Matt Scott On Generating Transformational Growth For Values Driven Social Enterprises

Besides being an early riser, Matt Scott is the CEO and Co-founder of CauseMic, a Portland-based consultancy helping nonprofits leverage the best-in-class for-profit methods to grow their organisation.

Before CauseMic, he was in your shoes as a fundraising leader on the inside of numerous young and fast nonprofits—one of which he helped take from $275,000 to $51 million in seven years. He’s a builder and a doer with a vision for scaling his company while balancing profitability with employee profit-sharing and respect.

Matt discusses his methodology for creating enterprises that experience transformative growth, and effectively utilising cause marketing strategies to generate a social impact.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, could you please share a bit more about your background and what led to your work in social enterprise?

[Matt Scott] - What I love about social enterprise is that it’s the intersection of purpose and business, two passions of mine. Growing up, I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur and that I was going to be a part of building something, whether it was through lots of failed little start-ups here and there along the way. Over the years I got more involved in the non-profit space, and when I was an undergraduate at Loyola Marymount in East Los Angeles, I had an opportunity to work at the Center for Service and Action. There I helped build an English learning program for undocumented immigrants in East LA, and I was one of two business majors in the Center for Service and Action, studying at liberal arts school. Most folks came from some of the other humanities, but it was just an awakening for me in terms of being able to leverage business for good. It's really been a core focus of my mindset.

As Co-founder and Executive Director of CauseMic, can you please share a bit more about this organisation, it's purpose and the impact it's creating?

We're really a growth consultancy for non-profits and social impact companies. What does that mean? Basically, we help organisations very quickly, like in a two-to-three-year period, double their revenue so they can have a larger impact on their mission. We do that really by focusing on four key areas; the strategy on how to get there, the actual technology that's needed, the fundraising and marketing best practices. It all comes together in this program we call the Rapid Growth Program. It's a series of steps we've honed over the years and failed at a few times to get just right, but it dependably leads to organisations doubling their revenue. It's purpose-driven work. I joke about how everybody on our team is certainly smart enough to work in oil, gas or banking, but we just don't care about that stuff! It's better to apply our effort and talents towards doing as much good as possible.

What is the concept of ‘cause marketing’, and how can social business leaders apply this technique effectively?

I'll start first by talking about like the difference between non-profits, for-profits and for-profits that are mission driven (like we are). On the non-profit side, what I share with clients is a lot of non-profits are seeking support from corporate partners and philanthropic dollars. Those dollars however are really limited. Those are dollars that are direct donations. But marketing dollars are infinitely scalable; there are so many more marketing dollars then there are donation dollars.

When I am working with non-profit clients (alongside the rest of my team), what we do is we try to help position the non-profit to align with the for-profit’s sense of purpose, particularly targeting their potential customers, employees, and the communities in which they operate or serve.

A great example of this is World Bicycle Relief, one of our clients and an incredible organisation. They're basically a social enterprise; they've got a bicycle that's called a Buffalo Bicycle, and they distribute this around the world to provide people with access to healthcare, education and all kinds of good stuff. One of their corporate partners is Shram, a bike company that builds bicycle components. A natural fit from a marketing perspective is World Bicycle Relief and the Buffalo Bicycle program because it shows the customers and employees that they care about more than just selling bikes and components for a profit. They care about having a real impact. For me, that's what social impact marketing, social marketing and cause marketing is about. It's about aligning values for customers and employees with mission-driven non-profits and seeing where those two things intersect so that there can be a partnership to build brand awareness and ultimately drive website traffic or customers to both organisations.

What actionable steps can entrepreneurs take to grow their organisations, but also level up their impact?

It's the same advice for every organisation, you need to be getting aligned on what your goal is. We take our clients (and we at CauseMic go through this ourselves too) through a simple exercise. We ask the question, “what if we had no choice but to double our revenue with half the resources over the next three years, how would we do it?” What I love about this is in a resource constrained environment, it forces creativity, innovation, and ruthless prioritisation, and that's really key for scaling. Anybody can really optimise their way into incremental growth, I'm talking along the lines of 5-10-15% year on year growth. It really doesn't take doing anything differently; you could just do what you're doing right now, just a little bit better.

But if you can get aligned on that question of, “what would we do if we had no choice but to double our revenue with half the resources over the next three years”, you're going to be really surprised at what your team, be it a small, big, volunteer or paid comes up with. Then you look at those ideas and you begin to put them through that filter of, "how impactful will this be and how much effort, cost, time or money is it going to take?" If you can just pick high impact low-cost steps to get to that level, that's a clear, easy thing pretty much any entrepreneur can do to align their team towards that goal.

Where do opportunities exist for impact led individuals to start their own enterprises that can generate a positive change?

All around us, almost in everything. I think first and foremost, whenever you're thinking about starting a business, it's important to have demand. Is there a problem that needs fixing, that's key. I'll say when I first got involved and started doing this consulting practice, it's because I worked at a non-profit organisation. We needed a new CRM, Customer Relationship Management system, for our organisation to keep track of all the things that we did with donors. We hired a consulting firm, and what we got sold was this ‘Ferrari’. But what we really needed was a Kia, and we had no pit crew in order to help us get around this track that we were building on our own as we were going! We had no idea where we were headed. That was a problem that needed fixing, it was a pain point as a customer, and I thought, "oh that needs to be fixed, that could be done better." Start looking around and thinking about where there are problems.

One of the most exciting and fulfilling parts about being a social entrepreneur is being able to create unique organisational cultures, values and principles that you want your organisation to embody, and how you're going to approach solving problems.

My advice really would be look around at where the problems are. As basic and overarching as that advice is, it's the truth for me and a lot of other entrepreneurs. Then, align on what you want to stand for as an organisation, and that is how you're going to attract the best talent to help you solve that problem. You're going to be able to get traction a lot faster as well.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently that are creating a positive social change?

I have the opportunity to work alongside all these incredible organisations, so I'm thinking, "gosh, if I only mention one of them who's going to be jealous!" I think what I'm most excited about right now is the Center for Policing Equity. I live in Portland, Oregon and policing in our society is at a tipping point. The work that the Center for Policing Equity is doing to improve policing in our community by bringing together those who police and are policed is game changing for not just the policing. I's really about finding common ground. It's creating a less divisive environment and doing so at the ground level. They're doing this in an innovative way. At the centre of their identity is this academic think tank, but they're action oriented too. They're just a great example of how an organisation can find a need, but they lean into their strengths and their own unique culture to address those.

I'm pretty excited because I feel like the stakes could never be higher on that one, because it feels to me like the community is hungry for coming back together, figuring out a way to do that, and it's a complicated thing to tackle. The big problems are the things I think are most interesting. Being a social entrepreneur or social organisation, you can find opportunities for impact in any sector.

To finish off, are there any books or resources you would recommend to our listeners (and please share a bit more about your book)?

That is too kind! I would recommend The High-Growth Nonprofit, which is my new book. It's totally free and you can get it on our website. It's a great book for entrepreneurs and leaders of non-profits. Really, this book is for any leader of any mission-driven organisation, because we're looking at the people, the processes and the tools needed in order to scale. It has some great stories in it, including lessons I’ve learned from falling on my face or different things I’ve done that have worked well. All those insights are captured. I love this book! If you're a social entrepreneur, I think one of the most important books you can read is Multipliers. It's a great book about management, leadership and learning about how you need to have a multiplying effect. You can't do everything yourself; the work you're trying to do is too big for that. That's a book that has helped me tremendously. I also recommend First, Break All The Rules. The best manager I ever worked for, she referred me to this book, and it taught me everything there is to know about leading people in a practical way. I recommend those two books, even if you're not going to read The High-Growth Nonprofit!