00:00:02.390 – Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Cosbas. I’m your host, Matthew Passy here at Cosbas. We have one simple mission to highlight the amazing folks who are using podcasts as a way to raise awareness for good causes and make the world a better or place, whether it’s in their own local community or they’re taking on global issues. Please visit us at Causepods. Org, where you can learn about our guests, show their favorite charitable causes. Join our Facebook group with Resources for Causebased Podcasters and find a link where you yourself could be a guest here on Causepods again.

00:00:34.310 – Speaker 1
That’s all at Causepods.

00:00:36.530 – Speaker 2
Org.

00:00:40.410 – Speaker 1
Very, very excited for our conversation today. We are going to take you out to Colorado Springs, Colorado. We are chatting with Carrie Green of the Morning Mindset Daily Christian Devotional and just a little backstory. Carrie is going to be a fantastic conversation not only to talk about his calls, but Carrie is also one of those folks who is an expert in the podcasting business. So I am sure you are going to get a ton of value from this conversation. Carrie, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:01:07.770 – Speaker 2
Matthew, you are a gentleman and scholar. Thanks so much for the invite. It’s great to share the story.

00:01:13.290 – Speaker 1
So before we get into the show, specifically, what came first, your Christian devotional movement, background, your work and podcasting, what was the impetus for the other?

00:01:29.290 – Speaker 2
Yeah, great question. I don’t know that you and I have ever had this conversation before, but before I got into the podcasting industry, I was a pastor for 20 years, so I pastored in smaller churches around the United States for a little while, three years here, six years there and just moved around a bit. The impetus for the podcast came out of that. I was retiring from Ministry, but knowing I needed to do something else and still wanted to teach. And so the idea for the Morning Mindset came about from there at the time when you launched this.

00:02:00.070 – Speaker 1
Were there a lot of other folks who were using the podcasting platform for this kind of content?

00:02:05.110 – Speaker 2
I don’t know if you’d say a lot, but there were enough. There were five to ten, probably that were gaining some traction. I think a lot of those that had tried prior to those five to ten finding success were the kind who get started for five or six episodes and then realized how difficult it was to stay consistent and then they would podfade. So I saw definitely room for something like this, and I was trying to make it pretty unique by having it be a daily thing that was short, easy to consume.

00:02:32.650 – Speaker 2
Someone could do it while they’re putting on their makeup in the morning or driving to work or whatever they could listen and kind of get their mind ready for the day from that perspective. So there was some strategy behind it.

00:02:41.710 – Speaker 1
So tell us quickly, what is the actual like what are those six minute daily episodes like, what are we going to hear in these devotionals?

00:02:49.210 – Speaker 2
Yeah, well, you’ll just start out with the music at the beginning and then I just go right into it, just welcoming everybody. I have various promos that I do throughout the episodes throughout the week, a different one every day. And therefore, when I say promo, that’s a little misleading. Therefore, a partnership that we run based on the podcast. It’s for merch that we have it’s for the organization we are going to talk about today, not a needy person. It’s for just a random items that have to do with the podcast.

00:03:18.610 – Speaker 2
And then I just teach a scripture passage for about four to five minutes, usually going in order, verse by verse through the scriptures. And at the end I offer up a prayer for everyone who’s been listening to help them start the day with God’s help. So it’s really short, really succinct and just rapid fire right through it.

00:03:37.450 – Speaker 1
Clearly having the background that you have in podcasting. So for those of you listening, Carrie is also the man behind or one of the people behind the podcast Fast Track, which is a service that can help you with your professional podcasting services. I suppose I’m curious. You help others with podcasting, you help others produce. You do all this stuff. But what did you learn about podcasting and being a successful podcaster through your show through doing something that is cause based that is not necessarily business based or having to basically grow this one on your own.

00:04:12.130 – Speaker 1
What were some of the big lessons you took away from there?

00:04:14.830 – Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I’ve learned first of all, consistency really matters. This is a daily podcast. So seven days a week, this thing is going out. And consistency really matters because the audience, in the context of what we’re doing comes to depend on it in a way. And I don’t mean that in a codependent kind of a way. But I just mean it’s like that inspiration that jolt in the morning to help them get going. And I receive emails all the time. People telling me this podcast is what helped me get through COVID this is what helped me get through a very difficult time in my life.

00:04:45.490 – Speaker 2
This is what got me back on track with my relationship with God. All kinds of things like that that are very rewarding. And I think the consistency is a huge part of that. I think another piece is that organization really matters when you’re doing something as continuous as this because I have to batch record the episodes. I do seven at a time for the next week, so that I’m always ahead by about a week, and I just sit down and record them one after another after another.

00:05:10.210 – Speaker 2
I actually did it this morning for this next week, so it’s really important to stay organized.

00:05:15.130 – Speaker 1
I was going to ask if you’re actually recording these every day, or if you are, in fact, batch recording. And I guess when we’re talking to cause based podcasters, a lot of them are nonprofits. A lot of them are doing it on a very tight budget, and budget doesn’t necessarily even mean money. That can also mean the kind of limited time that they might have. And so being able to stay organized in batch must really make the difference in being able to put stuff out consistently and have some success.

00:05:38.650 – Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely does. When I started this back in January 2018, I was batch recording four or five episodes a day. So I got so far ahead that I had the whole year done by August, and I just didn’t like that because it didn’t feel as fresh, and it didn’t feel like if there was some sort of a social issue coming up or something political that was happening that I felt I needed to discuss. I had to go back and figure out where to fit that in and how to fit it in.

00:06:05.710 – Speaker 2
Whereas this way it’s a little bit easier if I’m not so far ahead. So I’ve hit a rhythm and a cadence that feels good to me and it serves the audience well. So I’m sticking with it.

00:06:14.470 – Speaker 1
So you know how to record, you know how to edit, you know how to produce, you know how to publish your podcast. What is your advice or what are some of your strategies for growing your podcast audience that our listeners can take away from you?

00:06:27.310 – Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, one of the calls to action that I get throughout the week is to share the episode with someone they know. And I try to focus on the relationships that my listeners have with other people. And so instead of saying, Please share on social media, please share on whatever which is obviously helpful. If people do it, I focus on their desire to help someone else in the way that they’ve been helped. And so I’ll say something like this. If you could pause for a moment and think of someone in your life who you think would benefit in the way you benefited from the morning mindset.

00:06:59.530 – Speaker 2
Please pause the episode right now. Grab the sharing link out of your podcast player and send them a quick text or send them a quick email and tell them why you’re sending it to them. Because that context and that connection to someone else in a personal relationship in a caring way like that really makes a difference. And so I’m focusing on the little gains one person at a time building the audience, and the growth has really just taken off over the years.

00:07:25.750 – Speaker 1
When you’re putting together your devotionals, when you’re putting together the prayer and what you’re going to talk about, who is your target audience? I guess target audience might seem like a little bit vague, but who are you talking to when you’re talking to that microphone? A lot of people are like, here’s my avatar, here’s a specific person. But who do you think about?

00:07:46.210 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I think about people I’ve met in my churches over the years, people who I’ve counseled people who have come alongside to help them understand the Scripture better. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what the things are in life that tends to trip them up from a faith perspective. And so I’m trying to speak to the everyday issues, raising your kids, dealing with an irritating boss at work, dealing with that client who’s hard to manage all those kinds of things are in my mind as I’m doing the episode.

00:08:14.350 – Speaker 2
So I’m trying to make the teaching as practical as it can be, so that people can actually move into the day ahead, thinking the way that God thinks as He’s revealed in the Scripture, so that they can better attack the situations in their everyday life.

00:08:29.350 – Speaker 1
I noticed before we jumped on the conversation. We’re recording this on Riverside, and while we only released the audio, you were very quick to ask, hey, can I use the video and use it for promotional stuff? What are you finding with video that all podcasters cause based or otherwise should be thinking about, including in their production mix?

00:08:46.690 – Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I’m finding a lot of stuff I’m not doing yet. So my request to you was part of my attempt to get into more of that. But what I’m finding is that video has a unique place. I think video audiences tend to be different than audio audiences on a general level, but with video, you can break it up into little teaser type segments and put those on social media. You can fill a YouTube channel or an Odyssey channel with a lot of content that people just organically find when they’re searching for topics that you’re dealing with.

00:09:19.390 – Speaker 2
And I think it puts a face to the voice and enables people to build trust faster, because when you’re able to see someone’s facial expressions and body language and all that, you get a better sense for who they are as a person. And that trust factor builds more quickly. I think so. I’m trying to get better at using video, and I have clients who are doing this way better than I ever have and are seeing great results from it. I actually have one client who was saying his podcast that he also repurposes via video to YouTube is on YouTube.

00:09:49.870 – Speaker 2
The audience is tripling every week, and it’s just amazing that that can happen, but it’s because he’s doing great content. It’s entertaining, and it builds that trust factor.

00:09:58.750 – Speaker 1
Well, of course, the platform itself. Youtube is a content suggestion engine, and so success easily builds upon itself on that platform, whereas in the podcasting platforms, most of them at least. Yeah, you can get a little bit of help in the algorithms and higher in the rankings. But it’s not as if you finish listening to a podcast, and Apple is like, oh, Carrie, you really like that? Why don’t you check this out next? What else is in Carrie’s playlist? So that’s an interesting point that you bring up and something that we should definitely be thinking about and stressing as we’re coming up with our marketing and distribution mix for our content.

00:10:37.510 – Speaker 1
So as part of everyone’s appearance here, we always like to promote the charity or cause that is important to them. Your cause is not a needy person. This is your own 501 for folks who are interested. By the way, I don’t know if we gave up the website already. Of course, you’ll always find links to it in the show notes at callspas.

00:10:54.490 – Speaker 2
Org.

00:10:54.730 – Speaker 1
But careygreen. Com, C-A-R-E-Y-G-R-E-E-N. Com and not anitieperson org. It’s part of the Carry Green domain, but not a needyperson. Org. Of course. Tell us all about what not a needy person is and how you are helping out in the community.

00:11:11.590 – Speaker 2
Yeah, well, a little background on that. After we had started the Morning Mindset podcast and been running for probably two years, we had been receiving emails from listeners for quite a while who were expressing prayer requests to us. Can you pray for me about this? Can you pray about that? And I had the idea, why don’t we just set up a form where people can submit prayer requests with a tick box to give us permission to publish those as an episode on the podcast. And so now every Friday, we do an additional episode to the Morning Mindset called Pray Together.

00:11:44.770 – Speaker 2
And it’s nothing more than me praying for the request that people have sent in on a longer episode. It’s usually 20 minutes to 40 minutes, depending on how many requests we received. Now, what came out of that was at first my wife was processing those requests and putting them into a format I could use to record. And she just really got this burden. There’s just all these people who have issues of cancer or fighting for custody of their child, who the government is trying to take away for various reasons, all kinds of situations that you hear about.

00:12:17.830 – Speaker 2
And she just had this concern. We have so many people listening to the show. I mean, by that point, we’re probably having 30,000 downloads a day. And she was saying, Man, how could we facilitate someone in Guyana, for example, who could help someone in the Philippines in a financial way say they have a need they have. And so we started exploring, how could we do this using the technology that exists. And so that led into establishing a nonprofit? We called it not a needy Person because in the Book of Acts, chapter four in the New Testament, there’s a description of what was happening in the first century Church when people were just getting their lives radically changed by the power of Christ.

00:12:58.690 – Speaker 2
And it says they were selling their own possessions and giving the money to the Apostles who were then given to anyone as they had need. And the description it says is there was not a needy person among them. And I just have this vision for people as followers of Christ. What if none of us had need and we could just generously give to others so that they don’t have need and that snowball just kind of multiplied? Not a needy person was born out of that. And so what we’ve established is a way that people can submit their needs via the website.

00:13:30.250 – Speaker 2
We have a team that vets those needs, actually calls the people, talks with them about their situation, verifies that the facts are the facts and then puts them on the website kind of like a Go Fund Me page where people can see the different causes that are within the nonprofit promotion at that time, and they can directly give to that clause. And so it all comes into our not a needy Person account. We distribute it in the manner that we feel is the best for that situation, and it’s all just transparently logged at the bottom of the website.

00:14:02.350 – Speaker 2
All the transactions that come in and go out are right there. And so we really feel it’s a great way for people to benefit, but it’s also a great way for people to give. And we’ve had a great response. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t receive some kind of donation. Yeah.

00:14:17.170 – Speaker 1
I was fascinated by looking at the accounting that you really do track every dollar, every Penny that comes in and every Penny and dollar that goes out. So there’s 100% transparency as to what you’re doing and where people’s donations are going to. So for those who are hearing this and it’s a great cause, it’s a great idea, and it helps those who want to make a I don’t want to call it a small impact is that it’s not important, but a micro impact, something on the street level versus giving to one of these large organizations like, I’m sure the money is going somewhere good, but tough to really track it.

00:14:55.090 – Speaker 1
But for those who want to help the not a needy person, one of the best ways that they can get involved and support this cause. Yeah.

00:15:04.690 – Speaker 2
I appreciate you asking that. The thing I would encourage people to do the most is look at the needs there and find one that resonates with you and give toward it. We really are all about fueling the generosity of others toward the needs that come on to the platform. There is another little platform or, I guess, cause there at the bottom that is the ongoing administrative costs and not a needy person. If you want to give toward that, you can do so in a one time manner or in a monthly subscription sort of a basis.

00:15:33.550 – Speaker 2
But that’s not what we like to promote. We’d like to promote the other people having their needs met because there are some very real and painful needs out there that you as a listener could be just very powerfully, used to impact in a beneficial way. And so that’s my ask is go and help somebody else through the website.

00:15:55.090 – Speaker 1
Again, it’s not anneedyperson. Org. You can also find it just the Carrigreen dot. Com, and we’ll have links to both of those. So, Gary, you’ve been doing this for a long time, both supporting your cause and, of course, you have an extensive background in the podcasting space. So I’m sure you can give a laundry list of great insight and advice to folks. But for those who are thinking about supporting their favorite cause by launching a podcast, what would be your one or two best pieces of advice to them?

00:16:26.230 – Speaker 2
Well, I think the first thing is don’t be impatient. Sometimes when you have that cause in mind. First, before you start the podcast, you can be kind of itchy to get to the cause because that’s what you really care about. And I totally get that. But rather than doing that, build a podcast first, that is adding true value to your target audience and do that consistently for quite a while. We didn’t start not a needy person for at least two years. I think it was actually three before we actually got it rolling.

00:16:53.290 – Speaker 2
And it’s because we were just getting into our rhythm of seeing who it is we’re dealing with as an audience, what their needs are, how we can help and the needs just kind of rose up out of the interaction we were having with our audience. So first off, build a great podcast that’s really meeting needs on a content level. Then Secondly, do your homework as you investigate how to set up the best way to support your cause. We had to research how to become a nonprofit.

00:17:21.730 – Speaker 2
We had to research how to be transparent with our finances. We had to research how to be setting this up. Technically, speaking on the website, none of that was easy. And just build out the systematic steps. Follow a process, get some accountability in the mix. We have a board that helps us to vet the needs and keeps us accountable. So don’t do it alone. That’s probably my third piece of advice. Don’t do it alone. Get others involved with you.

00:17:45.730 – Speaker 1
Once again. Here is CarrieGreen. You can find him at carrigreen. Com, not anitieperson. Org. Check out the Morningminsetdaily Christian Devotional. And if you’re looking for podcasting support podcastfasttrack. Com. Okay, great to see you. Great to chat with you. Thanks for joining us here at Cospods.

00:18:04.330 – Speaker 2
Yeah, Matthew, thanks so much.

00:18:06.430 – Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to this episode of Cause Pods. If you’ve been inspired by the work of our guests, please check out the show notes to this episode in your podcasting app or at causepods. Org. There you will find links to their show, their website, their podcast links on Apple Google Spotify, as well as a link to support the charity that they highlighted here in this episode. You will also find that causepods. Org a way to subscribe to this show on your favorite podcasting app. How to sign up to be a guest on the show and a link to our Facebook group, which is going to have special resources just for the folks who are podcasting for a good cause.

00:18:42.910 – Speaker 1
And I can tell you right now we’ve got one great deal from our friends at Pod page, but you’re only going to learn about it and get that special deal if you are a member of the Facebook group for Cause Pods and before I go, I should say thank you. In particular, this show is edited and produced by Ben Killoy of the Military Veteran Dad’s Podcast. And what a great job he has done and all this is made possible because of the great support that I received from Shannon Rojas here at Thepodcastconsultant.

00:19:07.990 – Speaker 2
Com.

00:19:08.710 – Speaker 1
Once again, if you want to learn more, go to Cosmos. Org thank you so much and we will see you next time on Cause pods.