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Nonprofit Radio for September 5, 2014: Anniversaries Are Opportunities & Work Smarter Across Email And Social Media

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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My Guest:

Susan Gabriel: Anniversaries Are Opportunities

Susan Gabriel
Susan Gabriel

Susan Gabriel, senior associate at Cause Effective, has tips to make your anniversaries–5th or 125th–more than a night or a weekend. They are great opportunities!

 

 

 

 

Alec Stern: Work Smarter Across Email And Social Media

Alec Stern
With Alec Stern at NTC

If you coordinate email with the social channels you’re using, people will have a better experience with your organization. Alec Stern shares his strategies, then tells the story of Constant Contact‘s birth. He’s a founding team member and vice president for strategic market development. (Recorded at the Nonprofit Technology Conference, NTC 2014.)

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, it feels so good to be back in the studio live and i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with a para fire in jail abscess if i had to swallow the fact that you had missed today’s show anniversaries are opportunities. Susan gabriel, senior associate at cause effective has tips to make your anniversaries with her fifth or one hundred twenty fifth mohr than a night or a weekend. They are great opportunities, anniversaries are and work smarter across email and social. If you coordinate email with the social channels you’re using, people will have a better experience with your organization. Alex turn shares his strategies, then tells the story of constant contacts. Birth he’s, a founding team member there and vice president for strategic market development. My interview with alex were alec was recorded at the non-profit technology conference and t c twenty fourteen a couple months ago on tony’s take two do you know about my other show? We’re sponsored by generosity, siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks i’m very glad that susan gabriel is with me here in the studio she is senior associate at cause effective, she and they provide coaching and consulting services to non-profits on resource development challenges ranging from starting or strengthening annual major donor and anniversary campaigns and increasing board fund-raising to maximizing the strategic potential of special events and anniversaries and that’s what we’re here to talk about on twitter, they are at cause effective. Susan gabriel, welcome to the show. Welcome to the studio. Thank you very much, it’s. A pleasure to be here. I’m very glad you are. I’m glad have a live guest to welcome me actually back into the studio because i’ve been away a while back i am alive your life and live alive cause effective is a non-profit itself we are. What is your work? Helping other non-profits i like to say we have to walk the talk because we are a non-profit where? Thirty, i think almost three years old now, and our mission in life is to help other non-profits build their capacity around resource development. So we’re that’s that’s key for us that we’re capacity. Builders were not the kind of consultants who come. In and do the work and leave necessarily and not so much will come in and tell you what you should do and then leave, but we really sit side by side with our clients and help figure out what are the best strategy? Is what’s going to work for you? And then we’d do an awful lot of coaching side by side, making it work, making it stick. I get a lot of requests for fund-raising consulting, how do we get to the next level? Were mostly founder funded or very small board funded. The board is not effective at fund-raising beyond e-giving from their own pockets and it’s a small boarding. And how do we get to the next level? I believe cause effective khun do exactly that can help those kinds of organisations? Absolutely, yeah, that’s a that’s a question we hear every single day because we’re kind of stuck and you know it can happen to very small founder lead organizations and it can happen very large organizations as well that we’re just stuck. We don’t know how to move it. We don’t have to move the board. We just seem to be living in the past and not be able to really diversify our income streams. We know we need to do that to be smart, to be healthy in the future. And how can we sort of unstick everything and get it moving forward a lot that that a lot that unstick ing is that they’re being stuck in event fund-raising yes, and we’re going to talk about anniversaries specifically, but that’s a lot of what i referrals that i’m asked for our you know, we have an annual gala, we do some events during the year, but we know we know like you’re saying, we know we need to diversify, but, you know, can you help us? No, i the work i do, i cannot all i can do is refer and it’s not an easy referral, so i’m really glad to have found cause effective. It’s a pleasure. I like i said, we hear a lot of that. We talk a lot about year round fund-raising relationship building, so fund-raising is it’s that old thing? Fund-raising is friendraising its building relationships with people year round, building a community of support around the organization and many many of our organizations are stuck on. The one annual event, you know, if they’ve never done outreach to individuals very often, the first thing that we think of is an event. So we do an event and we do the event year after year, and breaking down out of that model is is one of the key leverage points is i see to helping people move forward. That’s outstanding! I said, really glad to have met you and calls effective because i can refer non-profits to you and i hope they come to you were thrilled. Let’s, let’s, talk about anniversaries we have ah, there’s. A lot of potential that’s not being realized. Absolutely that that’s. That word opportunity. I told you when we chatted that that that’s, the biggest word i use around anniversaries is for some reason people pay attention when it’s your anniversary. We know when we have a birthday we have a fiftieth. You know, wedding anniversary. Whatever it is, people will drive across the country. Write to help us celebrate. So people pay attention differently when it’s the anniversary of an organisation and it’s a wonderful time to gather everybody together again. You know everybody who helped make the organization what? It was to say thank you to people to applaud too celebrate the past too, really let people know where you are now and then. Of course especially toe let everyone know what the vision is for the future and how they can be helpful. So that idea that’s one of the leverage points for me in terms of the opportunities that anniversaries provide it’s more people kind of building the team right building the bench so that more people, our thinking about us and reaching out out on our behalf and opportunities or anniversaries are a great time to do that. So clearly it’s already sounding like it’s, got to be more than an evening or even a weekend. We do a workshop very frequently that’s called more than just a party because again that’s part of that stuck thing where people think, well, it’s our anniversary so i guess we better do a neve ent we better do agulla and very often some sort of event. Regala is part of it. You’re not saying that doesn’t belong. No, no, no, no, of course not, no it’s great, you’re going to celebrate, you’re going to invite everybody around, but very often that’s just one of the things, even in smaller organizations that don’t have the resources to do, you know, seven or eight activities during the year are too completely, you know, do a re branding, which people vary off organizations very often do during the anniversary, but even just putting, you know, the fortieth anniversary logo on your website, changing the letterhead, gathering people to celebrate in a different year in a different way. And that idea, you know, looking back former honorees, former board members, former staff, volunteers, donors who were no longer with us and the sort of building back the community touching base with everybody again to say thank you, because they all helped you get you know, where you are today, but then again reenergizing those relationships, so they’re sort of part of the team moving forward. When should we start to be thinking? If we have our fifth anniversary coming up for our one hundredth anniversary coming up, when should we start the planning? Those might be different answers. I mean, if it’s your fifth anniversary, i love it if they’ll start a year out and i know that’s very difficult for smaller. Organizations, you know, very often people wake up and go oops. It’s our anniversary, we better call cause affected somebody just told me yeah, our anniversary’s coming up? Yeah, so the lead time is really, really key cause again, that possibility of reaching out and finding people and and planning, i think, is so important because, again, that that idea of opportunities we always start when we’re working with any type of an event or certain or even an anniversary campaign with your objective and way often asked the question, where do you want your organization to be at the end of the anniversary period? And that’s? Not just i want to raise ex more dollars or i wanna, you know, have three more major gifts or i want to get two more board members, which are all very, very key goals, but there could be lots of different things that you want to accomplish. A new database, a new website you created and, you know, create an advisory committee or whatever it happens to be. So we find that at the beginning of the planning session, if you’ll step back, take a breath and, you know, gather the right. Folks around the table on dh really ask ourselves that question. You know what we want to accomplish in our anniversary, or what can we do now? And what can we build in to be a little bit healthier and stronger, you know, over the next, even three to five years, outstanding. You mentioned we just have, like, a minute and a half or so before ah first break getting the right people who are who are so well now where let’s say we are the six months in advance and maybe it’s our for our audience probably more like their fifth, tenth or fifteenth or twentieth anniversary coming up. Who are some of the right people? That should be in the in those early conversations. That’s a great question and i was pretty pleased with it. I was way asked the question, who might be interested in our work? And that is very broad. Sometimes we have attention. You get stuck on the question of who can we ask for money? You know, and that’s, what will happen if we’re just having one event who might be should be could be interested in supporting our work in some former fashion and then looking at that university people and inviting, as many of you know, representatives from those various groups around the table to do a big brainstorm with us and think together with us about how the organization can meet its goals in the anniversary. And then, of course, ultimately, we hope those people will continue to be part of the solution right part of the team that continues to make the cancerversary a success. This could even be community members, absolutely volunteers, parents, alumni program participants, local vendors. You know, the insurance guy that you know, boardmember sze funders, whatever makes sense, a lot of, you know, government folks are government allies, bring him around the table, and if it makes sense it’s case by case. But you mentioned funders that’s an interesting yeah, funders past current finders there. Well, if they’re interested, right funders future, if you can get them there, you know, potential board members, potential funders, absolute. What a wonderful way to engage them in the work with you. We have to go away for a couple of minutes when we come back. Susan, i’m going to keep talking about anniversaries as opportunities. Stay with us. You didn’t think that shooting getting dink dink dink, you’re listening to the talking alternative network to get you thinking. Dahna cubine this’s, the cook, said about bush senior wear hosting, part of my french new york city, or guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia. From paris to keep back french is a common language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it common desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them. Share this story. Join us. Pardon my french new york city every monday from one to two p, m. 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 to seven to 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. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We got to do live listener love because it’s so been so weak many weeks that i haven’t been able to let’s start here in the us. Shelby, north carolina, levittown, new york and new york, new york live listener love to you also langley, canada in british columbia live listen, love up there, let’s, go abroad several in japan we see tokyo, but there are several others masked or hidden for some reason. Konnichiwa, sweden, paris, france we have a guest live. Listen, love susan, please, for paris, france got you italian, mexico city, mexico. Hola. So korea and inchon, korea also on your haserot our anniversary very impressive. You’re beautiful. Yeah. Finders all with the new york accent. You lost your accent for the for there are parisian er’s. Um, the anniversary it is not well, we already said doesn’t even have to be weekend, but it could be months, right? This could be a long term affair. Could be long term affair could be twelve to eighteen months. Easily, it could easily be even a two or three year campaign. I mean, many larger we’re going to do? And you said you said when do we need to start planning? So if you’re planning an anniversary campaign where you want to raise, you know, five, ten, fifty million dollars you need to start way up front, you know, again, who are the right people? What are the right goals? First of all, who are the right people that we need to gather around to help us reach those goals? And the whole idea of a silent portion of that, you know, campaign before it goes public on raising a lot of money and awareness and getting the branding and the messaging straight before we ever, you know, take it live so it could easily be a year to even two years of planning. I love that it’s not just around fund-raising there all the stuff that you mentioned before the break, like new new database rebranding, i guess it could even be evaluating your mission statement. Perhaps you know, the core values, things. I mean, there’s. A lot of a lot of opportunity here having nothing to do with fund-raising or volunteer recruitment per se, right? Yeah, a lot of organizations do that kind of. Work, they’re doing a strategic planning process right before an anniversary is a great idea if you can pull it off, we do a little mini strategic planning is part of our work with organizations because we do want to take a breath and step back and say, you know, where are we where we go and what do we need in order to be able to get there? What are we trying to build hutu meaning on the team? What kind of resource is will we need to really to really be able to get there? S o but a lot of organizations do doing a formal strategic planning process right before an anniversary before they because that tells them where they need to go on the kind of objectives that they need to have, and it can be programmatic. Absolutely, it could be building the capacity of the infrastructure of the organization, and it is related to fund-raising because if you want to start a new program or, you know, beef up a program you’re going to need, the resource is in order to do that, and you’re going to need that, you know, the human resource is as well, including the people on your board and we have all these people together. Are we proposing things that we would like to be our goals at the end of the anniversary? We’re also listening to what they think we should be doing exactly both. I think i think, you know, because some of these people don’t know what’s really, really well and part of what we want to do, gathering them around the table is to get to know them better and have them get to know us better. I think tow walk into an anniversary planning process like that with a pretty good idea of where you’re going, what you as an internal team think your goal should be, um, and presented to them and share it with them, certainly for feedback. You want to hear what they have to say, but you especially want to here with them in terms of messaging and what might be meaningful to them and people like them in terms of engaging them in the way we want, you know, we want to have a relationship with these folks ongoing. So what would that look like? Please tell us what kind. Of messages you would need from us, our communications, or what kind of events and activities would be most meaning bill to you and people like you. Now you make just slip down a little bit. Yeah, there we go. I want you to be comfortable, okay? And i want people to be able to hear you, um, goals these need to be. I hear this from a lot of guests, but we’re going to reinforce because it’s been a while. Measurable, right? I mean, we talk about smart goals specific, measurable, achievable, and i forget they are in the team, all of those things. But we want, you know, like numbers of new donors. Perhaps if we were talking about fund-raising and maybe what sectors they come from potential channels. I’m glad you said sectors, because that, yes, measurable is really, really important. Just that old adage. Write what what gets measured gets done so as specific as you can make goals, you can say we want to raise more money, and if you raise an extra dollar you’ve, you’ve succeeded. But if you say, i really want to build our major donor effort and we now have five people giving us ten thousand plus and by the end of the anniversary period, we wantto have twenty five, people e-giving us that amount. That’s very, very clear. And justus, you said tony it’s measurable, so we want to be able to celebrate. You do want the goals to be realistic. You can’t be pie in the sky because you want your team to feel really, really good at the end of it. Like we we definitely succeeded. We definitely took the organization forward because that’s a very motivational to keep people engaged. If this is our fifth or tenth anniversary, what do you think are some some reasonable goals? I think you know it’s, our favorite answer at cause of activity. Thanks. It really depends on where the organization is, right? Tell us a story can share a client story about an organization that exploited its its anniversary and did. Well, um, sure, i can. I worked with a dance company whose board was lovely and very committed, but not used at all to reaching out on behalf of the organization and really serving as the face of the organization. The chair was knew he’d never been a chair. Before, it was a lot of work to do in terms of sort of building that second, that second team and by the end of the anniversary period and in fact, during the brainstorming session which i led for them, three meetings of pulling, you know, gathering all those folks, those disparate folks around the table, they had three new board members who were very active and you mentioned before from sectors came from different sectors of the economy. So they brought different collectivity and networks with them, and they’re in a much different place. The board chair, i can say, is doing a terrific job. He knows exactly what he’s after now and he’s out there, you know, introducing the organization to new people into new board members and getting you know it also having a lot of fun. Outstanding. What anniversary was that for them? Ten. Now you have your own background in the arts. I d’oh what? You are an actor. I was. Does that help you in your work? Certainly. With the arts organizations i use you mentioned that it wasn’t in my bio on the on the website. We do put it in my bio. When, when we’re ah reaching out to arts organizations because we, you know, we think they find it that’s fine, i have about half a dozen different bios, one emphasizes standup comedy, one emphasizes plans giving charity registration, exactly downplay everything because i’m embarrassed fundez organization, you know, whatever. So yeah, i have a lot of bios is, well, yeah, i understand it certainly helps me in my training work. We do a lot of workshops, we do a lot of training, you know, in front of boards of directors and engaging people, and being funny and and entertaining is certainly eyes, certainly helpful in that in that work. Yeah, there’s quite a bit of don’t dole training a lot of doll out there. There’s a lot of dollars is a lot of people are paying for it. Unfortunately, most of what we do is free, so i’m really glad that you made that point. You can get entertaining, entertaining smart people for free, excellent. After we have our goals, where what’s our next step in our planning, i think it’s the team again, it’s, who were those people? Who do we need on the team to actualize those goals? Xero an anniversary committee we’re talking about now? I think so. Okay, you start with the internal sort of, i call it the internal working group, but the internal team and then you go external when you’re ready, when you have your your goal is pretty much said, and you know where you’re headed, you’re going to gather the people together that you think can can get you there and his divers a group as possible because they all bring different skills, different connectivity, you know, different levels of commitment, but i think that’s key that’s one of the leverage points in terms of taking your organization to the next level is building the group of people who are serving as ambassadors and thought partners, and ultimately, you know, donors and supporters for your organization, the more people we have i mentioned earlier that idea of a community of support, the more people we have in that community, that air reaching out on our behalf. The bigger and bigger that community gets, and then we can really create a sustainable fund-raising model and it’s, not the same people asking the same people over and over and over again. Now, obviously, we have to take care of them on the other side, the’s a relation in ships with riel humans so we can reach out and raises over exactly if we just forget about them. We can’t expect them to be there the following year if we don’t take good care of them, let them engage otherwise it’s, poor relationship building and exactly were suffering in a lot of more fundamental ways than not getting the most out of our anniversary. Yeah, exactly. Presumably you would’ve invited to these initial meetings some of the people that you’d liketo see on the anniversary committee and you could be gauging their interest in doing that from the from the early meetings. Exactly a lot of those jobs that you is that old, i think it’s a dale carnegie thing of when you ask people for money, they give you advice. But when you ask people for advice very often it leads. It leads to money. So when you pull people together. It’s really? We just want to think together with you we want to get your thoughts. We want your ideas, but part of that is that you’re cultivating them. They’re getting to know its justus you said they’re getting to know you, you’re getting to know them. And very often people who have who have come for these brainstorms they will. Now what do i do? How can how can i help? Because this is great. The other thing is, is getting them asking other people for advice, an anniversary or kind of any day of the week is a good time to ask people for who should we be talking to? You know, if you’re not interested or if you are interested, who else do you know who might be interested to give us a little advice about something? Sametz spur, tease? Open a door for us or, you know, help us with our marketing or the right, you know, crafting the right messages or whatever people there’s a lot of different ways. That’s another thing i like to remember and share there’s a lot of different ways for people to be helpful to our organization’s. Not just money. Absolutely. We have our committee. Now together we start assigning roles, responsibilities, leadership, etcetera and my right. Or have i skipped anything? I don’t think so. I think that’s it. Okay. You have your goals depending. I mean, we’ve run one hundred fiftieth anniversary campaigns where there were seven different subcommittees. You no one was marketing. One was community outreach. One was fund-raising, etcetera, and smart. You know, smaller organizations where everybody’s in the same room together. But division of labour is definitely important if you can get volunteermatch leaders that you feel really comfortable working with to take on certain bits of this work, especially in a small ah, you know, not so well staffed organization that can be really crucial if somebody’ll take ahold of one of the pieces of it and run with it. And then you can sort of be the little wheel that that manages the big wheel instead of trying to manage, you know, seventy five different pieces. Who’s who’s who is shepherding this entire activities? This. And is there an honorary chair? Well, maybe not the honorary chair. Was there there’s an anniversary chair person. It was a volunteer or remember what again, adding, it depends very it depends on the organization and the structure of the organization sometimes it’s, the executive director who’s sort of keeping all the wheels moving if there’s a development director, very often it’s his or her job to do that in terms of leadership and sort of inspiring the group very often, it is that share of the anniversary who’s actually doing the outreach to especially high level folks, if it’s a big ask whatever that amount is very often it’s that person that we’re looking to teo to provide that leadership i’m i’m doing this, i believe in this this is a great opportunity, wonderful organization, and i’m asking you to join me, which is a very powerful and different message than coming from, you know, the development director who who works at the organization, so we love it when we get that peer-to-peer outreach and asking from members of the of the committee and those leaders, you’re absolutely right. Those leaders are key and making sure that it’s successful, what are some of the fun activities events that you’ve seen around around anniversaries? Oh well, you know, amazing things, carnivals and you know different things that people have done with auctions. People we have a wonderful group that i’m working with it. The heart of their mission is is volunteers corporate volunteers reading to young people on their lunch hour? They literally dropped down out of their offices for an hour and reid to the same child week after week. Can i plug them? You go, it’s called read ahead and they are read ahead and they are terrific and they’re inviting celebrity readers. And we had bobby kind of ali at the event last year and he did a wonderful job doing doing his reading from a children’s book. So something that’s very mission centric is is is most profound. I think the worst thing in the world you want to somebody leaves an event of any kind, but certainly your anniversary goes around to the office the next day and says, wow, i went to this great event, you know, it was on a yacht or whatever it was, and somebody says, oh, what group was it for? E? I don’t know it’s something to do with kids, you know? You know? So you really want people to be steeped. In the heart of your work, when they walk out and have a wonderful, enjoyable time, you mentioned quickly look focused a little more on some of the communications that might be different for around anniversary. You have f some advice around the marketing communications part ah, tiny things specifically, mostly it’s, that issue of just making sure everybody knows it’s your anniversary, that idea of inviting them in ah it’s a celebration we want to hear from you come in and be with us. Come to a you know, come to a barbecue in the summer aura, you know, holiday party in december. That idea of really thanking people and it’s very warm and that kind of outreach and also being very specific about about where you’re going and how people can be helpful, i think cause effective has some events coming up that i think we wantto give a little shout out for. Thank you. We do. We have. Ah, we do a lot of the workshops. Thanks, tio. Various and other organizations with which we partner. We have ah, works up. Coming up on october fifteenth at the foundation center and that’s about the development team building. A strong development team between the development department, the executive director and the board and even the program’s staff. And we have a lovely workshops around building your board’s ability to fundraise that we’re doing in partnership with the non-profit coordinating committee and city foundation. And that is taking there’s one in october in in brooklyn and there’s, no one in long island and one in connecticut. Where can we find information on cause effective site on the cause, effective site or and or on the non-profit coordinating committees site for the ones for their or foundation center for the first foundation center for the first one? We do usually three or four workshops there. Ah year. So i’ve coming back. I’ve done training there, too, on plant giving in charity restriction. Not boring, not boring, not boring. That’s what people said, i’m convinced already. Thank you, susan gabriel. She is senior associate, senior associate at cause effective. You’ll find them on twitter at cause effective. And the cost effective website is as effective dot org’s susan gabriel. Thank you very much. Terrific advice. Thank you so much is absolutely my pleasure. Pleasure. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Generosity siri’s you know about them, they host the multi charity five k runs and walks and they are a sponsor and so i have to give them shout out what is special about this is that small and midsize shops probably likely can’t generate enough activity enough participants to have your own run walk. You know you can’t go out there with fielding twenty people everybody’s going tto gett there and say, where’s, the party, but you put together a dozen or fifteen charities, and everybody brings twenty or so, and now you’ve got three hundred fifteen times twenty yeah, three hundred or so. So you know, i i just i love the concept of building this community for a day around your fund-raising they have a charity support team that helps you do the fund-raising of course, you get the, you know, you get the dashboard to get the website and everything so that your participants can go and they they in classic peer-to-peer fashion, you know, they ask all their friends, of course that’s all included in what what generosity siri’s does. I like to talk to people on the phone and so ah, you know, pick up the phone, talk to dave lynn he’s, the ceo. They have activities coming up in new jersey, miami, new york city and philadelphia. There are seven, one eight five o six. Nine, triple seven if you prefer the web generosity siri’s dot com do you know about my other show? It is fund-raising fundamentals. It’s, a podcast that i host for the chronicle of philanthropy. It’s very different than non-profit radio it’s it’s quick, quick burst it’s only ten minutes long, it’s a monthly and its devoted to fund-raising topics i usually have a consultant and one of the charities that they’re working with or a client you know, client or former client last month was getting large corporate gif ts we had the president of the wells fargo foundation and the ceo of accelerated schools in los angeles, one of the wells fargo grantees. Ah, i’ve done facebook fund-raising with john hayden getting to the next level online storytelling attracting monthly recurring gif ts creative lacoste thank you’s, lots of others i’ve been doing this for about two and a half years for the chronicle. You will it. It is called fund-raising fundamentals information? Is that tony martignetti? Dot com and so so on itunes and that is tony’s take two for friday, fifth of september thirty fifth show of the year here’s my recording with alex, turn on working smarter across email and your social channels. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference two thousand fourteen we’re at the marriott wardman park hotel in washington, d c with me is alex turn he is remember the founding team and vice president for strategic market development at constant contact, alex turned welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Pleasure to have you your workshop topic eyes grow your non-profit with email and social media, i presume we could be smarter non-profits could be smarter about working across on coordinating email and social. Yeah, for sure that there’s a lot of opportunity with the different channels that are out there today, and i think, you know, email is that targeted kind of private conversation i’ve given you my email address and your now reaching out, communicating to make there’s that opportunity where, you know, where’s, the supporters, the constituents of that non-profit hanging out and oftentimes it’s on those social channels, so when you think of the marketing mix there’s there’s, a wide variety of those options each non-profit for-profit i’ll figure out kind of which channel works for them and where their base is hanging out, but you can you can sort of leverage that communication, get in the conversation and share the things both in email and then replicate those over on the social channel so they may miss it in the inbox and pick it up on those social channels. And how do you know which which social channels you should be spending your time on? Yeah, so that’s a great question, i think, you know, oftentimes non-profits, you know, say, well, no, should i be on all of them? The best thing is really to sort of pick a channel where they believe that their constituents or hang out, they could certainly ask them, you know, are you on facebook? Are you on linked in twitter and so forth, and then test test their way and figure out when those channels get a presence on that start toe post? You know, some of their communications, some of their thoughts, and then really just see the engagement that starts to happen. And then once they kind of get a channel down, then they can look at which other ones make sense to expand on. Okay, so this has to be deliberate and unconscious and not it’s new, so we should be there. Yeah, i think, you know, you know, there’s an investment in terms of your time, for sure as you’re supporting these because you’re, you know, at your inn a conversation so it’s not just sending out of communication and, like you would say for an email that’s going to send in someone’s inbox their going to read it, and they’re going to take action. You’re in a conversation certainly is that expands over onto social and so in supporting that, you just we’ll figure out which ones work on and spend and invest more time in those if that’s where your constituents or hanging out ok, and then you’re good the the value in converting from the from the from the conversation on the social network two two as you call it it’s exactly the private conversation and email, right. And what? How do we how do we make that we start to make that leap? Yes, i think. You know, the as non-profits air supporting their customers and being, you know, all different constituents. So it’s it’s donors, it’s, boar, it’s, their board, it’s, their volunteers, supporters, there’s a whole wide right of different folks that are kind of involved with that. Non-profit and so as they’re in the conversation, say, on social, they could do they ask, you know, at that point to say, hey, you know, would you want to subscribe to receive our our newsletter, and then, you know, when they do that, they can set the expectation in frequency to say, well, our monthly news that air around events, you’re special events, news, you know, alerts about what’s going on with the non-profit and so oftentimes if they get in the conversation on one of the social channels that usually will drive them to want to, you know, go over and subscribe therese, receive some other information via email and so forth. And you suggested in that example you just gave making the case in even in let’s say it’s, even just a twitter ask, but making the case for why you should sign up, not just sign up for our email ar e mail alerts yeah, i think you know, the, you know, from the recipients perspective, you know, that being the constituent, they’re going to make decisions around what they’re where they’re going to sort of of hang out, and if they believe in what the organization is doing there supporting it, they like they like kind of the work that you’re doing there, hanging on those social channels just simply by asking its and sort of setting the expectation of what they would get if they were to subscribe through, you know, you know, the email newsletter, then they go over and and so then you’re going to meet their expectations because, you know, kind of told him i had a time what the what to expect? Yeah, it’s subsumed in everything we’re talking about, but let’s make it explicit. Email is still very valuable for for campaigns of any type, whether it’s money or call to action email is very important, right? Yeah. There’s, no question. You know, when you when you think about sort of the targeted nature of that’s going into the in box, they can take take action with that, you know, with the push of the button receiving that they can go and donate that can click toe, attend the event and very easily with the click of a button, share that to their social channels. So you get the leverage of it’s, sort of a trusted source. I believe in this organization, ivan affinity with with it. And i’ve got a bunch of friends and people that are sort of following me on my channels. So literally push of a button, share it out to my social channels. And then that could engage others to want to take a look at the organization and it’s coming for me. I could put a note. Say, hey, this is that organization i told you about let’s all go gather together, go to the park and teo, you know, the spring cleaning event or attend attend event. You know what? Do you guys consider making a donation as well? So i could be doing and ask of my friends simply by taking the email that’s in my in box and informing that on an email still has very high open rates. Yeah. Still valuable in that respect. Yeah. Eso, you know, certainly with, you know, with constant contact. We’re seeing over ninety eight percent, you know, kind of in the inbox and readable format, so, you know, the great thing is it’s getting there, and then they can easily take action from from that email. What about if listeners are our audiences about nine thousand small and midsize non-profits what about the, uh, millennials? Younger? Like suppose you’re trying to activate, like, i don’t know, fifteen to twenty five year olds or so is email less less? Uh, well, lower open rates among those ages for email and mobile becomes more important. Mobile in text. Yes, i think just across the board mobile in general, about fifty one percent. You know, recent studies say about fifty one percent are sort of opening those emails through through mobile initially, so, you know, kind of half the people are looking at on a mobile device on dso, a cz faras where, you know again, where’s, the audience of that non-profit hanging out potentially the millennials have you on some of the social channels, but you have that opportunity to do the ask on dh as you engage with them to have them subscribe in of course, then they would be able to get their communications v e mail as well. So, so, really it’s a personal preference, you asking you? And if email is not my, not the way i want to communicate with you, i won’t subscribe, and i’ll stick with the channels where we’re having the conversation right, exactly. Okay, um let’s, i know we need teo. We need to go to a lot more detail on, you know, leave. Leave listeners with something they can not necessarily execute, but least test on. Dh. Think about sure as they is there in their social channels and coordinating with email. So what? What? What about your your panel? Is that your i’m sorry, your workshop already already happened. What? What advice did you have for people that we can leave listeners with get them thinking about their own work? Yeah. It’s ah, there’s a lot of places we go with that i think they know there’s some there’s, some kind of key things to sort of take away. I think first, you know, when people were thinking about moving on to social channels and, you know, in my session, folks or start asking kind of which channels or should we get going and others who would be broader and you’re kind of the things we talked about earlier, i think one of the things that, you know, testing their way and again ist is figure out, sort of which of those channels when creating when creating their communications, for example, email there’s. That there’s the ability with one click for my creation of that email toe push those out to the social channels, but i think, you know, for example, fired five tips to why they should support my non-profit i could easily hit a button and share those on the channels that that we’re supporting is a non-profit but if you think about that, if i had these five tips, one thing you could do is, for example, on twitter, maybe do one tip today, right? So take spread those five out into five tweets on dh then so of course, with the same, you know, called action where, then go and see the others if they’d like. So then you have the opportunity and potentially catch someone who may not be on the channels when you’ve put that initial communication out through it. But now you have an opportunity, maybe catch him, you know, because they’re hanging out at the time when one of those additional sort of tweets happened, so i think there’s ways to take take the communication and share it, but also take the content and think about ways to sort of divide that up on dh. Use it effectively across the different channels, okay, um also value in sharing the content that others that others have created maybe an ally. I’m not thinking simply adjust the the retweet, but maybe going deeper and introducing people teo on allied organization that those similar type works maybe in a different part of the country. Or you’ve got a relationship, perhaps on a different level, with an organization sharing their content introducing. And i think at that point you become an introducer of people you’re making making new connections value there, too, and you don’t always have to create your own content. Yeah, so one of the big questions is always around content, and i think you could certainly be developing it on your own because, you know, you could be our authentic self is a non-profit you can talk to the audience about the things that you’re doing, but i think there’s so many constituents right under your soda under your nose that can support support your content as well. So you think about boardmember tze you could think about your supporters, your volunteers, the folks that are actually delivering the services on your behalf and, of course the recipient of those services so there’s, so many different folks that could actually be assisting in writing and developing some content, putting it sort of in the voice of the receiver of service, is that the ones who are actually delivering it? Staff, i mean, there’s there’s, sort of all of those things. But, you know, oftentimes there are complimentary non-profits there’s also different advocacy groups and folks that are talking about the similar topics that you would be supporting us a non-profit and so we would always suggest you could go read some of the content that’s out there and then put some opener in your own words when you’re attaching or sharing some of those things. So from a thought leadership perspective, here’s, why, i think it’s important for you as a supporter of our organization to read that information in terms of the your various internal constituents. How do you how do you empower them? Tio? Be content creators and enable them? And where does that stop, mister? Start with leadership, right? But how do we had a week persuade them that they can create through the content for us? Well, i think you know there’s. There’s a lot of different ways, tiu that ask sometimes you can just start simply by serving out, you know, asking for feedback, right? Few backs, a gift, so just going out to the recipient services and getting their feedback and then sometimes sharing back hey, you know, maybe we maybe we made an adjustment to some of the services were providing or we added another, you know, clean the park day because people said it was so great will want to do more of it. And so, you know, just simply by surveying, getting that feedback and saying, hey, we we heard you were going to add another day, and this was based on the feedback that provided by you are our supporters at the same time, when you’re thinking about your different constituents, anyone receiving services, you know, that gets to sort of the heartstrings of hearing from someone who, you know, i may be made a donation, that person received these services and what it did to them and their family, and then seeing seeing kind of the impact of what i’ve done with the delivery of those services, you know, is a real feel good and so, you know, they’ll be happy to share that, you know, they’re sort of their experiences staff and others that are delivering the services would want to share their experiences in doing so, and that certainly doesn’t feel good there as well. And then you kind of move around those different constituents, the just simply by asking, you know, you’ll find that several people, you know, believing in the organization will want to sort of tell their story from their vantage point. I think volunteers is just another great way where, you know, they’re they’re investing their time, they’re bringing their friends along to assist in volunteering and helping as well. And then, you know, they’re constantly and not even with the ass. They’re constantly always going to be sharing, you know, they attended the event that took photos, they want to post those they want to just talk about, you know, kind of the great experience, they’re they’re investing their limited time, we all have limited time, right? And so and they’re going, they’re going to sort of share on their own. But when you ask, you know, there’s, certainly i would feel good if the organization came to me and said they would love to get your thoughts. You know, do you mind telling us a little bit about your experiences with supporting the organization or volunteering? And people are happy to do that. This is going to require, ah, maybe a cultural shift in the organization. Our content is no longer just created by our web team, our web web person with, with, you know, in a small bits i shot, that could be one person. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Yeah. 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. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m rob mitchell, ceo of atlas, of giving. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We’re going tow, tow open, open up the culture, right? Yeah, i think you know it. It’s sometimes it’s an ah ha moment. You know, i actually helped start a couple of non-profits a cz well, sit on some boards and when we have these conversations, it’s sort of like, oh, ok, now i get it, you know, i didn’t even think of them as as opportunity for presenting some content for that we could be sharing. So it is a little bit of a shift. I mean, oftentimes you go rightto folks in marketing or on the content team and you know where they’re just going to be cranking out some of that content. But now they these two can reach out and find some other constituents that will assist. And i had a guest yesterday make the point that you have ah, production facility in your pocket with your average smartphone. Why not? We’re not empower people who are carrying those phones. Teo, his case was make a short video, right? So, you know, i think, yeah, the other thing, you could have some fun with it. So you know, there might be a contest around the organization. Was doing something where they’re like they wanted people to create t shirts, you know, or maybe some some branding around the organization, and so they have a contest and everyone starts creating those. Of course they’re going to want to share the ones that they’ve created they might may have. Well, here’s the top ten list or here’s the winner, of course. What are they going to do there? Want to tell everyone and share it on on their social networks? They look, check it out. My shirt wanted this contest at the local non-profit and so you could have some fun with different different ways to engage them. You probably have an interesting story. A founding team member of constant contact, constant contacts, pretty well known organization, which i’m sure you’re very pleased with. Yeah. What, what? When? When was i mint twisted in the founding of ah, such a ubiquitous company. When? When was the founding s so how did it come around? Sure. So, you know, from day one there was actually there’s three of us in an attic when we started. And then we quickly sort of banded together a great, great leadership team and others toe sort of help in sort of the founding of the organization. When was this? Where with a what year was this the ninety seven and ninety seven beginning in ninety eight? Okay, and so from day one there was obviously with with many of us there was, ah, sort of a passion to want to be involved with. Non-profits and we’ve we’ve supported non-profits from the get go, we’ve gotta cares for kids program where our customers are, partners are employees can all donate an account two of two non-profits that that are near and dear to them on, and certainly once that where they’re sort of supporting educational programs for kids. So we’ve been really active and involved there. Hyre and so today we have over a hundred thousand non-profits that we work with and so it’s, you know, obviously very key key part of the business and, you know, when we started early, i think, you know, one of the early premises were level the playing field for smaller organizations to be able to use the tools that you know, like email marketing against sort of the big box in the agencies and folks that we’re doing for for larger org’s yeah, what landscape looked like at that time, late ninety seven, ninety eight what was available before there was constant contact s o there were certainly some things that were being done on the enterprise, you know, kind of sort of upper end of the market for larger businesses, but there wasn’t present much for smaller, smaller organizations and non-profits and so, you know, at that time and still we see it today, ah, little bit where the inbox, you know, they were using some of their inboxes, you know, sending group based messages and attaching things to those and of course, all the problems that sort of ensued with using that as a marketing channel. And so, you know, as we evolved and creating this very easy to you sort of self self service tool, but but bringing in all of the thought leadership, the know how in the coaching to assist folks because, you know, we have over six hundred thousand customers today, and they’re all small businesses, you know, seventy percent have ten employees or less, you know, fifty per cent of two and twenty percent have one employee, so we’re dealing. With the v in very small, fifty percent have to two employees. Yeah, okay. And so, of course, in the non-profits scenario, there’s a lot of volunteers and other stepping in. And so we had to tow really figure out sort of that success formula. Tio, make sure that teach him how to do it well and help help them succeed at it. And now you have consultants who are who help help do the training. Yeah. So there s oh, there’s all kinds of way that we will assist them today. Last year, we spoke toe over four hundred thousand people locally. So we did about seven thousand events delivered by folks that we have out regional development directors in the field, but also we have authorized local experts that that air trained upto speaking as well and so we’re out, sort of in the communities delivering that thought leadership and best practices. Tto help folks succeed at that. And of course, if someone raises their hand and said, you know, i need assistance, you know, we have marketing coaches that are gonna help them, you know, as they initially get started, we’ve got, you know, sort of support. Any time where they can call on get assistance that way. But if they really do need someone to assist, we’ve got, you know, thousands of consultants that are local, and many that are also, you know, focused in different verticals that can assist them. I want to give a shout to ah maria simple, who is unauthorized local expert she’s a listeners know her very well she’s monthly contributor in prospect research, but she also is unauthorized local expert for constant contact. So i think if you’re thinking about constant contact, you’d like to learn more that no better place to start, maria simple and you can certainly get her through the show’s facebook page through my blaga tony martignetti dot com or her sight, which is the prospect finder dot com super yeah, she’s outstanding. Yeah, so glad she’s part of the show and has been for we’ll be a year and a half or two years, so yeah, um, let’s go back. Teo. Teo to your workshop. Back-up what? What more advice can we believe non-profits with you must have other tips. Things you take aways that you want to share? Yes, i think they’re a couple. Of you know, in terms of what we’re talking about content, i think one of the things today more so than ever, given that, you know, fifty one percent of the folks we’re looking at things on mobile phones a little bit on the less is more so thinking about, you know, oftentimes we want include images and and other things in there are communications want to make sure that the footprint of those air small so that it could be, could be read on those devices a supposed toe, you know, the way often see where have to sort of scroll side to side or up and down to see some of them. This is very important optimized for mobile, right? What do you say? Fifty percent of one percent opened on mobile? Yeah, kind of initially looking at the communication through mobile, so i think it’s really important to think about from the sizing of sort of images, but also make each other there’s an alternative text there if the images is blocked, so they’ll know kind of what, what, what they’re missing, but at the same time, you want to keep the content sort of short, sort. Of shorter and sweeter and you know you’ve got it, you’ve got sort of, you know, the initial two words of that subject line or kind of key, you know, you know, today or don’t miss out or, you know, things around, you know, sort of getting them. Tio tio want to go on and read that so they may look at it, the mobile they may actually, you know, go to the called action and do something there, of course, then you have the back of it being in your inbox. So then go look at the uso the full communication, but we would also guess, you know, if you’re doing a newsletter, you could do some of the initial content on, and then you could do some some sort of tease them with the article and then a link over to see the rest a supposed toe, putting everything in the communication. So there’s some some options there? Kind of, you know, dr them toe wanna click through because, you know, opens aren’t necessarily in an indication of reading, but what if they’ve clicked to go and see something you know, that’s that’s a good indication so as you look at things making immeasurable, i think one of the things that way often see is just, you know, thinking about the call to action and, you know, measurable results, right? So today, someone might say, well, so even, you know, email driving over to social, you know, if we get so many likes or so many shares that’s great, but but thinking about what? What you’re back to your goals and objectives of that communication, is it? Is that really it or do you want to be driving you? No action around, you know, attending our event or, you know, click to donate s o something something deeper than vanity metrics exactly and said it’s and said, you know, set that those goals and objectives so that that you’re mapping your communication to achieve that, and then of course, then, you know, as you go and and you create your communication, think about the leverage of sharing that so giving that campaign and through email, more life, bike by sharing that over on the social channels and as we talked earlier than once they’re on those channels and you, you’re building your building the conversation with, um then doing that ass to get them to subscribe in to get the targeted messaging through, you know? So so you you have the opportunity in that marketing mix to capture them wherever they’re hanging out. So if they miss the communication as ah, you know, because it’s girls through on social, they can always be coming back and seeing that in their inbox to take action. Okay, excellent. Thanks for your advice around. Coordinating email in social thanks to me. My pleasure, alex turn is a member of a founding team and vice president. Strategic market development. Constant contact. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc not brought the technology conference. Twenty fourteen. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, tony. Thanks to the folks at and ten, the non-profit technology network got more live listener love people joining in kawasaki and shoes. Wacha, japan. Konnichi wa. Beverly, massachusetts. Atlanta, georgia and multiple new york city lots. People in new york city welcome live listener love to you going abroad again. Let’s. Go to china, nanjing ton gene ni hao the philippines air with us. Ireland is with us can tell what cities in either of those countries, we could see la paz, bolivia, though don’t we don’t get too many listeners from south america welcome live listener love and coming back here, mount st joseph, ohio live love to you. Next week we have a seat altum he’s going to talk about using your irs form nine ninety as a marketing tool and also another interview from non-profit technology network. If you missed any of today’s show, you’ll find it at tony martignetti dot com. Remember generosity siri’s for those multi-channel ity five runs, walks, generosity, siri’s, dot com, our creative producers, claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. I hope you will big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Yeah. They didn’t think dick tooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get anything. Good. Come. Join us for the thirteenth annual vigil for international peace and ecology on sunday, september twenty one. From nine a, m to six p, m. Celebration of live music and dance performances. Spoken word human-centered line art installations in a world peace flag ceremony that celebrates the united nations international day of peace. That’s sunday, september twenty one from nine a, m to six p, m central park numbered band shell by the bethesda fountain. For more information or volunteer, go to www. Dot vigil number four. International peace dot org’s that’s, the number four in the earl, or call to want to chip in to five, four, three two that’s a two one, two, triple two, five, four, three two we’ll see you there. Krauz durney you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. 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. Talking. Hyre

What Troubles You The Most?

 

Results from my professional development survey (now closed): 

Donor Retention:
Dan’s Donor Retention Ideas, interview with Dan Blakemore, director of development for International House

Donor Retention, interview with Jay Love, CEO of Bloomerang

Getting Your Donors To Fall In Love With You, video from Farra Trompeter at Big Duck

Social Media Strategy:
Beth Kanter: Real Online Engagement & Measurement, video interview; Beth’s blog

A Conversation With Amy Sample Ward, Part Deux; interview about her book, Social Change Anytime Everywhere (which I strongly recommend for strategy and tactics)

Followship, interview with Allison Fine, co-author of The Networked Nonprofit

How To Use Social Media In Year-End Drives, Fundraising Fundamentals interview with Natalie Stamer at St. Baldrick’s Foundation

Creative Thank You’s:
Thank You’s For Year-End Giving (with lots of ideas that work anytime), video interview with Claire Axelrad

The short version: 10-minute Fundraising Fundamentals podcast with Claire and Julia Wilson of OneJustice

Generosity Series:
GenEvents site

The national tour, Generation Series