Communicating with Donors and Staff During a Crisis
“Putting in best practices ahead of time helped us. For those organizations that hadn’t, I would recommend looking at those types of things and saying. ‘Hey this wasn’t a pandemic fix, but maybe there are other ways we could be organizing the way we do our business, the way we treat our donors so that we can carry on some of the things that really helped us.”
Pete Griffin
In this episode of The Beacon Podcast, Margaret Gardner speaks with Musicians On Call President and CEO Pete Griffin.
Pete talks about the coronavirus pandemic and how the organization connected with staff and donors. Pete answers questions including:
- How did Musicians On Call change the way it communicated with donors at the beginning of the pandemic?
- How did the organization stay connected with staff to make the transition into working through a pandemic less stressful?
- How did the pandemic inform the organization’s donor engagement and communications going forward? And what takeaways can other organizations glean from Musicians On Call’s experience?
About our Guest
Pete Griffin is the president and CEO of Musicians On Call, an organization that brings live music, either virtually or in person, to the bedsides of hospital patients around the country. It was ranked the #9 Best Nonprofit to Work For in America in 2021 by The Nonprofit Times.
Pete led in developing the organization from a small regional charity to the largest charity in America delivering music to patients’ bedsides and was recognized in 2017, 2019 and 2020 by the Nashville Business Journal as the Most Admired Nonprofit CEO in Nashville. He has been recognized in the Nashville Business Journal’s Healthcare Heroes Awards and Most Admired CEO’s and Top 40 Under 40 lists. The organization was also named the nonprofit winner in the publication’s 2021 Best in Business Awards.
Prior to Musicians on Call, Pete was the director of corporate and strategic partnerships for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and held leadership positions with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona, the Energy Action Coalition and MTV Networks.
