CausePods

More About CausePods

The length of each episode is 15 to 30 minutes. The series is ongoing with new episodes available a couple times a month.

FPG Giveaway

I wanted to say thank you for listening to the podcast as we approached the first birthday of FPG. It has been so much fun to launch the podcast and meet all of you mostly virtually this past year. As a thank you, I wanted to give one of my listeners a $25 Amazon gift card.  All you have to do is fill out a quick demographic survey and I’ll choose one of you to win the gift card at the end of the month. 

Thank you so much for filling out this survey. It helps me make sure to find podcasts that you’ll enjoy and find sponsors that align with your wants, needs and desires.  Thank you so much for a great year, and I can’t wait to give away that Amazon gift card. Now we get to hear from Matthew Passy as he describes his journey into the podcast world and his passion project that is Copos.

Introduction to Matthew Pasi

So my name is Matthew Pasi and I run a podcast production business thepodcastconsultant.com. I have been working on and around podcasting for about 15 years. I, on top of doing editing and production, I also do consulting recording, and we just opened up a studio.  And if it sounds like I do a lot of stuff about podcasting, it’s because that’s pretty much all I do other than race kids. 

How CausePods Got Started

So CausePods is actually a direct result of the podcasting business. So I’m very fortunate that I started this podcasting business mostly as a side gig after working in radio and, and having a real job, got laid off and was trying to figure out what my next real job was going to be.

And folks who I used to work with through the radio station reached out and said, Hey, you know, we did podcasts with you all the time. That actually turned out to be pretty valuable. Could you help us? I was like, okay, yeah, why not? So I started this production business and I was very fortunate that after a few years the, the business was very successful.

I was able to make a very good living for myself and my family doing it. And because my background, because I used to work for the Wall Street Journal, most of my clients came from the financial world, Wall Street. You know, folks who are managing millions or sometimes billions of dollars. And I often joke that my job was to help rich people get richer, which there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

I’m all for people being successful. Right? As long as you’re doing it in the, in the right. I’m not opposed to people being successful and being wealthy, but I just didn’t feel like what I was doing was having an impact or, you know, kind of fulfilling that altruistic part of me that, that I know I have.

So I decided that I would create something as kind of like the C S R, the corporate social responsibility initiative of our company, and that’s how Carlsbad’s was born. So we use our platform to talk to folks. Cannot afford a podcast producer, cannot afford a big podcast consultant, cannot, you know, have exorbitant budgets for marketing everything else.

And we talk to them about their podcast, about their cause. We try to raise awareness for what it is they’re doing. We try and raise some funds for their favorite charity or, or their charity if it’s possible. And then truthfully, the best part about CausePods is the piece that most people don’t hear, is I usually stay on the call with ’em for like twenty, thirty, forty minutes after that.

Just dump as much knowledge on them as I can for free, because, you know, I feel like it’s like my pro bono podcasting work that I get to do.  I mean, truthfully, I’ve said it many times, like I’m happy that there are people who are listening, but I’m not necessarily that interested in large audience. The only reason I want a bigger audience is. The people who come on will benefit from more listeners, more exposure, more donations, more whatever.

But truthfully, for me, the joy of it is to meet all these incredible podcasters, hear about some of these incredible causes and issues that are happening in the world. And then, like I said, doing what I can to provide some insight and wisdom and help in a way that I know most of them just, you know, they can’t afford to get.  And truthfully, with a lot of folks, it’s not even about money. Sometimes it’s just about time, which is so interesting.

You bring that up, by the way. You know, one of the things that I found with a lot of these folks is we talk about getting donations and it’s, it’s hard to convince people like, you know, give $20 here, $30 here, a hundred dollars here. But we, lots of people are asking for money today. But one of my early guests on the show, and I can’t remember who, but Honestly, I would rather a hundred people give a dollar than one person give a hundred dollars.  Because just increasing the number of people that are showing interest in a cause can have ripple effects. You know, that can be amplified down the road. And so I, you know, I hope we can get more and more attention to some of these really great and powerful causes.

The Vibe of CausePods

It is part curiosity. So it’s me really just taking time to learn about someone, learn about their story, learn about their cause, why they’re doing it. And then the other part of it is a little bit of an education piece. So my hope was that with cause pods, we would almost be able to build a community of cause-based podcasters and that.

All these folks who are doing it, who have had success or you know, who’ve done something interesting, we would be able to share information with each other. So it really starts off trying to learn who they are, what their cause is, why they’re doing the show, what the show is about, but then also really get into like, how did you get started on the podcasting?

What are some things you’ve learned? What are the mistakes you made? Like, what has been weirdly successful? And you know, a lot of the answers have been very similar from episode to episode, but when you get a unique answer, it really makes all the.  We usually ask everybody the question as, you know, for somebody out there who wants to start a podcast for their favorite cause, what advice would you give them? Or something like that. So we like, it really is supposed to be encouraging to people who think that this medium is right for their mission and hopefully giving them some tools, support and encouragement to, you know, just go out there and do it. 

Matthew’s Favorite Episode

So it’s hard to pinpoint a favorite specific episode, but, you know, one thing that I’ve noticed and that my producers noticed on the show is you can always tell that I am truly interested and truly passionate about the topic, more so than just wanting to give people a platform, because you’ll see the episode goes from like 12, 15 minutes to like 30, 40 minutes , right? If you go through them and you see an episode, it’s like 30, 40 minutes, you know that we spent a ton more time on the cause and their background and their story and what that issue is than we did on really the podcasting aspect. Right. It’s probably like, oh, we should talk about podcasting too, . But yeah, you’ll, you’ll kind of notice that. Okay, so there’s the cheat sheet to figure out which one’s Matthew’s favorite.

CausePods & Little Ears

I would say you need to be very careful about which ones you want to have little ears listening to some of the topics that are being discussed can be very sensitive. You know, and in some cases, in the world that we are living in today, some of these might be seen as political.  I don’t think we necessarily try to play politics on the show, but you know, if we are doing a show that involves LGBTQ issues, then right? There’s lots of people who just don’t want that kind of content for young ears. So I think you have to really look at the show, look at the type of content that we’re talking about, and make a decision for yourself as far as whether it’s gonna be appropriate.

Your kids are not that, I think we’ve only had two or three episodes where we put like a verbal warning at the beginning of the show. Like, caution, this is going to be difficult to listen to. Hmm. But you know, for the most part it’s, it, it really just depends on you, and that’s kind of one of the issues with the show is that like one week we’ll be talking to someone about homelessness, and then the next week we’re talking to someone about bipolar issues, and then the next week we’re talking to someone about the environment and so you don’t get a lot of listeners from week to week to week.  We’re interested in all those different topics. I would say it’s a little bit more for those who are thinking about this and, and then if you are interested in these causes, you know, it’s a great way to find podcasts that might speak to you or might speak to an issue that is important to you.

I think one thing most of these podcasters have found is, People often find their podcast after whatever it is, has happened to them.  and most of them are trying to create resources that would be better before then.  And so, you know, I wish more people, you know, would know to check out homeless podcasts, but nobody expects to be homeless. And by the time you are, it’s too late to go back and be like, oh, I should listen to that podcast. 

Final Thoughts on CausePods

Just if you’re listening to this and you do have your own cause-based podcast, it’s really, really easy. Just go to causepods.org, there’s a little booking calendar right there on the website. We’re gonna ask you a couple of questions about your show, your cause, some links. And 99 out of 100 people we say yes to.  There’s only a few who are entrepreneur podcast teaching you how to make money. That’s a good cause. Like, eh, that’s not really a cause-based podcast, but you know, for the most part, we welcome everybody who has a, who’s, you know, trying to make a difference in the world and using this medium specifically to do it. So I would encourage you to go causepods.org, sign up, come join us and let’s have a good chat.