EPISODE 128
Episode 128 of Tales From the Trenches Tuesdays is the last in the series featuring Michelle Benson. She has spent 30 years in fundraising — as both a fundraiser and a funder. Through her company Culture of Philanthropy, she teaches nonprofits worldwide how to use LinkedIn to connect with funders without cold messaging and without burning hours on content creation. She knows the platform deeply, and more importantly, she knows why most organizations are using it wrong.
We got into something that feels a little taboo — can you talk about religion or politics on LinkedIn? Michelle reframed it fast. It’s not about the topic, it’s about the audience. If your donors are predominantly of a particular faith and your mission is rooted in that faith, talking about it isn’t controversial — it’s just being relevant. LinkedIn’s algorithm does the sorting. People outside your target market likely won’t even see it, and if they do and it’s not for them, they scroll on.
You’re not the same person 100% at the gym as you are with your children. Different relationships, different situations — you behave accordingly. Platforms have different focuses.
The more useful frame Michelle offered was this: forget the platform for a second. Imagine you’re at a professional networking event with a name badge on. How do you behave? That’s LinkedIn. She calls it “boss over your shoulder” — most people are already self-regulating without realizing it. The platform isn’t asking you to be someone different. It’s just asking you to be the version of yourself that showed up to work today.
She also drew a clean line between LinkedIn and Facebook that I think a lot of nonprofit communicators need to hear. LinkedIn’s mission is connecting professionals. Facebook’s is building community. Wrong platform, wrong headspace, wrong result — no matter how good your content is.
Show up as yourself, know your audience, let the platform do the filtering. Sounds simple. Harder than it looks.
Just click on the picture of Michelle below to hear our conversation.
L’chaim,
jack
