Tag Archives: Donor Relations

Nonprofit Radio for September 11, 2023: Donor Retention

 

Dennis Fois: Donor Retention

The challenges are real and widespread: Aging donors; smaller gifts; and abysmal retention rates. Dennis Fois brings strategies and tactics to raise your consciousness and turn things around. Let’s talk about emotional connections, multithreading, and multichannel, just for starters. He’s CEO of Bloomerang.

 

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[00:00:35.77] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be hit with Bera France if you lit me up with the idea that you missed this week’s show, Kate, our associate producer. What is up this week?

[00:01:10.67] spk_1:
Hey, tony, it’s donor retention. The challenges are real and widespread aging donors, smaller gifts and abysmal retention rates. Dennis Fo brings strategies and tactics to raise their consciousness and turn things around. Let’s talk about emotional connections, multi threading and being multichannel just for starters. He is CEO of Boomerang on Tony’s take two.

[00:01:13.14] spk_0:
It’s September 11th

[00:01:46.46] spk_1:
were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor Boxx dot org and by Kila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraiser CRM visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Here is donor retention.

[00:02:14.42] spk_0:
It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome Dennis Fo to nonprofit radio. He is CEO of Blue Marang. He’s had a broad international career spanning more than 25 years developing and leading high performing multicultural teams in the technology, customer experience, relationship management and financial services sectors. He’s on linkedin and the company is at Boomerang dot Co, Dennis Fois. Welcome to nonprofit radio.

[00:02:23.67] spk_2:
Thanks very much for having me on tony.

[00:02:25.64] spk_0:
Pleasure. Pleasure. And uh where are you uh speaking

[00:02:28.54] spk_2:
from? I’m speaking from Carmel in California.

[00:02:35.88] spk_0:
Carmel, California. All right. Uh And the, the, the business is in Indianapolis, is that right?

[00:02:58.75] spk_2:
Originally started in Indie? And um as I think a lot of uh technology companies post pandemic has ended up all over the place. So we are very much scattered around the US. We are remote. So most of our employees work from home and then we, we work together, uh when we meet, we have events around that. But uh I want to mention about 30% of our employees in India and the rest outside of India nowadays. Ok.

[00:03:08.92] spk_0:
Ok. And it sounds like you’re intentional about getting the team together in person. Is that you, you find that, uh we, we’re, we’re digressing from our main topic. But, uh I’m, I’m, I’m interested and I think listeners are too. You, you, you find that important for uh for a uh a virtual team,

[00:05:30.12] spk_2:
super important. And I think um you have to be very intentional, deliberate about it. I, I mean, I’m one of those people that um as we all went into the pandemic and we had to do certain things that were just basically necessary. I did want to take some learning side of it because we did learn a lot. I, you know, I, I was an office rat before the pandemic or first in, first, last out and I sort of noticed a few things during the pandemic. They were actually very pleasurable and I think it doesn’t work for every company. But if you take, take hours, for instance, we work for small to midsize nonprofit organizations all around the US, what’s really cool is is that if you have your employees all around the US, you can actually give some time for employees to do something locally and that opens doors so you can create a better connection. We now have employees everywhere. So if there’s a customer, you know, I’ve, I’ve got customers here in Carmel. I did, I didn’t know that. So now we can connect, we can meet for a coffee. I can do. So I’m actually volunteering some with a local dog rescue. So it creates this sort of more emotional connections. Folks can pick up their Children from school. It’s a, it’s a, it adds an interesting layer to your company that in my opinion, can create a deeper connection with employees and potentially higher retention rate. So I’m not, you know, there is a, there is a shrewd business side to this too, right? Um And that is that employee, we talk about donor attention to the employee retention is a topic too. And um uh embracing some of the learnings that we’ve taken away rather than going back to an old model. Seems to me, uh it feels like the right thing to do. So we, we’re, we’re making it work. But yes, you absolutely have to be very intense about uh when you get together and what, then you shouldn’t be staring at presentations that you need to make it about human connection. And uh and that requires a lot of thinking. Um So it’s not because we don’t really have a good model uh where we, where we can learn from each other. So we, we’re figuring it out. Yeah,

[00:05:34.13] spk_0:
we’re working it out and you’re, I, I understand intentional and it’s worth investing in clearly,

[00:05:39.39] spk_2:
for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

[00:06:20.36] spk_0:
All right. All right. So, thank you a little digression. Uh But as you said, yeah, we’re, we’re here to talk about uh donor retention. Uh What? Uh Well, II, I think it’s pretty widely known that we’re doing quite poorly as a sector in donor retention. Uh It’s 75% or so of one first time donors are, are lost after, after that first gift, which is abysmal. I mean, it’s un it’s, to me it’s unsustainable and unless, unless you have an enormous acquisition pipeline which you’re spending a lot of money on, which is quite a bit more expensive than retaining, uh, it, it seems unsustainable but, but it, but our, I, I’ll call it, our donor mortality rate continues to be very bad.

[00:10:01.84] spk_2:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, um, if this was a business, we would be out of business. Right. Um, I agree with you entirely. The statistics are a little paralyzing at times I feel and, um, I would say, and sometimes there’s a lot of uh sort of negative communication around it. Some folks getting, getting very stressful about it, I would say in part, it’s also down to uh execution, right? Uh So what I mean is if you see uh your organization in 11 half of the organization about is about heart is what you care about what you’re passionate about. But the other part of it is the the brain part is where you do need to run it as an organization and what we are seeing a fair amount of in the small to mid size, say from 250 K to 25 up to 25 million. That is, it’s, it’s, it’s really not really approached and run like a business, you know, as a business, the moment you’ve acquired your first customer, this is the first donation, you, you be Fighting Tooth for Nail to retain that customer. We all, we all know that it’s much cheaper to retain existing customers. So, so it’s, it’s bizarre to see but, but then I started sort of digging in because, uh, you know, you get, you get to, uh, you get to ask why, well, why, why is it? It’s not that it’s been 30% that it’s 70% now, it’s been structurally like this for a very, very long time, you know, that better than I do even. And so why, why is that? And we don’t really have great answers. But for me, it comes down to a lack of establishment of emotional connection. I think that ultimately why most of us give is because there’s a level of feeling associated to it. It’s not a transaction for most people to donate. Whether it’s a small donation, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a feeling whether it’s a feeling to make yourself feel good or whether it’s a uh altruistic Phil philanthropy, what whatever the feeling is, it’s about feeling. And when you think about that, you and then you ask yourself and say, ok, what am I doing to, to help that person get more connected to my organization? That’s where it starts to unravel real quick. So, capital campaigns are about transactions and numbers. Um when we, and, and it’s very knee jerky. You know, when we, when the numbers are low low, we’ll run a big campaign and it feels a little bit like a transactional approach. Well, thanks very much. Our course was to raise so many thousands. We did it, we did the sele, but we’re forgetting the basics. Let me give you one which I found shocking statistic you and I experience this. You’d think that saying thank you when somebody’s donated would be pretty common practice, right? So I’ve just donated in whatever form I’m receiving some form of. Thank you. I’m not even talking about the most impactful way of doing it. I’m just talking about. Thank you in a way, an email, whatever it, when you look at it, the statistics are pretty bad. So we, we, we, we look at this because we, we work with our prospects and customers about how, where can we improve some things if I give you sort of an aggregate number saying thank you within say the first two weeks of a donation happens in less than 13% of cases. No, 13

[00:10:07.11] spk_0:
what two weeks? It’s supposed to be 24 hours, 24 hours for a perfunctory and then maybe there’s a follow up, you know, I like to see a follow up call or a handwritten note or something, but the perfunctory should be 24 hours and you’re saying two weeks and it’s 2 13%

[00:11:15.01] spk_2:
13, 13. And then if we lengthen the time to 30 days, at which point, I don’t even remember what I’ve done to be honest with you, but then that number goes up to 18% 18. So it’s, it’s a crazy number if you think about if you set that number up against 75% 1st time donor retention rate issues, right? And you say, say, but we never say thank you to me, rather than looking at really structural societal, economic reasons for why things are the way they are, we should really start to look at, are we doing absolutely everything we can to establish an emotional connection? And frankly, if you miss a thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It sort of feels like you’re, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve got a, you had a false start, right? Yeah. Now

[00:11:35.34] spk_0:
you’ve, you’ve, you’ve blown the, you’ve blown the opportunity if, if, if you’re responding with a, a even a perfunctory. Thank you. As I said, I’d like to see 24 hours but within 48 hours that you’re going out to two weeks and it’s only 13%. Uh, and what, what is, what is that? I’ve never heard it that low. That awful, what, what is that based on that? That’s boomerang clients. Yeah,

[00:12:48.42] spk_2:
we look at and prospects. So we, we, we, um, uh, I, I’ll give, I gave you sort of an aggregate number. Some folks are much better, better at it than others, but you’d be surprised. It’s certainly not in the, it’s never in the high 80% or something like that you’d be. And there’s always a reason why people say I didn’t have whatever address or there’s always some reason, but there’s also no reason because if you and I would be running a business, there’s always a way to say thank you to someone. Right. So, so it, it feels to me, uh, there’s plenty of, you know, hurdles that we can keep up with. I didn’t have the right email address, didn’t have the right phone number or something happened. I didn’t do it, whatever, but it’s structurally super bad and it’s always in the low single digit percentage across the board. In fact, we often, um, engage with prospects like that when we look at sort of, uh, they might have other systems or other tactics and as they’re looking for another system, they want to also improve the processes. Right? And we often do these sort of assessments where we, um, uh, that’s what we do. We actually make small donations on behalf of us and we should see we track what, what happens and that’s, that’s how we get that information. And, uh,

[00:13:14.60] spk_0:
if you, if you’re not responding within 24 hours, I think it looks like you just don’t care. Right. Talk about grabbing someone from the heart first, you know, to, to give them a feeling, AAA warm feeling anything more than 24 hours. Looks like your gift doesn’t really mean too much to us. In 30 days. 30 you may as well not, I don’t know. To me after two weeks, you might not even bother it. You’ve already, you’ve already blown the relationship unless I don’t know unless you call with, uh, uh, some kind of catastrophic story, uh you know, which is not, not likely, uh you’ve blown it, you’ve blown the opportunity.

[00:15:41.99] spk_2:
Yeah, completely. And, and, and we often get uh a little bit of setback when you sort of look at and say, hey, am I supposed to say thank you? Like do I, what, what does it matter if I say automated email, for instance, as a thank you to everyone that’s not very personal, it’s not very emotional. And I agree. But if you start by saying thank you to your first time donors and have different means to engage with your retained donors, that would be a good start. You can’t tell me that you, you have so many first time donors that you can’t deal with the volume like that. That seems, that seems like a that’s a very high bar to achieve. That’s not what we are seeing, right? So I think if you just narrow it down and say just hit the notes I had um I wasn’t, I had a, a charity rally where we had sort of a thing with old cars and this was to support a local dog rescue. And uh we did a bunch of things like auctions and stuff like that and we made a donation and it was so amazing that the following day um I got a voice mail so they didn’t get with me, but that voicemail was fantastic. It was just a voice mail from the executive director and it was just like, it was just a, a very nice warm, I heard the voice. It made me feel super good. I thought I did the right thing and, um, and now there was a, you know, a typical newsletter that follows. So I actually read that newsletter now. Right, because I’m, I’ve got something there. Actually, I love that lady. I love how passionate she is about making sure that these dogs end up in the right homes and how deliberate she is about all of that. Um And she’s, she’s got me like they’ve got me, I want to do more and, and I thought it was as simple as just dropping me in a a voicemail. She didn’t even try to call me. It was just a voicemail straight into my inbox, but because it was a voicemail and not an email, it was much more personal and I’m pretty sure that day maybe from that event, let’s just be generous. Say that she had five or six new donors, right? New first I done this. Is it really that hard to to send five? Thank you. Um I don’t know, seems like it seems like it’s doable.

[00:15:45.98] spk_0:
Now. You, you’ve mentioned this dog rescue uh a couple of times now. So why don’t you shout them out properly? No, I

[00:15:50.85] spk_2:
can’t. I can’t because this built a pool. They,

[00:15:57.27] spk_0:
they, they all right, you’re a big, you’re such a big dog lover. You can’t shout out to you. All right. All right. All right. Well, we know we

[00:16:03.26] spk_2:
have the opportunity though, tony, but I think I’m gonna get it. Um I’m gonna get it wrong somewhere with someone. It’s a very

[00:16:10.28] spk_0:
small town, right? We know we have a dog

[00:16:46.14] spk_1:
lover. It’s time for a break. Donor box, quote, donor box text to give led to one of our more successful fundraising events, a concert sharing the keyword short code and scannable QR code made giving easy for our supporters. And they did give that’s from Josh Young executive director of hydrating Humanity Donor Boxx, helping you help others donor Boxx dot org. Now back to donor retention.

[00:17:09.28] spk_0:
So in with automation, I mean, this, you give a gift, you have to provide an email address and and or a phone number so you can send them an email or a text again, this perfunctory, you know, within 24 hours. I I just don’t see any reason why with, with automation that are pretty standard, right? And you should be able to send an immediate

[00:20:01.36] spk_2:
technology problem. It’s not a technology problem. There are no technological hurdles here. I mean, systems might be difficult to use and what have you but you can, it’s not rocket science. Once you’ve done it, once you can, you can figure it out that I think the, you know what it’s the way I think about it, which is fascinating. I think we have three big challenges that we need to think through. They’re gonna be pretty structural. We’ve got aging donors, we’ve got declining small donations. So from uh gifts up to $100 and from 100 to $500 are down across the board and we have a very hard time retaining first time donors. Those are the three like big uh themes if you can call them that or headwinds, whatever you wanna call them that we need to think through. Ok, these are gonna be here for a while. How, how do I, how do I respond to those? Right. And the bizarre thing is that because we have aging donors, we need to think about our uh our donors as a whole. We need to think about. Ok, how do I tap into younger donors? How do I tap into, how do I broaden my connection to household and not have a singular donor within a household? So you need to think about that. And it’s remarkable then that when we’re presented an opportunity to have a first time donor that we would, we wouldn’t be obsessed about retaining these donors in some way either by and if and if the friction is around the donation, I’d rather take a small recurring donation over a haphazard first time donation. There’s a, a strategy too. So we have all the tools in place. It’s just that it’s almost like we are applying principles that we have. We, we, we’ve applied for years to today. But today things are really starting to accelerate. So when we think of don, you know, frankly dying donors uh and not being part of estate planning and such, we really need to think about tapping into different generationals. And now that generation uh you have then you have other questions which is, is email, the best medium, et cetera, et cetera. But um uh there is an amazing opportunity there in my opinion, to, to, to tap into because we are getting the first time donors in, we are getting them. So it’s not like the next generation is nonn generous. It’s quite the opposite. Actually, the generation that we all love to hate the Gen Z and the millennials are extraordinarily driven by impact and doing good for the world. They are probably one of the most in tune generation. We’re just not connecting with them and uh and their rotation rates will continue to show what they’re showing if applying these type of uh methods here. So it’s a, it’s a challenge.

[00:22:16.22] spk_0:
I, I wonder if some of the problem with connecting with the millennials and Gen Z is that the leadership are baby boomers and they’re not listening to their own millennial and Gen Z employees or the or they’re not even seeking the advice of those younger folks about how to, how to connect the younger donors again. Emotionally. I, I think, I think if you start with the heart the brain follows. So you had that heartfelt genuine sincere voicemail, just a voicemail and it, it, and it’s drawn you in and that’s so that’s an example. Um They’re so they’re not, they’re not taking the advice. And I think these boomers of which I’m one, a young one, a very, a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very young boomer, but I am just barely a baby boomer. You know, uh the generation is not taking the advice of younger folks, seeking the advice of younger folks, but how to connect with younger folks and that and that they are your future planned giving donors. Planned giving is what I do, fundraising consulting and strictly in planned giving. So if you wanna have that pipeline of long term, you know, the the ultimate, the ultimate gift for a lot of people is in their estate plan. If you want to benefit from that ultimate giving, you need to be treating these folks well from the, from the jump from that 1st 24 hours that we’re talking about and, and then beyond and you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve broadened beyond the, the the initial thank you. But um you know, that’s, I mean, that’s a again back to a business, I mean, that’s how a business maintains a, a pipeline of customers. But you know, you have, we have to have a pipeline of prospects right throughout the, throughout the age spectrum, throughout on all the different ways of giving monthly sustainer and major and people give just once uh once a year or, or give just to a particular program, just give around the gala. If, if we’re suffering an event like that, I don’t want to get into the difficulties of event, major event fundraising. But you know, we’re, we’re just not, we’re not, you’re right, we’re not creating like think of it like a business and we’re not, we’re not treating our pipeline of prospects and donors appropriately.

[00:25:47.71] spk_2:
So, you know, what strikes me is, um, a a because it, I, I can imagine that it’s, listen, it’s hard. There’s a million things to do your research constraint. Um uh it’s, there’s a, there’s high stress involved with fundraising, but there seemed to be some opportunities to rather than try and figure it all out on your own. There’s a, a dozens and dozens of millennials that want to do volunteer work and instead of doing, letting them do volunteer work on your core nonprofit course, why don’t enlist them to help you with the communication using social media? And just the, there’s so many of these, of that generation is so in tune with it. But what I’m seeing over and over again is we are recruiting them for helping them with the local dog rescue. I had that conversation with them. I said, I noticed that one here. This is why I, um I, I’ve been a very long time. Uh, uh donor of and they, what I noticed is, hey, I get all these lovely updates about dogs that need a home and placement. But I hardly ever see what happens after and the real reason why, like, what I care is I wanna make sure that those dogs go to the right place and I believe in your ability to do that. And that’s why I, I, I’m prepared to sort of help out. But the story that I really want to see is a happy dog in a happy household. But I never see those stories. Yeah, occasionally there’s one in the newsletter but you’re placing like so many dogs and, and then the penny drops, as we would say is, um, why don’t we get some of the, there was a volunteer, like there was a, there was a girl that was sort of helping with the shelter and, you know, helping to take care of the dogs and getting them ready, you know, making them look good for, uh for these, uh for the visits. And she was very, very skilled at social media. She was on Instagram. She was all this book and it, and she saw them well, now why don’t we just get these new families to record a little short video on their iphone uh after, you know, a couple of days in the home, like the first week, you know, the first week with Fluffy and it needs to be a very like badly shot video not produced. It is what it is. And then they said, what do we do with the video? You just give that video to me. I’ll take care of it. She said, and it was wonderful. And within a honestly, within a week, I think it turned into this whole thing that now they basically say, hey, as part of the placement of the doc, we need you to give us an update on how it’s going. And that update is a simple little video. They send it to it that now goes on the social base that gets connected to the newsletter, goes on the website. And now there’s a whole different audience that they’re tapping into and these dog stories are starting to do their rounds. Now, what did that cost? Not very much. Uh would a ba baby boomer be very good at executing that? Probably not. But you don’t have to like, you can use volunteers in different ways that you can use volunteers to help you with reach. And in fact, might actually be more helpful because we, that generation probably connects better to their own. Then sort of a grumpy, old boomer or young boomer uh grumpy.

[00:25:52.68] spk_0:
Now you added grumpy. That was not, it

[00:25:54.84] spk_2:
was affecting to myself.

[00:27:08.24] spk_0:
All right. Well, you take that on yourself. Fine. I take about grumpiness. You, you threw that in, you tried. All right. Yeah, it uh it just, you use the, that you have, whether it’s volunteer, it’s on your team. Uh Maybe it’s a consultant. You know, what you’re describing is, it sounds precious. The, the production value is meaningless. It’s, it’s the, it’s the substance and, and, you know, they, they probably now, you know, or they, they will soon have courses of these videos videos that they can repurpose on Instagram, tiktok, Mastodon, youtube, uh their, their own site, of course, uh uh links in newsletters, you know, uh 30 a AAA compilation of uh you know, 32nd videos or something. It’s, and, and that, and that’s the impact that, that, that’s the impact that a lot of people want to see and, and especially well, donors really, I think across the age spectrum are much more cognizant of impact, much more interested in impact. But I, I think younger folks are even more so um Dennis, let, let’s talk some more about some tactics of drawing in making that emotional connection, getting the heart and, and letting the brain follow.

[00:32:02.04] spk_2:
Yeah. Um um a, a couple of things um on that. I think we, we as an industry rely very heavily on email and I’m not so sure that’s a great idea. Um I think email is useful and helpful, but I don’t know about your inbox what that looks like. Um Mine looks pretty challenging. I’ve got a work one and I’ve got a private one and I take a deep sigh in the morning. When I have to sort of make weed my way through whatever, you know, irrelevant stuff, it starts with deleting a whole bunch of stuff and then hopefully I haven’t deleted it too much. So, email is challenging to get attention. Number one and two, it’s actually not easy to make email, uh, create a sort of reinforce of establish an emotional connection because you have to be actually quite good, quite good with, with words. And that’s a high bar, I think um that to, to there are some science out there about how you should write. I mean, the dr is always right about these stories. So the more of these stories you have to your point on impact, the more you should do it. But relying on email alone and then thinking that you have done it, I think is a pretty big mistake. Um I think you have a I like email as a uh uh you mentioned a couple of idea of uh of things like a newsletter or an update. So something that we basically uh is periodic. Uh So, hey, we’re here, this is what we’ve done. That’s great. That’s wonderful. Um But I much prefer that folks and we start to see that experiment with different media and voice, for instance, is still very much underutilized. So people don’t really use Zoom voice. I I there was actually an email that came in for someone that just recorded um a blurp like they had like a, it was like a zoom like we’re doing now today and they included that zoom into it, but there was no video, it was just voice and they were just telling, uh, there was an update of the month but they said we’re gonna try something different. We’re gonna, I’m gonna, so the executive director spoke on the zoom. I thought that was nice. So it was, so that was unusual. So I had a voice, I had him talk. There was a bit of a, a funny moment so you can hear them laugh as they said that I, I had it plugged it in my airpods as I was walking so easy. I don’t have to really uh you know, be concentrated on my, on my desk to read it all. So I thought it was a great, great way to use it. Video is still very underutilized. We all like, you know how it is, it’s not that difficult anymore to uh to have the video. You can still use your email to send it. Um And so I think when it comes to tactics that we have to be careful not to rely on one and just set it and forget it, right? So you basically say, oh yeah, I’m I am communicating with my donors. I’m sending an email. I send a, an um a newsletter every month. Uh Yeah, you know, is that the bar like is the, what is the latest. What is the late, what have you tried? What other things have you tried? Do you know whether they open it and read it? Do you do? Do you have that? Because nowadays we know? Right. We have a pretty good idea of, uh, whether folks read it or not and then what do you do with that information? You just continue sending stuff the other question I have. So that’s one thing it is about the tactics is don’t rely on a single attack. They just set some sort of a goal that every year or every quarter of it, whatever it is feasible, you try something new and see if it sticks, just stick it and stay with it for a few months but just try it, try it. Um, the other thing I would say is as much as there’s a reliance on, uh, the medium, email, phone video, whatever, there’s also a reliance on, uh, the recipient, which is who we’re sending it to. What I find. There’s a concept in business that’s called single threading, um, which is, uh, never referred to as a positive thing. It’s a bad thing. The single, single threading. So what we, what, what it means is that you’re basically when you’re trying to, uh, connect with an account with a prospect, it’s usually a business. And when your single thread in the account, it means that you’re only speaking with one contact in the, in that organization and you know, that a decision usually has to make with multiple people. And very often, even if there’s a CEO CEO would want to make sure that her team is consulted, et cetera, et cetera. So whether these folks are making, whether others are making the decision or influences is irrelevant. It’s very rare that one person calls all the shots. It’s much more common that multiple people have to be engaged, consulted and informed.

[00:32:50.86] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Kila increase donations and foster collaborative teamwork with Kela. The fundraiser, Crm maximize your team’s productivity and spend more time building strong connections with your donors through features that were built specifically for fundraisers. A fundraiser, Crm goes beyond data management platform. It’s designed with the unique needs of fundraisers in mind and aims to unify fundraising, communications and donor management tools into one single source of truth visit, Kila dot co to sign up for a coming group demo and explore how to exceed your fundraising goals like never before. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:34:17.23] spk_0:
Thanks Kate. This week’s show gets published on September 11th, the anniversary of the day that changed our country changed the world profoundly. We all remember where we were, I was uh an employee. It was the dark days of uh employment for me at Saint John’s University in Queens, New York and Saint John’s is up on a hill and we could see downtown Manhattan. So it was in a distance but we could see it happening live. We were going between watching, live and, uh, for real and watching on TV, you know, more close up, of course, but everybody’s got their story of September 11th. And, uh, I think we should just, um, use the anniversary as a, a time to remember to keep in mind the victims, the immediate victims, uh, this week, uh, and also, uh, not only the ones who died that day, but those who are still dying from their service there and from exposures, let’s just remember those folks this week that is Tony’s take two. OK.

[00:34:23.98] spk_1:
You reminded me of a saying I once heard they’re gone but never forgotten.

[00:34:27.55] spk_0:
Yes. Yes.

[00:34:30.29] spk_1:
Let’s go back to donor retention with Dennis Fois.

[00:35:31.20] spk_2:
So you want to become multithreaded to increase your alt of success, in my opinion, the same is true for a household. If you solely rely on the first contact that you ever had, that is the the donor that has actually made the donation. But you know that they’re part or you might not even know that they’re part of a household and you’re not making any efforts to deeper connect and create more contacts in that household organization. You’re missing a big, big, big trick and a big opportunity because I think that the more we can establish an emotional connection at the household level, the higher, higher the chances that things make sense as part of a state planning this is a long drawn process but being simply relying and only communicated to a single donor, in my opinion, is a risky affair. And so doing events where my partners or Children are involved, do whatever you can. You obviously can’t ask who else is in your household. Give me their email addresses, understand. But there’s not, but you could make events deliberately and purposeful, designed to bring the family together, to bring them all in and then start to collect data as part of that event, right? Uh I don’t see a lot of that. Yeah.

[00:37:28.92] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s consistent with your first ideas, not be singular channel, you know, be multichannel, uh be multi thread within the, within the household. Exactly. Yeah. Iii I see that play out a lot uh in events where the there might be a couple there. Again, I do planned giving. So the events I’m going to are usually for older folks. Uh not necessarily plan giving age, but plan giving prospect age. And there are a lot of couples uh whether they’re married or partnered and I see a lot of conversations with one person in, in the couple and it’s, it’s usually, it’s usually the male in, in a, in a, in a traditional hetero couple. Um And, and the, the female is, you know, largely ignored but, you know, but whatever the couple dynamics, I i it’s a mistake to just be talking to the one person because you, you you want the support, you want the buy in, of, of, of the couple. Um, just, it just, it just makes things so much smoother. Uh, you, you reduce any contention around giving that might be playing out in, in the, in, in the home that you have no idea about. You know, so don’t, don’t talk to one person to the exclusion of the other person in, in the couple. Right. Iii, I see that a lot and I bet in person events, right. That, that’s a mistake.

[00:40:20.01] spk_2:
That’s a big mistake. And I bet tony that it’s if you were to go back, even if they’ve spoken or connected in some way, I bet that if you go back and look at the database and say, let’s say the household and we had a nice conversation with me and my wife that when you look back at the database, my wife’s contact information is not in that database. Right? So, because it’s again, none of these things happen with one conversation that like it’s, it’s very rare. I mean, as a magical when it happened, it’s wonderful, but it’s usually it takes time, it takes repeated connections, interactions over a long period of time. And so the best chance we have is if we broaden our reach, but not just broaden our reach, we’re constantly trying to find new people all the time. To your point, this big funnel machine. But if we can expand within our existing donors, we absolutely improve our retention rates. In reality, if you improve your retention rate by about sort of 10% or so, you triple the lifetime value over time over your, over your donor base. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it behooves upon all of us. How do you improve retention rates? Well, it’s not just constantly talking to the same person and sending them more stuff. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, you know, that, that has a diminishing return. So, and I feel that we probably need to talk more in the industry about it and share ideas or how others are doing it and talk more about these tactics because I feel that some of the uh some of the nonprofit organization that we talk to want to do it, they, they, they, they’re not afraid of experimenting but sometimes sort of lack the applicable ideas because the industry has started to become quite academic and we talk about things, you know, theoretical concepts and big numbers and scary numbers and frankly paralyzing numbers at the time, it like doesn’t inspire me to act, right? And I think we should maybe need to do a slightly better job as an industry. And I think you do that with your things like your, your podcast where you get deeper into the things and just ideas that I can sort of, you know, walk away but give me one or two ideas that I can do tomorrow then and I can at least I can sort of figure out whether it works or it might work for some, it won’t work for others. But if you don’t try you don’t know. And the reality is there’s no one approach that will work for everyone but relying on email alone and only talking to your donor is a guaranteed, guaranteed, uh, path that sets you to become part of the statistics. Yeah. That’s basically how they’ve been built

[00:41:00.80] spk_0:
on the wrong end. Yeah. Yeah. It, it’s shallow. It’s, it’s not a, it’s not a hard, uh, it’s not a heart to heart connection. Um, you know, as you were, as you were speaking, I was thinking, you know, when, when you call, if, if the, if the non, the non primary donor answers, do you just ask for the donor or do you say? Oh, hello. You know, and wouldn’t it be great if you could hearken back to the, to when you had the conversation at the last event with that other, the, the other person? Oh, it was such a pleasure to meet you, you know, or, or do you just say, you know, can I, oh, hi. Can I speak to Dennis? You know, that, that, that’s, that, that’s, that’s a, uh, it’s a turn off. It’s perceived by, by both people in the couple. Uh, it, it may not ever be spoken about or, or even worse. It might be, but it, it’s detrimental in either, in, in either case. Um, it’s just a, you know, it’s, it’s fundamental respect for, for people.

[00:42:38.17] spk_2:
Well, I agree in respect but also, um, sound business mind. Right. If you want to, like, if, if it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a good business practice. So there’s, there’s the head and the heart that comes together if you were to think that any time that you connect with someone, the donor, but you get somebody else on the phone as a prospecting opportunity, that might be the right mindset. You know, because you, that’s how you treat a new event. When you, when you with this new families and new folks coming be all overdose, right? To tell the story and why you started the uh the organization. Uh the same is true for this prospect with the big benefit that it’s a warm prospect. It’s not a cold prospect, right? Because there’s no connection. So if you think about how do I increase donation sizes, how do I become maybe part of recurring giving? Those are, those are the situations where that happens where both both partners have an emotional connection with the cause and stimulate one another and say, hey, this is something we want, really want to support as a family now that always leads to more sustained and higher donations. Um First, as being one of the two partners that supported because this is their uh their charity of choice.

[00:42:48.49] spk_0:
Other, other thoughts Dennis about tactics that folks can at least experiment with.

[00:45:17.14] spk_2:
Um, yeah, well, so what is, what it has been pretty successful? This might be, um, a little sort of personal but what has been successful here locally? Um, II, I, it was actually quite interesting. So we, um, there are these groups of, uh, people that get together for hobbies, in our case, I’m part of a club that likes old cars. So old people and old cars come together once in a while and they, they do, they take whatever excuse on the wrist to sort of drive these things. And, uh, but we wanted to add a little bit of more depth to it. So we started to, um, to seek out whether there were uh interesting nonprofit organizations around us that we could support somehow. So to make the, so we would basically say, hey, as part of this drive, there is a cost to the drive and that this, this cost was basically fundraising. So we would raise through these drivers a donation and we would then have a, um, have that money go to a, uh a charity of choice, right? One that we would say, hey, this month we’re gonna be supporting this. What I found remarkable is that very few nonprofit organization had identified that a lot of these events were happening. I’ve got a local tennis club, there’s a local, there’s a very, very big car community here in Carmel and Monterey. It’s just a thing. So everybody that lives here knows that. But what I found staggering is that it was actually hard work for us to find. We actually had to seek out nonprofit organizations and explain that we wanted to do some events. And then once we had that people were very generous and said, oh, we come over and speak, we can say a few things about what we we will do and we would attach an auction, little auction, something around to just make sure that these are affluent people. So, you know, making donations is, is a, is, is not a high friction situation. Um But what I found remarkable and a missed opportunity which we’re now making more available is tap into these um communities. So, you know, there are in Indie, it’s the same in Indianapolis. There’s a lot of communities that have certain themes that folks that get together, a lot of them would be very happy, supported co courses. And so what I’m seeing, but

[00:45:34.49] spk_0:
pardon me? But these are essentially giving circles. They are. And I, I had the, I had the evangelist for giving circle Sarah on the show just within the past six weeks or so. Um So, you know, whether it’s a car club or a bunch of folks who meet once a month in someone’s in rotating homes or, you know, or it’s some other, some other uh organization that’s willing to do fundraising and, and granting you’re, you’re essentially, you’re talking about giving circles in, in your community.

[00:49:25.30] spk_2:
100%. That’s a wonderful way of, of uh putting it and uh talk about building a funnel and building connection into, into your community. Uh And they very often become repeat themes, especially if there is an emotive connection with the individual. If the executive director does a good job at presenting, being there, telling the story of the organization, you know, you, I would say it’s almost guaranteed, there’ll be some sort of successful. So it’s really worth doing. But again, it’s about being proactive and seeking those out, making an effort to actually find out what, what is around me. Uh That seems to me, I was blown away. Uh It’s now become a thing with us or every month. There’s something that sometimes there’s twice a month or something. Um But what is also interesting is that most of us end up giving to the ones that we are really connected with, right? So there is the, the event itself that produces us, but some of us actually get, we had a, we had a lady that um had a very traumatic situation with her husband and a child and a child had a disease that was very difficult to cure. And it sort of inspired her to create a, a organization or profit organization to help folks with, um with a, in a similar situation. And she, when she told her story, I most most of us couldn’t keep it together to be honest. So it just becomes like a different level of connectivity and accountability. And so, so I I, no, no, I wanna help you. This is crazy. There is no support from um uh health care that this is sort of under recognized. These people are out, out, out, out, all out on their own. Actually with a little bit of money, a lot can be done. So you start to connect the dots to say what I can actually have a real impact here and help to make a situation better. I can fund. If I can fund this lady, people’s life will change. And when you get to that sort of level of this is where my money or time can go and this is the impact I can achieve I want. II I mean, I’ve had a reluctant to say donor for life because we know that that’s a difficult thing, but that’s a level of connection that no email in the world, no phone in the world can be, can hope to achieve. And so if you’re not out there connecting with an audience like that new circles, um you’re making it yourself very hard, I think to find these people that are, that are then spreading the word because I didn’t talk to all this about it. So we know how that all works, right? So I would say those are still very underutilized idea. So this the this idea of using multiple channels of communications expanding within the families, sort of the multi threading thing that we’re talking about and exploring the circles rather than treating individuals of transactions. We have a lot of room for improvement when it comes about executing and doing good, better, best on those. And so in a way, the statistics that we talked about are not that surprising because frankly, if you’d run a business in the way we are running as an industry nonprofit, these are the statistics that you would get. It’s like fast in, fast out. Yeah, it’s, it’s a classic bad business model like,

[00:49:30.53] spk_0:
yeah, uh Boomerang wouldn’t survive that way. No, no,

[00:49:33.29] spk_2:
no, no. My board would swap me out real quick. You had

[00:50:47.46] spk_0:
clients, you had clients for a year and, and 77% of them uh stayed only that long. Um Yeah, loyalty, you know, it’s, it’s all, it’s all the heart, loyalty, connections. Um speaking from the heart, respecting people. And then, yeah, you know, and, and so I, I speak kind of altruistically or, or maybe not academically but altruistic. Uh and uh and lofty and, you know, you remind us that it’s also all good business. It’s all good business to, to think of the partner as a, as a, as a prospect uh to, to have folks telling their own story in a, in a simple iphone video with low production value from the home with dim lighting and, and the sound is cutting out and the Children are in the background but the, you know, but the, but the newly placed dog, uh, pet is, is, is, is barking wildly and, and that’s the, you know, that’s the impact. That’s perfect. So, it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s the, those are the moments that are sincere and genuine, connect with our hearts and end up being good business.

[00:53:29.50] spk_2:
Yeah, I could not agree with you more. And, um, that head and heart thing, we, I think when we, when our organizations get la get larger, nonprofit organizations get larger, you, you, it’s ok to think of a part of it as a business. It’s ok actually because the more effective the organization becomes the greater the impact you can achieve at our company at Bloomer. We, we have often sort of struggle with that balance where you sort of say, well, do, is it all about growing revenues? Is that basically the, the mark of a success for us or how do we measure impact? But the reality is you should not put pit those two things against each other because if you could see uh fundraising volume or revenue, you could see that as fuel and you need fuel. We need fuel. So you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t shortchange yourself or making sure like you feel really good, you’ve done this wonderful thing, but it doesn, doesn’t scale because it requires you to do it over and over. It can scale. But now you’re not putting fuel in a tank and we, we have to have few because the more fuel we have the greater the impact that we can choose the more resource. So the problem is that we have in this, in this industry, it’s difficult for us to attract and retain talent. So as much as we have a donor retention problem, look at the employee retention problem that we have in this industry. And if you become more successful at creating scalable and repeatable initiatives, which you’re experimenting, you’re trying things, you’re making these emotional connections, we can attract high quality people into the organization that can sort of sustain and increase that momentum. So I, I often, when we talk about this, it feels like, yeah, but you can’t run a nonprofit organization like a business. And I said, well, why not? Um why not? Um You, you know, if you, I, at some point, I’d like to work in an organization like this, but you better believe it that I be, I’m gonna be very intense in the work. I’m not gonna sort of be relaxed because I work in a nonprofit because I’m gonna be super intense if we’re wasting money or if we are not following up on things or something goes out, that is a little bit half baked. That is not a high standard. Like why, why wouldn’t those things apply? Isn’t that what makes things better, like striving to better standards doing something, trying something different growing as an organization. So I think we have to be destigmatize the, the brain part uh in this industry and say that it’s OK to pursue growing as an organization because that growth allows to achieve far greater impact than the individual to start. The organization ever thought was imaginable. So we growth has to be part of an obe of the objective of the organization.

[00:54:20.17] spk_0:
Dennis. I’d like to leave it there. Thank you, tony and II I unical agree with you about perceiving our organizations as businesses. Uh III I, I’d take a step further and say, I think it’s essential. We, we don’t, we don’t lose our heart. We don’t lose our mission that the two are not mutually exclusive. We, we can, we can pursue our missions and our values as well as think of ourselves as a business. That’s, that’s not the zero

[00:54:25.96] spk_2:
sum, 100% 100%

[00:54:36.40] spk_0:
Denis Fo Fois. He’s CEO of Boomerang. You’ll find Dennis on linkedin. You’ll find the company at Boomerang dot co, Dennis. Thank you very much for sharing your thinking. I appreciate it.

[00:54:43.89] spk_2:
Huge. Thanks for the opportunity, tony. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. My

[00:54:47.07] spk_0:
pleasure. Thank you.

[00:54:57.22] spk_1:
Next week, donor dominance with Ian mcquillan. If you missed any part of this week’s show,

[00:55:00.36] spk_0:
I’d be you find it at Tomm martignetti dot com

[00:55:11.98] spk_1:
were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor Boxx dot org.

[00:55:20.32] spk_0:
I love that alliteration

[00:55:38.38] spk_1:
and Bikila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers, CRM visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Our creative producer is Claire Meyer. I’m your associate producer, Kate Marett. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:56:06.34] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scottie be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be.

Nonprofit Radio for April 12, 2021: Build Lasting Supporter Relationships & Love Your Donors Using Data

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Craig Grella & Wendy Levine: Build Lasting Supporter Relationships
Craig Grella and Wendy Levine, both from Salsa Labs, want you to build strong relationships all the time, not only when you’re fundraising. Their savvy strategies come from their own work building relationships for Salsa. This is part of our 21NTC coverage.

 

 

 

 

Shoni Field & Jen Shang: Love Your Donors Using Data
Nonprofit Radio coverage of 21NTC continues. When you are fundraising, data that tells us restoring your donors’ sense of well-being and identity will increase their giving and engagement. There’s a lot of fascinating research to unpack and apply, so join Jen Shang, the world’s only philanthropic psychologist, from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, and Shoni Field from the British Columbia SPCA.

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:18.94] spk_0:
Oh hi Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of benign prostatic hyperplasia. If you leaked the idea that you missed this week’s show, build lasting supporter relationships, craig, Grella and Wendy Levin, both from salsa labs. Want you to build strong relationships all the time. Not only when your fundraising, they’re savvy strategies come from their own work building relationships for salsa. This is part of our 21 NTC coverage and love your donors using data. Non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC continues when you are fundraising data that tells us restoring your donors sense of well being and identity will increase their giving and engagement. There’s a lot of fascinating research to unpack and apply. So joined gen XIANg, the world’s only philanthropic psychologist from the Institute for sustainable philanthropy and Shoni field from the british Columbia, s p C A and tony state too planned giving accelerator were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. Here is build lasting supporter relationships. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c O. My guests now are Craig, Grella and Wendy. Levine. Craig is content marketer at salsa Labs and Wendy is marketing director at salsa Labs. Craig, Gorilla Wendy. Levine, Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:02:22.94] spk_3:
Thank you. Happy to be here.

[00:02:24.50] spk_2:
Thank you. Thanks for having us

[00:02:38.24] spk_0:
on My pleasure to have you both. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us, your expertise on beyond fundraising, building lasting relationships with your supporters. Wendy. Let’s start with you what as an overview, what could nonprofits be doing better relationship wise do you to feel?

[00:04:29.14] spk_3:
So we work with lots of nonprofits and I’ll just start by saying, you know, as a marketing team. It’s also, we’re kind of in a unique position because we are responsible for marketing. It’s also doing all the normal things that, you know, our marketing team does, but because our software helps nonprofits market their mission and engage with donors, we often work with those nonprofit clients to help them in their marketing efforts. So that was the genesis of this workshop for the intent conference because when we work with nonprofits we see so many of them doing so many amazing things on. And yet there are everyone has their, excuse me there. Their holes are their blind spots in their in their process. So our workshop dealt with um formalizing a content development process and content calendar. Um, craig does this for salsa. So he does a great job of you know, making sure that we are talking to the right people at the right time, that we have the right content in terms of blog posts and you guys and social posts and that’s a lot of work. So when a nonprofit who may not have a whole marketing team, um like we do tries to do those things, um sometimes things get missed. So our workshop was all about providing people content, calendar templates and talking to them about things that they can do to make the whole process of building new content easier. We talked about reusing old content, um repurposing content that you have developed before, how to improve message targeting and how to do all of those things in uh simple ways that can be done with smaller teams.

[00:04:45.64] spk_0:
Well. And we’re going to talk about those things here. You know, you’re not gonna just tease.

[00:04:48.79] spk_3:
Uh,

[00:05:11.44] spk_0:
listen, I’m not gonna let you just tease non propagated. Listen and say this is what we talked about, but we’re not talking about here. So we’re gonna talk about those things to, uh, so craig so you are, you are, it sounds like you are the writer, the content marketer for salsa, and we can all benefit from the wisdom of the corporate marketing team at salsa. Yes,

[00:05:28.94] spk_2:
yes, definitely. I think to kind of piggyback on, on what Wendy was saying, the impetus for this. Uh, this presentation was, I think nonprofits can learn from the more corporate marketing. I think even if you look at advocacy, I think nonprofits can learn from uh, political advocacy, which is kind of, you know, they use their email lists like a. T. M. Machines sometimes. That’s the way it feels like. Uh,

[00:05:42.71] spk_0:
and then I think you have a background in the Democratic Party in pennsylvania. Right? That’s right, yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:09.94] spk_2:
And and I think really it happens on both sides of the aisle. I think when you look at a lot of advocacy campaigns, a lot of political campaigns, I think they tend to look at their lists in that way they go to their list more often with fundraising than other messages. Or they wrap their message in a fundraising appeal. I think nonprofits can kind of get stuck in that rut as well where, uh, they’re using their list more often as appeals. So this presentation was a way for us to say, how do you develop those deeper relationships? How do you go beyond just the fundraising appeal? How do you engage all year long? How do you, uh, take that relationship to the next level or maybe change relationships wherever your supporters are with you in their relationship now, maybe there’s a way to move them to a different relationship that involves other type of work or a different relationship with your work. So that was kind of the idea behind the presentation and how we put together the different steps and tips and things like that.

[00:07:41.04] spk_0:
Now, I suspect, you know, most dogs are doing some of this, like, you know, uh, let’s, let’s assume that an organization has a newsletter, whether digital or print, you know, and they may or may not include an appeal. But, you know, I’d like to think that there are messages going out that aren’t all that aren’t all fundraising related, I mean, but you’re, you’re sounds like you and Wendy would like us to put this into a coordinated calendar, so we’re not just thinking of it at the beginning of the month. What are we gonna do this month or, you know, even the beginning of the quarter, but we haven’t laid out for like a year or something. Uh, so be more sophisticated about it. But then also it sounds like you’re encouraging a good amount of messaging that’s not fundraising related, has no appeal affiliated with it. It’s just purely informative. Is that okay? Is that are we are we wasting? You don’t feel like we’re wasting opportunities to communicate, wasting opportunities to fundraise if we, if we send something out that doesn’t have an appeal in it.

[00:09:18.34] spk_3:
No, absolutely. I think, um, and this became, I think this came more into focus when the pandemic hit as well. Um, Some organizations, I actually had an easier time fundraising, but many had a more difficult time, fundraising really depended on where they were and what their mission was. But, um, it’s, we always talk about engaging with your supporters outside of fundraising and the importance of connecting with your supporters, making sure they are, are connected with your organization in a way that makes them, um, use the term sticky. You know, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re connected to you and, and they’re not gonna just, you know, I’m going to give you money this month. I’m gonna give somebody else money next month. I know who you are, I know who your people are. I really think that what you’re doing is great. I I understand, you know, your mission and and how you work with people. I know the names of some of your staff members, The more that you can connect with those supporters, the more they’re going to stay with you, the more they’re going to give when they can, they’re going to volunteer when they can. And that became even more important during the pandemic because some people weren’t able to give, some organizations, needed people to give more and you know, appealing to, um, people’s connection with the organization that you’ve built up over time is just so important and not just now, but even more so now I think.

[00:11:47.84] spk_2:
And I think for me it’s, it’s kind of human nature. Right? The first time you meet someone, you’re not going to ask him to marry you right there on the spot. I think there’s got to be that relationship development. Uh, there are different steps along the line, obviously that you need to take to get to know each other better. And I think the same is true for any kind of communication, whether you’re at A for profit company, a Fortune 500 company or a mom and pop type of nonprofit, uh, obviously you have a little bit of a head start because that person has found you. Maybe they joined your list or maybe they came to an event, whether it’s in person or virtual. So you have a little bit of interest there. But with so much noise out there these days, whether you’re trying to connect on social media or even through a podcast, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of noise out there and, and you have to rise above that and you rise above that by maintaining that constant relationship. And you can’t only ask for money. It can only be volunteer appeals. I can’t only be, you know me, me, me, me. I need, I need, I need you have to find a little bit of the reasons why those people connected with you and and speak to that and you have to offer a little bit of yourself too. And there are lots of ways that, that nonprofits can do that. And um, we like to it like you said at the beginning, I think this question was, uh, we do like to be organized with that. Uh, it’s a matter of sometimes nonprofits just looking at what they have, you know, oftentimes when I’ve taught courses, courses on how to create content. One of the things I hear most often is, I don’t know what to write or I don’t know what kind of content to put out there. What will resonate with people. And uh, so that holds them back and then they do nothing. And that’s obviously not a solution. So where we start with with this presentation and where we like to start in general, is to just go through the content you’ve created through the years, we tell nonprofits you’ve probably got hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of content out there. Look at your old blog posts. Look at some of the presentations you’ve done. If you’ve gone to conferences or presented, look at your social media posts, look at documents you’ve put together. If if you have programs, you probably have program information, put some of that together and turn it into something written that you can offer people, uh, and, and start there. And then once you’ve gathered all that information, put it together in a content calendar and be really deliberate about how you’re exposing that material to your audience in order so that it makes sense. And it drives a little bit of

[00:12:06.04] spk_0:
engagement, which is, which is much easier to lay out when you see it in a calendar rather than just you just kind of thinking, well I will do this in May and then this will be in june and you know, but you can be more, you’re more deliberate about it more, I think more sophisticated about it. If you if you when you commit something to writing it makes it makes you think about it more. That’s exactly right. I have a written and

[00:12:29.94] spk_2:
not only that, but you can also add responsibility and whether you have a big team or a small team, you can put names to the tasks that people need to do. You know, tony is going to do this article by this date and get it up on social by this date and there’s a little bit of responsibility there for the work that you’re doing, which I think makes people complete those tasks uh a better way.

[00:12:49.14] spk_3:
Yeah. And frankly, I think it makes it almost easier and simpler so that, you know, it doesn’t seem like quite as big of a mountain to climb. You know, I’ve got all this content to create from this quarter or this year, um, when it’s on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet. And it’s something that just seems more manageable frankly

[00:13:09.94] spk_0:
when anything you want to add about the content calendar before we move on to segmenting your, your

[00:13:15.67] spk_3:
supporters.

[00:13:18.04] spk_0:
Okay, Well I’m willing it’s okay. I feel like we’ve covered the content calendar enough. I’m not trying to, you know, I think so. I think it’s, it’s something

[00:13:50.34] spk_3:
that a lot of nonprofits, um, do. Um, but we also see a lot of nonprofits that don’t do a content calendar and it’s, it’s not difficult. It’s just taking that first step. So we provided people templates, but just just getting it down and finding a way to formalize the process of putting a content together. It’s not that difficult. And it makes a huge difference

[00:14:00.44] spk_0:
helps you organize too. So you can see blog post, you know, maybe some other section on the website newsletter, email, social, social, facebook, social instagram, social twitter, but etcetera. And

[00:14:51.74] spk_3:
it also helps you identify holes in your content. So, for example, um, just as an example, we have some clients who, um, whose mission is focused on raising funds for medical research for a certain condition or, or issue. And they have content that they create for patients and their families, but they also have content that they create for, um, you know, medical experts and they’ll run medical conferences for doctors. Uh, so, um, understanding that they’ve created enough content for each of those groups is also important in having it in a calendar. Um, so you’re, you know, another organization might have volunteer, uh, content aimed at volunteers and content aimed at, at supporters or donors or community members. So just seeing that now, think about what your goals are.

[00:15:12.24] spk_0:
However you’re gonna segment, right? It’s all very orderly. Now. You mentioned templates. I don’t like to tease nonprofit radio listeners without without providing the substance. So can we get this template? Is this somewhere on salsa site or somewhere else? Where? Where?

[00:16:10.04] spk_2:
Yeah, So we we put up a landing page that’s completely in gated as part of the NtC presentation. Uh, it’s salsa Labs dot com forward slash 21 N. T. C. And there’s a little bit of a workbook that goes with the presentation and then of course the presentation slides, PowerPoint and pdf, I think, uh, and the workbook falls along the different sections of the presentation. So the first section is what we just talked about, which is to uh, figure out what you have. You know, go through, take stock of your content, your library, that kind of thing. The second part talks about putting together your calendar and segmenting. And then the third part jumps into really getting organized and then engaging or further engaging, going a little bit further than what you’ve done in the past. And to kind of tag onto the last part you said about or what Wendy said about the content calendar. Oftentimes we see nonprofits look for these templates. Uh, and they’re really just hashtags, you know, if the only communication you’re doing on social media is to put up a post about ST patty’s day or easter or things like that, you need to go a little bit further

[00:16:34.84] spk_0:
in your engagement. That’s not that’s not educating folks. That’s right. On your, on your mission, your work and your values. That’s not going to make them sticky because they can get easter messages anywhere.

[00:16:37.11] spk_2:
That’s right. And they likely are

[00:16:39.75] spk_0:
and they are.

[00:16:40.39] spk_3:
And we’ll tell you though, that the most engagement we get on our social posts are when we post pictures of our dog, there is some value that All

[00:16:49.42] spk_0:
right. Well, I don’t know what that says about the salsa Labs content, you know, talking to the content team. So I’m not gonna All right. Believe that their salsa labs dot com forward slash 21 ntc for the template that craig just talked us through. Let’s go to, uh, a little on segmentation. Who wants to want to kick us off the value of and the depth you should go to. Who wants to

[00:19:35.74] spk_2:
be sure. I’ll take it when it comes to segmentation. The idea is to be able to understand which audience member wants to receive, which message at what time and by what medium there are a lot of different mediums. We can deliver messages through these days and everyone’s busy and like I said before, there’s a lot of noise. So you need to find your way through that noise and the way we believe you do it is through personalization. If you can understand who wants to receive the message when they want to receive it and where they want to receive it, you will have a higher engagement with that person. And this is kind of goes back to the idea of just shooting out a ST Patty’s day message, right? I mean you might get 50 or 60 likes, but if those people never volunteer or they never donate or they never come to an event, what’s the point? Um, you know, it may be, hey, let’s put out a nice message and that’s fine. But at some point you need to generate people to support your mission, whatever that means. So we like to segment in a couple different ways. One of course is looking at what you have in your own crm or your own list and trying to understand demographics about that person and to be able to split them into some sort of discernible category. You know, hey, we’ve got donors here, We have volunteers or we have people who just engage with us on social media. And then if you are doing a lot of sharing on social, which many groups are really trying to match your organization’s message to the right social network and you’ve got people out there who, you know, maybe they have a very intelligent audience, or maybe they have a very specific demographic in their audience and they completely lining up to the wrong network and sharing a message at the wrong time. Maybe they’re sharing it once, instead of sharing it four times over a month or two months. So that different people see that message. So uh part of the workbook that we put together is going a few different places through your analytics and really understanding what your audience looks like and taking some critical uh peaks at your audience and the demographics of your audience, looking through your Crm, and uh figuring out what’s important to your organization. And how do you label those people so that you understand the message that they want, where they’re going to be and then where you can get that message to them.

[00:19:43.64] spk_0:
Mhm. When you want to add to segmentation.

[00:21:01.04] spk_3:
Yeah, I mean there’s it’s a little bit science and a little bit art, frankly, I think. So, there’s a balance between having too many segments and too many groups and having too few segments or groups. So um if you’ve got groups of supporters, there are so many groups of supporters that you’re sending very similar messages to some of the groups that you probably have too many. Um it may be difficult to handle all the messaging. Uh if you have too few groups, the messages aren’t targeted enough aren’t interesting enough to each of those groups. So as you know, Craig was talking about measuring engagement on social media and and looking at analytics for your emails and things like that. And that’s very important. And that’s all the science part. And then there’s a little bit of art uh in terms of, you know, where the messaging can be split, where the different messages make the most difference on how you engage with these folks, what words you use, what you test. Um, so, you know, I think it’s, I think it’s a little bit of both. And it just takes, you know, not nonprofits know their supporters, Right? So it’s really just a matter of sitting down and looking at, um, where they’re engaging, what they’re saying on social media and you know, what they’re reacting to when, when you send them emails or messages.

[00:21:47.24] spk_0:
Well, let’s probe that a little further windy in terms of knowing knowing your people suppose, you know, you know, something, you know, some people prefer email over phone calls or written mail over email, etcetera. But, and you can gauge some depth of interest by giving history, right. If if Humane society gets donations, when cat appeals from certain people and dog appeals are making this very simple. But you know, so then you know who your dog people and cat people are, but I suppose you wanna go a little further. Like uh, you know, who wants to engage on instagram or which of our programs appeal to you, You know? Uh, So I’m envisioning a survey is one possibility. What else? How else we still have a few minutes left.

[00:21:50.50] spk_3:
Okay. So that’s

[00:21:51.29] spk_0:
what you glean. How does, how does segment?

[00:22:08.74] spk_3:
That’s a really good question. It’s actually something we addressed in the presentation uh, in 10. Um, you’re right. A survey is one way and we made some recommendations. You no longer surveys where you, where you ask more than say three or four questions. Um, are something you shouldn’t do a lot of. And when you do, you should probably combine it with some sort of incentive and it doesn’t have to be, you know, you don’t pay people to take the survey, but you know, hey we’ll send you a button or bumper sticker. You know, if you fill out a survey or this is why it’s really important, you know, um at least, you know, appealing to their uh

[00:22:34.47] spk_0:
their interest in your

[00:24:16.64] spk_3:
cause. Um But we also like the kind of one question asks in emails is another way to do it. So if you’re sending emails to people, you can ask a question in the email depending on the tool that you’re using, you can put a link or button in the email and say, hey um do you have a cat or a dog or both? You know at home? Are you, are you a cat parent? Dog parent? Um have them click on that button and then now they’re in a group and the next time you send an email out, they either get a cat picture or dog picture at the top of the email. Um, and it makes a huge difference in engagement. Um, We talk a little bit also about, um, polls on social media. So that’s not going to give you on the, that’s not going to put a particular person in a group, but it can give you information on what people are interested in. So if you’re going to focus on, um, uh, one, you know, if you’re putting together advocacy petition and uh, you know, you need to understand where people are focused on what they’re most interested in. That can help also. Um, but putting a process in place so that your staff understands what kind of data you’re collecting so that when they bring up a donor record because they’re talking to the donor or they’re about to meet the donor at an event, hopefully we’re all doing that soon. Um they can look and say, oh hey, you know, we’re missing this one piece of information or these two pieces of information. So I’m gonna make a note and I’m going to ask them that when I meet with them and I’m going to put it in there and everyone needs to know to collect that information. Um and it, it just makes it easier and, and there’s a whole process we won’t go into now, but there’s a whole process of right figuring out what information is important on and which ones, which pieces of information should affect the message that you’re sending.

[00:24:32.24] spk_2:
A couple years ago, I think last week feels like a couple of years ago, Sometimes for a couple years ago you tony you did a podcast on integrating Crm with your email marketing and other digital.

[00:24:36.70] spk_0:
That was another, that was another NTC, uh 2017 18, something like that.

[00:24:42.40] spk_2:
Yeah, I think it was a while ago, but you know, it’s funny

[00:24:45.29] spk_0:
that nonprofit radio listener thank you for saying that

[00:26:25.94] spk_2:
it’s a great episode and I think it’s important here because obviously salsa is a product that tries to put together all these different marketing mediums and they work well with each other and, and there are other um products out on the market, but we also find that a lot of nonprofits have these disparate solutions and it makes things harder. It makes collecting data harder, it makes engaging harder. And when you have that uh system that pulls it all together, it makes this process easier because when you send an email and someone clicks on it, you get that information in your crm. So these one question surveys that Wendy is talking about. You can do a survey with a cat picture and someone clicks on it. You capture that data. Uh you don’t necessarily have to go to a full blown male pole or social media poll. You can do these things when you’re systems are integrated and pull that information between those systems. And then when you’ve got the information in your crm, you can then pull that information automatically into your email without having to upload or download or move data around. So It works on two ways. One it helps you understand and track the data but it also helps you personalize the emails that you do send. I think if if nothing else uh non profit should know. Just act just just do it. If you’re not sure where to start, just you know, get a message out there and just do it and then measure and track and along the lines of what Wendy said. If you are missing some information, just ask, just ask for it, create a message and send a note and remember when you do get that data to plug it back into your system so that you can use it uh in in many ways in the future. So that’s the important part

[00:26:32.44] spk_0:
two. We’re going to leave it there. Alright, alright, very much Greg gorilla, my pleasure Kraig gorilla content marketer salsa Labs, Wendy. Levin, marketing Director at salsa Labs. Thanks to each of you. Thanks very

[00:26:44.64] spk_2:
much. Thank

[00:30:41.24] spk_0:
you. My pleasure to have you and thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by 20 we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for a break. Turned to communications relationships. We just talked about lasting relationships. The importance of building them. Turn to has them, they’ve got the relationships with journalists. So when there’s something fundraising related or philanthropic related or even more broadly, non profit related, those journalists are going to be picking up the phone when turn to calls them with you your name as a potential source, source of quotes, source of background, source of help. They pick up the phone because they’ve got a relationship with turn to, it’s the relationships that get leveraged for your benefit. Their turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for Tony’s take two. I started the second class of planned giving accelerator this week through the accelerator. I’m helping nonprofits launch kickoff, inaugurate their planned giving programs. I’m teaching members who join with me for a year, teaching them step by step how to start and grow their plan giving programs. The classes are fun. I look forward to them every week that we get together because there’s, there’s live trainings and then there’s Ask Me Anythings and I also do a podcast for them. Yes, there’s a, there’s a, there is a podcast that you can’t hear. You got to be a member of plan Giving accelerator to hear the plan Giving accelerator podcast. You see the symmetry there. So yes, I do a podcast for them too. But these trainings and of course, so we’re getting together for the training and they ask me anythings. I look forward to them. And rumors are that the members look forward to it too. I’ve heard rumors to that effect. So it’s, it’s all, it’s really very, it’s very gratifying, rewarding. Um, it’s fun and folks are starting their plan giving programs and in the first class that started in january, they’re already getting gifts. There’s already a couple of nonprofits that each have a couple of gift commitments already, just three months into the 12-month program. So that makes it enormously gratifying. I’m getting um, my synesthesia is kicking in. I’m getting goose bumps thinking about these groups that, that already have commitments only three months into the thing. So that’s playing giving accelerator. If you think you might be interested in joining the next class, it starts July one and all the info is that planned giving accelerator dot com. Check it out for Pete’s sake. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is love your donors using data. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc, you know what that is? It’s the 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C o. With me now are Shoni field and jen Shang Shoni is chief development officer at the british Columbia Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. S P C A. And jen chang is a professor and philanthropic psychologist at the Institute for sustainable philanthropy. Shoni. Welcome to the show, jen, Welcome back.

[00:30:47.44] spk_4:
Thanks for having us.

[00:30:48.55] spk_3:
Thank you.

[00:31:06.24] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure uh, in talking before we started recording, uh, came to my attention that jen chang now has a british accent, which she did not have when she was on nonprofit radio many years ago when she was at indiana University. So we’ll get to enjoy that. And you’ve been how many years in the U. K. Now jen

[00:31:11.04] spk_1:
Eight years.

[00:31:13.14] spk_0:
Eight years with Adrian Sergeant. I assume he’s still at the institute.

[00:31:16.44] spk_1:
Oh yeah still living in the house to

[00:31:19.69] spk_3:
lose your

[00:31:20.19] spk_0:
house. Oh

[00:31:21.57] spk_1:
you don’t know we’re married sorry.

[00:31:23.17] spk_0:
Oh you’re more than uh philanthropic partners. Oh really? Okay. Were you married? When were you married to Adrian when you were on the show last? Uh huh.

[00:31:32.74] spk_1:
No

[00:31:34.14] spk_0:
your philanthropic psychology brought you together

[00:31:38.64] spk_1:
Absolutely really amazing

[00:31:40.94] spk_0:
mm fundraising fundraising brought you together. That’s wild. Well it’s a it’s a relationship business. So I look at you

[00:31:46.23] spk_1:
you’ve

[00:32:19.74] spk_0:
taken you’ve taken your own science to to heart and to deeper depth than than most people do. Well we’ll give give Adrian my regards, tell him. Absolutely tell him I say hello and hello from nonprofit radio he’s been a guest also. Well look at that interesting. And for those now we’re shooting with video jen has the uh suitable professorial background. There’s papers and thick books everywhere. It’s, it’s really, really quite bad. Oh yeah, there’s, there’s ghost faces up on top um and a crucifix also. So the place is blessed. You

[00:32:25.14] spk_4:
can make up anything about what we’ve got in the background. tony

[00:32:42.44] spk_0:
best mess. Yes, we’ll show me yours is uh yours is, I don’t want to say austere. It’s just uh its proper, you know, you’ve got a couple of framed items and you got a nice uh um um what we call those windows, uh,

[00:32:45.33] spk_4:
skylight,

[00:32:46.08] spk_0:
Skylight of course. Thank you at 59

[00:32:48.14] spk_4:
terrible for when there’s video because it makes the light really horrible. But radio it’s just fine. Yeah,

[00:33:20.84] spk_0:
I know yours is, yours is a like a sort of a gallery background. That’s what I would say. And shen’s is definitely Shen’s jen’s is definitely a professorial background. Okay. We’re talking about loving your donors. Your NTc topic is love your donors using data. So let’s start with Professor shang our philanthropic psychologist. One of, are you the only philanthropic psychologist in the world or just the first?

[00:33:25.74] spk_1:
I haven’t heard anybody else calling themselves philanthropic psychologists.

[00:33:38.14] spk_0:
Okay. So you’re both the first and, uh, and the only, first and only philanthropic psychologist. Okay. I love that you’re married to Adrian Sergeant. Well, that’s, you really took fundraising to new Heights.

[00:33:39.95] spk_4:
Small world fundraising. We all know each other.

[00:33:51.24] spk_0:
Rights, new depths. Yes, But they know each other quite well. Um, All right. So jenn, um, what, what can we learn from here? What, what, what, what, what are we not doing well enough with data that you want non profits to do better.

[00:34:45.14] spk_1:
Um, the first thing that we do that we don’t think nonprofits have spent a lot of time understanding is how people describe their own identities. And when I say when people describe their own identities, I don’t mean just how people describe themselves when they give as a supporter or as a donor, but how people describe themselves as a person outside of giving. Because research after research after research after research, what we found is that the descriptors that people use to describe themselves as a person are not always the same as the descriptors that they used to describe themselves when they think about themselves as a supporter. So not understanding who is the person behind the giving, I personally think is a huge missing opportunity for nonprofits to develop deeper relationship with their supporters.

[00:35:08.24] spk_0:
And what are some of these, uh, mm dis associations or in congruence sees between the way people identify themselves generally and the way they identify themselves as as donors.

[00:36:23.43] spk_1:
So one of the most consistent findings that we saw pretty much in all the data sets we have is that when people describe themselves as a person, they like to describe the morality of themselves. And usually there are nine highest frequency words that people use to describe their own morality and they are kind and caring and compassionate, generous, fair and so forth. And for most charities, you would see quite a large collection of these moral words in people’s self descriptors. But usually you see a smaller collection of these moral words appearing when people describe themselves as a supporter. So what that says to me is that when nonprofits communicate with supporters are about giving, they haven’t connected the giving to their sense of being a kind and caring and compassionate person as well as they could be. Usually you see the word generous, show up and you see the word helpful, show us show up in the descriptor of the supporters, but not the rest of the moral words.

[00:36:44.03] spk_0:
And there’s evidence that using more of the moral descriptors that the individuals would use will increase their giving.

[00:36:57.03] spk_1:
Not only it increased their giving, it also increases their psychological well being, and that is the real missing opportunity here. So when people give out of their kindness and out of their compassion, they feel better. Even when they give the same amount of money.

[00:37:39.73] spk_0:
You studied this really. You can you can gauge and Shawnee we’re gonna come to you. Of course. I I know there’s a practical application at british Columbia. I understand. I just want to flush out, want to flush out the like the limits of the, of the science and then we’ll get to the practical application. Absolutely. Um, All right. So so we can make people feel better about themselves through our non through nonprofit communications, through our communications to them. And they will then, uh, as as a result of feeling better or is it because they feel better than they will give more to our cause or we we just know those two things are correlated, but not necessarily cause and effect.

[00:37:52.63] spk_1:
We first communicate with supporters about there being a kind person and then we see giving increase and then we measure their psychological well being and we see their psychological well being increases.

[00:38:22.72] spk_0:
Okay, So we know that the giving has come first and then then from those for whom the giving has increased. Your then you’re studying their psychological well being. Yes, wow. Through our, through our communications, through our uh, is this what method of communication do we use phone letter?

[00:38:39.42] spk_1:
We have we have a few experiments in emails. We have survey evidence from donors. And we have laboratory experiments from the general population. Okay

[00:38:47.72] spk_0:
let’s turn to show me for the for the application of this uh at the british Columbia. S. P. C. A. What did you do their show me what how did you take this research and use it?

[00:41:16.41] spk_4:
So the and it feels like I’m jumping into the story halfway because I didn’t know how we got there but how we used it was um we worked with jen and her team to do um surveys and research into our donor base because you know, not every donor base is going to have the same characteristics. And so what do animal lovers in british Columbia? Um what are their characteristics of how they identify themselves as a moral person or in that sort of aspirational sense of self? Of where they’d like to? Well, I’d like to get to and supporting the S. P. C. A. As a way of getting there for them. So we we looked at our donors and came back with Jensen, looked at our donors and came and through surveys and research and came back with some some levers that resonated stronger than others with our donors. And so then we could go out and test those with, you know, our controls and then testing these levers and see where we see if we did. In fact, um originally c boosting giving over the long term, then we’ll be able to measure retention because I think with psychological well being would become an increased likelihood of wanting to stick with that relationship that makes you feel great. And so we’re able to measure um with within that field research what then when we put it into into play, what did get higher responses. And then we’ve gone back with jen and her team to study our three tests further and identify how we can build on that. Some of those tests worked better than the others. And so we that gave us some further insight into what we needed to to dig in on. And I think our our first error had probably been, we had all this learning and we wanted to use it all all at once, all in all the same time. Uh, the second sort of round of analysis really helped us be more focused and, and jen refers to allowing donors to breathe into the moment and just really be in that. And so it allow it, it allowed us to identify, yes, there’s a ton of good things we can do, but here we’re going to do three of them and we’re going to do them really well and really focused.

[00:41:18.91] spk_0:
What were some of the descriptors that you found were the levers for your, for your folks?

[00:42:43.90] spk_4:
Well, I mean, there’s so there’s the sort of descriptors of self that jen talked about in the, you know, the generous and loving and kind. Um, and then there’s one of those in particular, uh, dig into more, But there’s also these sort of, um, oh, you know, we call like victorious hope, this sense that there can be, um, that there will be success, that people have had past success in helping rescue animals and they will have future success. And, you know, this comes out of their love for animals. And so we use this victorious hope theme. Um, we we see, uh, personal sacrifice come through and we’re familiar with that from, um, you know, male direct mail that said, you know, just for the price of a cup of coffee a day, you could, you know, you could do this or you could do that, that sense of someone giving something up to get this, this outcome that they want. So we, we’ve used those a lot and we also saw the word loyal come up a lot more, um, than we had, than we had recognized was important. And it makes sense because people’s relationships with their animals are a lot about loyalty. Um, so it makes sense that they’d also value it as in a personal trait, but we’ve, uh, we had already been doing a lot of work around generous and loving and kind and we also increased that, that sense of loyalty.

[00:43:14.90] spk_0:
And now I don’t want any frustrated guests on nonprofit radio So you said, I asked you a question that came in the middle and you you uh, you thoughtfully answered answered the question, so thank you, thank you for that. But but I’ll give you the opportunity to go back if you want to take a minute and explain how you got into the jeans jeans research.

[00:43:19.10] spk_4:
I mean, this is like goes back to weigh like my beginnings as a fundraiser

[00:43:23.10] spk_0:
where a fundraiser

[00:44:01.69] spk_4:
where I got really frustrated with people’s perception of fundraisers as sort of snake oil salesman, you know, in the nonprofit world, there was the program, people who were doing the virtuous work and then there was the fundraiser, people that were, so it was sort of a little like unclean that you were trying to make people. And to me it always felt more like I was helping someone do the work that they couldn’t do themselves because their career had taken them in a different path. Like they wanted to save the environment, they wanted to help someone with the disease. They want they loved animals and wanted to help animals, but they trained as an accountant or they trained as you know, they have run their own business and so

[00:44:17.29] spk_0:
it’s very it’s empathic and magnanimous in the same that they wish they could be doing this good work. But they chose a different path. You have your like your empathetic to them.

[00:44:50.09] spk_4:
So this when I saw gems research of this sort of aspirational sense of self, this really struck a chord with me of like this is the work people wish they could be doing and we all know how we feel when we get to do something that’s really close and really important to us. It feels really great. So that just clicked with me. The sense of if we can help people do the work that they really want to do, but they haven’t been doing because something else does their pay brings their paycheck in and paying the bills is also important. Then we’re all going to be much stronger for it.

[00:44:59.69] spk_0:
And just quickly, how did you find jen’s research?

[00:45:03.89] spk_4:
I mean, this is, you know, I, I followed it around at conferences for quite a while before reaching out and saying, hey, I love this stuff. How can I, how can I do more?

[00:46:09.08] spk_0:
There’s value in conferences. Like, like ntc, there’s value in completely. Yeah, this reminds me of the work that you and I talked about when you were back in indiana before you were married to Adrian Sergeant. And we were talking about a phone research that you had done with public radio. I think it was in bloomington indiana. And you would describe women. I think it was Well, maybe you saw more of an effect that was it. You describe you saw more of an effect with women when the caller from the public radio station would use words to say. You’ve always descriptive words. You’ve always been so loyal to us. Or you’ve you’ve been such a generous supporter of us. Would you would you make a gift again? And you you saw greater giving when the right descriptors were used for those bloomington indiana Public Radio, uh, supporters. So this seems like a continuation. Uh, you know, where your again, it’s the way you describe the donors.

[00:46:16.18] spk_1:
Yes. And it’s not just the way that we describe the donors is the way that donors describe

[00:46:29.48] spk_0:
themselves themselves. Right. And then this increases their feeling of well being, more about that. How did you, how do you measure their sense of well being?

[00:46:32.08] spk_3:
So we, um,

[00:48:00.47] spk_1:
when we started measuring psychological well being, we explored a range of different scales. Um, at the moment, the the several scales that we use most often with nonprofits who haven’t started our kind of communication with supporters, our competence, autonomy and connectedness. Those are the three fundamental human needs that psychologists have studied now for decades. They in in the giving situation, they refer to, um, competence, my ability to make a difference for others autonomy. I have a voice of my own. I’m not giving out of any social pressure and connectedness. I give to make me feel connected with the things the animals, the nature and the people that I want to connect with. Those three needs. If we lack any one of them, we wouldn’t be able to experience well being. So it’s most ideal if any given giving act can simultaneously help people fulfill all three psychological well being. And those are the ones that we have now used most frequently in giving at the range. Um Lower than $500 a year.

[00:48:16.97] spk_0:
Shoni mentioned the next step being written, measuring retention. Have have you seen in your research whether there there is greater retention among the donors who whose well being we’ve we’ve enhanced.

[00:48:41.27] spk_1:
Um, so what we have seen is that um, yeah, the factors that drives giving are not always the factors that drive psychological well being, but if you can communicate with people on only the factors that drives both than that giving is more sustainable.

[00:48:51.47] spk_0:
Okay. Wait, all right. Say that one more time. You’ve been studying this for decades and I’m hearing it for only the second time in like eight years. So okay,

[00:49:35.27] spk_1:
so say, um you have five most important factors that drives giving and you have eight most important factors that drives people psychological well being. You’re five and you’re eight are not always the same, but sometimes they are three that are common between these two sets. If you only use those three to communicate with your supporters and increase giving an increase well being, then you can expect to see repeated increase in giving over time because the same three factors both increased giving and increase people’s psychological well being.

[00:50:29.66] spk_0:
Okay. I see it’s the intersection of the two little circles in the Venn diagram. Okay, You gotta explain this to a layperson, Right? All right. Thank you. Um So, were you So it’s fascinating, fascinating. Um Plus, you’re married to Adrian. I just can’t get over this how this this career has brought you together. I’m just I’m taken by all this. Um, Were you wondering about this back when you did the public radio research? Were you wondering how the description by the by the callers from the public radio station made the donors feel you knew you knew at that point? No, you weren’t thinking She’s shaking her head. You knew at that point that that describing them in certain ways could increase giving. Were you curious then, about how it made them feel? Um,

[00:50:44.26] spk_1:
I think when I first got into fundraising, it was very important to me to find some psychological motivations that can help nonprofits to raise more money. But once I realized that actually, that is not very hard, you can pretty much

[00:50:50.98] spk_0:
like, look, we’re not doing a great job in a lot of ways. Yeah,

[00:50:55.11] spk_1:
I mean, raise money by about 10 really is not hard when, you know, a little bit of psychology,

[00:51:00.15] spk_0:
you’re being more gracious, alright. A

[00:51:48.46] spk_1:
few supporters. Um But to make the giving experience meaningful for people to make the giving experience a part of people’s lives that they treasure. And to make that giving experience and experience that can allow people to experience the kind of life that they would not otherwise have. Those are the things that are hard because those are the things that do not have the the focus that they need and those are the things that I pretty much spent the last 10 years after I graduated from Indiana doing. Because those are the things that gives me meaning in doing what I do.

[00:51:59.06] spk_0:
Sure, let’s go back to you. Uh How much increased giving are you seeing you? I’m sure you’ve quantified this. What differences are you? Are you experiencing?

[00:53:05.55] spk_4:
Well, I mean, we’ve we’ve now tested it in a number of different areas. We, you know, we test it in, uh, we we use it in thank you scripts to our donors. So we don’t, you know, that’s a long term test of if we’re using this, this language consistently and everything, we we play around with the different levers on web forms, um, where we see, you know, we can extrapolate over the year if like, okay, if we use this, you know, we have a form and the form on the donor form, what difference are we going to see? Um, so it’s, you know, it’s hard once it becomes infused in everything you do, you no longer have a test in a control. You have, you have just the way you’re doing it now because you roll it out in all these different ways. I will say. I mean within that first batch of three, we paid for our research. So, you know, we got we we made an investment. We we we learned a ton. We paid for it right away. And then everything after that is, um, is bonus or, you know, is the real game. But it’s, it would be hard to measure at this point because we’re not, we haven’t infused in and everything, but we no longer have, uh, you know, we’re getting there, but we no longer have a sort of test and control where we can say this is the difference

[00:53:24.85] spk_0:
jen where can folks find your research? Is it is it somewhere that we can easily uh,

[00:53:32.90] spk_1:
most of our research is at the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy’s web site. There are freely downloadable.

[00:53:44.55] spk_0:
Okay. At the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy, um, what do you think? Should we leave it there where we explain this adequately that we picked people’s interest? I

[00:54:50.84] spk_4:
don’t I have if you have time, I have one more thing that I really think this work is sort of um a really important bridge between the sort of donor centric, the donor is always right. We’re stroking the ego of the donor and the community centric fundraising models because jen said, you know, this is I give to connect people, give to connect to to other people to the animals. And that I think in that sense of connection and love comes a more sustainable way forward because we don’t have to have this um artificial barrier between the donor and the beneficiary. And we don’t have to talk about, well if we privilege the donor, then it’s at the expense of the beneficiary or vice versa. We can talk about it’s about making connections as humans and and and together working for change and I I see it as a really healthy way forward in that conversation.

[00:55:20.04] spk_0:
That’s a great place to stop. We’re international for this segment from british Columbia and the UK from B C. Is Shoni Field chief development officer at the S P. C. A. Society for prevention of cruelty to animals, the british Columbia and from the UK, jen, chang professor and philanthropic psychologist at the Institute for sustainable philanthropy where you will find all this valuable, valuable research Shoni jen, Thank you very much.

[00:55:24.64] spk_4:
Thanks tony

[00:56:05.34] spk_0:
What a pleasure. Thank you Next week. Susan comfort returns with team wellness as 21 NTC coverage continues. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications, pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. They’ve got the relationships for pete’s sake. Turn hyphen two dot c o r. Creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Mhm. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty

[00:56:07.05] spk_5:
Be with me next

[00:56:25.74] spk_0:
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Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent of your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d grow on Odo polyp ous if I heard that you missed today’s show. Reducing donors Abandonment From Amazon to Zappos There’s a lot you can learn from e retailers to keep your donors in the checkout stream as they make their online GIF ts Our nineteen anti seat panel Matt Scott and David de Para Lisa reveal proven e commerce strategies to increase online gift completion. Matt is from cause *** and David is at Give lively and welcome your donors the right way. Your donors now complete their online GIF ts at record rates. Have you got an in? Have you got in place? A multi-channel welcome and nurture Siri’s to receive and steward these new donors. Our panel will get you started. They’re brenholz is with C ch and Chrissy hyre from innovation that’s also recorded at nineteen and TC. I’m Tony Steak to be the one we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled. Tony Dad, I’m a slash pursuing by weather CPAs guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner cps dot com and by text to give mobile donations made easy text NPR to four four four nine nine nine Here is reducing donor Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of nineteen ninety si. You know what that is? It’s a non-profit technology conference coming to you from the convention center in Portland, Oregon. This interview, like all are nineteen ntcdinosaur views is brought to you by our partners at Act Blue Free fund-raising Tools to help non-profits make an impact. My guests now are Matt Scott sitting closest to me. He’s CEO of Cosmic and David De Para Lisa, CEO of Give Lively Welcome Welcome mat. Welcome, David. Thank you. Thanks, Tony. Pleasure. Pleasure to have you on DH mascot. Welcome back to non-profit Radio. Thank you. It’s good to be back. All right. Your topic here today is reducing donor. What’s a copy from e retailers? David, why don’t you get us started? What? Give us the Give us the headline in the lead. Sure. So this session is intended to help non-profits think about the full life cycle of thie experience of making a donation and all of the elements that could result in someone dropping off from completing a donation way. Want to, you know, bring in expertise from the consumer world. The world that most everyone lives in on apply it to this non-profit space. Okay. And just so in case there’s any question want you define abandonment for us. So someone starts a starts to donate two or starts thie intent, or has the intent to donate to your cause and then leaves in the middle of it. Right? Okay. Yeah. Okay, Matt, anything you want to add to the overview of our session? Yeah. I mean, I think when we’ve had a lot of conversations, one of the thing that I really enjoy about David’s perspective is you No way. Think about Amazon. One click check out. Right. We think about Netflix in terms of, you know, the user experience that we’re all used. Teo and I think that if we can copy some of those things and move them over to the non-profit space, we’re going to be a head as an industry. But if we’re thinking on ly about competing against other non-profits from a donor experience, we’re going to find ourselves in a lot of trouble because you’re starting setting the bar too low. You’re setting Well, yeah, you’re absolutely setting the bar too low, because we, as consumers, are also the people who are donating to charities, right? And if our expectation is for it to be a seamless process to collect a little information as possible to have unique, engaging content delivered to us if we’re not thinking like that as a nonprofit organization, we’re missing out on consumer behavior, which are the e retailers, that you want us to learn from that really broad base. So you know, we’re inspired by Amazon Zappos to some degree you thie experience at an Apple store, which, you know, in a way, is a kind of hybrid retail experience and generally taking best practices from that space broadly, even if it is in a specific retailer, it’s It’s some of the elements of what makes Annie retail experience common. For example, a simple donation, a simple check out flow a a checkup, though that doesn’t ask many questions but lets you get through it as fast as possible. A one click check out a digital wallet capability, the’s air, things that have worked for the for-profit sector and non-profit sector is catching up and we hope to help them get there. Yeah, why? What’s the What’s the problem? Why so slow? I mean, we’re all experiencing these things on the e commerce side. Why were we not recognizing that? Uh, the analogy between our our donors and ourselves as consumers? What’s the disconnect? I would say that there’s an access issue. There’s an access to technology that brings the retail style practices to the non-profit. Sectarian give Lively is a response to that problem, which is looking at the world of non-profit tech and seeing that elements like digital wallets are not common, that something that isn’t available in the A lot of other platforms but that is available on the give lively platform. So it’s those types of things that have kept non-profits behind. I mean, unfortunately, platforms or not innovating as fast as they can. And they’re not innovating with the consumer mindset that that us in just a few other players are. Okay. All right, so I started to add to that one of the things that I think is really interesting working with established non-profits, You know, you you look at these behemoths and they are their worst own worst enemy When it comes to technology, you look at the younger, more rapidly growing organizations, and those are the ones that are really out there able to adopt new technologies quickly. They’re not constrained by existing say, CR M systems or their, you know, existing, you know, ways of doing things. And and when you when you take a tool like give lively and you put it out there and you integrate with the C R m like sales force, you unlock that potential. And I’ve seen it time and time again, where established non-profits in particular they are their own biggest hurdle when it comes to getting getting in line with e commerce. Best practice? No. All right, all right. So why don’t you kick us off, Matt? What? Uh, let’s get kicked off with what we should what we should be learning. Where do we start? Yeah, I mean, I think David brought up a lot of really good points in terms of Amazon, and you’ve got, you know, a donor experience. But then what I’m really interested in and I think where we complement one another is on the content side. And so I like to always start with you know who is your target audience? What is the unique user experience that that person or persons wants tohave with your brand? And how can you make sure from the moment that they interact with your brand and are brought to your page to your checkout form that they understand you’re unique market position? And so I think that that’s really important to have a singular content strategy that’s very user focused. And, uh, if it’s okay handing it over to David because I feel like that’s where he picks up in terms of the e commerce checkout process and where that’s really critical in terms of the transition from content to check out. OK, yeah, I noticed matter-ness were on Mike, you’re more deferential than, uh Well, then all this *** that you were giving me before before. Before I turn the mike on, why don’t we talk about monthly giving, for God’s sake? But all of a sudden, my cousin, he’s like, uh, if you don’t mind, I’d like to pass it over to David. Very interesting. There can only be one New York around like you’re dominating. Yeah, you multiple turned. You know, talk about talk about best. I’m gonna start the guest personas start start creating that that is surrounded by New Yorkers right now. Yeah. You know, you’re only here. He’s being into forced deference. A submission sametz Alright, yes. Well, I’ll take your suggestion. The matter very politely requested It’s time for a break Pursuing the art of first impressions how to combine strategy analytics and creative to captivate new donors and keep them coming back. That’s their e book on donor acquisition and had to make a smashing first impression with your potential donors. You will find it on the listener landing page at Tony that I may slash pursuing capital P for please. Now back to reducing donor-centric. Share your expertise. You did tick off a bunch of things. I wallet went one click, check out seamless, but we got we got a lot more time together that way. Gotta go into some detail. Yeah, and so you know, at first I think it be helpful too. Acknowledge what Matt mentioned in terms of thinking about storm the content, right? And the thing that keys in for me there is thinking about how the experience starts at the level of the ask and then the level of the intent of the donor. So to reduce abandonment, you want to get the right person to the checkout flow, right? So you want to start with the right people who respond to that message. And so you know what that’s doing It cosmic is creating messages that resonate at a very granular level with different constituencies in such a way that when they get to the checkout flow, they finished the check out great. And I think that okay, that thread is a thread that involves technology because it’s not only the channels in which that message is being sent, but then it’s how that story is represented on the donation page and through the check outflow and even after the checkout float. Okay, we’LL come back to that. I understand ITT’s all of spectrum. Yes. Ah, movement a process, Matt. What? The different how we identify the different constituencies for these granular messages. Yeah, No, you’re you’re getting at is like, what are the technical steps that need to be put in place? So let’s just take acquisition is a great example, right? So you’re you’re going to post up a variety of ads like paid social. And if you set up separate landing pages with separate checkout forms, that’s one way of identifying. You know, this ad directly relates to this check out page, and there is a continuum of content once you arrive there at that page and you know they arrived from there because you’ve set up different ones. The content can then be dynamic essentially for that constituents. And that’s where David talks a lot about stealing your thunder here. But you know, you you have you have that check out for him. That’s asking for his little information as possible. So capturing that email address in that zip code and getting right into the payment and and you’re getting right down to the nitty gritty then you’re worrying about Okay, now that I’ve already got this information, what additional information do I need to provide? But I’ve already processed the donation. That’s right, Yeah, So it’s thinking about what is Germaine to the donation experience as the only things that you should be asking a donor before the payment is actually made. You want to capture the dollars, so every affair to say, like with his few distractions, is possible. There’s no need to have AH on issue video on your or issue photos on your on your checkout page for donation. The person has already moved by your issues. Well, it depends in their different ways that that can be implemented. One way would be to have a page that’s both telling the story and allows you to make that seamless donation in the same view. Okay, and there’s some that do the jump, right? So there’s a storytelling page, and then you jumped to a donation form that’s on a different page, and I’ve seen it done both ways and, you know, way See it work both ways really depends heavily, though, upon how they get there, right? Like if they’re coming to your they’re experiencing your brand for the first time, where they haven’t, you know they need to be informed, right? And so another best practice is having called toe actions throughout your page. Right? So you’re not just one. So you’ve got big, strong, powerful image or something that draws that user in from a content perspective in a high c t es of donations and I think Sita Way got drug in jail on non-profit radio. A cz a previous guest Disappointed you didn’t know that lock myself away is a call to action, right? And to that point, I mean, I think that’s that’s another best practices. Give lively donation check out form can be embedded into your existing site so you can have this microsite like, let’s say, taken unbound page right. And you know that you’ve set up this unique page and you’ve got the both the story there and the narrative there, and then you’ve got a call to actions throughout the page. That’s best practice, because as they move down the content, there’s lots of opportunities to make that contribution. Okay, what’s an unbound page they’re not paying me to talk about on? I’m just kidding. Way were, It’s a wonder. Anything anyone think it’s a tool. You keep this up, I’m shutting your Michael Fair Fair. It’s a it’s a landing page tool that is really easy to use in turn end of setting up unique content on DH. Then you Khun, track that you know someone lands on that page and you contract that they came into your database specific to that content. Okay. Okay. So this is we’re getting to our segmentation of constituencies. Okay, Okay. All right. So now let’s go back to David. What more can you say about place? Things you need to have in place? Sure. So you know one thing that this let’s start at the very kind of high level, which is that a donation form should work if you’re going to reduce it. Abandonment of your donation form one. Someone’s in it. It better work on a mobile device, but it’s kind of a simple statement, but we’ve got to be passed out by now. I mean, everything should be mobile, but that’s not a body. But that’s not always the case. And they’re still donation forms out there that are asking for. I like to joke. It’s there asking for everything but your blood type. You know, it’s a it’s a twenty eighty step form that. Then at the end, you have a credit card entry field. Maybe, and maybe there’s an error in that process. Just over what kind of stuff? They all asking. But I don’t dare ask me. Study this So they’re asking for. You often will see full mailing address, even if that person has no is a digital savvy your digital only person. They’LL ask questions about, perhaps, how they got to our learned about the cause, which is a good question asked. But maybe not before the dollar is captured and can be inferred by some of the tracking that’s occurring. That brought them to the patient was That’s right, pages, etcetera. Okay, um, you know there are even in how the payment information is presented is an element that can be very confusing. So for some donation forms, they make you type or choose whether it’s a Visa card instead of just detecting. Yeah, why did he do that? I know it. And I can tell by the first digit they could tell that the battery ditches first for Justin. It’s welcome. And that’s not even that’s not unique to non-profits Know that. Was there e commerce mary-jo just to say that? I said, That’s laziness on behalf of those building those forms, okay, or that’s lack of capacity. Shoes is a diner’s club or MasterCard or visa or markets. It’s laziness. I mean, it’s easy to detect. It should be present on every single page is interesting. All right. So I don’t know if listeners were interested, but I am well, but it’s, you know, but the channel there are there’s data that shows that every, you know, hub spot ran a study and show that when you increase the amount of fields that you ask a person to complete, you end up over about two to three fields total. You get a fifty percent drop off. Oh, so it’s that high so And once you get to eight, which is many of what he’s talking about, right, you’re down to its well under single digits of conversion rate, which is a dismal. If you think about like you have a really strong contents from the person was into it, they made their way to your donation return until you ask them for their blood type. Yeah, I I also will say one of my pet peeves that, you know, non-profits continuously asked people for the same information over and over and over and over again. Right? So you know who this constituent is? You’ve sent them this email communication. You already know who they are there in your database, and you ask them to re identify all that information again. For what? Like why? You know, when you go to Netflix and you have your subscription to Netflix, they’re not asking you. Or if you’re in Dollar Shave Club and you decide to get shaving cream on top of your razor, no one’s asking you. By the way, could you tell us like what you’re you are in? Yeah. Like right? No, we know. Okay, save it and stop asking for repetition. All right? Yeah. Consolidate. I mean, consolidate fields as much as possible. Don’t ask for the same inspiration twice. What’s essential? I mean, I’m all right, so I’m thinking of the quintessential, you know, the Amazon checkout. It’s been so long since I did. My first time was on a purchase like everybody else. I obviously can’t remember that, but what? What, What? What, what? What’s actually essential. So I mean so in my view and the view that informed to give lively donation platform when we first launched it, it was nothing more than identifying information about that donor. First name last. Actually, in the very early days, not even first name and last name email address, payment information. That was it. You know, now there’s a little bit more in terms of full name, just enough to make sure that we’re doing receding the right way and all of the all of the tax deductible benefits, by the way. So payment information that includes the billing address You have to have the billing and not include Okay, so rate. So let’s get really specific. So it’s It is literally first name, last name, email address and credit card information, meaning nothing more than the number, the expiration date and the CVC code so you can process the donation without without telling you that’s not required. That’s right. And, uh, you know, one of our favorite partners that cosmic is another organization called touchpoint, which is amazing. You give them just too little little tip bits of information like about Tony. We’d find out what kind of bagel heeds you know on Wednesday because they can pull back all that information for for only thirty cents per constituent and give you everything about them. What property they own, what, what non-profits They give to their address everything, and so that’s One of the reasons why we like to give lively platform is you can take as little information as possible, get that donation and then just pay thirty cents. Because if you have drop off, that goes, you know, down fifty percent. When you’ve asked more than three questions, why not ask just as few questions as possible and go pay thirty cents for that information somewhere else? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you cannot go, and that’s getting into very sophisticated strategies in terms of augmenting date. Instead of asking for things up front, find other ways to get at it. You know, there are social networks that have advertising networks that have ways to link. For example, email address is back, too. Uh, that social, so that you don’t necessarily need to ask them. So then you learn more about that donor to those networks through your own work, rather than asking and risking the abandonment. That’s right, just the frustration do of it. Okay, um, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say I think David should speak a little bit about, you know, the digital wallets, and that’s that is absolutely game changing when it comes to best practice. So take it from here. Thanks. So and we’LL get a mascot non-profit radio things there latto longest running part kapin most listen to podcasts. It’s also in order Mobile off deferential and generous welchlin the mike is on. Yeah, yeah, B b cut. Well, good to have Tony back on the show. I just like so we, you know, hear Give life. So that another session, actually that that I’m leading called digital while it’s so hot right now and in that session will talk about digital wallets. The concept. I mean, digital arts have been around for a long time, but in examples of them are PayPal. Apple pay, Google pay the’s are one click payment options that have in them a variety of security protections and data that gets easily shared without having to ask that door faster. Just talking about All right, so there’s no entry. What? You’ve entered a credit card once you’ve entered your address once, and you’re just using it over and over again in in this example of donation form on. They’re incredibly powerful, and they are people use them. The level of, you know, penetration of mobile wallets. is increasing increasing at all age groups, but particularly with younger foe. But in non-profits well, very few have actually have ever had access to it. So our platform has digital wall So you’LL see See it in. For example, If you go to malala dot org’s that’s one of our partners right on their home page You’LL see if you have a wallet on apple pear Groupe browser that you’re on you’LL see those buttons right there and you can make that donation very quickly If you’re on your phone, you’LL see it there. But most other platforms are not offering that service or they’re just now offering that service eso And but this is a service that we’re used to write. So think about buying a cup of coffee at a on using square and tapping with apple pay. You’re not. I also think like it would be it would be troubling if we didn’t at least mention this best practice for me. Commerce, which is the classic upsell, right? So I think one of the areas that I’ve seen the wall it works so well is when you’ve got you’ve got a recurring donorsearch, right, you’ve got this person who’s a member of your tribe, right? And one of our client team, Rubicon, stands out. Our mercy corps stands out where you have these sustaining donors who give monthly right. Then you have this urgent appeal that comes up. And because you have a really robots content strategy and your quantifying the impact of their recurring gift, you send them a text message that is a simple is them putting their thumbprint on to authorize an additional one time contribution for a wildfire in, you know, Northern California or whatever. It is incredibly effective for up selling for those who are on a subscription model a CZ. Well, as you know, you attend an event or whatever it is, it’s an easy way to take that best practice for me. Commerce, which is your existing customers, are your best potential you know, customers for for an additional service. Yeah, yeah, and those you know, those buttons should be front and center. So no ineffective donation form to reduce abandonment shows you easy ways to pay up front and suggests the best way to pay right on, right on that first screen. So, you know, looking at a donation from that works. Well, is one that may say you’re making a twenty five dollar donation monthly. Tap this one button and you’re done. You’re you’ve not even moved beyond that first page. You’ve really not even asked any additional questions of the user because the answer’s air embedded inside of a digital wallet payment s o very low friction. Easy to make donations much more secure. One of the objections of her, uh, from’s arounds streamlining like we’re talking about is the preservation of credit credit card information. Because then that then you’re implicated with Peace PCL complaining PC exactly that So that an acronym fell? No, not when I do it. Ok, ok. Thank you. Thank you. It’s personal. Personal credit information watching your mike is going down. It’s already been slowed down. You hear yourself? But no one else will. Yeah, I notice you’re only asking David questions. You know, I don’t not only get to speak. He says, Can I say something? I, uh, thought I should mention here is because Tony is not going to ask me. All right, so now you’re now you’re in your you’re implicating PC I compliance requirements, But if you’re accepting, you use digital wallets, you’re not. You’re not personally. You think the organization is not preserving the the information right? It’s the I don’t know what it’s called the host of the host of the wallet. Yeah, exactly what they were getting into the payment process. Non-profit. The payment process apparently doesn’t have to save the Yeah, I mean, I hope. And if I I hope no one listening to this who’s who is working for a nonprofit is ever dealing directly with PC high compliance like they should be using a vendor who is shielding them from that level of risk because that’s incredibly risky and a lot of a bureaucratic burden in order to get PC I compliant. So the payment processors under the give lively platform are stripe papal. Those air both PC I complaint writers in the case and in all cases platform like you’ve lively, never has access to a person’s donor-centric our information directly and through a wallet. What’s really smart about wallets is how they hide. Even they create one time use credit card numbers. Essentially, that’s an easy way to think about it. One time use numbers that he used every time you make a purchase so that there’s no one number goes down or gets, you know, used inappropriately, and it’s not affecting any other element of your credit history. So it’s secure on hidden from both the payment provider themselves as well as a platform for writer. No, certainly the non-profit. Okay, man, I’m gonna give you a break, actually, and I feel bad. I don’t really feel bad, but I’ll say I feel bad about the way I’ve treated you. So I’m going to give you the going to give you the wrap up because we just have, like, a twenty or thirty seconds or so let you clue how generous cosmic from clolery Thank you. Uh, I would say for any non profit organization who is out there, think about to yourself. What is the experience that you did? You really just turn? No. Okay. So paranoid. I don’t take my word for it, I guess. Think about the experience that you have with the brands that you love and think about how you feel when you’re asked lots of questions that are unnecessary and and try and channel that when you’re setting up your your donation form or when you’re selecting your vendor toe work with to process your donations because it’s that that’s the standard. The standard is not other non-profits. The standard is not your system that you’ve been using for three decades, and it works because it’s what we always used. The standard is how we interact with brands on a daily basis and how we spend our money on a daily basis, and it’s really important to think about that. Those brands have raised the bar your donors are experiencing that that high level of, of, of, of purchase flood. He’s he’s thank you, and they’re coming to expect it from you. That’s right, Yeah, Unless unless they abandon the process, that’s right and, you know, and then give Lively’s case, just plug us for a second. You know, we don’t charge money for our for access to our platform, so we’re enabling non-profits use digital wallet type technology and have that access and not have to pay for it. And I think that’s something unique, and I hope people take advantage of that. All right. It was shameless self promotion, but allowed with bilich thinking, I feel like I’m with the two Smart through smart promoter from cookies. Permit me to say Young Young Seo’s fifty six. I can’t say that. Alright on DH They are Matt Scott’s Yo of Cosmic and David de Para Lisa, CEO of Give Lively, and this is Tony martignetti non-profit Radio coverage of nineteen ntcdinosaur non-profit Technology Conference This interview Like all our nineteen ninety seon reviews brought to you by our partners at Act Blue Free fund-raising tools to help non-profits make an impact. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. We need to take a break. Wagner, CPS. They’re free. Webinar came and went. It was tips and tricks for your nine. Ninety. You missed it. No problem. Watch the archive. Yes, the archive learned how to use your nine ninety as a marketing tool. The thing is so widely available from GuideStar Charity Navigator Attorneys general, Probably your own website. Let the nine ninety promote your work. That’s what the webinar helps you with. Wagner cps dot com Quick seminars, Then go to April. Now, time for Tony’s Take two be the one. This was inspired by a re union that I attended and had a hand in Ah of Air Force of former Air Force missile ears. We were all working in the Reagan years on Minuteman. Two nuclear missiles were all missile operators at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, and we got together way left there in the late eighties. We’ve been together a couple times, but only eyes our third time. So ah, lot of people haven’t been seen for years, and some even never even came to their other reunions. But the idea of everyone coming together, um, sharing old stories coming together like like it had been just a week. And for some, it’s been thirty years since we’ve seen them, but that common bond. So I encourage youto get people together from the different phases of your life, whether it’s elementary school, high school, college, whatever. Grad school, military neighborhood. If you’ve got ah, if you’ve got this, I don’t know. Affinity group sounds kind of formal, but if you’ve got these group of people, these folks who know each other and shared something, it’s such fun to get them together. It’s rewarding. It’s gratifying. It’s just it feels like being a kid again. Do it, do it. That’s what the video is about and you’LL find that video at tony martignetti dot com That is Tony’s Take two Now that a hundred percent of your donors complete their online gif ts u want to welcome them the right way? Here’s that from twenty nineteen non-profit Technology Conference Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio coverage of nineteen NTC non-profit Technology conference coming to you from the convention center in Portland, Oregon. This nineteen ninety si interview, like all of ours, is brought to you by our partners at ActBlue Free fund-raising Tools to help non-profits make an impact with me are brenholz homes and Chrissy hyre. They’re both with Chapman, cubine and Husi. Brenna, seated next to me is vice president for digital services and Chrissy is vice president Innovation Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back to each of you. You, you and Brenna has disclosed that thes these interviews have a secondary purpose for her. Chrissy, I’m sorry. Kinda married. That’s not Christy. Christy has disclosed there’s they have a dating. They have dating power. They do so definitely. Come on the show. Yeah, because your your dates will google you. They will find your non-profit radio interview. Yeah, and when they do that? I want you to inquire about the host. I’m really not interested in what they thought of your performance, What they think about the host and then let me know if it’s positive on Lee was not positive. It’s not positive. Silence is best. Just carry on with your date after that ostomel of that. That’s it. But we’re not talking about dating. We’re talking about making them well, we are actually making love you. Yeah, welcoming donors the right way is your your session topic. Um so, Chrissy, what a zoho overview. What are non-profits not getting quite right about welcoming? Let’s start with first time donors and will evolve in the conversation from there. But what we’re not doing quite right. Yeah, So I mean, you know, Brenna says this really Well, actually, but you really only get one chance to make a first impression. And so one of the things that a lot of organizations don’t do particularly well is showing folks exactly how much they care about the gift that folks are giving to them. And so, you know, one of the things that we really focused on our session today was thinking through. What are the ways that you connect people back to your mission back to the work that you’re doing, making them really understand the impact of the gift that they’ve just given and building that connection in that relationship so that they’re ready to take that to the next level, so to speak and give you another gift? Okay, on Brenda, how do we get started thinking about this process that we have for for donors? Yeah, think about everything from multi-channel perspective very much, not just the channel they gave the gift in, but really talking to them in multitude of ways. Because, as you know, everybody’s over saturated in lots and lots of media on DH non-profits have to do more and more to stay top of mind, get keep that good feeling moving forward to maintain that share of wallet as well. So the first thing that you start with, like especially for online donors, very appropriate here for Auntie Si is making sure that you’re customizing the confirmation page and the auto respond or email to that donation. A lot of it is just like the default setting. Non-profits never remembered a change on just updating that can go very long way customizing the confirmation page and the acknowledgement letter that yeah latto respondent your mail going a little bit further and adding direct mail into the mix by sending your online donors direct mail. Acknowledgement letter goes even more like We love that wonderful. Now I did have a panel just maybe an hour or so ago. I want half ago. That said, you know you want to keep your donation process streamlined, Ask a few questions possible now, in order to get the the direct mail address. That’s going to be another level of questions you have to ask. Well, no, You mean you pretty much can’t make a credit card donation without putting in the billing address anyways, so it’s already part of the foreign fields to process again. OK, well, not according to those two guys. I guess it depends on the platform. Two friends on your processor, I guess. Sure, right? Yeah, they were saying they were pretty clear that you do not have to ask for address. You can, but you don’t have to. The majority of non-profit websites today do they do rice. But their point was, that’s not the best idea. Right, But But now so well. But this is not in conflict, right? We gotta bring this tio black and white. Everything not so clear. So, you know, I mean, you’re saying that’s a lycan ideal process. Ideal practice. Acknowledging an online gift, I’LL find through the mail offline. Okay, there could be another way of acknowledging that online gift could be through phone. A phone number could be another way. Okay, uh, Wes life calls. Auto House. Okay. Latto caught was latto calls. Yes, was a pre recorded call very inexpensive that, like the executive director of the organization, can record. And you send that to all of your new donors to welcome them to the organism. Thank them and welcome them. Yep. Okay. Interesting. Um, okay, Uh, I’m not sure. So we’re way. Start with audit of our current process. Always a place to start. Okay. What are we looking for? What? Some common sticking points and bad practices that we want to be conscious. Seldman are loaded. So we’re looking at, like, what already goes out, right? What’s the default? So again, for online donors, there is the default confirmation page. That’s usually very receipt transactional basis that has all of the semi critical information from the processors point of view. But it’s not very donor-centric on DH. It certainly doesn’t show the impact that the gift is going to make for the non-profit who’s receiving the donation. Same thing with that otter responder email. It’s generally plain text, very receipt based. Well, we want to do is build out stewardship touches like turned these receipts into nurtured opportunities so that people are bonding with the organization and moving past that transactional relationship. Same thing with their direct mail receipts. You know, most organizations send them out, at least to their direct male donors, if not also to their online donors. But you can improve upon the look and feel of that package, make it really stand out in the mailbox so that it doesn’t look like one of your fund-raising appeals. Or it doesn’t look like a bill from, you know, your health insurance company or anything else right on DH. Just show that love right up front. No one has ever said, Stop thanking me like in the history of effort, So that’s something that we’re constantly trying to reinforce with that, and then the newer, like the newer channels, all of the innovation with SMS and auto calls, or even live calling like those air usually add on so they wouldn’t show up in your audit. But they’re nice iterations to go above and beyond on DK and be done with volunteers and things like that out of my Mahler’s remembers. I love a working board. Yeah, put him to work, Christie. What you wantto I mean, I think that that’s exactly right. Everything Brenna said. I think the one thing to consider and your audit as well is making sure is, Brennan noted, at the top of our conversation about that multi-channel experience. So just because someone is giving online, don’t assume they don’t want to hear from you offline. You know, a lot of us almost all of our media interactions are happening in on a screen. And so to actually get that piece of paper is something that people really remember really means a lot to them, and it’s significant. The other thing is, don’t be afraid to reach people on their phone to think them. You know, a lot of people have sort of a bad taste in their mouth about what telemarketing is. Nobody’s gonna be upset if you call them to say thank you. And nobody’s gonna be upset if you text them to say thank you. And if you text them to say thank you, they’re definitely gonna see and they’re definitely gonna remember it. Okay, Um, so after we have our audit, what’s our next step? We got it. We got to start improving improving our practices. Copy. Maybe a little bit of time. Couple steps in time. Your creative Seymour Brennan. Yeah. So it’s, you know, it is about building up the that content into both being relevant for that specific donorsearch for Don’t hurt I ppe Did they make a one time gift at what dollar value did that dollar value kicked them into e-giving circle of some level. And then you need to acknowledge that in a separate way, you can also use the type of appeal that they responded Teo to enforce. Thank you. Copy as well. So like, did they respond to something about puppy mills versus something about horse meat? Like having that content flow through into the acknowledgement program and into the welcome Siri’s afterwards to keep them going tohave a next action opportunity eyes A fantastic way to start. Is it right that our first time donorsearch retention read? Uh, non-profit wide is like around twenty five percent. We typically see closer to a third to being healthy, but oh, I’m going down. I’m citing how bad it is. Yeah, it has been going down is going down. It is going on the wrong direction we got. And that’s honestly, like a lot of that data is coming out around the last few quarters of twenty twenty eighteen. So there’s a lot of reasons right now as we kick off year to start really thinking about how you’re bonding people to the organizations that you’re fund-raising for. All right. All right. Um, we’ll also talk about designing a multi-channel welcome and nurture nurture. Siri’s is that Is that basically what we’re talking about? Our nurture. Siri’s a little bit. I mean, I think I think the acknowledgement process should be part of that nurture mint, right. It’s the first interaction for a lot of organizations post that gift. The first outbound communications and a lot of ways s oh, it’s a natural bridge to the welcome Siri’s and kind of steward that stewarding them throughout that relationship. So longfield we should not be setting anything and forgetting about it. Everything needs to be very conscious decisions about what copy we’re sending to who, what content they’re getting when on the touchpoint. I mean, all of the data that we have shows that the more of those pieces of touch our personally identifiable information right, like whether it’s postal address or email address or phone number, the more of those contact point that we have on for a constituent hyre their retention will be and the hyre their value will be to the organization on a lifetime level. So, like while it might be easier to not get that postal address, I want that postal address. There’s so much more value. Okay? Yeah, You know what? There there are other Point was don’t do it in the donation. All right, that’s in the donation on the donation pages. Waken ask for that later on that they may be right after the gift is made. Would you like to share your your mail? Now that makes it option over. Okay, Right. But then it raises the question of why, right? You which you have to have a good answer, would like to be able to think we’d like to be able to send you something. I don’t know. All right, but, you know, incentive based. Thank you. They’re always like people love swag. So you could do that. That’s definitely an office sticker and done in Dustin. Yeah, okay. What they done Injustice e. Did you get dates with the kind of lines like that? This’s kind of witty banter like that. Future dates or watching? Amazing. Oh, my God. You’re turning right there. Okay, so I just realized I just put two and two together. You that’s gonna happen in the future, too, is not only in the past. Oh, my God. And this is going to be more relevant. More, more. It’s a more recent about making love you. So in other words, what do you think of the host? That’s what I want to know. Okay. Uh, Christy date. What do you think of the host? Keep which it’s Tony. As tony martignetti dot com is the best way. Or you can use the contact page at tony martignetti dot com from and I never hear from you again. I think the time you said I think, think of the time I’m saving you. Thank you so much if they come, if they beating you up, I feel about you know if if they make it through over this threshold, right and you know that it’s it’s really more than yeah, it’s more than superficial thinking past this. They say they watch the whole video like we haven’t gotten into a ton of things, but I can try to learn more. We’LL see Next time just roughly halfway in thistle happened roughly twelve minute mark. So? So if they hear this, they making twelve minute mark. You know, I think there’s potential definitely beyond the average. Definitely all right time for our last break text to give. Get their five part email. Many course to dispel myths around mobile giving. You know donations don’t have to go through the donors phone company that puts a cap on GIF ts. There’s a smarter way with no cap. Mobile giving does not have to be limited to single or double digit gif ts. To get the email. Many course. Dispel the myths you text NPR to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine. We’ve got lots more time for welcome your donors the right way. Okay, so we’re, like only halfway in. So what else do we need to talk about if you don’t? Your panel yet? We did it. So one third, seventy five minutes. Talking about what else? What else? On Let’s broaden it a little bit now. So not on ly first time donors, but volunteermatch comes a donor. Small, small gift donorsearch a mid level or higher level donor. What do we need to do to make them love us? Chrissy? Yeah. So I think this is actually really great question. So thank you for asking. It s o. You know, essentially, I think that there are ways Tio Tio integrate people into new parts of our organization. I think one of the easiest things for folks to understand is upgrading folks to monthly giving. And how do you start to think those people in a way that feels really special and bonds them to that program you already know? They’re exceptionally bonded to the work that you’re doing. And so how do you start to think them in a way that makes them feel like, Oh, my gosh. Now we’re part of an even more special piece of this community, right? So, you know, in our session, we talked a lot about you know, when you, for example, are thinking a monthly donor. Often do you want to thank them? Do you wantto Brenda calls it waking the bear. You know, where you kind of like your calling out to them? Do you want to tell them? Every month you’re giving me a monthly gift, and then, you know, where do you want? Oh, yeah. You know, you want to take him every month. I mean, so there we were talking about it also talked about splitting the baby there because there are philosophical differences and conversations there. I think the that standard used to be Don’t wake the bear, right? Don’t remind them that they’re giving every month they will leave. Oh, my gosh, that can’t be it anymore. We all have so many subscriptions in our life, whether it’s Netflix or Lulu or you know, all of these things, that if they don’t feel good about it, then when the card expires or is stolen or core compromised not going to bother and I drop them might drop it, right? So So we had some people in this action that we’re talking about quarterly, right? Maybe kind of following up in a different way, a different time period. So it’s not every month, but I think you can do monthly as long as you are using it as a nurture touchpoint. It’s not just a receipt like you don’t want anything you give to your donors to just be a throwaway effort. If you’re taking the time to send it, you wanted to actually mean something to them. So if it’s literally just a receipt, how much value does that really provide? Like not a lot. OK, so something impactful for that month. Way reached. Yeah, I don’t know. Nothing’s coming to mind, but that’s why you’re the consultants in that. And I’m the consultant plan e-giving. Yeah, you know, one of the go ahead. You know, I’m just flushing out why I don’t have an answer. I don’t no more. No more detailed needed on that. I don’t have a suggestion, I should say, Well, one of the things that you know could be a really impactful way to leverage that Thank you. Moment is to kind of look at your sustainers file in winter, people the most likely to fall off of your file and then take that opportunity to do, like an exceptional thankyou. So we see you lose a lot after between one, three and four, right? Exactly. So maybe that’s the month where you send that hand written note. That’s like we know you are. We love you. We see you right? If you already you’re sending tote bags or calendars in your acquisition or something like that. Leveraging that with a special note two two sustainers at the quarter mark for the six month mark way have clients that do, like all out at your anniversary. Your thank you for being here for one year with us, you know, making it about them. There was miles so now and then again, tying it to the impact and, like people want to make impact and they want to feel important. And that’s true whether this is their first ten dollars gift or their thousand dollar gift or their one million dollar gift. And so figuring out the way that you say thank you that feels like they’re making that difference, that that matters. That’s part of a good donor experience, you know, And I think that carries through whether it’s sustainers or like an event volunteer who’s becoming a donor for the first time. That’s a different level of engagement with the organization and the fact that they have that history already with you eyes very powerful. And so, if you can reference that relationship in the content as well, that will go much further and building strengthening that relationship in the long term. Um, a lot of this subsumed in what we’re talking about is having these systems systems in place on DH, constantly tweaking them. Voice just cracked like I’m a fourteen year old is coming twelve fourteen. You gotta have these systems in place and somebody will be monitoring them. Christie, to your point, you know you can’t just set it and forget it. Or one of you said that I’m sorry, whose you bring up, but, um okay, so who’s responsible for these systems? Is this is this is in the development to Development department depends on the non-profit. It’s definitely a collaboration between, like some level and development marketing each non-profit is configured in a different, slightly different way. So, like, who owns things would change, But yeah, the data is really important on and having a two directional or multidirectional sink of key data components so that you can condition allies content based on those relationships from other channels. In other words, like sinking between your cr m and your email Exactly. Your texture responded. Yep. Yeah, and vice versa to write. If we are sending those offline acknowledgements toe online donors, you need that level of information. Ideally, there’s some source codes in there. So you know what sort of relationship they had with you before Andi, you know what sort of appeal? Our issue they came in on. So again, Was it dog me? Are you know, brovey meals are? Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that’s all very important. You don’t have the infrastructure setting that I always like. You know, you got to get your house in order before you invite people over, right? And that’s more about acquisition costs. But data is also super important. Like you can’t. You can start and then build and have a plan to scale because everybody can’t do everything right away. But you got to start with clean data. So can I ask a question? Is that not OK in this setting? Okay, So beat you up so much. How could I possibly say no to im those now, everyone? Yeah, Kristie hyre non-profit. So, like, what would you say about, like, not letting am not letting great be the enemy of good. So, like, invokes air. Just like we we don’t have the bandwidth for all of the data collection or all of the data sank. Like, where? Where is that starting point? Yeah, well, I mean, I think it depends on where you’re getting most of your gifts into, Like, what channel? You want to start with the focus on right, Because bang for the buck. If you’re If most of your gifts are checks in the mail, let’s focus on those confirmation acknowledgement letters, the receives and and the welcome kit direct mail package kind of offline pieces. So you don’t have to worry about the email side of the world if the date is not playing nicely right away. Vice versa. Obviously, here at ntcdinosaur mary-jo online focused, you start on the online site and Luckily with the online stuff you usually have the the thinks like you don’t need to sing because your email marketing system is in the same system. Is your donation processing system doesn’t have to be right plugging You could have a husband spoke solutions at that point, too. But for most of them, they are most of our clients, especially so you can excuse me. You can live also going over, yeah, latto happening at this table. A lot of personal latto personal, something momentous person and not a cheap hormones. So you can. You can create a somewhat cohesive donor experience with siloed channels. It is possible it just takes a lot more like work on an ongoing basis. In Official, it’s very inefficient. So I get out. You know, we talk about how much work it takes to set up the process in the beginning, to get a multi-channel like really integrated surround sound campaign happening. But if you’re not doing that, you’re putting in the leg work all the time to make sure that you don’t sound like two different organizations. An email indirectly, that’s very bad practice. Yeah, have some of the questions were some of the questions you got in your session that you thought were particularly interesting or I don’t know if they could be provocative, but interesting is good. Yeah. WeII did get questions about, like, just testing. What tide of creative treatments. People should focus their time on to test on DH. Tarsem. It depends, obviously, depends on the channel, but I think a lot of it for anything that will email and direct mail. Specifically, it’s trying to get people into the content in the first place. So whether it’s your subject line and send her name and email or your teaser on your outer envelope in the mail, both of those air very similar from a user experience standpoint on their very low bar. Easy tweak tests. Teammate teasers on outer envelopes. They work. Oh, they’re so important. They do? Yeah, that’s a good one example of a couple of good ones. I mean, for our for acknowledgements. Thank you. Gift receipt and close. Like, very clear. Okay, this is not an appeal, right? All right, we’ve got for acquisition. Oh, God, we’re off. We’re off on your own time. But I’ve always wondered about this, because when I see these things, and it’s not at all what I do know. What’s a good Christy? What’s a good acquisition? Uh, what do you call these on? The outer sabelo Theo. Good acquisition. What kind of depends on what’s inside or the organization. But anything that talks about matching gift urgent. Well, urgent. Open immediately that work. Sure, people respond to that Second notice reminder. Special gift enclosed for free gift. Yeah, free gift and clothes. I could notice that I didn’t notice. We’Ll stamp like reminders. They have the stamp it rough. It looks like it was damned. Yeah, Looks like it was a hand written. Oh, anything. Anything that looks like a human touched it. We call it the power of the paper clip because like, you can’t machine that. So if it anything that feels like humans have touched it will automatically get more attention. But it is a machine printing that Oh, yeah, but it looks like you’re just trying to create the experience of life came off their desk. But you people believe that mean yes, we’re not wear not I do believe this stuff like a human actually wrote that or somebody’s coming. Somebody had a stamp on ink pad and a stamp. I think it depends on the size of the organization. Like somebody’s probably not going to believe it as easily from AARP, but they will believe it from their local U S P c A. Well, so it just depends. Yeah. Alright. I’m really surprised that second notice open open urgently. Renewal is a very powerful word as well. So having renew does well yeah, renew your membership right on the teeth. Er, something like that. Okay, we’re hearing everything. You’re turning those. The winner was the other one Free. Free? Yeah. Just just a word. Free Well attached to something so free. Some very powerful words. Just free. Just wait. Just wait, OK? We got another, like, two minute and a half or so two minutes. What? What else? What else? Questions. Other question. They were good. Oh, gosh. You know, I feel like a lot of people had questions. Agent about sort of what it meant to take their online. Thank you. Experience offline. Dahna Few. There was a lot of questions about printing and paper. Yeah, favorite. Everyone’s favorite. Well, cause some of its first. So some organizations like conservation organizations are very paper free on DH. So but having the numbers that actually show that people who give to receive packages to acknowledgment gifts are better donors than people who don’t can make the case to the board members or to your CFO or whoever else that, like we really should think about this at some level. Maybe we’re not mailing every online donor. Maybe it’s not five dollar donors or ten dollar donors, but maybe at the fifty dollar donors level, those folks are like, worth that added investment. So having that numbers to back it up is really helpful, and any time you could decrease the time to second gift is huge on. Typically, most non-profits see one gift a year on average, whatever time of year that is. If it’s not sustainers. If you khun, change that twelve months between first and second gift to two months between first and second gift because people you have a greater lifetime value and hyre retention we’re seeing, I mean, especially with new donors, because they’re giving habits haven’t been cemented. Get we’re seeing anywhere from forty five to sixty five percent hyre retention rates across the board and hyre values. So it’s amazing. Okay. Okay. Christy, I’m gonna give you last words, like, fifteen seconds of motivation about, you know, making them love you. Oh, gosh. Well, that’s a lot of pressure. I know. You know, I think that if you don’t know where to start, just say thank you. Say thank you every way you can say it sincerely and say in a way that really means a lot to the folks who have given you their time, their money, their actions, whatever that looks like. It really goes a long way to improve your donor’s experience. All right, that was Chrissy hyre. She’s vice president of Innovation, Chapman, cubine and Husky. And sitting next to me is Brenda Homes, Vice president, Digital services Also at Chapman cubine, Cassie. And you are with Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of nineteen Auntie Si twenty nineteen non-profit Technology Conference. This interview, Like all of ours this year brought to you by our partners at Act Blue Free fund-raising tools to help non-profits make an impact. Come see. Ch is in sponsoring brovey radio. That is a great question to bring them when you bring that back to back to back to the main office way. We’LL do that. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. Next week, Google grants with the head of Google. Add grants Michelle her Tato, also from nineteen. Auntie Si. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by Pursuant online Tools for small and midsize non-profits. Data driven technology enabled Tony dahna em a slash pursuing capital P. Wagner CP is guiding you beyond the numbers weinger cps dot com and by text to give mobile donations made Easy text. NPR to four four four nine nine nine A Creative producers. Claire Meyerhoff Sam Liebowitz is the line producer. Producer shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit Ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. You’re listening to the Talking Alternate network e-giving Wait, you’re listening to the Talking Alternative Network? Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, I’m nor in Sumpter potentially ater tune in every Tuesday at nine to ten p. M. Eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show yawned Potential Live life your way on talk radio dot N Y c Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business. 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Nonprofit Radio for March 23, 2018: The Donor Journey

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Taylor Shanklin: The Donor Journey

Intentional. Personal. Relational. Thoughtful. These are touchpoints you want your donors to feel as they move through their relationship with your organization. Taylor Shanklin from Pursuant shepherds you through the journey planning.

 

 

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into sir some virgins if i saw that you missed today’s show the donor journey intentional personal relation alot thoughtful the’s, air touchpoint you want your donors to feel as they moved through their relationship with your organization? Taylor shanklin from pursuant shepherds you through the journey planning i’m tony steak too the funder relationship video director’s cut. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuing to radio by wagner. See piela is guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps, dot com and by tello’s turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna may slash tony tell us, very pleased to welcome taylor shanklin to the show. She is vice president of product marketing and strategy at pursuant you know them, a full service fund-raising agency helping non-profits go beyond the ordinary to reach their goals. She has over decades spent serving non-profits her passion and purpose or to help charitable organizations connect the dots between marketing technology. And fund-raising she’s at t shank cycles and the company is that tony dahna slash pursuant radio. Welcome to l a shanklin. Hey, tony how’s it going very good. Well, you’re super loud. Excellent. Your your sound good. You sound loud and clear. Wonderful. E it down a little. Okay. That’s okay, what’s ah, yeah, i know you’re okay. You’re okay, we can go. We can always turn it down here. Don’t worry about that. Easier to turn it down and turn you up. What’s this t shank cycles. What is what is what? How are you involved in cycling? Well, that’s actually a great question. So i would say it is a twitter handle that i came up with back when twitter was newer and have a past experience of doing a lot of cycling that get out on the bike too much right now. But so i am glad you asked, because when i got involved in working with non-profits in my professional life, i also started getting involved and fund-raising and doing events fund-raising in my personal life and i did a lot of events with the a team in training program with leukemia, lymphoma society and so i created that name when i was doing a ton of cycling, getting out there and doing the hundred, you know, my old bike rides and was started to kind of tell my story from the road, ok, ok, i see i mean, you could have been doing no power cycling now in a studio in a competitive, you know, with the board up on the board up front and everybody knows where they stand, you know, what’s that power cycling is itjust power cycling way might have been doing that thing that you yeah, you have two children, so the priorities change, i understand, okay? You’ll get back to it’s a life it’s a life practice, it’s a life practice totally and like, we’ll be back, right? Like i actually really could go to the studio like mine and more yet, it’s a timing them. I’ve got a seven year old and a five year old and getting out for two three hour bike rises, just dip it in the gym. I’ve heard rumors to that effect from friends who have children. I do not. So i’ve heard those. I’ve heard those stories. Yes, we’re talking, we’re talking. About we’re talking about the donor journey this donorsearch durney where does this journey begin? And where does it end? Okay, you know, i think i would say that it never really ends, you know, and we can get into that. I mean, i think it begins at the, you know, first interaction that someone has with a new organization, okay? And i think that yeah, and talk about it because it is a journey, and we should be thinking about it, there’s a journey? Oh, yeah, we’re going to spend the hour we’re gonna spend here. We’re thinking about it. Yeah, you know, i wouldn’t even say it would it would. It would be a mistake to say that it ends even with a person’s planned gift because i mean, i do i do plan e-giving fund-raising and that’s just the beginning of a relationship with at that stage, you know, there’s continued vast engagement after someone makes ah ah gift in there a state plan and tells us about it, you know, by no means we say, ok, thanks you, you’re you’re dead to us now, you know, it wouldn’t know i don’t even intend that pun, but you know, no, eso it really just it ends when i would say maybe it ends when the person says, i don’t hear from you anymore, but hopefully that never you know, somebody is that overt and explicit about, you know, i’ve moved on. I don’t need you. I don’t know, but that rarely that happens. But it’s rare it’s rare. So yes, yes. No, i think that’s a great point about about plan giving on the work you do around that that’s. True. Because then that’s an opportunity to continue the relationship with the family members. Oh, yeah. Absolutely deepened. Yeah. Keeping and expand. Yes. I mean that you think about a planned gift. I mean, that you’re putting someone you’re putting an organization alongside your spouse, your children, your grandchildren in your will. And of course, there’s. Lots of other plan gives beyond that. But just the simplest example. I mean, imagine how much they love your work and the people doing it to put you alongside spouse and children, right? So that’s a that’s, a that’s, a deep commitment and that’s just, you know, and but by no means the end. Okay, so what? We’re starting you know we’re starting, we’re talking before that, um, you’re concerned that this is too transactional. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, i mean, i think that there is so much focus and something that my team and i are here talk about a lot of there’s so much focus on acquisition, right on getting getting those transactions through the door and not enough focus on the retention, the stewardship and really ultimately, the overall donor experience to keep people coming back. You know, i think that i don’t know why this is, you know, maybe this is culture or, you know, focused people wearing a lot of hats, trying to do a lot of things focusing on let’s we’ve got to get new donors, and we’ve got to get these orders, and but the cost to get a new donor is greater than the cost to keep someone who’s already a fan of yours right now. So i think that we really need to be focused on how do we drive that attention? How do we focus on building relationships, you know, taking it from transaction to transformational? We’ve had many guests say exactly that about retention versus acquisition it’s so much cheaper, too, to keep the donors you have and treat them well so that they do stay than it is to acquire a new donor. Yeah, so that’s, not new to non-profit radio listeners. What what is new is how were going toe make that all make that happen so that, you know, so you have. So you have this excellent paper demystifying the donor journey, and we have about a minute and a half before our first break. But i want to read one of the pull quotes from that paper. It’s an undeniable fact. The donor experience and how we steward them is directly tied to retention in a major and impactful way. And retention is the key to building a long term, sustainable fund-raising program. You want to flush that out a little bit in, like a minute or so. Yeah. I mean, i think it’s you know, just the idea that you have tio speak to people where they are. You have to speak to people in a way that resonates to how they are connected to why they gave you in the first place round. And we can get into this more after the break. But i like to look at what i think so often we get so stuck in our sector and what our sectors doing. But look at the brands, the products you buy, the brands that you buy and with the ones that you keep using over and over again and think about why that is and what value it brings to you so i could get, um, you know, we can tap into that a little bit of well, i agree. I think there are a lot of lessons from the commercial side. Let’s, take this thing this first break. It’s pursuing their newest paper is demystifying the donor journey. Does that sound vaguely familiar to you? Because you’re listening to taylor and we talk about it right now so you don’t need it. But you have a friend. You have a friend. Who is less fortunate than you? Because they don’t listen to non-profit radio. You need to bring them in. Send them to tony dot m a slash pursuant radio. So they get the paper demystifying the donor journey. Then send them here to today’s show for all the more rich detail, the mystifying the donor journey. Tony dahna slash pursuant radio now, let’s, go back to the donor. Durney okay, tell her, let’s go where? Ah, you were suggesting, um, you know, we do. You know, wei have these commercial brands that means so much to us that we’re willing to accept their emails sometimes multiple times a day. We may even be willing to take their text messages. Um, you know, we don’t mind the contact we’ve asked for it. We’ve consented, of course, and we welcome it. So what can we learn from that side? The commercial side, teo import over to the non-profit side. Yeah. So i think there’s a lot. I think about you, like some of the brands. I ii go back, teo. And i’ll just, like admit my terrible coffee addiction right now get another way. But i think like, this is a good example. So i’m going to talk about starving, and i’m sure a lot of people talk about sarah back since the big company and okay, well, how do i how do i think about my non-profit like stuck, right? But here’s an example of, like, started recently, i’ve been going there for years. I worked there in college is a barista like, um, i’m pretty loyal also, you were employees? Yes, yeah, and so i started using the app really, you know, regularly to pay teo, even like order as i’m driving over there and teo kind of interact with how i want to purchase my starbucks in the morning, right? And i think there’s some interesting things that they do design that i’ve noticed and thought about, like this kind of keeps me coming back, it makes it easy, they keep rewarding me around areas where i want to be rewarded. And so i think a couple of interesting examples from that is like i get, you know, these, you know, they do these bonus star things or, like, hey, common in the next three days in order, a lot a or a breakfast sandwich and if you do it three times in the next five days, we will give you one hundred fifty bonus, right, which gets you like free drinks and stuff and what i’ve noticed in talking to other fellow friends who are startup storybooks addicts as well, is we’ve compared like the types of messages we get, i get regularly asked to come back for the things that i regularly by there, and my friend was talking about this recently was like, oh, yeah, i’m always getting, you know, hey, come back in and get a green tea, and i was like, oh, i don’t get that i was with beau car a lot saying so like, okay, they really like they’re taking the data and there, um, using automation, technology, whatever to speak to each of us individually, based on what we order because they know our habits, i think this is really relevant, tio what we dio in the nonprofit sector and thinking about there’s, different reasons and motivations that their donors have for supporting us for volunteering with us for doing on event, right? I did team in training, in part because i was interested in the cycling aspect and also because i had lost friends and relatives latto blood cancer, so there were very distinct connections, and i think we look at the donor experience and retention and stewardship and taking a page from starbucks and other companies that we in iraq every day, a lot of it has to do with really creating those more meaningful touchpoint by just looking at what it is that resonates with each individual person, a part of the problem is that some organizations will look at stewardship and this journey and delivering it as a cost rather than a revenue center. No. Oh, and you bring that out in the paper you wantto explain to us why we should be viewing this not a cz cost, but his revenue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, i do think that that’s the problem is on again. It goes back to the focus on acquisitions, as i think is often looks more at as revenue imbriano and stewardship is oh, yeah, ok ain’t that time for that right now, right? I gotta focus on bringing in new donors because we lost this money, donors or whatever it is. And if we start to realize that again looking back it all the way. Statistics out there say it’s easier to keep the customer than it is to get a new one, it’s cheaper than it is a revenue center, because, again, those are the people that are already in some way connected teo there already bought in at some level, right? Because they’ve already given to you in the past whether that is through a large gift or a ten dollars a day at some point gave to you and so tapping into why they gave to you is going and just communicating to them around that in that way, it’s going to in the long run be cheaper shit happened to again, and because you can do that through, you know, segment e and sending them just write email message, right? So is a revenue center because there’s so much opportunity to just keep those people loyal and coming back, turn them into monthly donors if they were one time donors, and i think if we start looking at it as a revenue center was opposed to cost dinner, that we will start placing the right amount of focus on it and recognizing to the long stream. Of potential revenue. You know, starbucks, amazon land’s end is one that i get a lot. I mean, they they expect to have you for life. Yeah, on and i don’t want to know how much i know. Yeah, that right part of the app is not your aggregate purchases through life that that is really for not caring, that you can’t write. You can’t tap that icon and and be disturbed. No, but you know, these brands and that’s just three examples. I mean, there’s thousands. You know, they want you for life on dh and that’s how, you know, they see it as valuable to keep you versus trying to get somebody new to come in. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, we want to think about this lifetime, you know, i asked you where’s the start, where’s it end. It is hard to identify agreement, you know, maybe it’s, like the first engagement is where it starts. But we want to be looking till still the person dies and then and maybe during their lifetime, like you suggested, we’ve cultivated their family spouse, children, you know, they might be a part of the organization now. So the family relationship might actually live on so, you know, right it’s all its long term, and it is absolutely revenue, and i love that the paper points it out, you know? Yeah, it’s not something to be to be cut, you know, given short shrift, something being what we put into this experience, this donorsearch durney relationship it’s interesting lately, i’ve been getting doing just some, you know, intel on asking friends of mine family, members of mine round former colleagues of mine, like what’s your experience when you donate what’s the follow-up like, you know, trying to get a little bit more of, like, a focus group type of quality of information on this and what’s interesting is that in most of the interviews i’ve been doing with my friends is they get kind of a standard receipt, right? Damn one or two of them, maybe has an exceptional experience that they can point out, but most of them and many of the people i’ve talked to look out, okay, i tried to ask friends who had donated to a least like a future of these per year, and most of the story is i got the standard receiving that. Kind of about it. You know, i just think that we can do a lot better than that. Now pursuing to his donor. Derive a gn up. Sorry, data driven data driven down. What? What data can you share that underlies all this as well? Yeah. I mean so, like you said, we’re data driven. We like teo look at the data to then reveal insights information into again, like i said, what makes that particular donorsearch what makes that particular person wants to be connected to the cause? There’s uninterested in one of my colleagues, was doing a webinar recently and was sharing anything. They’re full of an organization that we worked with that, you know way did some survey analysis on their on their general file went out surveyed and kind of create a point system of how satisfied their donors work and what we found waas a directly in there level of satisfaction with their ultimate lifetime value. So that’s just one example where, like people who, you know, had only one point of satisfaction. They were on the low level of satisfaction. Had a lifetime, you know, value increase that there points increased by like, one. Point there, like time value increased by ninety seven, but those who increase their satisfaction by five points um, their lifetime value increased by just under five dollars. So that’s just one example of looking at the data and then trying to actually start to segment people into different behaviors connections to the cause to try to figure out howto then move them in along the journey without organization. So this is our ally or ally of donorsearch atis faction, i’m just not clear about the the lifetime value, so if you have a five point increase in in donorsearch iss faction so it’s just under five dollars, but you don’t mean just over five dollars, over their whole life as a donor, do you? Yeah, her donor for the year. But what was interesting about it was i mean, this particular organization with large so it ended up being millions of dollars more money. Yeah, okay, because it’s like what can look like small potatoes. And again, i think that goes back to well, it just feels like it shouldn’t be a focus. It feels like it’s small potatoes, but like when you add it up altogether, it actually can be really impactful. Yes. Okay on dh. So that’s the case of a large file, but again, um, my point, you know, even if you if you don’t have dahna size file where five dollar increase is going to be millions of dollars, it’s still going to be a life time it’s an increase in lifetime value for for donors, and you just don’t know how valuable they’re going to become versus losing them and and cutting off all potential life, the remaining value. So, you know, you have to look at it, you know? You have to look at it this way, ok? Example of my personal life, where i’ve seen that worked really well? Is this a cycling example? You trying that want you want to compare my university for my husband? You’ve got in the way that those alumni organisations have stewarded us in very different ways, and he has been stewarded very well. I have not been stuart it well found and you know, what i’ve noticed is let’s look at the good example what i’ve seen them do in their stewardship of him over the years since graduation and the years ago is they? Started out with hey, you know, you know, graduated a couple of years ago if you’re ever and back in the area we’d love to have you come back and talk to class. Sure, you thought about what you’re doing now, that sort of thing, right? Recent graduates so, like, they started kind of pulling him back into the education and then started asking for small gifts, and then he ended up doing, you know, well, in his profession had, you know, kind of a job that many of the other business students would want to have, and as he kind of progress in that way, they progress in their stewardship and how much money they’re asking for it from the right, but they’re also constantly interacting with him in a very personal way. Sending impersonal thank you notes asking him, hey, i’m going to be in austin next month. Do you want to grab coffee and doing that sort of thing and it’s? Not like we’re even giving, like tons and tons of money because we don’t have those in tons of money to give but it’s just been interesting in watching that donorsearch durney of him versus mine. Where i basically just get phone calls at eight. Thirty at night when i have kids brushing their teeth, you know? And no matter how many times i say, please don’t call me at this time, i still continue to get called a time of night, and so i think that’s just a really riel example and my own personal life for i have seen stuart should go wrong, and so it should go well. And i will tell you we donate to his school more than mine. Yeah, okay, yeah, i mean, it’s, a classic mistake is just not listening to your donor’s preferences mean, you’ve you said it, you know, whether you’re donorsearch not, but it sounds like you’re small donor but doesn’t matter listening to the preferences, you know, and respecting them on dh that’s at the heart of what we’re talking about. You know, whether it’s window, i want to be contacted. How do i want to be contacted? You know, you may say text or email me and don’t call what do i want to be contacted for, you know, maybe i like scholarships. Maybe i like student activities. Maybe i you know, it’s unrestricted. Or is devoted to the arts or, you know, whatever. You know, this is the this is the, uh, categories around which weaken, weaken segment and technology enables this. Okay. Pursuing is also technology enabled talk about how the technology is available to do the segmentation we’re talking about and not lose personalization. Yeah. Yeah, well, i mean, there’s such a wide array of how how to do it anywhere from, you know, using technology that better segment people. So then using technology to communicate with them and an automated way that still gives them the personal message to, you know, let’s, just call it their segment. So we and looking at data doing like a pending additional information teo file, we can see people with people’s preferences on dh, then really group people into segments based around their interests and their behaviours, and then message to them in the digital world or in the male world based around those behaviors. You know, i got a male peace sent to me a week or so in the last week. And i thought this was a great example i send to give online. Ah, but i still, you know, well, often receive mail from the organization that i give two online, and this was i think, the first time i’ve seen it, they sent me. They did send me an appeal now asking for a gift. But within that envelope, i also had, um, a communications preference, little quick, like, check these boxes. This is what you currently have told us you want to receive. Is that still accurate? And i don’t know why. Maybe i just haven’t been paying attention, but i can’t be like a. Hadn’t. It would seem that much before was a good example of me being able to very quickly, you know, that the organization being able to include it in a piece of mail, they were already standing, and for me, too, very quickly feel like, oh, they are tryingto listen, this is nice, you know. Yes, we all. We all want to be heard, um, let’s. So let’s, let’s. Uh, go back to the paper, demystifying the donor journey, set out some some methods, strategies for, for doing better, you know, for standing out, and one of them is teo have processes. Business rules around this, this journey, and we just have, like, a minute and a half or so before break. Yeah, i think yes. On paper, we outlined first about way alan guthrie stumbling blocks, and then we outlined for different ways to overcome them on the first one, i think it’s really important, establishing business rules, business rolling processes, so that can be everything from getting just alignment within departments in the organization to dedicating staff, too. You know, safe. I’m gonna own stewardship on detention, the experience, um two, looking at a subset of your data and doing kind of a small test on the substance of data around stewardship, and created an interrupt process from that. Let me stop you on that one. Testing for testing, for example. What? So testing let’s. See, i actually was talking to a colleague recently. Gave an example of, and she has to be an organization that did did events. I thought this was a really great example of a test where they surveyed about the events and found that their wass. One thing that really would throw off the experience of the participants, the event. And when they discovered that one thing by just surveying event goers and they were able to fix it and their event seven infection with way up. So that’s an example of looking at one small thing to test and then making a change from it. So yes, i liked it. It was successful for them when they when they were ableto again. A okay, we have to. We’re going to keep talking. About what? With strategies are in the paper. I’ve got to take a break. Wagner, cpas, here’s an excerpt from their latest testimonial. They’re accessible, they care about their clients. End quote, can you say that about your accounting and audit firm? Ah, yeah. Not so sure. Okay, check out wagner, go to the site, take a look, then pick up the phone and talk to the coach. Tomb one of the partners, one of the many partners there. He will take care of you. Very good guy. C p a very good guy. Very good guy. First, second, wagner, cpas. Dot com. Now, time for tony’s. Take two. I’ve got the full version in video of build your grantmaker relationships this’s a panel i moderated at the foundation center. We played it on the show last month, and that was that’s the broadcast version. Now i’m releasing the director’s cut it’s the full show roughly ninety minutes unedited it’s almost double the time of what you heard on this show last month. Never before released footage unedited. We talked about relationships before you’re funded. How to introduce your organization to funders, what to, uh, what to do to make that relationship strong while you’re funded and keep it strong insider tips on what not to do mistakes not to make so i had to cut out a lot too fit the ninety minutes into the show. Now you can get the full content director’s cut the full experience, which she also, by the way, includes my opening with a story from my stand up comedy sets go to twenty martignetti dot com that’s, where you will find the full video, let us return to taylor shanklin and the donor journey she is vice president of product marketing and strategy at pursuant and tell her look, i’d like to keep going with something. Strategies. Because i you know, we’ve we’ve laid out what the what the ideal is. And what the problem’s, khun b, let’s, let’s. Keep going with what some strategies are you suggest in the paper. Step back and consider the ideal experience for donors. Yes, it’s about taking a taking a moment of pause and really mapping out with the journey should be so you don’t go on a trip without pulling out your gps these days, right? You don’t plan a wedding up without, you know, pulling together ah book and and a plan and i don’t think most breaks on the donor no different. You know, if you are goingto work so hard on getting people into the door, then we need to work just as hard hyre making sure they have a great experience, and one of the ways you can do that is through doing a donor journey. Back-up um, we do a lot of work on on our team here, pursue it with organizations are looking to map out the stone experience, what is the full cycle look like? What are different touchpoint that we want to make that our intentional along the way, based on the ways that a donor is interacting and engaging with us, so i think it’s really important toe think about a plan nearly and create that map before you just dive right into a particular direction that you’re going to go with you. With you through the journey mapping this is actually you’re actually writing it, you know, putting on a board for everybody toe everybody to contribute, to write you actually mapping what you’re doing and suggestion is now what? What’s the ideal, how could we streamline it? Maybe how can we make it? Maybe they introduced. They invite you, they meet more people, you know? How can it be broader? We’re trying. We’re actually writing this, mapping it out on a board, right? Yes, yes, exactly. So it’s, like work with we’ll sit down and do working sessions to really kind of map it out do like the like a post it notes on a wall. Sort of a thing, you know, looking at okay, what’s the first experience our donors will have, how does the process of altum that what one of the ways someone might come in on donate to us the first time, and then what is the touchpoint we want to make on that for some organization. It might be looking and trying to understand donors connections better to the mission. And we talked a little bit about that and then really focusing on okay, how do? We align our strategy and our donor experience based on this connection for other organizations like hyre ed institutes or hospitals, organizations like that. It might be more about tryingto understand the point of last connections. Um, and then determine. Okay, what makes the most sense? Mazarene touchpoint with that organization? What you mean? Is that what what’s this? A point of last connection? What is that? So that could be, you know, point of last connection went to let’s let’s say just in the case of have you hyre at or something point of last connection might have been that day, you know, went to went to a game last season or something like let’s. See if it fits in athletics department or something like that. Or it could be gate that they give a gift. So i just kind of various from organisations. Organisations based on the type of cause that you are okay, it’s really? Just sitting down and uniquely mapping that out. Um so what makes sense for the organization? Yeah. Ok. So it’s like the like they last engagement or something? That’s. What? That’s what? Yeah, last contact connection. Okay, okay. I’m trying. I want to keep you out of drug in jail. I’d hate to throw you in there. It sze not too it’s. Not too hard to get out, but let’s, just keep you out from the beginning. Um, yeah, okay, um, yeah, i think that the journey mapping i mean, i think this could be valuable for everybody who’s involved in the in the engagement process to be sitting down and saying, you know, this is what we’re doing and, you know, when you see it visually, i think you’re going toe recognize, you know, where is disjointed, where it could be much more duitz personalized, you know, not so maybe fragmented, you know, when you when you actually see it and talk about it, i think a lot flick comes out of these meetings, right? Yeah. And what really interesting comes out of the sweden because it really does get into talking about the feelings that a constituent has at those engagement points. Right? So how does someone feel when they engage with giving you a gift or engaged with you by going to your gala or going to your five k, um and then focusing around, you know? Okay, how? Do we then kind of really tapped into that feeling that kind of, like moment of truth that someone maybe has with your organisation at that time of interacting with you and then expanding upon it? Yeah, expanding, you know, we’re always tryingto deep in the relationship, you know, you know what their interest is, but you know, what is what is amazon always do when you buy something customers who bought this, we’re also interested in these dozen things no it’s like it’s, uh, what’s that it’s something in marketing, grab a finger, take a hand, you know, you’re like a donor gives you their finger, but, you know, you want a little more you want, you know what doesn’t want the finger? You want the whole hand, so offer them offer the more i mean, you’re not just literally, you know, you know, grabbing, but you’re offering more, you’re offering to deepen. We know you met this person on our team. I would like to introduce you, you know, next coffee. I’d like to bring my colleague who you haven’t met yet, you know, you know, finger in hand, you know? No, that that’s, exactly. I love it. That you mentioned you have the amazon example, you might like these other products and, you know, just the the thought process and even like, okay, i ordered something and i’m going to get a text provocation like, hey, it’s, on the way, just so it’s like it almost like, keeps this engagement point where? Okay, cool. I know the shift, i know i can expect it and like he said, put that into the non-profit sectors like, hey, you went to our gala, did you know that we’re doing? I walk in a couple months, right? Did you know that the’s other people in our area are also volunteering on dh they’re going to do ah, meet up or, you know, whatever it is it’s figuring out how to let people know about other ways dahna to be involved in connect, i think at the end of it, it’s, like people supported cause because there’s some sort of very meaningful connection, um and so finding ways to tap into that connection and that good feeling. I’ve never talked anybody who didn’t have a good feeling after supporting a cause helping making real meaningful impact on the world, right? Like it’s, great it’s, just part of a, you know, a reason why you and i probably, like, and people listening like beans in this industry. It feels great to feel like you’re making an impact, and donors feel great when they’re making an impact, so tap into that more and connect with that feeling and keep them on that high. You know, i think it’s really important. You feel it in your heart, and and also there’s, no rocks, there’s neuroscience research that shows that donating activates pleasure centers, the same centers that get activated when reading chocolate, having sex. I can’t think of another pleasurable things, but it’s, hard to go beyond those but theo ultimate chocolate being the penalty, and then sexy krauz being the altum. You know, but no, it sze bona fide. I mean, the research of russell James at texas tech is 1 of the universities in texas shows this the brain lights up. The pleasure centres light up, and we’re not talking about eight figure or even seven or six figure gifts. But, you know, like a ten dollar gift ignites your pleasure centers in the brain. So, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, emotional and it’s also physical. Yeah. So, you know, get a finger, grab a hand. Okay. Um, digital experiences you what you’re looking for immersive digital experiences. Where you what is pursuing talking about? Yeah, well, i mean, i think it’s so much that you khun do now in the digital world of that it is e-giving and i know i can be very overwhelming at the same time. Um, i definitely know from talking toa non-profit organizations around, you know, sometimes i get out some of the conferences on give talks on things you could be doing in digital. And a common thing that i hear is that, um, you know, it’s overwhelming. You know, we don’t know how to do it on the staff. It sounds expensive. But what i think really interesting, this technology is making it morning testable easier round, even less expensive should do cool stuff in the genital digital world. I mean, some of the work that we do immersive experiences and say that i think i’ve been cool are creating some some fun survey, some fun quizzes, um, that really kind of tap into again tap into what are your motivations around? E-giving through an interesting digital survey or or a quiz that it’s just kind of fun that maybe teachers, something about the the mission that the donor didn’t know? I was looking at one the other day that we did and for a health care organization, so it the quiz kind of took people through and gave a lot of interesting one that related to that mission. So there’s there’s, i think ways toe engage with people in that way in an interesting way sound this is not not something that we’ve done, something that i personally have been fascinated with lately is trying to figure out how to create interesting, more personal conversation through digital technologies like chat loss and stuff like that. And so, you know, kind of playing around with those what they look like, there’s, one that i found of an organization that has a facebook chat latto and it’s, a faith based organization, and they have a chat bought with the pope and i found it really fun and interesting it’s a facebook chat, but so it’s on a platform that i’m on and it sort of engages you threw, like, hastened the provoc but, you know, did you know that easter is coming up? What i found interesting is that was like the initial when i originally just kind of wanted to go test it out and see what it was doing and how it worked. Yeah, that was some of the kind of, like, just fun kind of quirky ways that have engaged me in the beginning, and this is all autumn either, right? But as i continue to play around with it now, it’s doing it’s, giving me more information that connects to the mission e-giving me yesterday, it, like popped up with a message on my phone i was like, okay, let me look at this thing again and give me interesting facts that related to the mission and took me through sort of like the quiz like, did you know, like, how many people in this world you think don’t have access to clean water and gave me a multiple choice and kind of, like took me to this quiz? So i think that’s in just an example of different ways through digital, that we can really engage with people and more immersive kind of personal ways we have to take a break, but when we come back, i’m going to ask you about making surveys fun, that’s interesting, and i don’t think we see a lot of that tillers credit card in payment processing it’s, a long tale of passive revenue waiting for your non-profit you encourage businesses to switch their credit card processing to tell us, and your organization will get fifty percent of all the revenue that tello’s earns on every single transaction indefinitely, the tail doesn’t end. We’re talking about long term relationships here. This is one that doesn’t end because they have a hundred percent satisfaction. Send your potential supporters to tony dot m a slash tony tell us look at the video you got to live listen love assed part of the relay it’s part of the part of the listener journey we’re talking about the donor journey the listener journey with non-profit radio must include the live listener love it’s got to go out and i think it’s going tio! Tampa, florida, brooklyn, new york, multiple new york, new york always grateful for that i’m brooklyn! Welcome live lesser love on dh, columbus, ohio, tacoma, washington, new bern, north carolina reliable there live lesser love to each of our domestic live listeners and then no hesitation let’s go abroad. Chiba, japan! Konnichi wa, germany, gooden, dog that’s all we’ve got so far live listen love, but we got to the podcast pleasantries, of course, to the over twelve thousand that’s where the vast majority the audience is over. Twelve thousand podcast listeners pleasantries to you grateful that you are with us whenever you are listening with binging on a beach. Well, well, you could be a different hemisphere. Binging on a beach yeah, that’s probably possible or binging while you, uh, while you shovel snow you could be doing that, too. Pleasantries to the podcast listeners and the affiliate affections to our am and fm affiliate station listeners throughout the country all over. The country so glad that you’re grateful really not just glad grateful that your station carries us and that you are listening analog, it still exists. Am and fm listeners affections to you. Now back to the donor journey with taylor. Tell her, can you help us make surveys more fun? You mentioned that and ah, it catches me. What? What? What can we do to make surveys more fun? Yeah, so what we’re talking about creating immersive digital experiences, right? Digital provides a really easy and cost effective way so latto listen to your donor’s toe asked them questions to hear what’s on their minds in the form of surveys. I think that we often want to ask too many questions that air too revealing sometimes, and it just makes people shut down right right away. So i think a way to make more fun of first just make them shorter, okay, don’t ask twenty questions four or five yeah on like i like to think about if you’re thinking about yesterday that you want to create, what is it that you’re really trying to understand and ask questions around that i feel like often times we try to include way too much demographic data and stuff like that in the and surveys and it there’s other ways to get that there’s other time to get that, um and so making the survey more fun starts with just, like, not making it. So i think that, yeah, i also think that survey our quiz can be a great way to, you know, introduce kind of a human, more human element. It can be a way to even ask people questions and kind of a humorous way that still gets at what you’re tryingto understand about, um, i know that based on the mission of the cause of the organization, using humor can be sometimes a great area, right? But i definitely have i think that there’s ways to do it, and when you think about, like, we’ll get the it was a facebook quiz is that, you see, you know, pop up on your facebook feed and how you see your friends kind of, like, get involved in like, oh, what star wars character you like stuff like that? People do it because, like, it’s just kind of funny people like humor, and they like to engage with humor. So i do think that there is an opportunity to be more thoughtful about how do you make it kind of delightful? Um, through either humor through making the quiz on the survey shorter and easier to consume, we talk about brand no there’s, i think there’s a big advantage to having lightheartedness as part of your brand totally don’t take yourself so seriously, it’s it’s not people are not mocking you when they’re laughing at you. They’re laughing with you. Ah, you know, be lighthearted, you know, i look at it, i mean, the major brand in the world. Google, you know, they messed with their logo of seasonal and holidays, you know, when you see them, do doo rim sickle things with their logo and that’s a that’s a small example. But i think it’s a it’s not just nothing wrong with but i think it’s advantageous tohave, lightheartedness, and and fun associated with your brand totally because people connect with that look it’s just on human nature. We like to connect with that. And, you know, i’ve been reading a couple of books on branding recently and it’s like on the one that i was reading, i think it was getting the two of them mixed up because i’ve been reading them kind of side by side, but there’s, this one co-branded intervention and one of the main points to be made in the book was just don’t be boring. It sounds so simple, but i think we often can just, like, be boring without even realizing that we’re being born and so have a little fun with things like surveys on dh pulling and quizzes, i think it’s a good of wait tio have some fun and to be lighthearted, like there’s definitely the time in the place for the message that, you know, sharing a sad story rights, you are sharing the story that’s going to inspire or hit a nerve and maybe a lot less positive way, right? But we’ll have in their ultimately too get people don’t want to give to it, but then i think there are things like surveys and quizzes, you can have fun and create that, you know, when on dh kind of have more of a personality there? Yeah, i do that with this show and listeners may disagree that there’s humor in this show, but it’s ah it’s certainly attempted there’s. I’m amusing myself. I always say, you know, i amuse myself if no one’s laughing. I’m amusing myself, and the listenership is his growing, so i’m not worried. I like human. You have to say that otherwise, you know, i’ll shut your mic off so you have no choice you’re under, you know, would you like a hostage? Okay, let’s ah, yeah. Listeners made discreet. Actually, i got e i’ll share this later on. I’ll share something later on. Somebody didn’t quite get me hyre don’t take me seriously. You know, if you’re not sure that i’m probably not serious if you have to ask that i’m that i’m not you should know that by now, after a seven and a half years old going on eight years. Um okay, uh, the journey, the beginning of the journey you wantto do you think the beginning of the journey is the most critical stage would make sense, but, you know, flesh it out for us. Yeah. So i mean, it is just like, you know, i’ll go back to something that i actually said ten years ago. It’s? Fine, because i think it’s still true the beginning. Of the journey is the honeymoon period, right? Just like when you first get married, the honey moon might be a lot more fun than when you’ve been married for ten years, right? Oh, yes, i’ve heard the rumors to that effect also way certainly not my personal experience it’s certainly not my personal experience, but i’ve heard i’ve heard people talk about that. Yeah, so you know, the first what we found is doing actually research with ah, relationship fund-raising with our partners and friends at at regar e is that the first three years are really critical time, period, three years relationship thinking like the first the first interaction, carrion okay kapin into the motivations and behind the giving and really work on that relationship on. So i guess i consider that sort of the honeymoon period if you’re even looking for opportunity to re engage people start first with people who have engaged with you within the past one, two, three years. Okay? And then there’s a question. I feel like i would not track a little, you know, that’s. Okay. And we just have about a minute left way. Have to wrap up, but but there’s evidence that if you khun, hold a donor for three years than their lifetime value is going to be greater, and the relationship will last that much longer, much longer. Right, right, right, right, exactly. And that’s. Why? I think it’s so important when thinking about the like doing a journey. Mathos osili focusing on that. Those first key interactions people are having when they come in. Make sure if you do one thing, make sure that that initial interaction that you give to someone after the first time they’ve gave given to you for the first time, they’ve shown up to your event for the first time they participate. Donated to a participant in your event. Make sure that that first interaction back that first thank you. That first effort of gratitude. Is it really good? Andi, start there and then push it out from there. But that, you know, first impressions mean a lot. So i think it’s really important. Taken to account what your first impressions going to be? Yeah. First impressions way no, we know the value. Okay, we have to leave it there. Taylor. Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you, taylor shanklin, vice president of product marketing and strategy. And pursuant to she’s at t shank cycles and the company tony dahna slash pursuant radio next week, idealware sze executive director karen graham is going to publicly release their latest report. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant radio wagner, cpas, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps, dot com and tell those credit card payment processing your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us. Ah, creative producers claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez on this great music is by scott stein of brooklyn. You with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get in. Sting duitz are you stuck in a rut? 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