Geoff's Best Picks Blog

The Benefits of Frankincense Oil: Uses for Health and Wellness

geoff.bennetto@gmail.com (From The Desk Of: Geoff Bennetto) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:22:37 GMT

A Brief History of Frankincense Oil

Frankincense oil has been used for thousands of years, tracing back to ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, who utilized it in religious rituals and as an embalming agent. This aromatic resin, derived from the Boswellia tree, was highly valued and often referred to as 'liquid gold.'

In addition to its historical significance, frankincense was traded along the ancient Incense Route and was considered one of the gifts presented to Jesus by the Magi, symbolizing its importance in cultural and spiritual practices.

The Powerful Health Benefits of Frankincense Oil

Frankincense oil is renowned for its numerous health benefits, including its anti-inflammatory properties which can help relieve pain and reduce inflammation in conditions such as arthritis. It is also known for its ability to support respiratory health, making it beneficial for conditions like asthma and bronchitis.

Moreover, frankincense oil possesses antiseptic qualities, which can aid in healing minor wounds and cuts. Additionally, it has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, promoting a sense of calm and well-being.

Ways to Use Frankincense Oil in Your Daily Routine

Incorporating frankincense oil into your daily routine is simple and versatile. You can add a few drops to your skincare regimen, as it helps rejuvenate skin and reduce the appearance of scars and blemishes. Diluting it with a carrier oil can make it effective for massage therapies.

Another way to use frankincense oil is by adding it to your bath for a relaxing experience, or you can blend it into your homemade cleaning products for its natural antibacterial properties.

Frankincense Oil in Aromatherapy and Meditation

Frankincense oil is a staple in aromatherapy, known for its grounding and calming effects. When diffused, it can create a serene atmosphere, making it an excellent choice for meditation and mindfulness practices.

Moreover, inhaling frankincense oil can enhance emotional clarity and promote deep breathing, which can facilitate a deeper meditative state. Its rich scent often helps to open the mind and elevate spiritual connections.

Safety Precautions and Tips for Using Frankincense Oil

While frankincense oil is generally safe for most individuals, it is essential to perform a patch test before applying it topically. Always dilute the oil with a carrier oil to prevent skin irritation, especially for those with sensitive skin.

Additionally, pregnant or nursing women and individuals with specific health conditions should consult a healthcare professional before using frankincense oil. Keeping the oil away from sensitive areas such as the eyes is also crucial for safe use.

What Is BDNF? Your Brain's Growth Molecule, Explained Simply

geoff.bennetto@gmail.com (From The Desk Of: Geoff Bennetto) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 23:55:15 GMT

If you've spent any time reading about brain health, you've probably run into the term BDNF. It gets thrown around a lot — sometimes accurately, often not. Here's what it actually is.

The short version

BDNF stands for Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor. It's a protein your body produces, and it plays a key role in keeping brain cells (neurons) healthy, helping them grow, and strengthening the connections between them.

Some scientists describe it as "fertilizer for your brain." That's not a perfect metaphor, but it gets the point across: BDNF helps your neurons grow, survive, and form stronger connections — similar to how fertilizer helps a plant grow better.

What does it actually do?

A few concrete things:

Supports neuron survival. It helps existing brain cells stay alive and functioning.
Encourages neuroplasticity. This is your brain's ability to form new connections and adapt — the biological basis of learning and memory.
Plays a role in mood regulation. Low BDNF levels have been linked (in research, not proven as a direct cause) to depression and other mood disorders.

Where does it come from?

Your body produces BDNF naturally, and levels can be influenced by things like:

Exercise — aerobic exercise in particular has fairly solid research behind it as a way to boost BDNF.
Sleep — poor sleep is associated with lower BDNF levels.
Diet — some nutrients (omega-3s, for example) are studied for their potential role.
Learning new things — mentally engaging activity is thought to support it, though this is harder to measure directly.

What BDNF is

BDNF is one piece of a larger, complex system — it works alongside sleep, exercise, diet, and mental engagement rather than in isolation. The research on it describes gradual, cumulative changes in brain health over time, which is worth keeping in mind as the frame for understanding anything that claims to support BDNF levels.

Bottom line

BDNF is a genuinely important protein for brain health, memory, and mood — it's well-studied, real neuroscience. The most consistently supported ways to support it are lifestyle-based: exercise, good sleep, and staying mentally active.

10 Reasons Your Nonprofit Needs a Whiteboard Explainer Video (Even If You Think You Don't)

geoff.bennetto@gmail.com (From The Desk Of: Geoff Bennetto) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:49:16 GMT

Let's be honest: when someone on your team says "we should make a video," a little part of you dies inside. You're already stretched between grant reports, donor thank-yous, that one board member who wants to "personally review" every social post, and a website that hasn't been updated since 2019. Adding "learn video production" to your to-do list sounds like a nightmare.

Here's the good news: you don't need a camera crew, a script doctor, or a budget that rivals your annual gala. You need a whiteboard explainer video — those charming animated videos where a hand seems to sketch out your story in real time, usually set to a friendly voiceover. They're cheap(er), fast(er), and shockingly effective at doing the one thing every nonprofit struggles with: making people actually understand — and care about — what you do.

Here are ten reasons whiteboard explainer videos deserve a spot in your content plan this year.

1. Your mission is more complicated than you think it is

You live inside your mission every day, so it feels obvious to you. It is not obvious to a first-time visitor who lands on your homepage with eight seconds of attention to spare. Whiteboard videos force you to distill your work into a clear, sequential story — problem, solution, impact — because the format simply doesn't work if you ramble. That constraint is a gift. If you can't explain your program in 90 seconds of whiteboard sketches, that's useful information about your messaging, not the video format.

2. People remember stories, not stats

You can tell someone "we served 12,000 meals last year" and they'll nod and forget it by lunch. Show them a hand drawing a hungry kid, then a volunteer, then a plate of food, then a smiling family — and suddenly that stat has a face. Visual storytelling sticks in memory in a way that bullet points never will, and whiteboard animation is basically visual storytelling on easy mode.

3. They make dense or "boring" topics watchable

Not every nonprofit is rescuing puppies or planting trees. Some of you are explaining tax policy implications for low-income families, watershed management, or the finer points of restorative justice. Whiteboard videos are uniquely good at making dry, complex, or wonky subject matter feel approachable, because the visual sketching keeps people engaged even when the content is dense. It's the format equivalent of a spoonful of sugar.

4. Donors give to what they understand

Confusion kills conversions. If a potential donor has to work to figure out what you do, how their money is used, or why it matters, most of them will simply bounce rather than dig deeper. A well-made explainer video on your donation page removes that friction. It answers "what is this and why should I care" before the donor even has to ask the question, which means more people make it to the "donate" button instead of abandoning ship.

5. They're built for the way people actually consume content now

Nobody is reading your 1,200-word "About Us" page start to finish. They're scrolling. A 60-to-90-second video embedded near the top of that page catches attention in a way that a wall of text never will, and it respects your audience's actual attention span instead of fighting it. Put the video first; let the text be for the people who want to go deeper.

6. One video, a dozen uses

This is the part nonprofit marketers really love: whiteboard explainer videos are workhorses. Use the full video on your homepage. Cut it into three 15-second clips for Instagram and TikTok. Embed it in your annual appeal email. Play it on a loop at your gala check-in table. Send it to a corporate sponsor as your "why partner with us" pitch. Show it during new-volunteer orientation so you stop giving the same 20-minute spiel every single month. One production cycle, content for an entire quarter (or year) across every channel you touch.

7. They're genuinely budget-friendly

Compared to live-action video — which means booking talent, scouting locations, renting equipment, and hoping nobody's dog barks during the shoot — whiteboard animation is typically far cheaper and faster to produce. No casting, no location permits, no reshoots because the lighting changed. For an organization watching every dollar (which, let's be real, is all of you), that cost difference matters.

Tool we recommend: If you're ready to try making one yourselves (or just want to see what's possible before hiring it out), InstaDoodle is a solid place to start — it's built specifically for whiteboard-style animation, so you don't need design or motion-graphics experience to put together something polished. (Affiliate link — if you sign up through it, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

8. They age well

Live-action video ages the moment fashion, hairstyles, or your office decor change. Illustrated whiteboard style doesn't carry that same expiration date. A whiteboard video explaining your core mission can realistically run on your homepage for a couple of years without looking dated, which means better ROI on the time and money you put into making it.

9. They're accessible in a way plain text and static graphics aren't

Pairing a clear voiceover with simple, sequential visuals and on-screen captions makes your message land for a wider range of audiences — including people who process information better audibly, people with low literacy in your primary language, and people watching on mute in a crowded coffee shop (which, let's face it, is most of your Instagram audience). Good captioning and a clear script make your explainer video one of the more inclusive tools in your content toolkit.

10. They give your board and staff a shared, simple story to repeat

Ever watch a board member fumble through explaining your mission at a networking event? It's not their fault — most people weren't handed a clean, memorized elevator pitch. A whiteboard video does that work for you. Share it internally, and suddenly your board, your volunteers, and your newest hire are all telling a consistent, compelling version of your story, because they've literally watched it happen in 90 seconds. Consistency in messaging across an organization is hard to achieve through a memo. It's much easier to achieve through a video everyone has actually watched.

The bottom line

You don't need a Pixar budget or a marketing department the size of a Fortune 500 company to make people understand — and feel something about — your mission. A well-scripted whiteboard explainer video is one of the highest-leverage pieces of content a resource-strapped nonprofit can produce: relatively cheap, endlessly repurposable, genuinely engaging, and built to make your case in the time it takes someone to wait for their coffee order.

If your mission is still living entirely in a text-heavy About page or a slide deck nobody outside your team has seen, it might be time to hand it to a whiteboard and a good voiceover artist instead.

Your Brain Is Running on Yesterday's Software. Here's a 12-Minute Fix Worth Testing.

geoff.bennetto@gmail.com (From The Desk Of: Geoff Bennetto) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 19:47:57 GMT

Let me ask you something.

When was the last time you felt sharp? Not caffeinated. Not "pushing through." Actually sharp — the kind of clear-headed focus you had a decade ago, before the fog, the 4pm crash, the constant feeling that your brain is one tab too many open.

If you can't remember — pay attention, because this matters.

Here's the deal

There's a molecule your brain makes called BDNF — Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor. Neuroscientists call it "fertilizer for the brain" because it's tied to how well your brain cells talk to each other. More of the right signaling, sharper thinking. That part isn't controversial — it's textbook neuroscience.

Here's where it gets interesting: some researchers have found a connection between Gamma brainwaves — a specific, measurable frequency your brain produces — and BDNF activity. I'll be straight with you: the science on audio-driven brainwave entrainment is still developing. It is not a magic switch, and anyone who tells you it's guaranteed is lying to you. I won't do that.

What I will tell you is this: it's a real, studied area of neuroscience, it costs you 12 minutes and a pair of headphones, and it's backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee — meaning the only thing you're risking is quiet time you'd probably have wasted scrolling anyway.

Look — you have two options.

Option one: close this tab, keep doing what you're doing, and keep feeling the way you feel right now.

Option two: spend 12 minutes a day testing whether this changes anything for you. If it doesn't, you get your money back. No risk. No catch. Just a straight answer, one way or the other.

Test The Brain Song Risk-Free →

The bottom line

I'm not promising you a miracle. I'm telling you there's a real, if early-stage, area of brain science behind this, a rock-solid guarantee behind your wallet, and twelve minutes of your day on the table. That's not a hard decision. That's just doing the math.

The Quiet Budget Problem Killing Nonprofit Campaigns (And the Workaround Small Teams Are Using)

geoff.bennetto@gmail.com (From The Desk Of: Geoff Bennetto) — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:21:03 GMT

Every nonprofit communications director knows the feeling: you have a story worth telling — a family helped, a school built, a crisis averted — and no way to tell it that matches the size of the moment.

Video works. Everyone knows video works. Donors engage with it, share it, and give more after watching it. But a single 60-second explainer from a freelance animator or agency can run $1,500–$5,000, and most nonprofits don't have that kind of discretionary budget sitting around for a single social post or year-end appeal.

So the story gets told in a static graphic instead. Or a bulleted email. Or nothing at all.

What Changed

A wave of small nonprofit teams — often just one or two people running comms, development, and social media at once — have started solving this a different way: AI-powered animation tools that turn a written script or prompt directly into a finished, voiced, whiteboard-style animated video. No editing software. No animator. No render farm. Just a description of what you want to say, and the tool builds the video around it — hand-drawn-style characters, transitions, background music, and voiceover included.

For a program explainer, a donor impact story, an event recap, or a fundraising ask, that's the entire production pipeline collapsed into an afternoon.

Why This Matters Specifically for Nonprofits

You're not competing on production value — you're competing on clarity. Doodle-style, hand-drawn animation isn't trying to look like a Pixar short. It's built to explain something simply and warmly, which happens to be exactly the register most mission-driven storytelling needs. A tool built around that style does the heavy lifting for you.

One-time cost beats monthly software fatigue. Most nonprofits are already stacking subscriptions — CRM, email platform, donation processing, design tools. Adding another recurring line item is a hard sell to a finance committee. A one-time-payment licensing structure (which is how this particular tool is currently being offered) sidesteps that fight entirely.

No design hire required. Smaller organizations rarely have a video editor or motion designer on staff, and hiring one — even part-time — is out of reach for most budgets. A prompt-to-video workflow puts video production in the hands of whoever already writes the newsletter or manages the Instagram account.

Volume matters more than perfection. Nonprofit comms calendars are relentless — Giving Tuesday, year-end, spring gala, monthly newsletter, volunteer recruitment. A tool that can turn around a new video in under an hour means your video count for the year can realistically go from "one, if we're lucky" to "one for every campaign."

The Honest Caveats

This isn't a replacement for a documentary-style donor film or a produced gala video — for those, you'll still want a professional. And like most AI-generated content, you'll likely want to review and lightly edit scripts before generating, so voiceover and pacing sound like your organization rather than a generic template.

But for the recurring, high-volume, "we need something now" content that eats most of a comms calendar — explainer videos, social clips, quick appeals — it's a genuinely useful shortcut, and priced in a way that's realistic for organizations running lean.

Where to Look

There's currently a discounted lifetime-access offer running for this exact tool — worth a look if your team has been putting off video because of cost or lack of a design person.

👉 Check out the current offer here 👈