Good morning and thank you so much for joining us for today's webinar, Video Storytelling Made Easy with Adobe Spark. And our presenter today is Courtney Thomas. She is the social media community manager for Adobe Spark. And we are so excited to have her present today. I'm your host, LaChica Phillips, and I'm an associate program manager here at TechSoup with the NGO Source program. And we are excited. And we also have here, facilitating with Chad is Whitney Thomas. She's also, she's a program manager here at TechSoup. And we are really excited to be here and excited to bring you this information, this wealth of information today. But before we jump into that, I just want to make sure that everyone is comfortable using the ReadyTalk platform. So by the way, if you haven't noticed, all lines are muted. So every caller is muted. And if you have any questions, we encourage you to use the chat box at the bottom right hand of corner of your screen. If you notice, I just sent another message and you'll see that, you should see that message there. I also want to let you know that if you lose internet connection at any time, you are able to rejoin us using the same link and the same login details as you did before. And for upcoming webinars, you can go to our website at TechSoup.org, click on resources and then webinars to see all of our archived and upcoming webinars. And by the way, once this webinar is complete, you will receive an email with today's presentation along with any links and any relating information to help you make your videos with Adobe Spark. Also, we are very social here at TechSoup and we love social love. So if you're on Twitter, we love to connect. Feel free to tweet us at TechSoup or use hashtag TSwebinars. And I want to share a little bit about our mission here at TechSoup. Our mission is really simple. It is to build a dynamic bridge to help nonprofits around the world to gain effective access to technology and technical resources for good. And we provide and facilitate donation programs in over 230 countries and territories and over a million organizations. And if you are aware, our offices, our headquarters rather, is located in San Francisco. And this is the perfect time where we like to find out where all of our learners are joining us from today. So go ahead. This is a great opportunity for you to test out and try out the chat box. This is a great opportunity. We want to know where are you? Where in the world is your nonprofit? And so I'm seeing them coming in from all over. I'm seeing Florida and Texas and Canada. I see Honolulu. This is awesome. Any international shout-outs out there. I don't see any yet, but we know you're there. And we thank you for being here today. So again, at TechSoup, we partner in order for us to really perform our mission. We partner with companies like Adobe and Intuit, Microsoft, and other technology providers so that we can provide the best and the most cost-effective resources for organizations like yours. And these partnerships allow us to provide solutions ranging from hardware to software, cloud-based resources to training, and even individualized services. But today we are teaming up with Adobe Spark for the next 60 minutes to help us to understand how to create compelling videos using Adobe Spark. So be sure to stick around for the entire webinar because we will have Q&A section at the end of Courtney's demo. And I'll just really bring before Courtney comes on, I want to say that in addition to her role at Adobe Spark, Courtney manages her very own brand called Next Big Thing with Courtney and Dara Social Media Digital Marketing. And today, again, she's going to help us understand the key components of a great video using Adobe Spark. So Courtney, take us away and thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Lashika. That was such a great introduction. I appreciate the shout-out for Next Big Thing. I hope everyone can hear me okay. And right here I see where all of you guys are from. So this is incredible. Thank you so much for joining me today, us today. I'm really, really excited to share Adobe Spark with you all. And here's a little bit why. Let's go to the next slide. I'm going to tell you a little bit about me before we jump into Adobe Spark and how amazing it is. So as Lashika mentioned, I'm the social media manager at Adobe Spark. But prior to that, I have a pretty wide background in nonprofits. So the next thing on my slide is Next Big Thing. I'm a web series producer at NBC The Show. Feel free to follow us, comment, like. We, that's a self-made work labor of love. So I consider us a nonprofit at the moment. But I also am an actor by trade. And if you have any theater organizations out there, holler shout-out. I think no sound. How are we doing? Anyone here? Yes, you're sounding fine. We're going to take care of this learner that can't hear. Right now, everyone should hear the presenter speaking. And we're going to manage that from the back. So Courtney, take us away. Perfect. So I see a couple of theater shout-outs payment. Hey, Pita. Hey, Colleen. So yeah, so I study here at Howard University. And then I headed over to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, which is a nonprofit theater organization. I worked at the Paley Center for Media in their development department, which is another prominent nonprofit organization. They are located in New York and LA. I recommend looking up. They're incredible. And then of course, the Lorraine Hansberry Theater is the theater where I started asking my very first asking lessons, singing and dance lessons happen there. And they're continuing to work into the digital media age, and I'm working very closely with them. So what all of these organizations that we have in common, and I'd love to see what you guys are working on and the different types of nonprofits that are represented, I think the thing that we all have in common is that we have to accomplish a lot with very little. And it's almost as if the request is thin this hay into gold and make me happy, which is fine because we're doing what we love. And so there is a little bit of a trade-off there. So I'm really excited to introduce you all to a tool today that will help alleviate some of those budgetary constraints. So the first thing you'll need to create an impactful message for your nonprofit is a smartphone, which hopefully most of us have. I didn't want to necessarily point it out, but you could also use the web. If you're going to do a digital marketing platform, I think a smartphone is the way to go about it because there are some social media platforms that are better or more easily accessible via mobile, but totally up to you. The next thing you need, of course, is Adobe Spark, which I'll tell you a little bit about. But only design experience is just a plus in this case. I know that we are also working in nonprofits. We're tasked with viewing about four to five jobs as one person. So I don't expect you all to have design experience on top of whatever else you're doing in terms of accounting or raising awareness. It's just too much. It's just too much. So here are a couple of marketing must-habs as well. This will help you contextualize the tool that we're about to jump into. So the first thing you want to do before you hop on social media or any platform for that instance is you want to have clear and measurable goals. There are a plethora of options and results available to you on each social media platform. The only way – don't try to boil the ocean. The only way to really get the true value that you're probably looking for out of digital marketing and social media marketing is to decide as a company, as an organization, and as a brand, what do you want at the end of the day?  And then you can start to work backwards and you'll usually find something in the social media realm that can help you get to that end goal again.  And that's where the payoff comes, where you forge this communal and sometimes often emotional connection with your audience. So you want to make it easy for them to find you and recognize you. You're needing a little help for all the branding talk I just discussed. There's a blog for that on top of Adobe Spark being a great tool for graphic design and social media content. It is also a blog that we want to give as much help as possible to our users in order to know what are the best ways to use Adobe Spark. We're coming up with new ways every single day. It's very exciting. I highly recommend taking a look at spark.adobe.com.blog and just seeing if there's any branding, design, or questions that you have that could be answered with a quick how-to. And we're using Adobe Spark to build out the blog, to build out a lot of the content and the graphics that you see. So everything we do, we do it with our products. You can get our voucher of approval for that. So now, let's do a couple things about social media. Again, not sure what everyone's expertise levels in social media are, but I'll just go through a quick one-two, some great points that we've learned along the way that I'd love to share with you that will help you at the end of this put your Spark content onto social media well. So what does social media help nonprofits do? What it does is educates and builds awareness with a low buy-in. Access to social media platforms are free. That's exciting. Now, I give that with a little bit of, you know, here's the, like, asterisk. Of course, the better engagement these days, the algorithms that we're all hearing about, it is optimized for paid promotion, but there are a ton of organic hacks that if you need to still achieve a certain amount of results, you can still do it. But that's a whole other webinar for another time. The other thing that social media can do for your nonprofit organization is it can create a community around your cause. So social media feels like a community because we are right on our phones. We access it whenever we are lonely or bored or in bed or have an extra few minutes. And it usually is something on the phone that makes us laugh, makes us cry, you know? So you can do that community building on your own page and deliver a very specific message that your audience wants to hear. So that's an exciting opportunity. That's where I see most brands, why most brands are heading towards social media because that sense of community actually leads to a better result for your call to action. People are more motivated for a sense of community than some of our more traditional media outlets, you know, our traditional advertising waves. And of course, it converts your audience into supporters and advocates because you're reaching out to them several times a day. And not too many times, of course. I think two to three posts per platform is a very sweet spot. But with that constant brand recognition over time, that's what ends up leading people to remember your brand and to contribute to the brand in any way that you specify that you would like a contribution. It could be a like, it could be a comment, it could be a subscribe, or it could be funding. You can go wherever you'd like to go. But five to seven brand impressions is usually what it takes. It's an impression for anyone who's not familiar. An impression is a social media stat that is measuring how often an image or your content is being flashed across a screen. So that could be a phone screen, it could be a mobile, it could be a web screen. That number is not unique though. So for instance, if one person pulls your content up four times, you have four impressions. And it's a different measurement depending on the platform. On Instagram, I think they call it reach. If you want to know the number of people that saw the message. So what are the options? I have a few typos on this slide so please forgive. You have a few options in terms of where you would like your content to land. And these are the ones that I would recommend depending on your organization's needs. Before I jump into these though, please know that not all of them are necessary. It is a lot to manage a social channel. You're managing a community. And each channel is its own community. And there are certain personalities that tend towards one platform versus the other. So you want to have your content later to that event. You want to nurture each community. I just want to call it, I don't even want to call it an audience anymore because there's something about that term that removes what the goal is. So I like referring to social media, quote-unquote audiences, truly a social media community because that's how we're interacting with one another on there. So Facebook, I put the term older. I put myself in that category, you guys. I am someone. I went to college right around the time that Facebook was first making its appearance. I was very resistant to it. But here I am giving a social media workshop. So never say never, right? But it does tend to be older and age. And it does tend, I'm a single word, it tends to be used more and it has a higher engagement rate by women. Instagram tends to be younger and more female. Twitter is going to be more media heavy. There's more minority groups on there because it's very information heavy. A lot of social justice causes will find themselves on Twitter. But it does tend to have more of a 50-50 ratio. So that's great. LinkedIn is an interesting platform because it is no longer just a platform for job seeking. People that have jobs are on LinkedIn and they're consuming content every day. It does tend to lean male. I think that makes sense considering that probably more work environments tend to be more male dominated. So I think it does reflect that online. And then YouTube also tends to be quite male dominated as well. Now I'm talking about social media and these apps and platforms, but please do not ever underestimate the power of emails. I think a while ago someone was saying that email is going to die. It's so back then. Now email, I get some of my best engagement for video views for my web series when I send out that email. It has to tend to be a little more personal because we are very personal about our inboxes. I know I am. So keep that email list going. And the great thing is for platforms like Facebook is you can upload your email list and you can advertise specifically to those users on Facebook. So you can start to increase the amount of impressions for your brand so that they can – that's where you start to see those ads like when you say it on – you say it around your phone and then suddenly an ad appears. You can start to have that effect for your nonprofit. And then, of course, websites. Of course, you always want to have a landing page for when people want to look up your information. That's usually the first thing any brand or company starts is their website. And definitely look into SEO. That's something that still I have to learn about myself as well, but it really does make a difference. Search ends in optimization is what SEO stands for. All right, this slide got a little off. Another important piece about social media is that this is where people are spending their time and they are making their decisions on where to send their money to social media. That's why you'll see a lot of very huge brands start to engage influencers.  I'm more likely to believe probably an influencer that probably looks like me. I like a lot of her posts and, suddenly, she has a Samsung phone that's having great images come out. And I want my brand to look like that. Suddenly, I'm buying from Samsung. And they usually, ethically, they have to tell you that it's a paid advertisement or it's a sponsorship, but it works. I don't know if you guys follow this woman, young woman, Color Me Courtney on Instagram. I've been following her for a couple of years, very fun and flashy. I know the slides are going off the screen. They're going to go back in just a little bit. But now I just saw her on a Windows commercial. So she's using the graphics and she's using the computers for her images. And it does make me think to myself, maybe I want to buy as Windows, whatever they call that. I'm a Mac user personally, so it's not working too much, but that's the effect. I'm getting the sound is cutting out. Can you guys, look, can you hear me good? Yes, hi. I can hear you just fine. I just put a note in the chat that for people to, if they have an issue, to try refreshing your browser or you can try dialing in. And Wendy gave a great idea. She said you can actually dial in via Skype if you are having audio issues. But I also am seeing notes from people saying the audio is perfect. Audio is perfect. So I'm just going to say, if you are having an issue, please refresh or I'll post a telephone number to Dowling, but Courtney, feel free to just take this away. All righty. Yeah, let's take it away. All right, moving closer and closer to Adobe Spark. So these are the different types of content for the most part that you're going to see on social media. Gifts and memes, hilarious. I call it catnip for the millennial generation. If you want some quick engagement, get a funny meme going. If it's a popular gift, add it to some relevant point. You'll see your engagement go up quickly. Pictures, art, poetry is a big issue. Comeback, videos. This was just for you all. Feel free to screenshot this. I got this list from Cara Dowdle. She is a video and founder actually of her own marketing and communications strategy firm, and it specifically specializes for politics and government. So I had the opportunity to watch her speak, and she gave some great summaries on social media. I also recommend that you follow her. Her handle is falling off the page a little bit, but it's at Ms. M.S. Cara Dowdle on Twitter. Great, and then just some more social media advice. I just want to make sure that you guys are off in a way for social media because it can be rough out there. Text over images to help message your, to help your message spread is always good. I think adding a logo with your handle so where people can find more of the content that you're putting out is always a great idea. And people of course love inspirational quotes, graphics and memes and just added that as well. That's the example there. But the biggest trend that I'm seeing in social media that we're going to focus the majority of this webinar on is on video. So video is getting swell times the engagement of other types of content on social media. I think we're just living in that kind of a world. I love consuming video content myself, so I don't need too much of an explanation as to why that's so. I think this is especially the case on Facebook and Twitter. On Instagram they're still trying to tinker their algorithms so that images will always be at the forefront. I don't know though, they may need to embrace video because it's here. So the big thing about video is you need to capture the attention of your audience or your community within the first three seconds. And that's just because we all have very short attention spans. It is what it is. And the three second rule is something that's measured on the back end of these platforms like Twitter and Facebook. And that's when someone is considered having viewed the content. Because we do absorb content very quickly, images and words. We always assign some meaning with the color, with the words and like, just the placement. It all says something in one second. So if you can capture someone for three, you're actually winning on social media. Sounds really easy, but it does tend to get a little hard to pack in the punch for three seconds and keep it moving after that. So it says that most people watch video with the sound off on social media. This is true. I'm sure we can all raise our hands for having watched some video probably even this morning on social media without actually turning on the sound. And that's a great sign because that means that that marketer or whoever milked that video out, that they told the story so effectively through their visuals that words and sound and music were not needed to convey whatever they were trying to convey emotionally, contextually, et cetera. I'm going to say that perhaps I think I have a few videos that I'd like to show you all today. And if the sound doesn't work, that's okay because it should be strong enough. And obviously with captions, they all have captions, it should actually convey the message. So I can show you the videos should the sound not work and we can decide that here today. All right. And yes, cute kids and puppies also work. And people do share them stories that move them because they want to make their friends laugh and cry just like they did. All right, so we all know now that visual content is what fuels social media. But with all the content that I just named, you're probably thinking they're like, how in the world am I going to make all of this? So we have the Adobe Creative Suite. I hope you all have it and love it. It's been around for a while now. It's been a go-to for artists and designers and anyone that wants to make an impact eventually. But now there's a new set of apps for those that are accidental techies like myself or those of us that just, you know, I studied something else in school and if I had the means that I could go back to school and study all of this again, I would, but unfortunately I can't, I'm working. So here's Adobe Spark. Where it's represented here, you see three companion apps that you can download on iOS. Android is coming. The data is coming out very, very soon, I promise. In the meantime, anyone that is an Android user, I encourage you to use the web. You can go to spark.adobe.com and you can access all of the creative materials that you would make in Spark Video, Spark Page, and Spark Post on the web. What is the cost of Spark? Great question. It's free to begin with. So what's the cost of the free? Our logo would be on the bottom right-hand corner. So that would be the free version where you can make whatever you'd like. It would just have our branding on it. If you would like to buy us, we do have a branded option which I'm going to walk through very thoroughly with you. That is $9.99 a month. If you don't already have the Adobe Creative Suite, if you do have the Creative Cloud Suite, then you already have access to the Adobe Spark premium branded features, and I will go through what the difference of that is. It's pretty great. I use it for Next Big Thing. Watch me walk through my Next Big Thing account. Otherwise, $9.99 a month, or you can do $99 for the whole year. I have CS6. No, thank you for adding the link in there, LaChica. Let's get more specific into nonprofit work. What do you share for your organizations or your types of organizations on social media? Of course, I'm just giving you guys a rough outline. Tailor this as much as possible to what your organization's outcomes and goals are. The first thing I would recommend is a mission video. Tell the world what your nonprofit is doing and why. Why is this important? And again, explain it as much as you can within the first three seconds, just because of more than likely how long someone's going to be paying attention to your video. And then, of course, if you can capture them the first three seconds, they'll probably walk the rest. So again, focusing on your intro, your grabber, or your hook will give you a lot of mileage in the end. Another great idea in how what type of social content to share is to a visual that promotes an upcoming event or fundraiser. So this can be a save-the-date, a fun design. That can be an event recap video. I have one that I'd like to show you all today as well. And any type of informative content, like infographics that are relevant to what cause you're working towards. Inspirational quotes by leaders. I don't know if you have any celebrities or anyone influential. I have a theory. I think every single person knows someone or they know someone who knows someone who has a solid amount of influence in your community. You just have to find it. And then when you do find it, you want to leverage that relationship. Luckily, most influential people really do want to give back in some way because they have been given so much. So this is a great way to give them some content to share. And you can quote them. You can use some great visuals that they probably have from extensive photo shoots that they've done somewhere else, and they're really great for the photo. And they want to help you out. The possibilities are endless. Those are those little hacks I was telling you about for organic reach. And then anything interactive. Anything, anything, anything. Each of the social media platforms, they have a bunch of features, like Instagram has the stories with the highlights now. And Facebook, they're trying out their live highlighted story options. And of course, Facebook Live Video is one of their biggest pushes for the year. If you start to engage in those features on the platform, the platforms will actually boost your, boost your engagement in the algorithm because you're helping them out by showcasing one of their new features. So anything interactive, like a quick poll in Instagram stories is always fun. I just posted one in mine and you see the show like, are you registered to vote because you have a special election coming up or not a special election. We have a California primary coming up on June 5th. So that was a fun poll. Everyone's voting. That's exciting. And here are a few examples that I wanted to show you. These are graphics that were made in Adobe Spark posts. Now Adobe Spark posts is where you'll hear described mostly as your way to make stunning social graphics in seconds. Quick, slick, all the good stuff. It looks like it was probably made by a graphic designer and that it took, I don't know how many iterations and cost hundreds of dollars an hour for their time. These are templates that are available to you for free in Adobe Spark if you would like to remix them. And I'll actually pull some out for you guys and I'll show you the remix feature. Super easy. But to walk through these 18 essentials to include in a holiday care package for local homeless shelters, if that's part of your cause, I give because. Giving Tuesday. Amazing time to be posting to social media. If you don't normally post on social media, as an on-profit organization, you should still get on during Giving Tuesday because even people who are wanting to make donations that day, maybe they're not even on the social media regularly. So you still have a chance to catch a great audience and their whole intention for that day is to give. And that's the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. And of course a holiday before I drive is to get more inspiration going. Now here are some infographics that I made. I'm working with another nonprofit called College Bridge Academy down in Atlanta. And I'm getting, helping them get started with some social media strategies. And their whole purpose is to find mentors for students that are on their way to college. They've gotten the scholarships. They've passed the classes. It's not a financial need. It's a need to have someone in their lives that will check on them and just to make sure that they're doing well. And it's probably been in their shoes and can advise them when they reach those bumpy points. So I'm excited to be partnering with them. And here are a few graphics that I made. The images that you see, I found in Adobe Spark's app. We have some free photos. Every feature that you see, every image, every color, every font is all copyright free in Adobe Spark. So I'll walk through how I made these but I'll read off the stats. Young adults with mentors are 130% more likely to hold leadership positions. I chose the image because it looks like a young woman probably working a great job. She looks stylish. She looks fresh. She looks ready. She looks sharp. So that's the goal is. That's the emotional goal. I'm saying it's a mentor, a young student. They'll likely turn out like this young woman. The one to the right is my favorite though. This one says, young adults who have a mentor, 81% more likely to participate in sports or extracurriculars. So I thought this was a great image of movement and strength and possibility. She's getting ready to dunk the basketball into the hoop. And right next to him, I have the words that I know I want my audience to think. It's exactly this type of support, this mentor that got him to the point where he's about to win. And you can see my next big thing, logos are in the corner. So that's super important as well. And here's another graphic, calling all mentors, something that we're going to post on our social media channels and do some live Instagram stories and interview the students and that's them up with mentors. So that's kind of the way that we're thinking to be interactive in our work with this nonprofit organization. Now, the moment we've all been waiting for, I'm going to show you a Spark video. And it's by a nonprofit called Choice Humanitarian. And let me make sure the volume is up for you all before I begin this playback. All right, here we go. The one that was made by my colleague, Amy. And I remember seeing it when it came out and I thought, oh yeah, it works for Adobe. It's all this money and it can do it. That's great. Good job, guys. And of course, when I started working for her, she shared with me how they made it. And she said, nope, I made that. It was shot on her iPhone. And she used the words that you see across the screen are it's an inspirational quote. And she broke it up so that each slide, it enhances the message of whatever the text is at that moment. And it was a really powerful video that did well for that organization. So here are a few basics of the structure of a social video that works. I'm not going to go too much into detail because I am not a filmmaker. So I'm not going to guide you guys too deeply on this. But this is just a general layout of if you're not sure where to begin or how to do the recap. You want to start with a hook or a grabber. And that's something that wakes people up and it makes them want to watch it. That can be sirens. It can be movement. It can be a reveal. I took a fiction into film class in high school and the teacher explained it perfectly by using Billy Wilder films. I don't know if you guys remember that filmmaker from Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot. But part of his success is that each of his films in the very beginning always had some sort of a grabber. In Sunset Boulevard, you see cop cars racing down the street. In Some Like It Hot, you have that same movement happening again with a car coming down the street and then it goes directly to a coffin and then two very grisly looking men and of course you're wondering what happened. So those are the type of grabbers that you want to try to get your audience wondering, wait, what happened? What did I miss? What do I need to catch up on? Those are those extra seconds and viewings that you'll get on social media. And then of course there's a setup. This sets the status quo, something to aspire back to, maybe a time when things are happier and simpler. A lot of exposition can happen here as well. This is what's heading to the climax.  This is where you can give a zoom in, a 360 on the community, maybe that your organization is focusing in on helping. And then of course all of this gets to a point or what I like to call a climax. The accumulation of all of what we've just said. You almost want to leave the audience with the question of oh my goodness, how could things get any worse or how could it get any better so that there's a switch or a payoff? It could offer a solution. It can be, this is where the emotional connection plays off here with a resolution. And it falls directly into the call to action to your audience, to your community. What can you do to beat a resolution and the happy ending to this story? So that's the overall effect you want to give them. Here's some additional notes for optimizing for storytelling. Whenever you're watching anything from now on, whether it be a movie, a show, a music video, or another nonprofit content on social media, pay close attention to why something works and what was working for you. Take notes of those moments. Even if it's for three seconds, go back, maybe look at the colors that were used and maybe the speed with which the camera was rolling. Figure out what was working for you so that you can recreate that for your content as well. That's great. You don't have to do a lot of guesswork. You learn what by your second birthday? You learn by your second costume birthday party that it's all been done before. It truly has. There are ways to evoke the emotions and the pull that you're looking to get. It's out there. It's on the Internet. All right, now we're going to do a spark demo. We've got 20 minutes, so let's roll through this. So for next big thing, I made a recap of an event that happened in San Francisco for Google.org, and they were raising awareness for a school in the East Bay called Roses and Concrete that's doing work to educate children on technology and art. And I'll leave you there. I'll let the video speak for you. Speak for me. All righty. So that was the video that I made as a recap. I worked with a PR company that invited me to the event. It was filmed on my iPhone. I have another little tool that I like to use, a gimbal. You can get that at Best Buy. You can get it on Amazon, actually, anywhere from like $100 to maybe $200. And it's basically a phone stabilizer so you can get that scanning effect without any bumps in it. But now I'm going to share my screen with you all so that I can show you exactly what I did with it. And then I'll bump into Adobe Spark and show you how I constructed that video. I'm going to share my desktop. I don't get to see the chat while this is happening. So Ishika, if there's any issues, just let me know. But otherwise, I wanted to show you all what happened. And this is what I think can happen for any nonprofit because I was amazed to watch it happen myself. So the event happened on Friday night. Zendaya, famous actress. I think she's got about 13 million followers. She was in the greatest showman. She's got the press behind her. That's what I mean. Find that influential person. She's from the East Bay. And that's why she knows about roses and concrete and she wanted to give that back. So I posted this at 8 a.m. on a Monday, on the following Monday. And I knew it was going to get a lot of likes because I had the words, I had the music. I was like, I think people are going to like this. It did so well. Zendaya liked it. And then she shared it. And that, of course, 13 exposure for this organization and for even my small organization, Next Big Thing, was huge. It was interesting because I made this video so quickly and as you can see, we're at about 52,000 views now from March, 1.4,000 likes. This is a kind of exposure that I think your nonprofit deserves. It was interesting though because I was able to turn this video around so fast. I did it over the weekend while I was carrying for a family member. The recap from Google came out and it was like a five paragraph essay. And I think her people must have automatically retweeted it because it's Google's event. Why wouldn't you retweet their recap? But I noticed later in the day as I was checking on how our video was doing that she ended up removing, she un-retweeted the Google recap and our state at the top of her page for about two days. Best exposure we have ever gotten from Next Big Thing. In general, that's the difference that I'm noticing with Adobe Spark. I've gotten a few more shares from people with these larger audiences because they're seeing the quality of Adobe Spark. Incredible. This is another video that I made as well. This is a much simpler make process. I just added the captions for a young woman who was reading a poem that really moved a lot of us that evening. Now Zendaya didn't reshare this one but it still did 11,000 views on its own, 819 likes, and 80 retweets. We did not put one dime behind promoting this, not one single solitary dime. This is completely possible for your nonprofit organization. Just find the relationship, find those shares, and find those moments, and you will have these results without needing to put a dollar behind it. All right, so that's our page. Now let's bump into Adobe Spark. So this is Adobe Spark when you log in, I could go through all the credentials but I won't bore you all. And if you have upgraded to Adobe Spark Premium for the branded features, you're going to have this option, Manage Brand. I think if you are not already signed up, there's still an Add Brand option here. So I'm going to pop into that and show you all what that looks like and what is the difference between Spark for free and Spark Premium branded features. So what you can do with Adobe Spark Premium branded features is you can add your logo. So I've uploaded these. These were made by a graphic designer before I discovered Adobe Spark. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely just use one of the icons that are available in Adobe Spark now thanks to the Noun Project. I'll show you that real quick. And you can upload them transparent. We have our brand colors and they offer a palette of other colors that, you know, because once you have a brand color, you don't want to beat people over the head with it. You want to have things that complement that color of brand. So it's an overall palette that you're providing them. And of course, fonts. These I have mentioned before are all copyright free. We are adding new ones in as we speak. And you will be available to add your custom font in this summer. I don't have an exact date that I'm allowed to say quite yet, but it will be as soon as possible. I promise you. So what happens then is they call it a brandify. When you put all of your elements in, we create, or Adobe Spark creates templates for you based on what you want to make. You could just want to make a real quick quote. You could want to make a slide cover for a PowerPoint presentation or a YouTube video cover. You can make a Pinterest ad. Let's see what else they have for us. An event header for Facebook, a Twitter post. And as you can see, Adobe Spark has all of the sizes of all the social media platforms that you need. So you don't have to worry about figuring out the exact amount of pixels that are required. We got you covered on that. You can also make your business card and print that off of, I don't know, Mu.com is one of my favorite ones personally, but you can do that as well. So those are the post templates. We also provide video templates and page templates. I haven't gotten too much into Spark page. Let me just do a quick brief demo. It's essentially if you want to write an article or give a good recap that people can slide through and it looks like a web page, you can create this here. And this is a sampling. And you can go in. I wish that the page was remixable. This is just an example of a structure that you can use. But this is where oftentimes I'll make a lot of post content in Adobe Spark and I'll need to lay it out in a way for people to consume easily if I'm sharing it with them, maybe it's a social media kit or something like that. It's a little better than I like to send over a PowerPoint because it's a link that you can auto generate and you can share it with whoever you would like to see it. A custom link option is coming very soon as well. We're hearing all the requests. If you're already using Adobe Spark, you have some requests, feel free to comment those as well because we need to collect them wherever we can. And yeah, every time that you update anything about that Spark page that you've made, you have the option to then update the page but you don't have to change up a link. It'll update it to the one that you maybe shared in an email five weeks ago and you added a new image. If a person happens to open their email five weeks later, they'll get the updated version through the link. It's a lifesaver. You can also embed the web pages that you make through Spark page on the back end of your WordPress site, et cetera. All right, so let me go back into the project and walk through some of the key features as it pertains to that video. So I wasn't thrilled with my options for the cover of the video. If I was just going to do a plain title, if I wanted the image to look a certain way, I knew that I wanted some video effect in that. And so I actually made a Spark post for the cover. Now I'm on desktop showing you all on – sorry, not on web – on your mobile phones. This is where you'll have the option to use the two-finger dragging and you can actually re-center the photo. Because I am on desktop right now, it's not working for me, unfortunately, but I promise on mobile it does do that. So this is the final – and this is the video, actually. Let me bump back out. And then here's the cover that I put together. And I'll just show you the elements. As you continue to design an Adobe Spark, you're going to get very familiar with all of the elements that it takes to put together a beautiful-looking graphic. It's very simple. This is a transparent TNG that I got from the Internet. I just looked up Google.org and how I added it. There's an Add button. And you can add text. You can add a photo. You can add an icon. This is where I was saying earlier if I had to do it all over again, I would have just made my logo from Adobe Spark. So I'll show you. We have a crown as our logo. Look at all the different crown logos and you can change the colors of these. If I had to do it all again, I would actually choose this, but it pops right in. And then I can change the color of the icon. It's going to have a few suggested colors. This is where we're using AI and it's suggesting a color for me based on the colors that are already being used on the palette. Probably suggesting this tone because it's matching up with the concrete here. But just to show you as an example, it says I stopped sharing. Hang tight. All right, hopefully you guys can see me again. Don't know what happened. But yeah, so I wanted to change it to white so it was more visible. And then maybe I would want to – I'm recreating my logo essentially right now. Let's say I just wanted to add some text. And I recommend adding your handle so that people can find you easily. And click done. And there it is. And I saw – I was able to peek over and someone said, how did I do the transparent lettering? So this is auto-sharing up as a backing that I actually use very frequently. So this is a very intelligent product. I'm glad that it auto-did that. And what you want to do is just change the shape of the backing. And if you scroll up as a pretty deep in one, you can change the backing shape so that there's no backing. You can change it so that there's a clean, like a background like that. Options are endless. Another fun one is this one where you get a little bit of shadow behind it. And you can shuffle the shadow. You can't see it very well on this backdrop unfortunately. Maybe it has to do with the color. Let's shuffle that. There we go. That's where you can see the backdrop a little better. But it's as easy as this. I'm on my computer with no design experience showing you all this right now. You can resize it so that it fits. It fits however I want it to. And that could have been – that could have been my logo. I'll never see that 50 bucks again. So that's an example. Again, got this logo from here. And actually this is an example of the backing that they auto chose for me in that slide because it's right on here. And of course, you notice that I have two different colors happening in this text box area. I have my primary colors that I set up. And your next big thing is in a secondary color so that you can have multiple colors in just one text box. So you can highlight what's important. I wanted people to see next big thing above anything. So I'm going to leave that here for now and head into the video option. And the great thing about this, you can't see it on web, unfortunately. I have it so that the words screen in in a fade in effect, those effect options are available on mobile. You'll see it when you log in and you start adding – hit the plus sign, add your design. And one of the six menu options is the one on the bottom right-hand side. And it says effects. And you can have your text move or you can have your photo move. And that's going to be a big – I hope that's going to be a big push for the team coming up to add different types of animations and text because that's where the fun is on social media. That'll be my recommendation anyway. So heading back onto the project. Oh, we're running out of time. I wish we had more time together, you guys. So let me just show off some key features of Adobe Spark. And then I will flip back into ReadyTalk so we can answer some questions. I have some time to run over if you guys have time, so no problem there. So all I did was upload – this is important. I uploaded the .mp4 output to add this to this slide. And when you are in Adobe Spark Video, you have different options for how you would like your slide, each individual slide layout to be. So this one I have the cover on, so let's not use that as the example. But for this one I chose a text option. But I could have done a title and text option, so this is where it's auto changing for us. And I'll show you actually where I did this. Let me change it back. But it'll auto change all of the things. So most important thing is know what you want to say before you head into Adobe Spark because it's going to give you a ton of options. And you can just put the information in there and kind of let the design – let us take the design wheel in a way. And show you some suggestions. And there's actually a suggestion wheel I'll give you a look at as well. Now I pulled it. I wanted it to be a caption. You can drag and drop this caption into nine different areas on the screen depending on what makes the most sense for you visually. For us, since we have all of this text and these images are happening up here, I chose the bottom left corner. I'd like to use the phrase the eye has to travel. I don't know if I have any Diana Vryland friends out there, but that's a very famous saying that former editor-in-chief of Vogue during some of its most prominent years used to say. And it's basically giving the idea that even on a static image, even in a video that is technically moving, you want to have something visual happening across the screen that allows the eye to travel. The eye always wants to travel. And that's all I was thinking about when I was creating this video. I chose the moment of all... This was a four-minute dance scene, and I happened to choose this 8-second... I wanted to choose the moment of their most impactful movement and then move on to the next one. Again, this was a video that they had on their YouTube that I was able to use, you know, it was free. And actually, fair use is what I would claim this as. It's promoting their organization, so I took it from their organization site and repurposed it for my own. The footprint option is another great way to keep your audiences eye-traveling and your attention flowing. And in this case, I'm using two-pox record footage from the old, old MCD interview where he's talking about the concept of the roads that grew from concrete. And then I have these larger captions quickly summarizing what's happening all over the event. It was almost like a little marketplace of stands and booths with children doing amazing work, so I just wanted a quick recap. Of course, we had Ms. Indaya in the house, so I chose the moment where she was, like, cutely dancing on stage, and of course, her serving at the... I think she's on the after. Yeah, she's on the after. I carved it for this one. And then another feature I want to point out, this is the title and text option for a layout theme. So I think we've gone through all of the layouts here. But another one that I want to point out, if you have a list of points that are being made, I do recommend the split screen option because it has that pop-up buoyancy effect. So again, it'll take away some of the monotony of having to read off a list to your audience. Again, it's a short, Apprentice brand audience on social media. People are engaging with it very quickly, so you want something that pulls them in. And I think the split screen effect is a great way to do that. And then, of course, my call to action at the end of it was Learn More and Get Involved at rosesandconcrete.org. Adobe Video will also keep in a credit and an outsource slide for you with your logo branding automatically on it. And any changes that you want to make in this slide, you would just go back to your managed brand and you can change the way in which logo appears on your template here in the video option. Okay. I think that's about everything for now. I'm going to unshare my screen and go back into ReadyTalk. So I can see what you guys are talking about. Thank you so much, Courtney. This was a lot of information. We do have a couple of questions. I want to get to really quickly. Did you have other slides? Just the ones that we can end on. I'm just still trying to make my way back into the conference. Okay. So while you're doing that, I have a quick question to ask, a couple of questions if we can get time. But so Marla is asking what if you are a small organization that does not have the resources to have a high-profile artist? What do you do? A high-profile artist is a hard thing to sign. I totally agree. I would try to find some of those influencers in your community. So those are people that maybe would automatically consider high-profile, but they are high-profile in your specific town, city, or community. Maybe it's a school principal that has most of the town's emails because they've been educating the children, and they have a poll on who makes the difference. So, yeah, it could be a preacher, anyone that has influence in the community. I was just at a social media conference in Atlanta, the Social Shakeup, and an influencer, Chris Straub, I asked him what his one piece of go-to social media advice is, and he said, remember that everybody is famous to somebody. We're all famous to somebody. So maybe it's not like we're on red carpets or anything, but there's somebody who's following you. They're not following you. They're following you on social media that is wanting to hear from you and wants to hear your message and is interested. Don't disregard those people because that's how you build on that for a larger community or a larger audience. Great. Thank you. One last question. Someone said, what is the name of that phone stabilizer that you mentioned? Did you say it was Nimble? What is it called? It was a gimbal. G is in Garden. I, M is in Mary. B is in Bear. A, L is in Lamb. A gimbal. Oh, perfect, perfect. And one last thing. The file format for the video through Adobe Spark, is that... What format is that? .mp4. Okay, okay, perfect. Yeah, the outputs are always mp4. .mp4. Okay, perfect. .mp4. .mp4. Okay. Okay. And so I think we, I think we are out of time. Did you want to mention something about these action items? Yeah, I would love to get in touch with the social, with the organizations that are on the line right now because we love to speak here at Adobe Spark. People that are using our tools. So we can be your first influencer. We have a reach of about over 100,000 across our platform. So if you make a post, I would love to share it. So here's the action item. I would love for you all to download Spark, Spark Post specifically. And post to Twitter or Instagram. This is something to get you guys in the talk of what's happening. This is kind of where our heads are at in terms of branding on social media as well. Send out a graduation wish or an inspirational quote inspired by your nonprofit. Add the effects to make it a video. And post it and hashtag Adobe Spark so we can see it and find it. And I'd love to see, I'd love to keep in touch with you guys' organizations on social media, on Instagram or Twitter. And let's just keep it going and engaging with one another because I hopefully would like to share something from each of your organizations one day because maybe there's someone in my audience that really cares about what you're doing. So I'd love to help with that as well. Thank you so much, Courtney. We are out of time. We really appreciate everyone joining us and being here today. And if you are late joining, I want to let you know you will receive an email later today with the slides from today, the links and all of the information with the recording. You will get that later today. So we do have time if you want to go ahead and chat out something that you learned today. Are you going to take advantage of that action item? I mean, that's a great opportunity for your organization to put together something and to have Adobe Spark to follow that or retweet that. That is an awesome opportunity. So I hope that some of you will take advantage of that. Also, we hope that you can join us on our next webinar. It's coming up on next Tuesday, May 31, right after the holidays. We want to talk about the five clear steps to get your nonprofit cloud ready. What does that mean? Do you know what that means? And what does all of this talk about being cloud ready? Well, we're going to dive right into all of that with one of our very own right here from TechSoup. And so we hope that you can join us. And as always, we are so grateful for our sponsor, ReadyTalk. And again, thank you so much, Courtney, for all of the information that you provided today. And thank you so much, Whitney, for assisting and facilitating Chuck in the back end today. And for everyone, all of our learners today, thank you for joining us. Make it a great day. Bye-bye.


HBCU Digest Radio presidential series welcome back to our conversations with distinguished chancellors and presidents of historically black colleges and universities tonight for the first time far overdue and certainly on a fault of mine and not of our guest is the distinguished president of Wiley College the co-founder of the higher education leadership foundation Dr. Herman Felton also host of the health podcast so I know a lot of you guys that listen to the digest broadcast also check out health definitely it's a dynamic peace and leadership element to our conversation so brother president certainly an honor to have you on this evening man man it is an honor to be on brother I appreciate I appreciate you extended the invitation great for to be here and want to thank you for being in the trenches for the cost of a decade now it's 10 years man about eight years too long I know I know that those years are like a doggy probably a little longer than the body feels like that but yeah but but but thank you for having me and thank you for the work that you do man I appreciate it brother so the first thing that I want to get to with you because just so outspoken on a number of issues and we I think as a sector we appreciate it to not only have a president who's unafraid to speak to a lot of things that matter most to our sectors into our campuses let's have a young president do it I think that that's we we've been waiting for that for a long time and you're certainly part of a cohort of young presidents that are growing in that in that field but you kind of outpace a lot of folks and being willing to talk against and for a lot of topics that people are you know strategically may feel like they can't do it so in a lot of ways you're a spokesman for the HBC presidency and in that vein you know I kind of want to ask you about what what went down you know about a week ago in South Carolina with Benedict and certainly Dr. Rosalind Clark artists they're great president who I know with whom you're close and I hope that people listening to us now don't feel like this is two men trying to stick up for a sister but but or try to validate a sister but in a way I do want that because indeed it is our sister and we know that sisters unfairly catch a lot of hell for the decisions that they make particularly in leadership position so just from a presidential perspective because with all the talk that's still going on about this event what were your observations before during and after now that we've had some days to step away from it what do you think about that and from a presidential standpoint is it something that we just we're just missing the mark on understanding what this was supposed to be and what it could have been you know it's a great question and it is a dangerous space and topic to even to talk on and and the that in and of itself Jared I think is in the theater of absurdity right so I was actually the convocation speaker that Thursday before the president and other presidential candidates were to be on the campus of Benedict and I have to tell you it's alarming it sort of took me back to our time when 80 or so of us went to the White House and the vitriol that was spewed it's sort of fascinating how we talk about how how we feel about tribalism and the politics and the hate that is projected and then we turn around and practice that same hate and you know meanness to to people who are certainly in the trenches working for us so you have this bipartisan or what was alleged to be a bipartisan group that has done this work for years you know last four years they were on some other campus in South Carolina in South Carolina arguably is the epicenter for the 2020 election and if you know politics you understand outside of Iowa you know South Carolina is probably the place that folk are be lining making a beeline to well this group comes on campus and obviously when any president is traveling there are certain protocols that need to be in place I remember going online and seeing some of the stuff and it impacted Rosalind in a way and I just personally am so proud of her watching her go through what she went through with the grace and the poise that she has if you know her she's always like that but it just exuded out of her pores even more I think the more hate came her way the more grace she exuded it was fascinating there to watch people eviscerate her because they thought she recommended or she invited the president there and anything but the group invited him there he spoke and there's this information out about eight students or ten students being able to attend whenever the president comes into any space the White House takes over and they lay the rules it doesn't matter what you think they are they take over and they deploy the rules and in that instance there were a ton of legislators who Republican who were traveling and who were in that area Tim Scott who's the other guy Lindsey Graham Graham all of those individuals and some of their top donors wanted to be in the space that happened it was a 270 room audience or auditorium somewhere around in there and they took a took up a great deal of the seats in the space and so that happened and outside of that there were unbeknownst to Roslyn and the mayor Steve Benjamin I think his name is the mayor of Columbia they both were on this board they both resigned from the board because neither of them knew that this organization wanted to award Trump with this honor no idea and so as you can imagine it looked as if they were complicit which they were I thought what was fascinating was the article that was done by the Paul model Times I think it is a Columbia paper where Roslyn sat down and really talked about everything that happened so I'll stop with that and say this the transition for us what is not I think anticipated from us inside the space who are earnestly doing this work with no motive is when the family turns on you you know that is more painful Jared than anything else now what what is my boggling to me is that the bastion of democracy is a college campus or should be symbolism of pure democracy should be on a camp our college campus the introduction of democracy in the political system and how it works I think is ripe the ripe environment for that that is on a college campus and yet even though there is a particular person in the White House who those many of us do not agree with at the end of the day it is the president of the United States HBCUs PWIs public private receive federal funding the department of education holds loans for us they issue loans for us and I think protocol just simply allows for the president of the United States of America to pretty much go wherever he well pleases whatever he wants to and because he comes on your campus does not mean that you acquiesce to his his his ethos the way he moves it that it does not mean that and at the end of the day I know here while I've got a handful of republicans on my campus who would be happy to see him should he be should they be denied to see the person that they believe to be their president at the end of the day their freedom of expression is only as good as it is comfortable right so if you like what I like then we're good and you have a right to express that but if you hate what I like then I'm eviscerated because I don't hold your same views and values the very thing that we teach people to be which is independent free thinkers is the thing that will will get you slaughtered in a lot of spaces there it do you think and we kind of talked off air a little bit about this and I asked dr is the same question is it is a situation where we're just the leaders are going to have to almost drag stakeholders kicking and screaming into a political process because this is not going to change even when trump s exits there's still going to be certain engagement we have to make with whatever party is in the way out whether people like it or don't like it so do we have to do we have to do a better job of educating the stakeholders do you think that they can be convinced that this has to happen well here's what I believe there I think that we are a nation that is just absolutely experts we are experts in lazy research we pick up tired lazy tropes and we run with them they're not ours we go with the popular the masses you know and I think most people are reasonable and because I believe that I believe to your point an educational process would help most people say you know what I don't agree with that guy I don't agree with it but I understand why you're doing it if people can push to that space if we can educate people to be in that space then we win you know we win because we don't have to worry about issuing press releases and worrying about deflections and people starting protests and people who don't want to give to our institutions using that as a reason to not give right you you've not been giving forever and now you are you you now have built in excuses to never give ever ever ever right we have to I think your point is spot on we have to educate folks the best we can but here's the thing there we cannot um spend a whole lot of time doing that the bible says you know the vision make it play write it and make it plain all we can do is just put the information out there and we're hoping that our alums who have been educated at our institutions which we believe to have done a good job will have the mental requisite to understand simple information well I don't I guess the emotion takes over because I don't get I can understand you don't mess with Trump so hard that you can't you can't see him on your campus I get it but what I don't get is particularly for hbcu communities especially in the deep south you think this is the first racist person we've talked to that's been on campus or you think this is the first interface we've had with with a with a political enemy you you must not have met a mayor a while ago you must not have met a governor a while ago you must not have met a congressman a while ago because we've been doing this for years and I can't emphasize the point enough you were cool with those or you didn't know and it didn't matter to you to find out as you talked about lazy research so why are we we're so hyped up now we're hyped up about Trump we're hyped up about a George Bush statue at Hampton we're hyped up about you know all kinds of stuff we've been doing this dance for years and everybody's been cool with it no matter what kind of tension it created on our presidents what kind of tension it created on our boards listen I I think for me to put things in perspective like life is so much easier now there in the 60s and the 50s people were dying when they came uh into uh you know into contact with individuals who didn't understand who we were and why we were on this earth and and celebrate our excellence the way everybody should have right like and we have brothers and sisters like John Lewis um you know get beat across the head and many many others who were willing to die for principle it is so much easier now like you you you can argue this council culture like like you won't a quote unquote I don't even know what the hell that means but um like these keyboard activists like it's so easy to say you know some words and and spew you know mean stuff I think it's much harder for people to sit across the table um from people who they disagree with fundamentally and have conversations dialogue and we can all get up and walk away like you know it is very clear that our nation has a ton of work to do with respects to race relations that's very clear I don't think anybody needs to argue that point at what point are we going to say it's time for us to have some tough conversations some tough questions and be resolved with knowing that some people will never see things the way we do and that's okay because they have a fundamental constitutional right to do it I'm not saying that their right is right I'm just saying that their right to do what they want to do is not wrong and because of that we've got to figure out how we get to a space where we can levitate in all climes and spaces with all kind of people and still do what we need to do which is stay focused stay focused on raising resources that allow the next generation to be equally if not better than we are with all the ranks and privileges and rights and tools that they need to to levitate in greatness this these conversations take us away from that year they take us away from that particularly when they are conversations that devolve quickly we were arguing two minutes after we started having a conversation about Trump being on our campus and and it's it is non-productive so how do we move from that how do we get to this space and say okay yeah we nobody likes Trump gotcha how do we move the cheese right how do we move in in a succinct fashion that allows us to have our dignity intact and our positions to be there did to be heard but also not to be you know blatant people who disregard the fundamental things that we're fighting for as well right let's not be the pot or the kettle let's let's be who we we need to be with with with integrity and erect spines but let's not focus on the nonsense and and again I don't want to diminish how people feel I just think that if we had conversations if if people waited to hear what really happened I think the support would have been a lot different but we're so quick to pick up on false narratives and run with them that lazy research that it really diminishes our capacity to really be in a this great space man let's focus on that that point about lazy research because you were outspoken about one of the the the lazy researchers you know kind of hovering around our sector that's mary beth gasman yes sir that so you know that I think that we have tried to alert people um about you know problematic research and information that comes out about our sector and stuff that doesn't provide great narrative or great insight on who we are and what we're trying to do and now this has been mingled with you know kind of a power leveraging over some of our graduates in her office so she she moves on she goes from pen to Rutgers you know she's being hypersexual with black men and women she gets away with it seemingly um is it over uh should we let it be over what more can we do you know this is where um this is where power uh influence uh and all those things matter and it also illuminates what it means to be marginalized um these major institutions um really I don't know if they have a modicum of respect for our voices and I'll tell you why I say that um if the shoe were fit um on on me um and I were the black man um a grieving uh others um I think that narrative would have been different because the voice of others is much louder uh than the voice of black and brown even in higher education right so that's been played out over and over and over again for me I don't particularly have a feeling about this lady one way or the other um she has done a lot of research um on hbcu's there are some who say it's great and then there are some who feel like it's regurgitated it's the same thing over and over um and uh it doesn't necessarily lead from uh h hbcu alumni giving to uh somebody being an expert on board and presidential selection don't know how we make that gap and I don't know how how we give someone the agency to be uh the spokesperson for us having said that the work was done right and I would always tell people stop talking about it you know do something about it if you want to change the narrative change the narrative right get in there do the work do what you need to do my problem um in particular there was an article that was wrote uh and I'm going to get to your question really quickly um but I think it's important to tell the fans there was an article when uh the researcher announced a uh center for um minority leaders or something and she quoted um she was quoted as saying that there was there's never been a leadership institution for pipelines for hbcu's and that was particularly troubling yeah you actually wrote a piece for the digest about that to say well let me give you about four of them and I'm not going to even mention health right and when I wrote an article I didn't even mention health because there was no reason to even um think it as if it were about me and the work that we were doing because we are peons with respects to what Edison or Jackson has done 15 presidents he's made harvey out as 10 plus um northy yancy jimmy jink is hayward strickland like you power martin like you can go on and on about individuals who have done work themselves now let's talk about what hampton did with a presidential leadership institute let's talk about what nastio did so those things for me being a researcher at a conigy one designated research institution or however they say that a simple google query not google scholar a simple google query uh hbcu leadership would have popped up a litany of stuff so for people to feel that comfortable to say that there has never been one of these suggest two things either you have no regard for the work that we've done but you don't even give a damn that we might call you out on it and it is not factual information now fast forward what is troubling for me is not what she did that there's issue there but the response of the institutions that that to me has been the most unsettling and again i'm not trying to take any food from anybody uh any money out of anybody's pocket i just want people to really understand these instances should be about teaching us and reminding us about how marginalized we are and how seemingly powerless we are and how voiceless we are because i can assure you the little bit of money that i'm paid at widely i'd be willing to bet if the shoe were on the other foot not only would this be a dead issue it would be a dead issue because said individual would be a non-employee i mean it's just plain and simple and so from there what you gather from there and the stories like i i didn't read the stuff but i heard you've been in enough spaces and places um that people had a ton of respect for her and some still do um and they felt like that was their entree what she had was their entree and higher education and to publishing and and all these things and so you know i think we have to be um you know vocal in ways that don't really put us in this position where we're going after a person i think the collateral damage from me is enough for us to talk about and and what also troubles me is that um the name proctor is is something that he's in the stratosphere of his own he's on the samuel proctor jail ruckus yeah Samuel the wet proctor isn't a completely different stratosphere there this brother was magnanimous in politics in higher education in activism and in religion like he was par excellent in all those spaces and most us mere mortals are happy to to have impact in just one area this brother was bad in four different areas and the Jeremiah Wrights the Calvin butts the Matthew Wadley the administrators in higher education the students who benefited from work study which he advocated for and testified for um trio programs like all the stuff that he did is still impacting us to this day so to have a person who is blemished or who has been accused of doing things that are counter to who he was me i took you know a little bit issue there as well so you know for me it just says in a lot of different ways the value of black and brown um it says uh it it amplifies uh the fact that we have no voice or our voice doesn't necessarily matter and folks are happy that it was a two or three day um type story and and keep the party moving i mean that's what those institutions were banking on i'm certain um she's happy that you know the wind has blown over but i think we have to be vigilant about this space man we have to be vigilant about this space it might be being quiet it might be yelling about rosalind at this point but they i don't think a lot of people haven't forgotten that and then and then we'll come a time when a report comes out or something happens and this will cycle back so certainly you know our our sector maybe quiet sometimes we don't forget easily um let's cycle that to health um now you guys have had several cohorts um of the of the training uh initiative um that has given extraordinary uh space and platform for presidents to get together and talk for vps to get together and talk um and for other high-level administrators to learn from each other and um really draw on wisdom from this sector and it's very different from places like case and ask you um even ml i which is a good one um you know under charlie nylms and mary syas um but but what's very different is you don't you you this is almost hbcu exclusive and all of the pitfalls and all of the all the triumphs that you know presidents could share and people and administrators could share happen here at health and health has produced some presidents over recent years so it's well on its way to if not already being our premier um training training ground for hbcu presidents now when you look around higher education which is getting a lot of attention um ncda is changing and athletes resources are changing we're also seeing hallelujah issues issues about uh recruitment um and how students get into college how parents can buy their the students weigh into college what what do you do with health when you see with health when you see higher education as an industry changing so quickly and you know that for hbcu this is going to have dramatic repercussions what does that do for the founders for you and george french um and other folks and melvin everybody who helps to shape this program how do you digest all these changes and say now this is what the next cohort is going to need to know man um thank you for the plug brother we uh it's exhaustive right because every day uh several times a day there there are things policies um scandals that are impacting uh the way in which we should be leading um you mentioned ml i ask you case all those places c i c all those places are great um harvard even harvard but i found myself wanting and needing something or right i need i need the best practices but i also need um the duct tape approach um and and i don't mean that we're different and deficient i things just hit a little different at these hbcu they you know we we're servicing a populace that is different in our boards um they govern differently and so people who are coming up and you know this is probably tough to hear but we're we're patriarchal with with respects to the presidency right it's almost i mean you're kind of treated like the pastor um and so if you don't understand the rules you can hurt yourself before you get an opportunity to change and so we're we're really about freshening up things and giving people a look behind the curtain but we also really want to talk about um what it means to be in this space right this is a privilege to be serving at an hbcu because of the mission the way in which these places were founded here like i you can't take lightly hovering around these campuses are nothing but ancestors and the clouds that are whispering and carrying these institutions because there's a whole bunch of dumb stuff that goes on not only at these institutions but others and you think to yourself like how do these places continue to make it it's the ancestors right um but but health is really about strengthening the pipeline and when we started it it was about okay where do we find a place to coalesce around this idea that we're brilliant our institutions are brilliant we want to reverse the brain drain and we want to we want to help people who are committed to being in this space understand that they'll this place will will challenge you and those challenges won't be any different if you fight and go to a pwi right because people are running the institutions so it's not the institutions that are problems it's the people who are doing that and i submit to folk that people are the same everywhere they they might do it a little sneakier they might do it a little more grommier they might be a little more outspoken but at the end of the day lazy people are everywhere and conniving people are everywhere and and by the same token excellent people are everywhere as well we believe that the solution to the challenges in the network the network being hbcu's are right here in the hbcu space we have took a lot of flak about being hbcu century and we don't care like we're not about making money for health we're not trying to monetize health we are seriously about making sure that there's a pipeline that continues to recycle itself and i don't mean bad actors or whatever but just a you know a recycling of fresh um highly skilled transformational leaders from one place to another you leave wily and you go be great at morgan you leave morgan and you go be great at howard uh etc um so the idea is to strengthen the pipeline one number two um we have we've had to recalibrate health um and it is amazing i remember the first time we did health there we had like nine people who um who signed up and paid to come and then we gave out like 16 scholarships because people were like oh that's a black little thing is it health is it health is it is it home like what what is it you know what what what do we what do we come into and um and so i'll never forget by the time the first day alpha cohort left we had almost 30 applications waiting for the beta cohort and we are so um so grateful now that the word of mouth precedes us our reputation precedes us and that we we really don't even like like right now for the capital or we open up the application portal for a month and we've got almost 100 applications of 107 i think it was um for 35 slides and it's just growing but what we've learned there is that we had to split up and take it from just a leadership institute with um without bifurcating to bifurcating so we now have the senior folks the vice presidents and above um chief of staffs and provosts while they're at the same institute we expose them to folks who will help them with that next step and the avp's etc they just go through the regular track which is good with the eye on that next step as well but more so on being great what you're at because i believe the the quickest way to get to where you want to go is to be excellent where you are and you'll get where you want to go really quickly if you keep head down and be great but so we did that the other thing that we had um to recognize so we were getting a lot of applications from people who would just start in their careers and so in january um we're going to be announcing something big that um we think will help us um really shore up the pipeline from the beginning of the pipeline to the end of the pipeline um and that's it i might as well tell you now it's it's going to be an institute for um individuals who are directors and below and and yeah and and and we're that will be called emerge and i think charlotte is where it's going to be um but what we're going to do is simply take the simple notion that when freshman come into um to to to morgan state your alma mater um they're advised they get freshmen their first year experience they are guided through that first year right think about the amount of people who come to hbcu's and the low level management mid-level management space who get no guidance they show up and they tell you here's your job and you're going to do the job you're not indoctrinated into the culture you don't know what to expect you're not told that you know things um they the quorum um how to really grasp the culture how to motivate people to get them to understand if they are in the right place you came in and financial aid but you really should be in student affairs or you know you came in as a recruiter but you should be an advancement help them raise money like we are going to put together an institute that really speaks to professional development for people who are really not even thought about and when we did a study at our own institutions and looked at the turnover most of our turnovers from individuals who've been at our institutions from zero to five years oh yeah constant oh yeah and from people who love the sector who wanted to be there and got absolutely dissuaded by oh my god is this what i read into yeah that's right that's right and so we thought like okay we're talking about the pipeline but we're just talking about the front end of the pipeline we need to address the entire pipeline and i had this sister erica mccray who is um a brilliant sister down at the university of florida she's a um a specialist in higher education i mean um special education and she was helping us with the mission statement for health and she said your mission statement has to be so bold that people think you're crazy and our mission statement is to be the preeminent leadership institute in america that focuses on hbcu's i don't have not one problem with a pwi i went to university for the law school i'm actually at southern methodus university now getting the masses and theology i have a problem with those institutions but they have everything that they need and more my lot on this earth is about hbcu's so i think i have to do my part to make sure that the best and the brightest stay home that they are attracted to where we are and that we help people find agency um while they're while they're practicing their vocation that's our that's our responsibility jared yours too and everybody else who's around here talking about they love hbcu's you love them your job is to make sure that they're around this peace forever right because one of them dies um it hurts all of us it does so so in a nutshell health is a leadership institute five of us have been through health have went on to become presidents we have health by the numbers on our website over 30 folks have risen to the vice presidency um and up to the provost like the beautiful thing about it bro is like it's tribalism now at a cool in a cool way we started out folks the alpha the baby cohort we get somewhere around i think the iota know the eta the eta cohort called themselves the greater eta so they now have a lot and we were going through the pinning ceremony there this is crazy we're going through the pinning ceremony they're like oh no we got to get a lot done like you got a who's number one who's number two these folks were shocking it is hilarious y'all went for y'all went full greek y'all went pledging on them we went pledging on their own self right so it's greater eta then more better theta came out um with and then you got the iconic iota i mean these people like it is so beautiful to watch strangers come into a cohort model and the reason why we only do so many is because we think it is so important for people to have that organic process we have people who are being mentored by presidents now and they do it on their own i'm not assigning a mentor to you that's that's hogwash so fine because you might get you might get with me and i am i'm straight no chaser i'm going to tell you not it is not time for you to be a president right now you think it is but it's not that time if you can't handle that i'm not the right mentor for you i'm not the right sponsor for you right so those things we believe have to happen organically but man let me tell you some these cohort members are employing each other they're bringing each other in um to conduct training for them because there's so many brilliant brothers and sisters in this space man that again the challenges can be met with the solutions right here in the network and we're we're creating you know practitioners and and folks who are um really serious about doing the work and these uh communities of practice are just the folks who are excellent um and so health has really did things that we never thought it would do and we've got to now take it out of the garage and put it in brick and mortars you know we've been running this bug like sunday at nine o'clock we get together me melvin turner who's the chancellor that i'm the vice chancellor at southern university tree port greg d the young brother who has been with me personally from living stone to will before us now at wiley president france down at clark atlanta and president pinkard who is at will before us we get together on a sunday night at nine o'clock we don't interfere with our day jobs we do this work at night job bro and uh we're very passionate about it and committed about it and um we're getting ready to announce a partnership that uh we're finalizing um in any day now um we should be able to go public with it but it's it's going to give us um agency again to really put a stake in the ground and make claim to um to folk that uh training for hbcu's is in good hands uh with us and our new partner let's round out the the conversation with how that kind of training and that kind of camaraderie and coalition manifests on campus right so in the i don't think it's off putting to say the brief tenure at at wiley um you've already done something dramatic this is something that a lot of schools are are examining how to do some of them and launched it uh uh doctor artist at benedict and uh chris brown at kentucky state which is lowering tuition um and for the lay person it would seem counterproductive like right okay we you're going to reduce the cost and that makes sense but how does the school stay open and this is something that you've launched through the wiley cares initiative which doesn't just stop at college affordability and access but it really speaks to retention and continuation or matriculation and how do you really make the most of the collegiate experience at wiley college talk a little bit about wiley cares and how that was developed and what it takes for a leadership infrastructure to do something like that bored and all you know um if you are to pay attention if you say you are paying attention to um the students that you serve then it would be injurious to the institution and the student for us to have um things like hunger after seven o'clock you know our calf clothes is uh we're in a small town and these kids don't have transportation um and you know life is starting at seven o'clock right um so these kids are you know having a completely different day after the seven o'clock hour and now they're trying to figure out what do they eat at so we recognize that not just at wiley but all across america hunger is a problem on college campuses at harvard at at duke at u n c chapel hill and at our hbc use it's you know it's you can pick it up in the chronicle and see it every day so we wanted to address that micro grants we thought about micro loans and we thought well they can't be loans because they don't have money to pay back so are we going to be to a predatory lender and it's hard kids you know it's just right i want a little fifty dollar hundred dollar loans right but kids need um toiletries and they need to be able to wash their clothes um the wash aspect of it is free but detergent is not right so our wash and dryers are free but we have kids who don't have resources uh and and i don't want a broad brush broad brush um our campus these aren't all of them but all of our kids matter so we have to address all of them so we're we're going to be giving out starting in january micro grants that allow kids to you know get a hundred dollars where they demonstrate need um that will help them uh get through i was talking to a kid at dillard who had seventy five dollars they get seventy five dollars on their meal card to buy food extra food in the evening and she was like i still have fifty five dollars i i can make that last the whole semester like i i have my meals and then i have seventy five dollars to go in the bookstore or do this or do that and that put me in a great space of knowing that it doesn't take a lot hundred dollars yeah yeah that that that can stretch um the wise one second stretching for a while so we we have to do that so you have food pantry micro grants to help people uh have some dignity about themselves and and then we we lower tuition so we looked at the data and for us a student from the state of texas who is pale dependent not pale eligible because they're going to take it they they are pale dependent and they get texas money the maximum amount for a freshman is sixteen thousand six hundred dollars with the efc of zero expected family contribution of zero so that means we cannot expect a penny not one great iota to come from their family to help them finance their their education our tuition was twenty one thousand so what we were seeing was this crippling effect of contributing to the crushing debt that students have but more importantly you get through your first semester you got to come back and clear business of finance and we expect you to have four thousand dollars well kind of don't have that so now you have this balance that keeps building up and you pay a little bit off here you pay a little bit off there but you get down to graduation and you've you got twelve to fifteen thousand dollars that you owe the college as well as whatever debt you may have fifteen twenty thousand that you owe the department of education and that's not to mention the penalties that the department of education levies against the school for quote unquote not collecting balances that's the part nobody is very much thank you very much right because your audit the age and accounts receivables will kill you right it will crush you and you carry bad debt just as if you were in your personal space carry bad debt you won't be able to get you know any any decent financing right so it really is about doing our part to crush to eliminate the crushing debt and then the other thing that we're doing is we have this these two other things rather reclamation we are looking at students we had 368 people who left us between 18 and 19 17 18 18 19 who stopped out because of finances and so what we're saying to them since for one year we had to write off all the debt is you can come back to college if you are still an aid available financial aid we will hold that debt and we will liquidate that debt at the end of your career provided you come back to Wiley and graduate so in other words if you dropped out and you got $13,000 we'll let you back in you shouldn't amass that kind of debt anymore because the tuition is lower you should be able to you know meet the need still have some skin in the game the delta between tuition and what they can get is about $900 so we still want you to have some some skin in the game and figure out how you can do how you can close that gap but that gap won't be as it won't be $4,500 every semester so so so you come back you graduate we take that $13,000 and forgive it that's our way of giving people an opportunity to get out of the vicious cycle that we find ourselves in when we don't have the agency of education behind us when we walk into doors and how we can help create stoppage of the vicious cycle as well because most of our students are first generation and then the last thing we're doing is allowing some of our kids they want to work off that debt and so places like physical plan and public safety not work study but giving them an opportunity to make you know eight to ten bucks an hour to come and help do some of the things that would free up our security officers to go do things like go check the dorms or the buildings and classrooms spaces to make sure that a lot or drive a golf cart and give a young lady a ride from one end of the campus to the other you know what I mean things like that giving them an opportunity to work off that debt as well so we're thinking of creative ways to help solve the problem but our kids are screaming in the nation our kids are no different from the nation but this debt makes kids wonder whether or not it's worth it and I submit to anybody across the nation a liberal arts education is well worth the investment you have to reframe the narrative it's not debt it's an investment itself but it's well worth it and it puts you in places simply because you have that ticket that checkboxed allows you to be in the conversation for so many things than if you did not have it and so for that alone I find it to be well worth it and not to mention that you know on average a high school graduate makes a million dollars less over their life than a person who has a policy fantastic stuff bro as as as usual man we appreciate the time before we get out of here please please please plug the the website for health let folks know about the next cycle of applications and where folks can can download and subscribe to the four thoughts of our founders podcast my man thank you Jared first let me let me just say that I appreciate the passion and the advocacy that you deploy and and a lot of times folk may not feel it may not be comfortable to hear what you have to say but you know our our space is not free from criticism but we just have to make sure that we are all it's clear that everybody wants everybody to win so I appreciate your advocacy and both your your keen eye on on what you feel things that should happen and shouldn't happen so I I appreciate that health our website is he leaders he led er s.org our next institute close your ears when you hear this brother but the capitol horse I knew you took too much pride in that one but you know where you started we appreciate the blueprint brother we appreciate that oh rather as one of my helpies would say we appreciate the rough draft don't forget I put y'all pitch up man it was not too long ago I said our camp was our camp was taking all the presidencies and the alpha's got mad at me but you got it you got to tell the truth this dude is so many of y'all man I Roger's mother is you know always let folks know but it is man it might be 15 or 20 alpha presidents man you got this you got to give the credit where it's due to campus I mean I do you know the cues the cues are still short but the cap I mean the cap is a doing a thing I mean you can't you can't you can't really deny it I mean these little brothers yo yeah you know yeah we are we are but the capitol horse will be in December December 12th through the 15th at Wiley College at my college and so I'm really happy about that and the next institute will be in June and we're talking up between Virginia Union and Charlotte so we're not quite sure but we will know in December where the location is but the website and the application will be open the first day of the capitol horde which will be December 12th so again www.atleaders.org and yeah that's that's where it is there man I appreciate the platform and I appreciate you giving me a an opportunity to come and just kick it with you man this is fun and you can find us our podcast on Apple add for thoughts of our founders