Tag Archives: corporate partnerships

Nonprofit Radio for November 14, 2022: Your Corporate Funding

 

Lori Zoss KraskaYour Corporate Funding

 

In “The Boardroom Playbook,” Lori Zoss Kraska gives you step-by-step strategies—and healthy doses of encouragement—to improve your corporate funding process so you increase support and sponsorships. She’s with us to talk about her book.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 617_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20221114.mp3

Processed on: 2022-11-07T18:48:59.668Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2022…11…617_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20221114.mp3.217463024.json
Path to text: transcripts/2022/11/617_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20221114.txt

[00:02:02.01] spk_0:
And welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with retinal Malaysia if I saw that you missed this week’s show your corporate funding in the boardroom Playbook, Lori’s ask Rosca gives you step by step strategies and healthy doses of encouragement to improve your corporate funding process. So you increase support and sponsorships. She’s with us to talk about her book. I’m Tony’s take two. I’m wishing you well. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome Laurie’s Oscar Oscar to the show. She’s author of the book, The boardroom Playbook, a not so ordinary guide to corporate funding for your purpose driven organization. She’s got over 22 years expertise in revenue generation management, corporate sponsorship, support, corporate cause marketing, fundraising, corporate social responsibility and more. She’s held key leadership and corporate sponsorship positions in organizations like PBS NPR local stations, Clear channel University of phoenix midwest campuses and citysearch dot com. Her company is the growth owl. She’s at Z ask Raska and the company is at the growth owl dot com. Welcome Wise owl.

[00:02:03.90] spk_1:
Well, thank you Tony. It is my pleasure to be here and thank you for that. Beautiful introduction. Oh,

[00:02:09.40] spk_0:
well based on what you sent me. It’s all, it’s all true And keep it, keep it factual, glad to have the wise owl the growth owl with US

[00:02:17.87] spk_1:
that’s right. Thank you.

[00:02:19.57] spk_0:
And you’re, you’re in the Cleveland Ohio area.

[00:02:22.19] spk_1:
I am, I’m in the Cleveland Ohio area but I work with clients across the country.

[00:02:28.18] spk_0:
I I know Cleveland for the rock and Roll Hall of fame.

[00:02:31.89] spk_1:
Yes. Probably one of the most popular attractions when people come to Cleveland, it’s definitely not miss when you come.

[00:02:38.28] spk_0:
I imagine it’s on my list. I haven’t been there yet. But have you been, do you go, you bring friends or? Yeah,

[00:02:43.69] spk_1:
absolutely. Yeah. Most friends who want to come to Cleveland first ask about the Rock hall. So it’s, it’s a definite visit site.

[00:02:50.40] spk_0:
Okay, you’ve heard this before. The Rock Hall, That’s the insiders call it the rock

[00:02:54.22] spk_1:
the rock hall, we call it the Rock hall. That’s

[00:02:56.13] spk_0:
right. Okay. All right. I wanna be, I wanna be a Cleveland insider. Alright,

[00:02:58.97] spk_1:
alright. You got it.

[00:03:01.64] spk_0:
So let’s talk about the boardroom playbook and corporate funding. I gather you feel that nonprofits are not strategic enough in their corporate funding work.

[00:03:14.92] spk_1:
You know, it’s been my experience that nonprofits do really, really well and individual giving, planned giving, um, other types of giving, but where sometimes

[00:03:28.02] spk_0:
something

[00:03:53.05] spk_1:
gets overlooked. I just noticed it tends to be in that corporate giving area and I, I personally see one of two things. Either there hasn’t been much attention to it or they’ve put somebody to oversee it that maybe is really in charge of something else like planned giving or membership or individual giving and they’ve added a corporate support function. And it’s kind of like, wow, this is something that you’ve just added to my responsibilities. That’s totally different than traditional types of fundraising. So I do see that there is a need to talk specifically about how corporate sponsorship and corporate funding works because it is very different than other types of fundraising.

[00:04:12.72] spk_0:
And you’ve been on both sides, you’ve you’ve been on the sponsorship side for like PBS and NPR stations.

[00:04:19.48] spk_1:
Yeah, I

[00:04:20.50] spk_0:
mean those are huge. Those are all big names. Those are marquee names, Yeah,

[00:04:23.82] spk_1:
yeah, it puts me in a very unique position, I’ve been on the client side, I’ve been on the funder side, I’ve also been on the side that, you know, is looking for the funding. So I’ve got a great perspective, I

[00:04:41.70] spk_0:
agree. So let’s, let’s let’s let’s pick your brain, you have, you have this um uh sort of a little paradigm me mi mo

[00:04:45.49] spk_1:
Yeah, mm. Oh

[00:04:47.04] spk_0:
yeah, explain, explain me mi mo of course we’re gonna have plenty of time to go into details, but yeah, it was the high level MIm mimo,

[00:05:27.08] spk_1:
So for years, people have asked me what’s your process, you know, what makes you different, what have you? So I like to say, I just work with me mi mo and to me an effective fundraiser, whether it be for corporate or other types of fundraising is aligning your mental, your message and your motion and that motion being the activity to get things done to get that funding. So putting all of those three together in alignment, making sure your head is in check, your messaging is in check and the activities are in check will be kind of the secret sauce to your cell success. So my book is broken out into me mi mo and you know, really taking a look at how can you really capitalize on the areas that you have strengths, but also work on those areas where maybe you don’t have as many strengths

[00:05:43.16] spk_0:
and you have a very, you know, a lot of lot of step by step, I mean very clear do these five things to do this to get this and to overcome your anxieties uh which we’ll get to that, we’ll get to your uh periwinkle zombies, you know, to overcome these things. Uh you know, do these five things. So you know, it’s very, it’s very strategic, it’s very, it’s a very, it’s a very easy reads, very good read,

[00:06:08.15] spk_1:
I appreciate that and it was purposely written that way because I know a lot of business books and other books quite frankly can be kind of overwhelming and I really wanted this to be practical that you walked away from it at least taking a few good nuggets that you can implement right after you put the book down.

[00:06:24.40] spk_0:
So let’s talk about the mental and of course you have to acquaint us with your perry winkle zombies.

[00:07:08.68] spk_1:
Ah yes, so perry winkle zombies, if you if you read in my book you’ll you’ll see the setup I have is I love horror movies, you know give me a good Freddy Jason would have you a good haunted house but what freaks me out are zombies just don’t like them, they just freak me out. So when I think about how your thoughts can overtake you, when you get anxious about something, it be anxious about going into a meeting to ask for a lot of money, it could be having anxiety about well gee how much money should I ask for and then things like imposter syndrome or basically anything that’s in your head that’s preventing you from doing what you need to do. I also like to say there are people in your life that can sometimes be perry winkle zombies that um you know maybe they’re they’re trying to do it out of out of a good nature from a good place but they can impede on your progress. So it’s very important early on in that mental stage that you recognize what those perry winkle zombies are that could prevent you from kind of being the best fundraiser you can be

[00:07:34.56] spk_0:
uh and there perry winkle because periwinkles, a pretty color kind of a soft violet but these things may they come in, they come in a nice shape sometimes

[00:07:47.77] spk_1:
but

[00:07:48.55] spk_0:
they are insidious like like zombies are

[00:08:26.61] spk_1:
exactly right, tony So sometimes those anxieties or sometimes when you question yourself, you think it actually might be helping you, but in actuality it’s hurting you, and that’s where the periwinkle, you know, comes into play, you know, at first it looks it looks good, but actually it is kind of impeding your process. So you wanna watch for those zombies in your life, what are their mental or actually, you know, in your sphere? And I talk about in my book, you know, I had a client that had a director of Development that um maybe unconsciously was being kind of a periwinkle zombie to the Executive Director and the executive director really wanted to do more with fundraising and the Director of Development said, you know, you kind of stay in your lane,

[00:08:37.63] spk_0:
you

[00:08:38.79] spk_1:
know, you gotta look out for those things,

[00:08:58.09] spk_0:
right? As if she, the fundraiser was portraying it as helpful, you know, there there are things that only you can do, so you should devote your time to those things, leave these more mundane things that any Schmo like me can handle, you know, not that she was self deprecating

[00:09:00.03] spk_1:
like that, right? It

[00:09:01.11] spk_0:
was, it was altruistic in appearance that she was, she was a zombie in sheep’s clothing.

[00:09:07.22] spk_1:
That’s right, rationally, it makes sense in the conversation. Well maybe she’s right, but at the end of the day it’s impeding your growth anytime you want to get educated or learn to do something more with in your career, that is not a bad thing, so zombies attacking you in that way periwinkle zombie, you definitely have to tear it down.

[00:09:26.50] spk_0:
Yes as as frightful as it may

[00:09:29.33] spk_1:
be.

[00:09:29.88] spk_0:
Uh Well thankfully that executive director had you working with her, so if you love horror movies you will appreciate that. I’ve been, I’ve been on this, not on the set, but I’ve been to the place where friday the 13th, the original with kevin with kevin Bacon, with the young kevin

[00:09:48.37] spk_1:
Bacon, that

[00:10:17.39] spk_0:
was filmed that was filmed at a Boy Scout camp Northern New Jersey and I used to go to that campus, it’s called Camp no be bosco, no be bosco stood for North Bergen Boy Scouts and there were the lodges lodges were there the log cabins were places where you could stay and then there was an administration building and uh I don’t know, I don’t know if the dining, I think the dining hall is where the costumes were. So one time I went and they were they were they were in the midst of filming, so we saw a bunch of the masks and costumes,

[00:10:27.83] spk_1:
I’ve

[00:10:28.13] spk_0:
been at the little Boy Scout camp is now you know that friday the 13th the original was filmed at a Boy Scout camp and the lake of course is right there, is it Crystal Lake is it, is

[00:10:37.37] spk_1:
it

[00:10:38.09] spk_0:
camp Crystal lake, right well the real name is nobody bosco. I’ve swam in that lake. I’ve rowed boats in that lake, so

[00:10:47.16] spk_1:
And no, Jason coming out from the water trying to attack you,

[00:10:50.13] spk_0:
Jason. Okay. So you’re the expert I want to show Jason or Freddy? Okay, Freddy. What’s the who’s the Freddy? What show is his

[00:10:56.47] spk_1:
Freddy is a nightmare on Elm Street.

[00:10:58.72] spk_0:
Elm Street. Okay.

[00:11:00.46] spk_1:
Yes,

[00:11:01.98] spk_0:
shout out one other. Okay, so we got Jason Freddy. What’s one more that

[00:11:05.93] spk_1:
Michael Myers from Halloween?

[00:11:08.92] spk_0:
Okay, Thank you. You’re proving that.

[00:11:10.82] spk_1:
Really? My favorite is Michael Myers. Yes.

[00:11:14.34] spk_0:
Okay. Obviously, proving your bona fides in your harbor films. That’s right. You know who these guys

[00:11:22.41] spk_1:
are? Is

[00:11:23.50] spk_0:
there ever a horror film with a woman? Is there ever a woman bad bad actor in? Is there any horror film like that?

[00:11:31.88] spk_1:
That’s a great question. And I’m sure there is. You’re just putting me on the spot

[00:11:36.82] spk_0:
right there and I can’t,

[00:11:37.92] spk_1:
I can’t think about it. I guess you could you know, if you think some of the movies that came from the conjuring, there’s the nun, there’s the female dolls that are kind of creepy Annabelle. Um those coming to my mind. Yeah,

[00:11:56.03] spk_0:
If you think of another main character, you know. No, no, no, that’s just off the top of my head. I just, I was saying they’re all guys. Well, okay, not surprisingly. Well, we’ll keep the gender stereotypes out of this.

[00:12:11.84] spk_1:
So.

[00:12:13.08] spk_0:
All right. So, we got to stay away from the periwinkle zombies there sometimes people and their sometimes just in our own head.

[00:12:19.69] spk_1:
That’s exactly right, yes,

[00:12:31.00] spk_0:
Alright, get away, you know, you don’t that doubt and that fear overcome that. Okay, what else? What else? Mental wise you you tell a good story about a gentleman you met on an airplane

[00:12:34.30] spk_1:
paul.

[00:12:35.28] spk_0:
Yeah. Story of paul, you know, that’s

[00:12:38.33] spk_1:
Since the book has come out, I probably get more questions about Paul and unfortunately I don’t know what happened to Paul because this this literally happened early in my career, like almost 22

[00:12:48.11] spk_0:
years, you know enough, you know, enough to make it a very good story.

[00:13:49.24] spk_1:
Yeah, so um you know, basically I was on a flight from Chicago to phoenix and I struck up a conversation with who is paul? He was in his, in his fifties, he just left his job in banking to just put all of his enthusiasm in the software start up and at the time I really didn’t understand what the software is about. I just got the, just this guy’s really excited and he was excited because he had the opportunity to basically go to phoenix and pitch a room of investors to invest in his business, kind of like shark tank before shark tank was the thing and I thought great, well you know paul um found out we were gonna be in the same return flight later in the week, so you know, I can’t wait to hear about your your big pitch and how it went. So it’s a few days later I’m walking in the airport on the concourse lo and behold there’s paul at the bar and looking just really, really sad. So I approached him, I asked paul how it went and he said it didn’t and I said what? He said, I didn’t go to the meeting

[00:13:53.14] spk_0:
and

[00:13:53.94] spk_1:
I said you didn’t go to the meeting? What happened? He said, I just was so scared and paralyzed that they would not like my idea, it just wasn’t worth it to go. And I stayed in my hotel room and that stayed with me

[00:14:08.28] spk_0:
for

[00:14:46.53] spk_1:
years and I always use that even with my clients and with myself, if I feel any type of doubt go to the meeting, Lori, you’ve you’ve got to go to the meeting, you you can’t do what paul did. And paul even said to me before you know, we left that day, Laurie always go to the meeting, don’t do what I did. And again, here’s me, I’m in my twenties, this is early in my career and I’m looking at this guy that seemed so successful and so confident when we were on the flight together, it was a totally different person and this is somebody that created something in his head, a situation that wasn’t even real. You know, he was anticipating he was going to get all of this pushback and they weren’t going to like them. And the sad part was when I saw him, he was actually on a cell phone. The old flip phones back then. I’m sure you remember those tony and he said, I

[00:15:02.67] spk_0:
remember, I remember princess remember princess phones. Yes,

[00:15:07.59] spk_1:
me too.

[00:15:09.32] spk_0:
I

[00:15:09.96] spk_1:
do. And he said I was actually on the phone talking to my old boss, getting my job

[00:15:16.16] spk_0:
back. It

[00:15:16.36] spk_1:
was heartbreaking. So, you know, I I also end the book reminding people about paul and you know, again, he sticks with me and it’s a it’s a great reminder that you can really allow yourself to create situations in your mind that really hijack the progress or hijack good things from coming in, not only for your funding, but in your life quite frankly. So yeah, that’s my story of paul.

[00:15:44.98] spk_0:
I hope you didn’t sit next to him on the way back, did you? Because that would be an awful long.

[00:15:49.57] spk_1:
We did not.

[00:15:51.25] spk_0:
Okay, okay. That would be that would be a tough flight

[00:15:56.89] spk_1:
home.

[00:17:14.58] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, the relationships, the relationships with media, we’re talking today with Laurie about relationships with corporate funders. You need to have relationships with the folks in the media who you want to be responsive when there’s something in the news that you need to comment on, you just have to be heard. Your voice needs to be part of the conversation around something, whatever the news hook is or just you want to get an op ed in. It may not be uh something that is based on a news hook, but something you feel strongly about, you need to be heard. This is all part of being a thought leader in your field. Turn to can set you up with relationships that can get you heard when you need to be and just when uh when you want to be, nothing wrong with wanting to be heard, turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now, back to your corporate funding. You you talk in a few places about managing expectations.

[00:17:19.68] spk_1:
Oh yeah,

[00:17:20.67] spk_0:
your own, your organization. Let’s let’s let’s get that out in the while. We’re talking about the first me of the memo.

[00:17:28.16] spk_1:
Yeah. So I think managing expectations is really important. So let’s start with managing expectations kind of in your own building. And it

[00:17:44.62] spk_0:
could have, we could have, we could have Mimi ma’am. Oh, that’s Oh yeah. If you want to do mental message, manage expectations and but then that’s two words. It ruins your cadence. But

[00:17:47.49] spk_1:
right, you got it,

[00:17:48.68] spk_0:
trying to mess up. You don’t want to mess up your mantra.

[00:17:51.18] spk_1:
That’s alright.

[00:17:52.86] spk_0:
I just thought of. All right.

[00:20:27.44] spk_1:
So, you know, there’s nothing worse than being in your in a meeting with your Ceo, in your c suite and they’re asking you about updates. It’s on fundraising. On corporate support and in previous meetings, maybe you were very, very excited about something about about a potential funder coming on board, but they’ve gone kind of quiet, so you’ve got nothing else to report on that meeting. There’s just nothing worse than that. You know, you do the round robin of reporting and it comes to you, you’re like, do I have to talk about this again. So I think it’s very important right away that whenever you’re discussing expectations about a potential funder, especially a corporate funder, you keep your expectations based on facts and not feelings. And when I talk about in the book, I even give some sample, a re responses. So if you do have your Ceo or CFO asking about, well how do you how do you think that’s going to go? I mean, do you, I think we’re going to get that money instead of saying something that’s feelings based? Like, you know, I went in there, I had a great pitch, I think we really connected really well. They’d be stupid not to want to fund us. You know, that’s very feelings based language instead you want to focus on factual language. Now we have the pitch two weeks ago they said that they’re gonna need X amount of time. We do fit in their corporate social possibility and corporate philanthropic goals in terms of their tenants. Forgiving so based on that, you know, the probabilities might be better than not. So there’s a whole different feeling or feelings The bad word, there’s a, there’s a whole different vibe that you’re gonna get when you’re spending time talking about fact versus feelings and that especially comes up. You know, if you don’t get the funding or if if the funding tends to be elongated in terms of the decision and the ceo is getting a little, you know, impatient. Well, what’s going on, you said this was going so well what happened here? So instead of taking it personally and saying, I totally get what you’re saying, I’m just as, you know, flabbergasted as you have you are that they haven’t come back to us. I put a lot of work in that proposal, that’s the language you want to stay away from. You have to again focus going back to the points of, we did what they asked us to do and there’s a process and we have to go through that process. So that is a great way to set expectations within the building. The other area of setting expectation is within something I call corporate depth perception. I talk about this in my book, you have to realize that corporations are dealing with thousands of different things and no matter how important your funding is to you, it’s not as important to the corporation

[00:20:47.95] spk_0:
and

[00:20:48.32] spk_1:
you have to realize that, again, not taking it personally and there are going to be times where, you know, sometimes it’s just not a

[00:20:56.58] spk_0:
fit,

[00:21:33.20] spk_1:
there’s it’s just not a fit, no matter how hard you try to get somebody’s attention, it’s just not a fit, or maybe the timing is off. But having the empathy for lack of a better term to understand what corporate decision makers are going through, it’s gonna give you um it’s gonna give you a kind of a long way with somebody in the positive, you know, if you’re able to say to someone, I realize you’re literally looking at thousands maybe of proposals and, you know, I’m just one of those, I just want to thank you for even the review, we appreciate that. That’s music to a corporate decision makers ears because they usually don’t even hear anything like that. And just by reaching out and having that empathy that corporate duck perceptions, you may have just moved your proposal from the bottom all the way up, because people will always remember how you make them feel and that’s that’s so important.

[00:22:11.97] spk_0:
You made that you make that suggestion uh, you know, near near the end as you’re saying, rather than saying, thanks very much for your time. You know, be empathetic, uh, extend yourself a bit and maybe, and and it’s and it’s your it’s your last paragraph with them before you walk out the door. So why not leave them with something much bigger than, you know, everybody else is the ubiquitous. Thanks for your time.

[00:22:18.22] spk_1:
Exactly, yeah. Anyway, you can make yourself stand out to help help them connect with you, that you understand what they’re going through in this process that’s huge.

[00:22:31.17] spk_0:
Anything else on the on the first me? Yeah,

[00:22:34.71] spk_1:
so

[00:22:35.88] spk_0:
I’m

[00:23:08.27] spk_1:
a really big believer in the self fulfilling prophecy and we kind of hit that with paul, but just in general, I really try to coach my clients and people that are reading this book, you know, watch the language you’re using about yourself, you know, we’re probably not gonna get that. Well, you’ve already said it to yourself in your mind that you’re not going to get that. Also watch when you’re writing your proposals, if you’re if you’re not in a good frame of mind when you’re writing a proposal for money stop, I really think it it comes through in the language, so I

[00:23:31.46] spk_0:
think that’s true. I think that’s true when you’re writing, when you’re writing emails to whether it’s to a corporate funder or anybody else, if you’re in a pissy mood, you know, you’re just you’re gonna be more terse, you’re you’re you’re you’re the right language is not gonna flow great. You know, it’s it’s it’s Yeah, I think it it comes through even in one dimension on the screen. I agree, totally

[00:23:38.73] spk_1:
does. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, watch that self fulfilling prophecy, Watch the language you’re using about yourself and always remember that you are deserving of the funding and your organization is deserving of it and just remember to keep going back to that place if you’re feeling challenged when you’re not in a great frame of mind.

[00:24:31.95] spk_0:
That also applies terrifically too. When you’re preparing for your presentation, preparing to go in, you wanna, you wanna visualize yourself. I mean that when I, sometimes when I’m preparing for a training or, or Evan R or something, I’ll picture myself running through the finish line first, you know, like chest out, breaking the tape, breaking that, that tape at the finish line and you know, people are cheering and it’s uh, so we’re simpatico, I agree with you about visualizations, the value of a positive visualization

[00:24:54.12] spk_1:
and I give tips in my book about things to visualize the day of your presentation as well as before, if you’re able to actually get in the space where you’re going to present before the meeting, give yourself like a good half hour, it’s good to get into the space, get you in the right frame of mind and I’m a big fan of rehearsal, you know, I’m an, I’m an old theater kid, you know, I did a lot of theater in high school and in college and rehearsal is essential and you know, even when I was in public media and I was on the air, you know, pitching for dollars as they would say, trying to get new members, I would rehearse in my car on the way to doing a membership pitch and it works, so don’t be afraid to rehearse. I did.

[00:25:19.72] spk_0:
Yes,

[00:25:21.48] spk_1:
that’s

[00:25:33.06] spk_0:
a real, that’s a real art, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta keep people, you gotta keep keep motion, keep forward motion. Sometimes the calls are not coming in. Yeah, I don’t know if you’re doing, did you ever do the live? Like we can hear the, we can hear the ringing in the background

[00:25:38.91] spk_1:
live pledged? Absolutely, yeah, tough.

[00:25:42.33] spk_0:
When the calls are not coming,

[00:26:15.61] spk_1:
I’ll tell you, I’ve got to give credit is due. I worked for a gentleman who just retired out of public media a few years ago, his name was Kent geist, uh, he was a senior vice president of public media here in, in the Cleveland area. He was a master of the membership pitch and I learned so much from him, He was definitely a mentor for me in public media and I mean, it was an artwork, but the best part about it was he really cared, he really cared that the right audiences are getting access to this community resource in public media and it just really translated. So, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s the person who really got me through and really got me kinda through osmosis picking up on, you know, the right things to say at the right times

[00:26:52.37] spk_0:
when you can speak from the heart, you know, and, and channel that, but you know, then you gotta keep it going for 15, 20 minutes at a time. I mean that I’m not, I’m not minimizing it, but, you know, but when you can speak because you have a genuine emotional connection to the work, a passion for the work. When you can speak from your heart, that that that goes a long way,

[00:27:08.47] spk_1:
it’s so important because, and you’ll find a lot of people that work in public media are fans of public media, you know, um it’s that’s a big deal. We we know the content, we listen, we watch every day, so that definitely helps. And again, going back to what I say earlier, people remember how you make them feel. So we always go back to that um when we are in a pledge period and we know how to make people feel because we’re also listeners and viewers ourselves and we know the importance of the content.

[00:27:26.86] spk_0:
What about what about the 2nd? Me and Mimi Mo

[00:27:31.07] spk_1:
Yeah, so the

[00:27:31.74] spk_0:
second is

[00:27:56.89] spk_1:
messaging and um got a lot of good stuff in there about messaging, but probably the one that I’m spending a lot of time on and that has a lot of um a lot of questions I’m getting about is the power of brevity. I think if there’s one area that some fundraisers, whether it be written in proposals, presentations or just in one on one conversations, a bit too long winded. You’re given away way too much information up front when you’re just starting to want to court a corporate funder, as I also talk about in the book, you know, there’s, there’s kind of like a dating period to get to know a potential corporate funder right at first all you want in that first communication is enough of a connection that you want to get a meeting or another conversation. That’s it.

[00:28:24.62] spk_0:
You’re not

[00:29:59.37] spk_1:
trying to get the six figure or seven figure ask you’re not trying to, you know, take somebody to lunch right away. We just want to show that there’s a connection between what we have to offer as a non profit and the types of things that corporation likes to support and what’s the next thing we need to do? The next thing we need to do can be a phone call Expedia zoom, which is very popular now since the pandemic or it could be an in person meeting. And I also really highly recommend and I really challenge my clients and my readers. Try to keep your communications especially written email, communications to 100 and 50 words or less. That’s probably the hardest thing for most of my clients to do because if I go back and look at most of their emails that they’ve sent to try to engage corporate decision makers that went unanswered. They’re just way too long, Way too long. That’s exactly right and remember think about our world right now. A 15 2nd spots. No more than 30. I mean I see a 32nd ad, I’m like uh, you know, ping notifications. Five second pre rolls. We live in a world that demands and is used to brevity and communication, but at the same time we also want to get the information we need. So I try to coach my clients look in in being too long winded and giving up to information. You’re basically going against the tide of how we like to get information in our world right now. So it’s sometimes takes work in order to learn brevity. And and I do have some real practical ways to kind of learn brevity and to practice it every day if it’s something you struggle with in my book. But it is essential to be brief and when you are making that first connection, it’s just kind of three things who am I

[00:30:21.05] spk_0:
how do

[00:30:21.49] spk_1:
we connect? What is it you want us to connect about why we connect and what do you want next? And you should be able to do that within 100 and 50 words and the same thing with voicemail. You know, fewer and fewer people are using the phone. Um but those that still do be careful of those long winded voicemails. You really need to come up with something very succinct, rehearse it before you make the voicemail and be confident in your voice

[00:30:47.54] spk_0:
interesting. Rehearse your rehearse. Well rehearsed what you might say, but then rehearse to what you’re gonna say. If you get, if you get the voicemail,

[00:30:55.34] spk_1:
you

[00:31:03.98] spk_0:
also have a lot about research. You want us to research the company. You want us to research your contact at the company share some of your some of your research tips.

[00:31:25.28] spk_1:
Yeah. So um it is imperative that you research not only the company but the decision maker before you start contacting them. Even with that brief message we had talked about because there is so much competition right now. That wants the same money that you do. I was actually on an interview that I remember last year and I was talking about how the nonprofit world is, you know, competing for dollars and and the interviewer said to me, nonprofits compete I guess.

[00:31:38.24] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah, I read that that was I was uh Yeah, it seems like an uninformed comment. Yes,

[00:31:59.04] spk_1:
I felt that way as well. But yes, they do compete whether they know it or not because a lot of times you don’t know the other funders you’re competing against for dollars, but I will say where, where you can really help yourself is in prep. So besides just obviously going to the website, you need to go even further. Look at the annual reports. Look at the reports around E S. G. As well as D. E. I. Diversity equity and inclusion. What specific things are they funding are they

[00:32:16.02] spk_0:
remind us what the DSG is. Everybody might not know the S. G.

[00:32:20.35] spk_1:
Yeah. So the E S. G. And I just blanked for a moment.

[00:32:24.91] spk_0:
Environmental, I got you covered.

[00:32:27.52] spk_1:
If

[00:32:28.35] spk_0:
I give you the first one, I bet you’ll get the second to

[00:32:31.05] spk_1:
sustainability and governance. Social

[00:32:34.02] spk_0:
usa social.

[00:33:34.84] spk_1:
Yes, so social. Environmental, sustainability, social and government. So thank you. Yeah, just caught me in the moment there. But what’s great is back in 2020 when we were all really focused on the pandemic, Fortune 500s were hiring chiefs of D. I. chiefs of sustainability um chiefs of their supply chain to make sure it was sustainable. Like, like crazy. And with that came different types of budgets, like they were all also given money to go out and find other folks to work with. Um And most people would attribute this to more the corporate philanthropic side, but we’re seeing these new budgets that opened up. So all of that being said, that is the case for you to take some extra time and to actually work on looking at the E. S. G. Reports and in many times the E. S. G. Reports and the D. E. I. Reports have contact information in there and you know, contact information is half the battle sometimes.

[00:33:38.61] spk_0:
Right?

[00:33:52.66] spk_1:
So I really implore you to go deep and look at those reports and when you’re talking to you then you can then reference some of that work, which a lot of fundraisers, sometimes they miss that step and then check their linkedin. I’m a big fan of linkedin

[00:33:56.34] spk_0:
and what that what that does if you’re if you’re talking about their own reports back to them proving that you did the research,

[00:35:20.97] spk_1:
that’s exactly right. And I love being able to use a prospects own words. I like to call it because their own words show that you’ve listened and they resonate with that. So being able to reference that whether it’s in written or verbal communique is definitely huge. So, um, and again, looking at your contacts linkedin page, I find a lot more contacts now are really putting a lot more about themselves on linkedin and in terms of their philanthropic interests. So let’s say you, you’re looking at someone that maybe on paper, the company might not vibe with you right away. But personally they really, you know, they’re involved in philanthropy per personally on another board, maybe that connects with your doing with what you’re doing. So you just never know. So really taking a holistic approach to research. Looking at the S. G. The D. E. I. Looking at linkedin looking at even facebook, I tell the story of a of a really hard to get vice president that I had one of my account executives at the time, get a meeting with, who was known for ghosting and who was also known to seem really, really excited to want to work with you and provide funding and then just kind of went away. So the story I tell is that I actually did a little research and found that we had a mutual interest in animal rescue, like down to the breed. And when I was in the meeting with my account director, we ended the meeting and I said, oh by the way, are you going to be at the doggy waddle? And she looked like what I didn’t even know about the doggy model. And you know, I mentioned that I saw we were in the same facebook

[00:35:45.80] spk_0:
group

[00:35:46.79] spk_1:
and so I made sure to see her at the doggy waddle and her hounds and my hounds and lo and behold, we got the letter of intent. So you just, you just never

[00:35:57.08] spk_0:
know research

[00:35:58.42] spk_1:
is imperative.

[00:37:25.93] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’m wishing you well in the heat of the fourth quarter. Uh from giving Tuesday coming up in a few weeks to your weekly production goals, um comparing last year to this year, week by week, hopefully not day by day. Uh well, all right, you don’t need me to recite for you the litany of pressures in the fourth quarter. What I do want to say is I’m thinking about you take a deep breath, take some time for yourself. Maybe you can take a lot but take some and use it wisely. You know what’s best for you in the heat of the fourth quarter. You gotta take care of yourself before you can take care of your business. So I’m thinking about you, I’m wishing you well, I hope you succeed. And to do that. I’m urging you to take whatever time you can take some time to care for yourself too. That is tony stick to, we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for your corporate funding with Lori Zoe’s crossed. You name a resource that I, I’m not familiar with. I’ve never heard of Rocket reach.

[00:37:30.56] spk_1:
O Rocket reach.

[00:37:32.03] spk_0:
Maybe it’s maybe it’s ubiquitous and I’m, I don’t know, I’m, I’m zombie doubt or something. But yeah, tell us about rocket reach.

[00:38:13.66] spk_1:
Rocket reaches a great way for you to find email addresses. Now, I know it has a lot of different other functions, but um, I love Rocket reach, I would say at least eight times out of 10 of the decision makers that I am researching, I will find a qualified email address in Rocket Reach. The other thing that’s great about Rocket reach if they have an email address associated with the, the professional, but they’re not confident about it, they will even list that they have a color coding system of green, yellow and red in terms of confidence of the email. A now there are free versions of Rocket Reach, I will tell you that I have a monthly subscription and I find it extremely helpful. Um, if you are actively engaging corporate decision makers, especially those that are very high up VP and high, higher up levels for National Fortune 500 Fortune 1005 hundred’s it’s a, it’s a phenomenal tool. I like it a lot

[00:38:43.29] spk_0:
rocket reach dot com. Um, okay. You also recommend setting google alerts,

[00:38:48.68] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:38:49.33] spk_0:
for companies, for people for, for sectors that you can make your connection with the folks you’re gonna be talking to flush that out for us.

[00:40:02.85] spk_1:
That’s exactly right. So let’s say you have a big meeting coming up with X Y Z corporation or you’re looking to really want to focus on someone in X Y Z corporation to start, you know, engaging for corporate support. I tell people that they could easily go to google and, and the easiest way to do this is literally go to google and type in setting up google alerts. It will basically walk you through how you can choose companies, topics, what have you and news about your news about your topics will automatically be emailed to you Now. I also like to remind people once you’re done, be sure you turn off your google alerts because you’re gonna get a lot of, you know, you’ll get a lot of them. But again, this is really something that you can use that’s for free, totally for free. You can do on google and you’d be surprised, you know, you, we all know, google search engine is pretty amazing. So you’re not only going to get news that’s news that you would see nationally, but you’re gonna get some of these little pieces that might be very hyperlocal or, or hyper industrial, that a decision maker would be pretty impressed that you would know about if you were referencing it in a meeting or in an email. So yeah, google alerts are great and easy to set up. Like I said, just go to google and type in setting up a google or and you’ll find it right away and how to do it.

[00:40:39.74] spk_0:
You also recommend using those while you’re in. If you’re in a waiting period, maybe you’ve sent the proposal, you sent your initial email no more than no more than 100 and 50 words and you’re maybe waiting or you got a reply that said, you know, we’ll get back to you or something. You know, you can you can use, oh, here’s here’s some interesting industry news that, you know, you might you might not have seen this article or something about, you know, your company was highlighted here. I thought this might interest you if you didn’t see it right? You can you can build a relationship with the person,

[00:40:58.47] spk_1:
I’ve

[00:40:59.33] spk_0:
heard that I’ve heard that companies, people actually, it’s actually people that work in companies, I’ve heard

[00:41:04.39] spk_1:
that

[00:41:05.22] spk_0:
programmers to that effect,

[00:41:34.05] spk_1:
they’re still around. So we’re always looking for additional touchpoints reasons to go back to people during the process. Right? So one of the best things that you can do is set up those google alerts. So you can send them news, maybe not only about something really interesting that’s happened within their company and you want to acknowledge it, but maybe something interesting that’s happened in their industry that you wanted to share, because maybe they haven’t seen it because they’re so busy, you know, and that is something that has worked really well for me as well as of my clients, because we are working with very, very busy people that get tons and tons of email. So to be able to share something regarding their industry that they might not have known about. Again, that that gives you a lot of points and shows that you have an interest with them of them beyond just, you know, getting the funding, that there’s a relationship you want to build,

[00:42:02.61] spk_0:
there’s a, there’s a certain book that you love that was recommended to you when you were in college.

[00:42:09.49] spk_1:
You

[00:42:13.53] spk_0:
why don’t you share the value of that, that book influence.

[00:42:36.44] spk_1:
So if you have been in fundraising or studied persuasion or communications, it’s, it’s very, very, um, plausible that, you know, the name, robert Sheldon E. And the book was actually initially called The Weapons of influence, but they kind of changed the title and now we have these six influence, you know, pillars that child any talks about now, it’s seven because he added one, um, as, as we, we got later into the years here, but I’m just fascinated by these persuasive techniques and, you know, I don’t want to go into each technique,

[00:42:56.15] spk_0:
right?

[00:44:43.16] spk_1:
Yeah. But if you want to, you know, search robert, Sheldon E and and the power of influence and just type in influence and you’ll see that he actually talks about, there are things that you can do in your communication, whether it be written or spoken, that can influence someone to the behaviors that you’re you’re hoping to achieve, but in a positive way. So, you know, some examples of one of my favorites that I use a lot would be something called social proof. So when I worked in public media, we saw social proof a lot. So if, for instance, if we had some local private schools that got on the air, or it’s on some of the stations to support the programming, we started to get phone calls from other private schools who wa wanted to be on the air because, you know, they want to keep up with the joneses, but also they think, well, wow, if these schools are supporting public media, maybe we should be doing that as well. So, you know, social proof is definitely a big one and um, reciprocation. So any time that, you know, you put yourself out there and you do something for somebody, you know, there’s, there’s a good possibility that the person you did something for will reciprocate, and, you know, there’s there’s a lot of different examples of that, but even in what we just discussed with the google alerts, you know, taking the time to send somebody an article about something going on in their industry. They may reciprocate something back, whether, you know, something about an article in your industry or reciprocate back with, oh, this is great, You know, let’s let’s let’s let’s meet again to talk about this proposal, let’s talk about the proposal again. So those are just, you know, too, that are top of mind with me right now, but they really are fascinating because if I think about what is kind of the backbone of why I’ve been successful and and some of the people that do what I do that are successful, they go back to the work of Child Dini and that there is some psychology to this besides just working hard, you know, um it is all in the positioning

[00:45:10.14] spk_0:
and I just want folks to know that child any is C I A L D I N I of course. And his lawyer said that the book is influenced the psychology of persuasion.

[00:45:24.56] spk_1:
Yes, Yes.

[00:45:27.14] spk_0:
I think we’re on the mo of me, mi mo

[00:45:30.87] spk_1:
the motion

[00:45:38.97] spk_0:
the motion. You talked a lot about rehearsing and um also in in motion you had sort of courting folks with with resources and ideas and but you know, I think I feel like you’ve talked about that, you know, according touchpoints touchpoints and in that respect, it’s very parallel to individual fundraising.

[00:45:54.42] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:46:07.67] spk_0:
we see something that’s going to be of interest to an individual donor who we’ve built a relationship with because we know that they are avid sailors. Perhaps, Laurie happens to be a very avid sailor, uh, and sailing instructor too. Is that, did I get that sailing instructor to

[00:46:11.69] spk_1:
know you might have been thinking of the rock climbing instructor that I worked

[00:46:15.72] spk_0:
with? Okay, not

[00:46:16.97] spk_1:
a sailor. You’re

[00:46:18.50] spk_0:
not a sailor? No. Okay. I

[00:46:21.09] spk_1:
do live by a lake though.

[00:46:39.59] spk_0:
Yeah, thank you. That’s very gracious of you to say thank you. It’s rock climbing. Rock climbing, maybe. Okay. I don’t know where, I don’t know how I perverted rock climbing into sailing, but so the takeaway there is, make sure that, you know, the person’s interests accurately don’t don’t misunderstand what they’re interested in. And send them an article about sailing when it’s actually it’s actually they worked with a rock climber and not even that there rock climbers themselves. So

[00:46:51.37] spk_1:
make sure you

[00:46:52.14] spk_0:
make sure you know what the hell you’re doing when you’re keeping in touch with people, You know what the hell you’re doing. Yeah. But, you know, regrettably, you’re suffering a lackluster host.

[00:47:06.18] spk_1:
It’s all good.

[00:47:38.04] spk_0:
Somehow perverted rock climbing into sailing. I don’t know, okay, sports, you seem to be very sports oriented work for sports. Yeah. That we don’t have we don’t have that in common. So maybe that’s why I got messed up because I got nervous when I saw the XS and OS on your book cover. And I thought she’s gonna make sports analogies and the XS and OS of course are for baseball’s I’m gonna get all confused, and I don’t know whether it’s hockey or it’s football or it’s it’s tennis or, you know, it’s a I got nervous, I think that’s what made me nervous was the sports, I was afraid. But you didn’t bring up sports? I did. So,

[00:47:43.73] spk_1:
No. So, you know, really, the introduction of my book talks about um when I was in college and I

[00:47:50.00] spk_0:
was professional

[00:47:51.14] spk_1:
sports organization,

[00:47:52.39] spk_0:
Yes,

[00:48:39.25] spk_1:
and um it kind of sets up how I come up with the Boardroom Playbook, which is the title of my book, and I do have a few sports references, but it’s nothing if you’re not a sports fan, you’ll be able to understand them. So, and and also, I just also like to talk about athletes in general. They do a lot of the things that I’m actually talking about in terms of mental preparation. You know, they do visualization, um they practice, they rehearse, um and they don’t just rehearse their craft of being an athlete, but they’re working with the pr people, they’re working with the operations people, it’s it’s an overall, you know, it’s a lot of work and I try to tell people in the boardroom Playbook that corporate support is a lot of work, there’s no hacks to it. And I and I know there’s a lot of pa popularity and saying, oh, watch my webinar for the four hacks to do this, and what I’m saying is if you’re doing this right, there is there are no hacks if you’re doing it right and developing the relationship, it takes time. But you’re developing relationships that are long term, and you’re developing a craft that will stay with you for years, no matter what happens with technology,

[00:49:02.48] spk_0:
brilliant, thank you for helping me recover from my sports. Yeah, no, the book is not S

[00:49:10.43] spk_1:
G I can’t believe I just

[00:49:18.14] spk_0:
uh Alright, that’s true. I did. Um No, I don’t. Long time listeners will know that. I don’t know, I don’t know much about sports. My favorite aspect of golf is that it’s a nice quiet sport. I appreciate that, I appreciate the quietness of golf. Uh

[00:49:33.63] spk_1:
So unless

[00:49:44.04] spk_0:
somebody then they’ll be screaming and they’ll be throwing. Of throwing, of devices, the paddles will get thrown. So, um yeah, the book is not based on sports. I don’t want to give folks the wrong impression. I understood the book perfectly,

[00:49:50.27] spk_1:
so leave

[00:50:08.33] spk_0:
it, leave it at that. So, so I guess we covered the memo, the motion motion. You talk about, you know, courting folks, knowing what the hell you’re doing. Uh rehearsing is part of your motion and how important that is. Um but then you have last minute tips, like 48 hour tips. And then and then right before and dressing and comfort items, you know, talk about, talk about some of your last minute tips right before the moment

[00:50:21.98] spk_1:
I do. So this kind of goes back

[00:50:24.35] spk_0:
to

[00:50:25.52] spk_1:
the athletes, you know, athletes have routines.

[00:50:29.01] spk_0:
You know, there

[00:51:26.63] spk_1:
are certain things, some of them will eat something before a game, some of them won’t, you know, everybody has a specific routine. So I provide tips of myself and other people I’ve worked with of successful routines before you go into a big presentation and I take you from like you said a couple days before too, you know, the day of but um in general, you want to find the things that work for you that make you feel comfortable and confident. So these are little things like make sure you, you know, you wear your favorite suit that day or you know, whatever your your favorite clothing is when you do a presentation, make sure your technology works. You know that that that’s a big thing to um make sure that if you’re doing paper handouts, make sure you’ve got all those handouts prepared and and you make sure you have enough, make sure you know, the number of people in the room who’s gonna be in the room, you know, find out who’s gonna who’s definitely gonna be in the room. I also have items that I suggest you bring with

[00:51:29.50] spk_0:
you to

[00:51:30.67] spk_1:
any in person presentation at least two bottles of water because you never know when you’re going to jump into a dry mouth situation that has happened to me thankfully I had plenty of water with me. Um also mints and cough drops,

[00:51:46.17] spk_0:
I’ve

[00:51:46.43] spk_1:
also been in situations where I start to have this coughing fit that’s never good. So you want to have a cough drop with you, you know, these are very, very practical tips um and then also making sure beforehand if you’re presenting with somebody else because a lot of times you’re, you know,

[00:52:03.14] spk_0:
you’re

[00:52:34.74] spk_1:
presenting with other people, make sure you know, your roles. So when you’re doing that rehearsal before your presentation, don’t just go into rehearsal and say okay bob, you’re gonna do this and I’m gonna do this and rehearsals over. No, you actually want to go through the presentation. You actually want to have people there in the room from your office, they can sit in and watch, provide feedback. I find when you do that. I know some people are are cringing about it, but it really helps. It gets the rust off, especially if you haven’t done a presentation in a while and it just, it just shows that you know what you’re doing and again, taking it back to athletes, they practice, they practice before, you know, if it’s football every sunday, you know, so those are just a few of the tips, there’s a ton of them in the book, but you know, really getting to know yourself in terms of making you comfortable in that room. Probably one of the most unique tips I give though is having some sort of comfort item with you. Something that if you look at just kind of makes you feel good.

[00:53:02.73] spk_0:
I

[00:53:50.70] spk_1:
talk about my one former account executive I worked with who had a water bottle with pictures of her kids on it which I thought was neat. It’s also a good conversation starter and I had somebody else. I I was managing a gentleman that was kind of in a slump per se um was doing a lot of activity but just the money wasn’t coming in and he decided to bring with him um a a watch that his father used to wear and his father was a former VP of sales and very successful and lo and behold he brought that in with him and from what I understand he still brings it with him to large pitches and he’ll say I’m just keeping track of the time when in actuality it just gives him a sense of comfort and calm. So those are just a just a few tips. And I do emphasize the water a lot though because sometimes if you’re in a situation where you forget something and I should have done this earlier with E. S. G. I could have just taken a sip of my water and a lot of times that shot of H. 20. Will just bring you back to where you need to

[00:54:06.77] spk_0:
be. So

[00:54:07.68] spk_1:
those are just a few tips as well for once you’re in that moment.

[00:54:11.95] spk_0:
Excellent. All right Mimi. Well you could do me me meow meow too because you have a mental message, motion and moment.

[00:54:31.27] spk_1:
Yeah. So in the book I talk about me mi mo gets you to the moment and to your point earlier, you know I try to make it easy off the tongue. The me me meow. You had any other, mm. Yes,

[00:54:32.00] spk_0:
I was right. We don’t want to make

[00:54:33.97] spk_1:
me

[00:54:34.71] spk_0:
me, me, me me meow meow. You know people say well I’m talking to an infant now.

[00:54:39.90] spk_1:
She’s

[00:54:41.51] spk_0:
she’s stuttering. She doesn’t she doesn’t even know her own business. So

[00:54:45.93] spk_1:
okay mi

[00:54:50.34] spk_0:
mi mo 123 in and out. Okay. Um anything else that you know, I’ve asked you a bunch of things? Anything that we haven’t we haven’t talked about that you want to leave the folks with?

[00:56:05.32] spk_1:
Yeah. So um a chapter I get asked about a lot too is called pumpkin spice proposals. And um I thought I would just mention about that pumpkin spice proposal to me is a proposal that just has too much unnecessary stuff in it. And you know sometimes you just need the coffee, you don’t need the pumpkin spice. Right? So I challenge people, look at your proposals. You know, is there the feedback I get a lot from corporate decision makers? Is there too much clip art in it. Are you using their logo over and over? You know I have one gentleman I worked with. that’s what the Fortune 500 he said, I don’t need, I know what my logo is. I know what my company does. You don’t have to put the about us in there. I I get it. Just tell me what it is you want and why us. Um I think good proposals are no more than five pages. Um use a good size font. I think in the book I reference like 11 or 12 point font, Ariel times, new roman calibri as possible. Don’t get too creative. And I know this is tough for people because there’s a lot of seminars out there about proposal templates and you know, there’s a lot of training around it. I just like to keep it simple and that seems to resonate, you know, with a lot of the Fortune five hundred’s that I’ve worked with. So I would like to leave people with, take a look at your proposals. And is there too much pumpkin spice and just not enough

[00:56:22.65] spk_0:
coffee, Mimi, momo, periwinkle zombies, pumpkin spice proposals

[00:56:27.58] spk_1:
all

[00:56:28.36] spk_0:
uh it’s all in the book. The book is uh the boardroom Playbook, You’ll find it at the growth owl dot com where you’ll also find Laurie. Thank

[00:56:39.81] spk_1:
you

[00:57:37.29] spk_0:
amazon two. Okay, amazon. And uh there’s a little site called amazon and then you could go to the growth owl dot com if you want to go there. Thank you very much Lori it’s a real pleasure next week thought leadership and content strategy. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for April 4, 2022: Your Corporate Partnership Strategy

Chris Barlow: Your Corporate Partnership Strategy

Chris Barlow from Beeline, returns to outline a savvy, winning strategy to help you get valuable corporate partnerships. Beeline has a free resource for you, their Corporate Partnerships Attraction Kit. This follows last week’s show, “Don’t Work For Free,” on not undervaluing your assets as you talk to potential partners.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

I love our sponsor!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 585_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20220404.mp3

Processed on: 2022-04-02T03:02:44.697Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2022…04…585_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20220404.mp3.511342985.json
Path to text: transcripts/2022/04/585_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20220404.txt

[00:01:20.24] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the The other 95%,, I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. We’ve got a listener of the week. It’s Adam norse on linkedin. He told me that the show is his weekly workout podcast. He said great topic as always, thank you very much for that adam when he was talking about uh the improve your relationship with failure episode. So adam Norris linkedin, Thank you very very much. Adam Norse our listener of the week. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of hyper Kanae Miya, if you made my heart pound with the idea that you missed this week’s show, your corporate partnership strategy chris Barlow from beeline returns to outline a winning strategy to help you gain valuable corporate partnerships on tony state

[00:01:21.05] spk_1:
too.

[00:02:14.64] spk_0:
Don’t fear the reaper sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. It’s a pleasure to welcome back chris Barlow, he is founder and customer happiness director at Beeline Beeline since 2015 has helped nonprofits grow their donor base attract corporate partners and expand their missions. However, chris newest skill is bouncing his youngest to sleep while writing marketing copy or planning a donor journey. The company is at your beeline dot com and he’s at beeline underscore chris, welcome back to nonprofit radio chris,

[00:02:17.34] spk_1:
thank you so much tony it’s, it’s great to be with you today.

[00:02:20.22] spk_0:
Pleasure, thank you, congratulations. Now you have a child # seven bouncing on your knee. Now

[00:02:26.71] spk_1:
that’s right,

[00:02:31.64] spk_0:
that’s incredible. Um

[00:02:33.14] spk_1:
proportionately it becomes less of a difference when you go from 6 to 7 then when you go from 1 to 2

[00:02:38.84] spk_0:
or even zero or 0 to 1 even. Yes, of course, that’s true. But I mean, yes, the marginal

[00:02:44.36] spk_1:
increase

[00:02:49.94] spk_0:
is at this point it’s probably like de Minimus, but your, your latest is a boy or a girl girl,

[00:02:57.44] spk_1:
we have a girl, boy, boy girl, boy boy girl, you

[00:02:58.65] spk_0:
have a little rhythm going to

[00:03:01.86] spk_1:
Yeah

[00:03:09.14] spk_0:
right, Exactly. I was thinking of a paralegal for drummers, but yeah, you got okay boy girl, girl, boy girl girl. Uh

[00:03:10.28] spk_1:
boy girl, boy boy girl, boy boy girl

[00:03:12.50] spk_0:
oh, I started wrong girl boy boy girl, boy boy girl. Right. So now your fifth girl, I mean there’s plenty of hand me downs, there’s right, all the, all the infrastructure is already in, the infrastructure is already in place.

[00:03:31.64] spk_1:
It’s true and we have a lot of, a lot of other, you know, her siblings loved all over. So that’s a lot of help there. Um, but my wife and I still look at each other and like are we doing this again for real?

[00:03:37.88] spk_0:
Oh my God, how old are you?

[00:03:40.54] spk_1:
I am 37,

[00:03:45.34] spk_0:
37 and seven Children dang. You got years to come out, You can, you can come out of this with a dozen

[00:03:49.74] spk_1:
Uh seven is a good, is a he, is it in hebrew or Jewish tradition is a good number of completions. So we’ll see.

[00:03:57.44] spk_0:
Okay, okay. No pressure. But you could easily come out of this with True, that’s true. At this pace. For sure, wow. She’s congratulations.

[00:04:08.06] spk_1:
Congratulations.

[00:04:08.90] spk_0:
How, how recent is your, your newest girl?

[00:04:12.38] spk_1:
She is five weeks old.

[00:04:20.94] spk_0:
Oh, my five weeks only, wow. And yes, you save money on dolls to, for the, for the, for the girls that girls don’t have to grow up with dolls, but I shouldn’t say that for the girls. You grow up saving money on dolls for any of your

[00:04:28.65] spk_1:
Children.

[00:04:30.34] spk_0:
Any of your Children? Wonderful.

[00:04:32.68] spk_1:
Oh,

[00:04:36.74] spk_0:
congratulations. Okay. And the last time you were on you, you had some advice listeners could listen back for, uh, advice on it was, it was kind of resolving conflict. I believe

[00:04:46.45] spk_1:
it was on google grants and whether you’re a, whether you’re a good fit, whether it’s a good fit for your

[00:04:54.44] spk_0:
Well, no. Well that, well, that was the subject

[00:04:55.28] spk_1:
matter.

[00:04:57.66] spk_0:
Child advice. It’s much more important than family and child related advice. I think it was on conflict de escalation.

[00:05:05.54] spk_1:
Yeah, probably. So,

[00:05:07.80] spk_0:
um, yeah, like take a time, you know, take a deep breath. Was your, I think was your first, you know, one of your first pieces of advice.

[00:05:15.59] spk_1:
Yeah. Like you have to calm yourself first.

[00:05:17.90] spk_0:
Right. Right. Right.

[00:05:19.13] spk_1:
Because you can’t actually help them if you’re all stirred up yourself.

[00:05:29.54] spk_0:
Yes, I think it was the escalation. So alright, You, I’m sure you’ve only gotten better at that skill with and now

[00:05:29.87] spk_1:
I hope

[00:05:54.54] spk_0:
now you have more years to practice many more more years to practice. All right. So let’s take an overview of this corporate partnership. Corporate Yeah, let’s go partner Stick with partnership. Not necessarily sponsorship because they take different forms. Um, but this part of what our nonprofits, you know, like overview. Not quite getting right about these partnerships.

[00:06:07.44] spk_1:
Well, I think actually the way you started describing it shows all of our natural tendencies for corporate partnerships is that we we tend to, I feel like nonprofits tend to get stuck in this idea of of corporate sponsorships

[00:06:12.46] spk_0:
and

[00:06:39.94] spk_1:
there you’re, there is a real goal that companies would support your organization financially. But there’s so many things that a company can bring and that’s why it’s really I say the the core is a partnership and sponsorship can be part of that partnership and if you have multiple companies who are partnered with your organization, some of them might not be sponsors, but that they all can bring a lot of value the organization.

[00:07:02.94] spk_0:
Okay, Alright. So let’s not be myopic looking strictly at financial, financial sponsorship. Okay, Alright. Um, where, where, where where do you like to start with this? What’s the, what would we be thinking about if we’re going to embark on a partnership or if we’re gonna start paying more attention to this or start start paying attention to do. Maybe we don’t even have any partner, not just, you know, expanding, but maybe we don’t have any corporate partnerships. What do we need to be thinking through?

[00:09:23.04] spk_1:
Well, yeah, I mean the things that a corporate partner can bring to your organization and think about what you need. And I mean a company can obviously bring um they can bring you access to their audience, just awareness of who you are as an organization to their employees to their own customers. They can connect you to their employees directly at some point if there if there, if there’s a really good partnership, they can say, hey, this is a nonprofit, we believe in, they further our values as a company and you can support them. We, you can do automatic giving through your um deductions through your of the payroll or you can volunteer with them. Um There is some real good research out there that shows that millennials and generation Z um people employees don’t often will, will not stay at a company long term, usually won’t stick around more than I think it was two years what I read. Um if there isn’t a clear the way they can, they see the company living out values that they are in line with and they and so it can, it’s really valuable to the company to have a way to actually live that out by saying we work with this organization. So you, so all the connection to the employees. Obviously there’s the sponsorship, there’s in kind services that companies can bring you, um, free publishing, printing services or they can bring in their expertise directly and help your organization. Maybe they can consult and say, here’s how to improve how you operate as an organization. Maybe they’ve got some people who are very talented and skilled and have a lot of experience and they can bring that in and, and do some free training with you. Um, so there’s a whole lot of things that a company can bring. And I think just this awareness of a nonprofit to say, okay, maybe we’ve got some decent, a decent donor base, but we want to expand two other sources of support, financial and otherwise a great way to look as companies because you’re not going to have to go through, uh, not to say you shouldn’t pursue grants and other things, but it’s, it’s a lot, there’s a company relationship is a lot more like an individual donor in terms of, there’s a lot less red tape you have, you have to approach them the right way. Um, but then once you have that relationship, you can just maintain it and it can represent a huge value with just that one relationship.

[00:10:06.04] spk_0:
So should we be thinking through, well, maybe I’m, I probably am jumping ahead, but it’s what occurs to me, you know, thinking through like a solicitation that is multifaceted. It could include some in kind support, whether that’s um services or or some kind of goods, maybe tech or something like that, but but then it’s also volunteer opportunities for the employees, maybe there’s a financial component, maybe not. Um you know, brand awareness. So we wanna be thinking largely, you know, big scale about what what we’re what we’re pitching for and what we have to offer to.

[00:10:50.24] spk_1:
And I recommend. I mean the strategy I teach is start small and and get a quick win and then you can start having conversations with your partner and this is kind of starting at the back end. But when you have some kind of collaboration under your belt, you can reach out and say, look, let’s have a conversation. We want to know how can we help your company further its values? And you’re already gonna know when you have that conversation that you have overlapping values because you wouldn’t have tried to form that partnership in the first place. So you have overlapping values. Your mission can help that. So, you ask that question, how can we help you further your values? What are some things we can do from here and then you can start to make suggestions or ask them for ideas about what they’re open to.

[00:11:33.04] spk_0:
So now I I made you start at the back end. You know, you’re you’re stuck with a lackluster host. Uh Sorry about that. So All right. Um Well, okay, so where do where do we get started? Like how do we how do we devise our prospect list? Mhm. And let’s say, you know, our listeners small and midsize nonprofits, you know, they could have it could be just a few people could be, you know, a dozen people. I mean it could be 100 people. It’s still a small, it’s still a midsized non profit Um But you know, like overall how do we um Yeah, how do we start to develop a prospect list?

[00:13:33.84] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So um for the first mindset that help will help you to develop that prospect list is what should your first collaboration b and I like to recommend. Um and the thing that can bring a quick win and this easy yes. Is saying can we find a company that has subject matter expertise and knowledge that they could share? And together we create some kind of digital resource, like an e book or an infographic or a guide of some kind that would be we could use to help potential people who could be potentially our donors. So if we’re an animal sanctuary, we know a whole lot about taking care of animals. We know how to help create train an animal. But then a pet food company knows all about pet nutrition and specialized diets. What if we created an e book on on these some of these topics that every pet owner has to deal with and we reach out to this company. So I’m gonna give it on a high level we reach out to this company and say, hey, you guys know all about this topic and we know that our potential audience and our current audience would really benefit from learning how to pick the right food for their animal or what to do if they’re animal seems to have a special needs diet. And we would love to feature your, your knowledge in this, this digital guide we’re creating it and they’re like, they’re marketing team has to create content all the time. Anyway, and this is a new channel that you’re just saying, we want to feature you, we want to make you look like the hero, we want to put you front and center. So, so that is a, that is the idea. And so when you’re creating this list, you’re the first thing you’re looking for is expertise, subject matter, expertise and knowledge. A company that has that. And then the second thing is that their values, do they have, Do they publish their values? Can you see based on their actions or, or things that they do as a company that there is some overlap there? And if you’ve got those two things, those are that, that’s kind of the foundation for who might be a good partner

[00:13:56.94] spk_0:
subject matter and values. Okay. Um, uh, if you’re, you know, the local organization. I mean, you could do this with like a approach the, uh, local retailer, like maybe it’s a local following your example, your hypothetical, maybe it’s a local Petco, Right? I mean, you know, so, you know, you may not have to go to Petco International, but you could start with something with with the local, the local store.

[00:15:34.44] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, there’s all kinds of different, like, here’s another example. I work with a non profit, um, uh, the, a food bank and there, they happen to be jewish. And so they are reaching out to influencer and celebrity celebrity chefs and saying, we are creating a recipe book for our donors and potential donors on recipes with for, for the holidays. And would you be willing to just quote unquote, donate one of your recipes that we could just include in our recipe book. And so now they’re, they’re starting this, they’ve they’ve opened the door to continue this conversation with his influence or celebrity chef and they’re featuring the chef and now that people who might be interested in this recipe book and see, oh, there’s all these well known chefs who contributed to this book. Like this is good stuff. These are good recipes. So you have both on the, the potential donor side when you’re offering them this, there’s more value to it. And now you can report back to to these contributors, these chefs and say thank you so much, we’ve had 100 people download it and of course their name and their whatever, you know, we can link to, you know, you link to them in the book or whatever, it’s not like full of ads or anything, but it’s just like this, this is the people who are helping us out, these are our partners. Um and so you can, you know, reaching out to someone on instagram that has that kind of overlap with your organization. Again, it doesn’t have to be a huge brand, It can be a single person who has an audience,

[00:17:08.44] spk_0:
it’s time for a break. Turn to communications, what can they do for you start with media relations, media strategy, media and pr campaigns. Crisis, hopefully you never have one. Hopefully you joined their webinar just last week on having a crisis communications plan, content marketing, they can write white papers for you e books, they can do research and then publish that research for you write reports on it. Thought leadership, like executive communications, like speech writing, ghostwriting, your annual report. Yes, they can write your annual report, take that off your shoulders. So there’s some ideas of what they do for you. Turn to communications, your story is their mission. Now back to your corporate partnership strategy. This seems like a very easy on ramp to starting a relationship, you know, a short e book or a white paper or something like that, some some kind of co branded content. Um you know, it could, you know, again, in your hypothetical, that could be local veterinary practice maybe. I mean, that’s a smaller, it’s a smaller corporation, but you know, you don’t know what might be there in the future. You know, again, maybe small community, you start with a veterinary practice or something like that.

[00:18:06.24] spk_1:
Yes, we want, we we know that our donors really benefit and people who are not donors, but we’re trying to attract to us are are we want to teach them about some of the, you know, things that a vet knows that things signs to look for if you’re pessimistic, whatever or what your what your pet might be dealing with. And then here’s another thing you bring to the table. You’re not only bringing them like the fact that they’re working with the nonprofit and helping your work and the fact that now they can get their name out there and and and create content through another channel that helps, you know, the company get More followers and grow their audience and maybe customers your you can also say, look, we also have access to a Google grant that gives us $10,000 per month to advertise this piece of content and for even big companies that’s a lot of money to put behind an initiative.

[00:18:28.74] spk_0:
Look how savvy you are pulling in your, your last appearance 18 months ago, got to tie these together. Yes. And then look at the, look at the consistency. This doesn’t just, it doesn’t just happen, these guests just don’t fall out of the sky, you know, this small, this is all thought out in this case, it’s thought out by the guest, not by me, but. Okay, brilliant. Alright, Alright. Yeah, you’ve got these ad dollars,

[00:19:28.24] spk_1:
so yeah, so when you are crafting your list, you’re thinking about the expertise and the values, and then the next thing to consider is how big is their audience, and that could be their social media, following the number of customers, they might have their employee count. And and there is, it is helpful to, you know, you might want to reach out to really small companies at the beginning, small businesses just to get some practice, but once you’ve kind of figured out how to do how to do this outreach and and form these partnerships if if the company is too small to really be able to bring a lot of value to your organization um or they just have too many other organizations that are supporting right now, they’re working with then just keep those things in mind. It’s worth it. If you’re gonna go through the effort of reaching out and trying to form a relationship, you know, make sure it’s worth your while and and make sure they have some kind of audience that that would help you know, that they can bring to you eventually at some point um and introduce your organization to so

[00:19:36.24] spk_0:
you’re saying you keep the relationship open, You know, six nose and you’re halfway to a yes

[00:19:39.21] spk_1:
that’s right.

[00:19:56.64] spk_0:
That’s the, that’s the sort of a philosophy of individual giving, you know, donors, working with individual people, couples. Um, you know, unless they, unless you they they tell you get out of my face, I never want to hear from you again, which you know, I’ve been doing playing giving through 25 years is my 25th year and that’s never happened. So short of that. Thank you. So short of that. You know, you want to keep them in your prospect list, right?

[00:20:47.14] spk_1:
Yes. Yes. Okay. And don’t be afraid to reach out to the bigger companies. Um, but one thing that’s beautiful about this approach is you’re offering them a win and you’re not approaching the Director of community or the HR director or someone who’s got a clear title like there, you know, corporate social responsibility that the the title that all of the big nonprofits person that they’re going to be hitting up to try to form these partnerships and put these sponsorships pitches in front of your going to someone in the marketing department and you’re like, you guys have to create constant anyway, you’re the subject matter experts of the company or are some of anyway and you’re going in the side door, you’re going, you’re, you’re like, there are very few nonprofits who are going into the marketing person saying we’d love to collaborate with you

[00:20:55.47] spk_0:
because once you get that

[00:20:56.45] spk_1:
relationship,

[00:20:59.54] spk_0:
don’t go to the don’t go to the corporate social responsibility officer.

[00:21:42.54] spk_1:
No, no, go, go go to someone who has to, who’s done digital content in the company, who’s writing their blog. It might be a small business, that might be the owner who’s written a blog, that’s fine. But, but in a big company, you know, you’re approaching probably the marketing person wants someone in marketing. And then they’re again, they’re to them, they’re not thinking of you as, oh, this is just another nonprofit who wants money. They’re like, oh, this is a cool collaboration. And we’d love to find a way to support a nonprofit in a way that’s an easy win for us. I don’t have to go through all the channels to get money approved. I have to produce content anyway. I don’t have, I don’t need approval from anyone to create an e book with you. Um, you know, I can we can do that. That’s a great idea. And so you get that foot in the door and then you can start asking for introductions over time. You can start to build that relationship

[00:21:50.59] spk_0:
right, build the relationship and that this is what you find. You don’t find that they say, well now you need to talk to our CSR officer.

[00:22:30.74] spk_1:
I mean, no, because you’re you’re, you’re not at the the, the investment that they make is kind of up to them. Like you could get a company whose like, we’re going to help you do the graphic design or we’re gonna help you, if it’s a video, like, well, film this video, we’ll provide you. Like you could get someone who’s really gives a whole lot. Or you could get a company. I mean, it’s as simple of saying, yeah, you can use the recipe that’s already published on my website and the pictures that are already there. You know what, what, there’s no approval for that. If they’re just saying, yeah, you can put that in your things. Just give credit linked to us. Make sure that people know who it where it came from.

[00:22:49.94] spk_0:
Alright, alright. You’re going in through the side door, like you said, go to the marketing folks who need content. They’re looking for partners like this. Okay. All right. Very savvy. So that’s that’s

[00:22:51.63] spk_1:
who to reach out to

[00:22:54.04] spk_0:
and how,

[00:22:54.52] spk_1:
how,

[00:22:55.72] spk_0:
how and with what? Yeah. What do you, what do you what’s your pitching? What’s your pitch?

[00:25:02.54] spk_1:
Um, so I like to recommend, um, either social media or, or cold email. And I would usually start with cold email because everyone has an email address and email is not intrusive. You know, you’re not calling them out of the blue and you can craft your email to really be relevant to them. And so, um, some of the things I recommend is you start with, uh, hook of some kind that gets their attention. So I buy your pet food, I’ve been a customer, you know, of your store for my pets every year, or I just took my dog into the vet there, or we just made this recipe at home or whatever. It might be some personal reaction, like something that or my kids spilled coffee on the, on the book that you just released, Whatever, it might be something that would get their attention and then just say, I have appreciated your content and or or I I like your products or it doesn’t have to be like, just um it shouldn’t be flattery, it should be a response that you’ve had to, something that the company has done and it could be positive or negative, negative, it should still sound like you’re supporting them, but usually positive is easier to do. And 111 really easy, really easy thing you can do in this step is um that I do a lot is I read or what I read your blogger watched webinar and I loved this point and I shared it with my audience on clinton because I’m not just saying you guys are great. You got, you know, I love everything, it’s I took action based on your what your company is doing, your products, your content, your services, whatever it might be, and then you can transition, you can say because you care about X because your audience cares about X. I thought that we could do why and the why is your pitch for the collaboration of some kind and you don’t have to go into a lot of details. You could say, I thought we could create some resource together. Digital resource that helps people do this. Right,

[00:25:15.54] spk_0:
Right. Don’t go into great detail. And the first introduction just now, I thought we could partner together on some content partner, you know, and okay, so

[00:25:36.54] spk_1:
you and if you do that because of this, because of this other thing that I already responded to and I appreciate, you know, I think you care about this and so you’re you’re tying it to to your pitch, you’re making it clear like I think this is relevant for you and here’s the win for you. So if your your email should be, here’s the win, I can bring you not, here’s how you can support our organization because we have these same values.

[00:26:49.14] spk_0:
You’re the structure of your pitch is right in line with the kind that I like to receive from people who want to be guests on nonprofit radio Like, you know, I’ve had some folks say, you know, I love the show and I left you a review on apple podcasts and and then then occasionally they’ll even like screenshot it, you know, in case I didn’t believe them, you know, there’s the there’s the little written review that they so they gets my attention. Yeah, they did exactly what you’re describing. They took action, they didn’t just say they love the content, but they they either shared it or in this case, you know, they they they shouted out in a in a in a in a very kind review. And then, you know, they’ll say I uh in in a recent episode, or I love this recent episode where you talked about X, you know, related to that my client does y or you know, or I do why? And and I think it would be a it sounds like it would be a good fit for you. It feels like it’d be a good fit for for your listeners, etcetera. So very much in line with now I’m revealing what gets my attention for pictures, but but I mean, it works, you know, it gets my attention. They don’t all get they don’t all get Yes, yes, but but I read those

[00:26:58.74] spk_1:
pictures versus

[00:27:09.04] spk_0:
the ones you could tell or, you know, template boilerplate, you know, non profit radio is terrific. Um, my client, you know, so and so does this and should be great for your show. You know, they have just a shallow, shallow, so you got to do some research. That’s right, that’s right. You

[00:27:30.54] spk_1:
have to you have you have to take the time even if people are following the same kind of like steps, it’s still they had to take the time to get to know you a little bit, get to know the company a little bit.

[00:27:31.83] spk_0:
You’re asking them to get to know you you got to get to know them first, the first outreach, so do the do the freaking work.

[00:27:58.74] spk_1:
That’s right. That’s right. I like to say if you’re at a party and you’re just like you see someone you want to meet standing there and be like, oh I hope they come talk to me like or or even if you were like putting up a sign with their name on it, like that would be really awkward. Like no, you go talk to them, ask them their name, you listen to them, ask them their story, you do walk to them

[00:28:04.04] spk_0:
right, right? You yeah, you’re making Yes, you’re you’re taking the first step, you gotta you gotta be the first one to do the work. All right. And I also I also appreciate not uh you know, you’re saying not not how you can support the organization, but how we can work together. Because this is such a this is a very good idea, chris is a great easy on ramp to to building a relationship,

[00:28:24.34] spk_1:
but

[00:28:36.54] spk_0:
you know, get your foot in the door and then as you said, you know, ask for, ask for introductions later on, things like that, you know, grow the relationship. But Alright, alright, what else? Um What else what else we got to do to get this get this relationship,

[00:30:29.64] spk_1:
I think another important thing to and just in the outreach processes. Um, you know, if someone doesn’t respond to your email a lot of times, you’re not gonna get a yes right away. Um, do some follow up, uh, not a ton to, you don’t want to like pester people, but, you know, reply a few days later, send them a follow up email and then maybe a week or two later, send another one or two more follow ups. You know, don’t, don’t pester them, but just people need, you know, sometimes you’re going to write the perfect pitch that someone would want to respond to and they just, it’s a bad time. You just caught him at a bad time. So you’ve got to, you’ve got to follow up and then, um, if you don’t get a response, sometimes you can switch channels, go to go try social media and send a direct message, whatever it might be. And if you can get, if someone is gonna, is gonna be a good fit, they’re going to respond and you can always come back to him like you, like you said, If someone, unless someone says, don’t ever talk to me again, then, you know, to say, okay, I’m gonna reach out to some other people and I’ll come back. So another thing to just consider is this, this approach really can work with, I don’t, I can’t think of any nonprofit that it couldn’t work for. There probably are some, but I haven’t run into any yet. Um, we, uh we are currently working with a nonprofit that helps, uh, they’re anti sex trafficking organization and they, we are, we are going to be reaching out to um, law firms that deal with that topic. Um, universities that have counseling programs. Um, we’re gonna reach out to some personal like security, you know, like I think a little alarm companies or things that were, you know, when people are going out, they have a way to to be safe, safety devices, apps that help with like internet monitoring and watching it for cyber bullying, all those kinds of things. There’s so many things that subject matter experts that could partner with your organization regardless of who you are.

[00:32:18.74] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. Don’t fear the reaper planned giving isn’t the death conversation. That’s a free webinar. I’ve got coming up. We’re going to be hosted by Kayla. I’m very grateful for that. And I’m going to talk about what planned giving conversations are about, Okay, it’s not about death. Let’s debunk that idea. So join me and Kayla for don’t fear the reaper planned giving isn’t the death conversation. I’m going to do that on april 12th At one p.m. Eastern time. But you know, attending these things live is so 2021 you sign up, you register and then they send you the link for the video. That’s the way to do it. You watch at your leisure at your leisure. How do you sign up though? You got to know that you do have to sign up. You wanna you wanna watch at your leisure? Er You got to sign up, you do that at kayla K E L a kilo dot com click resources. And then webinars right? Where you expect it to be? Right. Webinar? It’s a resource. It’s hosted by Kayla Be with me April 12 if you like or watch the video. Either way, I hope you’ll be with me. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for your corporate partnership strategy with chris Barlow. Mhm. You like you like email as the as the first approach.

[00:32:26.34] spk_1:
Yeah. Again, because everyone does have an email address and you can there are tools like sometimes companies published the email, their email addresses on the website. There are some tools that you can use to find people’s email addresses or at least the pattern that a company uses. That you can just

[00:32:42.00] spk_0:
Hunter.

[00:32:44.44] spk_1:
Hunter dot io is a tool you can use just a few times per day for free. I think it’s like five times. You can do a

[00:32:48.84] spk_0:
search.

[00:32:51.24] spk_1:
Very

[00:32:52.40] spk_0:
Gracious of them offering 5 5 a day. That’s I mean you could do

[00:32:55.81] spk_1:
20

[00:32:56.85] spk_0:
five. Well if you work on Saturday and Sunday could do 35 a week.

[00:33:01.84] spk_1:
Yeah. And you can just use it will give you the actual email that you’re looking for or just the pattern at least and that’s usually good enough

[00:33:07.88] spk_0:
pattern. Right, Right. Um and then you’re so you’re looking for the marketing, you’re looking for the chief marketing person, you

[00:33:17.94] spk_1:
or someone in charge of content. Um Yeah, or sometimes someone who does partnerships, you could, you could reach out to usually that what the company means by partnerships isn’t what you’re thinking of, like

[00:33:24.81] spk_0:
the person, but

[00:33:33.94] spk_1:
it still might be someone in partnerships often has something to do with marketing and new channels and stuff, so that’s another option. Um and and linkedin is a great tool to find people if the website doesn’t have it,

[00:33:52.24] spk_0:
anything else uh because I want to move to expanding the relationship getting but but but you know, give as much share as much as you can about this. Yeah, it’s easy onboarding.

[00:34:55.14] spk_1:
Yeah, so, I mean, you you’re you’re just you are offering to, you know, feature them and and again, bring in the google grant, I think that’s a really like, underutilized a strategy for attracting a company because the companies can’t use that those free ads and even if they’re a major large company and they have their own huge marketing budgets, I know 10,000 month is nothing to shake a stick at, like that’s that’s nice. Um and you’re saying like, look, this collaboration isn’t is can go somewhere, like it’s not just like we collaborated on it and then there’s there’s silence. Um one thing you can do before you even start reaching out before you create your ideal list is two. There’s two things I like to recommend do some keyword research. There’s a tool that google offers inside google ads whether you have a grant account or whether you create an account just to do this research. You can do it for free ads dot google dot com. The key google keyword planner. And you can just type

[00:34:56.81] spk_0:
ads dot google dot com. And then

[00:34:59.69] spk_1:
inside that inside there’s the tools and settings you’ll find the google keyword planner,

[00:35:04.84] spk_0:
google keyword planner. And

[00:36:27.53] spk_1:
you can just search for some keyword ideas. Say how many people are searching for, how to create train my pet and you know or you know holly you know Passover recipe book whatever just all different talks. And you can then see okay there’s a lot of people searching for this across the U. S. Or across our state or across my city. That would be a I can take that as not only knowledge that this could be a really helpful resource for people and that a lot of people are there’s some demand but I could bring that to my corporate partner and say I know there’s demand for this and and you guys already have the knowledge and expertise to kind of help address this particular question or problem. You could even send um I recommend sending out a survey to your current subscribers and donors and say we’re thinking about creating a resource that helps with one of these following topics which one would be most valuable and then combine those two things to say we got this, we got feedback from our own audience. We know there’s overall volume and demand. We think it would be great to feature you guys and help us because we have we have some acknowledge in this area ourselves but we want to bring in another perspective and you guys, your company has been around all this long or maybe it’s an area we don’t have as much expertise but it’s related. So you know then you can bring in, look we’ve done our research, we know what you that this is why we’re reaching out to you guys,

[00:36:34.58] spk_0:
you

[00:36:38.33] spk_1:
can help us solve this problem and grow your audience

[00:36:51.53] spk_0:
and give you credibility to your partnering with our with our respected name in the in the community or you know, however however you define community. Alright, right. Because remember, you know, you bring value to you also you’re not you’re not a supplicant in this relationship, you know from the beginning, even this, you know this easy onramp,

[00:37:02.73] spk_1:
you

[00:37:25.03] spk_0:
want to make it clear that you bring value also that’s and listeners know we just talked about that last week, that’s why this is a perfect follow on for what we talked about last week. Not you know, not undervaluing your assets, both tangible and intangible. Alright, alright, um when might we start to look for a little broader relationship?

[00:37:28.84] spk_1:
We’ve got got

[00:37:41.03] spk_0:
our content marketing piece out, we’ve got some good exposure, you know, we got hundreds of pieces out. Hundreds of downloads, let’s say from a landing page or however, what what when when is the right time to look to? Broaden.

[00:39:57.82] spk_1:
Yeah. So I’d say the very first thing you do is you make a big deal about thinking them, thank them publicly. Obviously thank them personally share the fact that this company helped you get this out. Um and you know, just again make them look like a hero. You are appreciative of them working with you. Um In fact, if they, you know, you could, I think it’s appropriate to say when you’re in these initial conversations like can your marketing department help with some of the graphic design, like we’ve done this before, but or you know, we have some some resources but you guys are really good at this. Could your could you? So then you can thank them specifically for how they contributed beyond just the knowledge. Um and then collaborate on how you’re going to promote it? So how are we gonna promote? Well, we’re gonna do the grant, we’re gonna run, you know, and post on. So is there anything that you guys you want to send it to your email list or how and then and then after that. Well from during that planning time let’s say can we, when this is all done, let’s set up a call in a month and just reconnect and see if there’s another way we can collaborate or plan something out for later in the year. And then when you have that conversation, you know, again, talk about the values and bring it back to again the, what you, what you bring to a company long term. Um, besides these kinds of collaborations, which you can of course repeat. Is that living out their values and employee retention? I mean reply employee retention is so important right now, every company knows that, right? And just how difficult the, um, hiring environment is and, and finding good people. And so finding tangible ways for the company, a company to have ways to say, Well, we partnered with this nonprofit because they’re in line with who we are and we want to give you the employee opportunities to see and to do whether that’s to donate some volunteer or share this, their story with others and or learn about who they are. Um, so that’s the kind of thing that you can bring long term. So, and, and, and again, you have that just ask them questions. I mean, I think, I think ultimately the kinds of conversations you have are the same kinds of conversations you probably have with planned giving. So I would turn around to you and say, what are the kinds of questions you ask? People were planned giving. I think it would probably be very similar kinds of questions.

[00:41:03.81] spk_0:
Yeah. Well it’s a lot about what the, what the work is that moves the donor. You know, we have the mission in common. We’re talking to establish long term donors and encouraging a gift in their in their will or some other estate plan. So we know that we have in common the work that the that the nonprofit does because the charity is doing it and the person is giving to it and they’ve been giving for many, many years, many, many times over, lots of times over. It could be decades of giving. So we have the mission in common. So we focus on the mission. So you’re suggesting, you know, focus on the mission and focus on the values of the company and how what the overlap is there. And you’ve already established that because you’ve got your your your well received the content piece of content that that talked about the overlap and and and exploited it in very tangible ways with with knowledge, you know, broke that down. So you

[00:41:17.01] spk_1:
can always another another excuse to reaching back out is to just give them an update. Say we’ve had, you know, this month, over the last this many months we’ve had this many people, you know, download the, watch the video,

[00:41:20.30] spk_0:
right update. Can we talk about the other ways we might collaborate. Can we plan a call? Right?

[00:41:25.74] spk_1:
Easy,

[00:42:00.20] spk_0:
easy way to stay in touch. Um, okay, I’ll follow your, your analogy to to plan giving and say when a person has a life insurance gift each quarter or at least each year. But sometimes even more often than that, you can show them the appreciating cash value of the, of the life insurance policy on his life insurance policies gain gain cash value every every time there’s a premium payment made. So if its quarterly you’re in touch quarterly, if its annual, you’re in touch at least and you’re at least annually. Look at look how much it’s grown in the past, since, since the, since the last time, you know, could we, could we talk about some other way that we might be able to work together

[00:42:44.80] spk_1:
and if you want to get an introduction, A great question is, um, if it’s not, you know, a smaller company where it’s obvious like who is in charge of your company’s values or who helped form them and shape them and, and, and yeah, because knowing who is in charge of the values obviously cares about them and wants to see the company live those out. So, um, and you know, there might not be one person who came up with him, but there was probably someone who helped, you know, form them and helped kind of oversee that. So if you can, yeah, that’s a good way just to find who you should, who else you can meet at the company and start those deeper conversations

[00:42:46.74] spk_0:
and then you’re just asking for uh an introduction, Right?

[00:43:05.90] spk_1:
That’s right, that’s right, yep. And you can then you can point to the collaboration that already happened, you’re not new to the company and you can say, look, we are doing, and then you can do your pitch, you could say, look, we are doing is a fundraising event, and we would love to invite you guys to consider helping us in partnering with us in this.

[00:43:51.90] spk_0:
Let me uh let us let us allay any fears that people may have, like, you know, this guy chris has good ideas, but but it is all very contrived and I feel like I’m exploiting a relationship, like, you know, I’m starting out with something small, but only with the with the intention of going bigger, as I feel like I’m being disingenuous when I’m approaching them because I don’t just want their their collaboration on a on a piece of content, but I want more than that. And so I feel like I’m being dishonest, you know, in my relationship with them. Now, I know what I would say if somebody said that to me about personal relationships individual, like this individual relationships in terms of fundraising, there’s planned giving or any other type of fundraising, but let me give you the chance to describe it on the, to allay these concerns on the, on the corporate side.

[00:45:19.79] spk_1:
Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is there’s value inherent in that initial collaboration because again, if you’re reaching out to a company that has a peril or, or lateral subject matter expertise, they may actually have something really helpful to share that will help you attract new potential donors. If you’re using this resource to grow your email list, then there’s inherent value immediately. And if that corporate partner relationship never goes anywhere else, if all it is is that collaboration that you helped them get a little more reach and they helped you get some put something together, um, there’s already value in it for you both. So, um, yeah, it’s it’s really just you’re honestly wanting to work with the company has, who has shared values and the best the an easy way to do that is if they have that expertise and then you’re just starting that conversation and and seeing if that if their values are where they say they are and you again, you’re you have all these things that you bring to the table. And so if it if it’s not a good fit, that’s fine, like you don’t you’re not, you’re not just doing this collaboration for the sake of opening the door. So that would be the, the first thing I would respond to

[00:46:23.28] spk_0:
that, I would add that, this is the way it’s done. You know, you have to be strategic about relationships. Uh this is how it’s done on the individual side. And for reasons you’re describing this is how it’s done on the, on the corporate side. You want to, you want to grow your work, You want to grow your revenue. You need to be strategic about the relationships that your nonprofit, uh, embarks on and, and, and looks to build and that’s on the individual side. And it’s also on the corporate side, it might be on the government agency and granting and the foundation side, you know, wherever it is, you, you have to be strategic about relationships. You don’t just willy nilly, you know, randomly reach out to people with, you know, without thought and research and you’re not even, and you know, and not being careful about who it is you’re reaching out to and with a longer term objective. Yeah. I mean, this is so it’s not exploitation. It’s, it’s strategy. If you want to build or build your, build your revenue, you gotta be strategic about your revenue sources.

[00:46:38.98] spk_1:
Yeah. Yeah. And then again, you’re, you’re offering a win for the partner from the very beginning. So you’re trying to serve them to, and, and if you can turn into something more, that’s, that’s great. That’s what you hope. Absolutely

[00:47:13.58] spk_0:
yes. You’re bringing value. You’re bringing value to the relationship. We’re not, we’re not just saying that to make it sound good. You actually are, you are helping, you’re helping with employee retention, employee engagement. You’re helping enhance the brand of the, of the company that you’re talking to. Um, You’re helping them create valuable content. They you’re talking to the marketing people, they have to create content anyway. You know, all these things, you know, you’ve already laid them out. I’m just putting them in one paragraph. You’ve been talking about them for 40 minutes. So, um All right,

[00:47:16.28] spk_1:
what

[00:47:25.98] spk_0:
else? Anything else you wanna, Is there anything else you want to share about this, this process? Uh Onboarding it we grew it or how to grow it. Anything you want to leave folks with or more advice you want to share?

[00:48:22.17] spk_1:
I guess I’ll add, you know, in your pitch, don’t, you know, they’re asked can just be, are you interested? Can we get on a call? Like keep it really short. Don’t try to break down the whole thing. Are you interested? If they say yes, then you can set up a call with them. Um, so I think that one mistake people have is like, oh, we could do this, this and this and get the email too long or make it too complex. Just yes or no question. So that’s one little thing I would add. Um Yeah, just just try it. Just do some read. I mean, we we get and our own uh experience, we’ve seen about half of the people we reach out to respond with a yes or a no, or maybe yes later. And about a third of the people say yes. So it’s a very high great of people who are interested. Um, and we are we’re strategic, we’re not just like blasting out hundreds of these. We take the time. We we know it’s a good fit until we really believe that it’s a good fit when we make the

[00:48:38.17] spk_0:
pitch chris Barlow, Father of now seven and founder and customer happiness director at beeline your beeline dot com and he’s at beeline underscore chris thank you very much. Chris, savvy ideas. Thank you. I love it.

[00:48:48.67] spk_1:
Thank you, Tony.

[00:48:49.77] spk_0:
Pleasure to have you back.

[00:48:51.27] spk_1:
Good to be here

[00:49:11.27] spk_0:
Next week. We will definitely kick off our 2022 and TC coverage. 22, what am I saying? 22. NTC coverage kicks off next week. Got lots of interviews coming over the next many months. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot

[00:49:12.88] spk_1:
com.

[00:49:57.37] spk_0:
We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. Creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty you’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the I have their 95 go out and be great. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm

Nonprofit Radio for July 20, 2012: Trim Tab Marketing & No More Crappy Corporate Partnerships

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Sponsored by LAPA: Campaigns. Grants. Planning.

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

James Heaton
James Heaton: Trim Tab Marketing

James Heaton is president and creative director of Tronvig Group. The metaphor of “trim tab” as one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meaning for him. He explains how something small and seemingly insignificant can make a big difference in your marketing. And how to figure out what that small thing is.
 

Erica Hamilton & Venessa Mendenhall
Erica Hamilton & Venessa Mendenhall: No More Crappy Corporate Partnerships

Erica Hamilton, chief program officer for iMentor and Venessa Mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at New York Needs You, want you to take a holistic approach to your corporate relationships. Your charity adds real value for companies and they have a lot more to offer than money.

 
 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!

Here is the link to the audio podcast: 101: Trim Tab Marketing & No More Crappy Corporate Relationships.

This episode is sponsored by LAPA: Campaigns ● Grants ● Planning:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 101_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20120720.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T22:53:40.283Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2012…07…101_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20120720.mp3.488940468.json
Path to text: transcripts/2012/07/101_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20120720.txt

Hyre hello and welcome to the show. It’s tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I can’t express to you how much i wish. I hope i should say that you were with me last week. It was the one hundredth show last week. And i do hope you were here with me. Of course, that was all social media. Amy sample ward from the non-profit technology network was with me as well as all our three regular contributors. It was all social media. We had contests, we had prizes, and it was a terrific, great fun show. Thanks so much for listening. And if you didn’t catch it well, you know itunes this week. Trim tab marketing. James eaton is president and creative director of tronvig group. The metaphor of trim tab. As one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meaning for him, he explains how something small and seemingly insignificant could make a big difference in your marketing and how to figure out what that small thing is. Also, no more crappy corporate relationships. Erica hamilton, chief program officer for i mentor. And vanessa mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at new york, needs you want to take want you to take a holistic approach to your corporate relationships. Your charity adds real value for companies, and they have a lot more to offer you than just money on tony’s, take two between the shows between the segments. I’ll recap last week a little bit and there’s some stand up comedy video, also on my block, and that’s tony’s, take two this week. Right now, we take a break, and when we return, i’ll be with james eaton, and we’ll talk about trim tab marketing, stay with just you didn’t think that tooting getting, thinking things. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, getting anything. E-giving cubine hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping hunters. People be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. As always, you can join the conversation with us on twitter using the hashtag non-profit radio. Also, this show is sponsored by lap fund-raising and i’m very grateful for their support of the show with me now in the studio is james eaton, he’s president and creative director of tronvig group. He grew up in florida and left the u s at nineteen for an eight year odyssey in asia, where he had a near death experience in the north of tibet, became a terra baden buddhist monk in thailand and studied calligraphy in japan. He’s, fluent in japanese and proficient in chinese tronvig group, has worked for clients in a wide variety of business and non-profit categories including museums, community organizations, funds and think tanks. His philosophy is based on the power and efficiency of truth and importance of doing good in the world. James speaks on marketing and branding, and he blog’s at tronvig group dot com. I’m very pleased that his work and his very interesting background bring him to the studio. James welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you on the show. What is? Your definition of marketing. Marketing is tactical activity that you engage in on top of your brand messaging so that’s, very dense technical activity, your brand messaging, what does? What does it mean in your heart? So for example, marketing activity will get you a toe by particular toyota s o you’ll see an ad, you’ll say, wow, that’s a great price. I’m going to go buy that toyota, and but that needs to be built on a brand and it’s the brand that allows you to ally yourself within that that product and believe in it so that you will subsequently say, never buy another car other than a toyota for the rest of your life. So the marketing is tactical in the branding is strategic ah, the marketing ask youto to engage in a particular activity make this donation volunteermatch volunteers have to be all about money that’s right here beyond our board and that supported by your mission, your your brand or the the the notion in people’s mind of of why you exist and why you matter so ah there so marketing is essential as the communication tool too. Get out a request for specific activity and you want to do this all in your own voice, right? This is why marketing you matters that’s, right? You want to do it such that you are creating a sense of alignments with your with your organizational with your organizational brand, you want them to do what you want them to do. But then, at the end of the day, you also want them to believe it and believe in you and believe that they have done something good. And before they can believe in you, they have to know about you and there’s, where the right communications eso marketing is communications there’s an interesting statistic that just came out from nancy shorts, men’s blood getting attention, which says that eighty four percent of non-profits characterized their own messages as difficult to remember. Oh, my eighty four percent of non-profit difficult to remember difficulty. Remember how this is a communications, but they know it well, yeah, then and there’s nowhere this issue they know. So what we gonna do to cut through this so first? One thing that’s important is teo not be afraid of marketing when people think of marketing the i don’t get a little bit of cold feet like this is something that’s going to be costly it’s going to be in order for it to be effective it’s going to have to be big, and for some people it’s just a pejorative term. And for some people it’s a sort of term it’s ugly thing, it’s a it’s, a it’s, a it’s, a right it’s a for-profit or ah it’s a commercial activity that non-profit shouldn’t be engaged in, but actually because it is about communication if you i have an organization whose mission is good. Whose doing something good in the world, it’s almost a crime not to communicate that if you don’t communicate that thousands of people who are actually in alignment with what you do, who care deeply about what you do don’t know about it, right, you don’t want to hide and right, so marketing is your is a means two to get that out in your own voice, to those who are already predisposed to want what you do to to want to support what you do ah, so it’s not it’s, not about back-up a chain, you know, trying to create a marketing message like a ginsu knife, kind of like push, of course, it’s really about just explaining in ways i think old thirty second infomercials at four in the morning or too expensive. Anyway, it can’t be engaging in that. So put those aside no it’s about communicating the true value of of your offerings so that people can understand it with with, with clarity and and and an understanding of what there they need need or want to hear. So it’s this overlap this intersection between what you are and what you do and what they’re ready to listen to and to find that place and we’ll talk about we can talk about that a little more in in a minute, but don’t take over the show, we’ll get we’ll we’ll follow my agenda. Okay, okay, but we’ll get to that point. But you have some very good ideas. First about howto identify who these people are, who might be predisposed, and we have just about a minute before the break, and then we have lots of time after the break, so we just sort of tease the the your idea around finding the right people for your message. You, i have lots of information already, probably about your constituency, who gives you money? Who comes to your events, who visits your institution? Ah, that data. I cannot just sit idly at the, you know, in the corner somewhere. One of the things that an organization can do that can be tremendously effective in this is something that anyone can do, and it doesn’t require any money at all, and that is to take all that data and build it up into what we call personas teo to make of that information, eh dahna a really person, something un imaginary person that you can talk to that will that you can use toe bounce off your marketing ideas in your location idea. Okay, we’re going to talk about these personas after the break. Hope you stay with me. Trim tab marketing with james eaton, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life will answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shop a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower listen to me, larry. Sure you’re neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio dot com every tower is a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter money time, happiness, success, where’s your breakthrough? Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment to create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance new amsterdam and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five present. So let’s, look a little more into these these personas that maybe could be a donor or could be a potential boardmember or maybe some other kind of volunteer. Or how do we identify these people? You want to think about who engages with your organization and essentially list them out first by type? You know we have donorsearch thes general characteristics age, you know, sixty five who’s retired who’s, you know, has time now too volunteer at the organization and so forth. So you you’ll know these people are but what you need to do is too create hey ah, an amalgam of a couple different people, but then make that into a persona that is very specific. So it has a name birthday on address. Particular children, particular pet peeves. Interests dahna such that you can actually write a journal entry and there in their head a ziff you were them. And of course, you could have multiple personas for each category. You wanna have a view percent might be a teenager. That’s, right? I also be your retiree that’s, right? You want to create a number of them? I think the maximum number is about nine, but you want to have these very specific persons and you can, you know, grab a picture off the internet, give them a face, make them as real as possible, and you can actually bring them to meeting. What else do we know about them? What? Where they shop exactly where they shop? What? That, what websites they visit? You know what they do in their free time, what their secret fears are, what would be the what would be the worst thing that could possibly imagine happening to them in their entire life? Life you so that you create something that’s sort of a sort of psychologically formed imaginary person, and you give it a name and a face, and you use that to look at what you’re doing. Look at oh, we’re going to send this appeal letter out. Well, what would george think of that? And you be george, read the letter and say, well, this is this part of the letter is silly, i don’t i don’t care about that. So it gives you this consumer. Ah, perspective on what it is that you’re trying to say, and it can make it substantially better and it takes some work, but it doesn’t really cost you anything to put this put these personas together and it doesn’t cost you anything to bring them to a meeting and some people, like physically, like, have a little alright stand on then or do these people talk in the meeting? What are we doing with them? You could so yes, they will criticize and review what you’re planning on doing that the actual program that you’re going to going to put out there, and that gives you this view that internally you don’t have, um and it’s like focus group almost but you but you’ve got this sort of imaginary person in the room and this can be extremely beneficial. If particularly you, then sort of look at your organization, you create a kind of like a venn diagram. What do we do? What we do this and we do this and we do this and he’s like the three areas of our of our activity. Where do these personas overlay on that you could like? You have little chest piece is almost like where did they sit on this thing? And where is our sweet spot? That is, that is going to capture the broadest group of our constituents. And how do we need to talk to them? Who are they? And what language did they understand and will make sense to them? You can then tail your broad brand message. Your your your overall institutional organizational messaging to speak to them it’s a hundred times more of what you’re already already writing in their voice. I mean, you said you can even write their journalist that’s, right? Right? To write to them right to a specific person and not to this sort of amorphous, fuzzy general audience. And it will make whatever you’re doing one hundred times better. Okay, who do you who should be involved in creating these personas? Well, that’s an interesting thing and and it’s. Okay, say that’s a good question. It is a great. Even though i admonished you before you can say that’s a good question, that’s allowed. Can i tell a little story about this? Sure welcome. Who should? Who should be involved in understanding the consumer’s perspective in relation to an organization? The best answer is everyone that may be impractical, but arnel lehman, the director of the of the brooklyn museum who i think has a kind of a visionary andan adherent to trim, to have marketing, whether he recognises it or not initiated a few months back. A new program on this institution wide program where he requires every single person in the institution, whether the c f o the chief curator or a research associate to sign up on a sheet or not maintenance maintenance on a rolling basis. Uh, spend an hour on the floor of the museum interacting with the general public. Yeah, and just a knauer or an hour week or just a now on a rotating basis. So i don’t know how many employees they have. Quite a few so proudly takes a while to get through that cycle, and i think he instituted this, you know, basically with a switch oven avenida act in this case, and i think there was quite a bit of resistance internally to this. But what this does is it gives everyone that kind of on the ground retail insight about the experience of the exhibitions at that museum. Uh, the insights gained there will have, eh, a long term sort of cascading impact on improving everything that they do because they’ll be aware of the ultimate final on the ground, sort of experienced how people are using that museum because they’re interacting with absolutely answering their cars they get so they’re watching. Maybe even yes. And i went to an unrelated meeting there recently. And when i came out of the meeting, i went into the great hall and there was a fantastic exhibition there, and i had to tell somebody about it. So i walked overto this man who looked official, and i started saying, this is an absolutely fantastic exhibition and, well, what was it? What was it was thie connecting cultures in there in the great hall? Okay? And we started up what turned into a forty five minute conversation about the exhibition and the institution and how it relates to the public. And it turns out that he was serving his his one hour intends to come the quarters of his three quarters of his one hour, i think, to both of our both of our ar benefits and that it was actually edward bleiberg who’s thie, curator of egyptian classical in ancient greece. Turner so but what he learned from you in that forty five minutes. Do you think it was very interesting because he had contributed to that exhibition and he was resistant to the notion of that exhibition? And i spent, like, fifteen minutes extolling how sort of basically saying why? I thought the exhibition was great. And in fact i brought my kids to the exhibition that the following saturday and they thought it was great. So he was getting retail in sight. He was getting what? Ah, i as the actual, like coming to it, knowing nothing about the background or the struggles that led to that exhibition, but the the actual user interface he was getting a firsthand account of how his work and the work of all the other characters who worked on that played out on the and this is the this’s, the tactical experiential level which makes all the difference for the success or failure of a particular exhibition, and ultimately of the institution and all that. And in order for that to happen all aren’t a lehman had to do is just have this idea. Yes didn’t cost him a thing. And this would obviously contribute to the creation of the personas. Yes. Okay. James eaton is president and creative director of tronvig group, which you’ll find at tronvig t r o n v g group. Dot com. What is tronvig yeah, that’s. My great uncles name. Carl tronvig emigrated to the united states in the nineteenth century and went in north dakota. Okay, south hoexter in memory, and we’re gonna talk a little about another family member of yours shortly. Let’s, talk about the trim tab. What? What is it? What’s. A trim tab. And why is this trim tab? Marketing trim town is a little device. The edge of a rudder that helps it turn. But the importance of the trim tab is a metaphor is let’s. Say you’re a child and you’re in a bathtub. And you have a little replica. A miniature replica of the queen elizabeth to this huge ocean liner and it’s floating in the bathtub. And you want to turn it well, the natural reaction would have to be in the tub with my brother. Do i? I hated bathing in my brother. You want to turn the ships and i’m there alone, we think my little boat. So you touched the bow right? To turn the ship. You wanted to go left. So you you touch the touch the bow and that turns the ship. But if you had an actual queen elizabeth to ocean liner and you wanted to turn it by touching the bow, the force required to move the ship by touching the bow is astronomical. So how does this ship actually turn the rudder? Right? The rudder is in. Fact, the size of a house so i can’t turn it with my own strength. So in fact, on the end of the writer there’s, a little tiny rudder, i called a trim tab if it turns in the opposite directions writer creates a vacuum and allows the rider to swing easily the direction that you wanted to go. Okay, so now if i take that model and i live out of the water and i tried to figure out what makes this ship turn it’s going to be very difficult for me to understand that it’s, that little tiny trim tab on the tip of the rudder on the rather writer on the redder, they’re actually allows me to easily turn this ship. So this notion of the obvious small changes that can turn the whole organization is what we’re talking about. This is the notion of a trim tab this’s finding those things that that actually can steer the whole system in the direction you want but are not big. They’re not costly, they’re not. We have this idea that big solutions are big problems have to be solved with big answers. That and marketing is one of these big answers it’s like, oh, well, we need to have more money. Well, let’s, let’s mount a big marketing dr and that this big marketing drive is going to give us big results. That notion is flawed and that’s good news for small and midsize charity is very good news in the fact of the matter is that if you think about the system and you think deeply enough about changes that can be made at the user experience level, there are some very minor that’s what i say when i say tactical, they’re very minor changes that can be made that can have the same effect as these big marketing programs were. We recently did a thing for the bronx museum where we were asked to get more people to come into the museum. Ah wei have a certain amount of money, and they wanted to do a traditional marketing program, you know, bust signs, bus shelters, subway posters and so forth, which we did, but we set aside a little bit of that money to do something else that they didn’t really ask us to do. And that was to change the sign ege on the door. And the windows of this at the street level of the museum. Okay, that thousand dollars from the however many thousand dollars, but what we had was the best money we’ve got because that’s, what actually brought people? How do you know that? How do you know that the door signing and the windows made the difference? Because when we were, i hope you’ve a few a few things one when we were talking to people as they were walking on the right on the grand concourse, they’ve been there for forty years. Ah, and we were asking people on the street will what’s this, and they were saying, i don’t know they’re working buy-in causevox busy. Is that? Is that a courthouse? I don’t know. And if you looked at it, then considering okay, why don’t they know? Well, let’s, look at it. Oh, okay. There’s, the sign the sign is is way up there over the top of the door and there’s a flag way up there. But people tend not to really look up when they’re walking down the street guy. So and it’s a beautiful building. But there was nothing on the front door that you could see that the windows there wasn’t really anything that was big and obvious telling you what this was and and they were announcing in this case that they were free. So we put big orange signs in all of these places that you would see on the street and lo and behold, people walk. How come how can charities find the trim tab? The the example that i give you that i give you a minute ago about understanding who you’re talking to and how they see you is a is a is a kind of trim to have activity personas as a function of your spending the time because i think any trim tab action requires a kind of research it requires thought you’ve got to find that thing it’s not going to be obvious it’s not going to be the the i mean, the thing that’s right there in front of you, it won’t be the big an obvious thing, so you have to look at your system uh, how does it operate? What mental models are you operating with? Like what is what is this? And this is also how personas are interesting because they get you out of your mental models your marketing department might have its own vision of, like what? What the organization is or what have you and you we work psychologically with this kind of shorthand? We don’t necessarily think through every step along the way that gets us to a particular decision. We we use shortcuts and mental models are a shortcut, and we have them for our for our organizations and and the way we operate and also who we think we’re talking to. Bye. That’s what the specificity of these personas? Why it’s so important? Because you’re getting at something that breaks through these short hand models that we have of, well, we have this, you know, the retired over sixty five crowded and is too superficial, yeah, it’s the need to get into the detail we need to get in. We didn’t think we need to talk to the time you know, the curmudgeon, right, who comes every saturday and, you know, and complaints to the guard, you’ve got to get into his head and start talking to him, and then he will break down your you’re in perfectly formed mental models and help you create useful. Ones we have just a minute before we have to go this trim tab metaphor has a personal resonance with you, explain. Tell listeners why that is. Yes, well, the notion is not applied to marketing. It may be mine, but it’s, not mine at all, in the sense that my great great uncle, buckminster fuller, whose people know as the inventor of the geodesic dome, futurist designer argast maximilian of the dye maxie and map, and maxine carr, and and the geodesic dome, which everyone knows because it’s, the lightest, most cost efficient, strongest structure in the world and your uncle, has this on his on his tombstone. Great uncle martignetti he on his tombstone, has engraved. Call me trim tab. Great nephew of buckminster fuller, james eaton is the president in creative director of tronvig group. You’ll find his blaga tronvig group, dot com, james ariel, pleasure having you on the show. Thank you, thank you so much. My pleasure. We take a break when we returned tony’s take to stay with me, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough. Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy. Share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. To create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation. Fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s. Time for tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. My block this week has a list of last week’s contest winners i know you were with me. You had to have heard last week’s hundredth show i just know you did. And so on my block this week, i have all the contest winners listed and also links to a couple of stand up comedy videos from a set i did at gotham comedy club in new york city earlier this earlier this year. I was just at gotham two days ago, and i’m grateful to the people who came out wednesday night, including my parents, that’s, all on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com, you’ll find the winners and the link to a couple of videos at tony martignetti dot com, and that is tony’s take two for friday, july twentieth, the twenty ninth show of the year and show number one hundred and one i’m going to stop counting the shows now. Right now i have a pre recorded interview for you. No more crappy corporate relationships. This is from fund-raising day in new york. City ah, this past june, and here is that interview with erica hamilton and vanessa mendenhall. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve, we’re at the marriott marquis new york city, right in times square hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals, greater new york city chapter. And with me now is erica hamilton she’s, chief program officer for my mentor, and vanessa mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at new york. Needs you, ladies welcome think, honey it’s a pleasure to have you your seminar topic was building strategic corporate partnerships. Erica what? What are charities you think not doing right? Generally, and we’ll have plenty of time for details around their corporate sponsorship relationships. Sure. So i think one of the key things child you need to focus on is a holistic approach, which is something we talked about in the session. So is thinking about how to approach corporate partners with a variety of a level of ass. So it’s not just about funding it’s about in-kind donation it’s about employee engagement. It’s about really hearing what the corporate sponsor needs in the partnership. Okay, and was your topic just around sponsorships was also include corporate foundation giving. It was about both, both. So the holistic. So the entire, the entire relationship? Exactly. Okay, um, so you’re recommendations include building ah, relationship let’s. Vanessa, why don’t you start us off? How do we have a relationship with these big corporations? That’s. Right? Well, so in addition to holistic relationships, we talked about the importance of relationships being reciprocal on. So we talked about the importance of establishing a two way street. So you have a understanding of what that corporate partner is seeking to get from you. You nourishing of how they measure success and how they report the success of their investments to their stakeholders, whether that’s, their boss, or whether it’s their board of directors. Oh, and you, you understand what you are asking as well, and you have a a holistic ask you’re asking for more than just money. We also talked about importance of flexibility, thinking outside the box and corporate partnerships on being willing to try something new and try something different if something’s not working. Okay, let’s, let’s, talk about some of these things. Reciprocity. What? What? What is the charity case? What? How do they make their case? Erica, that being associated with us is good for your brand. So a lot of what we talked about was having organizations really helped her firm understand how employee engagement and social enterprise does things to drive employees and gay. Even with the firm. In terms of pretension, it attracts new employees to the firm. It raises brand awareness in terms of the firm’s efforts beyond just a peon l or profit and loss. It’s about corporate social responsibility. Okay. And what do some of these employee engagement programs look like? How can we engage them? Yeah, totally. So i work in heimans work, which is a nonprofit that basically engages adults to mentor high school students to apply to and go to college. And so we offer opportunities for corporations to give funding, but then tow also engage their employees to become volunteers in our program as well. Okay, yeah, absolutely. About for you, vanessa. What does employee engagement look like? All right, we’re also a mentoring program. And so we also engaged engaged employees to be mentors in our program. New york needs you worked with first generation college students, so we work in the next stage we work with, students have gotten into college, but we help them graduate from college and in transition into careers. We also we talked a lot about the importance of using highly skilled volunteers in a smart way in your organization. And so we also offer volunteers a way to leverage their skills, whether they know how to do marketing, whether they help with strategic planning, a huge thinking we’re actually in the process of writing our street your plan right now and we’re involving about ten volunteers in the process in a heavy way. Okay? And so we give volunteers away to engage their minds on their talents in our organization and helping us steer the ship, helping us figure out where we’re going next as a non-profit are either of you familiar with the the site? Catch a fire? Yes. Ok, i’ve had rachel chung seo on the show when speaking of next-gen way were at next-gen just like we are here today. Okay on. And they do exactly what you’re describing exactly high that was a high functioning form. What really skilled highly skilled batches, right? Okay, um, so so there is value for the corporation and we need so you’re supposed to go in and ask confidence? Vanessa, right? Not sort of hat in hand and humble. I think you want to ask questions and listen in the very first meeting with the new corporation, you want to spend eighty percent of you your time at least asking questions to find out what their double bottom linus again, how they measure their success, what’s important to them what their values are on ly after you get that information from them, obviously you want to do your research before you walk in, but ask those questions, understand think of them like a client, in a sense, you know, i want to understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how that potentially aligns with artwork. Then you talk about your program so your pitch shouldn’t be the thing that you leave with. You really should listen first, then talk about your program in a way that’s using the same language they’re using so that you can train your organization and help them see how it fits in alliance with their mission. But it sounds. Like this is a process that could take a couple of meetings, it certainly could, and it should be, i mean, if it’s a really relationship, if you’re not just asking for money, it should be on ongoing conversation. For those of you watching the video, we’re not having an earthquake in new york city background is shaking because we’re the last ones here. If we could pan around the room, you would see bear pipes and walls were the very last ones here, and so the workers are cleaning up the booth behind us to the end, to the left of us and that’s shaking and causing an earthquake like momentum, and maybe we’ll get a picture of what it looks like. We’ll put that on the on the facebook page to a company that we have remarkable focus, right way we’re all we’re all still in focus, so i wouldn’t want to ask you what you were just saying. I was gonna ask follow-up for erica, but i don’t remember what exactly we were talking about listening, asking a lot of questions oh, great everywhere what? Coaching you, i had one thing can add murcott e i was going to say no, no, no, i was going to say, when the relationship is most successful, what you inevitably ends up with is the organization itself doesn’t have to be the one doing the asking ends up being the employees in the corporate structure that air volunteering with our program that come and make the ask and that’s one of the most powerful asked a corporation responds to so that’s a great place for an organization intent towards okay, thank you very much for that because it made allowed me to remember my question. Great, which was going to be for you if this is going to be a multi meeting, ask multi meeting relationship building. What about the fear that we won’t get a second meeting? Yeah, the first meeting is all just listening and gathering information. If i haven’t hooked them in my first meeting, i may never get a second meeting. I have to ask you the first. Yes. Now why is that wrong? Yeah, i think you have to figure out there’s some funders that you’re gonna want to take the long view. With their their funders that we work with you in the first several years of asks never gave funding we thought were not engaged with our mission. We’re not interested, and at some point down the road, whether it be a change of staff member on their side or a change in how we’re positioning our work with the work they’re trying to fund, it clicked. And so one thing i would urge non-profits to do is not feel this rush to get funding as a thie the measure of success quickly in a corporate partnership. It’s think about developing a relationship, the success maybe getting space for an event that might be a wind. It’s figured out how to get your foot in the door, if you would. Okay, okay. All right. So and again, that really hearkens back to the holistic approach is not all about the money akeley want. Would you want to build a relationship? And i mean, even if after the first meeting vanessa, if there’s no interest, it just isn’t alignment. Then both parties will know that. Then there, then there’s no point in going further. Sure that’s, right. But going back to what? Erica was saying before the importance of having a volunteer who’s affiliated with your organization who works for that corporation in that meeting, with you opening the doors for you, helping you build the relationship goes a very long way. And in my experience, you end up with meetings, her actions to take afterwards, whenever you have a volunteer engaged. So one of the things that i think is really important when you’re thinking about corporate engagement. It really all begins with volunteer engagement. In my mind, you know, you don’t want to be making cold calls. That is not the way to approach, you know, relationship. Elearning corporations. You want people inside those organizations advocating for you. And to do that, you need volunteers that are inspired, that are engaged and feel sense of owners. Oh, be a program. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. How’s your game. I want to improve your performance, focus and motivation than you need. Aspire, athletic consulting, stop second guessing yourself. Move your game to the next level, bring back the fun of the sport, help your child build confidence and self esteem through sports. Contact dale it, aspire, athletic, insulting for a free fifteen minute power session to get unstuck. Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Talking. Duitz durney i mean, it could happen to that people who are volunteering go to their corporation instead of coming to you and saying exactly earlier way, want more engaged, they might go to their company and say, why can’t? This is a fantastic mission and, yes, here’s the alignment with our world. Yes, why can’t we be doing more of that shit happens all at a home game? Yeah, zoho, exactly, yeah, that’s. Wonderful. Then you get the call. It’s. Always nice to be called once in a while, it is nice to be pursued. It happens every once in a while, like dating. How do we figure out? Oppcoll? What? What is going to be most appealing? How do we get to that double bottom line in the first meeting, right? But what kinds of questions that we ask it? I i think before you’re walking in and we talked about this in the session, it’s being very well researched, you’ve gotta do your diligence like just very clearly and it’s diligence in the general sense of online and, you know, the regular library type of research, but it’s also diligence talk to people that the firm is funding, those are going to be the best insights you’re going to get no williams of approach really well. Other organizations that are getting funding help, organizations that are seeking funding, aren’t they fearful that this is a zero sum game and what you get? I’m going to lose. Yeah, so typically what i found it is if an organization is already getting funding, they’re less fearful about partnering and sharing information. If it’s, another organization seeking funding simultaneously that’s a little bit more challenging or what, but sometimes you find collaboration at some of them, but also good i was gonna say, and this is why you want non-profit partnerships. You know, and at new york needs you, we have a team. The tragic partnerships team it’s not primarily focused on developments, actually focused on relationship building with corporations with non-profits with government with, with kind of any any anti out there that we want to work with, and we developed formal partnership zoho non-profits to help with this kind of knowledge sharing and it’s kinda relationship building and helps us with corporations. We go into a corporation, and they say, oh, yes, we were familiar with mentoring we’ve worked with, i’m entering before so that’s great there there, partner of ours there for their kids to our programs, it really helps boost our credibility. Andi helps establish us is a real participant in the community when when you have those those establish non-profit partnerships. Okay, erica, another another possibility for the doing your due diligence research would be talking to the people who are volunteering for you from the corporation, right? What’s the culture i mean can’t they can’t give you enormous and so they do that’s a brilliant one and what they’re also help with the way he’s. Very brilliant. Very brilliant. Okay, what? What? They’re also helpful. With is identifying the appropriate contact sometimes what you’ll find up corporate entities is it’s, not just one point of contact it maybe multiple it maybe contacts you may not consider so a great concept. We’re talking about it’s not always the foundations of the csr sometimes business units within a corporate issues. Yes, our twenty martignetti munter non-profit radio. We have drug in jail. What? What what’s? The csr may not know the csr thank you. Let me try to get parole it’s a corporate social responsibility. So just basically that the bigger enterprise inc pursues to be more involved in community impact and reinvestment in those kinds of things. But what we were saying is sometimes like a bee bin is within a corporation has money for strategic initiatives just at their discretion. They khun spend it’s not through the bigger corporate entity. You would only know that if an employee can give you that insight for their great moles, as we call them. Okay, yeah. Suppose we show our research and we’ve had two or three meetings on dh. We have ah, decent number of volunteers from that company helping us, but we didn’t get any we didn’t get the funding for our run walk that we really wanted to that we didn’t get that seventy five thousand dollars sponsorship that we wanted for the run walk. Vanessa, what? Where do we go is this is the end of relationship? Absolutely not and what you really that’s, why we talk about having multiple types of asks, you know, almost like a menu of options. One of my famous favorite non-profit executive director’s guy named little perry. We’re in space brothers, big sisters, and down in tennessee, he talks about if you have a menu of options, you can you can almost set it up like, you know, you can choose any of these options. The only thing you can’t choose to do nothing, right? So you give people a lot of options, a lot of ways they can engage in support, your organization, you get that foot in the door, they might start small, you know? But the more they get to know your organization, the stronger relationships they build with multiple staff members, volunteers, the more likely they’re going to be to give next year, so give them all those options and be creative about what? You’re asking for it from your partners, ok? And that’s really parallel with advice around individual giving also, exactly people don’t just ask for one one gift we asked for, uh, assortment on dh solicitation has lots of choices after that. If one thing doesn’t sound good, erica, is there something you wanted to add to what vanessa said? I think as well, how could you tell that you’re very effusive you in your desire to speak with your flailing arms? Because if you’re not watching the video, you’re watching the video it’s an earthquake and not watching the video erica’s jumping up and down, raising her hand, shooting it up like a third grader? I love it. The only thing i’m gonna add was one of the the strongest messages you consent to a corporation in terms of how mature program is valued is dollars for doers and that’s, a program where corporations actually give funding to employees that employees can appropriate to certain non-profits organizations it’s, typically based on hours of service. So you are an employee of goldman sachs. They have a threshold which says, if you volunteer a thousand dollars, the firm will donate a thousand hours will donate a thousand dollars on your behalf when you can do that kind of money from your employees. Volunteered face. It speaks volumes to a foundation or corporate entity, about how embedded you are and how much they aren’t aligned with you, and they want to be so that’s. Also great. Bottoms up, strapped. Where’d you call that donors for dollars for doers is sometimes a ton of companies have doers, is not the scotch. We’re not you, and i will do a shot thousand dollars it’s. Not that way. I don’t even drink. Durney okay, what? I think i’ve exhausted really well, okay, no, i haven’t suppose you did get the seventy five thousand dollars sponsorship, and you still have the nice, robust number of volunteers, and maybe there was some maybe there’s another form of engagement? How do we how do we keep the ball going when we don’t need something from them immediately? It’s not a one way relationship that way don’t really have anything to say. What do we talk about until the next time we need a sponsor? One of things we talked about the session is the importance of events in inviting them to your events, trying to kate create vips, experiences for them so they feel special. So for insisted they come to one of your training sessions, setting aside special time for them to meet with some of your students, you know, doing special things like that and showing up at their events if they have an event for some of their clients or they have special, you know, cocktails or dinners or anything like that show up, wouldn’t they love to show you off as the charities that way, it has to be a two. Way street, so encourage those invitations that wei will send representatives and we’ll send in your case, his students, many even share absolutely done since erica, have you sent students all the time? All the time we send them out. Sometimes corporations will do their own, like employee engagement days, which just about getting more employees to volunteer, period, and we’ll send out mentees mentors, pairs staff members, whatever it takes to help them achieve their goals because we all win. So yeah, for those of you’re not watching the video. I love you, john. Can you get a mike on that fly away like a fly? I don’t believe it’s a it’s, it’s, espionage somebody else’s, it’s a little robot it’s somebody else’s show trying to steal our contract. Believe way are really this is desolate here. All right, well, we have, like, just another minute or so, vanessa, what else? What else did you talk about in your in your program that we haven’t talked about here? Sure. S o i think one of the other important aspects of corporate giving is teo there’s. A few there’s. A few things to watch out for. Write a few pitfalls. That you want to avoid. So one of the pitfalls that we talked about was making sure that everyone your organization particularly, you know, top level staff, but the organization knows who your major corporate partners are. Ah, it’s a major embarrassment, if, you know, one of your staff members meet somebody who works at csr, bank of america, golden sachs or whoever and doesn’t know that they’re one of your top partners, that is a major thing to avoid. And so you really it’s important to communicate to your entire organization, who you’re working with and at what level they’re donating, i think it’s also really important. Um, actually, do you have another point? Well, one thing i was going to say a tidbit for you that we didn’t go into detail on the session was the need to really be able to communicate the impact of whatever it is the corporate sponsors investing in. So when you’re going in with the ass being very clear on how you’re going to measure success up front that way, when it comes time for the end of the granite, one of the new you can clearly communicate your goals, your accomplishments. What you’ve achieved with partnership funding. Okay, so, so sort of playing off the expectations from the beginning. Exactly. You could say expectations one through four. Check. Check. Check. Check. Exactly. But where do we go now? How do we make a bigger? Okay, ladies, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you very much. Neo-sage life closest to me is right. Next to me is vanessa mendenhall and she’s, the vice president of the fellows program for new york. Needs you. And erica hamilton is chief program officer for my mentor. Ladies, i thank you very much was real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Twenty martignetti non-profit radio. The last vestige of fund-raising day two thousand twelve. Then nobody else will utter that phrase. Because there’s, nobody else in the room the hotel has been evacuated. So hotel is empty. Forty seven stories. The marriott marquis empty on. This was fund-raising day two thousand twelve. Our coverage. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. My thanks to everyone at fund-raising day for ah, all their help. We were on the exhibit floor that day. And, of course, thanks to erica and vanessa. Also also want to thank james eaton for being a guest in the studio today next week. Arts and culture building bust joanna waronker withs is an associate at the university of chicago’s cultural policy center. She co authored a study of the major building boom of museums performing arts centers in theaters in the u s from nineteen, ninety four to two thousand eight, he studied five hundred organizations and seven hundred building projects, ranging from four million dollars to three hundred and thirty five million dollars. She and i will talk about the lessons from that research the show is all over social media, you know you can’t make a click without having a head on collision with tony martignetti non-profit radio, you know, we’re on facebook, you know we have the new linked in group join the group, see us on facebook, you know you can get weekly radio email alerts. You conjoined that list on facebook? You know we’re on twitter hashtag non-profit radio use it, use it wildly you can follow me on where we’re also on itunes non-profit radio dot net takes you to our itunes paige i’m on foursquare. We can connect their connect in all these different ways. What does it mean when a cause long out of the spotlight raises one point six million dollars in just two years, an idea grows into a powerhouse, helping one hundred seventy thousand people each year. And when an agency raises three point eight million dollars in government grants in six weeks, it means lap a has done its job. Labbate fund-raising dot com for your campaign grants and planning needs. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media. Great job last week. Regina. Thank you. And the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one to two p, m eastern at talking alternative dot com. I didn’t think that shooting getting victims. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. E-giving thank you. Cubine. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks band radio. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area stopped by one of our public classes, get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier and make more money. Improving communications, that’s. The answer. Told you.