John Dehlin

Welcome and Introduction

[00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. It is May 31, 2021, and I think it's Memorial Day and Happy Memorial Day. And today we have kind of a bit of a special Mormon Stories Podcast episode. It's. It's really for donors and listeners who aren't just looking for content, but they're looking.

[00:00:29] They really care about the. Of the status of Mormon Stories Podcast, the future of Mormon Stories Podcast. They care about me, they care about my family, they care about the cause overall. That's why I say it's. It's mostly kind of a donor update. But, but I also, I really obviously do this for listeners. So every year since Mormon Stories Podcast lives under the umbrella right now of the Open Stories foundation, which is a 501c3 nonprofit that's dedicated to providing healing and support for people in a Mormon faith.

[00:01:04] I like to give a donor update. We live and exist by the donations of you, our listeners and our donors. And I always want to feel accountable to you guys. I want to let you know what's going on, get your feedback, get your support, etc. And so I like to do these updates. And so I call this the State of the Union. Today is going to be Kind of the OSF slash Mormon Stories podcast 2021 State of the Union.

[00:01:32] We are going to be talking about our mission. We're going to be talking about our financial, you know, fiduciary stuff, governance, the finances, our board of directors. We're going to talk about our effectiveness, where we are in terms of reach and success. We're going to be talking about our strategy, current strategy, and our strategy going forward. We've made some staff changes. We've augmented our staff, including adding a new staff member, Cara Burrell, in a trial period. We're really excited about that. We've got some really cool strategy changes with TikTok and, and YouTube that we want to share. We've got some new things going on with retreats and workshops and events and community.

[00:02:14] And then of course, I want to end just by discussing challenges, you know, kind of what we're facing and where we kind of need your support. You know, for those of you who just are looking for support or needing support, this may or may not be interesting to you, but for those who genuinely want to see us continue and want to know how you can support us or just want to know how your donations are being used or want are considering becoming donors, but just want transparency and accountability for what we do with our money, how we're surviving, etc.

[00:02:51] You know, this is our best attempt at transparency. I'll try and get this done in less than an hour. My family's waiting for me to do some fun Memorial Day stuff and there's no sense in prolonging this, so I'm going to go really quickly. But this is heart to heart. This is like how we're doing and how we can survive and, and for those who care about that kind of stuff, I hope you'll tune in, I hope you'll give us your feedback, I hope you'll listen and I hope this will be useful. So I'm going to start just by talking about the mission of the Open Stories foundation.

Mission and Vision of the Open Stories Foundation

[00:03:25] What we're all about, we're about. I kind of think of us as being about four things. We're about, number one, providing informed consent for Mormons and non Mormons. So many people get baptized into Mormonism, get, get born into Mormonism, baptized into Mormonism or are raised in Mormonism without fully understanding what they're a part of. I believe that's unethical and I think many of you agree. There's also many people who are investigating Mormonism or want to learn about Mormonism that are not going to get the full straight scoop from church or from its missionaries or from its social media campaigns. So one of the main, number one core mission of the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories is to provide informed consent for those in it or those evaluating it, or those who want to learn about it.

[00:04:16] That's the first thing we do. So it's education, educating the world, Mormons and non Mormons about Mormonism. The second thing we're about is providing support for Mormons and others in faith crisis. Going through a faith crisis in a high demand religion can be deadly. It can ruin your marriage, it can ruin your family, it can ruin your mental health, it can elicit anxiety and depression and even suicidality. And so we always just want to let you know you're not alone. We want to let you know that you're not crazy and that there are resources of support and we want to help you, you know, in any way that we can.

[00:04:58] So, so we are all about supporting people in faith crisis, minimizing divorce, depression and suicidality when someone's in faith crisis. I want to add that we are getting more and more listeners and viewers from X, from other cults, other religious traditions, ex Jehovah's Witnesses, ex Scientologists, ex Orthodox Jews, ex evangelical Christians, ex Catholics, you know, list goes on and on of the non Never Mormon listeners that we have and we're really proud about that. So we're here not just for the Mormons and the ex Mormons.

[00:05:37] Mission number three is to support Mormons and others who are leaving the tradition. So it's one thing to be in a faith crisis and honestly, whether you stay in there, your church or leave it, we don't care. We just want to support you in the faith crisis portion.

[00:05:52] That's part, that's, that's mission number two. Mission number three is for those who decide to leave Mormonism or orthodox Mormonism or their religious tradition. We want to support you in landing in the healthiest, happiest place. You have to reinvent your spirituality, your community, your morality, your family, your social connections, your existential worldview of this life and the afterlife. You have to figure out what, what the meaning of your life is, what the purpose of your life is. That is a rough transition if you decide to le religion. So we provide support for that. That's support number three. And again for, for ex Mormons, post Mormons and for people who leave other religious traditions and we do that in solidarity with people from other cult traditions or other high demand religious traditions.

[00:06:41] The final thing, and this is really a subset of, of points two and three, we like to help provide community for people going through all this. So community is one of the biggest things that keeps people from processing and, or leaving their high demand religions. And it's one of the most important things and one of the most difficult things to find. So whether it's through the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook group, whether it's through the Mormon Stories podcast page, the Instagram community, whether the live events, we do thrive Mormon spectrum. We do all we can to support the creation of local in person communities so that you can find the support, friendships, dating relationships, support communities, book clubs, whatever it is, we want to help provide community.

[00:07:32] So that is what, what we're all about in terms of our mission. For those who want to say we're about destroying the Mormon Church, you know, that's not what we're about, trying to take people out of their religion and that's not what we do. There is a difference between educating people and supporting them in their transitions. There's a difference between that and trying to destroy the host organization or trying to get people out of it. We don't literally don't care if you stay in or out of any religious tradition.

[00:08:03] What we care about is that you're healthy and happy, that you're engaging with informed consent and that whatever path you take. We want to support you in landing healthiest individual mental health, healthiest families, healthiest marriages, healthiest communities, etc, So I just want to go on the record about all that. So that is our mission.

[00:08:27] For those who don't know, for those who are new or evaluating whether you want to support the Open Stories foundation or Mormon Stories Podcast. We are an official 5 1C3 nonprofit which means that in the United States you can donate to us and it's tax deductible.

[00:08:43] That's where we get our financial support, through donations. We don't really fundraise much, if at all anymore. We may ramp that up again at some point, but right now the only donations we get literally are ones from people that just voluntarily donate. They go to the MormonStories.org website, they click on the donate button and they sign up to become a monthly donor or a one time donor each year. And we get donations through that and that's how we survive. And again, those donations are are tax deductible in the US the main offerings that we provide are Mormon stories podcast@mormonstories.org the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook community.

[00:09:22] You can google that and join it to get support there. We have a podcast called Gift of the Mormon faith crisis@mormonfaithcrisis.com it's one of the most valuable and underused resources. That's basically 70 hours of free coaching for anyone going through a faith crisis.

[00:09:40] You can just go to Mormon faith crisis.com or go to the YouTube and type in Mormon Faith Crisis. Go to that channel. Start with episode one. You can just go through again 70 hours of free coaching to help you through your faith crisis. And we think more people could benefit from that. So we hope that you guys will check that out.

[00:10:00] We also have two other podcasts that are active. One is a thoughtful faith podcast hosted by Gina Colvin. Gina is amazing and, and she's more right now currently that podcast is about engaging Mormonism and post Mormon through a spiritual lens. Gina has left Mormonism in terms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She's resigned, but she still is is affiliated with Community of Christ with other rich religious and spiritual traditions. And so that's a great podcast. Check it out@A thoughtfulfaith.org and then Natasha Helfer of course course runs a Mormon mental health podcast.

[00:10:39] Dozens and dozens if not hundreds of hours of content on improving your mental health. In that podcast hosted by Natasha Helfer she I think she's only released one episode this year. So it's not as active as these other podcasts are, but it's still a great resource and we still consider Natasha Helfer to be a part of the Mormon Stories family.

[00:11:03] So those are our main offerings. In the past, we've done workshops and retreats and things like that. That, that work slowed during COVID but we've got a strategy for workshops and retreats and events going forward through, through the Thrive foundation. And I'll be talking about that a little bit later. But those are our main offerings in terms of governance, which I think is really important for anyone supporting, caring about the Open Stories foundation or Mormon Stories or wanting to support us. We have an outstanding board of directors.

[00:11:39] The Open Stories foundation is governed independently, which means that I could be kicked out anytime. I could be fired at any time, I could be voted out anytime. Because it's a nonprofit, it is led by its board of directors. Now I'm on the board of directors, but the board of directors also is led by Kerry Whitbeck and Clint Martin. So there's three of us on the board.

[00:12:02] And I can just say that this is the probably, you know, every board has, has contributed meaningfully and importantly to the Open Stories Foundation. Honestly, I don't think we've ever had a healthier or a more productive board of directors.

[00:12:21] Carrie and Clint are dear friends. They're entrepreneurs. They've both run and grown successful businesses themselves. They get how difficult it is and complex it is to. To run a business. And they're just amazing humans. They're brilliant, they're smart, they know finances. They care about us being financially responsible, ethical.

[00:12:45] And so, you know, we meet regularly. We meet on financial issues, we meet on legal issues, we meet on ethical issues. I forward to them our financial report reports every month. They review it with a fine tooth comb and make sure that we're all donations are honored and respected from, from the donors. If you ever have questions about the Open Stories foundation that you want to direct to the board, you can literally go to open stories foundation.org that's our website. And at the bottom there you can find our email address for the board. Open stories boardmail.com all emails to that board will be forwarded to the board of directors.

[00:13:36] And we're getting along fabulously. We've had, I think we've been. This board has been going about two years and we're getting along fabulously. There's been literally no drama or conflict with this board. Again, we meet regularly and I think we're as well managed and well run from a board of directors standpoint as we've ever been, and we've only built upon the great contributions of former boards.

[00:14:01] So that's our board and I'm super grateful for it. Next thing is the effectiveness or the reach of Mormon Stories Podcast, because let's be frank, over 90% of our donations go to Mormon Stories Podcast. Over, you know, well over 90% of our downloads and views of all our podcasts go to Mormon Stories Podcast. And I am just super happy to announce that, you know, 2020 and the first half of 2021, we have had our best years ever.

Audience Growth and Best Year Ever

[00:14:32] Is my best count in terms of aggregating up all our MP3 downloads and views is that this, this year, this past, you know, trailing 12 months, we've had over 9 million downloads and views on our between our podcast, you know, listener only, audio only podcast and our Facebook page and our YouTube channel. Nine million is huge.

[00:14:56] That's a huge number for such a niche podcast and YouTube channel. We're just thrilled with that number. Again, 9 million downloads and views for the trailing 12 months. I think if you had to say, how many listeners and viewers do you have in aggregate, John? I would say at least, at least 100,000 annual donors and listeners, you know, that that number's hard to arrive at because, you know, we don't really always get that information of exactly how many donors are listeners because our, our web metrics don't tell us for a number of reasons.

[00:15:35] But it is, it's a large number. It's certainly in the multiple, multiple tens of thousands. Over 50,000 for sure. And I would estimate over 100,000 viewers and download download people every year. That doesn't mean that everybody listens to every episode or all, every, you know, all of every episode, but well over 100,000, I would say in terms of regular, consistent listeners, well over 50,000 regular listeners and viewers across our channels.

[00:16:06] We have invested in YouTube over the past several years and I'm happy to say that our YouTube channel is over 32, 000 subscribers now and we're adding over a thousand subscribers a month to our YouTube channel. So within a year we're going to have 40, you know, within eight months we're going to have 40, 000 YouTube subscribers. We're really proud of that number. Our Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page has over 22,000 followers. And again, it's going to have less because on YouTube you can follow Mormon Stories podcast under a pseudonym and no one's going to know and no one's going to divorce you or fire you or punish you or marginalize or ostracize you.

[00:16:45] That's my theory on why the YouTube subscription rate's higher on, on, on Facebook. You have to have a real identity. So there's just more people living in fear of liking us, of following us. And still, 22,000 is a large number. We're really happy with that number. And it's growing every year.

[00:17:04] Instagram has over 8,000 followers at this point. Again, Instagram shows your identity and so we're really happy. And we haven't really invested much in Instagram. We have plans for that in the future. But we're really happy with our Instagram followers. That's going to grow. We do have a Mormon Stories podcast Instagram channel. Please follow us there if you can. Please follow and like us and subscribe to us on our Facebook channel. Please follow and subscribe to us on YouTube. Every single subscriber or follower increases us in the algorithm. So liking our stuff, subscribing to our stuff, following our stuff, giving us positive reviews, that's always super helpful.

[00:17:47] So please do that. But you know, ultimately, the proof of our impact is not in our followers and in our likes and in our subscribers. It's in the lives that we touch. And I can just say for sure, the way I measure that is by people stopping me on the street, people stopping me at Home Depot or in restaurants, and the number of personal email messages and Facebook messages and Instagram DMs that I get. And I can say I probably get 20 a day now of people who say, john, thank you for Mormon Stories podcast. It saved my marriage, it saved my life, it's helped heal our families, it's helped us with our families, it's helped us transition out, it's helped in our parenting relationships with our children.

[00:18:35] It's. It's healed us in so, so many ways. And I don't say that to brag. I just say that to let you know your, your donations are, are saving lives and saving families. And I'm not. That's not hyperbole, really, that's just a fact.

[00:18:49] So I'm getting more of those messages than ever, 10 to 20 a day at this point. And they're just heart wrenching, harrowing, uplifting and inspiring messages. And the other thing that I kind of barometer that I use to track our success is how many currently serving bishops, currently serving Stake Presidents in the Mormon Church, Stake Presidency members, Stake Presidency High councilmen, CES directors and instructors, you know, and currently serving missionaries. And I can say that at least once a week, somebody messages me or emails me who's a currently serving bishop, currently serving stake president, currently serving stake presidency member, stake high councilman, currently serving CES seminary teacher or institute teacher, or currently serving Mormon missionary.

[00:19:35] They're all listening to Mormon stories. We're not just, you know, progressive Mormons and post Mormons, we're active Mormons, we're believing Mormons, and we're faithful Mormons and we're church employees. So many LDS church employee, church employees are Mormon stories podcast listeners. It's just humorous and inspiring to see our market penetration into the orthodox Mormon world. And you know, frankly, that's inspiring. But it's also tragic because when a Mormon seminary teacher, institute teacher, who's a full time employee of the church reaches out and says, I no longer believe, but I can't tell my, you know, my spouse or my employer or their file, they'll fire me. Or I'm frantically looking for a job because as soon as my boss finds out I no longer believe I'll get fired.

[00:20:25] Or a missionary that says I'm on my mission, but I'm afraid to tell my mission president or my family, I don't believe anymore. But your podcast is keeping me alive. That's inspiring, but it's also heart wrenching. But I just want you to know that your donations going to those populations of people are incredibly crucial because those people more than any, any, feel trapped, feel alone, feel desperate. And, and we're helping those people. So thank you.

[00:20:56] And, and just our impact overall, our effectiveness, our impact is greater than ever. And, and that's due to you and your support and to the great staff that I have surrounding me in terms of finances. You know, this is a really important topic because literally without your financial support and without us managing our finances professionally and responsibly, you know, we would be done. I can't do this without your financial support. We can't, you know, support the cinematography, the cameras, the lighting, the broadband, the equipment, the storage, the backup, the domain names, my time, my salary, my compensation, my health insurance, my benefits, my retirement. The only way I'm able to do all this and keep doing it is through having financial support that allows me to justify what I do to my family, to support my family and all that stuff.

[00:22:00] And, and I just want to say I feel very good about my financial compensation. It's been vetted by the board, it's been vetted by three or four independent comp studies to make sure that I'm not being overcompensated based on my education levels, my experience, my value add.

[00:22:20] You know, I'm, I'm in a. I know I could earn more if I left, but. But I also feel that this is a passion and I want to do this. And so I just want to say I am super happy and grateful for my financial compensation.

[00:22:34] And we're able to now support a staff which I'll be talking about, which allows us to have a greater reach, higher quality, a greater impact. And, and I just want to say that donations are as high or higher than they've ever been. I was super worried that when Covid really hit in early 2020 that we would take a big hit financially. And I'm super happy to say that while we did weather a hit we were able to get, we were able to survive 2020 being one of our best years ever. And 2021 continues. So financially revenue is, is tracking to be comparable to our best year, which was either 2019 or 2020.

[00:23:18] And then we've done a really good job of managing our costs such that we now have a really good amount in cash savings that we've been sitting on for a rainy day fund for ongoing operations. And it's allowed us to expand our staff, which I'll be talking about in just a second.

[00:23:42] So we have the best nonprofit accountants that we could find in the state of Utah. His name is Justin Shaw. He runs accounting firm called called Bountiful Peak Advisors. And you know, we file our, our IRS reports dependably every year. We do full financial accounting and reporting through our 9 90s. All our 9 90s are published every year. You can go up to, you know, the irs website or openstories foundation.org you can see our finances there. We've always gone above and beyond in terms of what we're. We report in terms of financial transparency accountability.

[00:24:21] Enemies have liked to lie and smear us and say that we're not financially transparent. I challenge you to find a nonprofit space in or out of Mormonism that's, that's at our size that's been as or more financially transparent as we are. I'm sure it exists. But, but if you compare us with your average day to day 501c3 non profit, I, I think we stand toe to toe with any of them in terms of our transparency. You can see all that through our financial reports and we're proud of that. And it's been that way since day one.

[00:24:57] Every, every receipt, every, every purchase that I make, I take a photocopy of the receipt it's up, uploaded to our QuickBooks. Our, our bookkeepers and our accountants review that. And then every month I send our full financial report to our board of directors. They review it.

[00:25:15] If they have any questions, they call me on it. And I, I'm just super proud of our financial operations and how responsible we are with your donations. We take that very seriously with the board oversight, with the brilliant board that I have in terms of them being financial wizards and the savings that we have in the bank. Just proud of all that.

[00:25:38] I will say that this was a tough year in terms of haters and people trying to smear me and the Open Stories foundation apologists trying to take us down. Haters. I think the Mormon Church is working overtime to destroy Mormon Stories podcast and the Open Stories Foundation. Me and my reputation. I'm super happy that we've weathered all that and we're going strong. But we did, you know, we did take a hit. We have lost some donors from the lies and the smears that the Mormon Church and our haters, but that's just, that comes to the territory, you will not find someone who speaks out against a high demand religion, whether it's Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, ex Orthodox Jews, ex Evangelicals, ex Catholics, they all get attacked and smeared both by the high demand institutions and by haters in the space.

[00:26:28] It just comes in the territory. So I don't let it get me down. My family's doing great. The board, we're just moving on, but, but it does take a hit. So we, you know, we do need your ongoing support and we do need new supporters to help supplement and overcome the loss of revenue that, that comes when, when, when people try and smear us and try and take us down.

[00:26:51] I'll talk more about that. It's now time to talk about strategy for 2021 and 2022. I want to let you know how we, we are investing your financial resources. So obviously the biggest investment in the Open Stories foundation is, is my, my salary, my benefits, health insurance for me and my family, retirement benefits for me and my family because that allows me to do what I do. And so over half right now of the donations annually go towards that. But the good news is that's just where we begin.

Financial Health and Investment in Production

[00:27:28] We, we have invested in cameras. If you've noticed, YouTube, we have now DS, DSLR cameras with great lenses. Our YouTube video quality has skyrocketed thanks to our investment in equipment, lighting. Gerardo Sumano has been a key player in that.

[00:27:51] Our audio equipment. We now have the best, you know, Joe Rogan level microphones, we have mixers. All that stuff we've invested in over the past couple years and you'll see a much better improvement in audio and video quality.

[00:28:05] That's been huge. We're backing up all of our stuff, you know, gigabytes weekly of our content we're backing up so that this content doesn't get lost. It gets stored on the cloud, you know, broadband. We have a physical facility where we do in, you know, in house interviews now with a full studio. So I have this new studio where I can do live streams with, with bokeh effect, you know, backgrounds and lighting and cinematography. Again, that's a combination of investment in equipment and investment in professional cinematographer support through Gerardo.

[00:28:42] We've got professional thumbnails that Gerardo and Brooklyn do now. So our thumbnail game, which is important to YouTube and now to Facebook, our thumbnail game has been elevated. You can see that our graphic design and then we have a live studio when we bring people in with top notch cameras and lighting and sound.

[00:29:00] You know, that's all just been over the past couple years that we've been able to really up our game. All that is, you know, your, your donations at work, a couple other really important investments that we've done in terms of up, up, up grading our, our game. If you go to, you know, Mormon Stories, podcast episodes are long. Some of them are 5, 10, 10 hours long. One of the main things that you'll see now that we're doing for new episodes is you can go to YouTube and we have time codes, time codes pasted to our description. So if you don't want to sit through five or 10 hours, you just want to be able to jump to certain parts of the interview.

[00:29:41] Now, you know, we pay someone to go through and listen to the full interview, write down time codes of here's where, here's where their mission, here's where they lost their faith. Here's where they, you know, did or didn't get a divorce. Here's where they talked to their bishop. Here's where they got excommunicated. The ability to jump to different time codes in the interview now is available on our YouTube channel and I think it's also on our podcast blog post pages. So, you know, that's a new service that we're adding. It's a, it's a service to you. It takes time and money to write down those time codes and publish them.

[00:30:17] But it also helps with, I think the YouTube algorithm and allowing other people to consume your content. So that's a new service that we've been adding over the past six months. We think you guys will enjoy that if you don't, but that's, that's something we've invested in also. We've launched a new YouTube channel called Understanding Mormonism and that's something that's new over the past year. Just like Joe Rogan has the full length interviews on YouTube, but then he also has chopped up his full length interview into shorts every episode. Now we're taking two or three chunks of those interviews and chopping them up as shorts.

[00:30:56] So you can go to Understanding Mormonism and you can watch some of the shorter 5 to 20 minute clips there on the Understanding Mormonism channel. So all of that is kind of ways that we've upgraded our audio and our video game and I think it's, it's making a big difference and it's why our YouTube channels are growing.

[00:31:18] We're also so also a strategy for 2020, 2021, 2022. We're investing in new platforms. So again, our second YouTube channel called Understanding Mormonism now has over 8,000 subscribers. We grew that from nothing, just within a, you know, six to 12 month time frame. We're really proud of that. If you guys will all subscribe to it and share it and promote it, it'll just keep growing. One of the biggest things we have to announce, and I think this is honestly the most important thing we have done in the past three to six months, is we're investing in TikTok. Not only on Mormon Stories podcast have we been bringing on post Mormon and progressive Mormon tiktokers like Genie Mann, like ex Mormon Mindy, like ex Molex, like the bros, like Cara Burrell and others.

[00:32:10] We're going to continue to promote TikTok as a platform. And I just have to explain to you why TikTok is so important. With, with TikTok, you can reach more people than ever before than with a podcast or a YouTube channel or Instagram. You can reach more people faster and younger people than ever before. So if I start a YouTube channel today, look at it, we're, you know, we're six to 12 months into a new YouTube channel we started, you know, we maybe have 8,000, 8,000 followers or subscribers. Some of those videos are getting five, 10,000 views. Maybe a really good video is getting, you know, 40 or 50,000 views on YouTube on a podcast.

[00:32:53] It's going to be a lot slower than that. If I tried to start a new podcast, we started the, we started the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast a couple of years ago, we're lucky to get a few hundred or a few thousand downloads per month. That's just because the podcast market is so saturated. There's so much competition, you know, that it's just hard to break into that market. Tick Tock is a next level game because the TikTok videos are so short, they're literally 59 seconds or less. And because it's such a huge platform and because young people are into it and because you, you know, you know, not everyone has time for a 12 hour episode.

[00:33:33] Of course many people don't have time for a five episode, five hour episode. A lot of people don't have time for a one hour episode. Everybody has time for a minute, right? Or you know, they're, they're in the bathroom, they're waiting for their kid, they're, they're in their bed at night or in the morning, you can flip through TikTok and watch a 59 second thing or a 30 second thing for one minute, for five minutes, for 10 minutes, and sometimes then you just get sucked in flipping and flipping through new videos. So with TikTok, what you have to understand is we've only had a Mormon Stories podcast TikTok channel for like two weeks.

[00:34:07] It already has 9,000 followers. And a few of the Mormon Stories podcast TikTok videos have over a hundred thousand views in just a few weeks. So it is next level game changing penetration or viewership in a super short amount of time. Some of the more prominent post Mormon TikTokers are already at 150,000 followers. Many of them are at 30, 40, 50,000 followers. And many of their, their videos have been viewed in the millions of times. So if you look at ex Mormon Mindy, if you look at someone like Kara Burrell, others, some of their, their, their TikTok videos have millions of views. So that's the potential.

[00:34:57] And of course we're talking about teenagers and young adults and adults. And again, we're not trying to push someone into a faith crisis, but we believe in informed consent and we want as many people as possible learning about their faith. And so that's why we are investing not Only in the TikTok Progressive and post Mormon community, but we're investing in the Open Stories foundation and Mormon stories podcast in TikTok. But guess what? That takes money, that takes time, that takes resources. And we don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, which is Mormon Stories Podcast, to invest in new platforms. And so that's why it's an investment that takes resources, time and money.

[00:35:41] And we're going to be, we're going to be talking about our investments in staff in just a second. But now there's a Dr. John Delinque TikTok channel that has over 5,000 followers and again, it's only two weeks old. Some of those videos have 4, 40, 50,000 views. At this point I want to grow the Dr. John Dehlin TikTok channel as well in that I'm just trying to explain reasons why people leave the Mormon Church. It's a big long series, one minute videos on why people leave the Mormon Church. We've covered things like View of the Hebrews, Joseph Smith's treasure digging Church, misleading people. But also I'm answering questions responses to a Mormon apologist viewers.

[00:36:22] So it's kind of just more an investment in me as a spokesperson talking about some of the things that people might care about. Look for me to try and release one to five videos a week on the Dr. John Dehlin TikTok channel. Please follow that and subscribe. That will help with viewership. Watch my videos all the way through, Heart them, comment on them, all of that helps with the algorithms. And then Kara Burrell has launched the Mormon stories podcast TikTok channel which now after just two weeks has 9,000 followers in just two weeks. And again, some of those videos have 50, 60,000 views. Some of them I think are up to over a hundred thousand views just in a few weeks.

[00:37:03] So it's just so exciting and we're so excited in that investment. We also have a Mormon Stories podcast Instagram channel with over 8,000 followers. Now we're going to be breaking the 10,000, you know, limit soon, which allows us to post links to swipe up.

[00:37:23] And we're trying to figure out if we want to do something with Twitter or not. Twitter is such an important medium and it could be just a floating dumpster, you know, burning dumpster fire. So anyway, those are new platforms we're investing in with your financial support and resources.

[00:37:41] And then of course for 2021 and beyond, we're going to try and just continue to do groundbreaking interviews on Mormon stories Podcast from within and outside of Mormonism. More of the same. We're really proud of, for example, the interview we did with Leah Remini and Mike Rinder that then led to them interviewing me on their Fair Game podcast. We want to do more stuff like that. Cross pollinating the community of, of people who have left high demand religions, notable authors, public figures, thought leaders, outside of Mormonism and in the broader tradition. So look for more of that in the coming months and years.

[00:38:20] We want to keep working with ex Jehovah's Witnesses, ex Scientologists, ex fundamentals Christians. You know, we want to keep with that and just bring in as many big names and groundbreaking interviews. That's kind of one of the things I've prided myself in with Mormon Stories podcast to discover new talent, to promote new talent. We've really done a big push to promote Radio Free Mormon this year. And Bill Real, we love them again, the Tiktokers. We believe in a abundance model. So it's not like oh I want to be the only YouTube channel or the only TikTok channel or the only podcast. No, no, no. We believe a rising tide lifts all ships and if we can promote the good work of other progressive and post Mormons, never Mormons, we will and want to do that.

[00:39:08] We're doing the best we can and that's something that we will continue to do is just get groundbreaking interviews. So look for more of that in the weeks, months and years ahead. We are putting a big push this year on promoting influencers because when you promote ex, you know, ex Mormon Mindy or ex Molex or Cara Burrell or you know, JT and Lady C ex Jehovah's Witnesses or Chris Shelton, ex Scientologist or Leah Remini and Mike Rinder, when you promote them and they promote you, there's this huge network effect. And so we have a big push to collaborate with other influencers to cross pollinate, to, to get penetration into their audience to share, you know, our audience with them.

[00:39:57] Because we really believe that a rising tide is going to lift all ships. So look for more collaborations in the weeks, months ahead, more platform across pollination and influencer pollination. And then you know, part of our strategy has been now that we have a decent amount of money in the bank, we want wanted to start investing in our resources. I've already talked about our deliverables, now I'm going to talk about our staff because we've some really important staff changes over the past 12 months and I just. So now we're moving on to the current staff. So over the lives life of the Mormon stories podcast slash Open Storage foundation we've had lean staffs and then we've tried to expand.

Staffing, TikTok Strategy, and Kara Burrell

[00:40:38] So when I first started the Open Storage foundation it was basically, basically just me with a little bit of part time help while I was finishing my PhD from basically 2010 to 2015. We kept it super lean, lean board, lean staff.

[00:40:52] Once I, once I finished my PhD in 2015 and we launched an events business to raise additional funds. We saved up enough money to grow our staff. That's when we hired several full time staff, some not some part time staff grew. Our events business started, you know, supporting other podcasts and growing. We did that for a few years. We grew our board and we did a lot of great things. But that, you know, we kind of grew beyond the financial support we were able to bring in. And if you look at the past, the, the final two years of that expansion, let's just say I always forget the years, but let's just say 2018, 2019, kind of maybe 2017, maybe 2017, 2018, I forget.

[00:41:40] But we started to, we started to bleed cash. We started to have a lot of like conflict board conflict, staff turbulence. I don't blame anyone for that. I take responsibility for my part of that. But, but we decided that it just made sense to contract our board, contract our staff and regroup. And I'm not ashamed of that. We did great things with the expansion and I think the contraction was crucial because we were literally, literally by the, by the end of that expansion, we were hemorrhaging cash. And if we had continued with our current staff and conflict, we would have run out of cash. We would have drained all our savings and I don't think that would have benefited anybody.

[00:42:26] We would have gone bankrupt as a nonprofit and I would have wanted to quit because I was so unhappy with all the stress and conflict. So we downsized and I'm glad we did and I'm grateful for all the staff and board members that helped us through that time.

[00:42:43] We, we, we. After the contraction, we went a couple years, Covid came and that caused us to even contract even more. And for about six months to a year during the COVID time, I was doing all the editing, all the video and audio editing, and there was kind of no staff at all.

[00:43:00] And I'm grateful to say that. Let's just say six months into Covid, you know, we were able to get back on a financial solid footing. We were able to get some cash in the bank and restore our cash reserves. And then at that point, at that point I was able to start investing in staff again. And so let's just say nine to 12 months ago, I hired a audio video editor in Brooklyn. Alden. Brooklyn's been working with us close to full time now for almost a year. She lives in Brooklyn. She's a amazing and she's doing all our video and audio editing and our thumbnails for the Understanding Mormonism channel.

[00:43:39] She runs the Understanding Mormonism channel. She's been doing a lot of our time codes and just Brooklyn Alden has just been a lifesaver to the Open Stories foundation. And I've been able to offload, not waste, not spend my time doing audio and video editing and all that stuff. And that's been a huge addition thanks to your donations and support.

[00:44:01] Then we brought on Gerardo Simano. Gerardo is an amazing human, brilliant, gifted. He's a lighting expert, he's a cinematography expert. And again, all those thumbnails, all the improvement in our audio and visual. A lot of the strategic work that has been done behind the scenes has been due to Gerardo. And again, all those beautiful thumbnails on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel are due to Gerardo. So Gerardo works for us part time. He's got other full time gigs, but we're able to pay him for some of his volunteer work.

[00:44:37] I guess it's if it's not volunteer, if we're paying him, but we're paying him for some of his professional work, he still probably works more for us than we pay him. But we're just so grateful for that part time staff augmentation. Of course we have a, you know, an accountant services that we pay for through Justin, Justin Shaw and Bountiful Peak Advisors. So we've got top notch accounting support for bookkeeping and tax stuff. And then I think the really big announcement and probably one of the most important things I wanted to talk about today is the decision to bring on a podcast producer to the Open Stories foundation.

[00:45:18] Who podcast producer, project manager, social media manager, etc, so some of you will know Kara burrell from her TikTok channel. She goes by the name Nuance Hoe on Tick Tock. It's a brilliant, funny, edgy Tick Tock channel. Anyone who's watched that channel, they cannot disagree that Kara is brilliant and, and talented and creative and funny. Obviously, you know, Cara's focus is on all the same things that we, you know, kind of the core mission is, I think is the same with, with the Open Stories Foundation. But Kara's background is one of a comedian, literally. She, she has been a standup comedian in the past and she loves comedy.

[00:46:09] So her TikTok channel is very different from the brand or the slant of Mormon stories in the Open Stories Foundation. But that's because it's a different channel. It's trying to do different things. And so Kara, you know, uses Uses comedy, but does edgy work that's brilliant and funny and creative and that's Kara. And it just turns out that Kara and, and her husband and family live, you know, within 10 or 15 minutes of me and our offices here. And so as I've gotten to know Kara, as I interviewed Kara for Mormon Stories podcast, I just thought, man, I need help with TikTok. I want to get into the TikTok market.

[00:46:49] I don't know much about Instagram and social media and frankly, it was just killing me. I didn't know how to get in technically to the TikTok space because it was just there's a barrier of entry to learning these new platforms and then you combine that with just the time it takes. I don't have time to manage a new Mormon Stories podcast TikTok channel. I don't have time to go through and watch all these past episodes and chop them up into 59 second segments and to add all the stuff and to make it grow. And I frankly don't have the expertise to make the channel super successful.

[00:47:24] So we needed someone to do that. We also needed someone to do these time codes. So Brooklyn Alden was doing the time codes for the long form YouTube pieces, but it wasn't the best use of Brooklyn's time. And Brooklyn didn't have time to do as many Understanding Mormonism shorts as we need. And certainly Brooklyn didn't have time to do the TikTok shorts where we're chopping up the Mormon Stories podcast episodes and making them in one minute blocks. And so we needed someone to do that.

[00:48:00] In addition, you know, one of the, one of the values we have in the Open Stories foundation and with Mormon Stories is in elevating diversity and diverse points of view. So Mormon mental health is a part of that. Natasha Helfer is a part of that.

[00:48:17] Gina Colvin has been a part of that. A thoughtful faith has been a part of that. And then I did gay Mormon stories for a long time, but then needed someone to take that over once my cousin Daniel Parkinson had to let that go. And so I found I, you know, I got in touch with Kyle with.

[00:48:38] Holy crap, I'm spacing. I'm going to be interviewing Kyle tomorrow. He's one of my dearest friends and I'm freaking spacing on, on Kyle's name. Kyle Ashworth, right? It's Kyle Ashworth. Can somebody tell me Facebook is being super slow? It's Kyle Ashworth. Right? Give me just one second. I have to.

[00:49:00] Kyle Ashworth, Yeah. Kyle Ashworth. I'm. Sometimes my brain just has a hiccup. Anyway, I met Kyle Ashworth, found out that he was just this brilliant human, you know, gay ex Mormon who was in a mixed faith marriage, who knows social media, who's intelligent, who's diplomatic, who's, who's thoughtful, he's sensitive. And I basically said, here are all the assets to gay Mormon stories. Take it and run with it. He started Latter Gay Stories podcast. It's become this amazing, powerful, influential asset that's another reflection of my desire to lift diverse voices and to, and to have just divorce, just diverse perspectives in our family of, of offerings.

[00:49:49] And you know, it is not lost to me that right now in the ex Mormon, post Mormon space, who are the voices? It's John De Lynn, Radio Free Mormon, Bill Real. And then, you know, there are others, there's Latter Day Lesbian, but that's kind of like focused on a certain silo, but just like a generalized post Mormon voice talking about Mormon current events, talking about Mormon history, Mormon truth claims. It's, it's still, you know, it's still guys. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing to be ashamed about, you know that. But you know, I think we all benefit from diverse perspectives and I think having more female voices, we just.

[00:50:39] How can that not be a good thing? And having younger voices, how can that not be a good thing? And so bringing Kara on because she's intelligent, because she's funny, because she represents a younger demographic, because she's a woman, I think is an opportunity to elevate or to at least experiment with the elevation of a new, fresh type of voice that I think progressive and post Mormon podcasting and YouTubing needs.

[00:51:08] And so I'm proud to have this opportunity to bring Kara on to experiment with that. So we're bringing Kara on not just to help with social media and TikTok and Instagram, but also to do the time codes with YouTube and TikTok to be able to chop up the episodes for understanding Mormonism and for TikTok and for Instagram, but also to be a co host with me.

[00:51:34] And, and so we've been experimenting with Kara as a co host on, on Mormon Stories podcast. And I'll be frank, I'm really sensitive to not break what's working. There is this idea, you know, don't, don't break, don't break what's working.

[00:51:53] Don't try and fix, you know, what's not broken. But I've had Kara on for several Mormon Stories podcast episodes and it's tough because a few of you have reached out and said, John, just do you don't bring anybody on. We don't need any changes. And I'm sensitive to that. I care about that feedback. I know that for many of you the Mormon stories experience is probably very personal and intimate and that's not going away. I will still be doing one on one interviews.

[00:52:28] And if that ends up being the way that it needs to be, that my audience overwhelmingly says don't change, don't bring on, you know, a producer, you know, I'll listen to your feedback ultimately because frankly, you keep us in business and if we lose your support, we go out of business. However, if you look at top notch podcasts, Conan o' Brien's podcast, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, others, you'll see that it's very common for there to be a producer. Howard Stern, whatever. It's basically someone who's in the studio with you. They're googling stuff that's forgotten. They're correcting errors, they're providing an additional viewpoint, they're making the guests feel comfortable, they're asking questions that the host forgets to ask.

[00:53:13] All that can be just a next level of quality of production. And I just want to say for the few episodes that we've had, Kara Burrell on the feedback has been overwhelmingly, exuberantly positive. The feedback I've heard is it's great to have a female voice. Kara's funny. She asks insightful questions. She asks the questions that you don't ask. She provides a younger perspective, a female perspective. And I don't want to hurt the 25, 20 to 25% of you that haven't wanted me to have a producer or a co host. I don't want to offend you or hurt you by saying this, but the overwhelming feedback has been very positive.

[00:53:52] I actually did a poll with, we did a poll on Instagram and on Facebook and something between 75 to 80% of you who are listeners and donors have said thank you. Care has been a refreshing addition. She's added value. We're really glad you're doing this.

[00:54:09] And that's been the feedback. So we're in this point now of wanting to do this as a trial, seeing if financially we can support to pay care because we want to pay everyone for their support support. So we're investing with the cash in our savings bank. We're paying Kara to co produce and or co host some of these episodes. It's experimental.

[00:54:32] We hope you'll love it. We hope to be able to keep doing it. And it'll only be able to be continued with your financial support. And if some of you cancel your donations because you hate it, you know, we'll have to either find a way to get additional financial support to, to replace the minority of you who don't like it, or we'll stop doing it and find other ways, whatever. Ultimately you guys will decide, but this is a values based decision.

[00:55:01] I like it. I think it's good for diversity. I think it's good for multiple points of view, I think it's good for our demographics for younger audiences, it's good for social media. And again, when Kara's in the studio, she's not just sitting there listening to the people that we interview. She's writing down the time codes, she's writing down edits that we need to make. She's helping with the audio, she's helping with the video, she's helping with the guests, making them feel comfortable. There's a lot that she's doing. If she never even gave any input. But that's my explanation for why we've brought on somebody else.

[00:55:36] And we want your feedback about it. But that's something we're investing in. The other thing that I want to try is giving Kara a chance to do her own interviews. So Kara can pick any cool interview that she wants to do separate from me so that we can just provide more content, maybe more hip content, more young content, more female friendly content, funnier content, whatever it is, news panels, whatever it is. I want to give Kara a chance to again lift a female, witty, funny, younger voice into the progressive and post Mormon arena. So that's something we're going to try potentially with Cara. If Cara decides she wants to do that and if you guys will support it, we'll experiment with that and we'll get your, your feedback to continue it.

[00:56:25] So that's all, that's all stuff. And then finally like someday I'll get hit by a bus or I'll get sick of this or I'll get destroyed. Whatever like there needs. If we want Mormon Stories Podcast and the Open Stories foundation to continue, we need to have a bench, we need to have additional voices, even people that if I need to take off a month or take off a sabbatical to write a book or whatever, we need to develop like a bench of other hosts that can keep Mormon Stories Podcast alive. I'm not going anywhere. I'm always going to be the, the main voice of Mormon Stories podcast until I retire.

[00:57:03] But I just think if we care about the longevity. We need to have succession planning and alternative voices. So all of that is going into this experimentation with bringing Kara on. And I hope I've explained enough for why we're doing this. We're going to try this with Kara for a few months to a year.

[00:57:25] I've told Kara that if it doesn't work out, we'll have to stop. A lot of it will be dependent on financial support, on growing financial support to compensate for the cash drain that will be to pay Kara. But I hope that you guys will not cancel your donations, that you will even consider increasing your donations as a way to show support for this expansion of services.

[00:57:48] And if, if, if any of you aren't donors now, but you really like this idea, we would love you to increase your donations as a show of support for this strategic investment, both with TikTok, with Instagram, with Cara and, and with Gerardo and Brooklyn. We would just love your support.

[00:58:07] So that is sort of our current staff as we've built it up to support our strategy for 2021. I hope this makes sense and we'd love to get your feedback, but this is again, our transparency to help you understand where your money's going and how we need your support.

[00:58:28] Okay, so finally, really quickly, before COVID we had an events business with the Open Stories foundation where we were leading workshops and retreats and some of our most important relationships. And one of the ways we've helped the most amount of people is through doing these retreats and workshops. Our plan is to still support workshops and retreats and conferences going forward, but right now the plan is to do that through the Thrive Foundation. So I've partnered with Clint and Jenny Martin, Natasha Helfer and Lisa Hacke to form what's called the Thrive foundation, which will be its own 501c3 nonprofit. And at present we plan to ramp up global events through Thrive, regional events through Thrive and potentially workshops and retreats through Thrive and speaker series.

[00:59:21] We're going to be talking more about that in the coming weeks and months, including strategies for in person, face to face communities, book clubs and other really exciting opportunities. But I'm not going to really announce that here, other than to say stay tuned for announcements about Thrive foundation. If you're looking to go to a retreat, a workshop, if you want to host a regional event, or if you're trying to find community, local support, et cetera, stay tuned.

Support Needs, Donor Update, and Closing

[00:59:51] All right, so to finish up this episode, we're, we're a little bit over time, but I'm Just going to round this out. Let me just explain to you what needs we have from you. The good news is our impact is bigger than ever. My personal health and well being is literally better than ever. My happiness and health and well being, my physical health, I've lost £25 over the past year. I'm, I'm eating better, I'm, I'm exercising better. Margi and I are healthier than ever.

[01:00:20] All of that stuff I, I think I'm really happy about. And to be honest, this has been absolutely the most horrific year in terms of smears, maligning, attacks from the Mormon Church, its apologists and haters. It's been a horrific year in terms of people trying to destroy me, Mormon Stories, my family, and the Open Stories Foundation. And the good news is we're stronger than ever. And so I just can't explain that other than I'm just grateful for it. And I couldn't do it without, without Brooklyn, without Clint, without Carrie, without Gerardo, without Margi, without my kids, without now Kara and all the donors and supporters and all my personal friends, we have some very close friends who support us.

[01:01:13] None of this could have happened without the support of you that we weathered this year. But we have and we're stronger than ever. So I'm just, I'm pinching myself and how grateful I am for how well we're doing in spite of, or maybe because of all the adversity. Here's what we need. We need donor support because we are going to be investing in this new staff, in all these new investments, but it's going to be draining our cash. And so what we're going to watch over the next three to 12 months is a drain of our cash position.

[01:01:46] And for as long as there's enough cash in the bank to make us feel secure of ongoing operations, we'll invest in new strategic offerings. As soon as that cash dwindles to the point where I'm starting to think about I need a new job, I need to go do something else, and I start having to interview for other jobs or think about other things. That's when I have to think about ramping down Mormon Stories in the Open Stories foundation, closing shop, mothballing it and doing something else. So we need those of you who support us financially to keep supporting us.

[01:02:19] If you can increase your donations to support these new investments. If you like the additional staff, if you like the strategic ideas, if you just want to see us keep going, please continue continuing or increasing your donations. If you're not donating donating. Now we need your support to pay for these new services and to offset the loss of support from COVID from people losing interest, and from all the smears and hit jobs that the Mormon Church and its followers and haters and apologists are all supporting. So we need your financial Support. Go to MormonStories.org, click on the Donate button. You can do one time donations, you can do monthly donations.

[01:02:59] Those are most helpful. Just signing up. 10 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can support large donations, small donations, it's all tax deductible. We're transparent. And it's 100% of this money is going to go towards the mission of the Open Storage Foundation. So that's the biggest thing that we need, is donor support. In addition to that. Spreading the word.

[01:03:20] Spreading the word is huge. Subscribing to our different channels, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, giving us positive reviews on all the channels, including the podcast app. That's huge because haters are always trying to get give us negative reviews to ruin our reputation.

[01:03:36] Spreading the word, sharing our stuff everywhere on all your social medias and also time codes. So we would love people to go back into past episodes on YouTube or in the podcast and listen to the entire interviews and write down the time codes, the hour, minute and the second. So it's digit, digit, colon, digit, digit, colon, digit, digit, colon. Have it be like introduction, here's the time code. Going on a mission, here's the time code. Getting your testimony, here's the time code. Losing your faith, here's the time code. Getting divorced, here's the time code.

[01:04:12] You know, finding healing and growth, here's the time code. Any of you that want to either, you know, create time codes for past episodes that don't have time codes yet, make sure and go to YouTube, look in the description, see if there's a time code and then if there's not, email us@mormonstories.comgmail.com and say, hey, I'm going to do the time codes for the Tom Phillips episode or for the RFM episode or for the Donna Showalter interview. Tell us you're going to do the time codes. Do the time codes, then send them to us. We'll literally copy and paste them into our YouTube descriptions and we'll make understanding Mormonism clips from your time codes.

[01:04:50] And then also if you've got one minute clips for TikTok, just moments of Mormon stories, podcast interviews that have been inspired, you send in the time codes on YouTube for our TikTok channel or our Understanding Mormonism channel. Understanding Mormonism or clips between 5 and 20 minutes long. Our Tick Tock channel is clips under a minute. Please send us your time codes and we will have to spend less money and time paying Brooklyn or Kara to figure out the time codes and we'll spend more time just creating amazing content from the time codes that you send us. So that would be huge. And then just ideas.

[01:05:28] So if you have strategic ideas, social media ideas for great interviews, for strategy, we want to hear it. Supporting billboards so we've had several donors step up and finance billboard campaigns in Idaho, in Utah, in Arizona. If you want to support a billboard, a billboard can be, you know, supported at only 500, 500 or 600 bucks a month. You can get a really good billboard in Idaho Falls or Rigby or Rexburg or Gilbert Chandler, Tempe Mesa, Boise. Just imagine Logan St. George. Can you imagine if there was a Mormon Stories billboard in every major city? And all we need are communities or individuals who are high net worth individuals who have tithing.

[01:06:14] Post Mormon tithing to give. Progressive Mormon tithing to give. You can donate to the Open Stories Foundation. Help us find a billboard in your area. You'll get the, you'll get the tax break and then we'll get marketing. And we've already created a couple new billboard designs with the help of some graphic designers, including Gerardo. We're going to be rolling out a couple new billboards in a few new areas. And again, if you want to sponsor billboards, that's a way that you can help us.

[01:06:42] Yeah. Then just giving us feedback and encouragement and support. So that's my, that's my donor update. That's my State of the Union for the Open Stories foundation and Mormon Stories podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. Please give us your feedback. Please comment on this episode@mormonstories.org again send us feedback at mormonstories gmail.com or with the board at open storiesboard gmail.com we would love your feedback. We would love to answer questions you have and especially if you're a donor because frankly donors, you keep the lights on. Without your donations. We would shut it all down. So we are going to privilege feedback from donors, although we care about the feedback of non donors as well.

[01:07:25] So anyway, that's our episode. I'm sorry, I can't really take too many questions today. Maybe I'll do a follow up if you guys have questions for me, comments, concerns. What I'll do is post them at mormonstoriesmail.com no email them at mormonstoriesgmail.com post them in YouTube or on Facebook on the live streams or email us at the board or post them to the MormonStories.org blog post. For this episode what I'll do is I'll gather all the questions or comments and then do a follow up episode maybe with Kara, maybe with Gerardo and Brooklyn, maybe with our board. We'll do whatever you guys need to get the information and the feedback you need to continue supporting us.

[01:08:07] But thank you so much for listening. Thanks for your support. Please continue to support us if you can. We love you. We're grateful for you upward and onward and let's just keep supporting informed consent within Mormonism and other high demand religions, supporting people in in religious faith crises, helping people transition away from high demand religions and religious fundamentalism including Mormonism and then supporting community for those who need it who are experiencing a faith transition. Love you guys. Talk soon. Enjoy your Memorial Day and beyond. Take care everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.