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Nonprofit Radio for February 26, 2016: Communicate With Your Communicators & Your Event Pipeline

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Kivi Leroux Miller: Communicate with Your Communicators

Kivi Leroux Miller

Kivi Leroux Miller has tips from her 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, on how to work effectively with your communications team. She’s the founder of NonprofitMarketingGuide.com and an award-winning author.

 

Pat Clemency: Your Event Pipeline

With Pat Clemency at Fundraising Day 2014

Get committed major donors from your events by making them transformational, not merely transactional. Pat Clemency has before-, during- and after-event ideas. She’s president and CEO of Make-A-Wish Metro New York and Western New York. Learn lessons from Rochester and Buffalo. (Originally broadcast on October 24, 2014.)


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me, i’d suffer aniko maiko, sis, if you touched me with the idea that you missed today’s show, communicate with your communicators. Kivi larue miller has tips from her twenty sixteen non-profit communications trends report on how to work effectively with your communications team. She’s, the founder of non-profit marketing guide, dot com and an award winning author, and the event pipeline get committed major donors from your events by making them transformational, not merely transactional. Pat clemency has before, during and after event ideas. She’s, president and ceo of make a wish metro new york and western new york khun learn lessons from rochester and buffalo and that’s from non-profit radio on october twenty fourth. Twenty fourteen on tony’s take two thank you. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation feature crowdster dot com i’m very glad, very pleased, very thrilled to welcome kivi. Larue miller to the show she’s the founder of non-profit marketing guy dot com and author of the books the non-profit marketing guide high impact, low cost ways to build support for your good cause and content marketing for non-profits she’s also a certified executive coach. You’ll find her on twitter at kitty l m welcome to the lm hi, tony. How are you today? Terrific. Welcome. Welcome to non-profit radio. Thank you. Tell me about this report that i believe is in its sixth year. Your non-profit communications trends report. How did this come about? Well, you know, there’s a lot that data out there about non-profit management in general and a fair number of reports about development staff. But no one was really looking at communications directors, and those are our primary interest. So we started it. So communications director’s kind of ah, like, like, step children. I mean, there had been a get for gotten sometimes. Well, you know, i think in some of our darker moment, maybe we define it that way. But what i really think is happening is that it’s, a relatively new profession and, you know, ten years ago, communications director, pretty much. Handled pr and maybe some print work. And that was pretty much it now. Of course, things have changed a lot. And so the job is much more complicated, and people are recognizing they need to actually staff it with professionals who are dedicated communications skills in developing their skills. Okay, so young professional. Okay. All right. That’s. Interesting. Because we’ve been communicating for well, as long as we’ve been been been walking, where did radio communications used to fall before we had communications and marketing directors? You know, i think that our people handled it, uh, or you might have had someone who did event marketing and pr. It was often times the executive director’s job or within the fund-raising department, but i think the job has become so big now primarily because of that that really didn’t demand its own staff. Yeah, of course. I’m good. Yeah. I’m just wondering where it used to be. Because, uh, before we had a communications director. Okay, um, what’s the, uh, what’s the background of the report. How do you how do you gather the data from how many people and stuff? Hey! Sametz this year, it was about six hundred. I’d say about forty percent of those people identify themselves with communications staff. Another twenty percent is development staff on another twenty percent as executive directors with a few others. Okay, um, you’re cutting out a little bit heavy. We’ll keep trying it, but we might have to have you call back. We’ll see. Okay, yeah, it’s not, i don’t think. Is anything you’re doing? I think it may just be the nature of digital communications will just just say okay, well, i could try a different line if you need me to. Okay? We’ll see. We’ll see how we do now. You have this broken down very nicely. You have your your four d’s for effectively working with the communications team for the executive director to work nice and effective with the communications team. Um, we will dedicate and define and delegate and discuss. This is all very ysl communicated. Very well. I hope your hope, you know that. Thank you. Yeah. It’s all very it’s laid out very nicely. That’s the report is just very pretty, too. Um, it seems like this is all just, like, falling into just being the executive director being committed to the communications work, i think that’s, right? And, you know, the other thing i would say is that somebody has to make some choices because there are so many different ways to communicate. Now somebody has to get this about what’s going to be the most effective way to communicate with the community based on your gold you’re trying to achieve and unfortunately, in a lot of non-profits people are not really making the decisions, they really are trying to do it all and so that produces a lot of frustration on the part of communications staff, and a lot of our guidance is tio executive directors to either say, hey, you need to make a decision or you need to delegate, then let your communications have to make a decision, but you can’t do everything. Yeah, ok, let’s, let’s, dive into some of your ideas that i mean, there are many more than then we can cover, but we’ll make sure we know well, why don’t we do it now? How can people get get this report very easy? You can go to non-profit marketing died. Dot com slash twenty sixteen and download them with report there. Okay, excellent, if i remember or if you remind me will say that again at the end too, but also because in a lot more to it than the section we’re going to cover. But i’d like to cover this working effectively between executive directors and the communications team. You like to see the communications director on the senior management team? Yes. So many decisions are made early in the program development. Say you’re starting a new program and then all the sudden the communications director it us to market that program. All right, i’ll tell you what, give e um okay. Giv e way lost you there. So would you would you try back on? I don’t know if there’s a different line you can call back on. We’re going to go out early for our break. And, um, when we come back, you’ll be back. And, uh, the number that we need you to call is, uh oh. We want you to call. Uh, you gotta hope you could take this down to one two, seven to one eight. One, eight, zero, two, one, two, seven to one eight. One eight zero we’ll go. Out for a break, we’ll have kitty right back. Stay with us, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. Fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti, dot com that’s t i g e n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent e-giving sounds clearer now give you they’re right, i am okay, that that’s okay, i don’t think it’s your fault at all. Let’s, go let’s, go back to this idea that the communications director should be on the senior management team. Why is that right? They should be on the scene or senior management team because they need to be involved earlier in strategic conversations about fund-raising decisions and programming decisions lots of times, their routes to market something at the very end and little changes that could have happened earlier in the program would make a big difference in the result, but because they’re just sort of handed this finished product it’s often hard sometimes for them to do is get a job everyone would like, okay, and even just even just simple preparation, right? So they can prepare the team? Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, most people don’t realize how long things take it’s like, oh, put up a new website for, you know, get a bunch of brochures printed. These things take time, especially when you have to work with other professionals buy-in graphic designers. Or editors. And so, you know, people that have never done that kind of work before don’t have an appreciation for just how long it really takes to get it done, right? Yeah, what what what do you feel about when you see a communications marketing directors reporting to the director of development or the or the vice prime? It doesn’t have to be just director, but the vice president development or, you know, the chief fundraiser, i guess that’s not what you want to see well, and we actually don’t see that all that often the most common organisational formats we see are either and integrated communications and development team where they’re already reporting to one senior manager, which i think is the best approach for you sometimes also see the more traditional kind of siloed teams where you have the communications people over here on the development people over there, and they have different bosses but there, more or less at the same level within the organization. Ah, either way, you want people to have access to the decision makers, to be able to move very quickly on decisions because so much of good communications needs to be nimble. And so you don’t want to just bury your communications director away and never talked to her. Which, unfortunately, is what happens a lot. Okay, well, that’s, why that’s? Why? I like this section of the report. Because it ah, hopefully will spark conversations between the executive director and the communications director or communications team. You know, maybe, you know, get some things. Start getting talked about that. It just kind of simmering and nobody’s really having a discussion about these issues school. Um, you like the executive director to understand the basics of communications, right? So we talk about a quick and dirty marketing strategy. Where the first question you wanna answer it? Who were you talking to? Your target audience. The second one is what’s your message to those people. The third one is one of the right channels or ways to deliver that message to the people super easy, right? If you just answer those three questions. Ah, lot of times what happened is people focus on that third question. They just focused on getting the message out without focusing on the target audience. Or if the message is really appropriate and oftentimes executive directors will. Say they don’t like something i don’t like this neither. I don’t like that colors on the website and our responses. Well, you’re not the target audience. Those materials need to be created for the intended community. And but if you don’t have any kind of concept of target audience and trying to reach people with a message that resonates with them, it’s difficult for you to be a good decision maker about communications, so you don’t you don’t want the executive director to be saying you put this out on twitter. This goes on facebook, we need a print brochure for this. Put this on the website. I mean there’s there’s more to it than that. It’s got to be much more strategic thought even just from the executive director at a basic level. Absolutely. Absolutely. Are the people you’re trying to reach in to motivate to do something using those communications channels. You got to answer that question first. Yes. Where are they? Right versus where would you like them to be or what? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um putting some limits on the scope of the work for the communications team. You see them getting dumped on? Absolutely. And without a doubt, we hear the too many competing priorities or urgent tasks overtaking important ones as really big challenges for communications directors and, you know, not only that not only are there too many good communications choices, but lots of times that communications staff end up being the ones who are really good with computers, and so we often see them saddled with responsibilities or because they type well, now they’re doing boardmember way, see, all kinds of things get thrown into communications director there really limit their capacity to be good communications directors don’t dump on me. You see that on you see that on community on director’s desks as you’re mentoring them don’t dump on me. Well, i try to encourage them to stand up for themselves and to say, look, if you want me to be really good at managing our social media channels, creating great newsletters and guess what? Don’t expect me to go fix joe’s computer every time he blows the thing up. Yeah, yeah, that’s. Interesting because you do mentoring is a good part of your work. Um, how do you encourage these conversations that hopefully the report will stimulate but where? It doesn’t. How do you get the executive director and the communications director having this conversation? Well, you know, a lot of it is very interpersonal, right? So lots of times i tried to figure out okay, what is that really relationships that these two people have? But oftentimes we found that executive directors do respond to that outside expert that’s the classic thing where the staff says something, they’re not listen to you. Hyre the consultant consultant says the same thing and suddenly it’s the word of god. Right? So i end up playing that role a lot and really sort of backing up what staff are trying to tell their communications directors and if they can hold me up as an expert, sometimes that’s all they need other times, i give them different ways. Teo open conversations, we’d like to let people have really good examples of what other organizations were doing so they can demonstrate that they’re really not the first non-profit to try this new tactic that often works pretty well, too. Okay, um, have you seen things change over the six years i’ve been doing this report? What are what are some things that you’ve seen either either for the good or bad, you know, i think there really is a nice growing level of sophistication in the field. Like i said earlier, this is a relatively new profession, and people are asking harder questions of themselves, i think, and asking harder questions of people like me and, you know, really trying to be more strategic and not just do do do all the time, i think people do realize that they are overwhelmed with choices and they’re starting to get more savvy about realizing they need to make choices. So i guess, ah, marketing communications plan in being more strategic on dh that helps you make choices? Absolutely and saying, you know what? These three things are the most important things were going to do this year or these three communications channels or where we’re going to be our best, and we’re not going to do some of these other things, even if they’re the popular thing that’s in the news right now, we don’t need to be there. You have to make choices. You just have tio okay, yeah. On dh, prioritize the three most important things. So if something else intervenes, you know that these top three, if it’s competing with one of these, you know, these things take priority, and you know what, tony? People have a really hard time even putting things in one, two, three order you would not believe how difficulty that is for people when they’re talking about their communications, they want ten priorities, and they don’t want to put them in order. So that’s another challenge? I really pushed on communications staff in their executive director’s ok, i promise we won’t publish this. We won’t tell anybody, but i want the two of you to sit down and say what’s number one what’s number two and what’s number three and that’s really hard conversation for a lot of organizations, and what do they usually putting in those ways talking about events that they’re publicizing or programs or channels? What? What are those like? What categories? Of those one, two, three or one through ten for organizations that have a lot of different programs? For example, social service agencies tend to run scores of different programs that could be a really tough decision, you know, they can’t talk about all twenty things they dio in their newsletter. Or a social media the which of those twenty are going to get priority? That’s a really tough management call in other organisations, it tends to be, you know, are we going to speak more to our donors or we’re going to speak more to the people that were trying to serve and given the limited number of hours first on staff who’s most important at any given time again, people don’t want to have to decide, but if you don’t make a decision, you just sort of do it by default and that’s not really any better. Yeah, that’s not strategic, right? But i could see how these air difficult conversations toe have decisions to make, because do we put our volunteers ahead of our donors? Do we put our service beneficiaries ahead of our volunteers? Um so does it help when you say nobody knows except us? Well, it definitely helps them have the conversation with each other, and i think from there duitz they can decide who else has brought into that conversation and whether it really becomes public or not. You know, most people don’t actually publish their marketing and fund-raising strategies, so it does end. Up being an internal conversation, but even just bringing in some of those other program staff who’s, maybe their programs don’t make the top of the list or bringing in board members who have different opinions about fund-raising strategy, you know, they could be sensitive conversations. Okay, so that’s interesting. So do you often bring boardmember cz into to these conversations that you’re having between executive director and communications director? I think it really depends on the board and how active they are and again, whether they have marketing expertise, if you have someone on the board who has those skills and experience, that can be a great asset to the organization. But again, you don’t need someone just spouting off about things that they personally think they really don’t understand how to do communications at a professional level. Yeah, i really like that newsletter we did three years ago when we go back to that format, right? Or, you know, then there’s the one boardmember had to deal with one time who insisted that facebook was really just for perverts, so that was helpful, you know that she insisted the organization shouldn’t be on facebook because of a pervert. So you know, those kind of situations you just latto sort of move them along and get back to creating a real social media strategy. I think she was a friend of mine. Actually think that i got okay. Uh, that’s. Interesting. Cool. Okay, um, um, professional development you want to see? Oh, i think my voice just cracked like i’m fourteen professional development you want to see invested in? Correct, right? This is perfect. This is professionally. Yes. And it’s. We’re so blessed, really. And the communications field and i guess it’s no surprise, because we’re communicators, right? But there are so many good communications bloggers and people who are doing free webinars and free e books. Orsino certainly paid opportunities as well, but you could start with just the free blog’s and learned an incredible amount and both fund-raising and communications. So i really recommend that all communications staff take atleast an hour a week, if not more. But at least an hour a week to disclose the door, turn off the email in the social media and just read. Just read for an hour. That alone can really advance their own skills. How about conferences? Is there? A conference that you recommend? Sure. There are a couple, you know, there’s. Not one conference. Really? That is specifically for non-profit communications directors. However, there are a few events that i think you’re doing a decent job at meeting their needs. So my favorite national conference is intends. National technology conference. I try to make that every year there are a couple of regional events. There’s, a relatively new conference in north carolina called create good that is focused on non-profit communications and marketing. That’s another great a regional event. Ah, you know, some of the other events, we have a piece of it. Okay, just ah, well, let’s not highlight those because we want the ones where it’s you know, it’s it’s a premiere. Now you’ll be it. You’ll be a ntcdinosaur in san jose, this six coming march in march. I well, okay, looking for it. And i’ll be working with on two different sessions. Oh, cool. Oh, you’re presenting. All right, i’ll be hosting the live stream, the live audio stream and tc live. So we’ll shake hands. They’re absolutely all right. Um another thing that you like to see done is allowing your communicators to say no to the executive director. What do you mean by that? Well, lots of times executive directors get very excited about things, you know, lots lots of executive directors were really visionary people, and so they all come up with big ideas like we need a nap, you know, that’s when we hear a lot, yes, and odds are you probably don’t need a nap and may, even if you maybe do you probably can’t afford it. And, you know, we deal with a lot of small and medium sized organizations, and ap is something that really requires some pretty strategic thought is not something that you could just turn around and have online in today. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that we want communications staff to feel okay? Saying, you know what? I hear you? I know you’re excited about that. I’m gonna i’m gonna put that in my good ideas file for now and and not end up getting distracted and working on an app for the next two days when they need to be doing other things. Oh, app development could be there six months. Well, an expensive said and expensive too. You know, but lots of times what we see is an executive director saying, oh, you know, go find out the app thing, and then the communications director has to spend that day researching what it takes to create an app. Okay, well, knowing that they’re never going t to do an app and so that time hasbeen wasted. Okay? Aps yeah, i hear that occasionally. Do we need a nap, right? Um, you wantto see regular editorial meetings? What what? What’s an editorial meeting an editorial meeting is where you sit down and talk about what you’re going to talk about, and we’re going to talk about it. So what’s going in the new hey, brother what’s going on facebook? What event? Marketing you need to dio what presentations different staff are doing and how you can capitalize that already and reuse that content. So it’s really about focusing on, you know, what are the most important messages this week in this month? And how are we going to get them out the door? And again? This is where a lot of the triage has to take place. You’ve got fifteen different things you should probably be talking about. That because you have been planning that well, you can talk about all of them. You gotta prioritize. And so that’s the editorial meetings allow that to happen on a regular basis. It’s sort of forces the decision to be made and helps the communications team better plan their work. Going forward is a lot of that covered in our annual marketing and communications plan. You know, you can plan for sure, but so much of good communication is being about being responsive and really tying your work into what people are hearing about in the news today. So you can’t predict any of that, right? So you always need to be able to say, ok, this is what we want to talk about today. This is what’s actually in the headlines. This is what we’re hearing from our clients. This is what our donors air saying, what really does make sense to talk about, you have to adjust, and you have to tweak things. Okay? For sure. So i got you. All right. Um, internal communications you like, you know, you can’t really have good external without good internal. Absolutely. And, you know, i think the editorial meeting is a nice way to start those conversations. But what we talked about earlier about how teams were structured and making sure that the communications staff are not segregated from the development staff and they’re not segregated from the program’s staff. You know where people sit within a building or how often they talk to each other just throughout the course of their work can have a big impact on how well they work together. And then how well they communicate is a team outside the organization? Yes. Okay, you’re very good at explaining these very concisely to school. Thank you. Good. You’re a professional communicator. Um, how did you get into communications? This, uh, former step child profession. How did you how did you find your way here? Well, when i graduated from high school, i wasn’t sure if i wanted to be a journalist or environmentalist, and i ended up going to uc berkeley and they had a better environmental program than underground journalism program. And so i went the environmental route, and we’re in the environmental community for about ten years, but always kept writing. And so when i have the opportunity to move to the east coast and start my own business. I decided i was going to be a freelance writer for environmental groups, and it just sort of blew up from there, okay? Ah, i’ve been picking all the topics we have just about a minute or so left what what’s one that you’d like to cover, that we haven’t talked about. Well, let’s see, we’ve hit a lot of you know, i think one of the most important things that we can really do to help communications directors get the work done right is, too give them a boost of confidence. A lot of what i feel like i’m doing when i’m entering people is encouraging them to start these hard conversations with their executive directors to leave their offices and go hang out with their program’s staff to find the stories and really get the good information from people you know, like because this is such a new profession, people aren’t sure how to do it all the time, and they need a little extra shove in the right direction. And so, you know, i just want to encourage people to take it upon themselves to try to make something happen. Hilary miller you’ll find her at non-profit marketing guide dot com. And if you put forward slash twenty sixteen after that, you’ll find the report. Did i have that? I get that right for the report. E-giving that’s, right, ok, and on twitter, you’ll find her at k v l m. Thank you so much, kitty. Thank you, tony. A real pleasure. The event pipeline with pat clemency is coming up first. Pursuant, you have a problem? Uh, the problem solution statement. You have a problem. You need to raise more money. One of the solutions pursuing pursuing dot com. They’ve got these tools velocity for managing your fund-raising and helping your fundraisers manage themselves in their activities. And there their deadlines, their solicitations, etcetera, and then also helps you manage the fund-raising function. Um, prospector, which helps you find the upgrade ready donors that five hundred dollar donor-centric giving fifteen hundred or five thousand it’s using your data to find the people that you should be spending more time with and trying to get them upgrade. That’s the prospector tool these air, you know, made for small and midsize non-profits because you don’t have big fund-raising staff, um, you need help and pursuing ties, the technology that that does it. And you pick the tools that you need. That’s. Why, i think it’s ideal for small and midsize. You take what you need, leave the rest and all those tools are at pursuant dot com also crowdster with their new one of a kind apple pay mobile donation feature. It’s going to increase your mobile donations, which again pain, pain solution or problems solution statement you got to raise more money. I have a solution crowdster they obviously do crowdfunding site easy interface for your donors. They’re elegant looking sites. They look cool. You can check this all out at crowdster dot com and also the back end. Very helpful for you administering your crowd funding campaign now, tony’s, take two. Thank you for supporting non-profit radio. I don’t know. I hope i don’t say thank you too often, maybe that’s not possible, but i am grateful that you listened to the show and whether it’s live listeners or affiliates to get our affection or podcast listeners that get my pleasantries. I’m grateful for your support of the show if you getting the weekly alerts about who the guest star each week into your inbox. Thank you for that. If you’re with me on twitter, facebook, thank you. However it is, we’re connected. You’re supporting non-profit radio and i’m grateful. Thank you so much for being there. That’s tony’s, take two here is pat clemency from october twenty four ah twenty fourteen show on the event pipeline welcome to tony martignetti. Non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen we are in times square, new york city at the marriott marquis hotel with me now is pat clemency. Her seminar topic is the event pipeline turning event guests into major donors. Pat is president and ceo of make a wish metro, new york and western new york that clemency. Welcome to the show. Thanks, tony. Pleasure to have you. You have ah, pretty desperate territory, new york city and western new york it’s an interesting territory, but i think it really is empowering in the sense you get a chance to say all sorts of markets in which you can raise money and it’s really the opportunity to understand how donors react in their markets and and you know what the universal is? They won’t want to make a difference. And how far west does western new york go in your for we cover the major cities of buffalo and rochester, seven ending counties. It’s just go over to buffalo. It does. Okay, so we don’t have the middle of the state. But we have a new york city in nassau county and then seventeen states counties upstate. What do? You see that non-profits are not quite getting right around events and transitioning donors from events. Oh, you think, you know, we all start with special events? I mean, there’s, no question about it, but i think it is the recognition that there is a discipline that can make those events were quarter and smarter and are part of a major gifts strategy if we see it as an event that we efficiently come into and go out of without seeing its capacity to build a pipeline of donors for other kinds of fund-raising particularly major gifts, i don’t think we make it a ll that it can be. So today we really talked had a great dialogue around the issue about some of the things that we can do to make a special event. Three distinct parts. It matters deeply what we do before going into the event. We’ll talk a lot about planet absolute, but planning in a different way, that really makes us understand who is coming, who are the prospects, but the day of the event. How do we really connect the donor’s? Not just with the event, but with the mission and how they can. Make a specific difference and how we then engaged him in the journey, not with the event but with the organization over time. He’s really the third ingredient in and so it really is very helpful to think about it as more than simply even itself. I’m gonna ask you to talk even closer to the mike because we have now we have the background noise because lunch is lunch is over, so stay nice and close. We don’t pick up too much outside background noise. Well, let’s start with the natural place of planning. What? What should be redoing as we’re planning the event? Planning for transitioning attendees to teo to our donor, right? I think we’re all too often we start with logistic rather than the strategy. What are we trying to do and who are we trying to attract? We also need to cast a wider net if you think of the donor pyramid. I mean, we’re looking at our past event guests and hoping people who will be new to the event will also come but we’re not looking for the clues that people give us on dso we found there was great opportunity looking at direct male donors give one hundred dollars more, and when we did some wealth screening, we found out they gave us one hundred dollars, not because that was their capacity. We had a box and they checked it and they gave us one hundred dollars. But we understood it. When we looked at it, they had so much more capacity, but we never got around to asking them. So looking a little bit more broadly and thinking about the strategy of engagement, we basically said, if you look at an event just as a single time, we’re going to invite him again next year. But if we look at the event and over late, a lot of the major gift strategies we have the ability to change the whole dynamic your oil to feet of the event. It could be that the institution and would be a longer term engagement. We get that right in the planning stage. That’s what we want, right? We don’t want this coming up year after year. And does this include people who come? They may only come one time because there connected with the honoree or just a friend of the organization brought them. Wait, convert those kinds of people. Well, you know, it’s very interesting. We learn a lot from our buffalo rochester offices because they have a very different evergreen strategy. Honorees are looked at differently than we look at them in new york city, and they are on it for body of work. So as a result, most of their strategy is thinking about how do you get the same donors to renew at higher levels each and every year? So now we’re beginning to implement that, saying, regardless of the honoree, how do we get more of our sponsors to renew? And then for those one time donors who come because of a gala honoree, we need to do some more screening and think about who else in our boards within the make-a-wish family knows them so that the relationship can transition to the organization, not simply around the honoree. What else can we learn from rochester and buffalo? Well, you know what? I think it is universal, so what? People want to make a difference? And we just have to make sure that we’re not leading with what we need, but we understand that the first conversation is the donor’s needs and the donor wants to be able to make a difference how our job is to take them on the journey by showing them how treating them like an investor, and that is a really key difference. Very often we ask for what we need, and we never think from the donor perspective, what about the organization will really resonate with them for the long haul? Do you really feel that upstate or western new york is better than downstate new york at this? No, no, i mean, they they’re scale is very different than ours. I mean, it’s a smaller scale the week that i think the best thing about fund-raising is if we are open to understand the best practices exist everywhere they learnt from us, we learn from them and i think it’s one. But i think the interesting thing is in every market, if you begin to institute this practice of looking at a bent donors not just as dahna sporting event on an annual basis, but really, truly look at it as a pipeline, we have seen donors go from seventeen hundred dollars to ten million dollars, or from our five thousand dollars. To five hundred thousand dollars. It isn’t a journey overnight, but the fact of the matter is some of our very gorgeous major gift donors entry point was at an event was how we dealt with that that made all the difference as to whether or not that became a continued transaction. We sell a ticket, you come to our event or if it really became a transformational relationship, the mission of the organization, are there other specific things that we should be doing in our planning? Aside from the concept of the lifetime donor, the longer term relationship, are there things specific to go to the invitation? Who invites them how they’re invited before the event? What else should we be doing specifically? Well, we began talking about if we were to really make this part of our major gifts strategy, what are the ships that we need to make? And when you think about it, our invitation is to an event we needed t even change the messaging were not just inviting you to invent we’re inviting you to share and join in this extraordinary mission and that’s very subtle, but it’s a very big difference, and so we even change the fact that when you come to a gala is a perfect example think about how we spend the first hour at cocktails just kind of wandering around. Instead, registration is outside, so the minute you enter the doors, you are coming in and part of a community of like minded people who believe that this is some of the most important work we could do for kids, and you are meeting wish families and volunteers on board members course searching you out as the guest that evening in that first hour becomes a really important message about we welcome your involvement in this remarkable work. How do we convey that message in our cocktail hour? Well, it’s really about storytelling and changing who tells the story? So if you think about it very often at a gala, whether it is during the cocktail hour, it’s during the main speeches of the night, putting up the ceo, they’re putting up the board chair. We’re talking about the past. We’re actually talking about statistics and how much money we raised in our case, somebody wishes granted when we changed the dynamic of who the storyteller wrists really should. Be the people who experienced the mission first hand and as we tell the story through their eyes, it says to a donor here’s exactly what your donation would do here’s exactly how it makes a difference in that moment for a lifetime that’s a very different relationship from the beginning of the point where that donor enters the gala. If we’re going to focus on storytelling at our events and it might be a very big one memory big gala or it might just be a smaller could be anything smaller, gathering, maybe even a meeting. Absolutely, we need thio sounds like have a very consistent message that the leadership is conveying that trickles down to all the employees and then also the board is conveying right when we need to have consistency and messaging. Well, you have to be have consistency in a couple of things. I think you have to have consistency and messaging for sure, but you also have to build a culture where the board and the staff are engaged in thinking about who’s there, you know, there’s, not a throwaway seated any event, and when you think that it matters most, there is a greater level of engagement on the part of the board and the staff and pretty work that gets done who’s at those tables. Who should we know how we welcome them? What would be important to them? And it allows boards to be successful. You know? Somebody tells you hear from boardmember i’ve given you every contact i have there’s, nobody else i can approach this empowers boards to reach out to other people that the organization knows and be champions that night for the cost. So they’re assigned we’re assigning people too, to meet specific people during the evening during the event. Absolutely and beyond that, you’re the eyes and ears. Every single person has a role kind of just surveying the room and learning what what they’re hearing that night and reporting, in fact so justus, we schedule an event on a day before that event takes place. We also have the debrief date by which boardmember volunteer staff get together. What did you hear? What did we learn? In very often? One piece of information about somebody was in the room is magnified then by another piece of information. And out of that then becomes thought. Okay. The event is over, but it’s on ly really big beginning in terms of engaging that dahna long term now on the way for the organization, and so part of the debrief is what’s next, what are some of the opportunities? And you’re right, we have to be on the same page. If someone were to say to us post event, i’d love to be involved how we ought to be able to convey what the options are many and there’s not going to be one that works for everybody. But everybody needs to know here some of the ways that you could be involved on an ongoing basis. So we’ve transitioned from beginning in the planning stage two day of now. We’re at our events. What else? A little bit there. Sorry, that was allowed. What else should we be thinking about? Oh, are executed the day of create this transition? Well, i think the other thing that you could do very, very well is start with strategy what’s the message that you’re trying to convey that should be the threat of connection to everything that’s being done that night and for us was really talking about the ripple. Effect of wishes in the ripple effect of wishes is a moment in time, yes, but it also has a lifelong impact. So one of our speakers was a thirty five year old executive with a wall street firm. He was a wish child seventeen years ago, and so the impact for him wass it had a ripple effect through his life, the life of his brother, who they really had a hard time when he was diagnosed with cancer. As the family would tell you, everybody’s diagnosed cancer, you know, said everybody has cancer feels like and so the threat of connection of his wish was in that mama with his brother. But it was also over his life he became a wish raining volunteer, helping others but imagine his role now explaining to people in his way that this investment that you will make tonight in support of this event, hasn’t it has an impact. Come on, the future generation of kids were just like me, that’s a that’s amazing way to tell the story, so the first part is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to show the ripple effect over time across families in communities. And so all of those voices were part of the program that once that strategy is that you can always worry about the logistics next, but you’ve got to get that piece of it too often in event planning for the night of we think about the logistics, but we haven’t really thought about the strategy and that that’s, what we lead with and that story telling is is just a one part of it. Next is if you’ve told the story, then you’ve got a provided tangible way for people to make a difference, and so we don’t we do a lot of fund-raising at night, but its not around and for things we had one great item this year, and the rest is all about an auction to allow people to sponsor wishes and that’s the meaning of it. You go from the programme, which told the story from the perspective of families who have experienced it and then give people the opportunity to share in joining the mission by sponsoring future wish it was incredible to watch the little store ones, and some don’t respond to the wish. A season for wishes any or twenty five thousand. Dollars. Donation. In the room. An individual wish, right down to a thousand dollars and watching the room right up. Every time somebody was part of the community that was making a difference was really an extraordinary thing. It allowed people to know that this was a really special thing, that in this time and place, we’re all making a difference. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked. And naomi levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests are there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation, top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m lawrence paige, no knee author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. Dahna oppcoll i’m going to ask a little just sort of a digression just about the logistics of that that auction for wishes did you have people predetermined that would that would be bidding on on any of the any of those auctions and those wish auctions way we thought about wass how could we make it? And i don’t mean to suggest the whole thing’s written? No, no, what did you have one or two people who you knew would get the ball rolling? They were all legitimate bits. We wouldn’t do that, but but there’s a couple of things that we were able to do before tony. So three board members came forward and said for new donors who never made a donation before to make a wish, the ability to come and make a difference for a child that’s a pretty important thing, but how much more would they feel? The impact of that initial donation if we came up with a challenge match, so three of our board members got together and one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars was put up in advance. They pledge this and they would donations of two hundred seventy five thousand, so that was a huge thing. We also knew from a couple of donors at the wish auction for somebody who couldn’t be at the gala, they were out of town was still a way to participate, so for people who weren’t there and want to participate that’s part of our culture now you always have this opportunity give even if you can’t be there. So we knew a handful of dahna they do it? What’d you do for the ones who couldn’t be there, so they have already pledged it, and they’ve made that commitment right before, and so we let people know that we were able to do that. Those two things are done in advance. We know that if if people know that thie donation they make is going to be doubled, there’s a likelihood that they’re going to give a little bit more on dh, then the other one to find a way to let donors who just can’t not be there that night. How else could we participate when it’s about wishes anybody can participate? And i think that helped a cz well, so that’s kind of the two things we know going into the night. Come and then way announced to the audience and then the third part of our trilogy stories after the event, what do we need to be now? Follow-up should be planned during planning, right way we should be thinking about what our follow-up is gonna be while we’re doing the advance planning it is, but we’re hearing a lot that night, and you’re understanding what the individual journey might be for donorsearch we can talk about on overall strategy were also listening to the donors needs as well, and that we hear that that night so that’s that’s an important thing. But, you know, i i think there’s a couple of great examples, our ten million dollars donor started out as a seventeen hundred dollars, went on. He bought tickets to a mets game where they were doing a benefit for make a wish and to see the journey after some of the events it was where he got to the transitional stage was when he was able to make a difference for the individual wish, so he began to grant wishes and then began to think, well, if i could grant a wish, i wonder if i could do more then he began to grant a wish a month for five years. Sixty kids, when you think about that, and that his attitude wass. But i couldn’t hyre others by this, and i have to lead by example. So in his office building, he took down some of his paintings and put up something that we have designed, which was simply a tree, acknowledging those wishes that have been granted so simple. First name of a child and a wish. When you came up into his hobby, you immediately saw that. This was somebody who was champion the cost. So he then, as he got closer after, after having been an event donor. And so when it became time to start thinking about the next generation wish children, you know, in two thousand thirteen, we were thirty years old, and we had grand on ten thousand wish, and we had a big bowl dream for the future. We wonder, grant the next ten thousand wishes because we understood now importance and impact want to grant those ten thousand wishes in a decade? Well, how do you sell somebody on a big, bold dream? Will you go to your best investors in the cause? And he said, well, i’d like to give you a down payment on the future, and that became the largest individual gift in the history of make-a-wish worldwide from an individual and think about that for the for the future of this organization, you know, here was somebody who went from seventeen hundred dollars, two, ten million, but it was never about ten million dollars for him. It was about the ability of change ten thousand lives. And so you think we moved from transaction, you know, i give you tickets to this event because you gave me a donation moved to the transitional stage where we could say thank you for making a difference for that child to the transformational stage would thank you for making a difference for the future of the mission that’s where the journey goes. If we take our special event and understand that each of those stages the preplanning the night of and what happens after are all distinct but equally important segments that can help that donor journey. Okay, we still have a couple of minutes left. Anything you want, teo. Hopefully you do have something you want to share that we haven’t said yet. Well, i think you know, one of the things that i was really struck by wei had our gala on june twelfth this year. And there was a couple who had come forward and they were security. They secure the honore, and they were great in helping support the fund-raising around him. And as they thought about sending a letter out two people to solicit funds from business colleagues and family and friends, i learn a lot when you see the letters, say, right, and this one just simply said we got involved with make a wish because we learned about Micah 6 year old who want to be a ballerina. We stayed involved because over the years we’ve seen hundreds and thousands of kids whose lives have been forever changed, and what i realized was here was a couple who came to an event was a cultivation event, just learn about make-a-wish and they heard that story and that stayed with them, and now we have an event for which they were such an incredible catalyst as a couple raised one point, six million dollars the fund-raising they did was extraordinary, they’ve been doubt a wish in perpetuity, and yet they never lost sight of the fact that it was at an event that was learning about that one child that touch them and made them want to do more. I don’t think i really understood the power of their motivation until that moment, but what i did no that’s, the discipline that we need to put in place and that’s the story telling you a story telling all the way in which we don’t look at this as a transaction it’s so much more and event can be so much more and could be such a powerful part about how we welcome donors into the extraordinary missions that we all support don’t leave it there. Ok, tony. Thank you. My pleasure, pat clemency. She is president and ceo of make a wish, a true new york and western new york and thank you for bringing lessons from rochester and buffalo. Thank you, my pleasure or listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen. Thank you so much for being with us next week. I just don’t know what’s going to happen next week. We’re pre recorded today, but have i ever let you down? If you missed any part of today’s show, i urge you find it on tony martignetti dot com. I’m just not sure about the singing. For twenty sixteen, we’re sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing two dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now, with that apple pay mobile donation feature crowdster dot com our creative producers claire meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by dina russell, and our music is by scott stein be with me next. Week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Hey! What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones, me doris, the founder of idealised, took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email. Address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s, why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge. Somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for February 19, 2016: Innovation in Mississippi & Successful Giving Days

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Aisha Nyandoro & Cassandra Overton-Welchlin: Innovation in Mississippi

There are lots of stereotypes about social change in the deep South. We look at what’s really going on in one state. What are the challenges? What are the opportunities? Who’s doing the work? Aisha Nyandoro is executive director of Springboard to Opportunities and Cassandra Overton-Welchlin is a director at Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative.

Aisha Nyandoro
Aisha Nyandoro
Cassandra Overton-Welchlin
Cassandra Overton-Welchlin

Caryn Stein: Successful Giving Days

Caryn Stein

What is key to make your giving day successful? How do you activate your community to make them super fundraisers? Which technologies are critical? Caryn Stein is vice president of communications and content at Network For Good. (Recorded at the 2015 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.)

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host we’ve got to listeners of the week first beth and lock in vancouver, british columbia, she’s at a fundraiser, beth and she tweeted, i quote, getting ready for work and listening to the-whiny-donor and tony martignetti i just love her exclamation excuse me, i gave the-whiny-donor life. Yeah, if it wasn’t for me, she’d be like a collection of one dimensional characters on your screen. I breathe life into her and gave her one dimensional audio. S o you know, can i get something? You know, besides listening to tony martignetti death? Thank you very much. Okay, lets try the next one. Professor brian mittendorf he teaches accounting at our hyre state university. He listens in his car and he tweeted a picture of my name on his audios screen on the car. And i just love knowing that he’s driving around ohio with my name on his screen. I just something very comforting about that. But then included in the picture was the avatar for the show and it’s a guy who’s in his seventies and wearing a bow tie and i don’t know what you think of my looks, but i have never worn a bow tie. So, brian, your toyota bluetooth is screwed up worse than the airbags, so drive carefully and you’re going around with the wrong picture on your car and that professor brian mittendorf is at counting charity. I don’t know too lacklustre listeners of the week i know who picks these people nonetheless, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of keratosis polaris if you rubbed against me with the notion that you missed today’s show innovation in mississippi, there are lots of stereotypes about social change in the deep south. We look at what’s really going on in one state what the challenge is one of the opportunities who’s doing the work monisha nyandoro is executive director of springboard to opportunities and cassandra overton welchlin is director of mississippi women’s economic security initiative, a project of mississippi low income child care initiative and successful giving days. What is key to make your e-giving day successful? How do you activate your community to make them super fundraisers? Which technologies are critical? Karen stein is vice president of communications and content at network for good and that was recorded at the twenty fifteen non-profit technology conference hosted by our friends and ten non-profit technology network on tony’s take two charity registration we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation feature crowdster dot com my pleasure to welcome first aisha nyandoro she’s, executive director of springboard to opportunities providing strategic direct support to residents of affordable housing. She’s been an academic evaluator philanthropist now and non-profit executive she’s been a fellow of the w k koala kellogg foundation community leadership network and ascend at the aspen institute springboard is springboard to dot or ge that’s t o and she is at nyandoro s t o r you sure? Welcome to the show. Hi, tony. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure. Welcome. Also cassandra overton welchlin she’s, a licensed social worker. In addition to being director of the mississippi women’s economic security initiative, she worked with organizations from local to national to address the social, political, economic and ecological injustices in low wealth. Communities of color that grow out of racial inequities in public policy and she’s at sea welchlin cassandra welcome. Thank you for having me, it’s. A pleasure, ladies. Welcome from mississippi. Um, cassandra, why don’t you start by just saying a little more about the work that you’re doing at the mississippi women’s economic security initiative? What’s that work about cassandra we still have our kind of grew out of, um, a need to really hear more from women about what it is. They need to be able to take care of their families, and for so long, our organization has been working around getting low income working women access to child care so they can go toe work. We know that long come working, women don’t make a whole lot of money, and this child has subsidy really does add to that income so that they’ll be able to pay for that child care subsidy program our child care so that they’ll be able to go to work. Child care can be as expensive as college tuition, but if a woman has a child cast subsidy, then she’s able to, um, use less of her income for child care, more to go towards other things. And so we heard from women about what is that they needed, and so we wanted to put together, and jenna that responded to that. And so we developed the mississippi women’s economic security agenda to really try to put together a policy agenda that would improve the economic well being a women looking at child care, access to health care, access to equal pay and higher wages. And so ah women’s economic security agenda is there to promote those kinds of policies and put women’s voices front and center into the policy debate. And we’re the only ones in the south that’s doing this women’s economic security agenda and so it’s very important and that’s some of the work that we’re doing okay now did i have it as women’s economic security initiative? Is there a difference between an initiative and an agenda? It’s not the agenda is the policy piece. Okay, so the agendas policy. Okay, so what’s the initiative. So the initiative, um, it’s really kind of our overall work where we are doing coalition building. We are working to build, um, consensus among women legislators across the state. And so there’s several steps to that. And we’re doing movement building work within the state of mississippi inside of communities. And so the initiative fans across coalition building policy making and and really doing the civic engagement. Okay, cool policy level work. Excellent. Let’s bring ah, aisha and i should tell us about springboard to opportunities we just have about a minute and a half or so before break. Ok, great, well springbox opportunity works directly with families that live in a setting of affordable rental housing. We know that affordable housing is a critical step towards breaking the cycle of poverty, but in and of itself, it’s not enough on his own residents living in federally subsidized housing also needed part of services social capital, if you say so, to have overcome some of the challenges that they need to achieve and secure a more hopeful feature. This is where springboards opportunities comes in. We are built on the premise that affordable housing combined which strategic resident engaged services can provide a platform for low income families to advance themselves in life schooling work. We do this bite-sized serving is the connector between residents in the bradrick committee using strategic community partners, system programming to address the unique needs of our families were unique because we are one hundred percent resident driven, which means that we’ve listened. We’d listen, listen and made we act and we engage where the only entity in the mississippi doing the work on the ground, specifically with families that live in federally subsidized frontal housing. So, it’s, all things innovative in mississippi? Yeah, no coal, no kidding. Got two organizations that are unique in the south, right? Right, yeah, i know exactly where you, you know, unique in the fact that it’s a lot of overlay and there’s, a lot of overlap in the work that our two organizations are able to do to really help move not only mississippi ford, but the south. Florida’s well, okay, we’re going to go out for a break and when we come back buy-in cassandra, we’re going to keep talking about the work in mississippi, the challenges, the opportunity, the challenges, the opportunities stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website. Philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent that other ninety five percent small and midsize non-profits that’s who we’re about it’s time for live listen, love, where are we? We got listeners chapel hill, north carolina and new bern, north carolina. Do you know each other? New bern in chapel hill? I’m going to be spending quite a bit more time there very shortly st louis, missouri, philadelphia, pennsylvania and there’s others, but let’s go abroad. Jakarta, indonesia is with us, seoul, south korea. Always so so consistent soul, thank you very much. Annual haserot mexico city, mexico when a star days, jakarta, indonesia i said jakarta and federal argentina we have argentina’s well, that’s a new one can’t do live listener love without doing a podcast pleasantries over ten thousand listeners, whatever you’re doing, whether you’re driving in the car with the the wrong picture of a wrong man on your screen, on that ah, wherever you are going to work over ten thousand listeners, thank you so much. Podcast listeners on whatever device you’re on whenever you listen and affiliate affections are am and fm listeners throughout the country, on those am and fm stations affections to our affiliate listeners and worry about toe. I think in the next few weeks we will be announcing a fume or new ah am and fm station affiliates. Okay, ladies, isha what’s the you know, we want to talk about the culture in mississippi, but i think we i feel like we can’t understand if we don’t know like the history of you know what? What’s what’s some of the history there that you feel impacts the current and impact your work, you know? Definitely. Well, you know, mississippi has a really unique in british history. I’m from mississippi, a comics of home grown goodness. So i love all things mississippi. But, you know, we do have a history of segregation, discrimination, jim crow. All of those things are really president part of our current reality, you know, unfortunately, we have one of the largest poverty rate in this country, and it’s also know blends over into childhood poverty one in three mrs to be children live in poverty. That’s, you know, sixty four, sixty four percent of these households are headed that single women. And so when you have that narrative shaping a community currently that believes and so what’s available if they released a future opportunities, and so that both of the realities that were working in but even though those are our realities of the people in this state love this state. We live here were working here that choice both could sandra and myself. You are from this area and we both chose tto go away to school and come back home to do the work and be grounded in the work. Because we understand the history of the space. We understand the uniqueness of the space. But we also understand the beautiful opportunities that are in this space. This well, we are a community rich in a loudly cultural in history. And by knowing that his three, we were able to move forward and write a brighter script in a new tomorrow. Okay, um, cool. Cassandra, do you wantto amplify anything or add to it, you know, just about about the history and what it creates for the for the present for your work? Yes. So i i’ll just agree with everything i usually says. And it makes the work. And as she says, she called herself, you know? Home what? Do you call yourself home home grounded in this? And i call myself the daughter of the south, a daughter of the south and it’s so important that we did come back home too, engaged in the work and try to improve our communities, poverty harms the life and the well being of our women and our children, and it also slams the opportunity. I mean, the doors of opportunity shut for them, no, and also diminishes the economic health of the entire state and saying that when mississippi annex policies and make, um, legislation that harms are disproportionately impacts community of color here it also impact the entire state not just that population in an impact, all of us, and so, as a result of that, um, we do have these deep, deep pockets of poverty that exists here, but yet we also have this resiliency that exists in our community. I mean, we are rooted in the civil rights struggle on the civil rights movement, and so a lot of that richness still exists here, where people continue to move forward and push through the heart hard walls, that, um, that have continually been built. But we continue. To push that down so that we can get hr families, make our families more economically secure and prosper, and so that our children can have these sustainable communities for generations to come. Cassandra is rich history and culture that is negative, but also we build upon that to move our community’s forward so that we can get more opportunities to our communities. And so so it’s it’s, good work, you know that being that’s being done, but yet there are some challenges that exist. Cassandra, why did you return to mississippi? I didn’t want to at first me just be clear about that. I didn’t want to because of what i’ve seen growing up in my own way in my own family, but there is a commitment to that family and commitment to my communities and one thing about me as a leader it’s important that i surround myself with other people who can hold me accountable to the values that were instilled inside of me. And so those communities came the other that people those people came together and say, cassandra, we need you back here because we need what you have to invest in those communities and so i came back and i came back, and i’m glad i did, because what i have is what my community needs and i didn’t want to be. And this is me personally be this trader where i’m going in other places e-giving and, um and and not giving back to the communities that invested in me, and so there’s this real value their of wanting to put back into my community what was given unto me, and so that’s a real value there. And i say, all the time when god made me, he really gave me a triple dose of from justice and what better place the ground that is here in this fifty? And so i wanted to return, and my family story is rooted in this place of, um, of grace of service on and also a poverty, and i wanted to be a voice for my family in that. Are you sure your work would be so much easier in some other part of the country? What brought you back to mississippi? You know, i don’t know it’s, not work, will be so much easier in other parts of the country, you know? I don’t know if my work would be is needed and other parts of the country, you know, you know. So even though doing its work in this is to be it’s difficult, i think the work of social change and community building it’s difficult in any context, does something cubine mississippi where this work it’s really hard. I think we as the country sometimes did not want teo deal with the injustices that exists that keep people paralyzed in the systems that keep people paralyzed and that’s just not unique to mississippi that’s the narrative, you know, throughout our country, in some places that so much to me. I really think my work would be much more difficult because i would not be ableto be the immediate menace stations of the work in action, and i would not i feel it, so i were living my purpose out loud and so the work will be difficult because i won’t be as committed. I want being grounded in it. The work that i am doing as the leader of springboard opportunities is particularly the work that i was called to do. I was built to do this. I was built to move. These community for teo implement this innovation that on lee as a model here in mississippi, but a model of how do you engage families in affordable housing system that can be, you know, replicated throughout the country for the work, i wouldn’t be any easier, it will be different. It would not be fulfilling, but, you know, it wouldn’t be me being in mississippi being here, it makes me ground it and in being ground it’s the only way that you can do this work because it is difficult, we are on the ground trying to change the narrative, changed lives in power, people. And that is not something that happens overnight. Andi the reason i said would be easier, i guess maybe i made it sound too pollyannish, but easier elsewhere. I was i was thinking of the i mean, i’m thinking of the challenges like around education being no solo funded and and recently, just within the past, like month or so, there was there were headlines about the failures of the child welfare system. You know, there’s just especially, you know, working in a population with with children, asia that’s argast thing i mean, you there’s. Just a lot of theirs just seems like there’s more challenges in mississippi now that you know that it’s not that is true. There are a lot of policies in mississippi that are unfortunately ineffective, but that’s why we have the innovation of programming and policy coming together on the ground. So cassandra the ram that she works in it’s really policy around that i work in this really grasses organizing in programming, and we’re able to bring the two together to really move the needle and change the narrative. So you’re right. The work would probably be easier in some places that were a little more liberal because we would have educational poverty policies worked for policies, childcare policies, transportation, all of the things that we all of the challenges that our families deal with. Those may not be as heavy a mountain to move, but yeah. Okay. Cassandra, let sze shift over to some of the opportunities. What do you see as being advantageous there? I mean, what do you what can you grasp onto toe advance the agenda. So ben jealous did an excellent report that was published by the center for american progress called truth south. And a couple of things he brought out in that and that we see manifested quite a lot. And i work is there’s some unique opportunities that we have right now. One of things that he brought up is this changing demographics that that’s happening but twenty forty three way will be a majority people of color state our country, and so as a result of that and that and even in mississippi and twenty, anna senses that show that, you know, white children were a minority here in mississippi. So we have some interesting opportunities where, you know, more people of color will be, um, a majority in our in our country saying that that has unique opportunities to do a couple of things. We know that people of color vote more progressively in their voting patterns, they vote for more progressive leaders, and they also, um, they and we also know that they get out and vote, so that creates a unique opportunity as we began to talk about how do we change the landscape and the leadership in our country, in our state houses at the local level as well, even at the national level. And so we have these unique opportunities, i think another thing is building because in the south, particularly in the south, we’ve had thes very conservative and x dreams leaders who post policies around on an attack on women’s rights, and as a result of that, they isolated white women. And so we found that if we can hold and bring along these white women as a part of a new voting block, then we can really shift an example. In four years ago, mississippi had an amid a ballot initiative, proposition twenty six, the personhood amendment where we’re going to completely limit how women were completed limit women’s rights around abortion and what happened, wass christian white women joined together with interface women of color to say i am pro life, but i’m also port port pro choice. My body is my body, so that presents some unique opportunities. The other thing is that the vote of the youth with black lives matter taking the country by storm it’s happening in every pocket of our community where young, bold young people are saying, you know, enough is enough my black skin is gold my black skin on my brown skin is important. And i’m not gonna let you do do this. And so you have these movements arising, but we can trace them back here in mississippi to the civil rights, civil rights, right, free family. Right. So these are some things that we could begin to build a bond too. Build these unusual alliances, alliances and these multi racial and interject generational voter coalitions so that we can transform the political power here in mississippi, but also in the deep south. Alicia are incredible opportunities that we have here to really move the things that we issue and i care about around our women and around, aren’t you? Yeah, i want to turn toe aisha aisha opportunities that you see in your work with with the the families, you know, you know everything next sandra has said, but i also see a lot of opportunities and the work is that there’s a changing tide. So you actually now have a a lot of individuals moving back home. So you have a lot of progressives and a lot of, you know, people going out to get educated but then doing like, the sand you and i have done, which are really moving back to mrs, being really growing, where you, you know, growing where your planet and getting e-giving back to your community and being more and still than involved within your community. So there’s a lot of opportunity there, but then also there’s a lot of philanthropy here in mississippi and in the deep south that we really don’t talk about there’s a lot of there was a lot of homegrown philanthropy was far individuals. E-giving but there’s also a lot of big philantech ity and individuals are really beginning to look at what we need in the region to change the narrative and really began to be the author of our own narrative and not letting the north or the east there other places really defined what this region is because we know what it is that we are beginning to work in conjunction more with the lance therapy toe really elevate the true story of mississippi? Okay, okay, are you sure? What about the special challenges of being a black woman doing this social change work in mississippi? So that’s, interesting question. I don’t see any challenges being a black woman doing this work, i think being a actually, i see no challenges with c it is nothing but opportunity. I am a black woman and eleven mississippi, and but with that, i understand what that narrative, maybe others other strike right to say what that perception, maybe two other than my perception of my reality in my abilities, but by that being the perception of others have made me a really hard worker. I work harder than most people that i know, but i work hard and i’m grounded, and i give all that i have to give. So being a woman of color doing this work in mississippi, it’s a beautiful thing, because because i’m grounded in community, i’m grounded in my history and branded in my narrative, i’m grounded in the elders, and itjust presents tremendous opportunity for me to lift up the challenges that i know you know, our present within my community and working on behalf of my community. Cool, cool. Cassandra wants the same question doing that doing that work as a black woman in mississippi. What was it like? Some of the things that i found on doing the work is so i ran for elected office. Oh, yeah, three years. Ago, i ran for state senate and one of things that i’ve found and it’s not just me, but other black women who have run for office and and this is really across the country is that you have, again, these gender inequities that exist, and it was hard for me to get the money to do what i wanted to do. It was very difficult to do that most people will. R r it is more eager to give money to i mean, to do this work more eager to give to me and to run for office to start a business we found, i found that also found that right? But so as a result of that, we’re having to build the strong coalitions and relationships among each other to reach across like i should say, we have these individuals that are engaging and more of this philanthropic community, and so we’re having to pull together some of these folks, some of our friends that have access to those resource is so we haven’t to think smarter about how do we get more of our blackbaud folks and black women into these elected positions? The other thing is that i use dahna doing our work, we also found i have found that it’s hard to elevate the voices of the people whom we care about. L’m the national platform, particularly in the media, it’s been very difficult to do that and to try to do it in a way that will change. As aisha says, the narrative of our communities and so being able to form these relationships with the feeling about the community and other people who may have access to resource is has been sochi. It goes back to this building, you know, these unusual alliances so that we can segway are in segway, away and through those platt forms so that we can elevate the voices of the communities that we care about. So i found that black women’s voices aren’t at the national level, the way it needs to be, and the communities in which we care about there’s a, um, they’re cassandra, but we’re moving towards that. And so, you know, those are some of the things that i found it, okay, we have just about thirty seconds left or so, and now you show i’m going to leave it with you, there’s. A saying that as the south goes, the nation goes, um what do you think that what you think the future of the nation is? I think the future of the nation looks bright, you know, the south is full of passionate, committed, innovative individuals who are connected to the space that were called to work in we understand working across sectors, we understand the importance of collaboration, but we also understand the importance of i’m making sure that all individuals just not the haves but all individuals, though that we proceeded to have nuts as well have a seat at the table, so we understand unusual alliances and create a partnership, and we understand the need of policy and effective programming, and we’re good stewards of our resources and were innovative, beautiful people, you know, the blues came from mississippi catfish colorings, all those beautiful things that you think about in the south, so i think the nation good, we have our challenges, but we recognize those challenges and despite that we’re moving for were being committed, and we’re going to do the good work. That’s asian nyandoro you’ll find her on twitter at nyandoro s teo and also cassandra overton welchlin at sea welchlin ladies, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing. Thank you. Real pleasure, right? Successful giving days with karen stein at the networks for good is coming up first pursuant and crowdster i’ve talked to their ceos, both of them. I know that these companies can help you in small and midsize non-profits they understand your challenge is they understand what your needs are, and they both have companies and products that have ah, that are designed to meet those needs. That’s ah, it’s trent recur at pursuant and crowdster that’s ah it’s, joe ferraro, their sponsors of the show because their products can help you raise more money. They both have terrific backgrounds in non-profit duitz and in corporate work, so they’re playing corporate solutions to the challenges that they understand that that you’ve gotten in joe ferraro att crowdster actually runs a non-profit so that’s pursuing dot com and crowdster dot com now tony’s, take two. Are you properly registered in each state where you solicit donations? If that question makes you cringe, then we should talk. And if you have no idea what i’m talking about, we should talk, you’re non-profit needs. To be in compliance with the state laws in each state where you solicit and that includes paper, mail and email, text text to donate if you have a donate now button on your website. That button is a solicitation when it goes live doesn’t really doesn’t matter if anybody ever clicks on it in any individual state or anywhere but when it goes live, that’s the solicitation and that triggers registration in at least half the states i can help on dh getyou into compliance. If we need to talk, you can get me at tony at tony martignetti dot com or the contact page at tony martignetti dot com and that’s tony’s take two here is karen stein from the march twenty seven twenty fifteen show and originally recorded at and t c twenty fifteen welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen our hosts are intend the non-profit technology network. We’re in austin, texas, at the convention center, i guess now is karen stein. Karen is vice president for communications and content at network for good, and her workshop topic is the secret formula for successful giving days. Karen stein, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, tony it’s. Great to be here. It’s. A pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for taking time on a busy conference day. Yeah. It’s definitely exciting to be here at at the anti cia and see lots of old friends and make lots of new way. And so it’s it’s, always in one of our favorite events. Excellent. This is my second year here doing interviews on dh believe this is your second my second year here. And, of course, network for good has been here for many, many years. So since around two thousand seven, i think right for yeah, i believe so. First, long before amy sample ward was ceo. Definitely definitely. And i think it’s it’s growing into i think one of the premier non-profit events teo, be at i think so. I mean, that’s always what? You know, there are many conferences to go, teo. If for both attendees and exhibitors. But this is when we definitely make a point to always, always be out there. All right, so i’ll see you again next year. Definitely looks like a date. All right, all right. We’ll set you up with an interview for twenty sixteen um, successful giving days. So now i think the biggest probably most popular, is giving tuesday what are some examples of other ones? Yeah, so different types of giving days, they could be based around the time of year they khun b based around a region or an affinity group. So there are things like giving tuesday, of course, which is really the kickoff now for urine giving, and then you have things like give local america, which is focused more on regional giving in other community foundation states have their own giving days. We actually helped maryland due e-giving day for their state, and it wasn’t a maryland, yes, for their non profit organizations to the maryland non-profit association did e-giving day on and then you have ah, non-profits who want to come together and do giving days around affinity groups so things like give out day, which was really kind of focused around issues affecting gay, lesbian, transgendered folks and have those organizations come together not just to raise funds but also to think about how to raise awareness and use those social networks as a zit means to get their message out, i had henry teams as a guest about a month ago or so roughly talking about the success of e-giving tuesday generally and how what a huge spike there was for twenty fourteen he certainly emphasizes the decentralisation of it and all the sharing tools that are available is that common across the successful e-giving days definitely, i think that the reason why e-giving days have become so popular is because online fund-raising has become so popular, and it really has decentralized and and decouple the idea of fund-raising an advocacy from just not just the organizations, but it’s really something that everyone khun d’oh, and to think about how you can couple that technology with the idea that we have these large social networks, it’s really allowed that to take off in a very viral way, and we often talk about things going viral. This definitely has for sure, and i think it’s great on dh. So what are some other, you know, common traits, important components of a successful e-giving yeah, well, the thing is that that makes giving dae so unique, and i guess so effective is that it’s really using that sense of urgency? And we know that a sense of urgency, especially in fund-raising campaigns can really motivate people to act when they otherwise would not. And so having that limited window of time really gets people excited and it’s very focused, you have a lot of energy, kind of compressed in tow one day, twenty four hours, and it really gets people excited. And so i think, that’s one piece of it, right? I think it’s that urgency and to take that and then really empower people with a message and some fun sharing tools. So i think you hit the nail on the head there were thinking about how do you not just use social media as a promotion promotional tool, but to use it in creative ways with images, with videos with, you know, some kind of contests that could really encourage that excitement, right? Because that’s one thing that you definitely need forgiving day, you need something had to be fun, and you needed to be interesting, and you needed to be exciting because that’s, really what is going to get people to pay attention to you and be motivated to share that with their friends and their family? And so we think that that’s really one of the things that’s, that’s really important? So it’s, that sense of urgency, the idea that you’re having fun but it’s also this idea of specificity, how do you become very specific about what you’re going to be raising funds for in that day? And we find that the most successful e-giving dave gold gold, if you can’t really just be about general giving, it needs to have something else to it. It needs to have something specific, so maybe that’s a specific program that you’re working on, maybe that’s ah specific goal that you’re working tour, but it needs to be something, you know, maybe you’re trying to open a new soup kitchen and that’s the particular thing that you’re built, you’re raising funds for its not just about your your cause it’s about that one particular thing, because having that tangible thing again helps you be more creative and be very specific, and i think it gives people something to really grab onto and share and understand exactly where their money is going. Okay, interesting the specificity. So do you find that organizations that are just more general say on giving tuesday, you help us out today, it’s giving tuesday, they’re not being a successful is the other right? I think that there is if you’re not specific, you’re not going to be as successful. And i think that it’s not enough to say it’s giving tuesday, so give it’s the same thing as if you were saying now, it’s time for our annual campaign so you should give to us that’s not compelling for a donor, and so i think that, you know, if you can get very specific about the cause that you’re raising funds for maybe it’s a special, specific project, we see that that’s really makes a big difference because it also helps the non-profit get really clear about what their marketing materials are and what that message is, and it could help you stand out, especially on e-giving day we’re in so many people are actually putting out those fund-raising appeals having something unique can help you stand out above the rest. And so it’s really important for you to be specific about that ask because we know that that’s what donors are looking for, and that really does play into that idea of a e-giving day of really coming together to fund one particular thing that people care about. What should you be thinking about if you’re trying to decide whether e-giving day makes sense for your affinity group, not let’s let’s put aside participating in something national, like give local o r or giving tuesday if you try to think about it for your own, like university, for instance, you know, how would you what do you need to think through? Yeah, i think that what you really need to think about a couple different things. I think you need this the internal staff to be able to do it. It doesn’t have to be a large debt, but you do have to have someone dedicated to being the champion of that giving day for your organization. Because it’s really just like any other campaign, you need to have a plan you need to have. Ah, you know, one who’s going to man those marketing channels. So you need to have somebody dedicated to that. You need to really be able teo leverage social media. I mean, you could do e-giving day without social media, but i think it’s a lot more difficult. So you need to have we’re already started thinking about how do you build that up for your organization to use that as a lever? So you need to have some type of social media presence and you need tohave ah, fairly decent following, and that could mean different things for different organizations. A larger organization is going have probably many more followers. A smaller organization may not have as many, but the followers they do have maybe just his passionate so you need those people to amplify your message, and then you need a really easy way for people to activate, right? You’re sending out those messages through social media? How do you actually get those people to take action and make it very easy for them to do so in terms of donating all mine? Or if you’re called to action could be signing a petition? Most giving days are about giving funds and making a donation, but some organ it doesn’t have to be, but it doesn’t have to be at a lot of people use that as an opportunity to raise funds, but also to get people on their email lists he really expand their social network so some of those different asks that you could give to your supporters are yes, we would love for you to support the mission with a monetary gift, but you can also support the mission by sharing this this message with your followers and help us expand that network, and that could be really powerful, especially as we see millennials take hold that’s one way where they really i feel like they can make a big difference is being an advocate for that cause and that in some cases, especially for smaller organizations, can be a big win because they don’t necessarily have that built in base to communicate. Tio way assumed that most people know what e-giving tuesday is but give local america when i wanted to explain what that one is about because i don’t, i don’t think a cz widely known but it’s still very, very interesting. Yeah, it is, and i think it taps into this idea where so give local america is actually done through a lot of the local community foundations and it’s really all about giving local to your own local charity. So if you are living in austin and i think the us who actually, austin is having an event this week called amplify austin and it’s all about giving back teo to those charities and those organizations in the austin community. So it’s really focused on making sure that your charitable donations are staying within the community. I’m really getting people excited about what good is happening in their own backyard. So that’s really the premise of give local america’s toe leverage the networks and the non-profits through the local community foundations and created giving dae that way. So it is a national day devoted to giving, but it’s, the action is actually happening at the local level. We talk some about the technologies that you should be employing in your you’re now that you’ve decided to to embark on a given day, definitely so the great thing is that technology is really democratizing fund-raising and it allows that to happen at many different levels by really anyone, and so what we would would recommend is that you have a really strong online giving presents it should also allow your donors to make a donation online very quickly, but it’s also about mobile because we know that a great majority of people are now, reading messages on mobile email messages as well as the primary use of many social network it’s actually coming through mobile, and so that experience needs to be very mobile friendly so people could quickly take action, get that done and feel good about giving that gift rather than it being a long drawn out process. So that’s really critical. The other thing that you need to think about with your online giving platform is, is there an option for people to raise funds on your behalf? So is there an option for someone to come in and not just make a donation but actually amplify your fund-raising by becoming a fundraiser for you, so appear fund-raising functionality is also very important for that and then having some integrated social sharing tools. So we talked a lot about this idea of social media and leveraging networks has really allowed these giving days to take off so that’s one things that non-profits really need to think about is how are they going to then enable and empower those donors and those fundraisers to share their message with tools right on that page, right on their their facebook page on their web site just making sure that they’re making it as easy as possible to find those ways to share that message. And so i think those were really the things that are critically important. There are many other things that you could do. I mean, having a great email marketing tool, of course, is one and all these things are typically what you would find for any successful campaign, but particularly the mobile in the social and the pier fund-raising are extremely critical, forgiving days because you need to be able to activate as many people as possible within a very limited amount of time. I imagine there’s there’s lead time to this and, well, there’s, obviously lead time. That’s silly, but terms of getting some early adopters, maybe, you know, you got some key people lined up way in advance so e-giving day, what about some of the ground working s o u need t be planning ahead, so we would say if you’re if you’re thinking about giving tuesday and now it’s only march, but you need to be thinking about that now we would say that ideally, you would have about three to six months lead time. If you are thinking of of give local america, which is just in may, so that’s not too far away, you still have time to plan that. But those far ahead as you can get you, is going to be more. You’re gonna have more success oppcoll campaign and one of the things that you need to be thinking about when you’re planning that is being able to identify who are your most passionate supporters, whether those air people within your staff or your volunteer group, or maybe donorsearch one outside your organization, you need to be able to get those people on board are early, get their input, make sure they’re aware of what’s happening, and then equipped them with the right messages in the right tools to be able to really amplify that message for you. So that’s, really important to think about. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked. And naomi levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Duitz if you have big dreams in a small budget tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio, i d’oh. I’m adam braun, founder of pencils of promise. What more are we looking for? We’re in these people that we’re going to recruit early on long before the early the early adopter. Yeah, i think what you need to think about our, you know, our what is their story? Why do they support you? And i think that’s a really compelling question to start asking those people because that story you can use yourself, tio really inspire other donors, but you need to understand what motivates them. Why do they give to the organization? Why do they care about your cause? I really understand that i think what you’re also looking for frankly, are people that have large networks, you know, and influence yeah, i think i think he want at least two to three people on your, you know, group of supporters that can reach out to the media, maybe they have connections, you know, your board members are actually great people to get involved in this process because they are typically people that do have influence in your community or have connections, and that could be a great way to use them t get involved, get excited about what you’re doing and really, you know, kind. Of make give them something to feel proud about when they’re reaching out to their friends, family and colleagues about why your cause is so important. So those are some groups that you could look to you. But i think volunteers, board members, people that are recurring givers, you know, we’re really talking a lot about recurring giving it that network for good, because we know that those people are the most loyal in the most passionate people. They’re committed to your organization, and often times they will want to do more for your organization. So that’s, another group that you can look teo, you have excellent way of explaining this very concisely. Thank you, really. Oh, it’s, zvilli, oppcoll. Let’s think about trying to make the case in our organization if we believe it’s, right? And we’ve got the tools in place and we have staff that can support it and wear confident we’ve got some people in our networks who will take it on right? But, uh, maybe the board is reluctant or the orjust my immediate boss is reluctant with ceo, how do we start to make they bring these people? Yeah, i think there’s a couple of things that you can do, i think you can point to the larger success of these giving days there’s a ton of examples out they’re both from the hyre ed space, but also from from non-profits in general, that are raising a lot of money this way, and so i think you can use that as a springboard for having this conversation at your organization. I think you have to be realistic. You have to think about what is the investment that you’re making in this giving day because you do need to two planning to have some marketing dollars to put behind it. What we would typically say is that you should plan to spend about ten percent of what you hope to raise. And so i think, it’s important to be really clear on what that goal is for your organization, but it could be a way for you to expand your audience and raise more funds. And so i think it’s ah, this investment that’s well spent. I think the other thing to think about is a network for good. We’ve seen that this type of fund-raising so far has been additive for organizations. A lot of people are concerned. Well, zishe is cannibalizing other giving it actually is very additive, and it could be another way to not only grow your day donations, but it could be a way to grow that donor base, which is a critically important for so many non-profits especially those small to midsize folks that are really looking to build their lists. And so i think, that’s another way, it’s a it’s an opportunity, really, for those people to meet several goals at once and i think that’s a great investment of dollars. How do you assuage the people who do say it’s just going to cannibalize our annual giving? We’re just going to shift shift time of year that they give? Yeah. I mean, what we’ve seen in the data is that that’s not actually the case. And so, you know, we we do a lot of analys snusz on on your in giving. And what we typically find is that we see about ten percent of our animal volume for the entire year. Come in at the last three days of the year and that’s been pretty constant. And so this year we really interested to see what? How did this really big giving tuesday, if influence that. And so we saw that on giving tuesday. I think we are. Volume was about one hundred and forty eight percent. An increase over twenty thirteen on giving tuesday. I was like, okay, that’s that’s nice. But what happened later? Right? Because that’s really where more people are giving what we actually saw is that this past year in twenty fourteen, those last three days accounted for twelve percent of our annual bowling, and that volume actually went up those days got larger. So it’s really interesting. Now i can’t necessarily attribute that cause, but it was just interesting for us to see that happen because there was, you know, we were thinking like, well, maybe that is shifting, i think what it is is starting to just accelerate the way that people are giving at the end of the year, but what we saw is that people are giving both in both cases, right? They may not big be giving large amounts on giving tuesday as they will on december thirty first, but what we do see is that the largest average donation comes in on december thirty first and the second largest comes in on giving tuesday. And so it is and and that’s a bigger gift than what happened at any other time of the year outside of december first. All right, can we still have a few minutes left together? What? What more do you want share that that i haven’t asked you about? Wow, that’s a great question. Well, i think that the thing that we would really encourage people to think about is just start thinking about it, i think it’s a great way for you to think about how to message organization in a new way if you haven’t tried it yet. It’s a great way to activate younger supporters if you’re kind of looking for a way to get new people in the door get younger donors involved it’s a good way to activate them, right? Because they really take to this because it incorporates a lot of the behaviours and the technology that there’s so comfortable with using. And so i think, that’s another thing to think about if you’re looking to tap into a new demographic, i think that giving days are way to do that, and there are so many great examples out there that you can kind of look, teo, to see how people are doing this and it’s really, you know about being creative and about, you know, thinking about maybe a new way to spend your cause to people that haven’t heard about it before. Are there other national ones besides e-giving tuesday give local america others that we could participating before we start thinking about creating our own? Yeah, i mean, i think that the big too, you mentioned i think i believe there are there are other giving days don’t haven’t for some reason, i’m drawn, drawing a blank on that, but i think you know, the interesting thing is that we would really recommend that you participate in one that has maybe a bigger following. First, because a lot of those organizations, especially the folks, that giving tuesday, have a set of resource, is for you to take advantage of. And that could be really powerful for folks that are just getting started. And not quite sure now. Or forget also provides a toolkit for folks that outlines exactly what you need to do and when. And so, i think, it’s really important if you’re just starting out to try to go in on e-giving day, that’s already in existence, like one of these national days, or even a regional event before you think about maybe creating your own event, because i think you’ll learn a lot by doing that. Yeah, they’re sharing tools, a critical on dh there already set up. Exactly, you know. Want to reinvent the wheel your first time out. You wanna leave us with one one tip that you haven’t mentioned yet he’s going to think of something that just in the last minute, but yeah, definitely i wouldn’t say that on giving days, you know, just like any other day of the year, any other campaign it’s all about being very compelling and drawing in that emotion from the donor, so don’t leave that behind like we said, it’s, not just about the giving day it’s, about what you’re empowering that donor to make possible. So you really need to be able to think about tapping into emotion when you’re thinking about that fundraiser and thinking about that appeal letter or that social media post that you’re doing really leverage the powerful work that you’re doing and, you know, send that message out and draw all those emotions because that’s, what really is going to get people in the door? Thank you very much. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. Karen stein, vice president for communications and content at network for good, and you’re with tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen thanks so much for being with us, i’m going to be an ntc twenty sixteen march twenty third, twenty fourth and twenty fifth in san jose, california. I hope you can go check it out. Info was at in ten dot or ge next week. Communicate with your communicators with kivi, larue miller and your event pipeline. If you missed any part of today’s show, i urge you find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? I’m still not sure about that. We got some last minute live listener love jin on china ni hao, new york, new york hey what’s up buenos aires, argentina bueno star days responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation crowdster dot com our creative producer is clad meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director, and the show’s social media is by dina russell. This music is by scott stein be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. 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Nonprofit Radio for February 12, 2016: @TheWhinyDonor & Social Media Rants

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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The Whiny Donor: @TheWhinyDonor

The Whiny Donor

She tells the nonprofit community what she doesn’t like about the nonprofit community–mostly around fundraising. @TheWhinyDonor shares her most urgent whines. She’s on two board development committees. Is one of them yours?

 

Amy Sample Ward: Social Media Rants

Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward, our social media contributor and CEO of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), introduces NTEN staff’s top rants for the social networks. Are you committing these social sins?

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with whipple disease if you fed me the idea that you missed today’s show the-whiny-donor she tells the non-profit community what she doesn’t like about the non-profit community, mostly around fund-raising the-whiny-donor shares her most urgent wines she’s on to board development committee’s is one of them yours and social media rants. Amy sample ward, our social media contributor and ceo of the non-profit technology network and ten introduces and ten staffs. Top rants for the social networks are you committing these social sins? So were filled with winds and rance today on tony’s, take two, be a non-profit radio insider, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuing dot com also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation feature crowdster dot com if you want to join the conversation today with your own wines and rants, tweet us, use the hashtag non-profit radio sam is in the studio is checking that feed. So use hashtag non-profit radio if you want to join the convo and it starts with the-whiny-donor she is at the-whiny-donor she feels the need to complain about some of the fails and foibles she sees as a donor to several charities. Part of the tail end of the boomer generation. She lives on the east coast of the us the-whiny-donor serves on the board development committee’s of two non-profits in the city where she lives. The-whiny-donor welcome to non-profit radio. Thank you very much. How are you? I’m great. How are you doing? I’m fine. Thank you. Wonderful man. You mind if i call you whiny? Is that or you can call me whiny? Okay, miss miss donor-centric formal way, right? I like informality on non-profit radio and okay, whiny um what do you about? Their why? Why? Why do you exist in this persona? Well, it’s, the reason that i exist, i guess it’s, because sometimes i just need teo to rant about things that come in the mail with direct mail and tweeting gives me an outlet to express my frustrations and irritations network for good had something to do with your your existence? Yeah, the way. The-whiny-donor came about wass several years ago, i, um i was an avid reader of network for good non-profit marketing block, which was at the time written by cacho anderson and i had just joined development committee’s so as a volunteer, i was very interested in what she had to say, and i was learning a lot, and so i emailed her one day with a couple of things that had happened to me as a donor, thinking that she might want to address them, and she turned my email into a blogged, which turned out to be very well received by her fund-raising readers so i realized that there was a man on audience that fundraisers actually did want to hear the perspective of people that were receiving what they were sending out. And so twitter was an easy way to have my voice heard, and so i’ve been tweeting for a little over three years and having fun with it, alright, now way want listeners to know that you’re not a professional fundraiser, right? You’re right, we’re not at all inspector, purely a volunteer, and so i i don’t know any of the sort of hard core things. That fund raisers do. I’ve never worked with razors edge. I’ve never had to send out a mailing myself as a volunteer involved in development committee’s, i’ve been on fund-raising campaigns, but never the person that actually have to do the hard work in the office. All right, so you’re you’re you’re generating awareness, though, of the donor-centric reesing awareness not like right now, what i hope to do in my tweets, besides just venting, is giving the perspective of the person who is receiving the appeals. I think sometimes when the staff person is sending things out, they may not really be thinking they know what their agenda is, they need to have they have a message that they need to get out there trying to raise a certain amount of money, whatever, whatever not understanding how the donor feels that the end merry callon, had a really good quote in a block post last week, she said, don’t put the ease of your inside operations above the weapon you make your donors feel and which i thought was great, because, um, you may have a certain, you know, the way your database works, you want to do it. This way well, that may not be the way that i want my information presented in mary’s case she uses her maiden name. And so if if if it’s convenient for the non-profit to use mr and mrs, that doesn’t work for her so and the non-profit may never have thought about the fact that there are people that are actually taking a fence at some thing that they’re doing. So i hope that in my tweets somebody will say, oh, well, that never occurred to me that that might be a problem for somebody. So, yeah, i hope that that my tweets may occasionally cause a lightbulb moment in somebody who works for a nonprofit. Okay, okay, um, whining i’m just going to fix you up on one thing everybody knows her on twitter is mary calais. Nor but it’s actually, mary kalon rhymes. Okay, sorry. Rhymes with salon. No, no. Ah, good to know. I never knew that. I just have not met her. I just read her avidly and i’ve had the benefit of having her on my other show fund-raising fundamentals that i do for the chronicle. Right, lance? All right, it’s kalon. So just you. Know, i don’t want people thinking that the-whiny-donor has all the answers and one hundred grams clearly i don’t know everything and you’re you’re clear about that to know all right, all right, cool the donor perspective and you like to thank people to this is not all a negative twitter stream you’re you’re very gracious in a lot of time saying you’re thank you came quickly or what a beautiful birthday card i got etcetera, your compliment right and well on another thing that i do on twitter it’s that i do share good content now that i know how to pronounce her name, marries content it always very good she’s, particularly donor-centric and there’s a whole bunch of people on twitter that really are, you know, there’s a whole new hashtag donor love and it’s that donor-centric city, and so i do like to share that content. Um, twitter is a great resource, i think not only do i get to tweet my own stuff, but i have learned so much from reading other people’s content that has informed the way i perform as a volunteer for the organizations that i’m involved in. So i love twitter when you, uh, when you give and we just have about a minute or so before first break you give you you feel very vulnerable, you’re you’re sending a piece of you exactly. There some donations are purely transactional, but there are certain organizations that i give to that i feel very personal about there’s, a crisis agency locally that i give to every year because my brother has needed crisis intervention, so when i give to that organization, it feels extremely personal. I’ve sent a piece of my heart to that organization, so when we do that, we really we want to, we wanted to be noticed it’s not trust transactional, thank us enthusiastically for it. We may really feel personally invested in in why we’re sending to your mission. All right, we’re gonna go out for ah break and come back one day and i will continue talking will get into some of her specifics. Specific urgent wines stay with us, you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Dahna oppcoll with the-whiny-donor we’re talking about her her most urgent wines on de eso eso let’s ah, whiny, let’s get let’s, get into some some details because this is this is what you’re known for on twitter, let’s, start us off with something that’s like, you know, your your your top? What what really irks you the most? Uh, there’s a couple things that hurt me the most, and people that read my tweets? No, that i do pay attention to how long it takes an organization to thank me. Um, my husband and i usually sit down sometime in december, last week of november, early december and right out about a dozen checks and send them to organizations, and so they’re all dropped in the mail at the same time. So it’s very clear which organizations are thanking quickly and the ones who thank me within about certainly within a week, while i’m still feeling that glow e-giving i’m impressed by that, um, this time around, i one organization didn’t send a thank you for about six weeks and that’s very noticeable when every other one has already come in and yours lags by about two or three weeks it’s pretty obvious, who was very slow on the uptake with their acknowledgement letters, you know, let me let me just say, just, you know, to relate this to what you said you, you know, you feel like you’re giving a piece of your heart, you said, right? So that’s, very vulnerable, and if you’re not thanked for many weeks, right, how does that leave you feeling? Uh, it makes me feel that you didn’t really need my donation in the first place, that it wasn’t really appreciated, and by then i’ve already sort of almost moved on, you know, i think that there is there’s a sweet spot when you thank somebody where we’re still in the glow of e-giving i sent it off, i’m feeling really good about it, and if you get me back when i’m still really a met feeling good about it, stage, i think that that probably reinforces my glow of clip e-giving whereas if you’re six weeks later, i’m already kind of ticked at you and it’s just not a good thing. Teo and worse, of course, is never hearing from the organization, but but a very late acknowledgement just by the time it comes you’re kind of like, well, finally for i am yeah, you ah, in december, you tweeted something about an organization that cashed your check very fast, but the previous year they have been very slow to thank you, right? And that was an organization, that particular organization actually i had to call them because they were doing a high frequency appeal strategy, and i can’t imagine why that works. And also let me preface everything that i say in my tweets it’s my opinion, i don’t offer expert advice so clearly high frequency appeals work for people. I can’t imagine why, because i find them cortly annoying, but this particular organization was doing the high frequency appeal strategy and i had gotten to more appeals from them before i finally got shanked for my check last year, and i ended up calling the organization and saying, look, i can’t stop sending me so many appeals. So oddly enough, the only option that they could give me was all oer one mailing a years. Of course, i took one mailing a year. What? The high frequency was just it was awful. Are you still supporting that organization? I do, and that’s the thing that’s so frustrating when organizations do something that i find actually offensive, but it’s an organization that i want to continue to support. So, yes, we do still support that organization because i guess one reason why i called them to say, look, stop irritating me with the high frequency of people’s because i did want to keep supporting them. You like them well enough to try to make it work, right? What they’re doing, their mission is extremely important. If you didn’t feel that affinity to their work, you would have just written him off and not called exactly exactly you feel. In fact, it was funny when i told the woman over the phone that her that her organization’s appeal was the last one acknowledgment was the slowest one to get to me out of about a dozen she was really surprised. Ah, in fact, she was kind of dumbfounded, and i don’t know why because they were really slow with their acknowledged letters. All right? Do you recall what she apologetic? Oh, yeah, she was very gracious and i was gracious over the phone. I didn’t, you know, in real life, i’m actually quite the life i have to take your word for that some of it comes across one hundred forty characters, but but it’s it’s probably good that you reinforce it. Alright, right, let’s. See you also. Ah, you also have some wines about donation pages. You mean the reply forms? No dahna online, the online donation pages i don’t do a lot of of oh yeah paper. Well, paypal is kind of difficult. They’re very small organizations that can’t afford better whatever and, you know, so they just do the papal and you and you all you get is a transactional receipt. Your payment of such and such was given to paypal, and it sucks the joy out of it. But you can understand where their why they’re doing that. They don’t have the money, yeah, to develop their own page. Or maybe they’re not there. I’ll bet. Amy sample word may wantto come in on this in the second half, but there are there are payment systems that are not papal that are probably low cost or free for non-profits on dh, they may not, you know, smaller organizations, unfortunately, you’re just not aware, you know, they’re just they’re not. Aware of a lot of tools that are out there so people defected to the big gorilla, you know, with paypal, right? And of course, that’s one of the things because i am not a fundrasing professional, you know, i’m sure that if people in the fund-raising community read my tweets and hear what i’m complaining about, they probably say, oh, come on, she’s a third asking for that kind of service when we don’t have the ability to do that, but as a donor, i don’t know any of that, so i’m expecting something without having any idea what kind of work it takes to put out a website or in donation page or get an acknowledgement letter out on time. Yeah, you are not familiar with the inner workings of a development office the different exactly. I have no clue departments, officer’s service donor, and so my expectations are very high even though my expectations may be completely unrealistic. That’s still how i feel and i would imagine, you know, and i’m reasonably sophisticated. I have some level of knowledge about what happens in a development office, but a lot of donors don’t, so all right, let me go, teo, let me go to one of yours. That that i thought was rather high expectation you tweeted about the heat being up too high in in a non-profit office. You know, that tweet was really tongue in cheek, and it was to the controversy about the wounded warrior project and overspending. And again that’s something that’s completely subjective. How does a donor in your overhead costs are legitimate and when you’re wasting money? So? So that was tongue in cheek. But it was in reaction to the controversy about the wounded warrior project. Okay, i my apology for that one. I didn’t. I missed the context of that. Okay? One hundred forty characters. I couldn’t put it in-kind context, but it was it was in reaction to that. Okay. That’s. Good. All right, so you’re not that unreasonable. No, gosh, no, not not that. Unreasonable. What else you got? Throw out something else that that irks you? Well, let’s. See, um, appeals that don’t recognize that i’ve given before. Oh, yeah, you know, or or of course, dear friend and that’s. Another thing i’ve noticed, actually, sometimes it the smallest non-profits that are the worst of doing that. With the dear friend, maybe they just don’t maybe they don’t have a development person on staff, but you would think that with the very small organizations they’d be able to personalize more somehow, i have no idea how that kind of thing works, but if i’ve given before, if i partnered with you for many years, i think you should acknowledge that in your letter that you know, i’ve been with you for a long time, or i gave last year or whatever, but when i get an appeal letter that has not acknowledged that i’ve given before i noticed that recognize that i’ve been with you for a while. Your husband got one from his alma mater that was a dear friend. Yes, that’s very surprised. Yeah. There’s there’s. No way. I mean, among any level of education, i don’t know with elementary middle high hyre ed that really that’s an inexcusable one. Well, and i stopped giving to my own altum otter because and i was never giving them very much money. So i was never. I never reached the level of where i got any good donorsearch stewardship. I was just one of the masses in the small donors, but, um, i got one acknowledgement receipt sort of letter thing that said, dear college supporter, i have been giving to them consecutively for twenty three years, and i thought, for heaven’s sakes, if you haven’t figured out my my name by now, you really don’t need my donation, and i have not given them anything since then. Well, that’s yeah, i mean, they certainly know your name that’s a that’s a method of keeping mailing costs very low because i know it was this particular thing was sort of a receipt receipt with a letter attached, and so the receipt had my name on it with the notation that i’ve been given for twenty three consecutive years, so it was just a question of i mean, they have it in their database with there i don’t i don’t know how you merge fields and all of that, but they could have put my name very easily on that sheet of paper. Yeah, and they didn’t bother just just to explain, i mean, it’s it’s a method of keeping costs lower because if they have to pay the printer assuming and i’m assuming high volume, but if they have to pay a male house to produce letters that are personalized, as well as receipts that a personalized, each personalized item increases the cost of a of a mailing. So if you, if you print it, if they print your name on the outer envelope versus having a windowed envelope, that takes advantage of the inside address on the letter that that costs more on, of course, that’s the kind of thing that the donor doesn’t know. All i knew was that i had been giving it to them for twenty three years, and and they didn’t use my name. I understand, ok, ok, your perspective, the donor perspective. That’s. Exactly what we’re gonna do is purely my perspective, understand? Um, you got a little disenchanted in in real life when you went to make a donation to your local thrift shop. Oh, yeah? What? You mean when there were so many things i wanted for a twenty foot pile? Exactly. I think that’s the result of the khan mari method book that was so successful lighting everybody’s de cluttering anything that doesn’t spark joy. And so the thrift shops air overwhelmed. Um, but yeah. Ah, that was an example of doing something, giving something and realizing they really didn’t need what i was taking. Suck the joy out let’s. Suck the joy out of it again. Sucked the joy. Right? So maybe thrift shops. And for those who have thrift shops, you know, maybe you want teo conceal that pile, not have the drop off area where the pile is, right. Okay, you know, possibilities dahna perspective. Um, you, uh you well, you want to you want to throw another one out? You got something that you want to whine about? Uh, boring. Thank you. Please use a few exclamation points in the thank you. Like i said, you know, as we noted, i sent my heart out to you. Respond with enthusiasm. This was not a business transaction for me. I like exploration points. So thank you so much for your donation whiny, exclamation, exclamation that’s! All right, but there are people who would disagree with that and say, you know, the exclamation mark is overused and particularly, if you know it’s okay, maybe online and tweeting and emailing, but but to have that transcend too u s mail is inappropriate and bad grammar and ah and bad punctuation, and we shouldn’t we shouldn’t be doing that. So i’m sure you’re well, i’m never into bad punctuation, but an exclamation point well placed, i think can make a difference. Okay, you did have ah, an example of bad punctuation that that hurt you when your was incredible. Your wasn’t i’ve been all over your feet, you know, this is this your was incorrectly dunaj a reply envelope, right? This organization sent out a reply envelope and the idea was good by putting your generous gift makes a difference except that instead of y o ur, it was y o u apostrophe r e. So when it first came the first time it came, i laughed about it. I’ve been a copywriter. We’ve all sent out things with mistakes and just been mortified, but i mocked it. But you know that. Was fine, but the problem was they sent it out in another mailing, and so either they haven’t noticed or didn’t care that they were sending something out with such poor grammar on it, and i did end up sending the envelope back because i intended to support this organization, but i couldn’t resist crossing it out and correcting their grammar, so i can’t imagine a company that a non-profit that would know that they have that kind of error on their reply envelope and still send it out. Now, i’ve, as a professional fundraiser, i’ve been on the receiving end of those types of corrections, et cetera, sometimes they sometimes they come with snarky comments. Was there a comment that you did you associate? You put a comment next to your correction? No, all i did was corrected, and i thought, you know, did you highlight it? Somebody’s already pointed this out, but if they haven’t, they need to know that this envelope is startlingly wrong. Okay, but you didn’t say that you didn’t have that is a comment no, i just crossed it out and corrected the word you didn’t you didn’t highlight it in with a marker. A yellow highlighter know i’ve gotten those two. Okay. All right. So sort of. Ah, an alternative to the exclamation mark yellow highlights. And then underlying with pink, you know, framed, framed in red. Right. All right, all right. All right. Um, what else you got? You want to throw another one out? Uh, let’s. See, uh, goes reply envelopes where you have to fill out the flap? I don’t like those, but the funny thing is, i was i was complaining about this with a group of friends, and they said, oh, we never even bothered to fill those out. We’ve just enclosed our check and let the organization figure it out and i thought, oh, that never occurred to me. I i i’m very compliant. I fill out my reply form, so i don’t know how the organization’s feel about it when people are just enclosing checks without bothering to fill things out, i would think that the organization would want people filling out those flaps. Your friends don’t hate those those those particular flap envelope i don’t like where the flap is the form that yeah, yeah. And you have to fill the whole thing out it. Hasn’t been filled out for you in december when i was filling out, you know, a dozen all at once, it was like it was the reply forms that were already filled out and nicely done. That made me feel good about those those organizations, they filled it out for you. You have pre filled right, but that cost them now going back to when i get that cost them yes, it actually cost him more than leaving a blank. Yes, right. You got a little embarrassed by something stamps, crooked stamps. Yes. I tweeted very starkly about mailing that i’d gotten where the stamps have been put on wrong and i so i sent out this snarky little tweet about meeting to have straight stamps, and somebody replied and said that it has probably been done in a sheltered workshop, which of course, made me feel terrible on now. I hope that i get lots of things with crooked stamps because obviously i would i would love it if people were using sheltered workshops to do that thing. So that’s also the beauty of twitter is that people do respond to me and put me in my place and explained to me that this is why organisations they’re doing what they’re doing. So i learned a lot that way. Let’s, let’s wrap up. We just have a minute left. You loved the birthday card that you got from your local? Why, yes, just in a minute. Why? Because it it was a it was a nice design, but also the message said something about may your day or maybe coming year be filled with the same wonderful things that you’ve done that your donation has done for people here. It’s just really nice and had a cupcake on it. Yes, it did. So the filling the cupcake? Yes, yeah, it was just really nicely done, she’s the-whiny-donor you’ll find her on twitter at the-whiny-donor that’s it i can’t at the-whiny-donor is where she is, whiney, thank you so much for being a guest. Thanks very much, tony. Good to talk to you. Real pleasure. Thank you, sabat. We got social media. Rance with amy sample ward coming up first. Pursuant, i have talked to the ceo. They’re trent ryker ah he’s got thirteen years working in small and midsize non-profits he understands you’re fund-raising challenge and his empathy trickles. Down through the people, other people that have talked to know in the company who work there and in the pursuing products, they’re using your existing data to help you raise more money it’s that simple, pursuing dot com and crowdster i’ve talked to the ceo, they’re too joe ferraro. In fact, i have decided that if i can’t talk to your ceo, then you can’t sponsor non-profit radio because i want to talk to the person who’s in charge, and i want to hear from them how their company is helping small and midsize charities. So that’s ah that’s, a new prerequisite, joe ferraro at crowdster he runs a small charity, so he gets your fund-raising challenges he’s in the trenches with you, and he was a senior marketing guy at t so he knows your challenges and he applies corporate marketing to overcome them. That’s why what i see is crowdster with their well the cutting edge the payment system apple pay for mobile donations because why shouldn’t small and midsize shops enjoy a cutting edge payment system? So you get apple pay and the sites are the crowd funding sites that they build for you are elegant. And simple, they’re easy for you to set up mean, when i say build for you, you know you’re you’re doing the building but it’s all through a user interface and it’s, easy to navigate and easy for your donors to navigate the-whiny-donor would like would like thes sites. You want to talk to joe ferraro, joe dot ferraro at crowdster dot com now tony steak too. Do you want to be a non-profit radio insider? I would love to have you in the inside. We have weekly email alert each week i sent an e mail letting you know who the guest star and with advanced news about my weekly video and also takeaways from the previous week. So if you are a casual listener, so if we’ve got a casual friend with benefits kind of thing going on, then you might want to become an insider and then you’ll know each week who you’ll be sleeping with and what we’ll be doing together. The three of us go to tony martignetti dot com and click the email icon that’s tony’s take two any sample ward? You know her for god’s sake she’s, a ceo of non-profit technology network and ten, her most recent co authored book is social change, anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement, she blog’s at amy sample war dot, or ge and she’s at amy r s ward on twitter. Welcome back, amy. Hi. Thanks for having me back. It was fun getting to listen to all those complaints. Well, you’ve got you’ve got a litany of of them yourself, but i know, but you know the-whiny-donor she’d bring the donor perspective. It’s true? Yeah. Okay, uh, let’s. Give a shout out for anti sena non-profit technology conference. What do we need to know about it? Coming up there’s a lot that you need to know about it. Okay, try to compress it into a minute. I think based on the forecast in most people’s locations today, the most important thing to know is that it’s in san jose, california, with palm trees and sunshine. So doesn’t that sound wonderful? Very nice. Okay. And where do we go for it? Yes. So the conference is in march, the twenty third through the twenty fifth in san jose. And there will be an overwhelming opportunity for tons and tons of knowledge and networking because it’s two thousand people over one hundred twenty five educational sessions and three days so you can get the agenda. You can get the registration information. Everything you want is that and ten dot org’s, flash and t c and who is hosting the live audio stream and tc live for people who can’t attend someone that you may know this thiss a pretty interesting guy. Tony martignetti interesting that’s, the best you could come up with like that thing was an ellipsis at the end. I can’t fill in everything else on the radio. Thank you so much. I mean, charming would’ve been good. I’m not going to fill them all in for myself. Funny would have been nice, right? Personality driven host. Ok, thank you. Yes, i’ll be hosting ntcdinosaur. So if you’re not able to go, you should go. You should definitely go because it is a terrific, smart conference. But if you can’t there’s ntcdinosaur the live audio stream that i’ll be hosting. All right. Ah, we pulled. I asked you to pull the ah ntcdinosaur dafs because non-profit thean ten staff thankyou, non-profit technology network. So much of technology is social media. And, uh, you got some? You got some rants? Yeah, it was exciting and a little scary that i put out the call the staff and very, very quickly, you know, the floodgates opened and people even commented, i didn’t realize i had so many complaints and let me start complaining. So we’ve got a lot from all the different intense, okay, let’s, see where we go? Let’s, uh, since we were with the the-whiny-donor why don’t we start with twitter? Yeah, okay, well, i think we’ve got a lot on twitter and i think twitter because other platforms have kind of followed, followed suit, you know, over time, other platforms introduced hashtags, for example, so some of these things trickle over into other platforms, but i think most folks here and tenet lee still consider them core twitter complaints, so a few of those are based in the world of bach and all of the content on twitter that is just totally automatic through little plug ins and box that people have enabled on their profiles and staff could have gone on for days about bots and how much they like them. Yeah, i think i wonder if twitter is just going to be you know, in five years, it’s going to be a bunch of butts talking to each other. Thank you. Thank you. Want teo talking to itself? Welcome, welcome. Thank you for following commune dot. Thank you for all you know, they’re totally some of the examples staff brought up the things that you automatically tweet to you or that automatically send you a direct message. A private message saying, you know, thanks for following. And i was laughing when the-whiny-donor was complaining about those generic messages that say, you know, fund-raising appeal that just says, do your friend, you know, please donate when people are trying to use these boss on twitter to create some weird level of personalization, but it’s twitter, you know how many of us can write out our full name in our account or, you know, a lot of people just have ah kind of shortened abbreviation. So then you’re getting these these direct messages as if their personal but they’re not they’re from a body that say, you know hi, amy rs lorts all in one word, you know, please go check out our website and donate like, what is this is so weird? Stop. Stop the bottom! I see the ones i see the ones was, you know, have a good and then there’s like too many spaces. And then it’ll say friday, and then there’s another couple spaces and a period like they they have to leave room for the longest day of the week, which i don’t know what which has the most letters, but like friday is a short one, so it doesn’t, you know it’s just it’s weird, but i think you know, there’s another there there’s the the complaints that we can have about box where it just feels weird or the content doesn’t make sense. Or, you know, it’s obviously not personalized, but staff also brought up a number of examples where people have, you know, it’s, not it’s, not the same whereabouts kind of tweeting at people for you, but the body is making it so that your account is automatically replying to other people or automatically retweeting certain accounts. So there’s people who have said, you know, any time this other account tweets, i wantto retweet it, but there’s no contacts there, so literally anything that account tweets you’re now re tweeting, that doesn’t work well. I mean, that’s, obviously waiting for disaster to enjoying zoho had what’s that, like, enjoying my birthday today, you know, which is not is not the greatest tweet, but, you know, a bunch of friends for my birthday, you know, getting together for my birthday today. I mean, you know, i could i could tolerate some that’s personal stuff, but, you know, to retweet that, right? It’s, ludicrous it’s, right, that you have other people just automatically re tweeted someone else’s you ran from personal tweet, but the other example, you know, where, where, but are going to make you look really bad? You know, if you’re automatically tweeting or replying to people’s content so i’ve seen this trend now where folks have enabled bots to say, like, you know, oh, you are my my highest engaged, but, you know, follower this week or my no thanks for the retweet on this, it got the most retweets or, you know, those kind of it’s like sharing stats somehow like it’s a competition, and we’ve seen, you know, in ten content for example, it’s, we don’t like that these occasions happen, and we do post this content, but when community member passes away, we will post about whatever happened and provide some honorarium language and, you know, allow for a lot of community members to find out the news from from their own community, which normally means a number of community members right in with their memories and, you know, it’s it’s, a very sad but touching opportunity to kind of bring the community together on dh grieve a community member who’s pass, but because people in the community have these bots turned on, it means a post that is sharing memories of a community member that’s now gone will be turned into tweets that say, you know, thanks for sharing that great post. It was my highest one this week or something, and that feels so horrible, you know? But again, you’re just leaving the body. They’re not gonna have any contacts, the body’s not going to turn off when it’s not appropriate it just put your account into a bad place, you know? It just does what you’re telling it to do. Yeah, there’s one osili i don’t want to appear to be a hypocrite, there’s one that i i use and i continue it because people like it. I get lots of likes and are they still know that what they’re called now favorites on? Is it likely i entertain their word? Yeah, is it likes now our favorite? I don’t know, but the heart when the heart goes on and people and people do react to this one it’s the one with its clear because i label it i mean it’s labeled by commune dot i t i don’t, i think it’s kind of dishonest if you pay the have that that tag taken off so that it looks supposed to look real, but so it says courtesy or, you know, thanks to community or from community and it’s the one that says you’re you’re the you’re the, um you’re the new follower with that’s the highest rated or so are the most popular new follower this week or something like that, and i didn’t like it because it looks phony, but people like people who get it like it. Who people who are named in it, they favored it, and sometimes they are t it now, not too often with the artie’s, but it gets lots of it gets lots of favorites, even though it’s blatantly from community on my stream so that’s, why i that’s why i think you’re welcome you’re welcome, teo use the tools however you would like there will be no inten staff person harding or re tweeting that post people like it. So you know, if there if there along with me on twitter and they like it, that’s, why i’ve kept it up, but i don’t want to be hypocrite, not not make that explicit, all right? Yeah, okay, let’s see, maybe i think, you know, leaving the world of body, um, talking and of course, like i said before, super big on twitter, but of course you’re going to see examples of boss on other platforms to but again, another piece that’s big on twitter and we see going elsewhere, but that staff are just driven crazy, crazy by our when people basically turned their entire post into a hash tag like every word is a hashtag or you know, it is one long one hundred forty character hash tag that’s trying to be a sentence because hashtags are meant to provide context to your post, right? And they’re meant to connect that content you’re posting into a stream. Of similar content, right? It’s it’s a topic this is anything related to non-profit radio so when your entire poster hashtags, it implies that you have nothing else to say other than i would like to be an account visible in lots of random streams. So if you’re not providing any message, you’re just you’re just dragging it into lots of spaces let’s, do one more on twitter, the the follow on follow-up follow dance oh, god that’s the harsh one and, you know, i think a part of that is i’ll get the notification that somebody has followed me, i look at their account and i choose to not follow them back and then they tweet me, you know? Hey, i would love to connect with you the very first time they do that, i say, okay, well, it’s not hard to find how to contact me on the internet, you know, you here’s my e mail address feel free to reach out and then they don’t know that i don’t hear anything more from them and then a month goes by, i get a notification that they followed me and they send the exact same tweets saying i would like to check with you. So at that point, i tried to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were a human. But now it seems that they are not trying to act that way. So in the meantime, they done followed you and then followed you back to try to get your attention. Exactly. You again followed you again. Yeah. Yeah, i know. And that’s, you know, that’s enabled by technology. I know it. And ten, you recognize that technology has a downside to that’s enabled by men i get. I get these weekly emails. People who want followed you. The new followers you have here is this the stupid people who want followed you and and you’re and they’re not follow you. You follow and they’re not following you back or something, you know? Please, i delete that nonsense. I should turn it off. It’s gotta be a it’s. A it’s. An option. I chose somewhere. Uh, tell you what i think. I think it can be turned off because i turned that off a long time ago. Because, you know, to your point, it just makes it feel like it’s. Kind of like when? We’ve talked in the past about vanity metrics. Yes, because it as the platform, whatever platform is every platform, is going to try and force these things upon you. Just because it’s highlighting something doesn’t mean it’s actually the most important aspect of that bull, you know, making an action an action item just because they’re highlighted exactly, exactly. All right, we gotta go out for a break. Amy and i going to keep talking about the the social media rants that came from the intense staff. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests are there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation, top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m lawrence paige nani, author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. Duitz welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oh my goodness, would lawrence pack nani, please start pronouncing his name? Panjwani lorenzo panjwani you’ve heard me rant about that before, but it’s it’s wine and ran today, so i’m i’m i’m repeating myself live listener love did you think i forgot? Live listener love dafs please st louis, missouri, new bern, north carolina, new york, new york we’ve got to washington, d c home villa p a, brookline, massachusetts, milwaukee, wisconsin live listener love to each of those city and state cities and states live. Listen, love plus, we got a couple that are, uh they seem to be masked. We can’t tell what city or state you’re in very strange, very strange, but you’re in the u s mexico city, mexico live listener loved to you, tokyo, japan, konnichiwa and, of course, seoul, south korea, always checking in just like just like japan, always seoul, south korea on your haserot we got taiwan tai chung in taiwan ni hao any simple word is in ah, portland, oregon and ah, we got some more rance so let’s move on to some other ah social network other fat forms? Yeah, let’s ah, let’s look at instagram. We got meghan. Meghan contributed some things about instagram what’s she got to say there megan had lots of complaints about instagram, primarily that you can only post from your phone when you know, i think from a lot of organizations perspective we’re normally scheduling all kinds of pieces of content right across the internet on different days or around different campaigns and feeling like, okay, i’ve got my computer open where i’m tweeting and posting the facebook and doing everything else, but then i have to go get my phone, make sure i’m logged in, you know, and posted this from my phone, which i think the root of some of that complaint is that posting anything from your phone on behalf of the organization, just like exponentially increases the potential that you’re goingto spell things wrong because we all have experienced auto correct on our phones. So so she really wishes that she could post from her computer to instagram, but staff staff sent around a lot of fake instagram captions that were all hashtags thing. I think instagram is very much a world where people go crazy with because unlike twitter, that at least is stopping how many characters you can use instagram just let you keep adding more hashtags. You know, i’ve got friends of mine and that they are my friends, so i don’t want to get get disconnected from them. But, you know their instagram post included like i swear it must be things that they’re just seen out their window. I don’t know how they’re coming up with, you know, just word what you don’t know what the relationship of the weak things they had back-up list that aren’t even in the post, you know, it’s, just like anything that comes to mind, word association becomes a hashtag ah let’s, go to aa, we want to thank meghan, where at the end we’re going to shut out all the contributors. Okay, okay, but let’s go let’s, go to ah, facebook, you got some ideas on facebook? Naturally. Oh, yes, i think facebook, we see some of the boss that we talked about earlier, but the big thing on facebook that folks were complaining about is the relationship between twitter and facebook and organisations thinking that they’re somehow saving themselves time by making it so. Anything they posted facebook, you know, automatically goes to twitter or vice versa. Anything from twitter goes to facebook, but they’re different channels. You have different members of your community in those two different spaces. You know, we’ve talked about all this before. It shouldn’t be the same message, but further, you don’t want to tweet that’s literally just a facebook link to a post because it doesn’t even say anything and under quitter, you know, it’s literally just did you are el facebook, dot com slash whatever, right? So that was a huge a huge no, no, that staff talked about was that cross posting and who knows what? Um and then, of course, ash brought up something that we do see all the time, by people and by organizations, and that is, you know, this knowledge or or assumption that posts on facebook do better if there’s a picture. So we better go find a picture and they just pull a picture off the internet that still has, you know, stock photography still has a watermark because it’s not just, you know, and they’re just hoping that they can crop it out and it looks ok, but there. It is, you know, looking looking. Totally stolen. Yeah, right. Blatant self with the watermark removed. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Megan, had megan had one about our fitbits? Oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, make it megan kind of wrote a longer message are longer rant to everybody about this, but ultimately those kind of a different world of boss, i guess where people are enabling their phone or different apse that they used tto auto pose all of this personal data about themselves to facebook so it just automatically posting, you know, i just walked half a mile and now i’m a starbucks. Great will all track you down. Why are you why are you enabling all of this personal data sharing just to be automated all the time? You know, that was a huge, huge ran turn that off. I mean, that’s an option, right? When you buy a fitbit it’s gotta be when yes, definitely and turn that nonsense off if we wait if we didn’t, if this was only a podcast and we’ve we didn’t have affiliate versions, i would i would have said something stronger than nonsense. But e i can’t i can’t say it because we’re governed by fcc rules on the affiliate side let’s go to ah let’s goto linked in okay endorsements, yeah, lengthen thie endorsements we had an interesting conversation with staff because ah lot of the things that we were complaining about are not necessarily the way you know you are. I are using the tool, but the way that lincoln has set the tool up for us to even be able to use it. So one of the biggest complaints was that any time you’re on the site, unless you kind of go to someone’s profile and click that you want to connect with them and are able to write a message anywhere else, it has that button, you know, connect with this person, you click it and it never it just sends a message. It just sent that generic, you know, with you only dinner, whatever. So there’s no, the the platform itself doesn’t even allow you to share a message or say, hey, i’m the one you met at the conference. Yes, today or high, i’m a really human and i would like to talk to you, you know? It just sends these automatic messages, which make it feel make it feel like now people aren’t going to know if you’re for real or what your intentions are, you know, there is a way, right? Like you said, you have to make the effort to send a personalised invitation to connect, yeah, exactly, lets on. And then we went down a rabbit hole about lincoln talking about endorsements. All right, we got to do this one your time, lengthen it, try and suggest that, you know, i endorse you, tony, for random words or tags, essentially and staff we’re talking about things that they have been endorsed for by people who have never worked with them, that, you know, they’re not they’re connected to on lengthen because maybe they know who they are, but it’s not like they’re a colleague who’s saying, oh, you know, tony, it worked with you on the radio show for two years. I would totally say that you’re really great at that or great interviews or whatever it might be, but someone who’s just met you, you know, shouldn’t be endorsing you for things, and then staff were saying, you know, best any one of our ten staff members has been endorsed multiple times. For cat, you know he doesn’t work in veterinary and any work we got a way, we got to leave it there. We’re gonna leave it there, but let me give a shout out tio dan and meghan and ash ash, by the way, clout. I can’t stand clout. Thank you for pointing that one out. Just just burn it. Bethany staff, do we get everybody who contributed? I think you do. Andrea. Andrea! Andrea! Thank you. Alright, amy sample ward. You’ll find her at amy r s ward. Thanks, amy. Thank you had wrapped out of fast let’s. See next week innovation in mississippi what it’s like for two black women doing social change in the deep south? Monisha nyandoro works in the grassroots and cassandra welchlin works at the policy level. If you missed any part of today’s show, i implore you find it on tony martignetti dot com where in the i’m just not sure about the singing this year, i don’t know responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation. Feature. Crowdster dotcom are creative. Producer is clam meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by dina russell, and our music is by scott’s dying. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Buy-in what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Amador is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for February 5, 2016: Volunteer Giving & Wounded Warrior and Overhead

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Greg Cohen: Volunteer Giving

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When is it OK to ask volunteers to donate? How do you get started? What about objections? Greg Cohen is senior associate at Cause Effective and he knows the ropes.

 

 

Gene Takagi: Wounded Warrior and Overhead

Gene Takagi

There is such a thing as bad press and Wounded Warrior is the latest example. They’re under withering criticism for excessive and lavish spending. Gene Takagi returns to explain good overhead versus bad overhead and how to avoid trouble. He’s our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group.


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week, chris john’s from burton, michigan he called maria semple are doi n of dirt cheap and free prospect research ideas. You know her well to tell her that her suggestion to use your local library has been helping him because she says that she has that advice often has been helping him a lot to raise money for a dog park playground, movies in the park and other projects. So chris john’s following maria’s advice. Very smart man. Congratulations on being non-profit radios listener of the week oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer focal segmental glomerulosclerosis if you wasted my time to say you missed today’s show volunteered e-giving when is it okay to ask volunteers to donate? How do you get started? What about objections? Greg cohen is senior associate at cause effective, and he knows the ropes and wounded warrior and overhead. There is such a thing as bad press and wounded warriors, the latest example, they’re under withering criticism for excessive and lavish spending. Jean takagi returns to explain good overhead versus bad overhead and how to avoid this kind of trouble. He’s our legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group on tony’s take two youtube we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay amglobal donation feature. Crowdster dot com welcome and greg cohen back to the show. He’s senior associate itcause effective he’s worked in and consulted for hundreds of non-profits cause effective is the non-profit itself, that is, counsel to non-profits over more than thirty years, they’ve helped over five thousand organizations. They’re at cause effective dot or ge and at cause effective. Welcome back, greg cohen. Thanks really happy to be here. Pleasure. I love cause effective. Tell us more than i was just able to say what the programmes are all about. How you’re helping non-profits i love your work. Sure. Thanks so much. S o we work with me with non-profits in the new york city region. And we are though it’s called in the business a capacity build there. So we teach a man to fish or woman, and we focus on three areas relationship based fund-raising, which is mostly fund-raising from individuals and institutions where there’s a single gate keeper making the donation decision like a family foundation or ah ah, privately held business, strengthening boards for both their governance and stewardship for ditigal thank you for tonight boardmember is confident and effective fundraisers. Everybody needs that in the third area is the strategic use of special events, so not event management, but the bigger questions of what events are right for our strategic objectives and the audiences we can reach what’s a realistic budget, but for revenue and what we’re going to spend and what should be the objectives for our events. Your colleague susan gabriel has been on talking about events and strategic use of anniversaries and events. Yeah, i refer you when when someone comes to me and says, you know, how do we get to the next level? I think of cause effective? Actually, i haven’t. I haven’t been thinking of you only for the new york area. I don’t know if i’ve been making referrals from throughout the country, but you will talk. To anyone but tend to build coaching relationships, which are promoted through face to face contact, so we tend to keep in the new york city area. Um all right, so we’re talking about volunteered e-giving why are volunteers potential good potential donors? So, uh, after staff who knows your program better than those who are coming in and participating in providing your services but your volunteers so if we think about the basis for wanting to contribute to an organization, of course they’re many forms. Ah, yeah, of resource is that you can contribute one of the most valuable, of course his time. Thes air folks who are already your donors, they’re giving you time, not yet money, and we ought to be treating them as donorsearch exactly talk a lot more about that. We’re gonna get there exactly, but they’ve already shown a deep commitment to your work. They haven’t understanding it’s logical that out of the context of what they know about your work, that you could make a strong case for them providing monetary support as well. And it’s well documented that volunteers are among the most ready to make a monetary contribution on top of time. Ok, now i notice you say you say valentine, you almost say valentine’s, there was volunteers where you from, what part of country? From i’m from connecticut. I don’t know why i’m hearing, right? Yeah, it sounds like a look. Volunteers right now now made yourself kind of guy. I’m sorry. No it’s. Okay, but it’s essential that all that you’re going to volunteer, valentine and i should say that, um, i’m drawing upon more than my cause effective experience and talking about this prior to cause effective. I was executive director of the youth development group based in a public high school, and i had a stable of over one hundred volunteer tutors. Ah, so i interacted with a large number of very committed volunteers overtime. So most of my ideas actually have grown from that experience because they became very generous financial contributors as well as givers of their time. Our volunteers are seeing the need every time they’re they’re they’re working with our our staff for our program beneficiaries. I mean, they see the needs day in, day out. They name you know, it’s. Too bad. This is too bad they don’t have morgan is more. Money to do this because we could be doing this so much better. I mean, they’re living their living it exactly, although often, and this happened in my own organization where i had boardmember sze, who started as volunteer tutors and then became board members. They were very hesitant for us to ask for money because they felt it was intruding on the generosity that was already being shown by people giving their yeah, that’s, where i want to go next, actually overcoming these objections, but i think, you know, if you’re careful not to minimize the volunteering right on dh, just recommending the e-giving but let’s, talk about overcoming these objections. Boardmember tze mei say, oh, no, no, you know, they’re giving enough, you know, which is kind of contradictory because five thousand dollars donorsearch e-giving enough, but they could be giving ten or fifty we don’t know until we ask, right? But so overcoming objections, right? Well, so the first thing is to make sure that you’ve got the basics, as you say, of treating your volunteers in a steaming them well for what they’re already giving, so you wouldn’t want to jump into asking for money if you aren’t already treating the donation of time as something of great value, and and you want us to do this? Not just at the time were asking for a monetary gift from day one on so in walks in and says i’d like to give you my time. I would like to treat it as if they took out the check book and said, i’d liketo make a donation you have to treat, in fact, it’s harder these days for people to give time than write a check. I had so many donors who said i’m sorry, all i can do is give you money. I wish i could i’m in and give some time like and they actually envy the volunteers, so it starts with a steaming volunteers for what they’re already giving. If you haven’t done that, then don’t move on, okay, asking for donations and so let’s let’s spend ah, little time on that. How can we buildup that that culture within our organization, that volunteers are donors are communications? You know? How could we be doing this right? So one way is to make sure that volunteers have a holistic view of your organization and understand how you operate, so it starts right when you orient volunteers when they come in. Of course, you’re oriented to the specific work that they’re doing in the case of two djing with students and exams they face. But you also want to explain here’s the context in which the organization operates ah here’s, where we get our funding, these air, the different programs that pays for there’s, a big role for donations to help cover it so that they have a mental model that it operates. That was particularly important for my organization because people, when they first came in, assume that we were part of the department of education and that we were one hundred there are funded by state government indeed, we had a million dollars of funding all private, so when they heard oh, my goodness, you raise a million dollars privately all of a sudden there they were attuned to thinking about what role could they play in helping bring in that money? We’re raising awareness of the importance of individual giving exact to our to our revenue right before we’re asking were telling stories argast orientation, this is about the organization, all right? He’s got to go away for a break, okay, we come back, greg and i going to keep talking about volunteered giving stay with us, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. Fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti, dot com that’s t i g e n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Dahna xero welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Greg cohen and i talking about volunteer e-giving okay, so we’re starting this process at orientation and training of board members, and we’re making this ah, clear to them that individual giving is important from the beginning. That’s right? Okay, okay, if we’ve laid the groundwork, um, we have some other ideas, like communications, like sending send your your volunteers, your donor communications. Exactly. So some of the rules that apply to donors again, you’re treating that time as a donation. So you’re profiling volunteers. You’re helping communicate to them the connection between their work and the outcomes for the beneficiaries of their tutoring and generally including volunteers as valued members of the community. So already before you’ve asked him there feeling very connected to the mission and to the other people who are doing the same work. Okay, now we have boardmember zoho are going to object and say, this is it’s, not appropriate. Volunteers are doing enough. How do we overcome? And maybe not only board members? I’m picking on bouchard’s. But how do we overcome these objections? Wherever they come from? So it caused effective we love to answer questions by actually asking them of the people who are going to be affected. So one of the most defective things is talk to some volunteers who say yes, i’d be open to contributing or who may already be contributing on their own initiative. Have them come in and talk to the board members, have the board members have the chance to ask them, what does it feel like when you asked, do you take offense, what’s the nature of an ass that feels comfortable and respond to their legitimate concerns about being too pushy with people who are already giving and let them hear it from the horse’s mouth? I think that would be my my primary oppress, ok, that’s. Very simple. Yes invite volunteers to the board members or to have a conversation with the board members or there or wherever it is that subjecting right? Interestingly, for the board members who put up resistance. In my case, we’re very generous donors themselves, but they weren’t ah, recognizing that there were other, maybe less affluent volunteers who would be as happy to give us their do you see much objection among the volunteer managers? Or directors, you know, are on staff, is that does that come up? It doesn’t usually because they know the volunteers best, and they recognize the generous spirit of the volunteers. And also, if a volunteer says, how come you you don’t have this, you know, study guides or whatever, then the answer is, we can’t afford it. They hear from the volunteers will let me help their interest, and we had some incredibly generous offers from volunteers even before we’re soliciting buy-in laptops for their students and in other ways, making material available to there, to the students they were working with and and other tutors and not surprising. I mean, they’re already committed, like you say they’re giving something so precious their time, and they see the need and they would like the need to be minimized or eliminated, right? So they fill the gap exactly so thie other thing is that many volunteers for us came through corporate programs and the culture of those corporate volunteer programs. Ah, encourage them both to give time and it’s. There are incentives for them to give money often a matching grant from the corporation if you’re a volunteer in an organization you give money will match it in a larger proportion than no. What for? For just a normal that donation donation by not volunteer and there’s even broken mohr of incentive if you’re on the board of an organisation for some corporations. All right, so if we’ve we’ve laid the groundwork, we have the right culture. We’ve overcome our objections. How should we get started? So i think one of the most effective ways for soliciting donations from anyone is to encourage up here of the types of people you want to donate to be your solicitor. So i would form a little asking group of people who are volunteers who are already e-giving and work with them to say, would you appeal to other volunteers to use the most powerful words? And fund-raising would you join me in supporting this organization as a fellow volunteer? So that would be a first step, which is to gather some folks around me who are already committed in that way to both give time and money. Alright suppose we just have maybe half a dozen volunteers from small organization. You know, if we recruit yes, a committee that’s half the volunteers. I mean, i guess we could do two or three on the committee latto recruit the other flavour for if you have six volunteers, i would still try to recruit one to be really ask her the other five, okay, at least in partnership with me, not alone, necessarily, but because, in fact, if you don’t get stumped by these questions, overviewing you’ve seen it all. This is not okay. We’re going into actually our thirty fifth year. So we’re at about five thousand organs at your web sites that they always pushing thirty five. All right, all right, all right. Um that’s great. I mean, that’s. Why, that’s? Why i refer refer people to you. Um okay, so we have a little volunteer committee do some training for that, the way we would sure help everybody has to learn to ask it’s not a natural thing. So some training. And then the other thing to think about is what are we explaining? We need the money for and as you pointed out, if we can connect it to providing resource, is that a line with the work they’re doing? Is volunteers it’s going to make a natural connection between the synapse in the heads of the volunteers. You don’t necessarily have to do that, because most individual donors will make a gift and trust this staff to put the money where it’s most needed. But if there are clear needs within the realm of volunteering that you can meet that’s, a powerful connection toe offer to broker between the money they donate and strengthening the program that they were here, it seems like a grand slam. Okay, okay. Uh, let’s, um, let’s see about knowing, you know, getting to know your volunteers mean, you have ah, bigger organization would have a volunteer director, i guess, but you’re lucky enough. Yeah, ok, but if not maybe it’s the executive directorate or, you know, maybe the director development, right? You want to i mean, this is a relationship fund-raising if we’re asking peer-to-peer ass right, you want to know the people you’re talking to exactly and in fact, that’s one of the precursors toe asking, which is do i know my volunteers why they’re volunteering, what their life stories are, what their interests are, and if you haven’t created enough of a relationship for them to exit to be known in front of you and seen, you’re probably not ready to ask. So building that personal relationship between that someone on the staff and the volunteers is another important step before asking. Okay? And again, you know, parallel, tow your monetary donors, you get to know them before you ask, right? This is a colt cultivation process, right? So we’re doing something parallel. We’re just working with volunteers, and another thing that comes from getting to know someone is from a technical point of view. You can assess how large your ask i should be. So i’ll give an example of a long time volunteer who i was in a conversation with who told me that he had lost his daughter tragically early in her life, and he had been with us for a long time and ah, i was able to say, peter, would you? I knew he was interested in kids being able to go on to college. That was one of hiss. Ah, personal motivations for tutoring. I said, would you be interested in creating a little scholarship fund to memorialize your daughter? And indeed, he he created that fund and annually funded it, but it came from me understanding he was retired. He was pretty well to do. Then when he told me that story, i was able to connect something he was very interested in to an important personal fact, which is is the memory of his daughter. And in a way, i think he connected his work with those young people with with her life. Yeah, yeah. Was she roughly the age of of the time? Wand, don’t you don’t ok, ok, the other the other natural thing to connect, to which we saw a lot of which is volunteers tend to associate ah good part of their identity with their volunteering, and so it’s known in their families that they are connected there going i’m telling their friends today is my day at the center is actually talking about the kids, the people at the soup kitchen, they’re coming back and sharing those stories and it’s because it’s part of who they are as people, so a very natural thing is to suggest to people, you know, to the couple that has everything, uh, if an occasion comes up, when people want to give you a gift, you could suggest making a gift in honor of the anniversary, the birthday to the non-profit in place of buying a present and that very volunteers, i love that idea, and i had a whole siri’s of people who gave regularly to honor the work of volunteers, including, actually i was in this public school. There were two teachers who were lived together for a long time and then decided to tie the knot after twenty five years of living together. Of course they didn’t need any toasters or blenders? So they said to all the guests, please make a contribution to the school’s. Non-profit and not only did people make gifts at the time of the wedding, but because we were good at communicating what we were doing, even though the bulk of the guests came from minnesota, where both the couple had grown up. Some of continued to be significant donors years afterwards, because now they felt a connection to the organization through our communications with them. Brilliant. I mean, that’s, that’s, another grand slam. You guys are good. You know what you’re doing? Something that you were just you said it’s just a couple minutes ago rings true. I was just having dinner with my mom and dad and, um my dad had just met an organization that he got connected to. That is, they don’t have shelters for young, young single moms, but they have day programs and referrals and counseling and education programs. And andi came, you know, he came home motivated by about this and my mother and he goes to the kitchen. My mother whispers under breath. There goes another day nobody’s boasting alright, has even started. He brought a donation of ah, gifts in-kind he had bicycles for the for their children and things like that. Um, but, yeah, you know, he’s boasting already has he really gotten started? But people like to talk about their volunteer time, right? And come father’s day there’s a chance for you to honor his service by making a gift in his honor to that organization. Thank you very much. Let’s. Not get carried away. I’ll get your good work. You’re too good. Now five, fifty four years old. I’m living at home, but it’s only temporary that’s. Only temporary. I’m in transition. Please. I’m in transition. Sabat. Okay, well, i guess we’ve talked about well, when we started every really covered, like when is the right time to ask? You gotta know them very well, right on they they have to be well embedded as a volunteer, so they have to have spent some time with you and built that sense of affiliation. Um, and then i think any time after you see, people are comfortable and in the routine and understand your work and you’ve oriented them and you know their story a little bit it’s appropriate to ask and then every organization has its own rhythm of program. So schools june graduation time. Ah, organizations that work with young mothers. Mothers day, of course, the holiday season for programs that work with underprivileged families. Those air kind of natural times to be asking are carrying out simple appeals to volunteers to participate. Do you find that volunteers become sustaining, you know, regular committed donors arm? Or just ah, one time when as and no and absolutely committed donors and and even if their schedules change and they and no longer volunteers? If they started a regular pattern of giving you money annually, they’re likely to continue mohr than other donors. Wow! After volunteers, as in cool, cool. Um, let’s. See, what about? We kind of covered, you know, who’s. Best to ask about how much? How much should you be? Right? Well, so that’s ah, that’s that’s always a tough question for any kind of fund-raising so partly its by talking to people sing are they generous with other causes? Find out a little bit about their other terrible involvement. You’re going toe in time. Learn more about the socioeconomic status of your volunteers through conversations and then you bring some of the same rules of judging how much to ask, but i’d say for the first gift, the most important thing is that they become a donor rather than the amount so it’s, just two to get that person to becoming donors of both time and money. In the first instance, i wouldn’t worry much about the size of the gift. And then over time, you can work on increasing the size of the gift. Then, of course, we love for the average doner to become a monthly sustainers because that’s going to last longer, and they tend to give maura’s an ad average gift than people give once. Here arika, um, let’s, talk a little more about treating your volunteers as donors. Um, you know, we talked a little about communications events. I mean, they should be invited as donors are let’s. Talk more about that. Uh, sure. So my philosophy is time should be treated in the same way. Money is, as i say, if in most of our lives it’s a more precious commodity than money. It’s hard to give time for things. So i would definitely include volunteers in all the activities that you include for financial donors, you indeed can have volunteers who are helping you run those events, for instance, and one way actually, it can work in reverse, which is if you have donors, one way to increase their affiliation with your group is to invite them to volunteer. S o there’s very good, some back and forth in that. Yeah, yeah, cool. Um, would you ah, if you have a aa, an expensive annual gala or some kind of an event, would you offer a reduced price for your volunteers? We’re getting carried away. Well, i’m going to go. Yes, and now i’m going to channel my colleague susan and say, if your primary objective for the event is raising money, then you don’t want to discount too many seats. Ah, but if i start with the objective, i want to celebrate my volunteers work that i’m going to create an event specifically to celebrate the volunteers so oh, and not worry about how much money i’m raising. If my primary objective is make those volunteers feel good there’s going to be some overlap because some of your volunteers, they’re going to become significant donors and you can move into those events that have fund-raising as their primary objective, but i’d be careful about crossing the tooth objectives of raising a lot of money and celebrating, yeah, ok on this would be susan’s more, but have have a cultivation event for earth a celebration for years. For your volunteers, you must be having volunteermatch condition events if you could bring in volunteers can’t save all your events just for those who are expensive tickets. What about volunteers at at board meetings that we, you know, we mentioned having them talk about their experience in giving to overcome that objection, but but just, you know, as a way for board members to relate to the what’s going on in the program areas, having volunteers, come talk to the board, i think it’s a great idea if you’ve got a significant volunteer program it’s a way of the board understanding the dynamic of that program and to check in on it the other important thing i mentioned some of my best boardmember tze had started as valentin ears and then became board members so it’s another aspect of the volunteer pool, which is it becomes ah farm team for discovering people who have skills and talents who ah, our perspective boardmember zoho all right, we just have about a minute and a half left tell me what you love about the work you do show him a nosy person and every non-profit represents a distinct subcultures, so i don’t feel so bad about asking where you’re frightened. No, not at all on dh with every client, they have wonderful missions and it’s fascinating to see who they’ve grouped around them and then personally satisfying to give them the tools to further that mission and see them grow and become more sustainable. You wantto give a shout out to an organization that you’re working with now comes to mind, or even if you don’t want to say the name just some. So i’m going filling here to ah wonderful organization called i challenge myself that challenges high school kids who maybe never rode a bicycle, too, participate in a health and fitness program and write a hundred miles by the time they they finish school in the spring, i challenged myself excellent, we should be challenging ourselves. Great life lesson, greg cohen, senior associate at cause effective there at cause effective dot or ge and at caused effective. Thanks so much, greg. My pleasure school. Thank you for sharing. Ah, wounded warrior and overhead with jean takagi coming up first. Pursuant you have a problem, you have a pain point, you need to raise more money. Pursuing is your solution one of your solutions? They have online tools like velocity for managing fund-raising ah, another tool is prospector to find your donors who are upgrade ready that five thousand dollar donors that could be giving ten thousand or that five hundred, dollar donors who could be giving fifteen hundred all helping you raise more money. They are data driven technology enabled. You hear me say that and that’s their tagline what i find interesting is they’re they’re smart technologies using your data, it’s analyzing and organizing your data to make you smarter and better at fund-raising you’re going, you’ll raise more money. I can’t make it any simpler pursuant dot com and also crowdster with their new one of a kind apple pay mobile donation feature, so they’re lengthy people can pay through ah, through their their their iphone increases mobile donations again. You raise more money there, they build campaign sites because it’s crowdfunding, crowdfunding sight so they build the campaign sites that you used? They’re simple for your donors, they are savvy on the back end, so your administration is not difficult. Easy for donors to navigate. Easier for you to navigate and they are crowdster dot com now, tony steak too. Have you checked out non-profit radio on youtube? My channel israel? Tony martignetti some clown stole my name before i could claim it on youtube fraudster, in fact, trust me, if a dude, if you want to steal my identity, go ahead, it’ll get you absolutely nowhere. I mean, i have my social security number on my credit card numbers on my website. Go ahead, help yourself have at it my date of birth it’s on my lincoln. Good luck, i have a credit score it’s not negative. It’s imaginary ivan imaginary number of credit score! It doesn’t exist, so you want to steal my identity on youtube? Go ahead, real tony martignetti i’ve got over two hundred videos from conference interviews, i’ve got some tv appearances and some stand up comedy bits are also there, so my stand up comedy gigs lots of interviews with lots of smart. Guests from the many conferences have been at the past five years. The link to youtube is that tony martignetti dot com. And while you’re there, you can pick up my social security number. That’s tony’s take two. Jean takagi he’s back. I love when he’s back he’s, managing editor of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blogged dot com and on twitter he is at gi tak gt a k jean takaaki. How you doing out there in san francisco? I’m doing great. How are you, tony? Terrifically. Well, you sound you sound brighton loud and wait. Sam’s turning it down till time down. Sam, he sounds great. Sound good. You’re calling from the same phone you always call from? I think so, it’s. Just a funny in san francisco. And we’re all waiting for the super bowl this week. Oh, yes, yes. Super bowl weekend. Oh, yes. Is that the one with the, uh, with the three point shots from the from the outer rim? Is that is that football i have? Well, we got the warriors here do that. We’re going to enjoy them, too. Okay. I’m crossing over in my sports. All right, let’s. See? Okay, we you got the warriors got wounded. Warrior, the wounded warrior project gene is is not in the news for good reasons. And i’m gonna i’m gonna venture that most listeners are well aware, but why don’t you just acquaint us with some of the bad press? They’re getting around some of their spending? Sure. Well, it started last week, and cbs news and the new york times both ran some articles that were highly critical of wounded warrior project and most importantly, on how wounded warrior project spent its money. So the wounded warriors project for just in case for people who don’t know is a very prominent veterans organization whose mission is toe honor and empower wounded warriors. They’re pretty big. The total revenues are three hundred forty two million for for the last year they reported on the nine, ninety, which ended fiscal year september thirty two thousand fourteen, three hundred forty two million dollar organization, big organization. But the what, you know, the most critical, i guess. Aspects of the spending that were alleged by both cbs and the new york times is based dahna charities ratings organization that said that wounded warrior project spent sixty percent of its total expenses on programs which kind of infers an overhead ratio of about forty percent. And that didn’t sit well with a lot of people. Yes, and the press continued, cbs had aranha siri’s. The new york times jumped on, um, rating agencies jumped in a little bit. Yes. So it’s, it’s, it’s gotten unattractive? Um, we’re not goingto dissect wounded warriors spending and and nine, ninety and their balance sheet because that’s not fair and it’s it’s not appropriate, but i did want to use it as sort of a leading to another discussion that we’ve say another because we’ve talked about this before, but it was a couple of years ago, um, to be exact, it was september sixth of twenty thirteen, so i think it is bears repeating and then review good overhead vs versus bad overhead and i think i want to start with just you need to be aware of perception. Yeah, that’s so true, tony. And just before we leave wounded warriors project, let me say that while charity are charity, ratings organizations might have said that there was a sixty percent program kind of ratio program service expenditure ratio wounded warrior provoc project says that figure is really eighty one percent. So let me just add that there’s a dispute over how how you characterize income and that comes to perception. Tony on dh what one of the documents that you mentioned the form nine ninety, which is the annual information return to the irs on dh you’ve had a show on this before it’s, a really important document because it really tells the public, because it’s a public document, uh, about what the organization has been doing all year, and when you put in numbers and descriptions of your activities in that document, the public is going to read it for what it is on dh if you don’t explain some of the nuances behind it and just using wounded warrior project as an example in this time they, you know, wrote in that they had twenty, six hundred twenty six million dollars in expenditures and conferences and meetings, but without explaining that any further that just leaves it opened. Teo misinterpretation, perhaps misinterpretation. The conferences and meetings were really to benefit the veterans and the beneficiaries of the organization rather than to reflect. You know what some people might think, which would be, like kind of staff training and staff parties on dh sort of morale boosting events and that’s, you know, there’s a huge difference between those things and, uh, not anticipating that can really be problematic for organizations. And they could end up spending tons of money on crisis management and dealing with all of the perceptions and misperceptions later on. Yeah, it feels like the wounded warrior project nine ninety was not artfully completed on the show you’re alluding to i don’t have the date of it, but the guest was named eat. Oh, tsh tomb. So if you go to tony martignetti dot com and you search his name, which is why i g t yeah, you’ll find the shows that he was on hey was on. And then i replayed it once, and the subject was your nine. Ninety as a marketing document. And indeed, you know, if if they spent twenty six million dollars of wounded warrior on conferences, but ah, big part of that was a big, big part of that was scholarships for for for the beneficiaries, the wounded. Service people, then that the nine ninety would’ve been a perfect place to say that and, you know, maybe they maybe they shouldn’t have put it in that category. You know, we could argue about whether that’s appropriate to put that number in that line on that line item anyway, but but, you know, you could explain things basically using your nine, ninety as a marketing document because it’s so pervasive, it’s, it’s, it’s, so easy to get it should be on your own site. And it’s it’s definitely a guide star and the i r s and state attorneys general sites. And, yes, it has a lot of uses. And that’s, the first place charity ratings organizations and journalists who are writing investigative pieces about charity’s often run for something bad that’s the first place they go on. So when organizations reviewed in nine, ninety and i’m probably reiterating what your former guests, it said, but when the review is, you have to think not only of it is a marketing tool for good purposes, but also for defensive marketing, because if it’s misinterpreted or leads to easy, miss miss perceptions of what the organization is doing with their money that’s totally avoidable by explaining it further. Yeah, and then you have a goodwill problem in a public relations crisis and that’s what wounded warrior project is mired in right now? And i’m glad. It’s, you know, it was very timely because it’s all just broke last week. Um all right, you know, so we could refer back to them if if if you think that’s valuable but let’s, let’s talk about some of the categories of good overhead. And i know one that you believe in is education for board and employees. Yeah, i think that’s a really important one. You know, you and you want invest in education for a few reasons, but the first one is to make sure the organization is run effectively and efficiently, not just on the administrative side but on the programmatic side as well. So you want dahna sufficiently informed boardmember executive staff and volunteers who can deliver programs in the best way possible for their intended beneficiaries. And if you want to be innovative, if you want to just sort of raised the bar to providing services in a better way, you’ve got to invest in that and you got to make sure your staff is prepared on well educated and sufficiently equipped to deliver those services. So investing in education, i’m just a very strong proponent of that and that so that’s professional development like conferences and, you know, travel and meals and things like that could have been aboard retreat mean there’s value in that? Yeah, absolutely there is, and they can be misused some of those things and, you know, again how you frame that in your nine, ninety or on your web outside about what you’re investing in when you when you make certain expenditures, is really important to say you’re investing in your team so you could deliver the best programs possible to the most people possible in the most effective way possible, looking for innovative ways to do things better. That’s what you have to say, all right? And now lets you know i’m going to get into splitting hairs a little bit, but, you know, if you have the wherewithal toe, have your onboarding treat or your staff retreat at a at a nice place, i mean, there’s, nothing wrong with being, you know and like, ah, hilton hotel or a western or you know, is there, but but maybe you don’t need to go to ritz carlton. Yeah, i think that’s a good point and that’s kind of like whether you’re goingto pay for everybody to travel in first class, business class or coach and it may depend in part on what type of organization you are. So if you’re an anti poverty organization, it’s a little bit sometimes problematic if you’re if you’re celebrating kind of an event at a five star hotel, although if it’s really based on, you know, training on doing things better, there could be an exception to that. So it really depends upon again what purposes you have for putting it in tow kind of that luxury category if you are with with, you know, veterans organizations where there’s always not enough resources to provide tio some of our most who we say, our some of our most valued citizens of our country and you know, but we don’t always act that way in terms of providing services that there’s some sensitivity there a ce toe how how luxurious their lavish your stack retreats or board retreats or your travel expenses should be yeah, yeah, you know, but sort of on the other side or, you know, it’s really related it’s, um, you know, smaller organizations, teo can’t be as effective as, you know, ah, wounded warrior project type organization with with the three hundred forty two million dollars that they raise the last year that we know, you know, even i don’t know it feels like even if it’s only sixty percent, which does seem low, but even if it’s only sixty percent of sixty percent of such a large number, you know, a smaller organization with a half a million dollar budget if they’re spending ninety percent on program who i’m having a hard time gene, i mean, who’s doing more for vets? Yeah, i mean, let’s talk about fund-raising good overhead they think that’s near endeared tio what you do as well. And, you know, i think there’s their legitimate issues there, and i think, you know, investing and fund-raising is really important, but i think there are limits as well. So, you know, the question might be, is it worth spending or investing? I should say ten cents to make an extra dollar, and i think most of us would just say you know, yeah, of course it would be, then there’s a question about whether it would be worth investing ninety cents to make an extra dollars. So you only netting ten, ten cents for for programs there on dh on dh, then that’s, maybe more questionable. Now there, times when you’re just starting a brand new fund-raising program and in the first year where it maybe that’s what it takes to develop this new structure because you want to do it properly, you want to do it legally. You want to make sure everybody’s up to speed and doing it, and it takes time to develop these relationships and donor engagement. So maybe you’re one ninety, ninety percent fund-raising expenses. Okay, but year after year, i think most of us would be upset by that number. So how you invest in fund-raising? Depends on what type of organization ur depends on what stage you are in with that fund-raising campaign or solicitation early stages you got invest more later stages. Is it’s more mature? You don’t expect that high high ratio again. So is it’s it’s nuanced? For sure? What do you think, tony? Yeah, i think we ought to. Take a break, but we’re going. I’m not going to ignore your question, but i agree with you. Let’s, go away and jean, i’ll come back. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy, tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m jonah helper, author of date your donors and you’re listening to tony martignetti, not non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. It’s time for live listener love did you think i forgot? Perish the thought live listener love going out cozza dero, california! Chicago, illinois st louis, missouri! Maplewood, new jersey. I’m hanging out in new jersey these days. New bern, north carolina. I’ll be hanging out more there. Ah, not too far. Mag adore ohio live listener love let’s stay in the u s new york, new york cool! Thank you, new york and philadelphia p a i love it, let’s! Go abroad! Mexico city, mexico live listener love, locate al uh, good afternoon, bonem bonem start is tokyo is with us and kyoto. Konnichi wa iran is with us. I love we can’t see your city, iran, but we know you’re there live listener loved to iran, italy, pesaro labbate lots of live listeners today and there’s more to it. We got o sole and young son in south korea on your haserot thank you, jeanne, for that indulgence. Oh, wait, i’m sorry, jean. I’ve got to do podcast pleasantries. How could i forget? Perish the thought over ten thousand listeners podcast, whatever time, whatever place, whatever device pleasantries to the podcast listeners and the affiliate affections to our am and fm stations throughout the country am and fm stations squeezing non-profit radio into their weekly timetable whenever it is affections out to the am and fm affiliate listeners. Thank you, jean it’s. Important tio recognize our our listener donors? Uh, fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for that indulgence. Okay, so you asked me a question. What do i think about this? Um, yeah, i agree. I think it’s very fact sensitive. And i go back to if you’re if you think you might have trouble, explain it on your nine. Ninety, i guess. That’s that’s the best i can do. Yeah. Or your website, but definitely give us some context that we just don’t openly criticize it. Yeah, yeah, on dh. We don’t. Right, because if you don’t, if you don’t explain it, then people will have to draw their own conclusions. Witness what’s happening at wounded warrior. Okay. Let’s, let’s. Ah, delve into another good overhead area that you’ve got for us. What else you like? Sure. Well, i like paying employees a decent wage. That obviously hot topic these days. And, you know, even if that might be higher than the market forces dictates. So you know if it’s above minimum wage and those employees might be hired, you know, for minimum wage anyway, well, maybe that’s not the right thing to do especially, you know, depending upon the type of organization you are, maybe just paying a livable wage is really important and consistent with your mission and very important in terms of recruitment and retention. So in the long run, when we talk about wages and determining what a reasonable wages under those circumstances, you’ve got to be mission focused as well, and not just martignetti just let market forces determine where you set your wages, and if you are concerned about executive compensation, gene and i, jean, you and i have talked about this. You can you could search for executive compensation at tony martignetti dot com. We can also pick my social security number. Is there? Um, good luck with it and and you’ll find where jean and i talked about the executive calm because there’s all kinds of there’s, a there’s, a rebuttable presumption and things you can do to make sure that your executive comp is fair and appropriate. Raging yeah, absolutely. And maybe one one. No two wounded warriors. Well, when you’re talking about executive comp position of a huge, massive sized organization, you can’t equate that teo executive compensation in a tiny organization, so there has to be some reasonable understanding of that, and we have to educate everybody about that as well. Yeah, yeah, i saw the wounded warrior ceo is paid roughly half a million dollars a year. I think that maybe that was twenty fourteen. And to me, that doesn’t seem bad. I mean, he’s managing a five hundred person, three hundred forty million dollars a year organization. But but there have to be things in place too, too, that the board has done to justify that salary compensation for the ceo. And jean and i covered those on that show. You could search for executive compensation. Um, i like technology, gene, technology, infrastructure. Do you have to keep up and you do maybe not wood like the latest iphones for all your staff. But you have to, you know, be aware that old technology khun lied to inefficiencies on the lack of innovation and in a new technology, could allow for more effective and efficient ways to deliver services and engage in advocacy measure. Impact we talk a lot about measuring impact now, but you know, some some old forms of doing things that don’t lead easily to being ableto monitor those things without an extensive amount of paperwork and old system. So i mean new technologies you fund-raising and communicating with donors and engaging supporters and finding new donors, staying up with technology and investing in technology is very, very important. And as you invest in technology and get more data data protection, that is also going to be important, and you don’t want to invest in one without the other, okay, um, there’s another category that ah, i want to talk about building engagement and collaboration among employees, volunteers. Boardmember yeah, i think that’s also really important again for recruitment and retention. That’s important mint internally for collaborations outside, i think so many non-profits get told, you know you’ve got to collaborate more because that will help us, you know, gaugin and get collective impact that’s a hot button term that’s that’s been used over the last couple years, and collaboration really isn’t port knowing what your allies and competitors, if you will in the market are doing and the best way. To do that is to invest in that because those things don’t just bubble up by chance and what they really need investment. So it’s like any relationship, tony, i guess, uh, you know, when two people want to develop a relationship with each other, it’s not just sort of overnight, and you don’t invest anything in helping each other and listening to each other, you’ve got to put time and resource is into it and that’s very true for organizations that are wishing to collaborate on dh i think in terms of, you know, engagement with employees, i think the quality of your work place, you know, you want to have people, you know, they don’t want the desks don’t have to all be donated. And, you know, you should have a nice workplace professional that people come to day in and day out. Yeah, and i think that’s the education and training actually it’s helpful as well for creating job satisfaction and again, recruitment and retention are affected by that, and that ultimately effects on how well you deliver services so that’s all tied together. So when we talk about overhead and you’ve had shows on the overhead myth as well i’m just a strong proponent that overhead is a very, very bad way to assess whether an organization is doing well or not. You alluded to that earlier this program as well. There there are better ways that teo assessing organization and while overhead ratio is may be an important factor. The most important factors impact like you said, so if an organization like wounded warriors project is putting in hundreds of millions of dollars helping veterans, even though its program ratio might not be as high as some people like that impact may be important and not easily replaceable. But doing gino, we just have a minute left and actually forbade overhead. I’m going to refer listeners if you want to get the categories of bad overhead. Gene and i talked about that on the september six twenty thirteen show i’m selecting toe just deal with good overhead, and we just have about another like thirty seconds or so genes. Can you say a little about risk management in about thirty seconds? Sure. So i think i’ll summarize it by saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Are the old saying that our parents, our grandparents, had told us and that’s what risk management is all about it on the board level, it’s creating policies and on the management level, it may be implementing and enforcing policies because it’s no good, i have a policy and with you enforce it. So make sure you’ve got directions, rules and guidelines for your staff and your volunteers and anybody that’s, that’s, you know, helping you further your mission. Jean takagi, managing editor, managing attorney at neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group you’ll find him on twitter at g tak gt a k thank you so much, gene. Thanks, sonny. Wonderful to talk with pleasure. Thank you. Next week. Do you know the-whiny-donor on twitter she’s at the-whiny-donor and she’s. Going to be with me. Plus, amy sample ward returns. She returns willingly. No whining by amy if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? And i’m still not sure about that. For twenty sixteen. Responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation feature. Crowdster dot com. Our creative producers, claire miree off sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin doll is our am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by dina russell, and our music is by scott stein. Thank you for that affirmation, scotty. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Hey! What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of nasco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.