I was a broadcast journalist locally and nationally for 20 years. Now I run Pearl Impact Media. I help nonprofits and purpose-driven businesses raise money, raise awareness, and separate themselves from the rest through meaningful, memorable, and affordable video storytelling. That’s my mission. This podcast. is an offshoot of that mission. Each episode I chat with a nonprofit leader with a defined, thoughtful, and successful approach to telling their organization’s story.

Sometimes organic conversations just turn into a podcast, and that's what happened here. I was chatting on Google Meet with Kacey Koeppel, associate director of the Pink Agenda, and the discussion was so reach that I inquired, "Do you think we could continue this on my podcast?" In this episode, Koeppel speaks about the pillars of nonprofit storytelling and how to approach it, no matter your nonprofit's size.

I was a broadcast journalist locally and nationally for 20 years. Now I run Pearl Impact Media. I help nonprofits and purpose-driven businesses raise money, raise awareness, and separate themselves from the rest through meaningful, memorable, and affordable video storytelling. That’s my mission. This podcast. is an offshoot of that mission. Each episode I chat with a nonprofit leader with a defined, thoughtful, and successful approach to telling their organization’s story.

For Episode 8, I'm excited to bring in Lasima Turmon, program director for the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River Area. I gave a workshop for her foundation last month, and it was a rich, rewarding conversation about video storytelling. The concerns and questions on the minds of those in the room are among the many things we discuss here.

I was a broadcast journalist locally and nationally for 20 years. Now I run Pearl Impact Media. I help nonprofits and purpose-driven businesses raise money, raise awareness, and separate themselves from the rest through meaningful, memorable, and affordable video storytelling. That’s my mission. This podcast. is an offshoot of that mission. Each episode I chat with a nonprofit leader with a defined, thoughtful, and successful approach to telling their organization’s story.

For Episode 7, I'm excited to bring in Ralph Jean of Resource Rural. When I give presentations on visual storytelling for nonprofits, I always discuss the importance of the overarching strategy. Creating videos and posting them on social media is great, but if you don’t know how that fits into your larger goals, you’re not using video to your best potential. As the communications manager for Resource Rural, Ralph Jean brings a unique perspective on this.

At this time in 2024, I was a news reporter, working for the person who’s my guest today: Evident Media founder and executive director Zach Toombs.

Back in '24 we worked for a for-profit news company. Now Toombs runs a not-for-profit news organization, boldly taking on documentary storytelling from a nonprofit model. Not only has he overseen masterful long-form projects throughout his career, but in this role he also oversees how he tells the story of his own upstart organization. Through that, he shares insights that are valuable for nonprofits of any size with any level of background in storytelling.

A few weeks back, I read about the Climate Storytellers Summit, bringing in fascinating individuals doing critical storytelling work on maybe the most critical issue of our lives. The summit platformed so many voices, and one of the leaders behind it is my guest on this episode: Bethany Wiggin, co-founder of the University of Pennsylvania’s Program in Environmental Humanities and the founder of Penn’s My Climate Story initiative.

Each episode I chat with a nonprofit leader with a defined, thoughtful, and successful approach to telling their organization’s story.

We are now into Episode 4, and unlike Episodes 1 thru 3, I had not met the person I was interviewing until a few minutes before our conversation. But I’d worked with her organization on one of the most important projects of my career as a journalist.

Back in the fall of 2022, I put together a documentary for Scripps Media called The Love of Care. I spent a day in the life with six individuals who serve as unpaid caregivers members of their families. Through that project I became familiar with Caring Across Generations, an advocacy group that doesn’t just speak up for caregivers. They teach caregivers how to speak up for themselves, how to tell their own stories.

The person who oversees that work, among other things, is the person I shared the screen with for this episode: Lydia Storie, the director of culture change for Caring Across Generations.

I got the chance to know this guest late last year when I collaborated with her and her organization on an impact video. We hit it off quickly over a shared love of a few select storytelling projects and a similar outlook on embracing authenticity when telling your own story.

That’s the topic for Episode 3 of DOT ORG.

And she is my guest: Jeronica Harts, Director of Community Engagement and Partnerships for Purpose Built Schools Atlanta.

Recently I worked with a client that provides grants and guidance for nonprofits in the climate space, particularly solar and clean energy. They wanted a video that spotlighted several of their grantees, which – in one case – sent me on a cross-country trip to the Bay Area to meet a truly impressive nonprofit with an equally impressive leader. He is the founder and executive director of RE-volv, Andreas Karelas.

For more than a decade, RE-volv has made storytelling central to not just its marketing but its mission. It's listed as a climate justice nonprofit that helps nonprofits across the country go solar, while also raising awareness about solar's benefits. Video intertwines with that mission, and it's a non-negotiable investment for Karelas and his team.

Karelas is my guest on Episode 2 of DOT ORG.