We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Trista Harris. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Trista below.

Hi Trista, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?

At FutureGood, we strongly believe in the value of radical hospitality. We understand that our clients are working on some of the most challenging issues in society, often with limited resources and staff. Therefore, we make it a top priority to take great care of them.

During the pandemic, we came up with a unique way of showing our appreciation for our clients – we started sending them connection boxes from Anthony and Stork. These boxes contained snacks and wellness gifts from people of color-owned brands, along with a copy of our FutureGood book or another book that we thought would inspire and motivate them.

Our clients were surprised and delighted to receive these boxes. We received numerous messages and positive feedback from them, expressing how seen and well taken care of they felt upon receiving the gifts. We believe that our attention to detail in curating these boxes with items that reflect our values and ethos helped to add an extra layer of thoughtfulness and care.

By going above and beyond for our clients, we have strengthened our relationships and demonstrated our commitment to building lasting connections. We take pride in our work, and our dedication to radical hospitality continues to be a driving force behind everything we do.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m a philanthropic futurist and passionate advocate for leaders in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. I’ve had the pleasure of being covered by various media outlets such as Forbes, CNN, and the New York Times for my work in the social sector. I’m also the author of two books, “How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar” and “FutureGood.” Currently, I serve as the President of FutureGood, a consultancy that helps visionaries build a better future.

My career has always been dedicated to the social sector, and it all started with a summer job as a parks assistant when I was just 15. Before starting FutureGood, I had the privilege of being the President of the Minnesota Council on Foundations, which awards more than $1.5 billion annually, and the executive director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice in Minneapolis. I also served as a program officer at the St. Paul Foundation.

I earned my Master of Public Policy degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and my Bachelor of Arts from Howard University. I’m also a board member for the Association of Black Foundation Executives and served on the Minnesota Super Bowl Host Committee and the Governor’s Council on Law Enforcement and Community Relations, which was convened after the shooting of Philando Castile.

The reason I started FutureGood is because I felt that the pace of change in the social sector was accelerating, and I wanted to use my skills to help foundations, nonprofits, and visionary leaders predict and shape the future on a national and international scale.

At FutureGood, we use futurism tools and best practices to help our clients envision their ideal future, create a path to get there, and solve problems yet to be imagined. We believe that future thinking skills should be the number one strategic priority for everyone trying to make positive change. Without it, organizations won’t stay relevant to the causes and communities they care about.

What I’m most proud of is helping our clients create a more beautiful and equitable future for all. We strive to make the future clear, and we help our clients understand how to build strategies and a vibrant organizational culture that will make their ideal future a reality.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I started my business in the call of 2018 and I spent my whole first year on the conference circuit making the case for future thinking. I was fully booked for 2020 because ever conference theme was 2020 Future Vision and they wanted a futurist to keynote. Then the pandemic happened and everything was quickly cancelled. I had one existing client that was able to extend my hours and my contract because they had a hiring freeze but a lot of work to do to get grants out to address the pandemic. I also started doing free training for nonprofits and foundations about how to use scenario planning to make plans around Covid. Then George Floyd was murdered in my city. I started doing free visioning and strategy work with racial justice organizations to help them envision how to build an equitable future. I also helped other nonprofits and foundation build an equity frame for their work. In the fall of 2020 I had a huge influx of clients who needed to build a new organizational strategy because the world had changes so much and they wanted to make sure that the strategy had equity at the center and was flexible enough to harness future trends. That’s what we do well. I quickly built a team because I had previously been a solopreneur and scaled my systems to work with a lot more organizations at once.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

We’ve discovered that 95% of our clients are referred to us by others. While we have experimented with broader marketing and advertising approaches, we’ve found that our success comes from the quality of our work in helping nonprofits, foundations, and social purpose businesses envision their future and chart a clear path to achieve their goals. Rather than focusing on a large pool of potential clients, we prioritize identifying the organizations with which we can do our best work and create the most positive outcomes, and then seek out more of those types of clients. Our current clients frequently recommend us to other organizations or invite me to keynote at industry conferences, which further exposes us to our ideal clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.WeAreFutureGood.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/futuregoodstudio/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreFutureGood