True to your roots

Lee Wochner:
Growing from a $25,000 grant into a $50 million organization. How does that happen? It’s not by luck, it’s by strategy. 20 years ago, the Coalition for Responsible Community Development started with a single city contract for graffiti removal in South Los Angeles. Today, it’s one of the city’s most respected nonprofits with workforce development housing, social enterprise, and real estate development all under one roof. So how did they get there? With smart community-rooted marketing and a willingness to be bold and to take on new challenges when others might play it safe. Today, CRCD’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Alex Medina, joins us to talk about how to reach audiences that may have little in common with each other, how to build the institutional trust that unlocks major funding, and how to keep your messaging real when the world seems to be telling you to be cautious. If you’re ready to think differently about how you connect with your community, your funders, and the people you serve, this is the episode for you of How to Market Your Nonprofit.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Welcome to How to Market Your Nonprofit, the Counterintuity podcast featuring interviews with experts in marketing, fundraising, strategy, and leadership who offer how-tos and inspiration about how you can help your nonprofit succeed and grow during a time of chaos and change. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience in marketing, strategy, and nonprofit management, here’s our host, Lee Wochner.

Lee Wochner:
Alex, it’s great to have you join us here today. I have a lot of respect for your organization and what you guys do. It’s nice to have you.

Alex Medina:
I appreciate that. Yeah, seriously, great organization. I’m happy to be here and I’m happy to be partners with you guys.

Lee Wochner:
Awesome. Well, thank you. Yeah, we’re going to get into a whole bunch of your marketing and such. And we’re honored to work on some of that with you and very excited and proud. So you’re the director of marketing and communications at the Coalition for Responsible Community Development. And a whole bunch of us call that CRCD. It’s here in Los Angeles, and you guys have a multifaceted operation that I’m just eager to dig into with you over the next 45 minutes. Can you tell us a little bit about what CRCD does?

Alex Medina:
Yeah, so CRCD — we’re actually 20 years of service in South LA. So this is actually our 20th anniversary this year. Our goal is to make South LA better. So it’s not just people flying in with resources and flying out without taking responsibility. We want to be responsible — that is a key part of our name. Every resource that we get is designed with the community in mind, with community input, and actually with people who work and live in this community.

So what we do is housing and workforce development. We started in 2005 with a single city contract for graffiti removal — city beautification. And from there, it spiraled into an amazing organization that does workforce, not just for graffiti removal, but also we have an MC3 program where we’re able to get people into construction union jobs — painting, laborers, all those jobs. We also have our CDCD Academy, getting people who are traditionally left out of schools into workforce programs.

Then we have our housing component, which addresses one of the biggest problems we’re seeing here in Los Angeles: the lack of housing. We are an on-site coordinator for homeless youth, so we can get them directly into the system. We also coordinate with adults, and if we have someone in our workforce program seeking housing, we just move them right over. It’s a great ecosystem.

Within that, we have CRCD Enterprises, which does more of the social entrepreneurship side — it’s a social enterprise, technically. That provides a way for more people to get hands-on training at really good wages. And then we have our CRCD Partners side, which does the real estate development. So we have our housing and support services that gets people into housing, and CRCD Partners helps build the housing. When they’re building those housing units, they work with CRCD Enterprises directly and allow them to bid on contracts. Our last recent one — Dean’s Place in Evermont — we had painters from CRCD Enterprises getting hands-on training, hands-on learning, and real workforce experience at those housing complexes.

Lee Wochner:
Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there.

Alex Medina:
It is — it’s a big operation. And that’s only the three entities. That doesn’t even get into the programs.

Lee Wochner:
So we begin to see how you guys, over 20 years, got from $25,000 — a one-time graffiti abatement grant — to becoming such a large organization with annual revenues above $50 million, manifesting huge impact and change in your service area.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and it’s not even just manifesting — it’s reality. We started off in South LA, and at that point we were mostly focused on the area veering to I-10, up the central area. Now our service expansion goes all the way from the 10, all the way down to Compton, and on either side east and west from Central Avenue. We are all about South LA — however you define it or however I define it, we’re for South LA.

Lee Wochner:
I love this in so many ways, and I want to give you a little context here. We’ve worked with CRCD for 10, 15 years at this point, very proudly. I mentioned to you when we were having lunch — I’m reading a book by Paul Theroux about Angola and Namibia. He’s a novelist and travel writer, and the book is The Last Train to Zona Verde. Right now I’m deep in the section about Angola, and it’s about what I would call rapacious tourism — how people from Europe have really kind of destroyed Angola. There was no cultural sensitivity and no lifting those folks up, and the people in charge have not done any better. One of the things you just referenced is that you work within communities, you’re culturally sensitive, and the community is part of the program and part of the solution. I was always aware of that, and I just have so many more takeaways about it through our growing relationship with you guys and through reading this book and the horrors of places that had just been run rampant over.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and I think a great example of how we bring in the community — and how we’re not just a fly-by-night organization making real investments and real connections — is our Evermont housing development on Manchester and Vermont. That’s a project with us, Bridge Housing, Primestor, CED LA, and some other smaller organizations. CED LA — I can’t forget them, they’re very important. They’re one of the first schools like that in South LA — a boarding school designed specifically for trade education.

That property was devastated in the 1992 civil uprisings in South LA. Throughout many iterations, people tried to break ground on it, and then those projects would fall apart. Finally, CRCD came in with Bridge Housing and everybody else and said, we can do this.

The key to making it successful — and to making sure the investments kept coming in, not just money but also time and capacity from the people in the community — was working with the community by setting up opportunities for people to come and say, “This is what I would really like to see in this housing development.” That’s why there’s a training center for Metro LA there. That’s why there are two different buildings on the property — one for housing, one for individuals. That’s why there’s a grocery store planned for the site. The community wanted these things, and we intentionally put them in. There were a lot of things we wanted to include, but the community said, “That’s not going to serve us.” They said, “We want a swimming pool, but we don’t need a swimming pool. We’d rather have a quality place where we can get groceries for our families.”

Lee Wochner:
Not everybody understands immediately the situation with food deserts. When I was working with the Community Foundation of the Verdugos and we did a tour of some areas of Baltimore, we quickly discovered there was no place to buy groceries there. There was no public transportation, and the only place some folks could go was a liquor store that might carry some lettuce, bananas, and apples — along with, of course, liquor. There were zero supermarkets or grocery stores.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and that desert still exists in LA right now. We’re trying to make those inroads, especially facing challenges like small mom-and-pop shops closing their grocery stores. The 99 Cent Store was actually a major grocery store in South LA — as well as in my neighborhood in Silver Lake. Once that closed, a lot of people faced real hardship, because people in Silver Lake and throughout South LA used it as their grocery store of choice because that’s what they could afford. Now they’ve been priced out.

That’s why we were very adamant about working with the community to understand their needs. If we had gone in without doing that, we might not have known they needed or wanted a grocery store. Now that we know, we can make sure we put that in there.

Lee Wochner:
So at its heart, CRCD really is a partnership organization working with people to teach them to fish.

Alex Medina:
Yes and no. Yes, we definitely want people to be able to fish on their own if they want to, but we also don’t want people to come to us and leave without feeling like they’re part of a community. We are part of a community. So for example, MC3 — our Multi-Craft Core Curriculum — what they do is eight weeks of training to get into a high paying union job. Most other training programs, you do your graduation, you’re gone. You will never see that organization again. Not CRCD. We are with you from the moment you walk through our doors until you decide you no longer need us. So if you are a mentee, you graduate, you’re in a union, and you need help navigating it, you can come back to CRCD and say, “Hey, I need a little help with this.” Or if they need new tools or new shoes, they can always come to CRCD and ask for assistance. So yeah, we’re not just teaching people to fish. We’re teaching people how to fish as a community.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, and I really hear it. It really comes across. And one could say that in some ways, you’re stepping in for government or you’re supplementing government to help people prevail.

Alex Medina:
We are an addition to government. We do have a lot of contracts with the city, county, state, and federal government. I’m not going to say we are 100% independent from the federal government. We do rely on them and they also give us information that we need — like, “Hey, we’re noticing a federal trend that this demographic is suffering from these outcomes. How can you help us?” That’s what our job is: to figure out how we can make federal, state, and local initiatives community-focused.

Lee Wochner:
So let’s dig into a little bit of what you do there and how you do it. One of the things I’m well aware of is that you have multiple websites. For all of these different programs and organizations under your umbrella, why manage multiple websites rather than put them all as tributaries of a main Coalition for Responsible Community Development website?

Alex Medina:

So the big three websites that we have are CRCD Enterprises — that’s our social enterprise — CRCD Partners, and then our coalitionrcd.org website, which is the main website for the nonprofit. The reason we do that is for ease of access. Some people are looking for contractors, so the CRCD Enterprises website is geared for that. It’s more professional, more focused on giving someone hiring a contractor the information they need. The main coalitionrcd.org website is more community-focused — that’s our nonprofit site, a softer touch.

One of the things I’ve been working on recently is actually consolidating, as you said, all those websites into one. Previously, before I was here, we had all those websites on multiple different servers with multiple different contracts with multiple different vendors. So one thing we are streamlining is moving those programs into a single website and relying on one vendor — you guys — to help us with updates and all that. But again, since the Enterprises and CRCD Partners aren’t 501(c)(3)s, they do operate slightly differently, so we do give them their own space on their websites.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, I wondered if it was also for cultural reasons — not just ease of access, but also so people can see themselves.

Alex Medina:
It is cultural, but not social-cultural. It’s cultural in the way that business people think versus people who are in need, or people who are trying to gather resources. On the CRCD main website, we try to put out as much information as is digestible, but also connect people to the other services within CRCD. Like if they find us through our MC3 Google Ads, they also see MC3 but they’re also connected to other services they might not even know CRCD has — like our housing programs, our jobs for LA graduates, our re-entry programs for people coming back from parole.

That is a very different audience than CRCD Enterprises and CRCD Partners. CRCD Partners is a real estate development organization — a very different audience — and that’s the culture that we separate out.

Lee Wochner:
So you’ve gone right to where I was hoping to get. You’ve got these different audiences, and most organizations do. I would imagine — in fact, I know — you have non-English speakers, older demographics, younger demographics, and some people in 2026 who aren’t so tech savvy. You’ve also got business people looking to partner with you or hire your people. You’ve got government. How do you segment or work with all these various audiences?

Alex Medina:

That’s a big challenge. It is a challenge because we are a small team, and we have to be aware of that. We also have to rely on our team and programs to help us get communications out in a way that is appropriate. For example, at the last CRCD Academy graduation — our charter school graduation — I said, “We’re not going to print out a program. We’re just going to do a digital QR code scan.” And then somebody came up to me and said, “Actually, that’s not going to work for some people because they don’t want to scan something on their phone.”

That’s where I’ve learned to rely on program staff who can speak to lived experiences I don’t have. What I’ve tried to do really well here is create that flow back and forth — it’s not just marketing down, it’s program up as well. It’s not just, “This is what we’re doing, this is the brand.” The brand has to be reflective of the community.

Lee Wochner:
One project we were working on some years ago, we did some advanced research and found that a group you would not have expected was actually the most wired — they all had smartphones. And it really drove how we ran that campaign for the client.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and I think the thing is, there are programs in the county and state that allow people who are experiencing homelessness to get cell phones for free. The intent is for people to be able to access government and for government to reach them to get them into programs — same with nonprofits. However, when people see a homeless person with a cell phone, they’re like, “Well, what’s going on there?” And I think that’s a disconnect a lot of people have. These aren’t people who are choosing a cell phone over housing. These are people who are experiencing housing issues and were given a phone. And just because they have that phone, people assume a higher level of tech savviness. That’s not necessarily true. They have it to receive calls. They’re not using it to scroll the internet or post on Instagram every day. They’re using it because it’s a tool to get them housing — and that’s how they see it.

Lee Wochner:
Excellent point. Internet and smartphone access are primary utilities in the 21st century. If you don’t have either of those, I just don’t know how you access much of anything anymore. Almost everybody in the world is wired in this way now.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and for those who don’t want to be wired — no one’s saying you must take this free phone. We have staff on Skid Row. We have a dedicated spot every week, maybe even more than once a week. We give them that in-person touch point as well, so it’s not just tech-based. And again, we have a no-wrong-door policy at CRCD. Anybody can come to an MC3 program and say, “I want to get housing,” and they’ll hear, “Cool, not the right building, but have a seat here and I’m going to get you the right person.”

Lee Wochner:
I want to pick up on something you said a couple of minutes ago — you dropped in “Google grant.” I really want people to hear this about Google grants. So Google grants are available and should — Alex, should nonprofits go get their Google grant, and what should they do with it?

Alex Medina:
Google Grants are great. Absolutely — I think every nonprofit should take advantage of that if they’re able to. I’m not fully up to speed on all the current restrictions, which is why I have you guys helping me with our Google Grants. But it’s a valuable resource, especially once you have a team who knows how to use them correctly and can leverage them to make the most impact. And you don’t have to have an in-house person do it. Seriously, we have you guys helping with ours, which is a big lifesaver. You can go through and say, “Okay, here are the keywords we’re finding work, and here’s what’s not working — what do you think?” And then we can have an actual partnership to get that working. I can say, “Well, that’s actually not how people are looking for us,” and we can pivot from there. But again, if you’re a nonprofit and you’ve been on the fence about Google Grants — apply. Do it. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. It’s not going to hurt you. You’ll just get some feedback saying, “Hey, you’re not qualified — here’s why.”

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, and we can help people get it. And it’s $10,000 in Google spend every month for free. That’s pretty good.

Alex Medina:
Exactly. And we use it for multiple programs. I’ve been mentioning our CRCD Academy, which is our charter school, and MC3, our training program. We also use it for housing and other workforce programs. We use it across the board — we don’t put all our eggs in one basket for advertising. We make sure that grant goes across the board.

Lee Wochner:
All right, fantastic. So let me take a moment here and play dumb. Part of your work, Alex, is to elevate CRCD’s role as a community anchor in South Los Angeles. And I know a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are community anchors themselves. Why is it important to be a community anchor?

Alex Medina:
I think it’s important to be a community anchor because it gives the community a sense of trust in you. If you’re not based in the community, you automatically come in at a disadvantage — especially in populations like South LA. If you’re fly-by-night, you are automatically scrutinized, because people have been burned by those kinds of organizations. Rightly so, they should be asking, “What is your value? What are your values? Why are you the one to help us and not the nonprofit that’s literally down the street?”

That’s something we try to combat. We say, “No, we’re based in your community. In fact, not only are we based here, we hire from here. Our founder is from this community.” Our founder is still all about where he grew up and is very proud of it — and always should be. He came from South LA, which, as we all know, is not known for its advantages or economic opportunities. So being an organization that’s based here, founded by someone from here, employing people from here, and helping here — I think that does a lot for brand recognition. I hate to say it that way, but this is that kind of podcast. More importantly though, it builds trust. That brand recognition is word-of-mouth advertising for us, and in addition to everything else we put out there, it’s our best funnel for participants.

Lee Wochner:
It’s incredible what people are capable of when they get the resources they need to succeed and a little partnership.

Alex Medina:
Yeah. And we don’t just give them the resources. As you said earlier, we teach them how to fish as a community, but we also explain what the resources do, why they’re there, and what to do if those resources somehow disappear. As we all know in the last two years, that is a real possibility. So we always work with clients to make sure we create an actual safety net — not just a one-time touch point.

Lee Wochner:
We’re going to come back to change and how to handle change in a little bit. So I picked through your LinkedIn profile, and another focus of yours is developing messaging. I really applaud you for that. It’s important to think about the messages you’re putting out and why, and to whom, and what you’re seeking to communicate. On your LinkedIn profile, you talk about developing messaging that is culturally appropriate, trauma-informed, and accessible for diverse communities. Why is that important?

Alex Medina:
Because people need to be able to see themselves — not just in the photos we use, but in the language we use. We have to put them first. I am never going to put someone in a category based on one characteristic. I need to put the client first, the participant first, because if they don’t feel seen, they’re not coming back. If we only see them as a data point — as “a homeless person” instead of “a person experiencing homelessness” — that’s one of those nuances people actually notice. You are putting them first as opposed to putting their barrier or their predicament first. And I think we do that here quite successfully.

We all understand that everybody has their own lived experiences, and that’s what we bring into marketing and communications. Same with trauma-informed language. I’m guilty of slipping up myself — I catch myself and correct it. And understanding how people can react to certain words — even something like “trigger” or “shot” — those are violent terms that are just baked into everyday American English. Most people won’t question them. But for someone who’s actually been in a violent situation involving a gun, they don’t want those terms. We live and work in South LA, so we have to come in with that knowledge.

Lee Wochner:
In marketing, we used to talk about shotgun marketing versus rifle shot marketing — one was broad-based and one was individuated. And I don’t want to use either of those terms anymore.

Alex Medina:
No — the way you just explained it is even better. “Broad-based” and “targeted.” Although “targeted” is in and of itself a loaded word.

Lee Wochner:
Indeed. So let me get your opinion — how do you feel about “woke” and anti-woke-ism?

Alex Medina:
I have issues with the word “woke” because it is a misappropriation of an African-American term that meant: keep your eyes on the government, because the government does not always have your best interests in mind. Obviously it’s been mistranslated over the last couple of years by forces outside of our control. I don’t have a problem with the original meaning of wokeness — I think everyone should be aware of what their government is doing. I have a problem with how it’s used now, because it’s become a catch-all term for DEI. And honestly, DEI is fantastic. I do not see a world where that is an impossible ask. It’s a super reasonable ask. The problem is that we have systems in place that don’t allow it.

Lee Wochner:
You know, I always credit gay people for appropriating “gay,” because it sounds happy and ebullient and upbeat. And they made that happen instead of all the nasty words that preceded it.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and we’re reclaiming some of those now. We’ve taken back “queer,” we’ve taken back “gay,” and some are even taking back the F word — I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but it’s fantastic. And I think that is part of what DEI is meant to be: everybody on the same playing field, comfortable using the same terms, whatever those terms are. Language and intent are very closely connected things.

I always go by people’s intent with their words and messaging — what they do versus what they’re saying. Which is a weird thing to say in marketing, because you’d think the words are everything. However, in the world we work in, in South LA, intent is very key. These are individuals who might not have had formal education. These are individuals who might not use precise terms — and honestly, if I’m not at work, I get a little more relaxed too. Understanding where people are coming from is important. Wokeness, to me, is just allowing people to have the same playing field and not judging them if they get something wrong. If someone says something that’s contrary to what I’d expect, I ask myself: are they trying to be confrontational, or is it just a communication gap?

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, I’m originally from the pugilistic area of southern New Jersey, so I have to guard against assuming people are being antagonistic, because I actually like people and want to lift them up. I had a lot of schoolyard programming as a kid that I have to work against myself. Part of what it sounds like you’re talking about is removing that easy, snap judgment of people and seeing them as individuals.

Alex Medina:
And I think that’s where marketing fails sometimes. Marketing tends to say, “Our deliverable is X — how do we get there?” without understanding how people communicate, or recognizing that these are individuals who want messaging in a certain way. Marketing is very guilty of “here’s our product, we’re going to roll it out.” I’m like, no — that doesn’t work. You have to listen to people. You have to know the community before you can direct a message to them. I keep saying the word “target” and I keep catching myself.

Lee Wochner:
Well, we’re all trying to perfect that, Alex. No joke.

Alex Medina:
I appreciate your grace.

Lee Wochner:
No, well, I just told you — when I go back to where I grew up, I slip right back into it. I have to watch out for that. I’m one of those kids who was always in some kind of not-of-my-own-making schoolyard fistfight as a boy. It was that kind of environment.

Alex Medina:
I was a quiet kid in the back. I was like, go for it.

Lee Wochner:
Well, I wasn’t seeking them out. I don’t know why they would aim for me, but there they’d come. Anyway, we’re going to take a short break here, but when we come back, Alex and I are going to dig into advice for nonprofit leaders during this period of epic change, how that affects your marketing, and much more. Stick around.

Jaclyn Uloth:
According to the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the shelf life of a website is two years and seven months. So if your website is three years old or older, it probably needs a tune-up or a complete overhaul so that you can stay current and engaging. A website refresh provides design and content improvements to drive donations and new technology to save you on time.

A website refresh provides design and content improvements to drive donations and new technology to save you time on tedious tasks while keeping your website safe from hackers. a free assessment of your website, contact us through our own website at counterintuity.com or email lee at lee@counterintuity.com. We’re ready to help. And now back to our show.

Lee Wochner:
And we’re back with Alex Medina, Director of Marketing and Communications for the Coalition for Responsible Community Development here in Los Angeles. I was just saying during the break that I could talk to Alex for hours. There’s just so much to cover. So let me get to a couple other things before we move on to epic change. How do you work tactically or strategically with CRCD’s fundraising and development team to support their work and help get the funding needed to serve those communities?

Alex Medina:
So Fund Development and our team are actually on the same team. Communications and Marketing falls under Fund Development under Admin, which is great because the Director of Fund Development is right across the hallway from me. We work very closely together. He’s been here for eight months, so he’s still learning the ropes, and I’m providing guidance — like, “Well, that’s not going to work,” or “That’s not quite right.” But also things like: what do events look like? How are we going to amplify those? What does a flyer look like? What’s a design that gets all your information across in a format that won’t overwhelm a funder?

This is something a lot of grants people struggle with — they just want to write page after page of narrative. I’m like, can we get some bullet points? Maybe every other page? I’ll be honest though, I’m not day-to-day with the Fund Development team — that falls under our COO Jarrell. But we have a very close relationship because communications is fundraising. It is participant recruitment. We provide the tools that they can take and go. It’s almost like creating a Lego set for Fund Development: here are some tools, here’s data you can use, here are some graphics, here’s a one-pager we’ve already created — go forth. Need more? Cool, we can make a new Lego set.

Lee Wochner:
I’ve been writing and editing for pay for 40 years, and I will tell you, throughout my career it’s become more and more about editing — cutting things out and swapping in active verbs. And bullet points — I love bullet points. People don’t want to read Tolstoy in your grant application.

Alex Medina:
No, nobody wants to read 12-point narrative. They also don’t want a paragraph filled with numbers — like 19 different data points crammed into one block of text. They’re not going to remember a single one, mostly because people read left to right. When you start mixing in numbers and text and more numbers, most people will just skim from line to line and lose the thread entirely. That’s another reason bullet points are great — they keep people on a linear visual track so they can actually absorb what you’re trying to tell them, instead of getting lost in a jumble of data, percentages, and sub-points that could have just been a bullet point.

Lee Wochner:
Throughout this discussion, the lunch we had recently, and the other times we’ve talked, you’re essentially talking about persuasive argument in service of marketing campaigns. It’s interesting to me that your master’s degree is in political communications, advocacy, and campaigning. What role does that background play for you, particularly these days?

Alex Medina:
Prior to getting a real career job, I was actually in politics. I was an intern for a senator, an intern for a member of parliament in the UK, and I worked on a congressional campaign — twice, actually. That informs me because those are community-based roles. Obviously elected officials get put on a higher pedestal for some reason, but ultimately it’s a community-based role — they just might have an office in London or DC or City Hall.

Understanding the nuance that people need on an issue is key. Just because the squeaky wheel gets the most grease doesn’t mean they’re right. So we need to ask: what does the actual silent majority say? Do they like the program? Is it working? How do we get that feedback? How do we get them to participate in our conversations? That’s where I rely on program staff to give me success stories coming through the programs. That lets us say, “Okay, these are successful participants, and this is what they loved about the program.” If that’s the bigger trend than the small, very loud minority, that’s where we go with our messaging — because it works.

Lee Wochner:
Socio-politically right now, people — in nonprofits and really in all walks of life — are having the debate between being a bridge builder and being a warrior for your point of view. Taking people on and doing battle with them versus trying to create an off-ramp for them to perhaps join you. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Alex Medina:
That’s actually the first time I’ve heard it put that way. We are in a very contentious time in American government — contentious is an understatement. I do think bridge building is important. You cannot move forward without a bridge. However, it takes a community to build one — you can’t just leave people behind.

Let’s use the bridge example: an engineering team is going to come up with a design. It might start with one architect, maybe a small team. Then they present it. Who gets to participate in that presentation? That’s the key. You want those critical voices to say, “Hey, that beam’s not going to work.” But you also need the other voices to say, “Yeah, maybe we revisit that beam, but the rest is fine” — as opposed to just one person fixating on the color. We’re not worried about the color. We’re worried about the structure.

That’s what we rely on the community for. You might not like our branding, but the community loves the program. And that’s where our bridge is. We’re using the community to build from point A to point B — and point B is more people succeeding in workforce programs, getting permanent supportive housing, getting a job, buying a house. But getting there requires the community, as well as those warrior moments where someone has to say, “No, that’s not where this bridge should go. This is where the bridge is going, because this is where the community is.”

Lee Wochner:
I like that. I’ll share the decision I’ve arrived at personally on this. I’m by nature a bridge builder — I’m trying to bring people along. People do change their minds; I’ve changed my mind about things. But it never serves you to be weak in America. People appreciate strength and conviction. That doesn’t mean you have to be crummy to people, because if you’re crummy to them, nobody is ever taking your point of view.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and you don’t have to be rigid about it either. I think I’m on the same page as you — I want to build bridges. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone’s fighting each other. But I also think the warrior mentality is important when you’re advocating for your community. If we’re seeing things happen that are harmful, we are definitely not going to sit back and say, “Sorry, we’re worried about our funding.” No — we’re worried about our community. So we will absolutely take whatever action is appropriate for CRCD to take for our community. We’re not going to go out and create infrastructure that doesn’t already exist. We’re going to use what we already have.

Lee Wochner:
Because you have an ethical underpinning to what you’re doing, you have to work from a place of moral values.

Alex Medina:
Exactly. And on the personal side — as you can see, I present as a white man in America. That does come with a certain amount of privilege, and I acknowledge it. That also means I’m able to do things that other people might not feel comfortable doing — like being very direct and saying, “This makes no sense.” I’m okay being that person. However, I also understand that I am part of an organization, and it’s not my organization. It is the community’s organization. It is the staff’s and leadership’s organization. It is not solely my responsibility to fight for our community. I’ll bring that fight to the team and say, “Hey, this is what we might want to do” — but ultimately, it comes down to what we decide together as an organization. And I think that’s where a lot of communicators get into trouble. They come in and say, “This is my role, I’m going to write all these press releases.” No — listen to leadership. Listen to your community. Does your community want you to pick a fight that might not go your way? Probably not.

Lee Wochner:
Listening to you reminds me that it’s helpful to be thoughtful, cognizant, aware, and connected — and not just performing as an island unto yourself.

Alex Medina:
Exactly. Marketing and communications, of all positions, is not an island role. If you’re sitting in your office all day talking to nobody but your team or your supervisor, you’re doing it wrong.

Lee Wochner:
All right, so in this period of dynamic change we’ve been talking about and dancing around — what do you think are the opportunities? What should nonprofit leaders do now?

Alex Medina:
I think nonprofit leaders should fortify the relationships that already exist. We’ve been around for 20 years and have relationships we can lean on and say, “Hey, not only do we need you, we want to be here for you.” Even smaller nonprofits have a mentor organization they can rely on. I think that’s where we are right now — communities becoming tighter, and funding becoming more local. Foundations and nonprofit charities are looking for the most impact within their community. In addition to building a nonprofit advocacy network, it’s also about building a support network for funders to get what they need.

Lee Wochner:
Are you using artificial intelligence, and how so?

Alex Medina:
For work — let me back up. CRCD does not use artificial intelligence for our participants, our staff, or anything participant-related. Me personally, I do. I’m a team of two — me and my direct report on the marketing side. I use AI to organize my thoughts, summarize emails, and make sure I’m not missing anything throughout the day. I’m not sending things off using AI. Well, to be fair, I will send a mock-up to a designer and say, “Here’s broadly what I’m envisioning — can you make this real?” And honestly, the people I’ve worked with appreciate that, because they’re aware of AI potentially taking their jobs — and so am I, which is why I always go to a designer. But coming in with a concept already roughed out by AI helps them turn it around faster.

Lee Wochner:
We don’t do any writing with AI. And we certainly don’t expose client information through AI — that would be terrible.

Alex Medina:
Well, there’s an air gap for AI and any participant information.

Lee Wochner:
Whenever we do use AI, I use it in an organizing way. I’m by nature a disorganized person, so I have to struggle against that. Too many thoughts, too many facts — I need help organizing. But when we do use AI, we always tell the client the way in which we used it.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, my supervisor knows exactly how I use AI. I use it for note-keeping, organizing my notes, and recaps for the day. Sometimes I’ll say, “Where are my priorities right now?” — because you get multiple emails at the same time and you just don’t know where to start. Sometimes AI helps with that: “Hey, there’s a project from a couple of weeks ago that has a deliverable due.” Then you move that over to whatever system you’re using, like Microsoft Planner.

Lee Wochner:
We’re going to have you back, because you and I have a lot more to talk about. But I do want to get a couple more morsels of wisdom from you while we still have a few minutes. What do you think is the greatest challenge nonprofits and the people in the organizations you work with are facing right now?

Alex Medina:
Ooh, that’s a hard one. I feel like the issue we’re facing most right now is finding the funds to make it work. Showing a relationship with foundations is really important, but sometimes those foundations don’t have funds either, or they have multiple competing priorities. That’s a challenge all nonprofits are facing right now — and honestly, it always has been, but especially now with reductions in federal spending and state spending trying to make up for federal cuts.

I also think some nonprofits are going to struggle if they continue to operate as an island. We are a coalition — the name literally says so — and that does shade my view of how people should organize. Going alone, especially in South LA, is not going to go well. Same is true in any city, honestly. If you don’t have a relationship you can leverage to build trust with your community, you’re going to have a hard time getting funding going forward.

For example, prior to CRCD Partners being developed, we had to rely on Little Tokyo Service Center to help give us the credentials to apply for large loans. That’s not something any nonprofit could do on its own without that relationship. When we were applying for — I’ll make up a number — a $20 million loan to build a housing development, funders were going to ask, “Who are you?” But we were able to bring in Little Tokyo Service Center, who had been around for 40 years at that point. And the funders said, “They’re willing to put their reputation on the line for CRCD? Let’s do it.”

So go out and get relationships. Have coffee with somebody. Invite somebody to your board. Meet the community and ask, “Where should we be?” Because you cannot do this by yourself.

Lee Wochner:
Excellent advice. The more connected you are, the more integral you become — you’re part of a whole network that’s producing results.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, and that’s why connectivity is so important. No one works as an island anymore. And the internet is basic infrastructure. Your job has to be able to use that internet to make connections — with your participants, your community, your board, your staff, your funders. It’s a tool, and it’s all about connection.

Lee Wochner:
That seems like a great note to end on, Alex. Is there any further advice you’d like to share with our audience?

Alex Medina:
I think one thing that really helps in marketing communications is flexibility. We all had a big jolt in 2024, and that’s where flexibility comes in. Your messaging is going to change, and that’s fine. It should not be the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago — but it also has to acknowledge the immediate impact that current events are having.

I was on a webinar where they were recommending language like “This is not who the United States is.” And I thought, that is not going to fly in Los Angeles. Don’t even try it in Southeast LA. That phrase doesn’t work here. We are a community — our community doesn’t stand for this. If you’re any student of history, you know exactly where the United States has stood on certain issues. So change your messaging to reflect reality, not what the loudest voices want you to say.

Lee Wochner:
Also well said. You just provoked something in my mind — you keep saying “the United States is.” And until Abraham Lincoln, it was “the United States are.” It was a collection of states. Gary Wills wrote a whole book about the Gettysburg Address and how Lincoln may have shifted the language to a single entity — he started saying “is” rather than “are.” And so when you and I have spent all this time talking about the importance of language, there it is right there.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, that’s interesting. And it makes total sense, considering he was fighting a civil war. He had to make the collective known.

Lee Wochner:
Because he was brilliant at language. And that’s one of the reasons we revere him — brilliant at language, working from a moral and ethical base.

Alex Medina:
Yeah, I mean, he’s human, so it’s a complex situation. Like all humans, he’s complicated and had his own issues — but he was also a great orator.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah. Alex, it’s been a real pleasure. And I promise we’re doing this again.

Alex Medina:
Absolutely, anytime.

Lee Wochner:
All right, thanks so much.

Alex Medina:
Thank you so much.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Thanks for listening. How to Market Your Nonprofit is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please like and follow the show. Visit counterintuity.com to learn more.