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Nonprofit Radio for April 21, 2017: Donor Story Secrets & Social For Your Events

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Claire Meyerhoff: Donor Story Secrets

When it’s time to write another donor profile for your website, newsletter or Facebook, you’ll be glad you heard Claire Meyerhoff’s time-saving tips for producing high-quality, donor-centric content. She’s our creative producer and president of The Planned Giving Agency.

 

 

Amy Sample Ward: Social For Your Events

Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward returns! We’ll recap the 2017 Nonprofit Technology Conference, then she’ll share her strategies for integrating social media into your events, before, during and after. Amy is our social media contributor and CEO of NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.

 


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

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Okay. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week. Todd palin ac he blogged five websites every n f p c e o should utilize and non-profit radio is number two. Todd, come on, number two. I mean, we were in the top two, but you know and utilize i don’t you let you know how about gush over or visit every week utilized it’s a little a little stiff sounding, but todd, i’m grateful anyway. He blogged this at fist two five dot com fifty fives fist teo fist two fives. Purpose is to help non-profit to be more businesslike and help for-profit sz be more socially responsible. That’s very cool. Congratulations, todd. Paula neck on being our listener of the week, my voice just cracked oh, you know that i’m glad you’re with me because i get slapped with geo trick. Oh, sis, if you tried to milk the idea that you missed today’s show donorsearch story secrets claire meyerhoff returns when it’s time to write another donor profile for your website newsletter or facebook, you’ll be glad. You heard claire’s time saving tips for producing high quality donor-centric content she’s, our creative producer right here in non-profit radio and president of the planned e-giving agency and social for your events. Amy sample ward returns we’ll recap twenty seventeen non-profit technology conference then she’ll share her strategies for integrating social media into your events before, during and after amy’s our social media contributor and ceo of n ten the non-profit technology network on tony take two how to pitch non-profit radio we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We be e spelling dot com. What a pleasure to welcome claire meyerhoff back to the studio. She is a philanthropy communications and marketing specialist and president of the planned e-giving agency she guessed blog’s at non-profit marketing guide dot com and i’m going to say it again and it’s probably not the last time she is non-profit radios, creative producer, you’ll find her at pg agency dot com and at claire says that’s. Easy dankmyer off. Welcome back to the studio. Thanks so much, tony it’s great to be here. It’s a pleasure. Thank you, guys. So glad these shoes these trips work out for us. Yes. I love coming to new york city and coming to the crystal studio and being on talking alternative the crystal studio we are surrounded. We’re surrounded by crystals. Yeah, it’s a good, good, you know, energy, i agree. We got and you bring energy to you. Do you bring that radio expertise? That energy? Okay, we’re talking about donorsearch tory’s. What do you feel like non-profits or not getting quite right about when they write a donor story. Don’t testimony? Well, i’ve i’ve i’ve written many, many, many donorsearch tory’s, but i’ve read even mohr donorsearch tory’s that’s part of my job. So i’ll go on a client’s website or a potential clients website, and i start reading a donor story and typically they fall into several categories. But the worst one is is what we call gushing flackery, where you’re just like gushing over the person and you’re acting almost like their pr flack that you’re trying to promote them. It’s like two promotional and it’s about to many different things and not really about, you know why this donor cares about your cause? If we want to do this correctly, you you advise that we start with recognizing our goal for the for this piece, right? So what’s the goal of your piece? Are you trying to show that that donors are putting your charity? And there will that’s a great reason for doing a donor story? Because it’s social proof it makes it really normalizes plan giving social proof? Yeah, social proof. So you have a lovely donor-centric looting your charity in her will, and now you want to feature her. So your goal really of that is to show her in a really nice light so that she likes the story but also to normalize this concept of putting a charity and your will and encouraging other people to do it. So it’s a very simple goal. The goal isn’t about telling her life story or writing a biography about her or gushing over her to make her feel good, perhaps because my friends and fund-raising they say, well, you know, i want to make sure you know, that she looks good and, you know, make her feel good because they’re all about that, but frankly, that makes for, like, a really kind of boring, weird that’s. A poe story. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you do want them to feel good about the piece. Clearly, but that’s not your primary goal. No. Your primary goal of the donor’s story. Yes. It’s a bit about stewardship like you’re thanking the donor, my featuring them. But your primary goal is really to put a face on your philanthropy and to encourage other people to do a similar thing that this person has done precisely. Okay. I like the idea of social proof a lot more about that. What’s up. Well, social proof is just proving that something is normal. I liketo almost call it more like normalizing ilsen social proof. So if you say, you know, if you see ah, lady and you’re in your annual report and she’s, a retired teacher, and she lives, you know, in greenwich village or whatever, and you work for a big, fancy new york city charity and you feature this lady and she’s, a retired teacher and she’s normal. Then someone reading that will be like, well, gosh, that’s, that’s normal she and she went and put this charity in her will. That’s not like a strange thing, it’s not for rich people, you know, it’s, not just for, you know, big time philantech are everyday people, and you might be doing this for plan to give ah, encouragement or major gift major, it could even be i don’t know how that could be an annual e-giving e-giving unnamed naming a scholarship or something like that. So that’s a great donorsearch ori. So say your your small college and you have a nice person who has given you an outright donation maybe if a few thousand dollars, but also included the college and their will, and you’ve created a scholarship in his name. You get after his father and you write up this little story about why he cares and what he’s doing and then that’s your social proof right there, this normal person did this precisely. I mean, for trying to encourage others. It’s probably better to include someone to do this around someone who’s a modest donorsearch modest means because you’re going to appeal to a much broader spectrum, then the high net worth donor-centric purpose. Well, that’s interesting, too. About the highway high net worth donorsearch event are you? Viewed a lot of very wealthy people and it’s funny because one of the typical things they’ll say to me is they’ll say, so you’re going to write this story. So what is it going to be like? And i tell them a little bit and then they go, they kind of whispered there, go just don’t make me look rich. Yeah, because nobody wants to come across like they’re bragging about their money and the donorsearch story is something that they should feel good about sharing with someone and if it’s this like bragging story or about how these people own all these office buildings and they’re huge philanthropists, they’re not going to want to show that to their friends. Because it’s a little embarrassing for most people, there are some people who are there are some things one articular, but yeah, most people are very modest. That’s true. I agree. I’m not screwing with you, right? I can think of ah one recent ah, recently popular guy. Um all right, i’ll tell you what, why don’t we go out for our break? And when we come back, they’re not going to keep talking about the donorsearch ori and we’ve got to talk about who to select and the donor photo and she’s got tips for interviewing, so stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamental lt’s, a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I feel like doing live listener love this moment. Andi were bursting, uh, let’s, start abroad. Mexico city, mexico cattle. What what is what? We’re going to start as point a star days, of course, when it started seoul, south korea, always multiple. We’ve got multiple south korea, always, always so grateful for that. Loyalty that’s the word i’m looking for on your haserot comes a ham nida for our listeners in seoul live germany, they got multiple in germany. Guten tag new delhi, india is with us checking in new delhi you’ve been with us before, i can only send you live listen love in english, i’m sorry i’m not not prepared, but don’t but come back, come back and we’ll get it okay, bring it into the u s, tampa, florida, woodbridge, new jersey, multiple new york city love it and over mass boston, mass whoa, do you know each other live listener love to all the live listeners, and they’re bursting first thing today, i got to say podcast pleasantries for the over twelve thousand listening in the time shift, whatever device, whatever time, whenever it fits your schedule, you might be listening a month later. Binge listening pleasantries toe are over twelve thousand podcast listeners so glad you’re with us and the affiliate affections last, but never least on our am and fm stations throughout the country and our new am fm outreach director. Of course, of course, betty mcardle, who will shout out at the end affections to our live two hour am and fm affiliate listeners fremery if you done facebooking now and everything when i see you with your phone, social media is very important said it well, and so is the live listen love in the podcast pleasantries in philly defections i can multi task i’ve got to send this stuff out. Um, how about through, though, to choose? How do we how do we make sure we’re getting the right donor that’s goingto give us the best story and be the most cooperative, et cetera? Well, when you’re writing a donor story typically you want to choose someone typically what fundraisers do is they want to smooth somebody, so they know i wanted i want to feature this donor mary lou she’s, great she’s this she’s got a great story and they go on and on about all this stuff, but then when i find out a little bit later is she might not be the best person, and then i’ll hear a funny thing that the the fundraiser will say, well, she’ll do it, but she just doesn’t want to use her name. What? She may not be the best thing i think we need to move on anonymous and anonymous has been very sweet to us a very thoughtful right. So it’s it’s really important to choose someone? That’s that’s, that’s really game that wants to do it, willing to use their name, they’re willing to use their name. They understand the concept of doing the donor’s story. They understand that they’re photo is going to be used to that it’s going to be connected with an ask of some sort. And in an action of some sort it’s gonna be a little bit like an advertisement, maybe and some people don’t don’t realize that they might think, oh, it’s a donor story it’s going to be a story about my family and where we come from and, you know, the real vikings and no, okay, it’s, not just a story perception. So it’s good to have to choose a donor who is basically number one like a really nice, friendly person, outgoing person or even not outgoing person who just really cares about your cause and gets what gets what you’re doing so that’s number one they should really care about the cause and really understand the whole point of of this. Donorsearch torrey and of course, yes, they wanted you want to use their name and take a photograph and all that, okay, now they’re going to have a role in the process, right? Of course they’re going to be able to review what you write typically typically sometimes they will review what you write so so the best thing for sort of the the approval process, which can things can get hung up with that so let’s say you’re in charge of of writing the story and you’ve selected this donor and asked her if she would like to participate. It’s really great if you can show her an example of a previous donor story and say it’s going to be a lot like this it’s going to be about this many words and the photo is going to be something like this and it’s going to be in this spot in the magazine and it’s going to be a lot like this, so then they understand what’s going on and also you’re going to say to them, it’s going to be very brief because that’s really the best way to kind of keep this thing from going out of control how many words? Roughly you could do a donor shoretz like seventy five words that short? No, sure. Because that’s really what it’s mostly about is a really good photograph and kind of just this little testimonial. It’s basically, the why they care. Like why they did this, why they care so much. And then it’s maybe like, you know, one or two little fact it’s a very short story. And then you need your call to action at the end. Basically. Well, not what do you want people to dio? Do you want people to do what mary did? Mary started a scholarship. Are you interested in doing that, then? You know, call contact through intact durney martignetti you mentioned a photo on your your advice is to focus on the photo. What do you have around that? I really believe it’s it’s photo it’s almost photo first story second, because too often the fur photo is just a complete afterthought and a disaster. So you have this wonderful story. And then at the last minute, thie fundraiser gets a photo from the person and it’s a little like a dime sized photograph from, like a cruise have a digital and they just sort of stick the photo and its terrible or or they just base, maybe snap a photo with their iphone of this older person just like sitting in a chair looking kind of, you know, pathetic and and it’s sad it doesn’t have to be like that. So i really encourage people to hire a professional photographer because this’s also a wonderful way to steward your donor. So maybe for one hundred dollars or one hundred fifty dollars, you can hyre ah, local photographer, and then you can go over to the person’s house or have them come over to your organization if you have something photographic like dogs or kids or something. And and, you know, take some really nice photographs of this person, and then they feel important because you’ve hired this photographer and you’re doing something quality and then after it, of course, you can also, you know, make a copy of one of the nice photos and frame it on dh send us with them and say you might you might like to have this. Thank you so much for helping us out. You know, the photograph is really, really important. And if you can’t have the have the photograph of the donor doing something that’s related to your cause old holding, one of the animals holding an animal or for furat nature organization at the very least have them standing, you know, in their yard near their favorite tree or something, and so it’s it’s you, khun stage that photo just a little bit and do something really nice. So put a lot more thought into the phone absolutely put a lot of thought into the photo, and when you’re choosing a donor, think about someone who would like to be photographed. Perhaps they’ve already been in a local newspaper about something else, and you know that about them, so they already kind of know what’s going on? Cool, not scary to them. When you’re interviewing them, you have some tips for interviews. I do have some some tip, even that we’re gonna do this let’s say, we’re going to keep this to a seventy five word, seventy five to one hundred. I’ll give you an extra twenty five words. Seventy five, two hundred words is what we want is that all the space we have? So how do we fashion our interview around that well, it’s it’s really very simple, and it almost come down to one one question, and if you ask no other questions you could kind of be done at, you know, with the one question, so let’s say, tony, you’ve been donating to this animal shelter for a very long time need a drumroll for them? Yeah, and and you’ve included the animal shelter in the will. The question would be tony, what? Why is this call is so important to you that you’ve done this wonderful thing? You’ve taken this major step of including the charity and, well, why is why is it so important to you? And should we be recording while we’re interviewing? You don’t really need to record just good notes, just good notes, because really, you’re just looking for that money quote, you’re looking for that one quote, and usually you get it right off the bat with that first question of why do you care? And ah, mistake people make is they they say, well, why do you care about the you know, riverdale animal shelter? Well, it’s not why you care about that shelter, it’s, why you care about the cause. So, it’s, why do you care about homeless man’s? Why do you care about illiteracy? Why do you care about feeding? You know, people that need, you know, a hot meal. Why do you care about homeless people? Why do you care about cancer research? Why do you care about this college? So it’s it’s? Not really. Why you care about, you know, the organization per se or your mission. It’s it’s about it’s really about the call cause you want them thinking broader, right? And you go and you’re going to get some kind of good pull, quote, this is what you’re looking for that little money quote you mentioned, right? So for instance, i interviewed a man who we featured for parkinson’s organization. So it’s not the question wasn’t well, why do you care? You know, why do you care so much about the parkinson’s foundation? It’s well, why do you care about you know, parkinson’s? And he told me the story about his mother, who had parkinson’s when he was a little boy and how, you know, her hands shook but then when she would take his hand to cross the street her hand didn’t shake and fell, and he felt safe and that’s the quote i used was something right in there about that he wanted to make sure that everyone, you know felt safe that had someone in their family with parkinson’s and just nice little quote about that. So it’s it’s really about the wide the person cares about your cause, not about the mission. So that’s really all you kind of need to ask them, and now they’ll tell you they’ll say, well, you know, years ago i was a schoolteacher and i had children who came to my class and they hadn’t had breakfast, and i really got interested in, you know, school nutrition programs, and so it goes, it goes from there, so usually they have a little story, and then once you’ve chatted for a little while, a great thing to do is at the end of your conversation is to say, is there anything else you’d like to add? Is there? Is there anything else you’d like to say? And typically the person will say no, but and then after the but you get your best quote, really? They’ll say no, but i really want people. To know that in in this town there’s a big problem with, you know, ah, litter and that’s why i really care so much about this cleanup program like they will, you will have talked to them for five minutes and more and it again. Now at the end, they will consolidate their best. They’re best quote, and i know this from working in radio for many years, being a radio reporter, so you would interview somebody, and then at the end, you’d say, is there anything you’d like to add? And they would very succinctly say everything you’ve ever talked about for the last five minutes and that’s your sound bite, okay? And it’s right at the end and it’s, easy to grab. So that’s that’s how i know that. So that’s your best sound bite, really? And usually you’re best quote comes at the end when you say anything else you’d like to add well, no, but i you know, i really want people to know x y that’s it there. You got it. Cool. Thie like, protect, protect, protect for interviewing. Well, my, you know, my profession was i was a reporter and a news writer. And and basically you’re telling stories and it’s it’s journalism so it’s just another form of journalism, and when you’re a journalist, number one is faxing your friends so it’s about facts and quotes. So when you’re writing your story, if you just stick to facts and quotes, when you go to get it approved by your boss and they want to rewrite the whole thing, you can say, well, no, actually that’s a direct quote, and i’ve had i’ve had clients, is there? Bosco well, can we have her say this instead? I said, well, no that’s what she said, she’s, the donor and that that’s what she said she likes that. So if you stick to just direct quotes from the donor and a couple of little facts like, you know, she’s named the charity in her estate plans that’s a fact, and you’re not sort of screwing that up because thie approval process things can get a little hinky. Okay, and don’t forget the approval have are writing what you have some ideas for our actually writing we talked about we talked about a brief quote. Courts are good. Yeah, what for? Writing there was sitting down and writing these hundred writing for writing, you know it’s it’s keeping it brief and also, you know, i say to write light, bright and tight and typically your readers they khun tune out at any minute so you you should ride in a one on one engaging style so it’s a very personal style it’s not like bunch of flowery language and extra words. Is that the light? That’s the light so you wantto cubine sure what’s like bright tighten your right and tight and sure so it’s it’s, it’s it’s a light story it’s. Not a heavy duty, you know, four hundred word four hundred words. You know what? You’re not writing a book about the person and again it’s. Not about like where they went to college. Unless it’s, you know, there’s a for your college. But it’s not about, you know, all these things that the person does cause i i read this all the time and the funny one that always gets me is at the beginning. It’ll say john smith is a great philanthropist in our community and a very well known, you know, person who sat on many boards and all that that’s like the first thing they tell you is it’s sort of this list of this person’s credentials and that’s not interesting to the reader, and it doesn’t make the donor look that good. They don’t want to share that with people that you’re sort of, you know, boasting about it, segregates the reader from g i’m not on all those boards, right? So i guess i can’t i can’t do what john did because he’s a well known philanthropist. Exactly. I only give a couple hundred dollars a year. So right, this doesn’t apply to me. Turn the page writer that’s for those kind of nickels. That’s for those kind of people who sit on a lot of boys is a lot of boards, right? That’s. Not nice. Okay. Like brighton tight. Yeah, like brighton type. Keep it really short. Basically it’s it’s about the why and it’s about why the person is taking this action. And then at the end, you want to make sure you have a call to action. Which is to say, you know, would you be interested in naming a scholarship here? It smith college when, you know, give us a call. So you want to you want to do that so it’s in your headline should be should be a good little headline and what i like to, i’d like to make the joke that says a donor story is not a headline there’s a lot of times i’ll see that in a in a in an annual report or or a newsletter and says donorsearch torrey, well, no, well, that’s like saying, you know, mcdonald’s is like, you know, a burger store. Thank you. So the dahna story that’s a category that’s, just something we say, like what’s our donorsearch torrey next month, but it’s not it’s, not a headline, so have a good headline and have a nice view could do a nice pull quote that you pull out and make it bigger and then looks good and then you’re called to action and those things should be, you know, bolted because that might be all the reader reads. They see the photograph, they read the headline, they see the pull quote and then they see the call to action and they might not even really read the story. But there’s still getting the message? They’re still getting the idea we’re asking about. The headline should should that focus on the donor or the reader like something like you can do this also? I mean in that category, i’m not saying that’s a headline or it doesn’t really matter how you well, a good line headline is something that grabs the person’s interest in my little i’m not a great headline writer so might cheat for a headline is like a quote from the story because it’s something the person said so it’s it’s hygienist donorsearch ori with a woman in grand rapids, michigan, for the community foundation and it was a great photograph of her, and the headline was, quote, i will oh, i will always love grand rapids because that’s, what it’s about she put grant rapids in her will and then it’s about caring about this whole city and the community that’s why people support community foundations because they really care about their community and the causes in their community. So i that kind of like my little cheat thing is to go to take a quote and make that the headline all right, now you mention the approval process a few times, so i can imagine you’re hankering to get to the approval process. Now we got our thing written. What? We’re going what’s your advice around the approval well, the approval process because this is where things get ruined. This is where things get in the edit in the edit, people, somebody. Now we got a reading by committed and e i would just keep it to few people as possible. And so my tricks for getting things approved is to just give it to, you know, my client and they give it to their boss and and i’ll say something like this is exactly eighty five words, it can’t be any longer, it has to be eighty five words, and then people are less likely to tinker with it because they can’t write it as short as i can, or a short as you can, because you’ve really given a lot of thought to this story, so the boss might try to tinker with it. But well, now it’s one hundred seventy five words and you know, it can’t be that so i had like, a strict word count and tell them that that it has to be that word count. So that’s the number one trick. And the second thing is, if you stick with quotes and facts, there’s less to tinker with, so you don’t want to start writing all this other flowery stuff. You just want to stick to stick to the facts and stick to the quote, stick to what the person said, and then it’s a lot harder to tinker with. Ok, right? And then after you’ve gone through your internal review, hopefully briefly, it goes to the subject to the r to our donor, it goes to the donor first. This is another secret about dahna for goes to the donor first, they’ve already donorsearch already approved it. They loved it. They can’t wait to see it in the newsletter, and then your boss is like, but but all the donor mow mrs smith, she just loves this so much when it be great. When it when it’s printed, we could frame it and give it to her. She loves and she loves it. I don’t think we should mess with it. She loves it. She loves it. It’s, dirty pool. I love it. Well, you have got a job, neo-sage she loves it. Touch it. We love she loves it. It’s close she’s, so proud of it she’s already sent it to her daughter. I imagine that it also rich thieves could be multi purposed, right? We can use this in some other marketsmart ocean ways, you know, once you have a great donorsearch torrey, you should use it over and over again. And when i come into an organization and we need thio ah feature a donor. Ah lot of times i’ll hear well, we already used, you know, mr jones last year, and i’m like no, but that’s a great story. We already have these great quotes from him. We have this beautiful photograph, he’ll, you know, he was cool with it, he loved to use it again. Oh, but we already used him and and i always say, well, you know, maybe people read that a year ago and hung on to every single word of it, and maybe now they’ll see him again in this different way, and they’ll just go, oh, there’s that nice guy so it’s ok, because typically people didn’t even read it the first time they’d even notice it the first time they’re not hanging onto your every word of your non-profit. Newsletters. I got news for you. Filed it. Then they’re comparing each one two that’s up to the old. Exactly. Let’s go march of twenty twelve that you guys five years ago. You believe that because that our quarterly report from five years ago. So if you already have a great donorsearch torrey, you can you can repurpose that. And sometimes it’s just pulling out a quote, taking the picture, cropping that a little bit differently and you can use it many different ways. Now you can put that on facebook or you can use it somewhere else. And a great way to repurpose a donor story is to is to flip it and turn it into a pier letter so let’s say, you know john smith, come ah it’s a long time donorsearch organization. You could craft a letter from him based on what he’s already said. And you write the letter from his voice. Two other donors like him. So let’s say he lives in a certain neighborhood and he, you know, you could craft the letter saying, like, oh, dear bob, you know, i also live in this neighborhood and i recently did a great thing i updated my will and included thie, you know, clean up the river foundation. Is that something you’d consider doing? And so that way, you already have the content. He’s already agreed to be in this newsletter or whatever, and you can show him that and say, hey, look, could we would like to send a letter from you two other people? We don’t even have to bother you again with interviewing you again because people don’t want to bother to be bothered a second time for a second interviewed you have the content you need, we gotta leave it. We’re gonna lose their way. We will reuse it, we’re gonna leave it there tomorrow you’ll find her at pg agency dot com and also at claire says that’s easy. Thank you so much, claire morrow. Thank you, tony. My pleasure. Any sample ward and social for your events coming up first. Pursuant, they’ve got another free webinar it’s. Amazing how much free content they’re producing for you. This is howto win at data driven fund-raising get a handle on your data data for goodness sake. People are overwhelmed by data data data. What do you need to measure? How do? You measure it, what actions do you need to take? Based on your data? You don’t need to be overwhelmed. Webinar will help you pursue it has your back? This is on tuesday, the twenty fifth and if you can’t make it because a lot of people listening later, um, i’ll let you know when the video is up. There’s always an archive for you. If you want to register for the live webinar, go to pursuant dot com quick resource is and then webinars and again it is howto win at data driven fund-raising we’ll be spelling spelling bees for millennial fund-raising it’s a night with live music, stand up comedy, dancing and a spelling bee all for the purpose of raising money for your work. This is not your seventh grade spelling me. You could check out their video at we b e spelling dot com and then get in touch with the ceo alex greer and book a fun night for your organisation. This is organization specific. Not a bunch of org’s doing one night together. No, this is for your work reason money for your organization. We be e spelling dot com now time for tony’s. Take two if you want to pitch non-profit radio, please make it about non-profits small and midsize non-profits that’s who the show is for that’s who i have in mind as i produce it each week i got a pitch like two weeks ago, and first of all, it was long the woman talked for, like, seven or eight minutes, and at the very end of that diatribe came the part about non-profits it had nothing to do with non-profits leading up to that she’s, a food blogger, and it had to do with her eight million instagram impressions and i don’t know one hundred twenty thousand facebook likes whatever, you know, i mean, the numbers were high, i don’t high numbers aren’t all story. I mean, we know true engagement is important too, but all right, so she had a lot of lofty numbers anyway, but it was all about food, and then in the end ah, and i give part of the profits too. This international food charity, which i’m not going to name. Okay, so that was an eight minute story, and i got twenty seconds of a non-profit this is non-profit radio, not food blogger, radio i mean, it’s, not the food network. So off topic, to say the least and it’s not that uncommon that i get these, you know, that this is not a non-profit relationship or shoretz minuscule like, in this case, so if you’re gonna pitch non-profit radio make it about non-profits that’s all i ask, and then we may have something to talk about. Of course, i got a video on the subject and you’ll find that at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two amy step award. You know her she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of intend the non-profit technology network. Her most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement she’s that amy sample, ward dot or ge and at amy r s ward welcome back. Any sample word? Yeah, i am happy to be back. I’m happy to have you. Thank you so much for being with us and my voice just cracked again, much like i’m twelve it’s, unbelievable. And speaking of children with the first thing we got it before we get into anything related teo non-profit technology conference or social media for your own events. The more you just run that was talking about staying on topic. Well, yeah, but you’re going to appreciate this thing because oren louis sample ward has his one year birthday next saturday, the twenty ninth. Isn’t that the case? I know i’m tracking it. Happy birthday, orin. Thanks. What are the what of the festivities around the first birthday? Um, well, i guess we are not, um not in the judgment way. Just in a personal capacity and preference way not people. Teo, create a huge party. We mostly just want to have a day where folks who haven’t met him yet get to meet him or people who have met him. Get teo hangout and friends with kids can have their kids come over and they can all play together. So mostly just having an afternoon at our house with lots of people. That’s. Wonderful on open house. Yeah, wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you. Alright. Happy for orin next saturday. Wonderful. Nasty. Don’t you feel bad about admonishing me for staying on topic? No, i knew what you were going to say. You did? I didn’t tell you. All right. All right. You know i was you know, i’m keeping track of him. We’re going to say what? When i was going to say what? What do you mean? You just said what i was going to say. Oh, okay, then. Let’s, move on. Teo. Seventeen ntcdinosaur was a smashing success with well over two thousand people there. The non-profit oh, my gosh. Yeah. I think our final count, i should go look this up before i say it on the radio. But i think our final count was, like two thousand three hundred and thirty people. Wonderful and that’s, the largest ever. Is that right? Okay, now, there’s more to the story than just how many people come. You could have a crummy conference with twenty, three hundred on everybody next year. You have know it was really, really awesome. Yeah. Tell us tons of tons of people making connection, which is ultimately what we want. You know, we can we can plan well in advance for there to be lots of sessions and, you know, lots of activities. But the reason that we planned all that so that people can find what they need, whether that somebody that they can commiserating with or somebody that they could work with or on expert to help them understand what they’re working on a vendor that has that platform they’ve been looking for, you know, whatever those connections are. So we were really, really happy that so many of those connections were happening just even right from the very beginning. And that was kind of a big theme of people’s evaluation. Feedback this year, too, was just oh, my gosh. You know, this i came thinking that i would go to some sessions and learn some things. And i had no idea that actually i would meet all these people and i would have all these ideas and come. I have all these folks that i wanted, you know, follow-up with our state connected with so that felt really, really great. Fell like a good success. Outstanding. Congratulations. Thank you. Eighteen ntcdinosaur that eighty, ninety is twenty eighteen. Is april eleven through thirteen that’ll be in new orleans. Okay, back in the central uru. Always rotate east, central and west. Right. Okay, central new orleans. Okay. Excellent, april. All right. Um, so let’s, talk about social. This is a perfect segway and a perfect you’re the perfect person to do. This because you’re our social media contributor and you hostess fact, those event every single year as and ten does let’s talk about some social you’ve got some ideas for before the event, what to be doing? Yeah, so figured since we just had the mtc and it is such a big event and as we always remind ourselves here and in ten were a technology organization, so we should be able to figure some of these things out one at a time kind of share the behind the scenes secrets and practises and things that we’ve learned from kind of integrating social media. So just just say that at the beginning, in case listeners are like, gosh, these all of these examples are about the ntc that’s intentional trying, trying to share what we dio putting on that big conference so ahead of the event, you know? And when i say ahead of the event, i mean, about a year ahead of the event, we start the planning around content and that includes social media, but as we’ve talked about before, tony, you and i, you know, social media can’t just exist a little separate thing, you know, you don’t just have your facebook plan over there by itself, you have your community engagement plan and you’re content plans and those include social media where it makes sense. So we start that planning basically as soon as this conference ended that next week, we had our debrief, which included let’s get started on you. No hear things that we learned this didn’t work on twitter or, you know, whatever so that we can start that planning while it’s still fresh on dh it’s going to take that long to plan it out anyway, and so part of what goes into that planning is what what opportunities did we notice for content that we weren’t creating at the conference, that we should think about it and kind of integrate into our plan? So we’re there folks who were tweeting from a session with how much they you know where into the topic and sharing their own examples even beyond what the presenters were sharing? Oh, that’s, awesome let’s kind of tag all those people now make a list of those folks now so that we can start engaging them ahead of time. Clearly, they got a lot out of it. Let’s, let’s engage them once registration opens, for example. So you’ll be finding those those folks who are already kind of engaged from this last conference. Sorry, what were you gonna say? Yes, so you might use them as sort of your back channels before you start or when you start promoting twenty eighteen. Is that what you mean? Well, i mean, two things one that there folks who personally did get a lot out of the conference. So even if they aren’t planning for whatever reason, budget or schedule or whatever to attend the next conference, what we’ve found is that those folks were really engaged and personally gained a lot from the previous year’s conference when registration opens are really, really open and love when we asked them to kind of use the session hashtag or the conference cash rather and kind of put out some testimonials in their own words like, what did you learn love about last year’s conference? Why should people go and people will post, you know, like a five part twitter message about why people should be going to this conference even if they’re not able to go that next year so that’s one piece is kind of making a list well, it’s fresh of who were the folks who really seemed engage, who really got a lot out of the content, they don’t have to be the people who are speakers, their sponsors are, you know, really high profile folks, they’re people that just really, genuinely got a lot out of it because they’re going to be sharing that really genuine kind of testimonial. That’s goingto connect with people who are also not speakers responses, but i just thinking about whether they should attend or not, you go excellent that’s smart, i mean, similar to what you were talking about in the first half of the show, right? Like you don’t need to profile somebody that other folks don’t feel is appear making sure that you’re connecting with those attendees who are just speaking from an attendee perspective. You know, i wasn’t speaking on the session, i haven’t been here ten years in a row, but that was my first year and it was amazing. And i want you two have that same experience and you know, they’re sharers because that’s how you flagged them because you aren’t you steal that they were using the session hashtag or the conference hashtag liberally and you found him so you know they’ll share oh, excellent. Okay, more pro tips love it. Yeah, but then the other part of kind of making that list is figuring out what what was prompting them to be doing that sharing at the conference, you know, was it just somebody who was really into a session and one of the share ideas? Or was there something going on for example? I mean, you’ve been to the conference, maybe you could help me with these examples, but for, you know, at lunchtime we have what we call birds of a feather lunchtime tables just topics on on top of tables for people to help make connections and meet folks, but then sometimes that prompts people to get really engaged on twitter because they don’t have a table, right? Like they never saw that opportunity and they never submitted a table topics, so they’re using the conference hashtag to try and attract other people who want to talk about something, okay, awesome! You know, there was a re a world thing happening in the room and they were on twitter, but so finding those other events or moments at the conference, that kind of prompted that so that we can think ahead, hey, you know, people turned to twitter to try and organize those tables. How can we plan for that ahead of time? Okay, okay, yeah, i guess maybe parochial e, but, you know, i used to pay special attention to the tweets of guests, and i’d be interviewing in the booth for non-profit reiter and and the fund that then then you know, they would treat the photos from the booth and everything like that while i was interviewing them and yeah, that’s, the stuff that i used to, i guess that was our little birds of a feather is what i was paying attention to. Yeah, another piece, um, that we’ve found kind of connecting from one year to the next is that we have at the conference a photo booth and take photos ourselves, you know, of the conference experience, but we also try and watch and kind of if it’s on twitter, for example, favorite that on twitter who confined it again are or just save the link of folks who are taking photos from the conference that a photo there is so much better than words or maybe we’re just not good at words the photos so much better at helping us kind of capture and demonstrate, especially to people who’ve never attended the ntc what it’s like? Because we like to think at least that our event is unique, and i’m sure that spokes listening think that their annual event, whether it’s a gala or a breakfast or whatever is also unique and using photos that attendees took themselves of the event is such a better kind of riel riel world view of what the experiences like. And we have found that even though there’s going to be things that are different, like what the science looks like or you know what, what the photo booth backdrop was, like, there’s going to be some of that? I guess you could call it branding that’s different year to year, but the experience we hope, is not significantly different. And so we’ve found that it doesn’t matter if one year’s photo booth photo had a robot theme and the next year had some other team and whatever but using those photos ahead of time, you know. It’s really, as soon as registration opens has helped people want to share and also has we’ve seen people what kind of share those photos or tweets that have the photo attached and say, oh, yeah, i did that, too, even though they’re not in the photo, right? So someone year the conference had a mechanical shark in our closing reception, and, you know, we posted a photo from that with somebody riding on the shark and said, no, we can’t wait to see next year, but blah registration is open, whatever, and then a bunch of people would share that i wrote on the shark to you have to go to this conference even though the shark had met him to dio really with anything tio help capture how excited they were for this community that’s cool, we’re not. We’re not jumping the shark, but definitely not jumping way to take our one break while you’re with me, so we got more to come because we’re gonna talk about what to do during the event with their social and then or after your event tons of pro tips, gosh sakes, stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have for her. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m jonah helper, author of date your donors. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. All right, we’re talking about social media during beef before, during and after your events with any sample work. All right, there’s one more thing i just want to touch on pre event on that’s very just a very small thing. Amy hashtag if you see erroneous hashtags like people doing ntcdinosaur teen instead of seventeen ntc or you know some other variations of what you what is the correct hashtag? What do you what do you do with that? We’ve found that it’s just gonna happen so it’s better to plan for that and assume that people are using the wrong hashtag and the more that we can help kind of redirect people ahead of the conference, the better they are during the conference that using the right hashtag, which is less like we want everybody using our hashtag and more because that really is how people are trying to make connections and chair and post with each other, and so if they’re using the wrong hashtag, they’re not going to feel like they were making a lot of connections. So what we do is we know that just as you said, they’re going to transpose that the number. And the letter order so that’s a big one that we track and then we’re also looking for writing the whole year out. So if you if you have, ah event that uses the hashtag with the year just seventeen also search for it with twenty seventeen all of those kind of little nuances and as people are posting, you know, this b six months ahead of time as they’re posting oh, you know, are you? Hey at tony martignetti are you going? Teo ntcdinosaur teen, we see that and we reply and say, oh, we hope that you’ll both be there. Be sure and use the hashtag eighteen ntc so that other attendees can find you and i just used that phrase all the time hey love that you’re connecting our hey, thanks for promoting the conference or hey, whatever it is you’re doing that’s great! Be sure and use the hashtag and connect with everybody else and it’s just a nice way to correct somebody but also makes it clear hey, we’re only correcting you because we do want you to be able to connect outstanding, very polite and i said, yeah, i know it’s awful it’s start for that’s it you we want you to find everybody else. We want people to find you exactly. Okay, let’s move, teo during event intra intra event, if you will during our event. Now, what are your ideas? What do you got now? This, you know, there, especially for a conference like ours. You know, we’re talking about the ntc, which is twenty, three hundred people all pretty plugged in on one device or another, so the volume can just be intense. Um, and even if you have a smaller event, that doesn’t mean that the volume isn’t still a lot to try and manage. What we’ve found is that we need to have at least one staff person at all times doesn’t mean it’s the same staff person twenty four seven, but one staff person, you know, wow, while it’s normal kind of conference waking hours online to monitor things and that it’s best if that person can be, you know, maybe you have ah, on office at the event, you know, ah, room that’s, not the registration desk or the customer service desk, because otherwise they’re just going to be answering questions in person, right and feeling like i can’t i can’t monitor what’s going on online, so putting somebody in a place where they can concentrate and it’s quiet and they could just monitor what’s going on because you’re going to just have to be listening in order to figure out where there are things that we need to be, you don’t hey there’s confusion around the session room can let’s just make a post about that? Because it’s just going to be too much to try and walk the halls and figure out what to say. You really need to be listening online, okay, that sounds like a traffic control duty zoho totally that’s when it feels dual stressful because you know again, at least with ntc, that person is monitoring twitter and facebook and our conference app and our conference online forum and email, you know, there, there it really is kind of air traffic control, and then if you see something well, you’ve got your walkie and you’re walking out to other staff. Hey, can you go check the sign? People are saying on twitter that the sign is wrong? You know really does feel like you’re kind of in the master control center. How many hours of those shifts? Normally about two at a time was one. It is a lot to try and do you know that you’d definitely need a break? Yeah, yeah, like traffic control now for sure. Okay, totally. Um, you have some ideas about screenshots, screenshots, content? Yeah, we’ve found that it’s one of the easiest ways, because you may remember during your two hour shift oh, they were just so many people talking about this thing, and i said, this is so and so, you know, replied in a gm and said this and, you know, and then later that night, with all staff, when we have our daily debrief, you might say, hey, there was a big issue with this, and i know folks didn’t see it, but it was on twitter and it got results, and then you have watched so many tweets come by during the day, you can’t remember who it was that said that you can’t remember who you promised to follow up with so it’s just easier to take a quick screen shot and save that and you can have a folder on your computer whatever computer you know, you kind of monitoring from that day that is like thieves with people i’m following up or here are examples of horrible things that happened today that we need to fix or, you know, here’s an example of ah, really awesome post from a session. Whatever it is, you can just be taking quick screen shot and save it instead of trying to write down the person’s name or figure out all the details. I just saved you a lot of time and and also lets you feel like you can just stay in that channel, right? You could just keep following twitter. You don’t need to go use some other tools and try and find that spreadsheet that you’re using. You could just stay focused. All right, i got you. All right, we just have about a minute and a half left aim so let’s move to post event on about what’s your what’s, your top tip post event that if i could just say one thing that remember that even though the event is over, all of that content is still there and attendees are still engaging, so don’t just say great conference over, we’re getting on a plane goodbye. And have your your various channels that just were at such a huge high volume go quiet instantly make sure that you’ve scheduled ahead of time. Some tweets or facebook post that say, you know, thanks again for an awesome event, maybe you have a photo that you pulled out already that can go in there. Thanks so much, you know, staffer offline today taking vacation after unconference whatever it is, just make sure that there’s still some content because even though you’re a tte home asleep, your attendings are back in the office and, you know, still looking to engage. Okay? Outstanding, um, i’ll give you thirty seconds for your number to post event tip that’s all that’s all i’m giving you. Yeah, one thing that we’ve found is that right afterwards is a huge opportunity to start building up mo mentum for next year, though some of those kind of tweets they’re post that you might schedule ahead of time are things like reminder, you know? Hey, add to your calendar. This is one registration for next year opens o r be sure that you have you start thinking about your session ideas because we’re going to open. Session submissions on this date was just kind of start ng tow put out, the timeline really helps capitalize on how excited folks are and how they how great they felt so that they want to take it forward to the next year. Amy sample ward she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of the non-profit technology network, you’ll find her at amy rs ward. Thank you so much, amy. Great pain, great pro tips next week, the trump presidency and your work what’s the impact roof mccambridge is with me she’s editor in chief of non-profit quarterly. You probably know her if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam leve lorts is a line producer. Betty mcardle is our am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez and our music is by scott stein you with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be green. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. It took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.