Alli Gannett

Jason Miller  00:00

Hey, welcome. My name is Jam at Peaceful Media, and you are in season two of marketing for what matters. I am really thrilled that you’re here, and I can’t thank you enough for all of your views and support and comments and subscribers that have joined peaceful media over the last season of episodes for marketing, for what matters. So the original purpose, this could be a little bit different than our normal preamble for a an episode. And I hope you’ll bear with me, because I think this is a pretty neat story about how Peaceful Media’s life, life timeline overlaps in a unique way with World forestry center, who is the featured guest here on episode number 16 of season two of marketing for what matters. The original purpose for this podcast was to really explore how peaceful media can be greater contributors to the global efforts to heal the planet. So the original purpose of this podcast was to explore how we, as in peaceful media, the agency, can be greater contributors to the global efforts to heal the planet. Our mission, since 2008 has always been to love more, play more and do more good. And there was this really poignant moment in the winter of 2023 where we recognize that we may be loving and playing more, we have really neat culture, and clients we’re serving are just flat out awesome, uplifting humanity. But when it comes to taking on something that concerns us deeply, which is climate change and building a regenerative business, we weren’t doing quite enough. And so that self awareness inspired us to find world class leaders and thinkers who could help us figure out how to execute a triple bottom line business philosophy. And the cool part is we did. We found lots of world class thinkers, think tank experts, policy makers, Fortune 100 company leaders, C suite, academics, people leading university sustainability efforts and sustainable MBA programs. So it was an amazing season one, especially since it was just an idea just nine months ago. So I hope you’ll watch our season one recap episode where you’ll hear more about each of the host, insights and highlights and and you’ll see a link to that episode right above my head, here, right here or here. But with this first episode of season two, you’re going to experience already a few new, exciting features that we believe will upgrade not only the quality of the production, but also the value that we’re able to provide in exchange for your time watching this material, and that will look like a practical double click segment In many of our episodes that you can click into by way of the little annotations here in YouTube, and you can double click to or in the show notes, by the way, you can click into to go and explore how to tactically set up some things that we want to do on behalf of our interview guests or in partnership with our interview guests, And sometimes those are our clients right there. There’s a client that needs something that may be of value for those of you who are watching, and we hope that you’ll use that to elevate and expand your regenerative business and do more good in the world as well. So those are going to be tactical education pieces that you can click into. They’re called the double click segment. Without further ado, I do want to introduce this episode’s very special guest, Alli Gannett, who is the communications director for the world forestry center. They’re a Portland based nonprofit that’s been around for decades, and yet, and I grew up here in Portland, and yet, I had never even heard of that until we started doing some research on who we’d like to feature in our podcast first season two, and which is really odd and and somewhat telling right about world forestry centers, ability to get that message out there to people like me. Would love to take kids, my kids too to learn more about how humans and forests can interact and heal together. It happens to be right next to the Portland Zoo. Right across the parking lot was this center, this museum, this ode to forests that I didn’t know existed. So that’s going to come up in the episode, and we’re going to figure out some ways, by way of our conversation, as well as the double click segment, that we can help world forestry center and other nonprofits like them expand awareness and get more feet and hopefully wallets through the door so that they can raise funds. Right if you know Peaceful you know that we love our trees. And we also love our hugging. And sometimes the those two passions come colliding beautifully and and become one, and which makes us bona fide tree huggers here, for the most part, not everybody is a tree hugger, you know, but many of us are but the story of the peaceful media and our connection to world forestry center goes beyond our mutual love and respect for trees actually involves a deep sense of plates. You see, peaceful media was founded in the forested backyards of world forestry Center’s campus in a place called Washington Park is sprawling urban adjacent literally walk up from downtown Portland, and you’re in this beautiful natural area where you can find Portland’s International Rose Garden Arboretum. That’s incredible, if you ever come and visit, and also the city zoo, like I mentioned, if you looked closely back in 2008 2009 2010 when peaceful media was just getting off the ground, you might have noticed me sitting underneath some cedar trees. I was designing logos and writing copy and closing my eyes and meditating about how this nascent company called peaceful media could make a difference in the world, make a positive difference. And so as I walked in to the world forestry Center campus to meet with Ali, I was struck with gratitude. Was struck with awe at how far we’ve come as an agency, and how passionate I am, and know I speak on behalf of many of our team. We are about this mission to not only uplift humanity, but also to heal this planet, one step, one tree, and one opened mind at a time. So with all that said, thank you so much again, sincerely from the team here at Peaceful Media, especially those who are hosting these episodes with as a labor of love. We appreciate you joining us for Marketing for What Matters, and we hope that you’ll subscribe and join us for a very exciting and practically enriching season. To you. Let’s dive in.

Jason Miller 07:30ish :p

So, Alli, you’re gonna see me up here with my daughters very soon. And they’re gonna, I know exactly what’s gonna happen when they get to the store, which is perfectly placed as we walk in, they’re gonna be like, Oh dad, Oh, Oh dad, Oh, Dad, Oh, Dad, Oh, I love this mug. Dad, oh, they have Sasquatch. Dad, Oh, I love this big bendy thing. Dad, Dad, can I buy this? Oh, and, and, look, Ally designed this. Ally designed that, right? So they’re gonna be all over this stuff, and you’re gonna cost me at least $100 per drain. So that’s great. That’s what we want to do. One product

 

Alli Gannett  08:04

placement that works. There’s also we have what’s really fun is, like a big foot search, yeah, that you can find a big footing. Yeah. I love kind of fun things like that that will just kind of engage people. Have you

 

Jason Miller  08:19

ever thought about doing like a kids contest, like to create the best short form video center?

 

Alli Gannett  08:30

We do have this idea that I wanted to try out, which is a Douglas for Appreciation Day, which is really fun because it’s our state tree, and we already work with one organization to do tours, kind of educational tours, where you come here, it’s part of Everything’s Included within mission. You come in, you learn a little bit about something, and then you go on a hike, like a guided hike. And so one of them in December was, is going to be around Douglas firs. And so I was like, Well, I really have this idea of doing a Douglas for appreciation day. Yeah, that’s just marketing. We don’t need to do any more programming. But to do anyone whose name is Doug or Douglas or fur or Ferguson gets in for $1 so it’s $1 dug

 

Jason Miller  09:24

day. Oh, cute, yeah, you know what else is cute going down this light. Have fun. Okay, head first. Are you sure this thing is safe? Hi, I’m Jason.

 

Nicole  09:41

I’m Fran. This is Bill Peter, and I’m Nicole. And this is marketing for what matters, where we explore how marketing paired with a regenerative mindset can uplift humanity, heal the planet, and still achieve profitable business growth.

 

Jason Miller  09:51

Hey, Welcome to Season Two of marketing for what matters. I’m GM at peaceful media, and I am joined by my lovely guest. Is Alli Gannett, and we’re at the World forestry center. And Alli, my first question for you, I already know part of the answer, which is, you know what drew you to work with this wonderful organization, and I’m assuming the venue and the space and just the vibe here is a big part of it. And we’re going to do a whole tour the facility here very shortly, but I want to know what your role is here at the World forestry center, and then tell me more about what drew you here.

 

Alli Gannett  10:29

Yeah. So I’m the Communications Director, and within my role, I oversee kind of everything from strategic communications, internally and externally. I also do marketing, advertisements and social media, video, oversee any sort of graphic work for our exhibits, both kind of the internal when you come to our Discovery Museum, and also external. For advertisement, I also work with our development team to create collateral for donors or annual appeals. We have a print magazine that goes out three times a year called the Evergreen. And then, if that wasn’t enough, I added a monthly newsletter onto my plate that kind of shares what we’re doing with the programs and kind of our mission?

 

Jason Miller  11:21

Yeah, I think in our conversations, we hatched up two or three new initiatives too that we can assign to you, because you are the one person who’s running communications for a major nonprofit here in Portland, Oregon, yeah, yeah, who is doing fantastic work. And I kind of want to bring our audience in to better understand what is the mission here at World forestry center? What do you would imagine your impact is on society and the forests that surround this wonderful city? Yeah, so

 

Alli Gannett  11:50

world forestry center, we see ourselves as a social change organization, which we strive to empower through events and experiences. People to care about forest, make forests a social priority, in order to then have sustainable a sustainable forest future, which is the ecological, economical and the social benefit of forests that is wholly represented in the way people vote, the way people spend their money, the way people talk about forests and and really, just to kind of build up that public and societal knowledge and understanding of how inter related humanity and society are with forests and have been forever. There’s, there’s, you know, stories upon stories, epic upon epic tales of the integration between humans and forests. And that’s that manifests itself through the way people, especially here in Portland, like see themselves as a as this forestry culture. It’s part of industry. It’s part of policies that can be made to make sure that our forests are are still around and still being beneficial to all of us, and that we are beneficial to forests,

 

Jason Miller  13:14

right? I was telling you beforehand, as I were parking here, we’re right next to the Portland zoo, which we’re members of, gotten two daughters. We’re constantly at the zoo. And when the Children’s Museum was open, we were there as well. And oh my gosh, where is World forestry center? I, I know I’ve been up there, I’ve parked in the parking lot, but I’ve never actually known that this exists. Yeah, right. I’ve never been in here. And once I actually took some time to look at it. Maybe it’s we’re hustling and bustling getting kids ready to go into the zoo. But once I took a look at the exterior and the space that you guys have created in this museum, I’m like, Why have I not a been here and B heard of it? So you have a major challenge. I know you’re like, new to the marketing communications role, so you know it’s there’s all sorts of opportunities for you to get this story out here. How do you think about marketing the world forestry

 

Alli Gannett  14:15

center? Yeah, so there’s a lot there, because I like to think of world forestry centers, and our campus, which is five and a half acres, which is kind of, you don’t think about that when you when you drive up, you think of it maybe a couple buildings. So some people have been onto our campus, maybe for a wedding, or they came here for an event. We host festivals here, so they’ve been to those spots. Our Miller Hall, Cheatham Hall, we have this beautiful Plaza, or they’ve come to the museum, and they’ve been here back in the 70s, where there was the talking tree, which is a really kind of iconic moment here in Portland. I see ourselves here as this hidden gem that’s in its process of being polished. Right? So that we have this opportunity. There’s been a forestry Center in Portland since 1905 with the Lewis and Clark exposition. It was the largest log cabin at the time, and then that burned down in the 60s. And what was that was actually down by the old Montgomery Park, I recently realized. And what was replaced and moved was up here in Washington Park, which is a beautiful location, right at the tip of Forest Park. And we’re privileged to be with the Oregon Zoo and the Japanese garden and white Arboretum is like right there behind us, and the rose the International Rose Test Garden, and to be a part of that vibrant community, we moved we moved up here in the 70s and built this campus and this building by the architect John stores, who’s like a famous Portland modern architect, very iconic. The the wood beams, the stone flooring, but we’re up on a hill, and it’s one of those moments when you’re driving up, you know, there’s a huge parking lot in between the zoo and our museum. So we’ve, we’ve really had to make it worth the trip.

 

16:17

We’re over here exactly. Hey, hey,

 

Jason Miller  16:19

no, I think that’s what we need, actually, the new marketing director is to get one of

 

Alli Gannett  16:26

those giant, like, inflatable, like, used cars. That’d be great. No, I have a joke with some of the folks down at the zoo that I really want to do, like, a strategic marketing where it’s like, no, the zoo’s across from us, like, because we’re so known as, like, people like, Oh, are you the place from across the zoo? It’s like, across from us. Yeah, they’re just ironic and hilarious. But so we’ve been really, you know, driving efforts to be like, Okay, well, we need reasons for people to rethink what, what is that building up there? And it’s also, you know, kind of looked like a little temple on a hill, which piques curiosity. So, very simple marketing, of advertisement, of like, we’re here, we’re open, yeah, this is where we’re at. We’re part of this community has been key. And,

 

Jason Miller  17:16

you know, the problem is, though, what, there are too many trees blocking the exterior, maybe we should cut them all

 

Alli Gannett  17:23

like, not a great look. We should get more. We need, you know, we need one of those. An inflatable tree would be inflatable

 

Jason Miller  17:31

tree would be okay. But then we’re kind of, like, investing in the plastic. Maybe, yeah, maybe there’s like a trailer scavenger hunt with little footprints like you have in some of your exposition expositions and expositions, exhibits, yeah, yeah, your experiences, yeah, yeah. And better than an exhibit, an experience like little footprints to guide people up, yeah? So

 

Alli Gannett  17:55

we, I mean, we’ve done some really fun you know? We’re, I feel like we’re in this process of experimenting, which is really exciting, especially as a marketer. I mean, I came on in January, so I’ve been here for 10 months, and a lot of my work has been part learning, because I’m not I don’t have background in forestry, and so learning the language, which is essential for a communicator, but then also part of that is okay. Where are the opportunities that we can we can do something to draw more attention, whether it’s to our event venue, to our location, or just to our mission, which is like, because I’m a firm believer that if people believe in the mission of your work, they’re going to show up.

 

Jason Miller  18:45

Yeah, yeah, which, I don’t know if I had this in my my list of questions, but I am kind of curious, when you kind of look at your annual goals as as the communications director, like, what does your executive director say? Like, hey, this is these are the three or five things, or even one thing that is most important to us. So imagine donations, contributions, people investing in this space and your mission, it’s got to be one, yeah. But like any nonprofit, you know, what else stands up to you? And what are you tracking? Um,

 

Alli Gannett  19:21

really important things would be highlighting our programs and events and really getting those to new audiences, yeah, foot traffic, yeah, um, attendance, so that you know that comes in sharing and RSVPs and all of that. But also, am I reaching out to to local whether it’s local news or influencers or just other community partners, and saying like, hey, there’s potential to collaborate, or there’s potential for for cross marketing, all of those buzz words that we basically like, help me. Me, help you. Help me, basically. And so that was one, and then also just kind of the enhancement of the brand and the storytelling. And you know, really knowing we have a couple different audiences that we we cater messages to. And so how can we cohesively tell a story that is shared in different ways, that resonates with so many different people, because everyone has a story with the forest. You know, whether it’s a good story or a bad story, whether it’s a peaceful story or a scary story, that that, from a marketing standpoint, is leverage to connect as an opening.

 

Jason Miller  20:45

So this is one of the things we’ve set out to do with marketing. For what matters is to figure out how to communicate very complex and sometimes sticky, not sticky, but just polarized ideas and concepts. Not everybody believes that the reason why climate is changing is because of human activity, etc, etc. You know, there’s very strong opinions in science, by the way, science on the whole topic. And yet we can all witness go out to any grove of trees, and we can all witness that our trees and our forests are really suffering myriad reasons, population growth and sprawl gotta be a big one. The catastrophic wildfires, and as we were talking about earlier, policies that were instituted, sometimes centuries ago, sometimes just decades ago, are now manifesting into a really dire situation. And so I’m curious how you think, and how the organization thinks about communicating these very challenging and complex ideas

 

Alli Gannett  21:57

and sensitive ideas.

 

Jason Miller  21:57

That’s good work.

 

Alli Gannett  22:01

There’s this sense of ownership that people have with forests, which is good, and whether it’s literally land ownership or it’s this kind of moral responsibility to tend to a forest, even if you don’t have actual like, pen on paper ownership, and that’s, that’s something that is really essential, of, like, a core kind of human understanding of, like, why we’re on this earth. And which is something that I really kind of connected with your message, is we all have that kind of inkling in ourselves to say, like, well, you know, we need to protect and what does that? What does that mean? And what we’re seeing a lot of these changes in the world, you know, I think we talked earlier about there needs to be this kind of new understanding of what time is, and a relearning and especially within forest, because we operate as humans, probably within, like, a decade mindset, whereas forests really operate in a century mindset. And that’s something that foresters, ecologists, landowners, they know this kind of mentality, but that’s not something that general public really knows. It’s not something I kind of thought of. And so what we’re seeing, especially with around policies or some of the some of the issues that we’re facing, are a result of decisions made about the forests from centuries ago, or something like these catastrophic wildfires being a result of the suppression of fire, mainly back in the mid century, and that causing, you know, not having prescribed burns with relationship of thinning to create these resilient forces forests are resulting in these mega fires that We’re seeing. I mean, this yesterday, which would be late October, the Oregon Department of Forestry announced the end of wildfire season, and I had been tracking this because, again, I never thought about wildfires. Being a girl from Maryland was never something that I really thought of until moving here, and then even more so, being in this job, there was 1.9 million acres burned in Oregon alone this year, this wildfire season. To put that into context, last year, there was under 300,000 acres 2020, which is the year that everyone kind of thinks of as like the worst wildfire season, 1.2 million, or roughly around there, 1.3 maybe million, 1.9 million this year, this year, 1.9 Yeah, and you see it. If anyone who flies out of you know PDX and flies over eastern or Southern Oregon, you see these, these wildfire clouds that live. Look like ripples in the ocean, but it’s smoke, and that is like a really unsettling thing, but that is done by decades of disservice to a forest too. And so what we see as kind of our driving force, we see ourselves in this radical middle right between kind of extreme ends. And so we see ourselves as like, there’s, there is an essential need for forest management that involves more people than just what we call tree people, right? There’s tree people who have talked to tree people being people who have had this long term, often economic interest in forests. That’s been that kind of echo chamber for so long. And what we see this is why we call ourselves that social change organization. So we see that conversation needs to be broken open, and we’re those people who are helping to break that conversation open, to expand forestry conversation to involve people from the public health sector, because more people are dying from wildfire smokes smoke every year than they are from, like, other health issues. I think, I don’t know the exact number, but there’s like 30,000 a year. Yeah, it’s become a thing. It’s become a thing. I mean, people in New York City, once you get being east coast, you know, once you get New York’s mind or their attention button, it becomes, we

 

Jason Miller  26:29

save trees. Yeah, exactly. So, how do we not die from smoke? How

 

Alli Gannett  26:32

do you not Yeah, how do you get it to the point where you, you know, you feel comfortable outside there’s you’re not having to check whether or not you need to wear a mask outside because of smoke from wildfires that are in a different country, involving the public health, involving real estate, because so much of affordable housing can be done with mass timber, which not only is Beautiful, produces less carbon emissions than concrete and steel, and is personally esthetically beautiful, although deep down, I am a brutalist architecture girl, so I have some, yeah. I’m like, well, mass timber can also be kind of like brutalist too, with its sharp edges. But there’s something that is beneficial to your body when you are surrounded by wood, it’s internally or externally. Of course, externally you go out, you have oxygen that immediately reduces your anxiety, your tension. You can breathe clear. You have better dreams when you sleep in the woods. So, yeah, building, bringing in affordable housing experts, policy makers, energy utilities and so we see that work of breaking that open. We’re we’re in the second year of a pilot with a fellowship program of bringing all of these experts in their field together to focus on wildfire, yep, and empowering them, helping them learn, and then helping them to empower to make their own plans. Because again, there has to be this, like ownership. We have that need to care for, and so when we utilize that need, you’re going to get people who actually do something about it, because they have that kind of empowerment and drive. So we see it kind of that role. I don’t even remember your question, but I see like that, kind of our role of this, this middle of bringing so many just, not only just breaking open that kind of timber wars storyline or that, that conversation, but breaking it open even more to be like, well, it’s not just a this or that. It’s actually all need to be involved in this.

 

Jason Miller  28:53

Okay, so you’re playing this like this, this person who bring this, both sides of this very thorny issue together, right the whatever the tree we’re going to call them tree huggers, which is me, so I can, I can talk disparagingly about the hippies, because it’s me and then and we have people who are like, No, our job, our profession, our livelihood relies on extracting this material from forests like we do with everything else, you know, fish and you know, silver and everything else, like we just this is our job to extract and bring build homes for these people who love to hug trees, right, like you know. So there’s all sorts of people calling every side hyper hypocritical and and you know, wrong and all of this stuff. So how are you guys? How did you as you step into this marketing director, communications director role, how did you find empathy and understand. Writing and even stories and words from both of these camps, both these peoples, and weave that together into how you send out communication? Yeah,

 

Alli Gannett  30:13

for me, personally, it comes from my background, which is church communications. So I’ve have a master’s in divinity. I’ve worked within the Episcopal Church mainly for the last close to 10 years, and that was my work coming coming in here. And that, you know, the church also finds some people on either ends of what is and isn’t the truth, right? Like, yeah,

 

Jason Miller  30:37

very strong, very strong, very

 

Alli Gannett  30:39

strong feelings about something. They core values, yeah? And so it’s not I made this joke when I was interviewing, but that when I came into this job and looked at the the job description, I was like, Oh, I can do all of the things that you’re wanting. It’s just, you know, I’ll just trade Jesus for trees. And that’s been like, I think that’s why I was hired, yeah, but that you’re our guy, yeah, exactly right. Like, okay, but I mean, that just comes from being able to be to look at everyone has reasons why. You know, I don’t come from a place where, like, I think the worst of people, or I think that there’s malice. I think everyone in this world is just trying, right? We’re all said apart, apart from other things, but we don’t need to that’s off the record. But I do think that there’s people who you know we’re all just trying, maybe not trying our best, maybe not trying our worst, but we’re just trying and so finding that the why for people, whether it’s the people from the environmentalist side, the scientific side, the land owner and industry side, I mean all of them that there’s this shared common interest, which is preservation and the sustainability of forests. And I think that there’s that is the key, right? So I start not from any sort of outside, but I start from that inside and saying, you know, let’s boil this down, because they’re all complex issues, because people have been involved, because people make everything Messier. But the real core is we all care about forests, and there’s different ways and avenues to access that care from for different people, whether you know, some people resonate with scientific knowledge data, some people resonate with stories. Some people resonate with forest bathing. Some people resonate with the legacy of a plot or of a, you know, of a grove. There’s all of these different ways that people like. It’s the one thing that kind of hooks them, or like, or they really catch on to and speaking to those No, first of all, doing the research of knowing your audience and learning what those things are, and, second, not being afraid to really either learn more about it and ask them, because that’s essential. Like, the only way you’re going to be a good communicator is if you’re not afraid to ask questions and ask, ask the questions that sometimes are uncomfortable or expose your own vulnerability, right? So being able to say, I don’t know about that, tell me more about what it means to

 

Jason Miller  33:37

you’re, you’re my home girl. This is amazing. I love we’re gonna dive into this. Yeah, much more, because I think that that’s

 

Alli Gannett  33:47

essential, right? Like, there has to be this stripping down of ego to be a good communicator. Because that’s what’s when you’re gonna get the best understanding of of people what drives them, motives, and then that helps you cater messaging, not in a way that is to trick a person, but in a way that is effective, that kind of boiling down in order to make it easily digestible for people and and that comes from being naturally curious, and that that comes from, you know, me coming in here, not having a forestry background, not understanding why Smokey the Bear is controversial. You’re not entrenched in it. I’m not, which is kind of a nice curiosity. I have a love of curiosity, and I have the understanding that there’s something there that people care about. Let’s talk about that. So that’s kind of my, my thread that I carry throughout any marketing or any any sort of even when I’m creating the descriptions for kids events here. You know that’s me that the. Creating of visuals. That’s the whole point is like, let’s try out different avenues for communicating. But the central message is, we care about forests and we want them to continue. And that that takes learning about the ecology, that takes learning about forest management. That takes giving a shit about forest management, which is an essential thing that I didn’t even know I needed to care about, but it also takes learning about why people feel this need to protect, and what is that protection, or why is it that you know a person feels different when they go into the woods, whether it’s a good or a bad feeling. And knowing that, you know this isn’t like the talking point of like, know your audience, because that’s like the first thing, right, that every, every communicator says, but like to genuinely take that one further, one step back, and saying, know your audience, but, but ask them the why they care about something. So

 

Jason Miller  36:04

I love the way you think. That’s why I give you the high five, because I love the way you think, and I think it’s the curiosity and the willingness and enthusiasm for really seeing people way underneath the demographics and really seeing people is what makes brilliant marketers, right? So you you were talking earlier. You’re like, I’m, you know, went to Yale Divinity School. I’m like, you know, I’m almost ordained. I worked in, you know, church communications for most of my life, not ordained.

 

Alli Gannett  36:43

I’m a, I’m a, I’m a powerful, not or powerfully

 

Jason Miller  36:49

un, powerfully unordained,

 

Alli Gannett  36:53

empowered lay person. I’m an empowered lay person,

 

Jason Miller  36:56

lay person, okay, well, you know, like comes down to it, as if there’s any marketers who are listening to this podcast, one of the things that keeps coming through for me is that it’s not about the tactics or even the marketing strategies that you learn at marketing a school. It’s the human interest. It’s the care for the people who are seeing your ads or seeing your videos or seeing your website, right? So I love that, and keep doing what you’re doing, because I think you’re brilliant, and tell your executive director, maybe not. So I would love to hear what were some, what have been some of the successful campaigns that you guys have developed and seen, sort of like seeing go out there and go, Oh, wow, that worked. Yeah.

 

Alli Gannett  37:50

This is so it is my first year. So so much of it is like that learning, but playing around with there’s this freedom of play that is always that is essential within a marketing or communications strategy. Yeah, I, if you’re I, when I was interviewing, I remember saying to him, I was like, if you want someone who has the like graphic design background and can show up with KPIs and ROIs and all of that kind of jargon and pull out a whole brand new matrix of a content calendar. It’s like, that’s I’ll do that. That’s just not me, like I go by so much of my kind of work has just been intuition. So marketing is always going to be subjective to be subjective to the person who’s doing the marketing, right? So I think good marketing, what, what is good marketing is different than other people because I have preferences. We can’t we can never take apart or take away that that filter or lens. But that also makes us uniquely qualified to try on different messages in different ways, because when I came on here, you know, we’ve, we’ve, they’ve had a couple marketing communications people in the 60 years that we’ve been around, right and and so my kind of mantra around here is, like, you may have tried that in the past, but you haven’t tried it with me, and so let’s try it again, because I’m a different person than the people you’ve had before. I think about things differently. I think of, you know, I I think good marketing is always going to mirror what you think good marketing is, you know, I’m not. I am. I’ve also said being a nonprofit, and then even less than being scrappier in the church, like, I’m not afraid of a coattail and I’m not afraid of a bandwagon, like I’m not afraid of those things. If there’s, you know, there has to be this collaborative mindset too, that I can look at these larger organizations like the zoo. Or like other cultural institutions, and say, Hey, you’re doing something that we’re not doing because you’re getting more people or eyes, and we’re not doing that. So let’s, I want to figure out a way to partner with you. You know, whether it’s behind closed doors, I’m calling it ride coattails, but there can’t be in the shame or in a non profit, like we don’t have all of that. We don’t have extra money. So you have to rely on creativity. You have to rely on connections, or unless there’s a donor out there who wants to give the marketing budget millions of dollars, which I will accept, yes, please, because any opportunity can be a marketing opportunity, and which always can be a donation opportunity. That’s the other mindset that I have, but that, you know, reaching out and across organizational lines or communities and saying, Hey, we could collaborate on something, and that way we reach double the audience. We reach more. I think that that’s been an essential thing for us.

 

Jason Miller  41:08

I hear that you’re developing something with the with PDX, which is, if you’re not a local Oregonian, Portland’s number one airport in America, typically, but with a new unveiling of our very timber centric, very forest, literally living forests inside of our airport. If you haven’t heard of PDX, then it’s worth just the trip. You get off your plane, go tour around the airport, and then get back on your plane, go back home. So it sounds like you guys are developing some we’re working with ventures or partnerships.

 

Alli Gannett  41:43

Yeah, yeah, there’s just, I mean, they’re, there’s so much overlap with what they did in that terminal and what we’re doing, you know, they’re, they’re an example of this work in action, which is something, you know, we’re, we have these, these plans for the future of world forestry centers being this kind of, that center point, that epicenter of forestry conversation, which we have been, but emphasizing that even more. And so you have to do that through the connections like PDX or, you know, one thing that I’m really excited about is this, we’re working closely with mcmenamins, another great Oregon institution Pacific Northwest, to offer forest pubs. They do it with other, you know, the Science Museum for a science pub and the History Society. Historical Society to do history pubs. And we kind of looped in with the Oregon Historical Society and mcmenamins to offer this two part forest. They called it just history. Bob, I was like, well, we can call it history plus forest. Bubs to kind of, you know, do that soft launch to explore forest. And our first one we had, we had a sold, sold crowd, of

 

Jason Miller  42:59

course. So out of the corner of my eye, I got the two, two guys, two wonderful fellas, filming here for peaceful media, and I could literally hear their mouth start salivating when you mentioned mcmenamins and forest pubs, yeah. And then I also heard their thoughts, and because we have some telepathic stuff going on, where they’re like, how do we get involved with shooting the video? So, yeah, I think you’re on to something, yeah. So yeah, and

 

Alli Gannett  43:31

we’re kicking, you know, there was a two part series. We did one. We brought in local experts from Reed College, and I think it was PSU to talk about changing climate and forests. And that was really interesting. That conversation went very quickly into kind of the urban forestry and Urban Canopy, which is a really amazing and very interesting wormhole for to dive down rabbit hole to dive down about Portland. And And this next one we have in November is about indigenous forest or indigenous fire practices and prescribed burning within the indigenous cultures. And so we got such great feedback and excitement that starting in 25 we’re going to do monthly, pretty sure it’s monthly. We’re still kind of in that development phase, but there’s so much energy around doing it with mcmenamins and world forestry center and bring this to Mission Theater, which is in northwest Portland, and kind of give that another wonderful another thing. So that’s really exciting, because, you know, there’s nothing for me. There’s nothing I like more than like drinking good beer and talking deeply about one thing. I mean, if they could, if,

 

Jason Miller  44:52

if minimons could start developing some NAS, you know, like every other brewery, then, gosh, I’d be right there. Yeah. Um, so I’m curious. You know, one of the things that drew me to even find you guys was because I we often look for spaces to host events, whether that’s a peaceful media retreat or what have you come to find out, there’s one right next to the zoo that we always go to, right? Can you speak to how you guys are marketing, or trying to reach people who are going to Google and trying to find event space? Yeah,

 

Alli Gannett  45:29

so we have relied so much on word of mouth within our event space, and which is great, because that’s the best tool out there for marketing is word of mouth, because that, again, that taps into that, like emotional side of a person’s experience. And we did, you know, we dabbled in some marketing, and God bless meta ads and all of that, but we’re really trying to crack that open to that kind of because we have, we have this beautiful campus tucked in the woods directly across from TriMet. Two lines come to us. You can take, you can take the the Max from the airport to our doorstep in under an hour, which I’ve done, and we have so many different meeting spaces right where we’re at right now you can rent this is the fountain room. You can have grateful receptions. We’ve had weddings here we have a a beautiful hall called Miller Hall and Cheatham Hall. So we’re trying to come up with creative ways, because word of mouth can only go so far that there needs to be that supplementary kind of marketing plan to it. So we’re really trying to to rethink how we talk about our space and let you know we’re not your typical venue. You’re surrounded by trees when you have a conference. Here, you’re in beautiful wooden interior that has views of Washington Park and the forest of its Council crest in the background, and you take your lunch break in a beautiful garden with just natural light and and you can come into the museum for your happy hours or your receptions. And so we’re kind of some of the campaign language that we’ve been using is like, escape a conference room, meet in nature, or, you know, rethink your next board meeting. And so we have a lot of people who come here to just rent the same space once a month for their meeting or conferences. And one thing that we’re going to try on in 25 is to do an open house to get people here, get people show them what the spaces look like. So we invited some of the caterers we work with for free to have a booth. We’re talking with some of the photographers to come here and then just gonna promote it as this this evening, to come and see the space. I like it, because once people are here, you get it. It’s also a really difficult space to market only through video and images.

 

Jason Miller  48:26

I don’t know about that. Let me dive into this real quick, but first so I wanted to know, and I think we talked about this prior, but are you guys doing bottom of funnel? Google, nonprofit grant. You know, Google grant search advertising. So, like, Google gives you 10k

 

Alli Gannett  48:47

a month as a nonprofit. Out about this, yeah, months ago. Like,

 

Jason Miller  48:51

event space Portland, event space nature Portland, like,

 

Alli Gannett  48:56

I just learned of this, and it’s something that to be vulnerable. Yeah, my background is not right. So advertisement is a huge is a new thing for me, sure. I say that, you know, within the church, we just relied on guilt to advertise for us. But now, yeah, now I have, like, paid advertisement. And so when I found that out, it was one of those light bulb moments of, why haven’t we been doing this? Let’s try it out. Sure. Why not? Maybe we think we like did it in 2016 or something. And here’s

 

Jason Miller  49:25

the key, just start doing more podcasts with marketing for a lot

 

Alli Gannett  49:31

better there’s a little podcast.

 

Jason Miller  49:35

So that’s one tactic that I think every nonprofit is listening to this ought to be exploring. And this, that’s kind of where peaceful media is, advertising roots are. And so it’s there’s some nuances to this whole thing, but it can be a very effective and cost effect, you know, just very good use of of your time because they’re handing you that money. Yeah. And then the second thing is. Is you said that, you know, we can’t really do this just with images and videos. And I think I would debate that a little bit. I’ve seen so many people make travel decisions, particularly when it comes to kids, travel and experience decisions based on simple reels that just show from, you know, a parent’s point of view, what this day can look like, yeah, and it’s, it’s not fancy, it’s not writing any trends. It’s just a freaking montage of a parent and kid, you know, or pairing kids going to the venue and experiencing what you have to offer. And I’m telling you like, I look over people’s shoulder, of course, I’m like, a marketer, like, and yeah, creep and a creator, and I know, and they’re like, sharing, oh, send that to x, y and z, because they would love this, right? Because they see those kids and those parents enjoying this experience. And I mean, I can’t and see our video team, like nodding their heads, because they’re all parents, right? Like we would be here, okay? And what’s nice about that is, like you said earlier, the you lift this boat, which is foot traffic coming through, you’re naturally building the other boats, which are event space, which are, I mean, shoot policymakers, you know, policy makers walking through and go,

 

Alli Gannett  51:25

yeah, absolutely, you know, yeah, we’re, and that’s the we’ve, we’ve really trained, like this last year. I’ve the rise of micro influencers has been a huge thing that we’ve kind of tapped into because I’m a parent, I know what?

 

Jason Miller  51:44

Oh, yeah, no. I mean, tell me more. Like, how are you tapping into micro influencers? We,

 

Alli Gannett  51:49

I am cold messaging great and saying this, you know,

 

Jason Miller  51:55

for we, I think first you gotta, like, make them embarrassed, because they’re micro and not

 

Alli Gannett  52:02

10,000 followers. 10,000 followers is the prime area.

 

Jason Miller  52:06

Freaking followers.

 

Alli Gannett  52:09

No shame game, but

 

Jason Miller  52:13

it’s okay. You’re cold, messaging them, yeah, just

 

Alli Gannett  52:15

messaging them, or, you know, and saying like, Hey, I’m I’m Alli. I’m a Communications Director. I’d love to invite you and your kid to come and explore, meet you, talk with you, show you what we have. And, yeah, I’m also very upfront with the fact that I can’t pay them. Okay, I don’t have that money. I don’t have an influencer budget, but what I can do is offer them pass or, you know, there’s those kind of double exposure partner collab and I have, I have yet to find one who says no, no, thanks. So many, especially the parent micro influencers, and especially here in Portland, they have been, they want to come here because, again, as a parent, you know, oh, you’re telling me that I can go somewhere for free with my kid. Great.

 

Jason Miller  53:10

I shoot a video. I was already gonna shoot a video. Post

 

Alli Gannett  53:12

surreal anyway, yeah, that’s safe. That creates content that, you know, that is fun. And what’s really nice about our museum too, is we have a rotating art exhibit, which is something that we have not talked about, but we what’s really nice too back down here, is nothing’s fragile. We have, you know, things are tactile for kids, and I think that that’s really that’s essential. We’ll get you down the slide, for sure, for

 

Jason Miller  53:40

sure. Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna tour here. Shortly. We’ll get to see Stephanie. I imagine building the experience. Yes,

 

Alli Gannett  53:46

we have. We’re working on our next this is our fifth art installation. We’ve never been a place that people think to come see art. And so that’s one of those entry

 

Jason Miller  53:57

points. Maybe the Okay, so I want to go back to micro influencers real quick, because I’m imagining this is like a for some people listening to this podcast, like, What the hell are you talking about micro influencers? I like a micro IPA, what’s what’s going on with this stuff sounds very Portland. So what I mean, maybe we could just explain real quickly, like, what is a micro influencer and how is it juxtaposed with a macro influence or a major influencer? So

 

Alli Gannett  54:27

my understanding of micro and macro influencers is the number of followers that a person has. So a micro influencer, for me is somewhere between someone who has a following maybe between 7.5k to like 25k and then that next level is the kind of 25k to 100 triple digit ks that you know, the next tier. And then you have the major influencers who are like, have a million followers Plus. That like they have brand deals. They got ages if you see an email in their Instagram account that is an agent like, great. They’re doing great. But what I find has been the most authentic way to to get people involved and to get our name out is by reaching to those kind of micro because they’re still just people who found something that they want to talk about. And so what I see my role as is reaching out like, Hey, we got something else that you could talk about too. Did you know you could come here to do forest crafts? Did you know you could come here to come see beautiful art installations, or come here and take a second and step outside and experience this beautiful waterfall in the middle of of Portland, or that you could have a wedding here, one of my I’m trying really hard to get into short reels and short form video, which is tough. Time suck, time suck. But really fun. And we just did, I just did one of, there’s like a trend in the fall time of like people dressing up as ghosts and taking like photo shoots around. And I was like, Okay, we could do something like that, or what. How can I use that trend to promote our venue? And so I got little erasers that are ghosts that I’m going to give out for Halloween, and did a photo shoot with those, as if those ghosts got married here, and then put it to that trending audio. So it’s kind of like a book your fall wedding, so that you can, too make this photo shoot and just kind of fun, like because having fun, I think, is just so essential.

 

Jason Miller  56:44

Are there sustainable pencils? Is this? Is there such a thing? I don’t know. I feel like world forestry center should, should have some sustainable pencils that have some embossing going on or some print on it that says, want to host your event. Here you want to host your event and then go to this, this the this URL, because, yeah, we would be coming through and using your pencils for a long, long time. There we go. Nonprofit marketing budgets, until you get that million dollar donor, they aren’t massive. So how do you work within budget constraints like that? Yeah,

 

Alli Gannett  57:24

one is just being really honest. When I talk to people, I’m always asking, if they have a nonprofit discount, which a lot of places do publications do, they’ll have a nonprofit rate. Or, you know, graphic designers, can people want to have do good, right? They want to work with these nonprofits, especially if they resonate with your mission. So not being afraid to ask. I also am very transparent with my budget. I’ll be like, Look, I got, I don’t really have only $5 I have maybe $10 but I’ll say something like, you know, I have an extremely limited budget. What can we do that would make the most of it, that will reach new audiences and that like that, you know? What deal can you do? Because we’re, you know, I know that whatever money I can put into an advertisement campaign can be like, match tenfold by a for profit and but that’s great. I can’t match that, and it

 

Jason Miller  58:26

all comes out of your salary, right? I was not aware of that, like the marketing budget is my salary? Yeah,

 

Alli Gannett  58:41

right, what? No, but I do make a lot of jokes too. Like,

 

Jason Miller  58:45

I thought you’re gonna say I do make a lot of money on the

 

Alli Gannett  58:49

nonprofit world. Yeah, that’s okay, there. No, I do make a lot of like, oh, well, that donation just goes straight to the marketing department, right? Like, No,

 

Jason Miller  58:57

all right, so let’s talk about fundraising, then, because fundraising to every nonprofit, obviously,

 

59:03

how are you guys

 

Jason Miller  59:06

sort of bringing in dollars? Yeah,

 

Alli Gannett  59:09

what people make donations to things that they find again, back to that ownership right, that they feel that they’re part of that organization. If you have a strong connection to it, and you see that it’s trying new things, you’re more willing to either give or give more one of the kind of the one marketing slash fundraising tactic is like your best chances of raising more money is to ask the people who already give money to you, they’re more likely to give more than finding new people. But within marketing, you know that’s we have a print magazine. We have that newsletter. So those are kind of touch points. We have the standard annual appeal and things like that that we we have our. Kind of traditional development touch points. But what we’re really doing to kind of change it up a bit, is by also just changing the experiences that we have. So we have a we introduced art into the museum when we opened after COVID. That was something that we’ve never really done. We’ve been kind of the scientific esque Museum and organization. We’ve never been a place that people think they can come see art, and so we’ve been introducing that heart part with art. So having a rotating exhibit that we’ve had photography, we’ve had mixed media, we’ve had a beautiful when I first started, the first exhibit we did was wonderful, wonderful fabric art of different trees that were burned and the char and the color that came through. It was wonderful. And that is something that, you know, we have a opening reception, and we bring in donors, we bring in prospects, and we show that life is happening. You

 

Jason Miller  1:01:05

guys call prospective donors, prospects. Well, not

 

Alli Gannett  1:01:10

like internally, yeah,

 

Jason Miller  1:01:14

this is my speak. Oh yeah, with a lot of for profit as well. Oh yeah, yeah, because

 

Alli Gannett  1:01:19

it is right? I mean, anyone who has, anyone who feels connected, has the potential to give sure, because that connection, and that connection, though, has to be rooted in that authentic, deep curiosity. If it’s not rooted in that, it’s not gonna follow through. After

 

Jason Miller  1:01:37

this podcast, I am rerouting, in my experience here, I’m rerouting all my contributions to world forestry center. Wow, yeah, because, because of what you just said, I have a direct experience. Yeah, what you guys are doing here, and

 

Alli Gannett  1:01:53

it’s something that you need to be able to feel that you’re part of it, right? Because that is it’s just like any nonprofit, we don’t exist without funding. We don’t exist without funding that comes from people who genuinely care about the mission of the work, and that has to come across in everything that we do, whether it’s the programs, whether it’s the speakers, the exhibits, the way that our staff talks about our mission, it has to be this, come from this place of love, right? Like has to come down to that. It has to come down to this, this desire to move forward with the vision and the organization. And that comes through real connection, whether that’s someone coming in here with their kid, talking to their kid about how they used to come here with their parents, or it’s people who choose to host their most special day, their wedding, or in one of our venues, or people who choose to we do a lot of celebrations of life, which is kind of a weird thing to market, which I’ve learned, but that’s important to have those spaces where it’s beautiful, it’s honors, the person or or even people who come here for like, a corporate retreat, and then They’re like, wait. But I, like, got to, like, have a drink and, like, go down this weird tree slide, like it’s or see beautiful art that kind of shows the world of forests, like in its on this I’m a marketer, or I’m a communicator, not a fundraiser, but you can’t separate them too, because they rely on

 

Jason Miller  1:03:47

so intertwined, yeah, well, you mentioned the slide, which I consider. I thought it would be like in this cavernous, very all building would be a you might get some double story slide, so I’m excited about experiencing that with you. I hear that we’re gonna go tandem, yeah, oh, so I think we should, you know, take this interview on the road, sure.

 

Alli Gannett  1:04:08

What do you think? Yeah, that sounds great. I’d love to show you around. Let’s go.

 

Jason Miller  1:04:11

Yeah, when you guys have corporate events that’s down at Miller Hall, or here, or, yeah,

 

Alli Gannett  1:04:17

they, they have reception space here. Okay, so you can kind of set it up and mingle around and have, oh yeah, bars and food up here. Yeah.

 

Jason Miller  1:04:28

Do you ever have raves, a rave? One of my one of peaceful media’s partners, was a big, big in the rave scene when

 

Alli Gannett  1:04:36

she was I mean, you can rent the space

 

Stephanie  1:04:39

peaceful way. So this is our

 

Alli Gannett  1:04:41

next exhibit, art exhibit called following fire, which is really amazing, photography exhibit that follows the aftermath, both of the forest and of the community after the hall. The day farm fires in 2020 along the Mackenzie River. David, yeah, just David Paul bales, who is the photographer, and then he’s worked with colleges Frederick Swanson to kind of track the life and the aftermath, the coming back, as I would say the resurrection of these places you’re seeing the behind the scenes, which we’ve also found kind of that short form video doing, behind the scenes, unboxing. We got a big Yeah, a lot of people liked that. A lot of people like that. Kind of behind the scenes. How does

 

Jason Miller  1:05:36

Strange, isn’t it? I know, right? We’re all fine, interesting. The millennial breath, becomes the viral. This one

 

Alli Gannett  1:05:42

is one of my favorites. Taking a picture from the same spot at different times to watch it come back. I didn’t realize the progression here, yeah, or here, this progression the water. Wow, yeah.

 

Jason Miller  1:06:00

It’s one of the most harrowing things about driving along this fire. I fly fish, the Mackenzie and driving along that fire that same fall. It happened in September, and I was, I remember being there in late October, and they were still just like totally pulling out of it. And then most harrowing parts of it are seeing the foundation with a fireplace, you know, and like, maybe a metal chair, and that’s, that’s all, you know. It’s like, gone life. Life is gone. So Stephanie creates the experiences.

 

Alli Gannett  1:06:35

Stephanie, yeah, we have an exhibition.

 

Jason Miller  1:06:41

Hey, wow. This just comes right out Wizard of Oz style

 

Alli Gannett  1:06:46

area. We have a really fantastic dynamic duo, Tim, who is our Director of experience, and Stephanie, who’s our experience developer. And they work to not just do these exhibits, but they’ll do programming so that the forest clubs that we were talking about, they’re the masterminds behind that any of the outreach to communities, to develop programming, our fellowship program, those intersections, that’s

 

Stephanie  1:07:14

all of all them. One of our biggest missions you’ll see around the museum people, plus forests, right? So you know, the different spaces and the different events that we put on, we’re really trying to capture the connection and bring in more voices. Ali’s probably really talked about that too. You know, the Art Gallery is a way to bring in new perspective to the forest conversation, to climate change, to the health of our forests, by bringing in artists viewpoints, yeah, so, yeah, beautiful.

 

Alli Gannett  1:07:44

And what I was saying about, you know, key messaging coming from when you’re when your people believe your message. Stephanie, she believed, you know, she, she believes

 

Jason Miller  1:07:55

it, Chief heart

 

Alli Gannett  1:07:56

opener, exactly,

 

Stephanie  1:07:58

yeah, whole convening space for complex conversations too, right? And art is kind of that there’s so many different types of learners and so many different communication styles out there, so I think art is really that thing you can put in the middle of varying perspectives on how to support climate change and health forests, and really use art as a way to like have open dialog about something that’s quite complex,

 

Jason Miller  1:08:22

and music is one of those heart openers as well. That’s why we need to come back to the idea of hosting raves here. Absolutely,

 

Stephanie  1:08:30

I’m well, you know, what is it? Dark metal is also very like,

 

Jason Miller  1:08:35

oh yeah, yes, yes. Okay. Oh draped over the balconies.

 

Stephanie  1:08:47

We were talking about hoisting artists up and doing silk performances from the ceiling. Oh, somebody proposed that idea. That’s

Jason Miller  1:08:55

a that’s a, yes, it might even be able to connect you with that community. Awesome. Well, we’re gonna continue our tour. Thank you. Stephanie, Wow, gosh, we get to meet the players, exactly.

Alli Gannett  1:09:11

So on the other side, this is kind of a really fun kid area. This is a kid favorite. Get to go into a train, and then you’ll be on a boat. What’s the concept there? This is you’re learning about these different forests and how they’re used by those by those communities. So this is a boat in China. Then you get to go to South Africa, and then you end in Brazil, and you’re in the Amazon on one of those cranes that lifts you up. I’ve

Jason Miller  1:09:47

got an idea for really any American, I was gonna say Oregonians, or Portland, Portlandia, but any parents across the nation, I think you could do like a one day. A trip out here to Portland, if you don’t have a whole lot of time, yeah, fly in a PDX, see that amazing new airport, and then come over to world forestry Center and the zoo, yeah, and yeah, why not Hawaii Arboretum and well, in Washington Park. And here’s a great plug International Rose Garden. And let’s go on and on and on. Here’s a

Alli Gannett  1:10:18

great plug for Washington Park. There’s a free shuttle here, so you never have to get into a car to experience Washington Park.

Jason Miller  1:10:26

PDX, yeah. From PDX,

Alli Gannett  1:10:29

you can take the max red line all the way here, get out at the train station, right across from Discovery Museum. Then there’s a free shuttle that will take you all around Washington Park so you never have to park a car. And now my marketing friend, who works for explore Washington Park, is gonna be very happy that I shared that

Jason Miller  1:10:51

the partnerships, the labs, exactly, we’re here for it.

Alli Gannett  1:10:55

So this is our prototype lab. Oh, this is where we are trying out, oh, bring in messaging, bringing in some tech content, different styles of learning, integrating people’s ideas. We’re going to have people who can What are they called, like, focus groups. Some focus groups, yeah, one thing that was kind of a fun way. We wanted to do this sketch ideas. And so I said, Well, is there a way to get sticky note graph paper? And there, there is. So now people can sketch and then put it up on there, on our prototype with us. And I said, I think it’d be really fun to do it very low. Fi, so with painters tape up there that it looks like we’re very much prototyping this. And there’s that, that authenticity and that that rawness that resonates with people. All

Jason Miller  1:11:52

right, Alli, you’ve been fantastic. Guess probably, I don’t know, I’m probably gonna say this a lot, but one of my favorite episodes, I am your favorite Yes, and I think you’re brilliant and amazing and require lots more celery coming your way. So hopefully this episode brings lots more donations to world forestry Center. In the meantime, we want to plant some trees on your behalf. And I thought you were going to plant an organ, because you’re like, you know, you just came to Oregon. You’re like, oh, yeah, I love all the trees here, but you surprised me, and you selected somewhere else. Can you tell

Alli Gannett  1:12:25

us the story? Yeah, so I wanted to select the Appalachian area. I’m from Maryland, as I said. So we see Appalachian, not Appalachian, but that that’s an area that I there’s a really, really soft spot in my heart for that area, especially kind of around the Appalachian Trail. I am a Lasher, a long ass section hiker, so I’ve hiked 1500 miles of the ablation trail in one go from Georgia to I’m now in Vermont, so planting a tree there, especially right after all this rain that we just had, I know that the trail has been washed out in several places, and so that’s somewhere that it’s kind of my history connection. And yeah, there’s a lot of good and bad memories that have happened on that trail, sure. So I’m

Jason Miller  1:13:22

glad that we can be a very tiny part of the recovery from the hurricanes and all the damage that happened up there. And so we’ll go to one tree planted, of course, and and plug in some some trees to you and send you a thank you card. Sure thing. Thank you. So people are obviously going to be very inspired by this episode, and I wanted to send that energy into world forest, forestry center.org to make some donations. What’s you know, where does that go? And what do you guys kind of do with money, besides all the great marketing and communications? Well,

Alli Gannett  1:13:56

you can just go right into my marketing budget. Yeah, if you’re if, if your listeners really connect to our messaging and find that that common ground and want to support us, we are again nonprofit, love and thrive and exist solely on donations. And you can go to worldforestry.org there’s a little donate button. Make a donation. You can also join our email list or send us a message on social media, I will be the one that responds, and we’ll get you hooked up so that you can learn more about the work we’re doing, the vision for the future that we have, and explore, yeah, explore our offerings, our events, and, yeah, be part of this, this social change. So

Jason Miller  1:14:44

I messed it up. It’s worldforestry.org Yeah, worldforestry.org head on over there today. If nothing else, send a message out to Alli on social media and and bring your kids down here. Fly in from wherever you are. To PBX, get your shuttle bus from Washington Park up here and explore the best, some of the best parts of Portland. Literally, this is the this is where peaceful media was born. Like walking around in these in the trails surrounding this center just just makes it all the more ironic that I’ve never knew I was here, but just walking around in here, the mist, the cedars, the the pines, the Dougs, this is what inspired peaceful media. And so this is a super close to my heart, and I’m so grateful that you spent some time with

Alli Gannett  1:15:36

I’m glad that you reached out. It’s been a it’s been exciting to kind of share this mission with you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. All right,

Fran  1:15:46

thank you for tuning in to our podcast. Marketing. For what matters. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, Google or Pandora. Love the show, leave us a review, and follow us on social media, at peaceful media to stay up to date about new episodes and as always, thank you to this earth for giving us all we’ve ever needed. See you next time you.