EPISODE 17: Building your nonprofit’s storytelling culture, with Helene Prokesch

(Episode transcribed electronically)

Matt Pearl: Hello friends. This is DOT ORG, Episode 17. It’s the podcast all about how nonprofits tell their stories. I'm your host, Matt Pearl. I was a broadcast journalist, a TV news reporter for 20 years. Now I run Pearl Impact Media where I craft videos for nonprofits that get used and remembered. In addition to that, I also host this podcast where we help you build your nonprofit's storytelling strategy.

If you're a loyal listener of this podcast or if you followed me in any context in the last few years, social media, my workshops about nonprofit storytelling, you've probably heard me talk about Lekotek. For nearly 15 years, I've been on the board of a terrific nonprofit in the Atlanta area, Lekotek of Georgia. And in that time we have built up a culture of storytelling that I always reference as a model for other nonprofits of a similar size, meaning relatively small.

It is only fitting then I decided that I devote a full episode of. Org to interviewing the woman at the heart of the organization. She has been the executive director of Lekotek of Georgia ever since she founded it in 1983. Helen Prokesch welcome to. Org.

Helene Prokesch: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Matt Pearl: And Helene, question number one, always the toughest. Tell us about Lekotek of Georgia in 30 seconds or less.

Helene Prokesch: Our mission is to include children into their families and to help families feel included into the community.

Matt Pearl: Wow, that wasn't tough for you at all. You did that in about six seconds.

Helene Prokesch: Well, I have had people that tell me I really need a term paper. So if I'm going to allude on how we make that possible, we have our play sessions where we use adaptive toys and technology so that brothers and sisters can play together. So if I'm a child that can't use my hands well, I can actually interface a toy with a round button and now just by pressing the button, I can play with the toy. I can do the same with the computer, something called an eye gaze. It's a camera that tracks my pupils and just by looking, I move the cursor. So now our brother and sister can play together often for the first time. And then we do lots of community events. So we don't want our families to say, "Well, we're not going to go rafting. We're not going to go on a hay ride to the pumpkin patch because Helene has cerebral palsy or Helene has autism. We are going to go to those events because Lekotek staff will be there, other families will be there and there may be some modifications that the staff brings. And so now we'll have the confidence to enjoy everything that the Atlanta community has to offer just like any other family."

Matt Pearl: It is such a beautiful organization. I often refer to it as a unicorn in this space and that there just aren't very many organizations that do what Lekotek does despite the fact that the community that we serve is such a large one and does get served in a variety of ways, but very rarely do you see this approach to it and the way that you have built it up over more than four decades now is just incredible.

And I speak about Lekotek all the time in my workshops and webinars because not only am I impressed with what we do, but I'm so impressed with how we have grown organization-wide as storytellers. And I think a lot of times, and I speak with executive directors and nonprofits all the time who have nonprofits of smaller size under a million dollars annual revenue or maybe just it's a small staff and they really struggle with how do we develop a consistent voice for ourselves.

And I often refer to Lekotek because of what we've been able to do in the last 10, 15 years in terms of building not just our voice externally as storytellers, but also a culture of storytelling within the organization. So that's what you and I are going to talk about today. And before we dive into it and before I ask you specific questions, I'd love to just get your take as the person who has been around the entirety of Lekotek's existence. What is special about the way that we tell our story?

Helene Prokesch: So you might find this interesting as a founder and a nonprofit executive director. I don't think I really understood how important communication is to fundraising. And I think early on in my history, I believed, "We're doing great things. People should just give us money."

And I think you, Matt, have created a culture of storytelling, being a board member with the credentials, the expertise you have. So a number of years ago when we began posting on Facebook, you said to me, " Just take pictures. Take pictures with your camera."

Quite honestly, I am old. I wasn't that technology astute. I maybe didn't know a lot about Facebook, but I followed your instructions and now subsequently we post stories on Instagram and I also understand that people aren't going to just give you money because you're doing good things. People are going to give you money if they understand what you're doing and that's why storytelling is so important.

And so I think as an executive director in this position, I personally have evolved and I understand the power of storytelling and we have great stories to tell as you know.

Matt Pearl: Absolutely. And I wonder for you too, I mean I happened to arrive on the board right at the point where social media really became not just a viable way to reach your community, but almost an essential way, but that wasn't always the case. I mean, for the first quarter century with Leica Tech of Georgia, you weren't going to be posting on Facebook or Instagram because those didn't exist. How did storytelling look back in those early days, in those early decades? And again, not even necessarily that long ago, but back in the mid 2000s before social media really changed the way that you communicate.

Helene Prokesch: Well, we were fortunate to get some nice articles in the Atlanta Journal. We were fortunate to get some nice articles in the local papers, Gainesville. In fact, the gentleman saw our article in Gainesville and transferred some stock and made a donation to support the Gainesville site. When I asked him, "How is it that you know our story?" His reply was, "I saw your story in the local Gainesville paper." So I think it was much more hard copy. Now I will say again, earlier I alluded to how communications and fundraising go hand in hand. We have done well, the Atlanta community, mostly our donors are in Georgia, have really supported our efforts and we've been able to grow because of that reason. And it's hard to actually ascertain how much social media has increased our revenues, but I believe that there is a correlation, a positive one.

Matt Pearl: Yeah. It's funny and we've never really talked about this about the history of how we grew this storytelling culture, but to hear you talk about me saying, "Just go take pictures and post them." It's very interesting for me to hear about it because I know when I came in that was ... And again, I talk about this in my workshops and webinars that I do. I think the first thing any nonprofit should be doing is figure out what are the stories that we have to tell. And you hit it on the head, I think we happen to be an organization where the stories are right there for the telling. I mean, I've been in the building for hour long sessions and you could pretty much pick any of those sessions out of a hat and find a really great moment that anybody who hasn't set foot in the building would find really beautiful and really powerful.

And they are everyday moments that are happening. And it's something that I say to nonprofits all the time is like, "What are those moments that might feel mundane to you or might feel routine for you, but for the people who don't get to experience them every day are so powerful." And so you took that to heart right away, which was a beautiful thing. But then also I would say the staff took that to heart because really it wasn't going to be up to me to take all those photos. I wasn't going to have the burden of having to do that and they needed to buy into it as well. Talk about those conversations between you and the staff and was it an easy sell to make? Was it a difficult sell? How did that go?

Helene Prokesch: Well, I think any nonprofit executive director needs to take advice and implement. And so I looked at you as a very knowledgeable board member and I wanted to try to implement what your suggestions were. Now, interestingly, with my technology skills, I may have struggled a little bit taking video and taking photos, but I always have, and even to this day, my phone is in my pocket, but because my staff members are younger and maybe more technology astute, I have said, "Look, when you're at events, I need you to take pictures and so forth." So I think everybody bought in and we don't have a communications department, this is a good comment for any of your nonprofits that are listening that are small that might say, "Well, we can't do this. We don't have a communications department." So I think your instructions were very simple and did not take a tremendous amount of time.

And so I think my being a leader saying, "Matt Pearl says we need to do this, I'm doing it. " And they saw me by example and even to this day, I might be the first person to see one of those ordinary moments. And because I'm so passionate about Lekotek, I realize that they're not just ordinary. I realize that this place is making them happen and I'm usually the first one to pick up my phone. Now, other Lekotek leaders are doing the same and they are sending me photos from their play sessions that may be at one of our other six centers. Now, did that happen immediately, but have we grown this culture of everybody buying in? Yes. And you always hear things start with the leader and it's not that I'm patting myself on the back. I'm more telling your listeners that when advice is given from people like you, we need to go with it.

Matt Pearl: I would say the leader plays a critical role in all of this because like you said, I mean, there is no shortage of advice out there, right? I mean, whether it's coming from a board member or whether it's coming from somebody on YouTube or a consultant or anything like that. I mean, there are any number of people who can tell you, "Try this or do this. " And I think one of the things that we did really well in the early going, and this wasn't just as it related to the step, but also I think in terms of getting buy-in from the board was we really communicated the results. And so when we would have board meetings or in the earlier retreats, you asked me to come prepared with, here's how many new Facebook followers we have and here's how many likes these posts are getting.

And I think especially as it relates to social media where it is so easy to almost overreact to the performance of individual posts, right? It can be so easy to work your heart out on a nice, great Facebook post and then it gets two likes and you're thinking, "Well, why did I just spend all that time and is this really worth it? " But playing the long game, we were seeing that no matter how many likes an individual post might get, by doing it consistently and by showing up again and again, the effects will happen and the long-term effects that you're hoping for will happen. And I think that was something that you were very conscious of in terms of communicating it because the last thing you want to do is ask your staff or your board to invest in something and then not see the payoff early on

Helene Prokesch: Well, I think we're seeing incredible payoff on our Instagram posts. We're getting hundreds of likes and comments and we're telling stories and I would just tell any nonprofit we're all so passionate about our mission and so I think your comment about what we come to take as ordinary, I think the fact that we're so passionate about what we do, we really should be seeing how extraordinary we really are trying to capture those moments, sharing them with people just because we're so proud of what we're doing. And I would think that that would be pretty instinctual for most folks working at nonprofits. I think most of us are where we are in the nonprofit world because we're so committed to the particular mission and we want to be here and we want to make a difference. I don't think we're choosing to be here for financial reasons.

So I think that was a great line, catch the extraordinary in what may just be an ordinary day at your nonprofit.

Matt Pearl: And the other thing that I think we'd be remiss if we didn't point out is it really helps to have a champion on your team. And for us, especially in the early going, I mean, nowadays everybody is on board and it's been like that for years, but I have to point out Jackelyn, one of the Lekotek leaders who basically became our defacto Facebook administrator and our Facebook poster. And she would cultivate everything that was coming in in terms of photos from all of our sites and not just post those, but then also create slideshow videos and just really go the extra mile. And she was as invested in our numbers as anybody. And I think that I would imagine, I know from the board sense and from my sense, it was very gratifying and it let me know we were on the right track. I would imagine from the inside as well as the executive director, when you have a staff member take ownership of an initiative like that, it takes so much of the burden off of your shoulders

Helene Prokesch: Absolutely. And now Jamie is doing exactly what you described Jackelyn doing on the Instagram side.

But you had mentioned earlier we may have about how much energy it takes and then the payoff you're getting. And I think the post and yes, it's extra time on our staff's part that wasn't written into their job descriptions. Their job descriptions are to conduct play sessions with children who have disabilities. That's what we do here. But I also think that if people have a particular interest and you facilitate it and they have an extra assignment or they feel that they're really contributing to the organization in a particular niche, I think that diversity to their job makes them happier at their job. And Jacqueline's been with us for 20 years, Lisa's been with us for 25 and Jamie just celebrated her 10th anniversary. So at our recent retreat, I had a beautiful, like a plexiglass Emmy award made for each of them.

Matt Pearl: Oh, that's terrific. I love to hear that. She is Helene Prokesch. I am Matt Pearl. This is DOT ORG, the podcast about how nonprofits tell their stories.

Let me take a quick minute to tell you about how I tell stories. I was a journalist for many years. I traveled the world, covered the Olympics three times, and won national awards for video journalism, mostly for stories about the under-reported issues facing our communities and the people and organizations offering solutions. Now I get to work directly with those people and organizations at Pearl Impact Media. I provide meaningful, memorable video storytelling for nonprofits and purpose-driven businesses. Maybe you want to raise funds, maybe you want to raise awareness, maybe you want to showcase your services in ways only video can do. I'm based in Atlanta but work with clients across the country and I would love to work with you. Head to my website at pearlimpactmedia.com to schedule a free consultation.

Back with Helene Prokesch of Lekotek of Georgia. Helene, I know you'd be very upset with me if I didn't at least bring up the video that I crafted for us because you tell me about it every time I see you. So I wanted to use some time to talk about it here and basically the setup is, at least from my vantage point, back in the fall of 2024, I knew that I was leaving journalism and I was going to start Pearl Impact Media and I knew that once I put the word out and started building up my clients, my time would become tighter, I would become busier and I wouldn't really have time for a whole lot of pro bono work. I also knew as a board member of Lekotek, I would not feel right about launching a business producing videos for nonprofits and not produce a video for the nonprofit where I was on the board.

So I reached out to you and I said, "Hey, I would love to do a new impact video for us before things start getting too hectic for me. What do you think? " At the time, let's start there. What did you think when I came to you with that proposal?

Helene Prokesch: Well, I thought it was a great idea and I think we spent a lot of time thinking through it, thinking about how long or short it should be and my recommendation, ours is two and a half minutes, which I think is ideal. We thought about the diversity of the children we see and the children that should be in families in the video. We thought about what parents might share with the viewer. We also talked about how this video would be used.

So one of the reasons I tell you that I use it every day is I have a gentleman who made contact with us, and I hung up with him earlier today, and I think he'll do some nice things for Lekotek, and I'm going to send him a follow-up email following our morning discussion and under my signature, my email, I have our videos called the Power of Play and I copy and paste it and ask that our viewer take a look at it.

We worked very closely with children's healthcare, with pediatricians, with therapists, with school teachers. I want them to understand Lekotek and I want them to understand it from a recipient's point of view and that's why our video had several families in it and I think less of my comments and more of their comments. So we send it to colleagues who might refer families. If we're discussing the power of play with families, sometimes play is not seen as important as therapy and we're trying to get the message across as to why play and let go tech are so powerful. And so that was part of the video. I think we spent a lot of time. We may have spent as much time preliminary to filming than we did to filming and your editing and so forth. But when I tell you I use it at least once a day, sometimes several times a day, it's true.

I'm not just telling you that. I honestly do use it all the time.

Matt Pearl: And I think you made such a good and such an important point because this wasn't something where you sought out a videographer to do a video, right? I came to you and basically offered you a video for free and it would be very easy in that situation for you to say, "Yeah, great, go, do whatever you want. " But I think, and this is for everything that all the time we've known each other and everything that I've watched in terms of your leadership, even when opportunities come, you don't just accept it blindly, you think very actively about how you're going to make the most of it. And when I came to you about doing a video, you absolutely, before we started planning shoots and before we started getting logistically involved in the project, we had a long conversation, probably more than one, about how this video would be used.

And you were very clear-eyed about that, that it's something I always go through when I work with clients, but you were particularly on board with that and proactive about that. And I think that speaks a lot and you just really spoke to it about why you now are able to use it as often as you do because you thought proactively beforehand about how you would use it. And I would imagine between that and a general level of satisfaction with the video, that adds up to now you're using it every day.

Helene Prokesch: Absolutely. I think that time and thought and preparation for anyone preparing the video is very, very important and of course your insights and working with you, I mean, there was no doubt it was going to come out well.

Matt Pearl: I'm curious for you because you have been doing this a while now and you have been such a quick study as it relates to all the storytelling. We're always talking about new ideas and anytime we do, we talk methodically about it. I'm curious, were there ways that you've used the video that have surprised you that you didn't necessarily expect, but you're like, "Oh, you know what? I use this more than I thought I would."

Helene Prokesch: Well, I use it even when I'm teaching students from UGA or Georgia State. We teach a lot of OT students, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists. And so I use it to show the power of play. I also use it because some of these students will end up in Georgia in their chosen field and therefore work with many children who could possibly benefit from Lekotek. So that might be one situation where I might not have thought I would use it with students as well. I also love the fact that it's two minutes.

At the beginning of this conversation, you asked me to describe Lekotek in 30 seconds and that's not that easy to do. And I mentioned I've had some people say to me, Helene, I don't know how you can do an elevator speech because there's so much to Lekotek, you almost need a dissertation.

So you've got the dissertation at one end, you've got your elevator 30 second speech at the other end, but that's where I think the two and a half minute video is so perfect because it's enough time to really get your message clearly comprehensively across and yet it's also short enough where you're not going to lose the viewer's attention.

Matt Pearl: Yeah. And it allows you to take someone who's never set foot in your building. They get to go inside your walls. They get to experience it the way that you and the other Lekotek leaders and the parents and the children get to experience it. And I think that there's almost no price tag you can put on that because that's the kind of thing that you simply cannot do in an elevator speech or a dissertation. You can make points, but you can't visually show what it is that you do. And I think to be able to do so in a compact time period like that is just so valuable. So it's very heartening always to hear when clients are using my videos. It's especially heartening to hear that you use it every day because obviously Lekotek has meant so much to me and it's a thrill to see that.

Helene, before we wrap up here, this has been such a great conversation and I think you've dropped a lot of gems for all the nonprofit executive directors out there, especially those of a smaller size. I would love to give you the floor one more time. Anything that we haven't covered, any advice for those leaders out there of a similar size wanting to build that culture and wanting to tell their stories?

Helene Prokesch: Well, I guess I would conclude or wrap up with a comment that I alluded to when I was younger and my thought was people should just give money to Lekotek because we're doing great things. So again, I don't think I really understood. I think you're giving me more credit than I deserve and I think I've evolved and understood how powerful storytelling is.

And I think any of us in the nonprofit world in order to stay afloat, we need funding. So I guess there are probably a lot of nonprofit directors that are going, "Well, how did Helene Prokesch not think that communications and fundraising go hand in hand?" But I really didn't. My background is in special ed education. I started Lekotek as a special educator. I knew I would have to raise money in order to have Lekotek and implement it. So I guess to some young startup nonprofits, my message would be maybe learn from what I didn't know and realize how important communications is to building awareness of your nonprofit and also the bottom line is fundraising because none of us will stay afloat.

None of us will continue to stay in business if we don't have funding to do what we do. So that would be my takeaway message. It's based on me personally and as I said, my background was in special education, perhaps if my background were in a different field, but you're giving me a little bit more credit than I think I deserve, especially initially, but I did come to realize how important storytelling is and I have embraced it and our staff has as well and I think it's been very, very beneficial to let go tech.

Matt Pearl: A couple of points I would add to that too. I would say one, there is so much value in thinking of the long game and I think when we embarked on our storytelling journey, it mirrored the way that I think you have stewarded Lekotek throughout your time in terms of fundraising, in terms of pretty much every element, never overextending, never going beyond our means and beyond our limits. And that applies when you're building a storytelling culture, right? Not asking the staff to do too much too soon, not expecting viral videos and things to come out of it right away that wouldn't be realistic. We've played the long game and that's made a big difference. And then the other thing that you were talking about me maybe giving you a little too much credit, but the other thing I would say is one thing where I give you plenty of credit and I think it's absolutely deserved is knowing what you don't know and going out and finding people who do. And I mean, you brought me onto your board. A lot of leadership teams, that is such a quick step that they can take, right? Find someone who has that expertise and has that passion for what you're doing and get them on your board, get them involved and learn from them that way. And you've always been a real leader in terms of that kind of philosophy. So I give you a lot of credit for that and I think that's entirely deserved.

Helene, I have really, really enjoyed this conversation. Strange to be talking with you through cameras and microphones since usually we're just chatting, but I'm going to ask you the famous last question all reporters love to ask. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you would like to add?

Helene Prokesch: I think we've been pretty comprehensive.

Matt Pearl: All right. That is Helene Prokesch, Executive Director for Lekotek of Georgia. You can find them at LekotekGA.org. Helene, thank you so much for your time.

Helene Prokesch: Thank you, Matt.

Matt Pearl: And that is episode 17 of DOT ORG. If you found this helpful and want others to hear it too, a great rating or review wherever you get your podcast goes a long way, please take the time if you can. And check out my work at Pearl Impact Media. Video storytelling can be so beneficial for organizations. I would love to work with yours. Book a free consultation at pearlimpactmedia.com. All right friends, I am Matt Pearl. Thank you for listening to DOT ORG. We'll see you next time.