What do charities need?

What do they really need?

If you answered funding, well, yeah, you're technically right.

But what's more important than that?

It's to grow a supportive ecosystem and community.

Today I'm speaking with Jeremy Mani, who is doing exactly this by recruiting every single podcaster he knows into a movement called Podcast On.

So if you're a podcaster, know someone who is or know a charity that needs to be shown off to the world, you're going to want to get in on this.

Welcome back to another episode of Global Health Pursuit, the podcast where we explore the world's most pressing health challenges through a beginner's lens.

I'm your host, Hetal Bahman, a biomedical engineer turned social impact podcaster.

And.

And today's episode is a little bit different because its guiding principle is to serve any and all causes worldwide.

The concept is quite simple, yet somehow powerful.

To convince as many hosts of podcasts as possible to dedicate one episode of their show to a charity of their choice and to do that in a coordinated effort, that would be mid March.

So during a span of seven days, from 15 March to 2025 to the 21st, seven days in which we expect over a thousand of podcasters worldwide.

It's a global movement called Podcast on, and it's driven by a simple mission.

To unite podcasters in making a positive impact on the world and to use the power of podcasting to raise awareness and support for important causes.

We'll talk more about how and why Jeremy and his co founders took this idea and went for it.

But first I had to know, was he always this altruistic?

I won't lie to you.

I won't say that when I was young, I wouldn't say that.

My objective, my goal was to create something very positive, to have an impact, you know, to build bridges between communities.

It was not really the case.

I mean, as many young adults at that time, I was more focused on the start of my my own career.

That's Jeremy Mani, a seasoned digital Entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the digital landscape.

I don't know about you, but it felt refreshing to hear him say that building a social impact business was not really top of mind from the very get go.

I mean, unless you've experienced or witnessed real inequities, you're usually focused on two building your career and two, making the money.

As a young adult, he witnessed the dot com boom in the late 1990s.

It was a period of rapid growth in the stock market that was fueled by Investments that were made in Internet based companies.

And Jeremy found himself in the perfect place at the perfect time, with the perfect people.

I was fortunate to spend a semester in Michigan University 25 years ago in 1999.

And at that time it was an incredible period.

It was the very beginning of Internet, meaning that you could see a lot of dot com ads on billboards, on tv.

I was surrounded by, by students that would split into small groups to create business plan and, and, and startups.

And I didn't even know what was a business plan and what was a startup.

But I just realized quickly that it was a revolution.

And so my goal was to be part of this revolution.

When I went back in France in 2000 with some friends and partner, we created this first company about the email, email marketing sector because that was the beginning of something.

And it's not just like you create a company like we do now.

It was also this feeling of being part of something bigger than us that is this Internet revolution.

That was really my motivation then.

I was lucky to be in Michigan in 1989 and it changed my mind completely.

It was a complete change of mindset and I dropped the marketing career to try to embrace a more Internet career which was something new.

At that time.

What was it like diving into that?

You said that you didn't have any idea what, what a business plan is.

It's easy, it's easier now.

There's so many online courses that you can follow, you can attend to teach you that.

But you know, at that time I was 22, 23, I had nothing to lose.

It's so easier to create a company when you're a young adult because you don't have any family, you can stay home with your parents, you don't have to spend any rent or something.

And if you fail while still young so you can get a job and keep on your normal career in marketing, finance or wherever else.

I was naive at that time.

We, we were young with no experience.

I'm saying we because we were a bunch of five co founders with the same, you know, spirit that we just wanted to move forward and try to do something.

It's easier to have a storytelling now saying that we had a vision and we wanted to become entrepreneur but that wasn't really the truth.

And truth is that you're young, you're a bit naive and you're seeing this revolution and you want to be part of it and you have an idea, a concept and you say why not?

Let's have a try, let's try to get our first clients and from there you build the company.

But yeah, there was no big vision at that time.

So how long did you work on that?

Yeah, it was a 10 years journey.

A bit complicated at the beginning, but the, the first two or three years were a bit hectic.

But after that we managed to grow and it was successful.

We sold it after roughly 10 years and it was a great adventure.

Only positive things came out of this experience.

He's talking about a company that he co founded in 2000.

It was one of Europe's first email marketing companies.

And with his team he built it from the ground up before a successful sale in 2009.

That's almost 10 years of hard work, dedication and faith without knowing if you'd succeed.

If you're an entrepreneur looking for inspiration, make sure to stick around until the very end to hear a clip where we dive a little bit deeper into this.

Jeremy then acquired and led a community management company specializing in content moderation.

He grew it into a thriving business until selling it in 2019 to pivot into a space he calls digital for good.

So you sold those two companies and then now you're in the space of philanthropy.

Right, but in the sense of digital for good, can you explain what that term means for you?

First of all, I have to say that most of the time when you're referring to digital technology, it's related to some kind of bad concept or a bad reputation.

Think about hate speech, screen addiction, scam, fake news also.

So technology has a bad reputation and the many potential harm for society and also for individual.

When I was in content moderation, I was able to witness the darker side of the digital world, this, its toxicity because that was my job as a moderator and the owner of this company, to somehow hide it a bit.

It's kind of frustration because you hide it, but you, you're not solving the problem.

I do think that technology is a neutral tool.

I mean, it's neither bad or good, it depends on its use.

I mean, I'm just stating some very basic thing there, but I do believe it's, it's true.

I do believe that there is ways to somehow channel the technology for positive change.

And that would be what I'm calling digital for good.

I was referring to those first days of Internet 25 years ago and we had this belief, probably a bit naive at the time, that would be a positive revolution, that it will break barriers, that will produce cost, that will, would bring people closer somehow.

It's true.

I mean I'm, I'm, I'M I'm living in Montreal, my family's in Europe, and my life would be lonelier if I hadn't stood like, you know, FaceTime and WhatsApp.

You know, that's definitely a positive tool that didn't existed at the time to connect people and to, to be closer from your family.

But yet we still have a lot of work, let's be honest, to ensure that these digital capabilities are used for better good.

It's not automatic.

It requires some conscious effort and intention to tip the balance toward the good.

And with this podcast and initiative, we are fully aware that we are not changing the world, we are not changing any lives, but we are trying to contribute our small part to the bigger picture.

Tell me about podcast Thon.

Where did the idea come from?

And why podcasts?

Right?

Cause I feel like it's so different.

Your, your previous life, right?

Your previous life is completely in the tech world, in the business world.

And then where did you have the idea that, okay, I'm going to utilize the podcast platform to contribute some good in the world?

It started maybe in 2020.

It was clearly a turning point first because I moved to Canada.

So it's, it's bright moment maybe, you know, to, to, to, to change life somehow.

But also, and probably most importantly, it was a Covid period.

That's a period for reflection on deeper motivation on purpose.

I mean, we were numerous.

A lot of people took advantage of this period to decide what they didn't want to, to keep on doing.

And then that was no different.

I realized that I had a double chance.

First, I could have a comfortable life, but most and foremost, I don't have any frustration.

I have no desire of luxury watch or sports car or islands home somewhere in the world.

I mean, I do respect people who are passionate about luxury watch, but it's definitely not me.

So I had to decide if I wanted to create a third company or do something else.

And I had no motivation to create a third company.

I mean, most of the time when you create a company, it's to make money, right?

But if you don't need more money to buy new things, what's the purpose?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not Bill Gates, I'm not Sam Hatman.

I mean, if those guys are playing in major league, that would be a, I don't know, double A or minor league player.

But that's enough to accumulate enough wealth and to have a comfortable life.

I had a lot of energy, so I thought to myself that I could maybe use this energy and my skills as an entrepreneur to do something for the others, you know, like problem solving, community building.

I'm a doer everything related to execution skills.

You might use it not to create a company, but to create a charitable organization.

And that's where all started.

But before arriving to this idea and concept of Ford Kasten, we tried different things.

The first thing we tried, and I'm saying we because we have a co founder and friend, Eve Delnat, I'm pleased to to name him because we, we had two in this, in this venture and the first thing we decided to do in 2021 roughly is to launch kind of social network dedicated to altruistic people.

So I do love this baseline, but it didn't work.

I mean, it worked in some point because we, we managed to have a lot of press coverage, media coverage, and was really positive.

But we knew it would be complicated to bring together enough people to have an impact and we didn't manage to do it.

To be honest with you, when you.

Say social network, what do you mean by that?

Like a Facebook, A bit different.

And it's related to the question about technology.

I mean, hate speech, fake news have to be counterbalanced by positive stories.

I mean, there are a lot of very inspiring stories everywhere, but we don't focus on them because it's normal.

Press and media will always focus on two people arguing instead of insisting on hundreds people working together to build something.

It's human nature.

We just focus on negative things.

We are more stressed by negative things than attracted by positive things.

We are more stressed by negative things than attracted by positive things.

What Jeremy is referencing is something called a negativity bias.

It's a psychological tendency to give more weight to negative experiences than positive ones, even when they're of equal intensity.

In an article by the Decision Lab, they speak about how deeply this bias is wired into our brains.

For example, think about receiving 10 compliments in a day, but focusing entirely on the one piece of criticism.

This is negativity bias.

This bias didn't just appear randomly.

It has evolutionary roots.

Our ancestors needed to focus on threats like predators or poisonous plants, because ignoring them could honestly mean death.

Our brains are developed to prioritize dangers.

And because that survival mechanism is still with us, our brains sometimes make us feel like failing an exam is the same thing as the world ending.

Raise your hand if you felt that way.

According to the article, this bias affects decision making, relationships and even societal trends.

Media, for instance, thrives on negativity because it grabs our attention more easily.

Headlines often Emphasize fear, danger, or conflict, reinforcing a skewed perception of the world.

This helps explain why constant exposure to negative news can make us feel like everything around us is falling apart, even if things are improving in many areas.

For example, did you know that only 9% of the world's population live in extreme poverty?

In 1980, this number was actually 40%.

Most people don't know this, and this is because the news tells us otherwise.

We were told that around 100 million people were pushed into poverty during COVID which was, of course, devastating.

But as you can see from a graph taken from our world in data.org, there certainly is an uptick, but it's not as significant as we would think it to be.

Trying to break people's natural negativity bias and encouraging people to actively share positive and good stories was an uphill battle that Jeremy and his team faced.

He would say it was even naive, and it created a need to pivot.

The naive concept behind that was to bring together enough people to promote, to share, to amplify the visibility of those inspiring stories.

So there was the first thing of spotting the stories so there could be videos and, and, and, or articles and then sharing that to the communities.

But we wanted to create a community of people searching actively for positive content and deciding actively to share them, to amplify the visibility of those content and then counterbalance the negative sides of the Internet by some positive content.

Well, that was very theoretical and it didn't work the way we would like, but it was a great experience.

I learned a lot from there.

And somehow it lead us to podcast on, because just like in a company, when something is not really working the way you like, you adjust it, you adapt yourself.

We wanted to do something for charities.

You may have heard about this teleton concept on tv.

I don't know if it's very popular in us and elsewhere in the world, but that's, you know, those.

That's when on TV you have charity and you ask people to donate for charity and create content by showcasing people that desperately need these cause to be solved and things like that.

So we were kind of inspired by this event on tv, and somehow I thought to myself, what would be a charitable event in the podcasting industry?

That's really the basic question.

And from there we managed to create this podcast initiative.

We just put that to at least a dozen of podcasters and saying, we have this idea of trying to create a podcast on.

And here is what it looked like.

And to help us to fine tune the formula.

And from there we managed to bring together 2030 and 50 podcasters and 100 and word of mouth do his job.

And the first edition that was in France only at the time, in 2023 gathered 300 podcasters, which was a great start, to be honest with you.

We didn't put on our effort in podcast on first.

We saw that as a success and we tried something else.

We, we tried to have an impact on LinkedIn too in, in 2023 after the success of the first podcast and we, we invited a concept of giving link and the concept was pretty much the same that is trying to convince as many influential people on LinkedIn to create a post, to write a post dedicated to a charity and asking for donation for this charity.

So we selected, I don't know, 40 charities and asked those influential people pick one and to write a post for them because they're supposed to be influential, they have communities.

And if we could aggregate the number of followers of all, all those people, that would lead us to over 6 or 7 million of followers.

That was theoretically significant, but didn't work as we, as we wanted.

We managed to get those 150 people, but the donation was a bit disappointing.

So that's where we realized that podcasting was our best sh.

We need to focus on this initiative and drop the others to be 100% focused on this initiative.

So we, we had a second edition 2024 with not only 400 podcasters, but many partners like Apple Podcast, Acast, Spotify, a lot of others.

And it became much more structured.

In 2025 we will open it to English speaking podcasters.

It's a huge shift and a great challenge because we're starting from scratch in us, in uk, in Canada, in Australia, in, I don't know, South Africa and many other countries, in India for sure.

It's also because I need to showcase the fact it took time from 2020 till now to arrive to this podcast.

I feel like, you know, what I'm hearing is you have to pivot multiple times to see what works.

But was the main goal for starting this type of initiative to raise money?

And that would be the quantifying factor to see, okay, this event was successful because we raised X number of dollars for these charitable organizations that are featured on these podcasts.

Right.

I mean it's a learning curve.

And to be completely honest with you, that was our first intention at the very beginning with the very first podcast turn to raise money for charities.

And then we quickly realized that it was not the case, probably because Podcasting is not the best medium to do that.

There is no urgency behind it.

You can listen to an episode six months later and it will be still valid and interesting.

And also because, I mean, it's, it's.

Well, that's not the strength of podcasts.

And on the contrary, podcasting is probably the best medium to convey emotion, to tell stories, to take time to, to have a nuanced speech.

That's what it takes for charities to connect with a larger audience.

So the feedback of the charities after the first podcast, where, you know, we don't really expect you to collect money because it takes time.

If you put us into a relation with a new listener, it would be hardly surprising that it will donate immediately because it takes time, you know, to plant a seed and see it grow.

And it was a comment speech from very large NGO to local charity.

It was a very common point.

What we need, they said, is to enlarge a circle of our supporters, meaning our potential donators, our potential volunteers, anyone that would be eager to share our content or be more interested in what we are doing.

And with time, that's our job, to transform them into potential donators or whatever else, please keep on connecting us with new audiences.

We found that there was a match there because you podcasters, you're great in storytelling, in gathering a loyal audience.

And on the other hand, charities, they need to be connected with, with new audiences.

If you think about that, there is many other ways to collect money to donate.

Marathons, phone ins, auctions, you name it.

I mean, they found out to be very effective in raising money for charities.

But it's more complicated for those events to bring to the table new audiences.

And we are trying to be a bit innovative in, in that sense, not searching for very strict KPIs.

And we don't care about KPIs.

We just, we are just convinced that it's very positive to put into relation a charity with a new audience.

And with your talent as podcasters, you will be able to ask the good questions and put in value, maybe a representative of a charity during the episode.

So my conviction, my belief is that after listening such an episode, something will happen.

I mean, you, there's better chance that you might be touched and you would be eager to do something at the end of the day to help them.

Maybe not exactly, not immediately, but maybe in the future.

I can tell you that is exactly what happens because I have heard people from my own podcast episodes to say, hey, I learned about this nonprofit through your podcast.

I reached out to them and now I'm an intern or I got connected with their founder or I've learned something new about this issue.

I think that's what you're saying.

You want to plant the seed in whatever cause you're talking about within that specific episode.

And then also, like after podcasts are released, right.

There's marketing effort, right?

So it's not just the audio that comes out.

You're also releasing the reels and the posts so that if people don't listen to the episode, you're still hearing about the specific charity through different mediums.

The podcast is just the centralized thing and then everything else kind of comes out of it.

Podcasters are great community.

I mean, I mean, it.

You guys are passionate.

Most of you maybe don't make money out of podcasts.

It's more passion, passion things.

And when you combine passion on the one hand and charity on the other hand, it's a great combo.

I mean, and most of the time those podcast on episodes are just great.

I mean, I mean, so inspiring.

I know, I know inspiring is a word that we use so many times and probably too often, but I mean, I have so many anecdotes and so many episodes in mind where I was personally moved, touched, you know, and, and, well, I do believe that when you listen to such episode with the heart, because it's done with the heart and with passion, you definitely want to be closer to this specific, specific charity because that's really a medium with intimacy, with connection.

It's almost like we are talking on one, on one conversation.

Even though you're listeners, it feels like podcasters are talking to you or just in front of you.

That's a little bit of magic that you can't find on social media, like, I don't know, a 30 second video on Instagram or TikTok.

You can't expect from that the same awareness or the same impact.

It's a commitment.

You're committing 30 minutes to two hours a day and you obviously think that you're going to get something out of it.

Do you say, oh, oh, I love this podcast because of the host or the topics, Then you become like a companion.

Podcasting is such a companion medium where you're washing the dishes, you're listening to something, you're walking, you're listening to something, you're driving.

You're also listening to something, you're bringing it along with you like a companion.

And that's why I feel like this is the perfect medium to really get close to a specific cause.

On my podcast, we Talk about all different global health topics.

I just recently learned about my cycle, menstrual health.

I'm 33 years old.

How do I not know about this stuff?

And then, and then through that, learning about a brand that really cares about the planet, but then also period products in that sense, and how they meld it right through podcasts.

You make a friend, right?

It's like I'm sitting here with my friend and I'm learning about something, and it's just, I think that's the perfect medium.

And your listeners will first you because they are accustomed to hearing your voice.

Maybe one of the reason of the success, if I may use this word, of the podcaster, lies in the fact that you podcasters decide which charity you want to highlight.

We are not importing a charity or even a cause.

And it was something that sounds maybe an ethnotic at the very beginning, but I'm not convinced that it was core part of the success because it led to a kind of alignment between your value, your theme of your editorial line, and also what is expected from your audience.

So you might listen to podcast about, you know, environment, about against poverty, about.

I mean, I can't name all of them, but there's so many causes and there would.

There would be a huge diversity of theme and causes addressed in this podcast by at least one podcasters.

So there's room for everyone.

But most of them, there would, there would be a bit of your heart into it because you're choosing, you're choosing as a charity.

So that's not something you do because you've been asked to, but because you do believe it's a good thing to promote, to highlight this specific charity instead of others.

And you will get a chance next year to choose another one.

So, yeah, there will be room for several of them.

So when is Podcast Thon happening?

What is the plan?

You're saying you're gathering all of these podcasters who care about specific causes.

How is all of this structured?

The concept is quite simple, yet somehow powerful.

To convince as many hosts of podcasts as possible to dedicate one episode of their show to a charity of their choice and to do that in a coordinated effort that would be mid March.

So during a span of seven days, from the 15th of March, 2025 to the 21st, seven days in which we expect over a thousand of podcasters worldwide, that there is this idea of convincing so many podcasters to release an episode showcasing a charity of their choice.

The coordinated effort makes it an event, and that's enabling us as an organizing team to partner with organizations like acast, Spotify, Pod News and many others to amplify the visibility of this initiative.

And in this platform, podcaston.org will be listed all the episodes, country by country, language by language.

For the moment it's just French and English, but that would be part of a future plan, maybe to extend it to other languages.

So in 2025 you can expect over a thousand episodes from different countries promoting different kind of charities.

And we hope that many, many curious people will connect to this platform and discover this episode.

And obviously all those podcasters will promote their own episode through their own platforms and that would contribute to the atmosphere and the enthusiasm, enthusiasm around this initiative.

It's all about raising awareness.

That's really the core objective.

The main objective is to raise awareness.

We believe that it's the main strength of podcasting and that's what charity needs.

We are expecting millions of hours of impactful audio content.

We don't exactly, we'll never know, to be honest with you.

But that's not the point.

The point is that we managed somehow to bring together a community of value driven podcasters coordinating their efforts to create this event.

And we want to thank them because it takes time to create an episode.

It's always great when they can take some time to participate to such a nonprofit initiative.

Yeah.

So if you're listening to this and you have a podcast and you have a charity that you want to feature, there's so much time to register.

There's two registration links.

I just wanted to insist on the point you were saying, because if you're a charity too, you might be tempted to shout out and say, hey, here we are.

We want to be invited at the mic and we do have a form for that.

So that would be on our platform.

Then you can just register yourself.

Doesn't mean that you will be invited automatically, but at least you will be displayed on the website on the list.

And this list is shared to any registered podcasters.

So 900 so far for any podcaster might not be completely at ease with finding a charity or may not have contacts.

Then it's a, it's a valuable sources of inspiration for them.

They can select with keywords a few charities and then decide which one they want to invite.

I do encourage you, if you're a charity, to register and for sure if you're a podcaster too, you're more than welcome to participate.

Not too late.

Podcast on is happening in just a month's time and runs from March 15 to March 21.

So, like Jeremy said, if you're interested in participating as a podcaster or even just a listener when the event is launched, make sure to register or sign up to receive their newsletter@podcastthon.org I'll leave the links in the description below.

And if you're wondering, I'll of course be participating in this event.

So make sure that you're following this podcast wherever you're listening, because on the week of March 15th, I'm releasing an episode featuring an organization that you won't want to miss.

If you have any questions at all, you can comment below if you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, or shoot me an email at hebalhealthpursuit.com now if you're still listening, I've got a little bonus bit of inspiration, especially if you're an entrepreneur or aspired to run your own business one day.

Here's a little bit of light for you.

I was looking at your history and you started this company around 2000.

You mentioned that you didn't get your first sale until five or six years down the line.

That gives me motivation and I think people listening to this motivation because things take time.

We need to think about our small wins along the way and that people are seeing that and that eventually something will pay off after having failures.

And so that's where I felt inspired.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it would be easy for me to tell a story about my career in saying it started 25 years ago and I could sell two companies and was successful entrepreneur.

But that's not exactly how it worked.

If you look at details, if you have a closer look at it, I can confess that, for example, after two years or three of being entrepreneurs, I was about to, to stop and quit because it was not working the way I wanted and it was more complicated than I thought.

So it was tempting, you know, to just do something else and, and, and, and quit.

Thankfully, I didn't do it and, and I kept on and at the end of the day, it became a success.

It takes flexibility, it takes patience.

It takes trying things, you know, trying things not to stick to the original plan.

Just, just move forward, just move.

And you will meet people that will change the curb of your company, that will give you ideas.

You will meet people that will become potential clients and, and help you develop your company because they will trust you.

You will recruit people, maybe that will completely change the mindset of your company as long as you're moving things with a positive outcome.

So that's really a learning trust yourself.

But be flexible, don't be stubborn, and just move forward.

It's a question of you need to listen to people, but take decisions doesn't mean you have to do what people tell you.

But it's good to listen to people because you can get inspiration from that.

You can see your situation from a different angle and make new choices that will prove efficient in the long run.

So that's what I mean by not being too stubborn.

Sometimes we have a plan in mind, and we want to stick to the plan whatever happens.

You don't.

You don't have to change plan every other day, but you might be able to change plans from time to time if it's not working the way you like.

So that's difficult to judge when you need to evolve, but that's something you learned with experience.

To get experience, you need to be patient.