¶ Empowering Young Women Through Podcasts
knowing that so many young women use social media so much almost too much , right Like . There's research that shows we spend upwards to five to seven hours a day on social media , but there's also statistics and data showing that so many young women leave the app Instagram and TikTok feeling worse about themselves .
While it can be a helpful tool , can also be really detrimental to the mental health of young people . So it kind of got us thinking of , like how can we create a place online that's so uplifting and so helpful , where you join and then you scroll but you leave feeling better ?
Hey , there , you're listening to the Missions to Movements podcast and I'm your host , dana Snyder , digital strategist for nonprofits and founder and CEO of Positive Equation . This show highlights the digital strategies of organizations making a positive impact in the world . Ready to learn the latest trends , actionable tips and the real stories from behind the feed .
Let's transform your mission into a movement .
Hello , it is springtime and that means I had to bring on a guest to bloom us into the May season , and that is Andy Kay . She's the founder and executive director of the Bloom Foundation . Andy , have you been running the Bloom Foundation since 2017 ? Yes , okay , this is also really fun because I just had my seven year anniversary of my business as well .
Wow , go us , go us . That's great . The seven year itch normally people would say , but I think like it's feeling pretty good , feeling good .
I like that . I do think seven years is a lifetime , you know . However you want to look at it , I do think if you look back at seven years , you've just grown so much . I've always gone by that . But , yeah , congrats to both of us . I love that .
Yes , and by the , time this podcast releases , you will have brought a new life into the world . So it is literally the bloom of new baby and business growing , and that's it's just so exciting . It's such a good time , will you ?
Will you please share with listeners a little bit about yourself and your background , maybe even bring us back seven years ago , to why you created the Bloom ?
Foundation even bring us back seven years ago to why you created the bloom foundation . Yeah , that is so fun , thank you . Yeah , going back seven years is really fun . It's an activity we do in bloom foundation . We do a timeline of our lives . So we do seven years ago , what was life like ? What were your hopes , dreams , fears ?
And then you look at today , what does that look like ? And then you look seven years from now and it's such a fun way I want to do that .
Yeah , I think you should definitely take some time to do that , to journal about it , because the growth again , there's so much that can happen in seven years and also it's not 10 years where you're like , obviously , like in a decade , so many things are going to change and but seven years is just the right amount where you can really , I think , evaluate how
much you've grown . So , side note , but I love the question that you asked back to me because it is fun to do . But , yeah , going back seven years ago , I was really passionate about starting Bloom Foundation because I went through cyber bullying when I was in middle school .
You remember Dial-Up Internet , but there was a website called School Scandals and someone wrote Andy is a loser and started writing all these mean things about me online and it was so confusing to navigate as a middle school student where you're trying to figure out your identity and all of that , and so I really wished back then that I had tools on how to
overcome that , you know , or examples on like how to not let that affect you and your self-esteem too much . So that was kind of growing up and it planted a seed of why I think I should start Bloom Foundation eventually why I think I should start Bloom Foundation eventually .
Yeah , no , that's incredible and that's such a scary and lonely thing to often go through . So , when you did decide , years later , right to create the Bloom Foundation , what do you focus on , natalie ? What's the core mission of the work that you do ?
Yeah . So again , I think there are a lot of anti-bullying programs out there which are definitely helpful , but the core of Bloom Foundation is really to empower and encourage young women to grow and heal and overcome from bullying . So that's learning how to navigate and overcome bullying , and doing it in a safe and supportive space and environment too .
Beautiful . Thank you so much for what you do and I want to say I heard about Andy through LinkedIn and I heard about the work that she was doing with her community led work and knew I wanted to have you come on the show and share it with us .
And you also had something else that you recently launched , which was the bloom podcast , which I'm so excited that you did that and I want to hear all about it because I think other nonprofits might be toying with these two things that I think are pretty progressive and still new in our space to get started launching a podcast and to have community first marketing
. So I want to ask about the podcast first , because obviously I'm a fan about podcasts . Why did you want to launch the podcast , Jo ?
Yeah , yeah .
So , going back , I think I really wish that I could hear other people going through their experiences and what helped them , and just hearing strong women too we just had International Women's Day and just knowing that there are people who can overcome things , and I really wanted to find out what are the kind of principles , practices or maybe people that others have
learned from so that they can give back to the younger generation , and I think that's kind of why I started it . I knew that I wanted those conversations to be accessible and for young women to know that they can grow through what they go through and that they can overcome the challenges that they're going through .
They go through and that they can overcome the challenges that they're going through . Also , I think you know we started our businesses in 2017 , but 2020 threw everyone for such a curveball and we all experienced some level of collective trauma and so but I do think , young women especially it's difficult .
It was just really hard , and so my heart really is to create that safe space and supportive space , and I love the way that podcasts can do that .
It's a really great avenue for listening in and learning and growing together , and so that's where the heart came from for the podcast launch in our first season is all about finding purpose too , because I think it's really important to start there . A lot of times it's hard to feel like you have purpose , especially if you're going through something like bullying .
But just in general right , or maybe even for you thinking back when you were a young teen , I'd be curious actually for you to like how did you find purpose in doing what you're doing now ? I'm just curious about that . You want to share it with me ?
Man I mean middle school man you're really just trying to figure out what like is going on . I feel like those were very awkward years . I was a total nerd . Me too . I loved doing my homework . That's great I would actually go home with a friend of mine and we would write stories and plays like that .
That's what we were , and then I like slowly creeped into like the cool kids club , which got some resistance from my other friends who were like , but those kids are the mean kids .
So it was a really I was actually a very interesting transition because I liked everybody and I wanted to be nice and that's who I was and not be part of this like quote unquote meme club . But they were the cool kids . So I think it was a really interesting transition .
But , honestly , fast forward through high school and college I just always loved volunteering and mission trips and participating in that through church and so I think that was always just like a through line everything that I did .
And then serendipitously , my philanthropy world and marketing all kind of came together when I was in college when I was participating in dance marathon oh yep , I did that and I was on the exec board , yep . And then my degree was in advertising and PR and so they naturally just like blossomed together .
That is so cool . Thank you for sharing . I think that's interesting . I really do , and I think it's cool that college was where it intersected for you and then you kind of went career wise .
Yeah , I didn't know it would end up being my career trajectory at all , but it naturally merged . I want to ask you so is season one of ? Is the podcast called bloom ? It's called how to bloom , how to bloom Okay , so everybody can listen to it . How has it been going so far ?
Like , when you launched it , did you have specific goals for it or were you just testing it ? Like , was there some sort of success metric to say this is working ? Sure .
I think for me it was a little bit of a done is better than perfect mindset that helped me launch it , which I'm really grateful to have , because I think oftentimes you can have these ideas or you know wanting to do it , but it's kind of the measures came after and now we're still building . So we're still in the middle of launching our first season .
They're all recorded and done but I'm curious to see kind of how many plays , listens , downloads we get . I just jumped in to look at and I was very pleased with how many people have actually already tuned in and listened .
But yeah , I think we tried to adopt that done is better than perfect and knowing again , our heart is to help young women and so if we're able to help a few which we've gotten some positive feedback already , then that's great . That's definitely a win . And that's kind of how we or how I do approach when we try new things .
We try to just help the few too that might benefit .
And podcast is , as you mentioned , such a beautiful platform to do that on .
Even this morning , I was going for a run and we have the Chattahoochee river I live in Georgia , right by us , it's like in our neighborhood actually and so we have this like running trail and I was able to run and I just like sat there and like was listening to a podcast , watching the river , and you're not able to do that with a video because you're like
focused on the video . But for a podcast like yours , if you're in a true reflective state and focused on something , you're able to just listen , take in the scenery , put yourself where you want to be in that situation and really reflect , and I think that's amazing . I love , love , love the idea . Everyone go follow the podcast .
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The second thing I wanted to talk about was this journal club that you created in a community first marketing approach . Where did the idea originally stem from ?
So , knowing that so many young women use social media so much almost too much right that so many young women use social media so much almost too much , right ? Like there's research that shows we spend upwards to five to seven hours a day on social media Very true , yes , and it's , we all are scrolling , and .
But there's also statistics and data showing that so many young women leave the app Instagram and TikTok feeling worse about themselves , feeling you know , app Instagram and TikTok , feeling worse about themselves , feeling you know , body image issues have really stemmed from social media comparison , and the US Surgeon General released a report that shows a lot of data about
that . Basically , how social media is , while it can be a helpful tool , can also be really detrimental to the mental health of young people ,
¶ Creating Community With Bloom Foundation
can also be really detrimental to the mental health of young people . So it kind of got us thinking of , like , how can we create a place online that's so uplifting and so helpful , where you join and then you scroll , but you leave feeling better ?
And so this is a place where we're sharing gratitudes and you're posting gratitudes too , so you're not just consuming all of like the social media content that's out there , but you're putting it out there too , and it's gratitude .
I mean , gratitude , as we know , is just the best way to cheer yourself up and to know that you have so much to be appreciative for , so we share gratitudes there . And then there's also this practice called Rose , thorn and Bud . Have you heard of that ? No , okay , cool . It's a good reflective tool .
So you share and this is what we do on the podcast too , to start it off . But it , rose is something good , thorn is something challenging , and then Bud is something that you are looking forward to . Oh , I love that . Yeah , it's a good check-in tool for anybody . I do it with my husband too .
We just did it last night for like the week , and it's really helpful tool .
That's a good reset , for sure , and you decided to create this community . Is it for the girls that you're serving , or can outside people join too ?
Yeah , good question . So right now it's for the girls that we're serving . We're also doing a college woman leadership kind of program . They're going through our community , but I just attended the Nonprofit Marketing Summit and listening to the Community First Marketing Session . We do want to also invite our monthly givers to have like a space there too to participate .
We might open it up too , but we definitely want to focus on young women and having it be a really safe yes , I think that's beautiful and you decided to use Circle .
Can you talk through looking at other platforms and why you ended up selecting that tool ?
Yeah , definitely Circle stood out . There are definitely other platforms you can use , but we really enjoy Circle for how user-friendly it is , how easy it was to kind of set up all these spaces and then customize it , brand it too . You can make it look like your space , which I really appreciate .
It was just a really simple process and the founders of Circle were really helpful in the beginning . They would hop on a call with us and answer our questions . I know they were so nice . They hold office hours .
There's a lot of like professional development opportunities within circle If you're a member , meaning you have your own platform , and so it does feel like a community within a community . I really enjoyed that .
That's very cool . Okay , did you even consider other ones ? I know like mighty networks is popular . Other ones pop up .
I've looked into them , but I think Circle just definitely stood out by far , and we've been really happy with them too .
Awesome For other people considering community first , marketing and creating something like this . How did you invite or market the community and get girls to actually like , sign up and then be engaged ?
Yeah , good question . It's a learning process too . But one cool thing we did we had ambassadors previously . Girls go through our ambassador program , so we basically just reached out and said , hey , we're doing this again , Do you want to be a part of it ? So we kind of relied on their support and then asked them to invite one or two people that they know .
So it was a helpful way to re-engage our participants of our previous program and say we're doing this again and we would love your help . And then they also , I think , are feeling ownership too , which is exciting . So it's been a cool way to empower leaders to help us grow too and not have it just be on us .
How many people are in the group so far we ?
have 10 lead ambassadors , but in the group so far we have about 35 .
Nice , and then do you curate the content , or is it more peer-to-peer led ? What's the actual ? Hosting or community-led engagement ?
A lot of it's kind of user-generated , I would say . So we have a space for gratitude so you can just pop in there and share it . So it's kind of peer-to-peer there and engage there . And then a Rose , thorn and Bud and then we're doing journal clubs which will be peer-to-peer and so college students will help lead our journal clubs .
It'll be about 40 minute sessions where we go through a rose , thorn and bud and then we'll journal together , do some curated journal prompts We'll have like a theme of the month too and then kind of focus on that and then they'll close out by asking like , what are you learning ?
And so , yeah , there'll be like fun journal clubs going on and then we may invite also some guest therapists to do some expert led sessions and more educational content in there .
Very cool , so good . I love it , just basically like seeing how it goes right and like testing out different things , kind of . Exactly , you mentioned this journal club , which I want to go back to . So you created a physical balloon journal , right , yeah , okay , so that's awesome . I love organizations that have a product . I think that's really fun .
What was the production of the journal like and what makes it uniquely like a Bloom Foundation Journal ?
Yeah , okay , that's cool . We also love our journal too . It's our signature how to Bloom Journal . We started it as a curriculum actually , so we created eight lessons on how to overcome bullying , grow through what you go through , and a lot of those lessons kind of similar to how you were talking about your college days .
A lot of the lessons came from my college days as well , of helping others or being able to take your eyes off yourself and your own suffering and see how you can help and benefit the world , which I think is so important . But anyways , so we collected these lessons and we put them in a journal . I had a licensed therapist help co-create this with me too .
She reviewed it , added input , added all these like journal prompts too that were a little bit more helpful in terms of , like cognitive behavioral therapy , and so we made that journal and then I had a designer make it really pretty and then from there we put it on Amazon , and so it's available on Amazon where you can buy it and it'll come to you like two
days later , which is really fun .
Okay , so I have to know all the details of the back end of this . If somebody is like , oh my gosh , we might want to do something like this from ideation , I can buy it on Amazon . How long did that take ?
That's a good question . There's been iterations , but I would say if you had this idea today and then you wanted to have it on Amazon , then it would take three months . You could do it in 90 days , yeah .
Oh my goodness . Okay , how did you find your designer ? I ?
honestly , can't even remember Her name's , jess . I'm happy to share her contact information . It may be Instagram . It could have been Instagram . I could have seen her work on Instagram , yeah .
Okay , very cool . And then the actual format . I know there's so much that goes in , like you had to pick the page thickness and font and all those things .
Right you do , but the designer takes care of the fonts , all like those things , but then you can have input . But I really trusted her . She did an amazing job of like the vision to creation process .
As far as like paper thickness , if you want to do on Amazon , you don't have too much choice , but it's okay because they also do , I think , a good job of publishing and printing . So I think if you trust you know these , then it can go faster .
But yeah , I would say content would be probably the biggest piece is like getting the content together might take you a little time but depending on where you're at in the process , you might have a lot of content and it might just be a matter of putting that together or packaging it Right and then formatting it into a format that Amazon accepts .
That also took a little bit of time because they're a little bit picky about the specific formatting , which I'm not excelled in , and my designer had to go back and forth a couple of times to get it right .
Cool . And then if you wanted to order , if you wanted to order bulk for a program , you would just do that through yes .
Okay , you can order author copies . That's what they call it .
Okay , yeah , that's very exciting , andy . I am so excited to see the continuous community first led marketing approach that you're having . I mean , I just think , the podcast , all these things that you're testing and growing within your organization .
I like to wrap with a couple of questions , and one is what is one thing that you would like to ask for help or support on from the community ?
Great question , I think . If you're listening and you want to follow along , definitely follow us on Instagram . We share a lot of content on there and we'll be sharing more about our official launch , which is in May , for our Bloom Club and we would love for you to share it out .
Share it with someone you know who might really benefit from that , so that would be amazing . So definitely follow us along on it's bloom foundation . One word on Instagram .
Awesome . The bloom club . Is that the official community ? Yes , okay , and I did want to tell you mentioned earlier that you have a monthly giving program . How can people get involved with that ?
Yeah , go to our website hellobloomorg and you'll click the donate button . There are opportunities to join our monthly giving program . We would love that Beautiful .
And then , where's the best place for people to connect with you ?
Yes , so either our website , hellobloomorg , or Instagram at Bloom Foundation , and then our podcast again is how to bloom , and it's available on Apple podcasts and Spotify .
Awesome . I'm going to have to have you back in like six months from now to hear how it's going . That would be awesome Thank you so much for sharing all this with us today and have an amazing bloom month of May .
I love that . Thanks , dana .
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