for me because it would never occur to me to watch an event by social media. We live streamed portions of the event, we did reasonably well with the livestreaming and we have active social media with #recommit2kids which apparently is very engaging. It’s a mystery to me, if I weren’t at an event it would never occur to me to follow what was going on at an event. I don’t speak for the whole audience and by combining our power and the reach of the people who were speaking and who wanted to get out the stuff they were saying, we had a very successful day. Trending on twitter, don’t make me do a double click on what that means, and so forth. So, there was an audience well beyond the 750-800 people who were in the room over the course of the dayRebecca: What is your internal investment on social media? John: We have a social media team, the core team is 2-3 people, but there’s a broader group that helps and participates when a big thing is going on, there are like two people who are the engine. We had an external communications firm. For us as an alliance, it matters if there are people who can’t afford to come to the vent in New York, but want to know what’s going on and want to blast it out further, it totally makes sense and it’s us delivering the value to a much broader audience Rebecca: 10 years ago, who would have thought that would be a function in any organization, let alone in any organization now, it’s indiscriminate. John: It is, like events themselves, I don’t know if it makes it less interesting, part of the power of an event is being there. Being with other people who are there. I suppose people who are great at social media think they’re actually sort of being with other people when they’re using the same hashtag, but that’s not my idea of being with other peopleRebecca: Something we found interesting is it dispels this mystique about events. It makes them more public and more accessible where they might not be invited but they might care about the issue or they might not be able to afford it. To me, I think that’s what’s happening and as you talk about millennials and leadership being tied to authentic leadership with this whole new ethos, it levels the playing field

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John: I 100 percent agree with that, and the elitism of who gets to go to special events has been irritating. Democratizing that as your saying is really so good. At the same time, the specialness of being there, think of the event as a wedding, do you want to watch it on twitter?Rebecca: some people do. My answer? NoJohn: What’s awesome is to be there and in a communal experience and the essence of a successful event to me seems like a communal learning, development, connection, emotional experience. When we produce this event, that’s what we were trying to do, I presume that’s what you’re trying to do in the events you put on. You help people come together for a memorable occasion in which they will learn things, you connect in powerful ways. Right brain left brain thing with a bunch of people they want to be with. That’s not easy to do.Rebecca: But you just made the case for you know, our contention. Events will never go away. There was this whole underswell of virtual events being the wave of the future and it will cut down the cost - John: all that is true, but people are human beings, we’re social beings, and social media is not the same as being in the same room.Rebecca: As we wrap this up, what drives you to the work you do?John: This is a life-long passion of mine around young people and opportunity and the notion that it’s a collective responsibility of all people, especially all adults, to create the conditions under which all young people have every opportunity to thrive no matter where there born. Everybody should have real opportunity to thrive. That seems to be the essence of the idea of America. For me. It’s a real honor and pleasure and a challenge to do this workRebecca: John, we appreciate the work you do and we appreciate you being on the program. We look forward to having you on our short question round. If you have any more questions that you want answered in an upcoming session, email us at EventCEO@linderglobal.com. Please tell your event friends and executives about us, subscribe to our channel and follow us on social media for sneak peeks, updates and news on the latest. Until next time, make it a great day.

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