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Your Decade Plan For Planned Giving

If you start your Planned Giving fundraising program this year, you won’t believe how much you can achieve by the end of the decade. Here’s your plan for getting there. 

Nonprofit Radio for October 16, 2015: Stop Pointing Fingers At Tech & Hiring Geeks

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Tracy Kronzak, Robert Weiner, Marc Baizman & Dahna Goldstein: Stop Pointing Fingers At Tech

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(l-r) Tracy Kronzak, Robert Weiner, Marc Baizman and Dahna Goldstein at the Nonprofit Technology Conference 2015

Are you blaming technology when the problems are people and processes? Organizational introspection takes leadership. You’ll get encouragement from Tracy Kronzak at BrightStep, Robert Weiner, consultant, Marc Baizman with Salesforce, and Dahna Goldstein from Altum. We talked at NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).

 

 

 

 

Amy Sample Ward: Hiring Geeks

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Amy Sample Ward shares strategies for hiring technologists if you’re not technical: job descriptions; interviewing; testing; and onboarding. She’s our social media contributor and CEO of NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network. (Originally aired August 15, 2014).

 

 


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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 thrown into imperil polices if you tried to sell me the idea that you missed today’s show, stop pointing fingers at tech are you blaming technology when the problems are people and processes? Organisational introspection takes leadership and you’ll get encouragement from tracy kronzak at brightstep robert winer, consultant mark baizman with sales force and dahna goldstein from altum we talked at ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference hosted by and ten non-profit technology network and hiring geeks. Amy sample ward, ceo of inten, shares strategies for hiring technologists if you’re not technical job descriptions, interviewing, testing and onboarding she’s, also our social media contributor that originally aired on august fifteenth twenty fourteen on tony’s take to your chance to win an ipad air we’re sponsored by pursuing they’re the ones giving away the ipad full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com here is stop pointing fingers at tech from welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fifteen it’s day two of the non-profit technology conference in austin, texas, where at the convention center i’m highlighting swag one one item each each interview and today is right now this interviews the hat from from that is from neon neon c r m thank you for your swag donation goes in the pile. My guests are dahna goldstein, tracy kronzak, mark baizman and robert winer. And the topic is what to do when technology isn’t your problem, and i’m gonna introduce a little different because this is there for them. I want to start with who’s sitting right next to me is tracy kronzak and she is co founder of brightstep partners, then robert winer, president of robert l weinger consulting, and we have mark baizman customers success director for sales force foundation. But a lot of talk about sales force today how generous they are. Ten free non-profit licenses and then and then maybe like a puppy free like a puppy and then deeply discounted beyond ten very generous and dahna goldstein, director of philanthropy solutions for altum and i want dahna tracy, welcome back. Thank you, robert and mark. Welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you on non-profit radio and Mark is taking 14 the team by by being the stand e we want you in. We only have three mikes on non-profit radio it’s fine. I need to work off those breakfast tacos that we are standing. This is your this is your exercise. I’m you need to have a corporate exercise program. It’s not a fun russian. I’m just saying that no. Okay, what to do in technology isn’t your problem. Treyz kronzak what is the problem here? What? Why is technology getting blamed? Technology gets blamed because when an organization picks up a new tools such a sales force ah ah lot of times it doesn’t necessarily consider the full range of the people, the processes and the adoption techniques required to put it into place. So, you know, you get this great new shiny tool and what happens either very quickly or overtime, that it doesn’t meet your needs. You don’t know why, and ultimately people are just is angry with the new thing as they were the old thing, and we haven’t had a larger organizational discussion around. Why it’s important to understand yourself? Understand the context of what you’re working in and understanding your own limitations and capacity to really adopt technology, and that includes change. Change yourself, change how you operate and change your future. Planning to account for the technology that you’ve adopted. Okay, but what do we do with the sort of overviews stage robert you wantto want to contribute? So i think in addition to everything, tracy just talked about a vision of what success means and how to reach success. What are the ingredients for actually getting there? It’s not just like buying a new car. And you sit in it and you turn the key. And if it’s got gas in it, it should move forward. It’s not that simple. There are a lot of moving parts of that that either the non-profit or the vendor or a consultant needs to configure in order for the system to work and that’s so easy to neglect mark overviewing time. Ultimately it comes down to people and as we know, people are fuzzy and hard to work with and fun and wonderful, good and and and are great. But throwing technology at things like people, problems and process problems is goingto not fix the problem and you’re going to end. Up, you know, unhappier and maybe spending a lot of money and a lot of time dahna sounds like we need some organizational introspection. We do need some organizational introspection, which is a challenging thing for a lot of organizations to dio, you know, when we’ve all had experiences where it’s so easy to point at the technology as the problem and say this database just doesn’t work for the web site isn’t working, it isn’t doing what we needed to do. The organizational introspection aspect of that is to say, you know what? We made the wrong decisions, we don’t have the right process is in place, sometimes we don’t have the right people in place, those air difficult conversations to have it’s challenging to stephen carr about the timeto have those conversations, but there is sometimes a necessary recognition the way that we’re doing things has not been the right way, so we need to change the way that we’re doing things so that we don’t get ourselves into this type of situation again. And as we as we were talking, i want to encourage you to just jump in don’t wait for me to, you know, call. On let’s have a conversation we’ll get robert yeah, one of the alternate titles for the session was management problems to skies this technology problems ah ah there’s a good subtitle so a new piece of technology is not going to fix a broken management system, a broken culture or the lack of communication between people or departments. It in fact, will often magnify those problems and make them worse. When we identified mark, you want ta, i’d just be remiss if i didn’t say by the way, this is not unique to non-profits right, this is endemic to any organization, and i’ve spent some time in the for-profit sector and if anything, it’s just a cz eft up there is it isn’t a nano constructor that’s as far as we can go when the expletives because now noted thank you. Wait, we had trouble last year, but non-profit radio was not terrestrial then, but now it is we have am and fm affiliates, so i don’t want you don’t want the way we have to keep it clean that’s, right? Also teo thing that i would point out is sometimes the best managerial decision that your organization can make. When it comes to adopting new technology is actually to say no say, no, we’re not going to do this right now because we have these other things to solve, we have to solve how are people work together, our common understanding of what these things mean that we’re putting into the technology and, you know, we have to put the right sponsorship in place in our organization, it’s not enough for a managerial team to say go ahead and make these things happen, you know? Non-profit leaders today must be fluent in technology, and if they’re not there is remis is if they’re not fluent in finances, hr or other, you know, key functions of an organization, this introspection is going to be very, very hard, though, tracy, what you’re suggesting is out ah, yeah, incredibly, very much needed essential, but that doesn’t sound likely that an organization is going to say, well, that a ceo is going to say, you know, we’ve got these organizational issues we need to deal with these before we try to apply a technology solution. Well, it’s certainly not gonna happen overnight. This has to be an ongoing problem. Awareness is helping this. Awareness is the necessary first for step in having conversations with with colleagues and sometimes colleagues outside your your organization. One of the things that we think both challenging and an opportunity is that it khun frequently be the person who’s in the techie rule who has an opportunity to really push those conversations forward, that if the management or the leadership of the organization, it doesn’t have the level of awareness of the problem or is sort of trying, teo put technology solutions in place where it’s not really a technology problem, the technology person, whether it’s next-gen all techie or staff for director, has an opportunity to help frame that conversation. And one of the things that we’ve talked about before that is could be a really interesting exercise. You know, one of the things it needs to happen if you’re being pushed in the wrong direction or if you think that you’re being pushed in the wrong direction, if leadership is taking things in a technology direction without having an understanding of the risks, the problems, the process issues that maybe underlying you may as the tech you want to say no, this is a really bad idea and there’s ah, sort of easy technique that one can try that actually comes from the improv world of rather than saying no, these people don’t respond well to know particularly d’s or ceos or whoever may be, you know, sort of up the organizational food chain. So if you’re in the rule where you’re being asked to do something and you see that there’s a problem rather than saying now that’s a terrible idea frame the know as yes, and so yes, i hear what you’re saying, and you can then move the direction in the conversation that you want to move it. This is more of a tactical kind of thing to do than a strategic kind of thing to do, but in terms of starting to shift the conversation, starting to shift that change in the or organisational dynamics that’s one concrete thing that people who may not be in a position of objective authority khun due to start moving the conversation in the right direction. One of the other things i think that’s really helpful is having leadership kind of paint the picture of what success actually looks like and then getting under the hood. And saying, ok, so how are we going to measure that? So talking about the theory and the strategy of okay, this is, you know, the desired and state of, you know what the technology implementation is designed to achieve? And then how are we going to measure that end state and perhaps the progress along the way so that, you know, we know that at the end of this, we’ll be spending, you know, one hour poor grant proposal instead of three days or something to that effect that’s a metrics to it that air unreviewable that’s, right? Yeah. Okay, okay, 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. Robert, but at the big picture level, if this were easy, we wouldn’t be bothering with this session for the purpose of this session is to say this is hard, you’re not alone, you’re not the only non-profit techie or accidental techie who has ever faced this kind of situation before. And here are some tips and techniques that you can take home and use when you’re faced with this kind of situation, which you certainly will be okay before we get koegler treyz oh, i was because they just remember to technology doesn’t have feelings, you know, technology doesn’t have quirks, it doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t have exceptional people dio, but people do and, you know, the trick of every technologist is to take an organization that is driven by a heart and match it to a tool that has no heart, you know, technology has a lot of other things working for it, but one thing it doesn’t do is express feelings, so, you know, when you’re a non-profit it’s really hard sometimes when you have a bunch of feelings about tools that you don’t necessarily understand latto have these conversations around well before we get to something that’s going to force us to standardize? You know, we need teo understand what we’re even standardizing around. Some people don’t use the same terminology for things like what’s a donor what’s the household what’s the household, the basic definitions where well, caitlin’s been doing it this way forever. But, you know, jim does it this other way so let’s actually get together and talk about that stuff and that hashing out in those conversations, maybe the technology person is the one who has to facilitate those conversations, which let’s face it. Technology people maybe aren’t the best folks to be doing that. Yeah. All right. Can we identify some symptoms of organisational malays or where we want to call them that way that exists, but technologies being blamed, we have some symptoms around this way. We do have some red flag phrases is what we call them in our in our session, and i’ll let i’ve been talking a lot. So let’s, let me turn it over to my other co presenters. I mean, we could just toss some of them out, but one of them is, you know, my my va boardmember who used this solution in his for-profit company and thinks it’s going to be perfect for us. Another one is. This tool is free. I used it at my last non-profit, which is utterly unlike my current non-profit, but it was great there, okay, another one is, can you make it looked just like the thing we’re leaving, or can you make it happen in three weeks? Can you make it match the are broken business processes, okay, you got one more because you were doing through one that’s. Good, ok, ok. That was quicker than i thought i was going to be all right for the symptoms part. What about after the technology’s already been adopted? We’ve already we’ve spent the time and the money to go through the due diligence process we’ve brought in all the important stakeholders from end users, toe board members who get quarterly reports, the technologies we paid for it, it’s it’s in our office and it’s being blamed. Now, now, where do we stand? So my response to that is what is your ongoing investment in the technology and that’s dollars? That’s also people and time, right, which are all essentially the same thing if you think that by flipping the switch on day one and, you know, sending people to a training class or getting a bunch of folks you know, around ah presentation screen, you’re fooling yourself that that is all you need to dio you really need to have a comprehensive plan of post launch adoption, you’ll need to have things like open lunch and learns you’ll really need to invest in the success of the technology. When you have a car, you don’t just expect that the thing is gonna work. Forever you got to take it in and get its oil changed and, you know, get the air filters and all that nonsense. Why should it be any different with this type of technology? Okay, more? Yeah, the problem is to is that, you know, we’ve entered an era where, you know, consumer technology and what we call enterprise technology are kind of becoming merge together and, you know, the expectations of a lot of folks have been reduced in terms of the complexity of adopting technology. So, you know, i have an iphone and i press a button and things happen a million won, i cannot exactly, and the thing is, is that when you’re working from that framework, you don’t realize that, you know, pulling together a sales force database or adopting any kind of cr, um or, you know, even just turning on a social media kind of community for your organization. It’s, not a button click it’s a very long tail operation, it requires ongoing maintenance, and if your expectation is is you’re going to open it up and have it just the same way that i opened up a word and have a word document. Or, you know, press a button on my iphone and get the weather, then you’re not really considering, you know, the full capability of your technology and where a lot of organizations stomach and all its implication exactly, and where they stumble sometimes is there, like, we have eighteen thousand dollars to do this, we’re going to spend all eighteen thousand dollars getting it done and never consider that next year they might need to spend another four thousand dollars just to keep the darn thing running, you know, or we have zero dollars to do this whole thing and, oh, my gosh, it doesn’t work the free thing that we got stinks. Yeah, and of course, right, what have you invested in it in from, you know, do you have somebody who’s actually trained on how to use the free thing? No. Okay, well, of course it sucks and you asked about what do you do when you’ve got the technology and you hate it, but where we’re re budding that in saying before you turn the technology on, you need to take these steps? You need to go first, you need to go through a needs assessment to make sure it’s really the right technology. Second, you need to manage expectations that this is not a magic wand, that you’re going to turn it on, and life is going to be perfect and third, that you need to go through a change management adoption process so that people are on board with what the decision wass why you bought this technology, how you’re going to use it, how it’s going to change your life in the organization and that there’s ongoing support and training so that you’re successful, not just on day one, but into the future. Yeah, and i’ve had a couple of, i guess talk about and panels talk about the importance of having all the stakeholders involved from ah, when you’re at the stage of just questioning whether the existing technology needs to be replaced, the answer that maybe no and that’s that’s what you’re all talking about, it subsumed in that in that possible, no, absolutely, and i would take that even a step further that the question to ask isn’t necessarily whether the technology needs to be replaced, but what is the business need that’s being met or unmet by the technology and then, is there a better way that that business needs mission driven business? Need khun b met through a different technological solution through a process change, but i think a lot of where organizations end up going wrong is finding a solution, and then sort of looking for the problem to have it fit that work’s never four, they’re in so much pain that anything new looks viable on dh that’s also a very dangerous position from which to operate on. And in fact, this very expo hall that we sit in is full of solutions and glossy brochures to problems that you may or may not have, and i mean there’s a hyre forcing her for what down is describing to and that’s called business process reengineering. But the very simple explanation for that term is that when you adopt a new tool, you know that tool has a certain way of operating, and it has parameters under which you can change, customize and adopted to how your organization behaves, but at the end of the day, those parameters are not infinite. You have to adopt to the tool that you are purchasing or requiring or building just a cz much as the tool itself can be adopted to how you do business and meeting in the middle like that, organizations don’t consider the real time and energy and effort and money that it requires to do that, so they turn the lights on with a new tool and the tool doesn’t meet their needs because they haven’t ever thought about like how their needs are going to match what this new tools providing for them? And we’re not saying that technology is never the problem. Sometimes your technology truly does stink, but that’s that’s a fraction of the problems that i’ve seen in twenty plus years of consulting with non-profits ah lot of the time, the technology may be perfectly fine, and but you can’t possibly make it work with your current business processes or your current staffing skillsets another possibility is the existing technology could be modified without having to bring in something wholesale, new and different or or amended. You can add some new piece of technology on top of your current systems in order to get through some period until you can afford to make a change or afford to hire new staff or upgrade. Their skillsets and that that continues teo back to what we sort of refer to as three legs of a triangle that when you’re looking at any technology problem, it may present as something that is the actual technology of the database is the wrong database it’s not gonna work for our organization, but the three elements that we encourage people to think about our and this couldn’t happen before you’re adopting a new technology you can happen after you’ve adopted the new technology and it’s not working for you toe look at whether there are people issues and your organisation that air getting in the way to look at whether their process issues that are getting in the way, and to look at whether there are adoption issues that are getting in the way so all of these processes could happen before, during and should happen before, during and after the technology adoption. So if you’ve gone down, if an organization has gone down the wrong path or, you know the technology has been in place for a long time and the needs have changed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to jettison the technology. But tracy was talking about business process, re engineering, it’s a matter of understanding what the business needs are where the current tool is falling short, but looking at it again from those business needs perspective rather than what can we massage and the technology to sort of take advantage of the latest and greatest features? What do we actually need? Is this technology solution goingto meet those needs? How are we making the decisions? Have we budget at her appropriately for this? Do we have the right support in place for our users? Is this helping us further our mission? Are we doing this because it looks fancy or because of boardmember told us to, so there are a lot of problems, and they’re a lot of things that can get in the way of making the right decisions, but we really want to emphasize the importance of looking at people processes. Adoption is lord let’s, talk about some some process in this introspection uh, endeavour exercise that we talked about earlier, how does this way we’re already talking about, really how the conversation should get started coming from different levels, but how are we going to actually do this evaluation of what’s our what’s, our what! R r really problems and needs. Nobody so robert so and this conference and our world, our non-profit world has a lot of consultant’s speaking as one, but a lot of vendors as well who are really smart about these things, and you frequently don’t have the experience within your organization because at least the kinds of big projects we’re talking about, you don’t go through every day. You might go through them once every five years, once every ten years, once every twenty years, so you don’t have the on the ground day to day experience of going through this kind of needs assessment selection, adoption implementation changed management process so you may need outside help in order to get through this, you may need outside fresh blood in the organization, on staff who have experience with these kinds of issues, but we’re not saying that if you’ve made these mistakes and hit a wall that you know, your life is over and you might as well just turn off the lights, there are people who are smart enough to bail you out. I will also, i’d be remiss if i didn’t direct folks to the idealware dot org’s website, which is really a fantastic resource, i like to think of it as the consumer reports. Yeah, very much so. And it’s, where i direct a lot of folks who are just getting started, obviously, because as i work for the sales for its foundation, a lot of folks come to me and ask me about sales force and it’s sort of like, hey, do i need, you know, do i need this lexus? And, you know, maybe i don’t know what? Where you going? Yeah, maybe you need a bike and you need a scooter. I don’t know. So i direct folks to idealware to do a little bit of a deeper dive into their into their actual needs and idealware has done a great job of there’s a selecting a donor management system workbook, which is, you know, sort of telling you i didn’t know about the workbook. I just know about the objective evaluation, so the evaluation stuff is great, but there’s a work book, which really, it steps you through. I think maybe not as advanced a level is what robert would dio but the same type of thing where you could kind of take that internally to your organization and you know, ask some of those questions to folks. Okay, excellent resource. Thanks, mark, i also want to point out to you that, you know, in the five years or so that i’ve been doing sales force consulting and working with organizations to implement sales horse is a real tool. You know, i’ve heard so many times, yes, we understand that’s how the real world does it, but we are very special, and our our process is very different, and we’re very special snowflake way, our very special snowflake. And are you? Are you frozen water? Yeah, let it go and and that’s the problem with saying that it’s because, like, you know, to pick on a very easy, easy process like fund-raising there are many national organizations, you know, that are designed around helping non-profits understand standard fund-raising behaviour and how that should be treated in an organization. So, you know, when i go in and i hear something really exceptional, i’m like, why are you so exceptional when the best practice for fund-raising is this this and this? And sometimes it’s azizi is asking that question internally? Like, why do we think we’re so exceptional? And sometimes there are really exceptional things like we distribute, you know, books to homeless folks and and that’s a very small a special thing, but that’s got nothing to do with how an organization, specifically a non-profit should operate and the best practices around that operation. So if your organization is divergent from how the industry operates, that’s a really good place to start in realigning yourself to how you actually literally conduct business, because all of these tools that mark mentioned are designed around the best practice of non-profit operations and start your own work start there is, too just be sure that you understand how your organization does things, you know, from a diagnostic perspective frequently, i don’t know things just sort of happened. I make this decision, and then i send it to this other department, and somebody approved something and, you know, then it’s done something that organizations can do internally is take a representative sample from across the organization and just document how things actually happen, whether you’re bringing in a consultant, whether you’re working with within idealware resource, whether you have the capacity on staff to be able to do the kind of documents generation and then maybe in our p if that’s where you end up heading that simple process of just documenting where things are now could be really, really enlightening. And robert robert gets the last word and just have a couple seconds left. In addition to the resource that mark talked about, we have a discussion lists on and ten there discussion lists on tech soup. There’s, the progressive exchange. There are lists where you can ask other people. This is how we do it at my organization. Does this make sense? Has your commendation power of us hub, salesforce, foundation and power of us hub. That that’s part of the sales force foundation. Okay. All right. Excellent. Thank you very, very much. I love it. Thank you so much, my player. Thank you. My pleasure. All ofyou. They are. Tracy kronzak cofounder brightstep partners. Robert winer ah, president of robert ell weinger consulting mark baizman consumers success director for sales force foundation and dahna goldstein, director of philanthropy solutions for altum ale to you, m thank you again very much. Twenty martignetti non-profit radio courage of ntcdinosaur profit technology conference. Thank you for being with us. Tony’s take two and hiring. Geeks coming up first. Pursuant, you need to raise more money. It’s. I understand a constant daily challenge. Your fundraisers have goals to keep fund-raising on track from pursuant there is velocity, one of their tools. This one keeps fund-raising your fundraisers productive. They they actually develop this as an internal tool for pursuing fund-raising consultant, which i love, that it started with their own people. And they found it so valuable for their work with clients that they’re rolling it out to non-profits to use for themselves to manage fund-raising goals so you don’t need a campaign consultant to use a campaign consultants tool. That’s velocity keeps fund-raising on track. You’re getting the productivity tool that pursuing consultants use at pursuant dot com my video this week is your chance to win an ipad air, and by the way, i’m in mexico in that video it’s a survey from pursuant to improve velocity, they want to make it even better, and i’m asking you to help them out by taking their survey and you get a chance to win the ipad air. The link is under the video at tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday sixteenth of october forty first show of the year, and here is hiring geeks with amy sample ward amy sample ward you know her she’s, the ceo of non-profit technology network and her most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere her blog’s, amy sample ward dot org’s and she’s at amy rs ward on twitter kayman sample word hi, how are you? I’m doing terrific, lee well, how are you? Good, good. I don’t know how it’s august but i’m fine other than the incredibly swift passing of time. Yes, i know thirty second show of the year already. Holy cow and argast yes and mid august already. I know, but are you enjoying your summer? Yeah, i it feels like a vacation because i haven’t had to travel since the middle of june. So many people travel during summer and it is their vacation. But for me, it’s been a wonderful vacation of staying at home and having plans locally. Excellent way. Enjoy our summers, each of us, the way the way we like that’s. Very good. Portland summer in portland is the place to be so it’s hard it’s. Hard to leave when it’s the most perfect time of year here. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, i got a visit. You out there sometime. I got to come to our oregon. I’ve never been to oregon. Um, i know, i know, but i want to go. I really do want to go pacific northwest. Absolutely. I want to wash. I’ll believe it when i see it. Okay. All right. What do you think this is what you think of this panel of three ladies from it’s? Great. You know, it’s really interesting. Something that we were reflecting on a staff after the conference to was, you know, it’s. Not a brand new conversation, talking about supporting different groups. Different communities either in within the inten community, at larger or in the tech sector in the nonprofit sector. But what we’re reflecting on really is the way those conversations have taken shape and changed over the years, and this last year really felt like this was the ntc where there were multiple formal sessions opportunities like you presented, where you folks could come talk, talk to you and have their their stories and their ideas shared more broadly, but also a lot of kind of ad hoc meetings at lunch where they would say, everybody come to the table if you want to have this conversation or let’s meet, you know it at the reception tonight and so many conversations about how do we how do we do more to get more people like us or more people like you or more people that know how to do acts? You know, how do we get more people into this community? And i think that’s really exciting and really interesting that that it’s at a place where it doesn’t have to feel like, oh, this is kind of a controversial topic, you know? We’re gonna have to go over here. In secret and have this conversation, but that it such an open, you know, we really want to create a space in this community that is inclusive and is welcoming, and part of that is creating a great community. But the other part is saying, we have to go out there and make those invitations, you know, you can’t just say, i want to have the best dinner party and make all the food if you haven’t invited anyone to come over, so so i’m excited that the community is kind of at that space where it’s ready to go out there, think about how we’re creating community in inside this space, but also go out and make introductions and invitations and welcome new people in cool. I’m glad so this feels like a watershed year for you on dh yeah, it’s exciting, and i think it really inspired a lot of staff to feel like they’re not the only ones, you know, getting to see that there’s opportunity to bring more people in because, you know, staff when when we know that there’s so many community members out there, but we don’t see them because we’re just in the office? I think the ntc really inspired them and reminded them, you know, there are all of these people out there and we can invite more people evil in its going to be great instead of thinking that it’s kind of just us, you know, tucked away in the office that’s outstanding. And i’m glad i was a part of it. You feel like it was your baby. You’ll have me back next year. Yeah, well, we’ll see. Yes. All right. I’ll see you when i e i’ll believe it when i see it. I believe that recently. So over there at ntc, you get a lot of enquiries about bringing people literally into your organization. Hiring who are technologists? Yes. Oh, so you have some advice around let’s? Start with the the job description. Yeah, i think you know, this is especially the question we get asked the most. You know, we know that we need someone to do manage all of our attacker to help us with our website. But that’s what? That’s? What? All that we know. You know, we just know that we need somebody that knows more than we dio. So how do we write? A job description or where do we even promote the job? Andi so obviously kind of depends on what kind of job it is it’s a website versus maybe on it, director, managing all kinds of systems, et cetera. But there’s still some some basic steps that everybody can take, no matter what technical job they’re trying to fail. And first is to remember that you don’t necessarily need to know all of the jargon and the acronyms and the web two point oh, everything. What you do need to know very clearly is what your organization needs on dh what your goals are, who your audience is, you know, if you kind of try to make up for not knowing by filling, you know, job description with a bunch of technical terms, but you’ve never put in there. You know what we really need our systems that can talk to each other, someone who doesn’t have that integrate asian expertise is not going to apply. They’re not going to know that’s what you’re looking for. So knowing what your goals are that kinds of tools that may be necessary to meet your mission, knowing that and being very clear. About that is going to serve you more than, you know, trying to do an internet search for a bunch of jargon. Ok, so so that that’s that’s the first caveat reminder on dh then also, before you start putting that job description together, there’s a great opportunity to talk to everyone inside the organization pull in from from what they know in their own job, you know, what do they need? What what tools are they using that they think need to be updated or and this is not like, oh, there’s, you know, so and so, who just personally doesn’t like this one tool we use not a preference kind of, uh, list, but here’s something that’s really stopping me in my work, you know, here’s something that isn’t serving me to do my job and created a bit of an internal needs versus wants assessment because when you look at that and you can say, will hear things that may be a bunch staff want, but they’re not the priority items of this, you know, kind of three or four things on our really critical needs list that’ll help you decide howto prioritize things both on the job description and when you’re looking at applicants, so if you see someone has, you know, a really great experience but saying their most experienced in isn’t on that needs list, you know, it’s it’s like, wow, that’s, great it’s really cool project you did once, but it’s not what we’re looking for. It’ll help you feel like you’re not just getting kind of dazzled by all of the shiny things on their resume, but you know what to look for, at least what? To prioritize a zafar their experience or specific skills. All right, so a lot of the information that you need you already have. You just start a conversation inside. Exactly. Okay, okay. What? Anything else for the for putting together the job description? Well, another thing that i would suggest and it’s not going to be perfect. Of course you’re still going to want to edit it and make sure it’s, you know, meets your needs is an organization, but i’ve seen very few jobs that have never been, you know, hired for before there’s very few times where someone has posted a job and i thought, wow, i’ve never seen a job like that you know, i never in my life so so knowing that you probably could go to, you know, idealist dot org’s look where there are millions of job postings for nonprofit organizations and look for a job, title or job description similar to what you’re looking for and just see how other organizations have explained that or how they’ve kind of structured some of the, you know, needs and an experience pieces there’s probably many examples out there just to get you started, especially with, you know, that fear of had i don’t want to say this the wrong way, etcetera. You know, it occurs to me this could all apply if you were hiring ah, consultant as well, yes, i was only thinking of, you know, i was only thinking of the employees, but certainly it all applies on the in that respect to consulting. Yeah, and i would even say it applies when you’re bringing in, uh, like, i contract id, you know, someone on an r f way wantto, you know, designer to dio this project or we want to bring in, you know, on organization and agency to kind of help us with this campaign, like, even those kind of larger than one individual consultant, but still outsourced project still using a process like this because if you can tell them nothing but what you want to dio teo to meet your goals, then you will have at least serve yourself well, instead of trying to anticipate all the things that they might be thinking, you know, you’re hiring either the staff person or this contractor, this consultant because they know more than you on those topics, so let them no more than you on those topics and really be clear about why you want to do those project’s, why you need them to do this work anything else around the job description or i think we should move to starting to interview people. Yeah, let’s, start interviewing people. Well, let’s go, all right, so we’ve got these resumes, and of course, we’re now scanning them based on what our needs are making sure that we’re not we’re not getting attracted by shiny things on resumes that have no relevance to what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to achieve, okay? We were bringing people in, and they’re a lot smarter than us about about the things that we’re trying to hire them for, yes, we’re gonna do so i’ve seen a few different, uh, tactics work well for organizations that really depends on your comfort level, i think, but remembering, of course, that most often or organizations are kind of small enough that the person they’re hiring, whether it’s, a web person or a night person, etcetera isn’t reporting to another technical person, you know, they’re still going to report to maybe the executive director so not feeling that that person has to kind of opt out of the interview process because they don’t know the language again, they do know what all this work is going towards s o they still should be a part of this interview process, especially the the manager, whoever that will be. But i would also encourage people to participate in that interview that are are probably not technical, but will rely on this person, you know, ensuring their systems their great, the development or fund-raising manager is often a great person because they maybe our technical, maybe not, but in many organizations they’re the one’s touching the database the most. And if you’re hiring a technical person who that, you know, maintaining that data basically part of their job again, they might not be the most technical person on staff, but they probably have a deep investment in this tool, working well for them so that they could do their job. So bringing those people in that really care that the tools work well will help in the interview process because, again, even if they don’t know the language, they will be able to test out what it’s like to talk to this person they would be working with you. And if they feel like, you know, they can talk to each other, even if in different languages and still get their points across it’s much better to figure that out and kind of have a feel for what? Talking and working with each other would be like in the interview process than it would be, you know, on day one when they’ve hired, and they’re just getting to meet and realize they can’t talk to each other right versus the she’s kind of condescending to me or, you know, right doesn’t really get me and yes, because you are going to be talking day to day. Once the hyre is made. So how does the person translate what they know the brilliance that they have in there in their niche of technology to the rest of us who were going to be using this technology and hoping it’s all going toe it’s all gonna come together and talk to each other? Exactly. And i like that you use the word translate because i was also going to make a suggestion kind of the other side that i’ve seen folks take in the interviewing process is to find someone that’s kind of a translator or ah ah liaison. So reaching out either to a local non-technical group well, look, look on meet up, there’s. Probably a ton of groups in your city, whether it’s a non-profit tech related group or just, you know, maybe if it’s ah, web person you’re hiring for and you know that you use droop a ll contacting the local drew per droop a ll user group on dh just saying, hey, we’re hiring someone we would love it if we could spend ten minutes on the phone, you know abila volunteer from the group just to help us make sure we have the best questions for this interview, and that way, you kind of bounce the questions that you want to ask, you know, shared the intention of the question and had someone who isn’t. They have no, you, no stake in the game. They’re not applying for the job. They are not part of your organization, that they can say, you know, that’s, probably not the best way to ask it. Or, you know, if i was doing this, i would say it this way so that you feel confident going in your questions, meet your needs, and we’ll speak to this kind of technical component. We gotta go out for a way to go out for a break. And, amy, when we come back, we’ll keep talking about maybe testing and and some onboarding we’ll get that in just a couple of minutes. 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 neo-sage 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 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. All right, amy, where? Ah, we’re past the interview stage and ah, we want to well, yeah, we’ve we’ve decided that we want to move forward with a couple of candidates and, uh, test their skills. How are we going to do this? Well, there are a few different options i’ve seen organizations who, when they’ve kind of brought on that translator to discuss, you know, what air the best interview questions that we could craft for our specific job and organization that they’ve also said, are there some tests that could go with some of these questions or, you know, ways that you would suggest we do this and they get it? It really depends on kind of the suite of skills you’re looking for, but i’ve also seen organizations really successfully say cash, we have this board of directors and a couple of them, you know, workin in larger organizations that haven’t hr department could we ask you to tap your hr department and see if they have a standard set of questions or a standard? You know, couples sets of tests that they used in hiring on dh we can modify those and that way, you know? It’s been used towards success before on dh most, you know, most boardmember zehr happy to say, sure, my h r department will share some of that. Are these are these written tests are online tests. Have you seen i’ve? I’ve seen things where it’s online. It would be usually directly following the interview. So we’ve had the interview. You know, we’ve all been at the table talking, and now, you know, way have ah, laptop set up with this page and can you, you know, walk us through how you would? Okay, as part of, you know, okay, it’s, part of an interview. Yeah, okay. And and that so i would say, even if you don’t have a kind of technical components test, you know, tio assess that side of the skills one of the most i would i would say important test to include in that interview process is to have identified from your staff what staff considered to be, like emergency all hands on deck with a technical issue. So for many organizations, that means, you know, it’s, our end of year fund-raising campaign and the donation page is not working, you know, donate now, button isn’t working, we just sent out an e mail to ten thousand people and donate now doesn’t work that’s like critical all hands on deck. This is an emergency. And so in the interview, actually sharing, you know, this would be an emergency tow us on dh staff would would be communicating in-kind of a crisis mode style walk us through if you came into the office that morning, you know, you walked in the door and a bunch of staff were right there and said, oh, my gosh, the donation pages down the donate now button isn’t working. You have to get this six right away. What would you dio? And if you have a candidate for your job, you know, start coming back with very technical language, even in the interview, you can anticipate that’s how they’re going to, you know, talk in that moment and if staff immediately feel like, well, i’m not getting information, i need him. I’m still frustrated, i’m still in crisis mode. I don’t know what’s happening, you know, it’s probably a good measure of what it would be like if instead they’re saying, great, this is exactly what we’re going to dio this is how long it’s going to take you know, this is when we’re going to be able to know if it’s fixed and people feel like, okay, i know what’s happening even if i can’t fix it, someone is fixing it and it’s going to be okay, you know, it’s it’s an easier way to deal in that actual crisis and maybe a better way to talk through kind of a test quote unquote, in an interview without having to set up non-technical, you know, actual demonstration, okay? You said there were a couple of ways of going about this any any others? Is that it? Is that it? Okay, so let’s say those were probably the most frequent that i see they’re, you know, talking through a situation or including something technical, you know, actually showing them some systems and seeing if they i would say looking that the systems is i’ve at least seen it happen more often when organizations have a little bit more of a custom set up, you know, they’ve done a lot, teo modify their database or they’ve got a website kind of cms that custom to them, and they want to see you. Know, hey, you probably not seen this before because it’s kind of our set up, why don’t you poke around and let’s see how it goes? We just have about a minute and a half left for for onboarding you have some advice about bringing somebody in? Yeah, i think that there’s this, um, sometimes organizations have this feeling that they’ve hired this little person because they’re totally different than everyone else, and they’re just going to go sit at their desk and be technical and somehow do everything all by themselves. But ultimately what that means is they’ve never been oriented toe what everyone does and why they do it and why they need to be maintaining these systems the way they are. So i would say onboarding needs to really focus on including this new technical hyre buy-in all kinds of team meetings, campaign meetings, anywhere where they can really be exposed to the way folks, we’re talking about the tools they used, and they’re able tto learn oh, that people don’t know that we could really set up, you know, the database to do that report for them i can i can help here so they feel. Like they’re a contributing part of the team and not just someone kind of keeping everything running in the background, we’re going to leave it there. Amy, thank you very, very much awesome, thanks so much for my pleasure, amy sample, ward, dot or ge is her sight. And on twitter at amy r s ward live listener love i’m doing it later, but you didn’t think i forgot, did you? You could not have thought that i would forget live listener love were pre recorded, so i can’t send it out by city and state, but love goes out to everybody who is live listening and, of course, affiliate affections. If you’re among those am and fm station listeners across the country affections out to you and all our affiliate stations podcast pleasantries, those left listening in the time shift pleasantries out to you on whatever device at whatever time during whatever activity you are listening next week. Diversity in your office and the new dot ngo domain. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com where in the world else would you go pursuant? Full service fund-raising you’ll raise helicopters more money. I’m not talking about those tiny mosquitoes that you don’t even need a pilot’s license to fly. I’m talking military troop movement models like the chinook ch forty seven filled with money pursuant dot com. Our creative producers, claire buy-in dafs sam liebowitz on the board is the line producer. The show’s social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein. Thank you, scotty. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and i agree. 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 got to make it fun 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 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. 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Nonprofit Radio for October 9, 2015: Anti-Legacy Society & Deep Pockets

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Claire Meyerhoff: Anti-Legacy Society

You have to thank your planned giving donors and have a recognition society. But do you have to call it the legacy society? Plus, what do you do with the group? What’s the experience? Claire Meyerhoff is a planned giving marketing strategist.

 

 

Maria Semple: Deep Pockets

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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 have a listener of the week one justice they blogged thank you all. Thank you for all of the amazing content that you do. We love your work end quote. Well, one justice i love your work. You’re bringing civil legal assistance to californians in need very important work without legal representation. What good our rights they’re at one hyphen, justice dot org’s and at one justice dot org’s. Congratulations, one justice, our listener of the week love you out there in california. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of ps, eh, phyllis? If i had to wrap my head around the idea that you missed today’s show auntie legacy society, you have to thank your plan giving donors and have a recognition society. But do you have to call it the legacy society? Plus what do you do with the group? What’s the experience. Claire meyerhoff is a planned e-giving marketing strategist and deep pockets. How do you find pockets of wealth in the communities that you serve? Maria simple reveals her. Secrets she’s, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder that originally aired on march twenty eighth. Twenty fourteen on tony’s take two with an i pad air responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com what a pleasure to welcome back to the studio are creative producer and ah plan giving marketing strategist krauz meyerhoff. Welcome back. Thanks, tony it’s. Great to be here again in the studio of it. You were last year for our oh two hundred fiftieth july show. He had music. We had skits. We had all kinds of radio x tragically duitz that was cool. Let’s. Just make sure people know that they could follow you on twitter at claire says. And in their very creative way that’s easy, that’s. Got someone else s okay, you but you use it an opportunity and i think it’s clever. So now my way around. Yeah. All right. Um planned giving legacy societies or recognition societies? Um what’s. What is it? Since your you do plan giving marketing? What? What is it that you think is unusual? Are unique about plan giving marketing? Why be a plan? Giving marketing strategist what’s special about that? Well, because really, when you are thinking about your donor’s overall and and putting them into groups or whatever plan giving really is on ly about marketing in a way, i mean, yes, plan giving is about structuring a trust and things like that, but let’s not forget that, but for the regular donor, what they see when they’re getting your newsletter when they see your animal report, when they’re on facebook or whatever, what they see in the course of the day is all marketing that might enticed them or interest them in making a plan gift if they see a donor story. For instance, in your newsletter that’s about someone else, who’s made a plan gift and there really happy about it, and they’re going to have a scholarship or something named after their family because they’re making this bequest and then turns the corner and says, perhaps you’d like to make a gift like this that’s marketing so it’s all about communicating. I like to call it plan e-giving communicating and marketing because it’s not just marketing, okay that’s due to me, i didn’t know you. Ah, including that in your and your your title and well, it’s. Not really. In a title, one more clinton community marketing, communications also promotions and outreach. I’ll say what instead of saying, like, what are you doing for your plan giving marketing to a client? Because that that sort of signals the thing like, oh, marketing that’s my marketing budget ni hyre in this big company and play, you know, do all this stuff instead, i might say to them, well, what are you doing for your plan? Giving out reach? How are you reaching your donors to talk to playing giving about them so it’s a little bit about outreach, it’s promotions, it’s, public relations, communications. All that really, before you do the marketing, all that other stuff is free. It’s free free claire’s whispering for expenses. Okay, everybody here, that’s okay, no marketing does not have to be expensive at all. In fact, i’m doing something. Ah, at the foundation center in november called five minute plan giving marketing. Rand. Yeah, and i’m full of information and news. Yeah, and a lot of ideas do not do not have to be expensive and can be done in. Really? Just five minutes. A little sidebar on a newsletter you know, brief mention at an event things like that now that’s not a saying that all planned giving marketing is done with elements that a lot of them and be done that because that quickly buckslip way were in your in your thing and there’s another one in your newsletter instead of saying, remember us in your will that’s like saying, have a nice day so instead in your newsletter say, are we in your will if we’re in? If were in your well, could you call and let us know it’s important? We’ll we’ll keep your request confidential, if you like or if you haven’t yet updated your will call us. We’ll give you the information you need. So to ask the question are we in your willis so much better than the remember us in your will? Okay, so that’s that’s a great tip that’s the easiest thing that any organization khun do right off the bat now when someone does inform the organization that they’ve included them in the will, then hopefully we have a recognition society for us. Why is plan give recognition society important? Well, it’s important for several reasons the first reason is that it’s a way to thank and acknowledge the person that has made this wonderful gift this future bequest, so by inviting them to join the special society or group or circle, you’re acknowledging their gift to something very important, and they’ll see it in the in the annual report or wherever. The other thing. Why it’s really important to have a legacy society or some sort of a plan giving recognition? Society is so that other people know about it and know that it that it exists. I heard it’s a marketing you can use your legacy society as a marketing, a little marketing platform or or something to encourage other people to do the same. I find a lot of organizations don’t think about planned giving a recognition group, even though they have recognition groups for donors at the thousand dollars level. One hundred dollars five. Yeah, whatever. Whatever is a major gift for you or whatever is the threshold? Usually there’s almost always won two thousand, but yeah, one hundred to fifty five thousand twenty five. They have all kinds of recognition for those. Yes, but they’re not thinking. Oh, plan. Giving recognition well, those people deserve recognition too. It’s really often an afterthought. And that is why so often the little recognition society is simply called the legacy society, because that’s as much thought as when it’s what went into it. Oh, we need to put that in our in our annual report. Here’s the legacy society here are the donor. Alright, since you’re making fun of that name now we can get i was going to ask you some other things, but we’ll get to them. We got twenty times were ah, the name the name, legacy society? Not not the best. Well, it’s not that it’s, not the best. It’s just it’s shows a sort of a lack of thought and and and if you’re already called the legacy society that’s, fine, maybe have a little co-branding a little something and something that you can do if you already have a quote, legacy, society and it’s called that you could just tack a little name onto it, for instance. So let’s say you’re a school and your your school stone that’s in the class ring let’s say it’s, a girls school and and it’s an amethyst and you could you could make it the amethyst legacy society. So you get still. Call it the legacy society, but give it a little a little something. Something a little special buy a little something something i like to see something that’s unique to the organization. What, like i have? Ah, client that has the belltower society. It’s, a school on the bell tower, is an iconic building s on their on their campus over brooklyn college. Yeah, smith college in massachusetts. They have the great court society because that’s it’s, the great court gate is this beautiful gate that when you first come to campus and it has something on it and everyone knows the great court gate and the gate is a nice thing, you know, it’s a gateway again grayce country. Where avery? Good. So they have the great court pin with with the gate a little bit of the gate on it. So that’s what? That’s for what they do the very first i think it was the very first plan giving society that i started when i was at st john’s university. It was called the macallan society that was named for a treasurer back in the late forties, early fifties era and that was exactly the people who we were trying to attract to do a planned gift for the university, and they knew this treasurer avery well, because used to give you a break, he was a priest, right? Have your break on tuition like back when tuition was like ten dollars, for a semester, you couldn’t do it all at once, he’d set you upon a plan is a great story didn’t include that story and you’re marketing his father, thomas macallan. Exactly, and everybody knew father macallan that’s awesome let’s go out for a break and when we come back, we’ll keep talking about the legacy society and some other super plan gift recognition. 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 let’s do some live listener love st louis, missouri, wilmington, north carolina and new jersey jersey you’re masked. I don’t know why there’s no, are you one of the bad guys in new jersey? When the bad people we can’t see what town you’re in, but you’re in new jersey. We know i’m from jersey, so i could make jersey jokes, okay? Um also canada, british columbia’s with us turkey? Welcome on that! I think we’ve had a turkey before, but uh, not too much. Columbia is with us. Welcome, columbia, and we’ve got some other live listeners abroad will get two of course, affiliate affections. If you are listening on one of our am and fm affiliate stations, whatever time, whatever, whatever slop, worrying and your station throughout the week affections out to you all our affiliate station listeners and we’re going to affiliate coming up in, i think i can two more weeks i’ll be able to announce a new affiliate in the pacific northwest that’s all i am permitted to say at this time, that’s all i can say and, of course, podcast pleasantries if you’re listening in the time shift pleasantries out to you, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing while you listen, washing dishes, driving pleasantries to you, our podcast listeners hyre off. Let’s. See? That’s oh, that’s. So we were talking about naming, um so it’s not yeah, so a good idea. If you have legacy society, maybe you can personalize it a little bit. That was your idea. You already have it. And you don’t want to really get rid of it or lorts or scare your board too much or scary organization too much and that they were going to make america new name. Just sort of you could just add something to your legacy society. So you could be the, you know, the oak tree, like personalized or something like that. Okay, um, what are you seeing among plan giving recognition patterns and non-profits it’s all over the board? Because this is this is what i do so let’s say, i’m working with a new organization. The first thing i do is i go find their annual report online, and i look in the back and i see what they have and sometimes it just says bequest donors and that’s all they have, they have no riel, quote, legacy society and some people have really robust really thought out legacy societies with a great name, and they have a lot of benefits, recognition benefits. So what? Kinds of what kinds of i love your earrings, by the way. Very sparkly. Thank you. I’m sorry. We’re not surprised by my very sparkly let’s not get carried away, but the sparkle let’s leave it at that. What do you see? What kind of benefits are accompanying legacy or recognition? Society is very important when you’re when you’re starting to build out your legacy. Society experience. Let’s say you’ve never had a legacy society and your building this out and it’s. Like what kind of things can you offer? People used to say thank you and usually it’s. Nice to offer some sort of a gift. So perhaps you have some nice framed prints or a beautiful blanket with the school logo on it or the organization’s logo. Like whatever you think you can offer. That’s something that’s. Very nice. So it’s, really all across the board to have a gift. Okay, interesting. Let me stop you there. Uh, sorry, but we’re having a conversation. That’s. Interesting. So i have a different theory and that i’m not too big on the let’s. Go big on the little gift. I like a little lapel pins, but you do little framed frame things, those air interesting, like frames prince or something? Well, for instance, i know i know the ronald reagan library foundation in california, when you go in their legacy society, they don’t they don’t say this. I don’t think on their web site or whatever, but after you let them know you’re in the will, they send you, like this beautiful coffee table book, like one hundred fifty dollars gorgeous coffee table book, and you just get that as a way to say thank you. And i think it’s a very sincere way to show your appreciation. So a lot of really good organizations have a nice gift that they send, and then you could have other benefits. So for instance, sometimes they have a yearly lunch or dinner and all the way up, tio i’ve seen colleges, i know a college and i think it’s, south carolina and i want to say the name offhand cause i may get it wrong, but i know of ah college in south carolina, and they have a lot of alumni that live nearby, and so they’ve made a benefit. You can have free parking. On campus, when you come to events, so you need to, like, call the office and get a sticker and you can use the athletic facility, you can use the gym and that’s of great value does a great values but doesn’t cost the organization anything isn’t that first morning, and very few people are going to use it. It’s, it’s like people, you know, they get it and a few people will use it, but but not that many. So whatever you might have that you can offer people. So for instance, i worked with pearl s buck international in pennsylvania and their own organization that you can, like, adopt a child in vietnam, pay something every month and adopt the child, but they also have this beautiful the pearl s buck historic home, so so they’ve offered to members of their new and i’ll tell you the name in the moment of their new organization, when you put them in the will you get you get lifetime free admission to the pearl s buck house, and you could you could transfer that if you live in california that’s okay, you can transfer that if your friends are coming. East or something, you can offer them that’s cubine lifetime admission to the pearl s buck historic home. So things that you already have and you can offer people it just it sounds good, frankly, it’s, like when you’re talking about it, it gives you something to talk about there’s one that i like again, no cost when you’re hosting an event of some type, have a v i p seating area for your recognition society members, your legacy, society members, whatever. Yes, by piece sitting, you know and you could say, yeah, right, exactly or, you know, premier seating and and exactly does a lot of especially schools have, like, a christmas concert or something that’s very popular, and people come to the christmas concert, older people, they love to have that that v i p seating that this a nice a nice benefit for them. Another thing i’ve seen some of my clients do is, uh, before a big event, they host a little reception. They’ve already got the venue that’s already paid for it and it just add on like a half an hour cocktail reception beforehand. Maybe it’s a meet and greet with the ceo before. The larger event where you’re not going to really get time with that person but it’s something something special small added on to something that’s bigger. And so the marginal cost of that is not very big, right? So at a college reunion, if you have a special event for people in your plan giving society and the president of the college comes and you have a nice little cocktail party and you get and you get one on one time with the president of the college that’s that’s definitely special, but the name i think is really is really important to come up with these dust with the pearl s buck. Well, this is i worked at this organization and all they had when it when i came on board was the visionary society and the only place they had it was in the annual report, and that was it. So you never saw it on the website or you never never saw it anywhere else, so they felt it was time to refresh. So the visionary society like visionary, you can’t really see it like what is it? And so instead what i’ve done is we created something. Called the camelia circle because pearl s buck, the author that everybody loves that’s part of this organization that was her favorite flower was the camelia and right next to her office in the historic home is a beautiful greenhouse filled with camille ia’s. So we’ve made a beautiful camelia circle pin and it’s the camelia circle rather than society, because i tend a lot not like to call them societies and everything else is, well, the society. So if you have ten different societies, well, your plan giving society is yet another one. But if you circle that’s something different, i could say a guild or a league or a circle there’s a lot of other things, things that you can say. Okay, cool. Um, there’s one that occurs to me. I have a client that’s, pretty small ship it’s a historical society. And they’re celebrating what’s called the abraham lincoln brigade, which is a bunch of men who from america, who volunteered to go fight in the against the fascists in the spanish civil war. And they became known as the abraham lincoln brigade. The spanish civil war is like nineteen, thirty six to thirty nine and some of these men went over, like three thousand them and this society’s perpetuating their legacy legacy these these soldiers in the war from the u s and they call it the haram a society on the haram a haram a means absolutely nothing. That’s what i love about this, it means absolutely nothing to anybody outside the organization, right? But that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter to people right in any organisation. Haram a was a big battle in spanish, they all notice of that know all about it, and they’re right, and everybody else out there on the outside has no idea, and it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference because it’s special for the organism did they have any little image ing with that cause? It’s nice like when you’re when you’re building the image that’s? Why, if if, if you name it after a person, it’s a little harder to build the image because what you going to put the person’s face on a pin? So i like to use like if you have a special tree or like maybe with this haram a bottle, maybe there’s like a battlefield, a little crest of two crossed guns. Or i don’t know. Okay, i’m gonna ask you don’t have something like that now. No, look at this. Okay, um but yeah, just making the point that doesn’t have to be universally recognised. Its what’s special to your organization, i think that’s yeah, but not too out there because sometimes it’s a little too out there. And i like to do something that, like the great court gate at smith college, you can make things with the great court game. Like you can have that on stationery. You could make a pin out of that it’s a thing. And so i like like the camelia with with pearl s buck. We made a beautiful camelia circle pin and then and that allows you also let’s say you have a new member of your camelia circle. You could have them visit thie greenhouse and talk to the guy that runs the green. You can take a photograph of them and then you could give her her pin in the greenhouse. And you’ve a wonderful photograph for your newsletter that’s. Why i love the pin so much it’s an opportunity, it’s a pr opportunity i find i find donors do like the pins and they wear them, they were them two events and they’re great out of them and they’re proud of them and open and aside from that, they give you something to talk about. So for instance, i do some work for smith college, so we mail a newsletter to existing members of the great court society and in it, i always put a little thing. You’re a picture of the pin, your great court pin. Would you like that? Have you lost your pin? Or would you like an extra pin? Give us a call and we’ll get it. We’ll give you another pen. Say it gives you a little something to talk about to engage your donors because that’s, what it’s all about it’s engaging people, giving them a reason to call you or a reason to send you a little email? Yes, i’ve lost my pin. I’d like a new pin, right? You don’t have a pen, then you can’t talk about it. Um all right. So let’s, let’s. Go, little brother, what else is, uh, what else do you like in plant e-giving marketing besides the recognition society, we got ourselves some more time. I kind of like what you talked about at the beginning about things that you do for free, and that seems to be what i love to do i’ve i’ve started to put together some content, hopefully that will become a book that is all about marketing that you, khun do yourselves. That doesn’t cost you anything that any organization khun d’oh and basically it starts with that thing in the newsletter that says, are we in your will? If we’re in your will or other estate plans, please give us a call even if you wish for your gift to remain anonymous. It’s important that you share this information with us covered these different reasons and that’s, you know that’s free, you can put that in your newsletter you can put that on a buckslip so there’s a lot of things that you could do for free. So i really like to help organisations, whether their teeny tiny or a huge organization are missing the boat sometimes on the good free stuff. Well, if you have a book coming than, uh, share, share something else that’s, easy and free. Well, keep in free my kind of cheap and free i’d like to call it internal pr internal public relations. So? So you want to do more with your with your plan giving you hope to get more bequest? So why not have a little let’s say you’re having? Ah, volunteer, you could have a little volunteered gathering these air like kind of like top people, they’ve been with your organization for a long time. They don’t work for you, but they’re volunteers and their longtime donors you could have a little pizza party on a certain afternoon and invite everyone to the pizza party and say, we have something great that we’d like to share with you. This would be really, really helpful, you know that sometimes people pass away and they leave organizations gifts in there will like that. That cat shelter down the street just got a request for five hundred thousand dollars. Wouldn’t it be great if we got a request like that? And if it goes, oh, yeah, that would be great. And then you just share this simple thing with them and you say here’s something that you can do that’s really, really easy the next time you hear someone say, oh gosh, i’ve been coming here for such a long time and i can only donate ten dollars, a year. I wish i could do more. Well, you have to do nice volunteer is listen for that information and come back to me and share with me that person’s name that’s all you have to dio soc look at what you’ve done there, it’s, great internal pr you’ve you’ve shared this information with a group of people that their prospects as well, these long time volunteers, but you’re not asking them for a gift. You’re just sharing this with them and you’re putting the, you know, the idea and they’re in their head and then you’re giving them a very, very easy way that they can help beyond the way that they’re helping. Right now, all they have to do is listen for this key phrase from a donor. Gosh, i wish i could do more because that’s someone that could potentially be a fantastic plan giving prospect, they can’t give you a lot of money right now, but they might have a retirement plan, life insurance, and they wish they could do more and they wish they could do more so that’s that’s really key? So that’s a little internal public relations thing that you can do doesn’t cost you anything except for maybe a couple pizzas. I love it because you’re most people would call it training, right? It’s not, but internal pr. Oh, it’s, internal pr, it’s and it’s. Not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. Another way to do internal pr is you go to that to the young woman that answers the phone at the front desk at your organization. She’s, twenty seven years old and you say no if you say, you know, kathy, if someone called you up and said, oh, you know, i’m thinking about i’m going to the lawyer and i want to update my will, what would you say to them and cathy? Michael, god, i don’t know, i’ve no idea i’d have to ask somebody. Well, instead, next time someone calls, you know, make sure you refer them to me because here at the organization, i’m the person that that would help them with that. So it’s that’s, another way to do an internal pr is just communicate to key staff members about who’s doing what with the plan giving and you get the word out and i love that you said the person who answers the phones receptionist or somebody like that because they’re they’re talking to donors all the time and sometimes opportunities arise, so just don’t go you don’t know where their right, but you just don’t know who the next person is going to be. That’s talking to a plant, giving potential donor. I’ve gone up to the t to the help desk at a hospital and a huge non-profit beautiful hospital where i live in north carolina, and i went up to the help desk in the volunteer and she’s got the pin on thirty years service, and i said, excuse me, i said, but if i were going to update my will and and include the hospital, i love the hospital, how would i go about doing that? And this woman i know i threw her off, but but not too far because she was she was savvy, and i’ve been around a long time and she said, well, i’m not exactly sure, but i’m i can point you to the person that would be able to tell you that’s perfect, yes, and she gave me the name for the development person a development that’s a home run. So see, she knew so that so the next step after that would be, you know, introduced her to who the plan giving director is. And then she knows, like, a new a new title at the right. But now that that’s that’s the outstanding i mean, that kind of outreach is ideal. Otherwise, that person might have been lost. Well, i don’t really know i’m sorry. I don’t know. I’ve never heard of that. Okay? Feeling hurted, like people have never been mike away and say you might go and say, ok, never mind, you know, let’s. Forget it. Right. Okay. All right. We have just got half a minute. So you want to give us one planned giving marketing tip? Whatever it is related to free, free for all. Well, another really inexpensive thing that you can do is you could. You could have some information on your website that has your request language, your tax i d and all that right. You probably have that. Have your i t person make a little vanity kind of earl fort. So say you’re a s p. C a, you know, in new york dot org’s you could have slash requests or slash plan giving or slash my will or something, and and you have rent that unlike a special little card you could make with on vista print or something or through your organisation, make a special little card and have your title on there your name and title you’re the development director than on the back of the card. You have this little girl, and so when you’re going around and doing your internal pr and you go to the lady at the front desk, you could give her that card and say, well, if someone calls, you can just give them this earl where here’s ten cards and if someone comes before you give him a card or figure out on a donor visit or you’re at it, you’re at a dog wash, you know thing for your a s p c a and the person says, i wish i could do more. You could you know, this is where you know this is. You could send your lawyer here on look hard, so inexpensive and love zoho effective lovett claire meyerhoff planned giving communications and marketing strategist you’ll find her on twitter at claire says c l a i r e as easy, thanks, claire martin. Thank you, tony. Great show. And thanks for being our creative producer as well. It’s it’s it’s an honor and i have it on my lincoln. Thank you very much. All that tony’s take two and deep pockets coming up first pursuing they’re here. Hillary sutton is brand journalist for pursuing in the studio from lynchburg, virginia. Welcome, hillary. Thanks, toni. Excited to be here. Cool. I’m glad you’re excited. Thank you, rob. Very glad to have you were talking about pursuing for weeks. Generous sponsor of the show. Thank you very much for that, i think that’s ah, i think it’s a perfect relationship. Yeah. We’re we’re so excited to be able to support a podcast that provides action oppcoll information to people every week. And it’s. Just really helpful. Absolutely. I mean, look at all the stuff claire shared. Right. Like a dozen things that you could go on. Start taking notes over here. You could start on monday, take the weekend off and start your plan giving marketing and recognition on, eh? Um okay. Interesting title you have pursuing brand journalist. Why is what what is? What is that brand journalist do? Yeah, great question. So i’m a part of our marking team and i get the express honor. Teo, help share the success stories of our clients we it’s really exciting when we get to do we get to come alongside our clients who have big dreams, big visions for changing the world. Really every organization marvin improving the environment. I mean in so many different ways. And so i just love teo, get teo it’s get to connect those dots of how we’re getting to come alongside those clients and and leave the world a better place. Really you’re helping tell the story of how pursuant is helping clients in whatever they’re trying to dance, right, make the world a better, much better place. Okay, cool brand journalist covered that innovative. Alright, um, so you know, you know very well that the audience here is small and midsize non-profits on dh pursuant to the reason i think it’s such an outstanding relationship is because there’s so much that pursuing does that small emissions shops, midsize shops can take advantage of like all the tools, you know, in ala carte tools and things just help amplify it. I mean, i talk about it every week, but, um what? Look, why? How is it that pursuing is always thinking about small and midsize? Sure, while we have a couple of different offerings specifically, our velocity and our billboard are both offerings that just help small and midsize fundraisers work smarter, not harder. We’re going. We’re going to talk a little about velocity because there’s a survey and that’s actually for like, uh, managing your fund-raising and fundraisers. Time against goal, right? Yes. It’s e-giving productivity tool for fund-raising. Exactly. It’s a prospect management system and it’s. Interesting. Because we actually developed in house because we have some gift officers in house and we developed it to make their jobs easier so they wouldn’t spend time, you know, doing the same things over and over again. It simplifies process. It was it was being used by pursuing concerns as they were helping client that’s, right? And so it’s. So cool. I like that. Yeah. Developed internally. And it was so helpful that it was somehow sure we thought we’ve got to share this. Exactly. Okay. Okay. Let’s see, also you mentioned billboard? Yes. Okay. Billboard is our tool that does marketing automation. So it’s it it it’s a fantastic tool to use, you know, at the year. And you don’t have time to send out those emails. Live particular year in giving him so billboard is a tool that could help automate that and automate your non-profit running across its really cross all marketing channels, right kind of helps you develop well, send the messages and then it also has analytics. So you know which channels or productive is that the best mobile is the best e mail? Is this one your social media platforms? You know, etcetera? Exactly. Let’s go back to velocity because there’s a survey that i am going to put on my video next week. So on today’s the ninth, ten eleven, twelve so many the twelfth is going to video. I’m going to talk about the survey and i’ll have a link to it. But velocity, you’re trying to get more information and people can win an ipad air. Yeah, exactly. We just want to hear from fundraisers about some of their pain points. S o we can make our product better to make it to serve fundraisers better. So in exchange for your time, you get entered to win and an ipad ipad and are better. I’ve had a rare yeah, and i i went through the survey. It takes like five minutes. I’d say five, six minutes elearning yeah, there you go. It it’ll help develop the tool. But important that mean the tool is already available now? Yeah. It’s. Just like it’s going to be like improving it. Yeah. Step to face two or something. Okay, cool. Hillary, thank you very much for coming around your way. You’re my pleasure. And thank you again for sponsoring non-profit radio. Happy to do it. The video that hillary and i are talking about the survey and the link will be on tony martignetti dot com by the time you’re hearing this and that’s tony’s take two for friday, ninth of october fortieth show of the year. Here is maria simple with deep pockets. Maria semple is with us. She is the prospect finder, the trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects. Now, she’s our doi end of dirt cheap and free ideas. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple welcome back from vacation, maria. Thanks, tony. Great to be back here with you. I’m glad you are. Where were you on vacation? We took the kids who are both in college. We took them on spring break and went down to riviera. Maya in mexico. Was this a selling vacation? I know you’re an avid sailor. No, it was land based, but it was wonderful. We did get out on a little catamaran to play that they had available at the resort, you know, to take out on your own. Just, you know, a smaller one. There this fun. Now we’re here and where your college kids thrilled about going on spring break with their mom and dad and sitting on the beach instead of being with their friends and drinking beers. Actually, they were they were just fine with it. And, yeah, we won’t address the other part of that. I’m sure if they’re below twenty one that i’m certainly don’t drink beers, right? Well, they they’re they’re of age. They put it that way. Okay. Okay. Um well, i’m glad you’re back. We’re talking about finding pockets of of affluence in communities. This this comes up in your practice, it does, it comes up a lot in, especially when i’m doing seminars or workshops in front of live groups, you’ve inevitably always have somebody raised their hand and say, g, we we really like to know a little bit more about our communities in terms of affluence. What what are the more affluent, zip zip codes? Um, and then, you know, what is philanthropy looking like in general amongst high net worth individuals? So i thought it might be kind of interesting for us to take some time and talk about what some of the resource is our that air available online to kind of examine, you know, both of those areas. Okay, before we go online, is there any chance of starting with your immediate internal resources, like you’re bored? You could could you start there, perhaps? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You could definitely start with your board. What? What i think is usually helpful, though, is if you very often, if if you goto your board and try and have a conversation at a board meeting or a development committee meeting and just kind of say, well, who do you know, give us the names of everyone, you know, you know, sometimes it’s better to kind of have maybe sort of almost a vetted list first to se gi these air, some people we’ve identified or these air some affluent zip codes we’ve identified in our region? Does anybody know any of these people? Or does anybody know anybody in these in these zip codes? Because then now you’re getting them to really focus in on some specific people are specific communities, and then, you know, versus them just trying to figure out who they know in their entire world or roll adex, okay, so we’re going to go online to try to generate thes resource is start t these resources to try to generate lists and, uh, give people names and communities and things like that, too, jog their memories. Yeah, i think i think that works at a little bit better for a lot of boards because a lot of people are a little bit more perhaps reserved. Or they say, well, you know, who is it that you want me to bring to? The table here, give me a little bit more parameter around that. Okay, well, you’re are dyin of dirt, cheap and free. So where should we get started with this? So, you know, the census pulls together a lot of great data about communities, and that really is the basis for a lot of these statistics that you can get regarding not only where income levels are and wealth, but how what the makeup is of the population. Right? So this could have implications not only for the fund-raising side of your non-profit, but also thinking about programs and services that you offer. And, you know, maybe you have certain services that are more geared toward females are more geared towards certain types of populations, maybe immigrants. So you would want to know how you know, what is our population, makeup and how well, with this programme are service you’ve made have a sense that this might be something that you want to offer at your non-profit but not knowing the exact make of of the community you you would probably be, you know, better off just kind of doing a little bit of research to see well, just what? Are the numbers of the people in that community that make up that population? Ok, how do we access the census data? So one source is directly from the census itself. It’s it’s called american fact finder. And the website is a fact finder to roman that’s, the numeral two thie arabic. We know that’s the arabic numerals, right. The arabic numerals, right. Fact finder to dot senses. Stop, gov. Um, so that is a pretty good place to start because what you can actually dio is you can put in your specific zip code that you would like to do a little bit of research on. And you can get information, for example, like the average adjusted gross income for that community versus the entire state. What charitable contribution deductions are in that zip code. So that could be kind of tito that’s. Very interesting. Yeah, it’ll. So i had gone in in prep preparation for this particular show today. I went in and put my own zip code in and saw that the average charitable contributions were three thousand sixty two dollars, right? So if you’re trying to think about where tio really started mining specific communities, it could be an interesting way to see if that how that community compares to other nearby communities, and you can also look at income income statistics. There you can look at income, you can look at average adjusted gross income, you can look att estimated median household income. Andi khun, look att house values as well. So i thought that was kind of interesting because a lot of people will say, well, g, you know it it seems to be that the communities where there might be hyre hyre home values could potentially then translate to higher income brackets and potentially hyre giving as well, yes, interesting. So you can you can play with these different variables of income and assets and charitable deductions average terrible reductions in the right zip code, for example, in my zip code. One thing that i found to be kind of interesting when i looked at the estimated median house value in in two thousand eleven as it was broken down by race, um, the asian community came out highest at just over five hundred seventy five thousand, the next highest level was the white population at four, sixty nine and changed so it was interesting to see how, how even they can break it down by race based on the information found and census data. Okay, and that’s all that fact finder to dot census dot gov, right and another site as well, which is it? City dash data dot com, where you can look at a lot of this broken down, but focusing first on the census site that i mentioned the fact finder site, you can download their data into excel spreadsheet, so i thought that was interesting, because then you can you know, if you if you needed to do any type of reporting at your in you can take those spreadsheets and share them with other people within your organization, be that, you know, staff or or bored, you can also sort you can also sort by different variables, right? Absolutely. And then they also had poverty, statistics and statistics around veterans. So if you were looking to try and figure out where the poverty stats where, you know, maybe you’re trying to develop programming for lower income children in your community or something like that, you can try and take a look at where those stats are also. Some non-profits are addressing the needs of veterans. And so you could try and determine what the numbers of veterans in our communities and trying to come up with programming for that too specific population. Okay, that’s a very good one. I love that one. Ah, yeah. All right. You mentioned city hyphen data. Dot com city data city data dot com there’s a hyphen in there? Absolutely. And i can put these on your facebook page, if you like after the show. Well, yeah, i’m going to do the takeaways and i’ll have a bunch of them. But you, khun, you can then add some or two, you’ll be able to add, add beyond what i what i put in the takeaways. Okay, okay. Terrific. So there again, you can search by zip code and again, you can look at the da’s adjusted gross income figures, charity contributions um, home values again broken down by race and so forth. And you know, you khun a lot of a data, you’ll you’ll note. It’s laid out a little bit differently. So i think what i would say to your listeners is checked. Both of them out. See what type of information it is that you want to pull out of this, um and see if if if the data is going to be useful for you. It’s presented a little bit differently on the two websites. But i have a feeling that the actual core of where all the data is coming from. It’s really? All from the census. Oh, interesting. Ok, same data differently presented. So use both. Lookit lookit. Both. Okay, absolutely. This is an example. You know, i love this example of ah, value that the government provides us through the through the census. Yeah. It’s all it’s all there, it’s free. And so why not take advantage of you know, all of this? All this work legwork somebody else has done for you. What else you got for us? So then i was beginning to think about, well, let’s, look, a philanthropy in general and the mindset, perhaps, of high net worth individuals and two interesting studies that are out there. One is by bank of america. They do a high net worth study. Ah, and the last one was done at the end of two thousand twelve. And another a source that i do want. To give some time to talk about is the chronicle of philanthropy because they did something in two thousand twelve called hyre how america gives you remember that and the make of america’s study, um, is quite lengthy, they do have an executive summaries well, and that girl is a bit longer. So but of course, if you if you just google the bank of america hi network study, you’ll get right to it as well. But what i thought was kind of interesting is that, you know, that they profile how the high net worth individuals are giving now. So where the state of giving wass and at that point in time when they did this study and also how they might be projected to give so i would really encourage the non-profits to take a look at that, especially if they’re looking to, you know, really increase their individual giving program amongst high net worth individuals just to kind of understand where the mind set is for these individuals, okay, so this is sort of after you’ve identified people that this isn’t really to identify pockets of affluence in your community, but how to deal with those affluent. Populations right? Why they why they give what motivates their giving? What motivates they’re getting right? So trying to trying to figure out where they’re giving, where, where might it be going? What is their mindset? So it’s one thing to be able to identify those pockets, but then how do you interact with them? How do you take that data and make it useful for you? Right? So one thing that i found interesting on on one of the pages of the report was that of that particular report was that the high net worth donors are increasing, they’re increasingly directing their gifts towards operating support. Ah, and this is something i get all the time. When i hear at my seminars, people will say, well, you know, the foundations and corporations they really want seem to really want to tie they’re giving to very specific program, nobody wants to fund operating support, but here in this report, they’re saying that they are open to the high net worth individuals are open to ah e-giving you contributions toward operating support. So i think that this is a huge opportunity for non-profits to focus up, because obviously these donors do. Understand about overhead. They understand that there has to be money for the lights and the heat, etcetera, and i think that you can easily direct some of your conversations to that. That sector. All right, we have to. We have to take a break for a couple minutes. Maria, when we come back, we’ll keep talking about these deep pockets, how to find them. We’ll talk about that chronicle of philanthropy survey, and i know that you have some others, so everybody 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 neo-sage 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 m a r 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 guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Maria simple. I want to thank you for including a picture of me on your the prospect finder micro fiber cleaning cloth. Thank you. Like that. I do. I don’t know how i feel about my face being smeared across people’s monitors and smartphones, but but i think there’s a little picture of you and me in the studio, on the arm, on your cleaning cloth. Thank you very much. You’re very welcome. Very welcome. So i decided that sometimes that some of my speaking engagements i might be able to hand that out and be a nice little thing that people could keep and think about our faces for years to come. And i noticed, too. If i if i stretch it vertically, it makes me look hydrocephalus. Oh, my goodness, i haven’t tried there, and if you stretch it horizontally, then looks like i’ve gained about one hundred twenty five pounds. Can i send out some listener lovas? Well, three times? Well, because of your show, i was asked to go and speak to women in philanthropy of western massachusetts back in february, and they’re huge fans of your show. And so i just wanted to give a shout out to them and say hi, thank you very much with women in women in philanthropy, western mass, and they’ve invited me to come, but they’re booked until, like, next mayor april or something like that. Twenty fifteen not talking about this year. They’re booked until spring of next year sometime. So tired. Organized group. Yeah, i have time to make my reservations. Um okay. Let’s. Go back to our our deep pockets. Was there anything more you want to say about the bank of america study of high net worth philanthropy or we finished with that? No. You know, it’s very in depth. Really good projections. I found on pages sixty three to sixty five of the study of how they’re giving now and how they’re projected to give. So people are feeling a little overwhelmed with the study and they want to at least try and figure out where’s. What does this all mean for me? And where should i go with it? I would say they should focus on pages three to sixty five study that’s incredibly valuable, because and so is the fact that you said earlier there’s an executive summary, because if i was listening. And i heard sixty five pages in a survey. I think i’d move on to your next suggestion. But that’s, just me. But it is called the bank of america study of high net worth philanthropy. And as marie said, you khun, search for that and get it for free. What do we got over the chronicle of philanthropy? This how america gives thing. So what they did back in two thousand twelve, they, uh, they decided to make an entire map of the united states. You can put in your zip code and get a lot of data on where philanthropy is for those specific zip code. So i thought that was kind of interesting because, as you know, the chronicle is one of those resource is that a lot of people really rely on. Um so when i gone in, i put my zip code in. I took a look at they give a breakdown by total contributions. What the median contribution is. And then they also give you the median discretionary income. Um, andi give it as a percentage. They give you the percentage of income given, so i thought that was was pretty good. They give a breakdown as well by demographic. So do you just have an idea? You can look at a breakdown by age, race as well as education level of the population, just in case that was of interest to you. And they give a breakdown by income level of giving. So if you wanted to see, like, they break it down between the people who make between fifty, the study, basically start assuming on income level of at least fifty thousand. So fifty thousand to one hundred and one hundred, two hundred, two hundred and up and then all income levels help me understand how you would use all these sites. And i know there’s another one, one or two. We’re going to get to, but some claim gives you ah, project a task i need. How would you use all these different sites? You go to all of them. Or do you? You find some from some sites and other info from other sites. How do you approach this? Well, it really depends on what specific piece of information they want. Most of the time they’re giving me the name of an individual. Teo actually profile for them and other times they might come to me and say, well, you know, we’re interested in expanding and doing some proactive prospecting, you know, where are some of the more affluent neighborhoods that we should be looking to perhaps hold cultivation event? Um, sent mailers out, too, so they’re just trying to identify what are those pockets near them that they should be potentially targeting if they want to get into some proactive prospect and get some new names of people associated with their organization? Right? And if that’s your that’s, your charge, the ladder to find those pockets, how would you how would you approach that? So i would probably go teo, both fists chronicle of philanthropy study, as well as the census data, to try and identify where those hyre income levels are, and both of those locations where people are giving more so they be more of ah, i guess the more likelihood of success if they’re both approaching people with higher incomes and also are accustomed to giving hyre levels of money. Who okay, okay on and then, of course, you have to devise. You know what is going to be our plan if we want to? Go to that entire zip code. What? You know what? What are we going to do? Are we going to devise a mailer to go to all the households? There’s an every door direct program, for example, that the post office runs where you can target specific zip codes? Um, every every door direct, no shoot. Right? We’re out of time. Let’s. Hold that every door. Direct, let’s, let’s talk about that next time and unfortunately have to leave it there. So there are some other resource is that you have, which we will include you can add to the to the takeaway is that i do on the facebook page. Okay, sure. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Maria simple. The prospect finder at the prospect finder dot com. And on twitter at marie a simple thank you, maria. Thank you. Time for mohr live listener love lots of new live listen has joined us from carmel, indiana live listener love out to you especially and zoho in new wendorf, germany. Good dog also joined by inchon, korea anya haserot and hamamatsu japan konnichi wa also ten gin china still thinking of you that tragic explosion a few weeks ago threefold, weeks ago or so, still thinking of you, johnjn ni hao and also in india and i hope i’m saying it right live, listen love send there, too next week, a panel on stop pointing fingers at tech and hiring geeks with amy sample word. If you missed any part of today’s show finding on tony martignetti dot com, where in the world else would you go pursuant fund-raising tools for small and midsize non-profits you’ll raise barrels more money. I’m not talking about those tiny replicas you seon model railroad set ups on ping pong tables. I’m talking the sixty gallon models stacked in the musty barrel room of a winery filled with money pursuing dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and this music that you hear is by scott stein, thank you for that scottie with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Kayman 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, way.

Nonprofit Radio for October 2, 2015: Get To The Next Level

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Laurence Pagnoni: Get To The Next Level

Laurence-Pagnoni-large-300x239Laurence Pagnoni is author of “The Nonprofit Fundraising Solution.” Based on his work as an executive director and fundraising consultant, he has proven strategies to get you to the next level of fundraising revenue. (Originally aired November 8, 2013)

 


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Oppcoll 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 stricken with neff roma golly, if i had to pass the idea that you missed today’s show it’s actually never throw megally get to the next level. Lawrence paige nani is author of the next the non-profit fund-raising solution. Based on his work as an executive director and fund-raising consultant, he has proven strategies to get you to the next level of fund-raising revenue this originally aired on november eighth twenty thirteen i wish he would pronounce his name panjwani lorenzo panjwani on tony’s take two video from venice. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com let’s go with our first segment here is lawrence paige nani. I’m very pleased that lawrence paige no knees book and his work bring him to the studio. He has spent twenty five years in the nonprofit sector and was an executive director of three non-profits he’s been a faculty member at the gnu heimans center for philanthropy and fund-raising we’ve had guests from there. And the coach is a group of executive directors with the rutgers business schools institute for ethical leadership. His book is the non-profit fund-raising solution. Powerful revenue strategies to take you to the next level. Lorts back. Tony, welcome to the studio. Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here. It’s. A real pleasure to have, you know, i love having live in studio guest. It just makes it that much more special. Congratulations on the book, it’s. Just it’s out this month, right? Yes, just a few weeks ago. And and delighted it has a robust sales so far. Excellent. Very good for you. I think i have to ask you this. I’ve wondered about this since i first saw your name, which is years. Why isn’t it pan yanni wipe agnone. How did you i’m not martignetti why did you? Somewhere along the lineage, you went to pack no knee. Well, had that happened? It’s, my grand, my grandmother would like your question. It’s, lorenzo, antonio peggy oni that’s your your it’s like a little birdie operate you’re you’re ah, expression of it is accurate. And but, you know, in american vernacular gets paige. No knee. I hate that. I hate that your grandmother would love the pan uni i was a beautiful name. It is so operatic. Um, the non-profit fund-raising solution. What is the problem? Well, under capitalization of the sector plagues more than seventy seven percent of non-profits they have a vision, but they don’t have the money to implement it. And many organizations spend years on a plateau under two hundred fifty thousand dollars trying to execute their vision for some small non-profits ah, humble budget is more than adequate, and they’re doing good services and they are meeting their vision. So don’t mean to imply that you need money too. Do your work. There are amazing volunteer organizations, but for those organizations that that need money, i wrote the book in that spirit of trying to help them tio, to go to the next level which is such a ubiquitous question. I mean, i get that a lot on dh. I work only really in the plant giving and the charity registration niches. But even i am asked a lot, you know? How do we get to the next level? Can you help us get to the next level? So there are a lot of organizations that do want to go to increased fund-raising revenue it’s the number one question i get when i give seminars or public trainings, and somebody inevitably will wander up to that micah’s i say in the introduction, and and ask me, how do you get to the next level? And on the one hand, it’s a poetic question, but on the other hand, it’s for my sensibilities, it’s a business question with mathematical methods behind it, and the book tries to explain that if you get your leadership understanding the vision for what the next level looks like if the board supports that vision, if you think about hyre level strategies and you work on changing the culture of your organization so that the organisational development matches that vision that’s the foundation there’s four aspects are the foundation for going to the next level, and then the rest is tactical most fund-raising is tactical. The strategy comes from the organization, and we’re gonna have time to talk about the organisational development as well as the strategies and tactics were because i love that we have the full hour together, so the symptoms of this problem are mean, ah, event to event fund-raising or maybe sole source revenue streams? Yeah, most foundation grants have ah, three year limit. There are some exceptions to that, of course, places like the robin hood foundation, which see themselves as long term partners. Um, but event to event without any cash reserves and some organizations just go year two year like that and and and make do and with a little bit of luck and and providence, they they squeak by, but it’s hard to plan having an impact on your mission and on the sector, the field of service, if you will, that you’ve chosen. If you really want to help at risk kids, i have a better chance getting into college or getting the right on the right employment that’s a great example because it’s exactly it’s for you you do have to plan for years that’s a life cycle of a child and if you’re you know, as you say, just getting by year to year, how can you plan for that child’s future? You can’t. You can’t plan for your own that’s, right? Um, do you think that since we see such a reliance on events, i have a theory, i don’t, but you khun you’re free to disagree that the reliance on events is so that people can avoid what they fear, which is having to sit across the table from someone and looked him in the eye and ask them for a gift. Well, it’s, funny as best as i understand it and i’m always learning events were the history of them goes back to having an opportunity to thank your individual donors. They weren’t actually fundraisers unto themselves, and then they course morphed into that when in fund-raising when the event ah, is linked to individual giving and get in to get the individual giving program, they always raise more money, because the point is that the twenty percent of your individual donor base who gives eighty percent generally on your revenue since the recession, we see it’s maybe seventy, thirty um they need to be talked to individually and thoughtfully, and having tough conversations with donors is part of that territory, and i think a lot of people are, um, are shy about that. Money, of course, is one of the great taboos of life and so it’s fraught with emotional issues um, you allude to cem cem research done by stanford about the dominant revenue source? We’ll flush that after us. Sure. Well, you often hear people say that they need a diversified revenue base. Yes, and i’ve heard that for years as a fundraiser, and as in the former executive director, i used to worry about how much time and energy that talkto have more than one or two revenue streams. So a few years ago, stanford university ah did research on one hundred and forty hundred forty one non-profits that that had gotten over the fifty million dollar mark annual budget, what they discovered was a surprise that those organizations generally had a dominant source of revenue and possibly a secondary source of revenue and wasn’t as diversified as smaller non-profits but they also said that smaller non-profits still needed to diversify until they got to that plateau ah, when or they got to that level, when they could break through for a dominant source of revenue. And the reason this is interesting is that those non-profits that got over fifty million, they knew everything there was to know about that dominant source of revenue, if it was individual giving say, for example, habitat for humanity? Their dominant source of revenue is individual giving, followed by in-kind donations followed by foundations. They knew everything there was from about individual giving from ah, there first acquisition to plan giving and the whole continuum within those two ends. Yes, um, we are going, tio take a break and we’ll of course continue with lawrence, and we’ll talk a little more about the the inflexibility that we’re talking about now and that sort of tradition of of dominant source giving. But then we’re gonna move on, and we’re going to talk about what it takes for the organization, too develop within before he can get to the next level. So hang in there. 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. Duitz welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Lawrence paige nani is with me. He is the author of the non-profit fund-raising solution. So before the break, we were talking a little about thiss dominant source so they knew their dominant source and maybe a secondary source very well. So it’s so it’s not so bad. Teo teo, be focused that way. No. Ah, it turns out that that that there are different levels in every revenue source of from an average level two quite skilled level. What they had a have, of course, in their dominant source of revenue was they had to have deep and abiding expertise. Ah lo, staff turnover amongst the fund-raising staff was very important for those organizations because the institutional memory of with their donors had to be preserved. It’s called development for a reason it’s a developmental process. So if you’re walking the walk with a donor through their lifetime of giving, if they get comfortable with a fundraiser, the chances of that fundraiser being able to raise more money are much higher now. Of course, that’s that’s ah juxtaposed to the chronicle philanthropies article this past year, which showed that the turn of the dissatisfaction amongst fundraisers with their organizations was extremely high. Yes, and i we talked about that on the show. Did you? Yeah, i was distraught to hear that. And because fund-raising is a noble profession, and when it’s not respected, the process is not respected than people expect returns too fast, or they expect the fundraiser toe come in with donors ready to g o without having to cultivate them for your mission. And these are very irrational ideas dominate the conversations around fund-raising but it’s called development for a reason, and those non-profits that god above fifty million that had a dominant source were they had a patients to their culture, and they respected the cultivation process and they closed, you know, on on major gifts much more frequently than those that didn’t have that culture. What was the first organization that you were executive director of? Oh my, it was a soup kitchen for the homeless in richmond, virginia, and i’m guessing there are a lot of lessons you learned there. Oh, my goodness, i on the and in the book i tell the story of how i forgot about the board. No, i didn’t. I didn’t technically forget about board. I attended board meetings. I prepared my reports. I i i had the board book ready and met with the committee’s when they needed me. But in my soul they were superfluous. And what was really important was getting the programme metrics right, and getting the fundraising going. But i came to see how the board in my second executive directorship here in new york at harlem united i came to see how the board it could give the organization a gift that the ceo cannot, which is the gift of longevity and survivability. And that great word that we use in this sector. Sustainability, um, so in your ah experience in was in west virginia, richmond in virginia, at the soup kitchen. Were you sort of dragging the board along as you as you worked on the metrics that were important to you? Or you would just take kicking them? Was mohr lifestyle okay? So clicking from behind? Well, there was the italian radio, the italian right, more likable bull in a china shop. But ah, the urgency was, of course, that homelessness was extremely bad. The single room occupancy. Hotels in richmond, virginia, were closing, ah, at a rapid rate, and the homeless shelters were were increasing. So we had a a profound sense of urgency, and then right in the middle that the aids epidemic was becoming clearer to us. And so there was this sense of urgency, and we in fact founded three different organizations. Ah, as spin offs to to our non-profit but i came to see the value of board leadership and bored endorsement and and to recruit people that did add value, not everybody is meant to be a boardmember and i had made the mistake of just recruiting volunteers that had a passion for the board without necessarily having the business, talents and skills that i needed to fulfill the mission that we were, we were aimed at over ten to twenty years, and we’re going to talk later on about one of the opportunities that you’ve identified leadership counsels for maybe the type of people that you’re talking about, not suitable for the board, but have interest and passion. And so there may be another role for them. Yes, so let’s talk about the board now the board has to buy-in it’s essential at the board be developed before the organization is going to get to the next level? Oh, yes, ah, a lot of ceos inherited inherit aboard when they take a job that isn’t necessarily up for the task, and they wait on the sidelines for something magical to happen with that board, and they don’t necessarily see themselves as an intervening variable to bring the board to the next level themselves. But i recommend in my book that they do see themselves as part of the change process for the board by meeting personally with board members by recruiting people who have the skills and talents that they be delighted to have in leaders and that’s. Not all. They’re not always easy processes. They take time, but you’re trying to develop a shared vision on the board, exact between the executive leadership and the the ceo executive director and the and the volunteer leadership that’s, right? This could take a long time to align a vision it can, but there are plenty of examples where it happens rather fast. I mean the board no share one the board in richmond, virginia. The board of harlem united here in new york. They were united around the being thought leaders in the field of of ah, innovative health care for people who fell outside the health care system, the homeless and indigents. And they they i saw their revenue streams from the government, both federal and state, as needing to be reformed so that they could get the funds that were needed. For example, in nineteen ninety one there were no article, twenty eight healthcare, primary care, organised clinics for people living with aids. They were only the peruse of mental health. So what the board did with the executive staff leadership is they formed a statewide organization called the adult they healthcare coalition, and they changed the way the revenue stream were structured so that article twenty eights could include primary care for people living with aids. Article twenty eight is a federal state of new york state state health. S o that you could receive third party medicare. Reimburse oka okay, it’s, an amazing revenue stream, extremely stable. And it helped people keep people out of hospital emergency rooms so you can provide care at a much lower rate. So sometimes revenue streams have that level of complexity to them and you need a board that could understand the thinking behind them, and sometimes revenue streams are easier to understand. I mean, i think that’s why people often gravitate to foundation grants, they can look at a foundation’s website, they could understand the application process, and they throw there their hat in the ring to see if there are going to be, you know, lucky. Let zoho focus on again the achieving this shared vision across the board, so it certainly takes place in inboard recruitment board meetings and month after month, i mean what’s the what’s, the executive director’s role in trying tow, align the board with this with a common vision. Well, one of my great teachers, carl matthiasson, who was expert in board development hey used to say that a board will talk about anything and then he’d pause and he’d say, if you let them sound the point, the point was that the executive director, um, in in private dialogue with the board chair or the executive committee had to understand how to i’ll create an agenda that was consistent with where they were headed so that the organization didn’t waste a lot of times. Often times, you know, can you imagine tony in an average year, how many board meetings i sit in and listen? And so much of what boards talk about is not is inconsequential to their their deepest desires and goals, paperclips and on dh office supplies a cz one example, you know, thinking ok and no on the worst, and the executive director doesn’t want to be micromanaged, you know, you hear that language a lot. Of course. On the other hand, the executive director is under macro managing and thie opposite, of course, of micro management is macro management and macro management is about the strategic alliance of the vision and here’s, where you see a lot of executive director’s check out the and it leaves them vulnerable to being micromanaged. So i encourage in the book for the culture of a board to be robust and that the ceo see him or herself as part of a shaper or leader in that now lot of non-profit see, youse will read that and they would go well dahna you know, i’ve been doing of course i’ve been doing that for years, but when you look across the sector that’s not necessarily the habit off many ceos. They they often see themselves as just employees of the board and they and they abdicate that board leadership responsibility. Yes, even though they’re not the named chair of the board. But you’re advocating that they still have a strong role in board leadership that’s, right? And some ceos who were former program directors and then that he became the ceo. Ah, they’re not by their character change agents. So what i’m describing is a character of a ceo that’s really a change agent because i’m interested in high performing non-profits that that solve the social problem that they set out to solve, whether it be reducing teen pregnancies or having more kids get through the school system successfully or or adult employment, for example? Um, so those ceos of those kinds of organizations generally are changing agents and it’s not to say there’s something bad about the ceos are not it’s just that i think that they have to think about, ah, different place in the sector that might be better suited for their skills and talents. Okay, let’s, talk briefly about the gift of significance that you recommend from, um, from board members and you in the book, you have a calculation for what that ought to be boardmember boardmember and we don’t really have a chance to go through that calculation, but what? What? Why not a significant gift? Why? Why is it a gift of significance? Well, that’s a significant point, most boards think about board trust e-giving as giver get, um dahna and then there’s a third part of that is unsaid, which is give, get or get off, get off! So i never liked that, and i taught at the united way here in new york city for many years, i taught their board seminar and and did the given get policies and there’s wisdom to that, and i’m not opposed to give and get policies, but i think there’s a ah much more thoughtful way to engage the process, which is to have a conversation about a gift of significance. What for you when you look at your philanthropic giving in the past few years, given your current income, what is a significant gift that stands out amongst all your, um, you’re you’re you’re giving and the reason that this is a particularly good approach for trustee is that a trustee is stepping up in a leadership capacity toe inspire other donors to give by their giving, and they have to see the connection between how they think about they’re giving and what they want the donors of the organization to do. Because the development director or the vice president, institutional advancement or the ceo needs to say my trustees have stepped up, they’ve made leadership gifts one hundred percent a hundred percent they khun cumulatively give um, you know, twenty six thousand seven hundred fifty three dollars, i’m that precise when i calculate the cumulative giving of aboard and reported back to donors and the donor’s often laugh, but i’d rather give them the real numbers to know that this is a real process if you’re if their boat donors of your trustees on your board, that can’t give a gift of significance, that’s not sure everybody can give a gift or significance. I mean, i’ve had its what’s significant to them. Exactly. I’ve had consumers of services that that social work, term consumers or program members on the boards that i’ve worked at, and and i’ve used the same principle with them it could. Be five dollars could be fifty dollars, but for them, it’s a significant gift and it’s in phrasing it that way is a gift of significance. It captures the energy that we’re looking for around thinking about being a fund-raising leader and of course, ideally too from time to time, you want to ask the board to stretch beyond their normal giving, which is when you’re in a campaign or ah, special drive or there’s an anniversary, things like that. So continuing with some of the strategies that you recommend you like, like parlor gatherings over what’s, a parlor gathering could be in an office conference room could be in your living room. Ah, parties with a purpose is that is the general frays, and the purpose is the benevolence that the party ah it’s, not a party for a party sake it’s a party for a purpose and the purpose is to sponsor and endorse and give money to the charity that is is the primary focus. They’re ninety minute gatherings. I describe the actual methods and rollout and is very user friendly chapter but ah lot of organizations keep waiting for that moment when they’re going to go. To the next level and fund-raising courses of practitioners art so here in the parties where the purpose you see avery practical method that you could roll out in two to three months, sixty to ninety days. In fact, one of the smaller non-profits that listens to your radio program read the book their whole development committee. They’re all volunteers. Well, i love them because they’re listening. Yes, i don’t care what they do fund-raising wise. Frankly, lawrence, i don’t care if they bought your book or not. They’re there listening to the show that you could stop there. I love them. Whoever you are, we love you. You know who you are. We love you. I’m sorry. I know it’s true. And they they are going to do a party when they called. I said i’ll give you a free as i do anybody, i give anybody of free forty minute phone conversation about questions they have about the book. Or i also come into organizations to meet with the development team or aboard team anyway. So i gave them a free consultation and they wanted to do a party with a purpose in the future. And i said, oh, no, we’re going to have it before the year. And we’re doing it now. And they’re going to be doing it right after between christmas and new year’s. Excellent. Excellent, indeed. Love lawrence paige, nani this’s uh, thiss was this a very, very good show? He’s, you should get this book if you don’t have it non-profit fund-raising solution. You ought to tony’s take two and more with lawrence coming up first, i’m going to chat about pursuant because they have a tool called billboard, and it helps you manage your communications. Naturally, you are multi-channel email landing pages, micro sites, donation forms, et cetera. The social networks don’t separate those integrate. I thought of that myself. I think i might, you know, it’s been a few weeks business since i’ve been in the studio because i was away, but i believe i said that a couple weeks ago don’t separate into great because billboard is integrated communications management puts all these tools and that all these channels together into one management tool and not only management but also analytics so that you know which of your channels our most effective because after well, depending on how many campaigns you do and and how engaged you are might be after three months, you want to look back, but if not if you’re not that prolific, maybe after a year. Or so you want to look back and see what’s been the most effective? The analytics will answer that then you find tune and you improve and you raise more money or get more volunteers or have more successful events, whatever it is you’re engaging for, you’ll do it better with the unified, integrated management and the analytics that go with billboard. So if you want to improve your engagement, your outreach, check out billboard at pursuant dot com really pursuing is a perfect sponsor for small and midsize non-profits our listeners obviously say it all the time because they have these tools that you can use separately online or, you know you can choose ah, larger suite of tools together or at the highest level, you know, they actually do on site, you know, campaign consulting, live bodies, helping you manage your campaign, so but you don’t have to go that far, so i just think they’re perfect, you know, sort of ala carte and i love the ceo trent chant ryker has a background in non-profits and recognizes the challenges that small and midsize shops are facing around fund-raising and engagement. Pursuant, dot com i’ve got video from venice, the net cia. I was there last week. Oh my goodness! Ah, in fact, exactly this time last week, there are gondolier is in the background, so you got to check that out and i’m talking about how you keep your plans e-giving above water, you do it by cultivating and soliciting the right prospects. The video with the gondolier ears is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, second of october thirty ninth show of the year. Let’s, get back to lorenzo panjwani let’s talk more about parlor gatherings. Lawrence, you do is a very, very askew, said user friendly chapter you have a lot of very robust advice, and i’ve always liked the idea of a small, intimate gathering, so we’re going to focus on my prejudice for these types of events, not to the exclusion well here on the show, and we don’t have a chance to talk about everything all the strategies that you have in the book, but the book is full of lots of fund-raising strategies i happen to like the i never heard them called parlor gatherings, but i like i like that idea. Um, who should host these thes parlor gatherings? Generally? There’s one one host who has a good network of friends, were colleagues, family members and in turn out twenty five to thirty people. Um, i’ve been it parties where the purpose parlor gatherings that have as much money as seventy five that’s a big parlour, yeah, but they have, you know, they’re people with big names, and they have big networks and s o mostly, the host is responsible for inviting the guests, mostly the host. Now, in some organizations where our host doesn’t feel that they could deliver twenty five to thirty, people, maybe they have a co host or i’ve done three hosts and each of them commit delivering, you know, ten people and and that’s worked very well, especially because they’ve had the support and partnership of two other people that they like and they’re going to do it together, and they see it as a ah fun thing to do. I love the fact that most of the the expense budgets on parlor gatherings are a couple hundred dollars. We don’t put out a lot of fancy food we use cheap. Wine or no wine at all, depending on the organization that always has to be thought through. Um, and we don’t spend money on trinkets or literature. Um, um if the if the host once, um ah, paper invitations as opposed to just using ah elektronik invitation service, like ping ah, the host then has to pay for the cost of that, not the organization. And, um and as i said, they are usually planned in sixty to ninety days. Okay? And you want you want nobody to talk for more than five minutes? That’s, right? Who? You should talk. Well, it has to be somebody. Ah, that that people can emotionally connect with generally a client or consumer who is prepared to deliver, um and it’s comfortable talking to a group of those could be very tender, intimate moments when it’s, when it’s someone who’s benefiting from the services of the organization. That’s, right, it’s seen i’ve seen tears in in colleges, scholarship recipients. But the cause is something causes you mentioned run much more deeply even than education. Yeah, i people who have healed from years of recovery. People who have been supported in their process of coming out of jails and prisons, people who i have ah been through adoption processes, i mean, their stories are extremely powerful, and telling a story is what you need to help them work on and prepare for, so that they have some flare on some theatrics to it where the the audience makes eye contact with them, and that that they have good hand gestures and that they’re articulate and everybody, of course, has their own style. I’ve been where some climb i’ve been to some parties with a purpose where the clients are very studio vote j and they have a quiet manner, but nonetheless, your grandmother would appreciate it slipping little italian, italian and there you are, italian listeners. Ah, they’re they’re quieter in their presentation, but nonetheless still powerful because they prepared still very moving, very moving video is often good at larger events, but in smaller events ah, the intimacy of the smaller room gives gives good stage two to two personal witness who else should be talking? Well? The the some official from the organization of boardmember or volunteer or staff member ceo doesn’t have to be to say, you know, no, the ceo is more than happy, more than welcome to think of him or herself, but again in a high functioning fund-raising culture, everybody should be empowered to talk about the money and teo, talk about the money in a way that that other people get it and doesn’t have to be the ceo there. There’s a one of the stories i tell in the book is a first party with a purpose for a small agency in brooklyn substance abuse recovery agency. They never did any private fund-raising they’d always relied on government grants and their first time out, they raised twenty six, twenty seven thousand dollars. They had two clients tell their story and ah, boardmember, who never saw herself as a fundraiser, stood up and was crying after listening to the two consumers tell their story, and she burst out with a five thousand dollar pledge and somebody else in the room matched it, and none of that was prepared. But it was prepared conceptually because we do have a bias in who we invite, that we try to invite people that we know something about, that they have some means now we’re not. We’re not strict about that, but we do ask the question, ahn do seek people who have that some level of affluence now, a lot of smaller non-profits say right off the bat, i don’t know anybody, you know, with the level of affluence, and i say, okay, well, let’s work with what we have, and but amazingly they always find somebody who writes that eighty percent of the rooms check on dh rehearsing you like tio, you’d like to rehearse. These rehearsing is very important, you know, the penultimate example of steve jobs that before he passed away at at apple, his his launches of new products were legendary, right? That he practiced those for weeks six, seven weeks every single day of running the whole team through rehearsals and himself, and anything worth goat doing is worth practising foreign preparing well for so don’t think you could just, like, call the client up the night before and say, would you speak tomorrow at our, you know, party with a purpose? That’s not the way to do it? And what about the important follow-up to your parlor gatherings? Well, ah, part of the second speaker or the third speakers role is to ask for funds. And and ah, pledge form has handed out, and some people fill it out right there and it’s collected as people leave, and for those that don’t hand the pledge, forman follow-up is necessary first of all, follow-up is necessary for everybody to say thank you way we have a rule of sending out our thank you notes and forty eight hours ah, business hours, which a lot of non-profits find, you know, really? Ah, hi rule to meet, but we think it’s important that people get both paper and email, thank you’s, and they get a cumulative understanding of what happened at the party because a lot of donors are going to leave and they’re not going to know the cumulative results that they participated in that twenty six or twenty seven thousand or five thousand or twenty five hundred was raised whenever share that impact you want to share that impact and you want to be let people feel the good vibes of that they participated in, that they made it happen. And so the thank you notes need to go out the the results need to be go out by both female and paper and then of course the e-giving history needs to be recorded in your database and there’s no excuse for a non-profit whether they’re volunteer with no budget, not having a database, as i say in the book, you can go to e base dot or get a free database that was developed by the rockefeller family foundation at my website for the book the non-profit fund-raising solution dot com there’s links to free databases, or you could just use a good excel spreadsheet and stay organized or an access that a base that’s comes with your you know, your computer there’s no excuse thes days for you don’t have toe spend, you know, ten thousand a month with razors, edge or something? Thank you for sharing those resources to leadership councils we alluded to these earlier what’s the role of a leadership council. Well, a non-profit has a board that that worries about its governance. Generally we say that the executive staff is supposed to be worried about one, two, three years of management, and the board should be thinking about five to ten years. The pentagon, of course, has a seventy five year strategic plan, so they know where they’re going to. Be, i would like our sector to know a lot more about where it’s going to be, but no pat, no matter how powerful your board is, you still need mork community endorsement for your organization and the leadership council gives you that it’s a non governance structure. Some people call it honorary councils or advisory councils. I like the term leadership council because it’s, what we’re looking for, we’re looking for them to be leaders and sometimes those leaders khun step up and say things that your board can’t say, or your executive staff can’t say about your cause. And as we saw this pit last year or two years ago with planned parenthood, there were many people on its leadership council who spoke up in their defense where they’re bored, needed to keep ah quieter, acquired or voice so leadership councils are very important, and sometimes you put people on leadership councils who don’t want to do the heavy lifting of governance, and sometimes you put them on because you have good feelings about how they love your organization and you want to maintain that relationship, but they’re not appropriate for the board. So it’s a it’s a mix of characters, we’ll take a break for a couple minutes, keep talking about leadership councils and i’m going to do live listener love i gotta start with where i’m going to be next week. Mexico city, mexico welcome ola kato. I’m going to be there next week for opportunity collaboration, which used to be a sponsor of the show, actually staying over just overnight in mexico city and then flying the next day to x stop, where the opportunity collaboration unconference is going to be new york, new york live listener loved to you also to st louis, missouri, brooklyn, new york and wilmington, north carolina live listener love to each location each person forget the location the love goes to the person not to their office or their building or their block it’s to you heart to heart live listener love beijing beijing is frequent listening. Beijing thank you very much. Niehaus and seoul, south korea also so grateful for the loyalty coming from seoul on your haserot affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners throughout the country at our am and fm affiliate stations and we’re going to have some new ones to announce. Give me a couple weeks we got some announcements coming up, but in the meantime, everybody who’s listening now from all our am and fm stations affections out to you and, of course, the all important podcast pleasantries for the over ten thousand people we know who listen, whatever device that whatever time, doing whatever activity podcast pleasantries to you, let’s, take a break, and then we go right back into lawrence paige nani 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 or an a a me 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. 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To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Oppcoll what is our leadership council going to do? I lied endorse for legitimacy, credibility there, there to say, we like these guys what they’re doing, we endorse and it there’s power by that association with their name, and they don’t even have to do anything just to have that happen. We do want people to do things on the leadership council. They’re generally a couple things. We want them to come to an annual gathering of the leadership council so that they could get their own personal update about the organization. Secondly, we want them to to meet with us individually, us being the development ofthis war, the executive office. We want to meet with them individually to talk about their own gift to the organization, plus their network of possibly doing guess what? Ah, party with a purpose for their network. So there’s a lot of in few inches integration of the tactics in part two of the book, while part one is all about the way you think about fund-raising part two is all about the the inter marriage of various tactics. For example, in a leadership council, i think i mentioned this in the plan giving chapter. You could have a leadership council just for the people who are part of the plane. Get me that there is a chapter devoted to plan giving their importance. Only reason. Lawrence’s here. We’re not talking about that chapter three. Only thing that drew me to the book. I read it from backward. I read. I read that chapter first. The plan giving is ah, well, many times non-profits overlook having a plan giving society for there the donors that that give through their bequests or their wills or insurance policies or whatever the mechanism and having a leadership council of your plan giving group is very important. Ah, there was a small client i worked with here in east haven, connecticut. The shoreline trolley museum. They’re in the in the midst of closing on a two million dollar campaign so that they could have proper buildings for their antique trolleys. They have one hundred antique trolleys which tell the story of the trolleys from the eighteen hundreds. Amazing place. My kids love it and the they never had paid attention to their legacy. There they’re playing e-giving ah, donors and we started to talk to them or and organized that group and they have a leadership council now off their plan giving donor and twenty, twenty one people joined the first year. And i think four five have joined the second year, and they were unsung people who had thought about e-giving for the future where i think you would know better than i. But something like a low seven percent of people think about a plan gift. Whereas in there course of their life, like eighty five or ninety percent of people think about giving. But upon their death, they generally just leave their money to their to their family. Yeah, there’s. Some small percentage of people that have, ah, charitable bequest in there will yes, when the leadership council is advocating an endorsing, who were they advocating in endorsing, too? Ah, to the press to other thought leaders conferences during the height of the aids epidemic, the leadership council that i put together at harlem united many of those leaders would would mention in their addresses about aids and howto compassionately respond. They would mention that they were on the honoree council of harlem united. It meant it meant legitimacy for them and for us that they would mention that it worked both ways you had ah, leadership council, you said in the book that had fifty five members? Oh, yes, what that sounds huge. Yes, and i had the same response to the ceo, and he turned around and said, but look at my mission, i’m i have to represent, you know, thiss whole county and there were, i don’t know twenty four, five smaller towns in this county, and he represented three sectors, not just the nonprofit sector, but government and business and real estate was a big factor of that. So he needed a large counsel, and he saw the wisdom of that, and he i actually had a staff member hired to manage that leadership council, and it brought him it was a wise move. Um, it brought him a lot of impact because he he didn’t neglect his leadership council. A lot of times leadership, council’s air started. I see i go in and, um, auditing and organization and i look at their letterhead, and i see i say, oh, you have an advisory council says here? Well, yeah, but not really learns i said, what do you mean? Well, we really don’t you know, that was a couple years ago, and it was so and so’s idea and and it’s just fallen by the wayside. You see there’s an example where the culture of the organization didn’t embrace the tactic tactics don’t raise money? Yeah, excellent on their own, they need a culture to nest in and if they’re if they’re if the tactic is in an organization where the where it’s loved and cared for it then produces results, so then they get the crazy idea that, oh, well, the leadership council never really did raise much money for us, totally disassociating themselves from lack of developing it and creating a plan for it. At harlem united, our leadership council was reviewed every year, and the plan was updated and revised and evaluated, and that was brought to the boardmember that the board? I’m sorry at a board meeting, we we always had cochairs for the leadership council, male and female, pretty consistent about that for capital campaigns, male and female leaders of the campaign cabinet and those two leaders i would invite to come in and give a state of the union of the our leadership council to the board and it was, and the board members would go to the annual gathering of the leadership council. The board members were asked to do that. And so there was nice synergy and harmony there no competition. We have just about a minute and a half before to wrap up, and so i want to spend that time asking what it is that you love about the work that you do well, fund-raising is a noble profession and it’s a bridge builder between the idea that you have that will make the world a better place and the money you need to actualize the program. And so the methods of fund-raising are build that bridge, and and you love building bridges, and absolutely one of my old teachers used to say, if you build bridges don’t don’t be surprised when people walk on them or walk over you, but nonetheless fund-raising is that bridge between the non-profits idea and the reality of making it happen? Lots of very good ideas in the book it is the non-profit fund-raising solution powerful revenue strategy is to take you to the next level. Lawrence paige nani lawrence’s l a u r e n c e panjwani perfect. Thank you so much for being guests. Been a pleasure. I’ve been delighted to be here. And i wanna shout out just quickly to all by blogged readers. About forty, five hundred of them raise your block non-profit fund-raising solution dot com and you can sign up there to be on the block. Outstanding. Thank you again. Thank you. Yes, thank you, lorenzo. So more live. Listen, love while we were doing it the last time a couple of countries checked in india live listen love to you and and tokyo tokyo loyal listeners thank you very, very much konnichi wa. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com where in the world else would you go next? Week’s show claire meyerhoff is with me for our discussion of your plant e-giving legacy society hint. We don’t really like the phrase legacy society pursuant full service fund-raising you’ll raise bags more money i’m not talking about those little court bags that you put your three ounce shampoo in when you fly. I’m talking about duffel bags like the marines carry onto those c one thirties when they’re going overseas. Filled with money pursuant dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Shows social media is by susan chavez. Susan chavez. Dot com on our music is by scott stein, thank you for that information. 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 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.