Unscripted Green & Non-Profits

About Unscripted Green & Non-Profits

We're talking with non-profit organizations, founders, and activists who are furthering green initiatives or community benefit programs.

Publisher

Jeremy Rivera

Category

business · education · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Jan 2025

Latest episode

28 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

12 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Paul Pape: Turning Strategy Into a Game Your Team Will Actually Play

   Paul Pape is the barkeep and game master at Gamify Business, where he turns strategy and operational problems into role-playing game mechanics. It started when a stuck CEO's love of gaming turned into a four-hour session, and that session became a consulting method. His framework splits people into linear thinkers and cloud thinkers, and his claim is that conventional planning documents fail roughly half of them. If you have ever watched a strategic plan die in a drawer while the people it described kept working, that will land. What he covers Linear thinkers versus cloud thinkers, and why one planning format cannot serve both The authority machine problem, building recognition is not the same as acquiring support Ride the dragon of passion, on why chasing recognition directly tends to starve it Working with neurodivergent clients rather than around them Why we are running it here. Paul makes the point directly in the episode that this can be run as a nonprofit version or an outreach programme. For an organisation whose planning day has to hold staff, volunteers and a board in one room, a format that works for more than one kind of brain is worth a look. Originally aired on Unscripted Small Business. Cross-posted here for the nonprofit audience.

2. 

   28 Aug 2026

   David Wilson: Findability Everywhere, and Why Cause Partnerships Are Defensible

   David Wilson, executive vice president at Zozimus, has been doing this since AltaVista. His argument is that search engine optimisation has become search everywhere optimisation: being findable wherever a decision gets made, rather than ranking for its own sake. The part worth a nonprofit's attention is his point about defensibility. His example is a tattoo shop working with veterans' groups, where the partnership creates something a competitor cannot copy by spending more money. For a cause organisation, that is the case for corporate partnership stated in the partner's own language. What he covers Findability over rankings, because only one of those places has a rank tracker pointed at it Turning Search Console into a gap list by comparing expected against actual click-through Internal linking, still one of the most reliable tactics and the least fashionable Digital PR and brand carrying the load as unbranded search erodes Your About page as the thing an AI model reads to decide whether to trust you Why we are running it here. Nonprofits compete for attention against organisations with far bigger budgets. Findability and genuine community partnership are two of the few levers that are not purely a spending contest. Originally aired on The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast. Cross-posted here for the nonprofit audience.

3. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Mike Montague: Use AI Like Iron Man, Not the Terminator

   Mike Montague of Avenue9 draws a line between two ways to point AI at a problem. The Terminator approach builds an agent and sends it out alone. The Iron Man approach wraps a person in the technology and sends the person. His whole practice is built on the second one. He has also done the work in a nonprofit context that most agencies never touch: teaching questioning skills to border-crossing agents for an anti-trafficking charity in Africa. It is a short passage, and it is the clearest example in the episode of the method surviving outside a sales floor. What he covers AI reliably earns a C plus, useful, and not the part anyone was paying you for Bad strategy plus AI is just faster failure; it amplifies in both directions Keeping your online reputation matched to your real work rather than inflated past it Degenerative engineering, using AI to distil what you already are instead of generating more of what you are not Why we are running it here. Nonprofits are being sold AI harder than almost anyone right now, usually as a staff replacement. This is the counter-argument, from someone who sells AI services for a living. Originally aired on The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast. Cross-posted here for the nonprofit audience.

4. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Benjamin Behrooz: Community Involvement as an Actual Growth Strategy

   Benjamin Behrooz of Branding Los Angeles builds brands for blue-collar and home-service businesses, and one of his most consistent recommendations is the one most marketers treat as a nice-to-have: show up in your community, repeatedly, on the record. His own firm runs an NYPD toy drive, donates to Shriners, and organises Santa Monica beach cleanups. He is candid that this is both genuine and good for the business, which is the honest version of a conversation nonprofits rarely get from a corporate partner. What he covers Empathy as a practical tool for finding what a customer, or a donor, actually cares about Holding authenticity while you scale, and where most organisations lose it Where AI helps marketing and where it flattens the voice you built Using community involvement to build visibility that advertising cannot buy Why we are running it here. If you have ever built a corporate partnership and found the company wanted a logo placement and nothing else, this is a useful look from the other side of that table at what makes a partner stay. Originally aired on The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast. Cross-posted here for the nonprofit audience.

5. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Rebecca Prejean: Accessibility Is a Retention Problem, Not a Compliance One

   Rebecca Prejean of EBGC advises nonprofit leaders on accessibility, and her argument reframes it: stop selling accommodation as compliance and start selling it as productivity and retention. For an organisation running on volunteers and a thin payroll, that is the version of the pitch that actually moves a board. Her route in was personal. Her son has autism, and the advocacy she learned for him became the work she now does for organisations. What she covers Why structured meetings are the cheapest accommodation most organisations never make Self-advocacy after a late diagnosis, and why so much of the workforce is arriving there now Framing accessibility in terms leadership already budgets for, productivity and retention Where AI genuinely helps, and where it is being oversold Why we are running it here. Rebecca works with nonprofit CEOs, and she is speaking at Cause Camp on the accessibility gap in nonprofit organisations specifically. The episode is about workplaces generally, but the volunteer-heavy, under-resourced org is where these ideas bite hardest. Originally aired on Unscripted Small Business, hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower. Cross-posted here for the nonprofit audience.

6. 

   26 Aug 2026

   94% of Women Execs Played Sports | Melyssa Jaskiewicz

   Only 24% of C-suite executives are women. 94% of them played sports. Melyssa Jaskiewicz built Leveling the Fields on the space between those two numbers. She goes into Charleston elementary schools and hands third through fifth grade girls a sport they have never tried. The program is called EmpowerPlay, and the clever part is who coaches it: the school's own teachers, hired and paid. The kids already know the hierarchy, so classroom management transfers for free, and the money lands in a teacher's pocket. In South Carolina, twice as many boys play high school sports as girls. Melyssa's read is that this is a pipeline problem, not an interest problem. There is no youth program feeding the middle school feeding the high school, so the team never forms. The barrier for families is options and logistics, not desire. She is also honest about the skill that did not transfer. Twenty years in sales, and asking a friend for money is still awkward: "We have a school on a wait list and we need $14,000 to pull that school off the wait list. Can you give me $100?" If you want to end that particular conversation, bring the program to a school or donate. Diagnosed dyslexic and ADD in the 1980s, she makes a blunt argument about cutting PE: you cannot take kids with fast brains and expect them to sit still for eight hours. She has the before-and-after story of one disruptive student to back it up. On AI, she is not generating graphics. She runs paid Claude and ChatGPT as collaborators for grant writing, pasted a thousand Instagram followers in to find collaboration targets, and has Claude clearing bounced email into HubSpot. Response time is a nonprofit's version of speed to lead, the thing Ignitvio measures in home services: she met a volunteer who waited nearly a year to hear back from a shelter. Her team answers in hours and staffed a volunteer manager to make sure of it. If you want to be one, they are taking volunteers and coaches. Connect with Melyssa on LinkedIn. Leveling the Fields is @levelingthefields everywhere. Read the full recap: https://unscriptednonprofit.com/melyssa-jaskiewicz-leveling-the-fields-girls-sports-pipeline/ More from the network: Unscripted Non-Profit and Unscripted Small Business. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.

7. 

   23 Jul 2026

   Giving Gen Alpha the Tools to Regulate a Dysregulated World

   Retired 27-year educator Queen D. Michele — founder of the Fula History & Genealogy Society in America — joins host Jeremy Rivera for a special edition of the Unscripted Green & Non-Profits podcast on why Generation Alpha is growing up emotionally dysregulated, and what it takes to hand them the tools to regulate it. She shares three hard-won “nuggets” — on the matrix, on generational trauma carried in our DNA, and on why unconscious adults can’t teach consciousness — then explains how her 52 Insights for Gen Alpha program turns the five core SEL competencies into a personal, AI-adaptive journey (free online pilot starts September 8). Along the way: her return to her ancestral village in Guinea-Bissau, screens that never turn off, and the “big gun” of guided meditation. Read more of her writing on her Substack.

8. 

   18 Dec 2025

   Megan Ihnen: When the Concert Season Is a JPEG Google Can't Read

   Megan Ihnen is executive director of the Live Music Project, a Seattle-born 501(c)(3) that calls itself a classical music advocacy and tech-for-good organization and builds all of its software in-house. The origin story is the best part: founder Shia Lyon wanted to hear the Brahms Double Concerto played live, could not find anywhere to look it up, and discovered that Seattle alone had around 30 community orchestras publishing their entire concert season as a JPEG that Google could not read.In this episodeHow one listener's hunt for a live Brahms Double Concerto turned into a national concert calendarWhy arts organizations posting seasons as images are invisible to search, and what that costs small ensembles"Listener agency" - letting people filter concerts by piece, composer, instrument, price, house-concert vs. hall, or sensory-friendly formatSpontaneous Free Tickets: turning donated tickets into an audience-development loop, with post-concert surveys fed back to organizations that rarely hear from first-time attendeesShipping software on a volunteer dev team - corporate matching hours from Seattle tech employers, coding bootcamp grads getting public-facing portfolio work, and the slower build pace that comes with itRunning programs manually for years before automating them, and partnering with a university tech-for-good program to build the first versionGeographic expansion before new art forms, plus a corporate sponsorship model designed not to extract money out of the arts community it serves"She sees that their concert season is a JPEG on their website and realizes like, Google can't scan this. Google has no idea that this concert is happening, right?" - Megan Ihnen on the problem that started Live Music Project"But we're using technology to make that easy. Just make it easy to be curious." - Megan Ihnen"This is a program in which their name can be on every single ticket, every single thank you and really reinforce that community level support." - Megan Ihnen on what corporate sponsors get from Spontaneous Free TicketsConnect with Megan and the Live Music Project at livemusicproject.org - the concert calendar, Spontaneous Free Tickets, the weekend digest emails and the volunteer sign-ups all live there.

9. 

   27 Mar 2025

   San Diego Cleanup Events

   Hello, and welcome to the Unscripted Non-Profit Green podcast. I'm your host, Nathan Short. Today, we're spotlighting upcoming community cleanup events in San Diego, focusing on opportunities happening within the next week. Engaging in these events is a fantastic way to contribute to environmental preservation and connect with like-minded individuals. Fiesta Island Trash Cleanup by Rock N' Block Kicking off our list is the Fiesta Island Trash Cleanup, organized by Rock N' Block San Diego. This event is scheduled for Saturday, March 29, 2025, at 10:00 AM. Volunteers will gather at 1519 Fiesta Island Road in San Diego to participate in this Adopt-a-Spot beach cleanup initiative. RSVPRock N' Block will provide necessary supplies, including gloves, bags, vests, and buckets. Participants are encouraged to wear comfortable attire, bring sun protection, and carry a water bottle. This family-friendly event welcomes friends, families, and even four-legged companions to help preserve the natural beauty of Fiesta Island. To ensure adequate supplies, an RSVP is required. You can find more details and RSVP at their website. Litter Free La Mesa: Alvarado Avenue and Stormwater Channel Neighborhood Cleanup Also on Saturday, March 29, from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM, I Love A Clean San Diego, in partnership with the City of La Mesa, is hosting a litter cleanup event. Volunteers will focus on diverting litter from local watersheds to prevent it from reaching the Pacific Ocean. Participants should wear comfortable clothes, closed-toed shoes, and bring sun protection. For more information and to register, visit I Love A Clean San Diego's events page. Compost Giveaway at Lake Murray Park For those interested in sustainable gardening, there's a Compost Giveaway event on Saturday, March 29, from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM at Lake Murray Park, located at 6320 Murray Park Circle, San Diego. This event is exclusively for City of San Diego residents. It's a great opportunity to enrich your garden soil while supporting the city's waste reduction efforts. Details are available on I Love A Clean San Diego's website. Sunset Sweep: Manzanita Canyon Looking ahead, on Thursday, April 10, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM, there's the Sunset Sweep at Manzanita...

10. 

    7 Mar 2025

    Andy Choi of Do Good Points: Profit with Purpose & Overcoming "The Great Detachment"

    In this conversation, Jeremy Rivera and Andy Choi discuss the concept of 'profit with purpose' and how businesses can integrate social impact into their operations. They explore the dissatisfaction in the workforce, the importance of brand equity, and the need for non-profits to adopt a more profitable mindset. Choi emphasizes the potential for businesses to thrive while contributing positively to society, and the conversation culminates in a call to action for individuals and businesses to engage in social good. Profit with purpose is essential for modern businesses. The workforce is experiencing unprecedented dissatisfaction. Marketing can be a tool for social good. Every business can incorporate a social impact element. Non-profits need to adopt a profitable mindset. Brand equity is tied to social responsibility. The narrative around non-profits needs to change. Individuals should pursue what breaks their heart. Action is more important than intention in making a difference. Resources are necessary to solve societal problems.

11. 

    30 Jan 2025

    Volunteer Trash & Community Cleanup Recap

    This is a quick community cleanup roundup:A recent community trash cleanup took place in Cookville, Tennessee, organized by Keep Putnam County Beautiful. Volunteers gathered to clean up litter and debris in various public spaces, helping to improve the appearance and safety of the neighborhood. Michael McDougald recently sponsored a beach based trash cleanup in Sarasota with Community Clean Links bringing 20 volunteers together on Siesta Beach to pick up debris from the recent hurricane.

12. 

    30 Jan 2025

    Introducing Our Unscripted Interview Podcast for Green inititives and non-profits

    As part of our social enterprise, Community Clean Links, we're interviewing teams who are making a difference in their community by cleaning up trash, helping those in need and improving our world.

Podcast Authority Score: 29 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

57

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

Contact Unscripted Green & Non-Profits

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.