Why a podcast? Why now?

Podcasts are popular right now. From podcast companies being bought up by larger companies to your favorite cousin talking about their hobby, everyone seems to be talking about podcasting. Why is that? Part of the reason is that nearly one-quarter of Americans listen to podcasts weekly. But it’s more than that too. Podcasts are a unique medium for telling a story, connecting with an audience in a meaningful way, and creating quality, engaging marketing content.

That’s why TechBridge is starting a podcast. We have a mission to end generational poverty through the innovative use of technology. And we have a story to tell. Our story begins here. Thank you for joining us on the journey!

Transcript
Adam Walker:

If you're like most Americans you've listened to a podcast or two, in fact, you've probably listened to one in the last month or less podcasts are a great way to tell stories, learn and engage with organizations at a deeper level. That's why tech bridge is bringing our mission to end generational poverty to the podcast arena. We're going to tell our story and the stories of so many people doing work around our four pillars, hunger relief, homeless support, social justice, and workforce development. On Techbridge talks. You'll get to know our board staff customers and the community leaders that are pushing boundaries, pursuing good and working to end generational poverty today's episode serves as a prequel to the podcast. Let's set up in a sense. And this episode, Nicole Armstrong, the CEO of tech bridge will chat with Adam Walker. That's me. Techbridge's CMO about podcasts marketing and how it all helps tech bridge in the cycle of generational poverty. Okay. Let's get started with the show. Hi, and welcome to the first episode of tech bridge talks a podcast about ending generational poverty with the innovative use of technology today, Nicole, our CEO and I are going to talk about what the podcast is and why we're doing

Nicole Armstrong:

Fantastic. Well, I'm so glad to be here and I'm excited about this, this podcast series. And today's going to be a little unusual though, because I get to interview Adam. Moving forward, Adam will be welcoming all types of guests to the show, but today he's the guest. So I want to talk to Adam A. Little bit about why we're doing this.

Adam Walker:

Yeah. So so I'll start off by, by saying, first of all, part of the reason is that I'm, I'm a little bit of a podcast fanatic, but that's not really the only reason I, so I believe that podcasts are one of the most underutilized marketing platforms. And, and what I mean by that is we can have amazing conversations with profound and interesting people. And then we can take those conversations about that, or that are on, on mission that are about our mission and about our pillars, which we'll talk about in a minute and we can take those and we can push them out as a podcast. And then we can also use them to improve our SEO on our website. And then we can use them for social posts and we can use them for videos on YouTube. And so really what happens is we're going to use the podcast to leverage it for solid and amazing marketing content that will help to raise the entire ship all with really simple interviews that we'll do on a regular basis that will be meaningful and impactful.

Nicole Armstrong:

And it's so smart to do that, but who do you think will reach and what do you really, as we, as you and I kind of about this, what, what do you think the impact of the work that we'll be doing? What will that impact be? Yeah,

Adam Walker:

I love that question. Right. So so who do we want? We want to reach everybody, I guess, but, but that's a, that's a bit of a pipe dream. I know. So no, we want to reach people that care about the mission. Right. And it's really as simple as that. And I think, and I think honestly, that's probably a large majority of people that, and I think, I think more people care than, than even would verbalize it themselves. Right. So I think if you go up to a random person on the street and you say, Hey, do you care about ending generational poverty? I think the answer would, would thoughtfully be yes, they probably do. And maybe they've just never thought about it before. And so what we want to do is we want to put that question in front of people. We want to help them understand that this is what we do.

Adam Walker:

We are using technology to end generational poverty, honestly, with the vision of doing it in our lifetimes. And so do you care about that individual? And if the answer is yes, which I think it will be, then we're going to produce content that matters to you and to each of those people that would say yes. So if you're, if you're listening to this now, I think you probably do care about ending generational poverty, right. But I think the average person probably cares too. And we want to create content that will impact them and help them understand what this is about and how they can take next steps.

Nicole Armstrong:

That's awesome. So

Adam Walker:

Also this is sort of coming as, you know, a new phase in the life of tech bridge. So you've been at tech bridge. I think if memory serves about a year and a half and in a lot has changed with COVID and, and, and otherwise, and, and very much for the good. And so I'd really love for you to tell us, like, where are we headed? I know there's a larger announcement coming. Maybe you want to tease that just a little bit. And then what's the vision for the long-term

Nicole Armstrong:

Two great questions. I'll say force that as you said, Adam, I think everyone wants to break the cycle of generational poverty. I think what's interesting about what tech bridge does is we add these other two words to it, with innovative use of technology. Well, four parts to it. And so I think for a long time, folks are wondering what the heck does that mean? What does that mean? So I'll talk a little bit about what that means in a minute, but just to kind of go back to your point about a bigger announcement. I think it has been probably an overused term, but the term two dot O but we're really kind of looking at tech bridge to data and how can we take the tremendous amount of 20 years, two dot O of, of services and solutions that we've delivered? How can we help more people?

Nicole Armstrong:

And so we'll talk a little bit about it as part of our big announcement at our digital ball, digital ball, 2021 on May 18th at five 30, starting at five 30, but the actual show will start at six 30, but you'll hear more about what tech bridge to Datto is all about. But just but, but that's kind of why I get excited is how do we start to make sure that people understand what breaking the cycle of poverty through the innovative use of technology? What does that mean? And then how will tech bridge kind of take things to the next level and level up to get that work done?

Adam Walker:

You know, Nicole, one thing that I love, you know, I I've known of tech bridge for probably eight or nine years, and I, and I've, I've known previous CEOs of the organization as well. And what I've loved to see if, if I look back across that span is, you know, tech bridge started out with this very, very, very broad focus of like, we're just going to help nonprofits with technology. Like it's simple as that, and it's gotten narrower and narrower and narrower. And I think what you've done in the, in the short time you've been here is now it's, we're getting hyper-focused right. Not like not just focused, but real focused. And I love that. And so I'd love for you to talk about, you know, we've mentioned the mission of tech bridge, which is break the cycle of generational poverty through the innovative use of technology, but you've also helped us to focus more by creating pillars that, that, that are sequential, that we sort of break that down into. So can you walk me through those pillars and what that means?

Nicole Armstrong:

Sure. And so just to, so just to kind of double click on the fact that we are really hyper-focused, if we kind of go back to your comment that we were helping all nonprofits and we love nonprofits, we love the idea of being able to tool nonprofits with technology. And about five to six years ago, we refreshed our mission and we wanted our mission to be focused on breaking the cycle of generational poverty. And so what we've said was, okay, well, if that's what we want to do, then let's focus our efforts on providing technology solution to nonprofits that are focused on breaking the cycle of poverty. And we'd like to call them poverty alleviating non-profits. And so, as we think about poverty, we really look at poverty and poor key areas, and I'm sure there are more, but the big four areas that we find that impoverished communities faced are number one, an issue of hunger and food insecurity.

Nicole Armstrong:

So our first pillar is hunger relief. The second is homelessness and families that are experiencing homelessness. We know that COVID has amplified and made this a really, really big issue. And so we to make sure that we're helping nonprofits that are helping families that are experiencing homelessness to be more productive through the use of technology so that they can reach those constituents. So our second pillar is homeless support. Third, and I mean, you have to be living underneath the rock if you don't know that the social justice is a big conversation in the nation today. And we are really kind of focused on helping organizations that are carrying the flag towards equal justice to make sure that we provide them with efficacy in the way that they deliver those services. So, so justice, justice, or replatform our pro bono portal, we're high we're the best of the best attorneys donate the time, our ability to facilitate that is an example of what we're doing in our social justice pillar.

Nicole Armstrong:

And then finally and it's been interesting because I think most people, when they think about tech bridge, they think about our technology career program. And when, when I say, wait, there are lots of other platforms and solutions that we're delivering. They they're always amazed. And so that just goes to show the impact that our technology career program has has had on the community. And so that kind of tethers itself to our workforce development pillar and that pillar not just offers our technology career program, where we're taking the tech part that we love so deeply and providing those skills to the underserved community and helping to provide digital skills, upskills. Re-Skilling all of the Skillings with the, with the preceding pronouns in front of it. So, so just to bring that all together, tech bridge has four pillars and those four pillars are hunger relief, homeless support, social justice and workforce development.

Adam Walker:

That's right. That's right. And I love how you mean. I think as you mentioned, it's a progression, right? We can't really, we can't begin dealing with social justice if people don't have food and they don't have shelter, right. We can't, we can't deal with, with workforce development if people don't have that.

Nicole Armstrong:

And if they don't have, if they, if they aren't able to eat it, they don't have some place to live where they get dressed to go to work. So all of these pieces kind of knit themselves together, and that is our focus at tech bridge.

Adam Walker:

Wow. I love, I love that. I mean I'm proud to be a part of the vision. I'm proud to work in these pillars and if you're listening I'm proud that you're here with us and you're joining us on this journey because it's not something that, that tech bridge does. It's something that we do together. We are together. Well, Nicole, this has been amazing. I guess we'll, we'll start to wrap up here. Do you have any final thoughts that you want to share with our first episode listeners? Yes,

Nicole Armstrong:

I, well, first of all, I'm really excited for you to host these a series. I know this is near and dear to your heart, Adam, and I'm excited myself to hear the voices of tech bridge that you bring to the table, whether they are tech bridge board members in our board talks, whether it's the voices of tech bridge from the team that we have for our customers and our sponsors that make this work possible. So, so thank you for agreeing to do this. Adam, I'm looking forward to hearing the magic that you've pulled together. When you talk to the folks that support us

Adam Walker:

Well, it's an honor and a pleasure and to our listeners that are here, thank you for listening day and stay tuned for the next episode. That's coming soon.