How AdGood Unlocks Premium Streaming TV Inventory For Nonprofits On Any Budget with Kris Johns, Founder of AdGood Foundation

Social Capital And The Big Idea

Tim Rowe 0:00

Join or Die is a 2023 documentary following Harvard professor Robert Putnam's research, originally documented in the book Bowling Alone, which argues that social capital, community connections like clubs and leagues are essential for democracy, warning that bowling alone, which was a trend he observed back in the 70s, that the trend of declining group participation threatens to destroy community life as we know it. But today's guest has another idea entirely. Today's guest is Chris Johns, founder of the first nonprofit for nonprofits that connects deeply discounted wholesale streaming inventory on the top publishers like Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN, all the names that you love, like, and trust with data, AI-enabled workflows, and impact reporting with budgets as small as $250, so that the groups who enable our communities have access to the resources they need, not just to survive, but thrive. Enjoy today's episode with Chris Johns, founder of AdGood. Chris Johns, thank you so much for being here. We're going to learn about AdGood and the mission that you're on. Welcome to the Stay Streaming Podcast.

Kris Johns, AdGood 1:13

Glad to be here, Tim. Thanks for having us.

AdGood Mission And CTV Access

Tim Rowe 1:15

Yeah, it's going to be fun. Maybe a good place for us to start is what is the mission that you're on? What is the problem that you're solving, and who's who's that solving it for?

Kris Johns, AdGood 1:25

So Ad Good's a 51c3 nonprofit. Our mission is to bring affordable access to connected TV advertising to all nonprofits. The major problem that we're solving for is that nonprofits can't easily access premium streaming TV inventory. A lot of the donated media is really fragmented and scarce and difficult for most nonprofits to get to. I mean, unless they know media, right? Like it becomes a much higher lift and difficult scenario. The solution that we're really providing is that we aggregate all this unused premium inventory across streaming TV and making it accessible at extremely steep discounts only for nonprofits. As far as like, you know, what what we're doing as far as scale too, just to kind of paint a little bit larger of a picture, currently we're about 3.5 billion available impressions a month.

Tim Rowe 2:13

What does that mean? Like in the in the and you've been in this space a long time, like 3.5 billion, that's a lot.

Speaker 2:19

It's a lot. Is it? Yeah, I mean, it it's a lot, it's a lot of inventory. And you know, it enables us to really serve a lot of nonprofits in both, you know, smaller communities, because obviously, if you're in like a rural kind of part of the country, uh, you need to have some sort of scale. Otherwise, you know, you're serving very few impressions in some of these smaller areas. The bulk of why we're always out there kind of chasing to get more and more inventory and work with more publishers so that we can continue with our mission is so that we can provide that access to both, you know, the large-scale nonprofits running national campaigns and hitting all those audiences across no matter where they live in the US, as well as small nonprofits, like in, you know, one of our one of our partners in uh Gallatson, Texas, you know, being able to actually serve and provide impression loads for them and audience that they look for.

Tim Rowe 3:04

Cool. So this is nonprofits, small, large, medium size, whether they've got a $250 budget or a $250,000 budget, AdGood is a place that they can come invest that money and reach audiences on stream.

Speaker 3:19

Exactly. You know, and we our rates are 70% off, if not more, in some cases, in some cases, for you know, some of the same great premium inventory that they're already trying to access. So it really enables the smaller nonprofits to actually get any access, which they've typically never been able to, and a lot of the larger nonprofits to get, you know, 4x plus on impressions for what they're typically getting in the market. It also enables us to run, you know, longer creatives for a lot of the same pricing. So depending on kind of what they're trying to achieve and do, that's kind of one of the major aspects. We really want to try to help nonprofits turn, you know, marketing from this cost center to a an actual profit center so they can continue and drive and do donations, like a lot of the major nonprofits are doing. I mean, a lot of the major nonprofits are really powerful, you know, performance marketing houses that are they really are delivering, you know, great results for what they're trying to achieve and getting their cause out there and their awareness. You know, we're really trying to bring some level of that to some of the smaller nonprofits as well.

Small Nonprofit Challenges And Trust

Tim Rowe 4:20

That's cool. What does it for folks that maybe haven't worked with a smaller nonprofit before, what does that look like? Like what are their challenges? What how are they doing it today? How are they doing it today? Can you paint a picture of what that might look like?

Gen AI Ad Builder And Case Study

Kris Johns, AdGood 4:34

Yeah, you know, I think one of the bigger struggles for some of the smaller nonprofits is just really growing donor trust, right? Because some of them are smaller, they're newer, maybe. And, you know, some of the biggest brands and nonprofits were all really those brands and audiences were built on TV. I mean, that's they kind of really get that trust aspect. So some of the smaller nonprofits, this becomes very powerful for them to really kind of really achieve their mission, grow, you know, their board, even get more people involved in what they're doing, getting more volunteers. So this is a a great channel for them to run the media that they need to and actually be able to access the media in a way where they can actually be marketers so they can get the data they need, be able to put additional budget in and get additional impressions, and run this as typical paid media campaigns that typically would cost a lot more money. A lot of these nonprofits also struggle with other pieces too, right? Generating creative, how to kind of build their messages and you know what that needs to look like. And so we when we created AdGood, it wasn't just to like get the media. We wanted to help nonprofits of all sizes. And so, this being a major problem, we partnered with Streamer and we actually license and have access to you know the AdGood ad manager. And it's all Gen AI. So any nonprofit can come in, put the URL to their website in, generate a 30-second video ad. You know, there's multiple languages and dialects that they can select for the voiceover, different music. They can upload images, Google VEOs integrated, so they can turn any static image into B roll. And there's some other great functionality for those that want to be a little bit more advanced, where they can actually storyboard out and build the creative out. So they can messaging. It's got QR code access in there so they can upload and have a unique QR code for that and get the really get their message and their awareness out, as well as get all the reporting they need to see how the performance is going, all within the platform. And you know, the whole process takes like three and a half, four minutes, depending on how you know in depth you want to go. You can have it take a lot longer if you really want to get into the details and make things look amazing. And you know, you swipe a credit card and you can launch. And we set a minimum spend on that at $250 so that even the smallest nonprofits can come in, build an ad, run that ad, even in small, tiny local communities. And you know, we've done uh you know a case study on that too recently, where you know, TDE, the Charles Dickinson Enrichment Center, essentially what they did is, you know, they were one of our first customers using this. And, you know, TDE MEC came in and you know, they did this this initial ad with us, and they just kept consistently running, like, you know, 200 to 400, depending on what they were running, what they were achieving. Small budget, very small budget, and they were hitting like maybe two counties, right? The whole time. Okay. And they did an amazing job because they essentially got a 233 year over year increase in turnout to all their events, and then additionally, they got 433% increase in donations year over year. So which is huge. It's their lifeblood. This is huge, and you know, not only are they just amazing people doing an amazing thing for for their communities, because all the music has been ripped out of all the education in that area, and so they provide oh wow, just this amazing program. And so being able to work with them has been fantastic. And honestly, you know, coming from Media Nat Tech in the past, and you know, it's it's the people that I get to meet are just so interesting and doing such amazing things. Like every single day, there's just so many amazing people that I get to talk to. So, you know, all that comes together, and you know, I learn a lot from all these people as well, and how it can better support. And then we provide that support, you know, all the way down. So when people ask advice, we say, well, this is what we hear kind of in these areas. It seems to be very interesting. There's a lot of good stuff that we can test.

Origin Story And Donated Media Gaps

Tim Rowe 8:07

The work must be super rewarding. Every campaign is is doing that, right? Creating genuine local impact for programs and causes that that matter to communities. And I think especially now, I think we're all searching for that more community. There's a uh there's a good documentary. I'd have to, I'm gonna have to go back and find the documentary, but essentially it looks at that. It looks at what are the common threads between the happiest, most enriched societies around the world. And the number one common factor is they have community connection. They have programs for the community to be involved in, is the number one determining factor between a society's level of happiness is the connection to their community. So so you're enabling that obviously at local scale, at national scale. I'm curious, Chris, like how did this, how did this start? Like, where did the what's the origin story? You were in Antech, you were working in this space already, and then had this great idea and brought it to life. How did how did those sequence of events have that happen?

Speaker 9:14

Yeah, no, so you know, I I've been consistently donating blood for a few years, and so I'm sitting in a red cross and you know, donating blood, and it must have been like the last seven times I was in there. Just nobody's in there. I'm the only one in there. I'm like, this is terrible. Like, I bet you if they just you know marketed this better to the community, like more people would show up, right? And I I just couldn't I couldn't stop thinking about it. And after the second time seeing the same thing and noticing it, you know, I started to realize like there is so much unused inventory and streaming. And so after looking at it and really digging into the the existing donated media model and realizing how difficult it is for nonprofits. I mean, there's so many nonprofits, like large and small. And only a small percentage of them get access to any aspect of donating media. And even when they do get access to it, it's kind of like a chunked onslaught of what they get. Like you get like a million impressions, and like that's it. So if your campaign's operating in and and doing amazing things for what your cause is, like, how do you add budget? How do you get more? How do you really kind of tweak this to be a marketer and maximize the impact that you're trying to get? And so after kind of digging into it, more or less, I realized there was nothing that existed like this. And so I was like, okay, I guess we're doing this. And so we we started the process and put everything together, and we essentially, you know, launched the company about three months later.

Tim Rowe 10:37

Wow. How many nonprofits have you worked with, Ballpark?

Speaker 10:41

So, Ballpark, we're well over 120 right now. And we launched January of last year. We've had pretty significant growth throughout the year. Amazing partners, both on the publisher side as well as on the nonprofit side and on the ed tech side. A lot of, you know, the publishers are really just love the idea of you know doing social good with what they're doing. You know, we're able to give them really hyper-localized nonprofits in smaller areas, as well as the national piece. It's a better viewing experience. And just like in the consumer experience for buying products, when brands are tied to a cause, you know, there's a higher brand loyalty with those consumers. And I think the same goes forward in streaming as well when you're watching content or you're on a specific platform. You know, all these things are very important. You know, we take we take a lot of data from our viewers, right? Like to understand what they like and the other aspects of what they're doing. We target them. I think that the viewers also appreciate seeing, you know, targeted ads that are specific to the causes they might be interested in or causes that they care about, or causes around their local communities. So there's there's a lot of very powerful aspects to what it can provide, the viewers as well as the platforms, and to really kind of you know bring those groups together for a good purpose.

Hyperlocal Impact And Why It Works

Tim Rowe 11:54

I know, even like for myself, when I see a local nonprofit on, especially when I'm watching something on streaming and even even on national content, when I see local anything, but especially a local cause, it makes the content feel very local to me. I'm obviously I'm in the space, and maybe you could argue I have an incentive for saying that, but that's my experience is oh wow, this I know that that's like down the street from me. That's I know someone that works there, or I've been involved with that that cause before. I'm thinking about there's an animal shelter near me where I used to volunteer and I saw they're doing something local to me. So all advertising is local, especially if we can connect it back to the events and causes that we care the most about supporting. I think that that's uh it's pretty powerful mission.

Kris Johns, AdGood 12:42

Yeah, I mean, I I agree with you. Seeing local causes, I think is very, you know, helpful. You know, there's been scenarios here where, you know, I've ran small campaigns for, you know, my son's baseball team. It's a special leads baseball team. And so, you know, we get uh, you know, all kinds of people coming in to help, you know, different mostly parents, um, and we drive this up. You know, we were able to run a small campaign here in the area that I live in Thousand Oaks, and we were able to get, you know, like six other kids to show up, you know. So it's like when you think about the impact of that level and you know, running campaigns at that level. And, you know, six doesn't sound like a lot is like a number to report on, but when you think about the hyperlocal sense of like the team size and what we do and the impact that it brings to those families, like, you know, you're now part of a family of people, like you know what camps to go to, you know what, you know, other scenarios to do, you know, what schools to go to, you can go to some and one of the other parents and ask questions like, oh, which high school are you guys thinking about? Which teachers should we try to get? Like, it's already such a hard road, I think, for a lot of people in these different areas that sometimes just those simple connections, you know, can provide that. And when you think about the low dollar amount of running like 250 bucks and impacting people, even though it's six people, that's like, you know, it's like a nice dinner. And like, look what that does for you know, multiple people's lives.

Tim Rowe 14:01

Like genuinely changing people's lives, to your point, for the price of a good dinner.

Kris Johns, AdGood 14:08

Exactly. And, you know, it it's it's interesting because the power of what you can do with TV and what it's proven to do over the years, and now having all the targetability and all the good things that are available, it's just such a powerful way for nonprofits to tell their story. And they should all have simple access, and that's what we're providing.

Tim Rowe 14:29

If someone's listening and they want to be involved, they want to support as a publisher, as an ad tech company. I'm sure you've got lots of relationships, but how do folks get involved if they want to be supportive and partner with you? And then maybe on the other side, if you're a nonprofit listening, how do they get involved?

Kris Johns, AdGood 14:47

Yeah, just reach out to us. You know, we're always happy to talk to anybody, you know, doing anything interesting in ad tech. We're also a really great resource to work with people on any sort of new technology coming out. It's a really interesting space for us because we're able to experiment in a lot of really cool ways to see what's available. You know, we're starting to look into different ad units and things like that as well, as well as data. You know, we just started kind of organizing our data architecture and our platform so that we could kind of dig in to see how we can really truly benefit our the nonprofit community as much as possible and provide some sort of aspect of, you know, better targeting or um, you know, how we can organize our inventory better for them. So there's a lot of really cool stuff that we're working on. But also, too, it's kind of like when I think about ad tech, it's like every time you're sitting around and you hear something amazing happening, just thinking about like, what could that do for social good? Right. Because in a lot of ways, it could be massive. And so those are the scenarios where it's like, reach out to us, we're happy to work with you and figure that out. You know, you got a lot of people on the ad good side that have built a lot of things with an ad tech and done some interesting stuff as well. So, you know, we're definitely capable to uh do some very interesting things. As far as the publisher front, you know, we're always happy to work with any publishers, you know, in any capacity. You know, I think whatever kind of format that they think about is, you know, we're we're happy to do. We typically, it's a very easy integration for us, you know. We provide impact reports to them at the end of the year, letting them know like how many hours and you know, nonprofit storytelling did they provide, how many impressions do they give? What was the impact? Oh, wow, you know, how much did they drive in donations were all applicable? So, you know, it was interesting because at the end of the year we sent out all of our first impact reports because you know that that was our first year in 2025. And many of the publishers that I reached out to and sent this to, you know, the quick responses getting back were like, what this is such a great thing to get out coming out of Q4, right?

Tim Rowe 16:40

Like it's like Oh, yeah, especially.

Wrap Up And Share The Show

Kris Johns, AdGood 16:43

Yeah. And it's like this is like the best thing that I've received in in so long. And it's, you know, people want to do good, but you know, also too, they got to run a business and they got to operate and they got to make sure other people can have their jobs and all these things kind of tied together and the stresses and and knowing that just doing a simple thing is just working with us as a partner enables you to kind of get this social good aspect applied to the role that you're doing. Because, you know, there's not a whole lot in the specific area of advertising that you can do in social good, aside from like doing creative and actually doing media in this scenario like this, that we make it so easy that we really just consolidate all this nonprofit demand and just run it and then do all the reporting for the pro the publishers and give them all those aspects, give them their donor acknowledgement letters at the end of the year so they can go out and figure out what's best based on what their their tax person decides that they want to do uh with the donated impressions and how they want to run that. And then everything's taken care of.

Tim Rowe 17:39

That's awesome. Chris, we'll make sure it's really easy to get in touch. We'll link to everything close by in the show notes. I can't thank you enough for joining us today and sharing what the add good mission is and how we can all get involved. Thank you. Awesome, thank you. If you found this episode to be helpful, please share with a colleague or a client. Start a conversation today. We'll see y'all next time.