Tag Archives: Julia Campbell

Nonprofit Radio for June 26, 2023: Data Driven Storytelling

 

Julia CampbellData Driven Storytelling

Julia Campbell returns to share her thinking on retaining and engaging donors by creating and curating your best stories. She’s an author, trainer and speaker. This continues our coverage of the 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN.

Also this week, we welcome Nonprofit Radio’s first announcer, Kate Martignetti!

 

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[00:00:34.88] spk_0:
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. Our announcer, Kate martignetti is gonna stick around last week. I invited her on for fun and I love the way she sounds. So I hired her, Kate. Welcome.

[00:00:36.29] spk_1:
Hello.

[00:00:41.36] spk_0:
Glad to have you. Congratulations on your May graduation from American Musical and Dramatic Academy. How did you, how did you find that program?

[00:01:14.59] spk_1:
I went to a high school at a technical school for theater and then I just kinda wanted to continue theater as like a professional career. And one of the places that I found during one of those um college fairs where you can let go and speak to other colleges in the area in other states found Amanda. Um and they were like, hey, come work with us, we’re professionals. Everyone has the same passion as you. You will be worked very hard, which is something I really wanted because theater and just being on stage is what I want to do for the rest of my life and

[00:01:28.69] spk_0:
where you worked very hard. How did you like, did they work too hard?

[00:01:32.49] spk_1:
Yes, they did. They worked me very hard. But I, you know, out in the Real World you’re gonna be auditioning every single day, maybe multiple auditions a day. So I am to throwing us new material every day was honestly really, it helped to prepare us for the Real World.

[00:02:02.01] spk_0:
I’m glad you had a great experience at an NDA. And I’m really glad that you are non profit radios announcer. So welcome again, I’d be hit with pseudo AG graphia if I had to write the words you missed this week’s show,

[00:02:48.75] spk_1:
data driven storytelling. Julia Campbell returns to share her thinking on retaining and engaging donors by creating and curating your best stories. She’s an author, trainer and speaker. This continues our coverage to the 2023 non profit technology conference hosted by N 10 on Tony’s Take to the gift butter video. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with an intuitive fundraising software from Donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others donor box dot org. Here is data driven storytelling.

[00:03:23.73] spk_0:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC, the 2023 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. You can tell that this is much quieter than all the other 23 NTC recordings you’ve heard. That’s because Julia Campbell and I were not able to connect on the floor at the conference, but we’re doing it in follow up.

[00:03:26.56] spk_2:
I got the time zones wrong. It’s my fault. All

[00:03:34.39] spk_0:
right, Julia, I wouldn’t say it, but yes, Julia messed up the time zones. She was ready two hours after she was supposed to come. I

[00:03:38.69] spk_2:
was like, where am I going? What am I doing? And your poor, lovely, you know, associate said, oh, no, that was a while ago. So thanks for bearing with me.

[00:04:00.14] spk_0:
Yes, of course. Yes, it’s, it’s Julia Campbell very well, very well worth waiting for. And Julia is an author trainer, speaker and even years ago was the social media manager for tony-martignetti non profit radio which helped launch her author speaker training

[00:04:12.55] spk_2:
career. I really, really, really did. That’s so interesting. It was so long ago because it doesn’t seem like that long ago.

[00:04:35.35] spk_0:
It was good. 878, 10 years maybe. I’m not sure quite 10, but it’s around there. Yeah, we had, we had fun together. Yeah, we did. Yeah, you always knew what you were doing. You just get me, get me, get me straight. Google. What? Google Mail. What am I like?

[00:04:38.03] spk_2:
Yes, you have some, you have some great ideas. But yeah, the technical application, but that’s the perfect example of being in the weeds. And I think you are a great example of knowing your strengths and hiring out and you still do that. It’s inspiring for, you know, entrepreneurs and freelancers like me,

[00:04:57.66] spk_0:
I’ve had a social media manager for many uh 15 years, probably 14, roughly 14, 15 years, I’ve had somebody helping me.

[00:05:08.51] spk_2:
So nonprofits take note. You don’t have to do it all yourself.

[00:05:59.26] spk_0:
Oh, please don’t. Yeah, you don’t, you, you know, based on your scale, you know, you might be able to but if you want to really scale, you know, you need help in a lot of different areas might be grants, it might be social media. Yeah. Don’t, don’t fear the outside folks who can help, you know, they specialize, alright, like Julie, like the Julia Campbell’s, but she’s moved on from being social media manager. Now. She’s author trainer, speaker, August personage generally. So your topic at NTC at NTC? Yes, was retain and engage your donors with data driven storytelling. I feel like we should start with what is data driven storytelling. So let’s start there.

[00:08:40.91] spk_2:
Yes. So I think that the term storytelling has taken on this interesting almost jargon e quality where people just sort of throw it around and they say, oh, we have to tell stories or collect stories or share stories. And I’m definitely guilty of a lot of that because a lot of my content and materials and training is around effective storytelling, but a lot of nonprofits don’t work in human services. So there are quite a few of us that maybe don’t have those stories that are incredibly apparent like the puppies and the kittens and the kids and the, you know, the Food Bank. Um So how can we use the data, but also create a narrative around it. So, with storytelling that is data driven, it’s really appealing to people that have that logical mindset. So the way that I taught it and just to go very briefly, the way that I tried to frame it in the session. Okay. Well, the way that I framed it in the session and I did have two other speakers with me that were absolutely fabulous. Um And I want to talk about how they covered it as well, but I talked about Aristotle’s rules of persuasion. So the only way you can persuade someone to take an action is to have three elements. One is logos, which is logic, the logical nature. The second is ethos, which is, which means you need to be credible, which is tony, why you read my bio and talk about my accolades before the podcast even get started because people are automatically saying, why should I listen to her? You know, why should I even pay attention to her? And then there’s pathos which is the emotional connection that you need to have in order to take an action. So data figures into the logos piece of it, which is convincing me that what you’re working on is something that’s urgent and relevant and timely, but also something that’s really a problem like is food and security a problem that sounds silly. When I say it out loud and I’m sure for everyone listening, it sounds silly. But if I ask someone on the street, they might say no, I don’t think so. I don’t know anyone that goes to a food bank. I don’t know anyone that’s food insecure because what we don’t understand, we’re so caught up in the curse of knowledge and what we know that we don’t understand. We still do need to convince people that the problems we’re working on our problems. You know, we can’t just keep sending out fundraising appeals that say everything is great and hunky dory and wonderful because people will read it and say, oh great and just throw it in the trash. We need to incorporate data and statistics into our storytelling to show people that this issue, this cause is relevant and timely and also is really worth our attention,

[00:08:55.08] spk_0:
but still make the story humane,

[00:10:31.06] spk_2:
but still make the story humane. So storytelling is the way that you’re going to create that empathy that is required. So if the only thing you do is share statistics, you know, and actually I should have pulled up my slides and gotten some statistics because I’m going to just make them up right now. If you say, you know, 100 billion, not 100 billion, 100 million people are refugees right now in Ukraine, right? That’s just a statistic people’s eyes kind of glazed over if you don’t start talking about the story. Like what is the story? Maybe? Tell a story of a family that was displaced, tell a story of a family that came to the United States and what they experienced. So if you read anything that’s good journalism and tony, you know, I studied journalism. Journalism. Journalism is really my passion. That’s why I started my podcast. That’s why I love to write. I love to get the story, but not just the story. I really want to drill down into. Why is this something we need to pay attention to right now? And why is this relevant? And how does this sort of relate to what’s going on in the rest of the world? Because what happens is when non profits do their storytelling, a lot of the time they focus just on their locality or they focus just on maybe even their region if we’re lucky, but we need to tie our stories into the bigger picture of, you know, racial inequality and racial injustice or maybe, you know, the bigger problem of substance use and abuse, the bigger problems of income inequality and how that affects people experiencing homelessness. I think we need to do a better job tying our little piece of the pie into the bigger picture to create that context for our audience. So we shouldn’t rely on data, but we should definitely be incorporating it more, I think with our stories.

[00:11:04.62] spk_0:
Alright. This is, it’s, it’s sounding very valuable but a little esoteric. So like how can we or what are there things that we need to think about or I mean, this is not, it’s not a 1234 steps, you know, when you’re done, but how do we approach this so that we can get to what we aspire to human stories that also incorporate data so that people see the bigger context

[00:11:33.00] spk_2:
thinking about. So we need to be really creating a system where we’re constantly looking out for not only really effective stories but also data that supports our point that this is a problem. So while I love Humans of New York, I love Humans of New York. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s,

[00:11:49.71] spk_0:
I don’t know if there were more than two volumes, but I have two of those on my

[00:12:16.50] spk_2:
book. It is anyone that wants to be a storyteller, especially a storyteller on social media needs to follow Humans of New York on Facebook and Instagram get the books. They’re fantastic, they’re wonderful stories. They make me feel something but Humans of New York, they don’t ask you to do anything. I think they might now be fundraising and there might be a call to action at the end. But in the beginning, it was just sharing these stories to make you, you know, to help you feel like you’re part of the human experience

[00:12:22.88] spk_0:
is and compelling photographs of folks

[00:12:26.27] spk_2:
exactly compelling

[00:12:27.27] spk_0:
visuals and not by a professional photographer. I don’t think he was a professional

[00:12:31.36] spk_2:
photographer. No, I think he’s just using an iphone.

[00:12:34.07] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:14:54.64] spk_2:
Talk about just something that exploded because as you can see, you know, we’re craving that human connection. So we’re craving like seeing ourselves and other people or you know, we want to be empathetic, we want to be compassionate. But when you want someone to do something, you can’t just share a fantastic story and then say give at the end, it really needs to be what is the impact going to be when you give, for example, what’s going to happen with that donation? A lot of people say give so that 10 people can, you know, have access to the food bank or give so 40 kids can get the backpack, something like that. Yeah. So I consider that a piece of data. So data doesn’t have to be a statistic on the problem. It really just has to be something that is going to appeal to the logical side of my brain. So you’ve got me emotionally, you grabbed my attention, you piqued my curiosity, you pulled at my heartstrings, maybe or you inspired me, maybe you made me angry. That’s a valid emotion to elicit with storytelling. And what are you going to do with that energy? And that’s where a lot of organizations I think get lost. They focus on telling this great story, pulling the heartstrings, but then what happens after or they tell these great stories and they keep telling them, but I’m a donor and I now want to know what is the effect, what is the impact? Like? Tell me great stories. Fine. But if I’m an active donor to organ is a, I’m a monthly donor, I really now want to know how many people have been served this year. How much is this affected? What’s going on? Is it pushing the needle on this problem? Is there legislation being passed? Like what is the sort of what is the impact? And I think that’s lacking and a lot of donor communications because we focus so much on donor acquisition and we don’t focus on donor retention. And when I designed this training, it was really retaining and engaging donors. It was not about donor acquisition. There’s enough data on that. I talk enough about that. But how do we really get them invested by using the statistics and communicating the impact? I think we just continually tell them these great heartstring pulling stories. But at the end of the day, we really want to know a little bit about what was done with the funds that we provided.

[00:15:59.12] spk_1:
It’s time for a break donor box. It’s the fundraising engine of choice for 50,000 organizations from 96 countries. It’s powerful enough to double donations and simple enough to be used by everyone. Black girls code increased donations by 400% upward. Scholars increase donations by 270% Maya’s hope saw a 100% increase in donors. The donor box donation forum is four times faster. Checkout, no set up fees, no monthly fees, no contract and 50,000 or go all over the world. Donor box helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Now back to data driven storytelling.

[00:16:59.72] spk_0:
The whole point of this is retention and engagement. Alright. So data for, for context data for so for understanding the scope of the problem, you know, sort of human storytelling to pull us in and, and ground it because you’re right, we can’t, we can’t understand something on a scale of 100 million people. It’s not that many in Ukraine, but whatever it is, we can’t understand even a million, even even 10,000 people is hard to understand, let alone millions, right. So, all right. So you know grounding in in one or two concrete stories, um data for impact. So you know what, what, what are we doing? Yeah, the problem is enormous. What’s our part of it? How can you be allied with us, help us alleviate the hunger problem or the domestic violence problem or in our community? Okay. Okay.

[00:17:07.59] spk_2:
These are huge problems and it takes the story to contextualize it, but the data to put it in perspective,

[00:17:25.56] spk_0:
write the story. Yes, the story contextualized data for perspective and, and context. Exactly. Alright. Alright. Um Right. Without too much reliance on data but but the numbers are important to, you know, get a sense of the scope of the problem. Like you said, I’m just, I’m just reiterating the smart points you, you, you already made. Um

[00:19:26.76] spk_2:
And I think another thing that nonprofits trouble with and you probably see this too in your work with like planned giving. Don’t donors, I don’t want to say not all donors are created equal because I hate that saying, but I don’t know how else to say it. Like donors don’t all want the same information. You know, donors don’t necessarily all want the same information depending on where they are in the donor journey. And they might, you know, they definitely need to hear the stories, the success stories, the testimonials, they need to hear the good things that are being done, but they also really need to understand that these problems are not going away. Like you give a $10,000 gift, you’re amazing and wonderful and that’s incredible. And thank you. And here are ways that you can get even more involved or becoming a go to resource on the issue. That’s always what I like to think. People start out the conversation trying to be the go to resource, but they should be, you know, kind of wining and dining the donor. Once they get the money, then they become the go to trusted go to resource on this issue. And they almost become like an advisor telling people you really care about arts in our community. This is what’s going on. You know, this is what the data showing arts is a fantastic way to improve academic excellence or are, you know, we have shown that the kids in our program are getting into college at higher rates, whatever it might be, we throw all that data at people that don’t even know us and don’t even care necessarily care about us. And we don’t end up giving this information to the donor who has raised their hand and put their credit card down and said I care about this issue. Um I think we just focus so much on donor acquisition and throwing so much information at brand new prospects, but not enough using this data to cultivate and retain existing donors

[00:19:56.58] spk_0:
and motivate. Um you know, you want folks to feel good about whether it’s $10,000 or $1000.50 dollars, you want them to feel good about what they’ve done. So they’re encouraged to, to do the same or more and not leave and not be among the, was it 75% of first year donors leave us?

[00:20:05.48] spk_2:
I think the fundraising effectiveness project data that just came out something like 80% of first time donors leave and then overall donor retention is around 46%.

[00:20:32.87] spk_0:
Yeah, not even half right, not even keeping half half our donors. Yeah. Alright. Alright. So smart to focus on retention engagement. Um What else? What else what else did you talk about? Because you had the other, you have the uh co presenters. So I don’t want to specifically ask you things that were in the like the learning objectives. And then you say, well, that was somebody else’s support

[00:23:41.34] spk_2:
so well, we really worked collaboratively together. So, um my two co presenters, one was Patrick Byrne, who’s the CEO of the Challenge Foundation, which is an organization based in Denver. And then Candice Cody, who’s been a longtime friend of mine, but she does marketing and data analysis for community boost, which is a consulting firm. So I asked Patrick to join us because he has that for, you know, um in the trenches perspective, he had just actually changed jobs, but he’s been working in um education and after school and youth development for decades in Denver is actually pretty well known. So, and he’s the CEO, he goes out and does a lot of these donor meetings, which we’re all very familiar with. So he’s one of those CEO that loves to go meet with donors, loves to talk, loves to present, loves to be like on the forefront of the issue. And he says that he Jen, he generally like will with a major donor lead with the data almost. It’s not like they’re parading around, you know, he doesn’t usually have one of the youth um come with him to these meetings, first of all, because of confidentiality and ethic, ethical reasons. Certainly they have events where the donors get to see the program in action. But he says often what he finds with the big big donors in the foundation certainly is that they want to see that data. So they understand that the problem is, you know, it’s really large and they know the success stories because the Challenge Foundation has done a great job in terms of marketing and pr and they’re always in the news, but they want to see kind of the hard facts. Like are we really pushing the needle on this? Like, are we really getting good results? Are we getting the bang for our buck if you will? Um What are the outcomes? You know, what are, what’s the actual impact based on our goals and objectives of what we’re trying to achieve? So he was talking a lot about his experience, talking to donors, his experience collecting those human interest stories as personal stories, how they do it at his organization. They have a whole system, they train their employees in storytelling, all of them so that they can notice a good story or a mission moment or a little quote or a testimonial when it comes up so that they always have like a database of stories to pull from. So when I tell clients that they, that really freaked out because they don’t want they, they think that it’s going to be everybody out in the wild West posting all over Instagram without any guidelines, but that’s not what it is. It’s really just people collecting the stories and sending it back to one person who’s kind of the gatekeeper and figures out the permissions and things like

[00:23:43.42] spk_0:
that. That’s valuable. You’re curating stories throughout the organization. Yes.

[00:24:40.43] spk_2:
And really, that’s the only way that storytelling is gonna work if you have it infused into the culture, if you just have your development director and I’ve been that development director that is the only person responsible for stories. What’s going to happen as I used to do every Friday, I would send out an email and say, hey, everybody, I’m gonna send out the newsletter this week or I’m sending out donor. Thank you. I really need a great story. And then of course it’s crickets. So if it’s not infused into the culture and if it doesn’t come from the top down, the importance of collecting these kinds of things, it’s just not going to happen. I mean, people are so busy, think about all of the things like anyone listening, think about all the things on your plate right now. But if it’s part of your job description, you know, part of your expectation. And if it’s just something that’s part of the culture of the organization, it makes it a lot easier. Yeah. And it

[00:24:41.46] spk_0:
makes it easier for the for the person who does have to curate the content because there’s this library of, of valuable stories that you can go back and ask more detail about. But, you know, like, well, you know, this, we have this great success or this, this woman gave said something about our work and here’s, you know, here’s what she said.

[00:25:09.61] spk_2:
Exactly. And you, you can’t always be on the front lines. In fact, you’re probably not always on the front lines, the marketing person, the fundraising person, and you’re not gonna

[00:25:10.53] spk_0:
remember it, You know, six weeks later when the, when the newsletter person emails you, you know, because it happened six weeks ago, you’re not gonna remember that story, but in real time. All right, that’s valuable in real time. If people just have somebody to email, look, there’s great, great quote from this woman. You know, I can tell you more if, if you decide

[00:27:41.51] spk_2:
exactly, I can tell you more or I had lunch with this donor and I think she’d be really perfect for our gala. Just make a mental note. You know what I mean? And it’s things you can follow up on later. And what I always say is that these stories are evergreen. People think that email and social media, everything has to be something that you came up with that second. It really doesn’t like if it’s a story from five years ago, it’s still powerful and no one knows it was from five years ago and it’s still like it still has that impact. I just think we overthink the content creation and the storytelling, the story gathering process because we think it has to be something that happened this week. It really does not. Like sometimes people work on stories for months, you know, they work on them for weeks. Like thinking about making a video, you can work on that for a really long time. It doesn’t have to be this like, oh, this person told me this story today and I have to post it today. That’s the way I think we think about things, think about websites that have stories on them that are really God only knows how long the stories have been on there. But that doesn’t diminish their impact. It doesn’t diminish the person’s transformation or the life that was changed or the impact that was made. It just, it just um you know, if you have that, that powerful like evergreen story that never goes stale, you can build on it and why not revisit stories? That’s another whole topic. Charity Water does that they constantly are revisiting people that they told stories about and sharing new information about these people. And I just wonder why we have to constantly be on this hamster wheel of storytelling and we don’t dive a little bit deeper or maybe, you know, revisit someone that was in our program that we talked to, maybe talk to them five years later or even just a few months later. So the constant content creation, hamster wheel and the view of storytelling is it has to be this perfectly crafted Lord of the Rings trilogy kind of thing where there’s, you know, the hero’s journey drives me crazy journey.

[00:27:47.80] spk_0:
Yeah, the

[00:28:21.34] spk_2:
hero’s journey. It’s the, it’s the one we all know. It’s like the Luke Skywalker, the Harry Potter Frodo. I mean, it’s the, the Hunger Games, you know, Katniss, it’s the reluctant hero and then the guide and then we all know that story. But when we are talking about storytelling, especially on digital channels, it really can just be a great picture and a quote like Humans of New York does it or it can be a mission moment or it can be a piece of data and then illustrating that data with a quote with a testimonial. So I think we tend to think everything has to be perfect and very produced. But on the other hand, that’s stopping us from doing the work, I think it’s a little bit of an excuse. Honestly,

[00:28:36.25] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:29:13.33] spk_0:
You can watch the video of last week’s webinar that I did with Give Butter. It’s debunk the top five myths of Planned Giving. I was with Floyd Jones from Give Butter. And when I say with, I mean, we were sitting next to each other, it was terrific. What I’ve never done a webinar like that and I hope I can do more where we’re sitting side by side. So we joined each other’s screens and we just, we had a good time at, at the, we were in Brooklyn. So if you want to watch the video of debunked, the top five myths of Planned Giving the video is on the Butter blog at give butter dot com.

[00:29:23.98] spk_1:
That is Tony’s take to, we’ve got just about a butt load. More time for data driven storytelling with Julia Campbell.

[00:29:53.07] spk_0:
That’s all very valuable. Go back, you know, like if you’re listening, I would go back 10 minutes and replay what, what Julia just said because there’s 44 valuable points in there that will help your storytelling, help your content curation really valuable. Um And what did you just say that something is hurting us? What was the last thing like last sentence you said?

[00:30:00.97] spk_2:
I think it’s a little bit of an X. It’s

[00:30:03.11] spk_0:
an excuse. Yes, it’s an excuse. So not happening because we don’t have anything that’s 24 hours recent.

[00:31:12.51] spk_2:
So or we don’t, we don’t have the budget to make produced video. I could tell you every excuse in the book, every storytelling excuse I have been told and there are ways around it and this is not my quote and I just wrote it down for a talk that I’m doing and I can’t, I want to give credit to somebody for it, but it doesn’t take resources to be resourceful and you have to consider, you know, your budget, your band with your capacity and also, of course, there’s ethical considerations around storytelling, but none of this is insurmountable. I’ve worked with organizations. I work with an organization that focuses on their think tank and they focus on chronic absenteeism in the United States. They never tell stories about students because they don’t want to focus on a student who’s chronically absent. I think that would be highly unethical to do that. And also it’s, you know, there’s such a stigma around it that it’s hard to find personal stories for them, but they still managed to talk to teachers or principals or even other um like legislators about their work. I mean, there’s ways to do it without getting that. You know, Julia was hungry and she came to the shelter and we helped her.

[00:31:27.96] spk_0:
But can’t they tell a story of a student just anonymized?

[00:31:37.21] spk_2:
They could they tell they interview a lot of teachers who tell stories, the third party stories, okay. But because they don’t provide direct services so they provide training and assistance and legislative advocacy. I mean, their think tank,

[00:31:54.70] spk_0:
right? But let’s, let’s take, let’s take a hypothetical then playing off that. I mean, if you, if you do do direct service work, the stories can be anonymized, right? Not to use the neighborhood that they live in, you can pick another neighborhood. You don’t have to use their age, you can pick something different than their age. You don’t have to use their name, you can pick a fake name. No, the, but the story can still be told that that sounds like a, that sounds like one of your excuses. We don’t want to, I don’t want to compromise. We have ethical and maybe even legal

[00:33:49.15] spk_2:
requirements. Okay. So anonymized of confidentiality clients I’ve worked with one is called Plumber Youth Promise their foster care agency and Salem Mass, they only work with underage kids because once they turn 18, they age out of the foster care system. So they sent an email out the other day that I saved because I wanted to use it as an example um with my clients and it said that 40% now this is like such a horrifying statistic. 40% of kids that age out of foster care, like our homeless instantly just homeless because they don’t, they’re not staying in their foster care family. Maybe they can stay in their foster care families house. Um They certainly can’t stay in the facility because of laws, state law. Oh my God, it’s so horrible. So that is such an example of that statistic grabbed me and then they told a story of girl that they assisted um while she was transitioning out and they talked about their whole transitioning program and what they do when kids turn 17 and how they work with them for a year to figure out this transition. So they don’t turn homeless. It was really amazing and like it was just super I opening for me because I guess we all, I don’t know, I just never thought of it that way, but it was using data in this way to kind of open my eyes. But then sharing a story of how okay this this piece of data is horrible, but here’s what we’re doing, you know, in our little corner of the world to combat it. And it was, it was all anonymized. Like you said, there was a picture of like a tree in the email and it was, the story was, you know, obviously names changed and everything. So there’s definitely a way, there’s ways to do it.

[00:34:28.71] spk_0:
All right. Thank you. Encouragement, encouragement. They always, this is, this goes to something I’ve, I’ve said on the show a few times and I say in my trainings too often, you know, I like to think about how we can instead of why we can’t, if you’re looking for the, why we can’t. You come up with 1000 reasons were under resourced. We’re, we’re understaffed. It’s a holiday

[00:34:29.83] spk_2:
week. It’s a recession. It’s this, it’s that it’s a political campaign

[00:34:34.80] spk_0:
has time, right? It’s the summer. It’s the fall, it’s the winter. It’s the spring, nothing can get done in those four seasons. No, we need a new season. You know, exactly why you can’t. But the, how you can focus on the, how you can see why you can’t, how could we get it done. Let’s assume we’re gonna do it. How can we do it? How can we do it?

[00:35:36.64] spk_2:
I love that. I think it’s all about framing and a lot of it is mindset like you and I both teach tools and tactics. But if you have a person, what you just said is so interesting is if you have a person that comes to you for training and help, but they are just thinking about, they want you to just legitimize why they can’t do something. I immediately say, I just don’t think this is gonna work until we can get into that. What can we do space? Because especially with storytelling, people do, they have a lot of challenges that are very valid and then they have some challenges that maybe they could work on that. They put up these walls that they think. Well, we can’t share this, we can’t collect this data, we can collect this story. So coming at it from that we can, I think I’m guilty of doing that in my own life. I think you’ve just inspired me to change my own thinking. Sometimes I’ve got to come at it as a I can like, what can I do? I can’t do that. Okay. What can I do?

[00:36:11.90] spk_0:
Exactly. Exactly. Alright. Any more encouragement on data, the intersection of data and humanity, let’s say

[00:37:43.52] spk_2:
data and humanity. Well, I believe that we do so much data collection and we have absolutely no idea of what we’re doing with it? So with any kind of data collection that you do, whether it’s internal or external or social media or its program related, always have a focal point. How is this going to be used? How are we going to improve what we’re doing? How you know, what could this inspire? What could this elicit, what minds could be changed? What behaviors could be changed? Always have that sort of bigger picture view of the data you’re collecting. Because if you know, we can all collect data all day, every day, but if we’re not using it in an effective way, if we’re not contextualizing it for people or if it’s just a piece of data that we’re not doing anything with, it’s really not going to be worth anything. And I also really encourage people have empathy for your audience. So this is something that J Kenzo says he’s one of my favorite authors and podcasters, J A Kenzo and he says have empathy for your audience, make everything very explicit, very clear, very short, don’t wrap a ton of stuff in 90,000 statistics and flow charts and things like that. Unless it’s a funder, you know, you’ve gotta know your audience. But if you’re thinking of an email or social media post, just have empathy for people, they’re scrolling, they’re busy, they have 90 1000 other emails, their boss is yelling at them, their kids are probably homesick, you know, whatever it is. Just make sure that you are providing the most relevant information, something that’s going to help them inspire them, something that’s going to encourage them to take the action that they want to take,

[00:38:02.73] spk_0:
have empathy for folks. Channel, channel your folks. I try to channel our listeners when I’m talking to smart folks like you. All right.

[00:38:11.95] spk_2:
Yes, I love that. Be your audience. Think about your audience first,

[00:38:16.04] spk_0:
Julia Campbell August personage

[00:38:20.42] spk_2:
personage. Uh going to put that in my email signature.

[00:38:33.66] spk_0:
Uh But more more uh perfunctorily, she’s author, trainer and speaker and was a speaker at 23 NTC. Thanks to

[00:38:37.57] spk_2:
excellent

[00:38:39.63] spk_0:
my pleasure and thank you for being with the ever continuing coverage of 23 NTC. Even four weeks later, still still capturing the smart speakers. And we were sponsored at 23 NTC by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[00:39:42.29] spk_1:
next week, 10 fundraising boosts on a budget and personalized fundraising at a scale. If you missed any part of this week’s show, we beseech you find it at tony martignetti dot com were sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I am your announcer Kate martignetti. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:39:48.78] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 5, 2020: Don’t Get Played By The Product Demo & Facebook Fundraising Data

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Rubin Singh: Don’t Get Played By The Product Demo
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[00:00:11.54] spk_0:
Okay. Hello. Welcome to tony-martignetti non

[00:02:30.78] spk_1:
profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. I’ll have something to say about George Floyd and racial equity in Tony’s Take Two. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of Ballon O prostatitis if you pissed me off with the idea that you missed today’s show. Don’t get played by the product demo. We’ve all watched in awe as the cursor flies across the screens of a demonstration. Nine months later, we’re scratching our heads. They made it look so easy back then. Get insider tips from Ruben Sing, who’s led hundreds of sales demos. He’s CEO of 1/10 Consulting. This is part of our 20 and TC coverage and Facebook fundraising data. This 20 and D C panel feels your frustration over Facebook not sharing donor data, but they also admonish that you can’t ignore the value of Facebook fundraising. They bust myths, help you overcome the challenges, reveal had a thank and engage your fundraisers and steer clear of pitfalls. There. Nick Byrne from Give Panel and consultants Julia Campbell and Maureen will be off tony Stick to be The change were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers. Regular cps dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Here is don’t get played by the product Demo. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC. That’s the 2020 non profit Technology Conference sponsored A 20 D. C by a Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guest now is Ruben Singh. He is CEO of 1/10 Consulting Ruben. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Thanks

[00:02:38.40] spk_2:
so much, tony. Glad to be here.

[00:02:48.54] spk_1:
Pleasure on pleasure. I’m glad that we could work this out virtually. And I know that you are well and safe outside Baltimore in Maryland goods, your topic is don’t get played by the product. Demo, Exclamation mark! If you’re shouting this from a mountaintop, don’t get played by the product. Demo. You’re an insider you’ve done How many? Hundreds of product demos?

[00:03:02.44] spk_2:
Yeah, definitely in in the hundred’s. But the thing is, I’ve been on all sides of it. I have, ah, delivered demos. I have been on the the the customer side or the prospects of receiving demos, and I’ve also coordinated them on behalf of my customers. So I felt like I had a lot of good experience and perhaps some insider tips and tricks toe offer.

[00:03:22.57] spk_1:
Okay, there is There is some deception in these in these demonstrations.

[00:03:40.46] spk_2:
Well, you know, I wouldn’t quite say deception. It’s a spectrum, Really, Uh, some things I have some practices I’ve seen over the years have ranged from you, maybe a little questionable to mislead it, and then some of it has been deceptive. But, you know, honestly, tony Yeah, it’s a little tongue in cheek. I I don’t want to imply, especially the non profit sector, that these that these sales reps are being dishonest in any way. I think most of them have great intentions. But what I really think that there’s a handful of tips and tricks and practices that folks can use to really make sure they’re getting the most out of their demos.

[00:05:07.37] spk_1:
Okay, My my recollection of these as a consult. So I do plan giving consulting. And I’ve gotten some demonstrations for profit from products as a as a as an observer for on the client behalf. Um, and then together we make a decision, but my memory of them is that the cursor is flying around the screen. It started non stop. And then at the very end of a 30 minute demonstration, Do you have any questions? Well, I probably had questions from screen number two about 90 seconds into the thing, but I’m flummoxed now. I’m overwhelmed by the by the movement by by the screens flying around. I can’t remember my question. I I think I had one, but I’m not positive of that. I need to I need a I need a drink. I need to calm down, because the thing just went so damn fast, you know? Um, all right, so that’s that’s probably on the negative end of the spectrum again. Not suggesting deception, but it just goes so fast, you know? Shoot. All right, So where should we start? I mean, you have tips for preparing before the demonstration starts. Yeah,

[00:05:12.64] spk_2:
Well, what you just described is a very common situation. And I would say where the biggest gap is I’ve seen where customers have come back to me and said, You know what? Everything looks so seamless and looks so, uh, you know, so nice and shiny and so quick and easy in the demo. But that’s not the product we ended up with. The biggest reason for that is, in my opinion at least, is how you come into that demo. How prepared you are. If you simply just walk in, let the sales rep do their thing and just, you know, as you and just wait to be wowed and impressed. You’re very likely going to end up disappointed so that one of the first points that I really bring up in, uh, my talk was to present some use cases to really think to yourself, what are the four or five things that we must have on Day one when our new system is live, as well as one of those four or five things that are working terrible right now in our current system, those are the areas we want to focus on, Let’s draft up our use cases. Let’s get very specific examples, not yes or no questions and provide that to the sales rep account executive ahead of time. That way, you’re not really focusing on the fluff. You’re not focusing on the bells and whistles. You can watch that stuff on YouTube. You’re really focusing on those areas that are going to be critical for you to be successful.

[00:06:24.34] spk_1:
Okay, Anything else we should be thinking about as a team before we before we view this extravaganza?

[00:06:30.66] spk_2:
Yeah, definitely the prep that you do up front. You know, I kind of alluded to this that you doing your homework? A lot of these products that you see out there, especially in a non profit technology side. There’s demos available. There’s demos available on their websites. You know, maybe you need to download a white paper. There’s demos available on YouTube. Eso, you know, watch those demos do your homework. Don’t just wait to the demo. You know the facilitated demo before you see it for the first time. That way, you can really understand what the potential pain points are again. Also, there’s many different organizations out there that do independent studies on the various donor management C r M systems eso. So that might be a place as well as other other applications. So do your homework. Understand where the weaknesses are already a prom. That way you can focus on their those areas in the demo. So the team or the pattern I really focus on here is move away from the demo just being a presentation and really try to make it a working session with your sales rep. Eso you’re really working through this scenarios and not just sitting back and watching can presentation.

[00:07:29.58] spk_1:
Okay, Yeah, you’re focusing them on on where your pain points are, what your must haves are and not just getting a generic description of, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you if you end up meeting this, then we have this component and and we have this feature to you might not end up needing it, but I just want to acquaint you with it. You know, that that’s really irrelevant.

[00:07:52.71] spk_2:
That’s right. And so those were some things that you could ahead of time, you know, even during the demonstration itself, there’s certain things that you want to look out for, You know, again, the yes, no questions. Do you have all into your management? Do you have events management? Do you have playing? Giving the answer is always gonna be yes to a Yes. No question. We had a If you can always repurpose, you know, certain functionality to make it fit A particular scenario. So I try to encourage your my profit, remind my customers that’s gonna move away from that and really give a specific example. Hey, you know, I do a lot of events and I sit at the desk during our gala and I need to register people when they come in the door and also have the ability with the check and check out process to enter a new attendee. Show me how I can do that and that that could be one of the use cases that you present ahead of time. So again it gives it gives very specific things. Another thing that I suggest is is be careful about those words of integration and compatibility. Um, because everyone is integrated, you know, especially I deal a lot with Salesforce and everyone claims to be integrated with Salesforce but that integration it could mean anything. It could be a plug and play out that takes 10 minutes. Or it could be, Ah, it could be a separate third party solution that you need with 1/3 party consultant to integrate it. So all that falls within the category of integration. So you want to be very clear when someone says, Oh, yeah, we’re compatible with such and such or were integrated with such and such. What exactly does that mean? And how does it look?

[00:09:57.04] spk_1:
Okay, that’s interesting. Yeah, I don’t think most people know that. They just they say, Oh, it’s integrated. Okay, that’s awesome. It’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As Things are moving fast. The Senate passed a bill on paycheck protection program loans that extends the covered period from eight weeks to 24 weeks. You need a place to keep up with everything that we’re being hit with. Financially wegner-C.P.As dot com Quick resource is and blawg now back to don’t get played by the product demo. I should have given you a chance to shout out what? What’s the work at 1/10 Consulting.

[00:10:27.99] spk_2:
Oh, well, we, uh we do everything from strategy we work exclusively with nonprofits. We do strategy, work. We do implementation of C R M. Systems all the way through change management and user adoption. So we take a slightly different approach in the sense that we, uh it’s not really just the technology that we focus on. We really try to make sure that the people, the process, the strategy, the data, everything is aligned. Because if one of those pieces were missing, you’re not you’re not gonna be happy. So as a consulting practice, we try to make sure all those are aligned to help help move missions

[00:10:35.81] spk_1:
forward. What’s the significance of the name 1/10 Consulting. What is that? Does that mean?

[00:10:55.56] spk_2:
Yeah. You know, in the six faith, there’s a, ah principle or a concept of thus fund we call it, which is giving 10% of your your income, your time to the community into the greater good. Um, and in my early years of starting this practice, I worked with a lot of faith based communities. Um, and as I was implementing donor management systems for churches and synagogues and masa, I started noticing that this concept of 10% or 1/10 of your income. Er, and giving back was was such a central component of every one of these faiths and every one of these faith traditions. Eso to me, it was it was nice. It was this unifying principle. And and so that’s kind of where 1/10 comes from that the 1/10 really represents this this treasure. And, you know, I’m hoping 1/10 consulting helps helps that 10% really realize its full

[00:11:36.74] spk_1:
potential. So before you recognize this commonality, what were you, Reuben sing Consulting? What were you before you were 1/10

[00:11:43.75] spk_2:
before 1/10 I have worked for, um I worked at a non profit sector, but also in CR ems for over 20 years. So prior to 1/10 I was with an organization called Round Corner. In their non profit technology sector. I was vice president of digital transformation, and, um, and they actually have been acquired by Salesforce. But that was the time I realized that I don’t want to be tied into one particular product and really want to be able to look at things more holistically that way. Started.

[00:12:14.94] spk_1:
Um, let’s go back to ah to advice you um, you know, part of what you ah talk about is tough questions to ask way at that stage, or is there more you want to say leading up to it? But you you, uh you take it where where we need to go,

[00:13:44.97] spk_2:
right? Right. Yeah, I think you know, as far as the tough questions that we covered, some of them the integration, the interoperability. Okay, I think another thing we talked about with terms, not just the yes, no questions. Also, when it comes to things like, Do you handle soft credits? Do you handle plan giving? Do you handle solicitors again? The questions the answers will always be Yes. And although, you know, matching gifts, workplace gifts, these these air something that all non profits due in some way, shape or form. But you want to make sure that your impression and your understanding of it is the same as the sales reps because I’ve noticed a lot of gaps in that area as well. Another couple tougher questions that I always like to get into is asking this question of what exactly is has been upgraded in this demo. So I’ve just seen it Time and time again, tony. Where, uh, you know, again, you’ve seen this great demo. And then when you come back and say, Well, these air, like, archaic looking Web forms can’t show these to my donors, and then they come back and say, Oh, yeah, you just need to upgrade to the next forms package or, oh, if you’re going to send more than three emails, you have to say you have to upgrade to the next email package. So the demo has been filled with all these add ons and upgrades, but you’re kind of getting something different, you know?

[00:13:47.33] spk_1:
And so you bought that you bought the base model, but you test drove the, uh, the SLX expanded, uh, 16 cylinder version.

[00:14:01.74] spk_2:
Exactly. And I often, for example, a few years back I was, uh, family. We were purchasing home, and we wanted a new home, and we were looking all these model houses, and I know some people really like to see these beautifully furnished homes with great interior decorating. And I was just like, Can I just see an empty house? You know, I want to know what I’m getting. I get thrown off, I get distracted by all this. You know, Do you have some sort of, you know, house that’s being built, That that’s the same model that I could look at. And so I kind of looked at demos the same way. Do as little as possible, you know, and And don’t customise too much. Don’t add on anything. I want to see how close my use cases worked with your out of the box product that way. Ah, comparing apples down.

[00:14:39.06] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. So you can actually ask them to demo a specific version that you’d be most likely to be buying without whatever add ons, plug ins, upgrades, et cetera.

[00:14:51.31] spk_2:
Yeah, and it really should be easier for the sales rep to to prepare for that on and really have them. You’re focusing less on customizing and focus more on the use cases that you provided them. Okay. And I will tell you, you know, this not all sales reps or account executives will be receptive to this. And some of them might say, Oh, this is too much work. Or where they might look at your use cases and say we’re clearly not a fit, which is not a bad thing either. At least you know upfront. Yeah. The sales reps that I think are really good. And some of the ones I’ve worked with they would love something like this. They would love the client toe, give them a list of use cases. Give him some very specifics That way, they’re not guessing either. Ah, and the session is going to be a lot more fruitful when both sides

[00:15:34.44] spk_1:
are prepared. OK, OK, Reuben Weaken, spend some more time together. If you have more suggestions,

[00:16:04.52] spk_2:
you know, I’d say that there’s there’s probably one other suggestion that I would, uh I alluded to this at the very beginning on I think it kind of sums up. The whole point is when I talked Teoh sales reps and want to prepare them for a demo, I even tell them up front. You know, we’re not really interested in the demo. We’d like to have a working session and just even using that term, it changes the paradigm, and it really changes the relationship. They’re between yourself and the vendor. Eso even just something as simple as recommending that we’re calling it something different. The sales right will come in a little bit more prepared to work with you and really try to work through those use cases. Eso the more you can move away from the canned, you know, bells and whistles, presentation and Maurin toe a meaningful conversation on your use cases, the more happier you’re going to be with the end product,

[00:16:38.54] spk_1:
okay? And I guess if you get any if you get any pushback or objection from the from the sales rep about converting this from a demo to a work session, that’s a red flag about whether whether you want to purchase their ah, against purchasing their their product and continuing with the conversation with them.

[00:16:47.75] spk_2:
Absolutely. I mean, you know, we’re talking about on profits here, and, you know, obviously funds are always limited, and you want to make sure that you’re making smart decisions on where that money goes. So, like I said, a nonprofit sector, that’s the sales reps I’ve worked with their usually very much in line with this thinking. Um, so so but yeah, if there was any objection, that’s definitely red flag. In my opinion,

[00:17:10.04] spk_1:
you have ah, you have a resource at the on the 1/10 consulting site

[00:17:17.24] spk_2:
Yeah, yeah, you know, and we’re really bummed about that. The conference, the NTC conference being canceled. So what we did is we went ahead and I recorded the session that I had planned to deliver at the NTC conference, Um and ah ah. And have uploaded that recording to our website www 0.1 temp that consulting. Um, it’s there in the blog’s section. And you know, I would also suggest that that blawg section does have a lot of other resource is, you know, if you’re interested in grant management and what products are out there or if you’re trying to figure out what might be the CIA RAM solution for you, we have several articles free webinars on other insights that folks are welcome to take a look at

[00:17:56.84] spk_1:
Okay. And the full the full conference. Ah, this presentation is there. That’s correct. Okay, is 1/10 dot consulting. That’s correct. Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t know dot Consulting is a, uh Is it available for those called extension?

[00:18:17.13] spk_2:
Yeah, it’s available. Signed, signed up for a couple years ago and definitely opens things up. T create the name that you want, so yeah, www 0.1 temps that consulting, and we’ll take you right

[00:18:29.14] spk_1:
there. Okay, It’s in the block block section. That’s right. All right. Ruben saying he’s CEO. 1/10 Consulting, Um, in Maryland, outside Baltimore. Rubin. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for sharing.

[00:18:35.14] spk_2:
Thank you, Tony. I appreciate your time.

[00:21:12.05] spk_1:
My pleasure. Thanks. And thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software, Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up. So you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands how you work. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now time for tony Stick to George Floyd. It’s a recorded murder. I am skeptically optimistic that the United States will deal this time with its institutional racism. If we’re gonna have a chance that that we each need to be the change we want to see, there’s no waiting for political leadership. They’ll get dragged along after we the people, start the conversation at our level. That needs to happen and I would like to help. Next week, non profit radio will have a special episode devoted to how to start the racism and white privilege conversation in your office. It’s a long journey. It begins with a single step. We each need to be the change we want to see. Start with me next week. That is tony Steak, too. Now, time for Facebook fundraising data. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020. Non profit technology conference with me now, our Nick Byrne, Julia Campbell and Maureen will be off. Nick is founder and CEO at Give Panel. Julia Campbell is author, speaker and teacher at J. Campbell Social Marketing And Maureen will be off is digital strategist and technology coach with practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Welcome, everybody. Nick. Julie. Morning. Welcome. Welcome, city pleasure. I’m glad we’re able to work this out. I know you’re each well and safe on. I’m glad to hear that. Everybody’s okay. Um, we’re talking about Facebook. Fundraising your 2020 topic, uh, for NTC is best kept secrets the getting and using Facebook fundraiser data. Julia, you’ve been talking about Facebook fundraising for so long we had you on?

[00:21:16.09] spk_3:
Yeah, last two years ago

[00:21:18.57] spk_1:
Was the the last year or two years ago. Um, you’re gonna have toe. You have to find a new gig.

[00:21:23.62] spk_3:
I know. Well keeps changing

[00:21:26.41] spk_1:
this this one trick things.

[00:21:27.84] spk_3:
And now I found neck. You’re like my Facebook fundraising soulmate, so

[00:21:32.14] spk_1:
that’s right. So I’m going to start with you, Since I know for a fact you’ve been doing this thinking about Facebook fundraising a long time. Um, what the problem is, Facebook doesn’t share. Right? We lamented the last year or two years ago, you and I.

[00:22:42.13] spk_3:
Yes. So I Yeah, it was in New Orleans, Um, 18 ntc with and I did the first session on Facebook fundraising tools, and it was when they had just come out and I had mental health, America and the Polaris Project with me because they were kind of just slaying it with Facebook funders and raising thousands of dollars. Like Nick likes to talk about that magic money that comes down when you turn on the tools. But the number one this was two years, the number one quandary and problem, an issue that nonprofits had and still have is this issue that you don’t get the information of the contact information for everyone that makes a donation, even if it’s not to you? Necessarily. It’s to someone else’s birthday fundraiser. So our entire philosophy and the three of us are all on the same page, and we talked about it. We have talked about this a lot is that you’re missing the point. If you focus on the data that Facebook gives you, there are ways to get the data and the content information for your fund raisers. The people that are raising money for you that are stepping up and saying I want to donate my birthday. This is a cause that I really care about right now. Everyone come together, raise money. Those are the people you need to focus on. And I think Nick made an amazing amazing point earlier this morning when we were talking. I love that point where you don’t want to clog up your Sierra Room in your database with the data of all these donors who don’t even want to hear from you anyway because they haven’t elected to hear from you. They didn’t really box

[00:23:27.81] spk_1:
their connection here, person they’re connected. The person who is running the fundraiser?

[00:23:32.51] spk_3:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So get around this. We need to get over this hump. And Nick can also talk a lot more about that. And Maureen can

[00:23:40.82] spk_1:
too. All right, So you don’t want to focus on what we don’t have.

[00:23:44.34] spk_3:
Yes, there is a

[00:23:44.95] spk_1:
possibility that they might be, uh, uh, interested in engaging with you and your cause.

[00:23:51.81] spk_3:
Maybe,

[00:23:52.45] spk_1:
But you don’t want you don’t focus on that possibility. Want focus on what we do have is that

[00:24:31.94] spk_3:
Well, yeah, there’s kind of two ways to look at it. One is Do you want un discretionary? Do you want to, um, totally on un discretionary funds? Do you want free funds that you could do with whatever you want to do with coming in? No one telling you what to do? What? They’re not earmarked. Do you want that kind of money? Do you want exposure to a brand new audience? Or do you want to focus on the fact that I gave $5 to Maureen’s birthday fundraiser But I only gave because of Maureen? I’m not really interested in animal rescue yourself. Hung up on getting my email, but we got to stop with that.

[00:24:33.41] spk_1:
OK? All right. Well, Nick, Julie obviously teed you off. So why don’t you give us your overview?

[00:24:39.94] spk_5:
Yeah, I mean, I think, like like Facebook. Call it social fund raising. And I think that’s the key, right? It’s social. It’s it’s enabling people who love your cause who want, like, support your mission to go out and raise money from their family and friends. And if if organizations and nonprofits just treat it like direct mail or something, right, it’s not social, and so you have to you have to go with it. And so there’s this myth that, you know you can’t get the data. Yeah, Facebook don’t share the data. That is true. But actually, we’ve pion eight near two ways that you can get a lot of fundraiser data. You’re not going to get the data of every single donor that gives to every every single fundraiser on Or do you want to clog your sierra em up with that information, right? Because they’re not gonna convert on email or direct mail like less than 2% of them opt in. When Facebook asked them to hear from you. And that’s a good sign that they gave to your t their friend or their family or their loved one. Not Teoh your cause. So go with the flow. Don’t fight Facebook. Use it for a CE, much as we can possibly use it for. It’s a fantastic fundraising

[00:25:50.14] spk_1:
tour. Okay, Nick, what’s out in your background? You have You have a projector on your ceiling projecting that onto the wall.

[00:25:56.43] spk_5:
So that’s Michael. Jordan told me to read the quote. It’s a bit it needs to be bigger, right? But Michael Jordan quite. It’s a Michael Jordan quote. So is Michael Jordan

[00:26:05.70] spk_1:
Reed. It go ahead.

[00:26:20.05] spk_5:
It says, Uh, I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games 26 times. I’ve been trusted to take the winning shot and missed. I failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.

[00:26:25.02] spk_3:
I love that

[00:26:26.76] spk_1:
additional. Okay. Is that that’s not a projection from your ceiling onto the wall, is it?

[00:26:31.26] spk_5:
That is one of those decals things.

[00:26:34.15] spk_1:
Okay? You’re very, very high tech. If you’ve got one

[00:26:38.12] spk_5:
E say it’s like a hologram,

[00:26:41.29] spk_1:
right? Exactly like It’s a

[00:26:42.77] spk_5:
commercial reality. It’s argument is not really there.

[00:26:50.94] spk_1:
It’s one of those lights that shines in front of a restaurant on the sidewalk. Where is it coming from?

[00:26:52.25] spk_5:
A car, guys, it’s,

[00:26:53.94] spk_1:
uh uh OK, Marine. You want toe? Er, why don’t you add to the overview and get helping us get started?

[00:28:30.69] spk_4:
Sure. I think that, you know, part of what Julia and Nick are alluding to has been around for a long time when you think about peer to peer fundraising generally. So I’ve helped a lot of people over the years with either live physical events, that’s a five K or a bike or walk or D i y peer to peer fundraising events and organizations, generally speaking, do not do anything with the donors who give to those team captains or those participants. The data does go into their C. R M because somebody’s made an online gift and is part of that text stuff. The date is getting sucked over, but they’re not trying to convert those people. But for some reason, people feel very frustrated about the inability to get the $5 donor into their database and is Nick and Julie have both said. You’re paying attention to the glass half empty. You need to shift your mind, pay attention to the information you can get and cultivate those relationships. Um, we and fundraising think a lot about the lifetime value of a donor, right? It’s just like it’s ingrained. And whether you were formally trained in the stuff or not is all around us about who’s valuable, Who do I spend time on and who I don’t. And Facebook turns that like a 45 degree angle. And it can be awful hard to get your leadership on board with ignoring donors just really what we’re telling people to dio. Those aren’t the folks that you should be paying attention to When it comes to Facebook fundraising, it’s the fund raisers themselves, not the people who were actually giving. And that could take some conversation at your board level or your your executive or sea level Um, inside your award that it is. It is not the way it’s always been, and you have to be cool with that and give

[00:29:00.80] spk_1:
it a try.

[00:29:01.75] spk_5:
Can I just jump in, jump in and just come off the back of the no Yeah, yeah. On anarchism. So polite, right?

[00:29:21.14] spk_1:
No. Yes. You’re not sure what I was? What I was going to say, Maureen, before I was interrupted was e. I could see how clearly. Yes. Take a drink, Nick, please. I can see why your company’s practical wisdom.

[00:29:23.34] spk_4:
Yeah, like

[00:29:30.74] spk_1:
your wisdom for non profit accidental techies. All right. And I saw you checkered with Donald Techie. Okay, so So we’ve gotta persuade our vice president, CEO and board, Maybe. I mean, the board may not be involved in what we do. Ah, fundraising campaign on Facebook or not. But at

[00:29:43.83] spk_4:
least these leaders, you

[00:30:05.28] spk_1:
persuade some people in the chain that we should be focusing on the five people a year who hosted us hosted a fundraiser for us on Facebook. Or it might be more than five, But but not not the 500 who gave at the rate of 100 each to to those to those five fundraisers. Ones who created the campaign’s not the wardens who donated to the campaigns.

[00:30:32.38] spk_4:
Okay, wait a few rooms about Facebook. You know, sometimes people have negative feelings about Facebook and that can you know, dr their business practices and where they’re choosing to invest their time. And what we’re what we’re here to say is Evaluate, evaluate, test it. Is it gonna work for your organization or not? And

[00:30:32.57] spk_1:
it

[00:30:32.68] spk_4:
probably is. So, you know, get ready. Get ready for that

[00:31:05.04] spk_1:
time for our last break. Turn to communications. They’re former journalists. So you get help getting your message through it is possible to be heard through the headlines. They know exactly what to do to build relationships with the journalists that matter to you. They are themselves former journalists. Those great relationships will lead to great coverage. They’re a turn hyphen to not CEO. We’ve got but loads more time for Facebook fundraising data. Nick you not because you interrupted, but Julia said earlier that you had some tools that we can applying here. You want to acquaint us with something?

[00:32:40.83] spk_5:
Yes. So my background as a digital fundraiser, we got into this early when client we saw the problems of the clients were having with data on. We started doing everything like, manually with spreadsheets and reaching out to fund raisers one of their time on Facebook, that kind of thing. And we just decided Look, this is crazy. We’ve got to build a tool to help that fast forward 18 months later, and we’ve got over 100 nonprofits in seven countries using give panel on What we do is we basically help organizations take the power back from Facebook? That’s kind of what we do. Like Facebook are getting a lot out of this, and that’s great. They’ve given us free tools. It’s free to use no platform cost, no technology costs, nor even any credit card fees, Right? So Facebook have given us something great. We know that they benefit, but our job is to leverage that tool as much as we can get a gun and leverage it for their advertising model on to keep them employees happy and like it’s a great thing that they’ve given the world. But it’s upto organizations toe to take the power back. And so we do that by helping how organizations Steward Steward their fundraisers get the data from their fundraisers on do you know, see graphs and dashboards and all that kind of thing. So it’s kind of the missing tool that Facebook haven’t given Facebook’s base books. No interested, necessarily in kind of building the best tool for charities, their customers, the end user on. So they’ll always be a gap where people like me will want to service the non profit. Right? OK, that’s what we

[00:32:43.61] spk_1:
do. Okay. Thank you. Julia party. Your description says how to identify who launches Facebook fundraisers. Is that Is that something that’s difficult to dio Julia?

[00:32:54.64] spk_3:
Yes. So Facebook is not going Teoh tell you when someone launches fundraiser and they’re not going to tell you who has necessarily launched a fundraiser. So you do have If you’re small organization and you’re not using a tech tool like give panel to help you, then you are going to have to figure that out. You’re gonna have to constantly be looking at your fundraisers and constantly trying to figure out and identify where the campaigns are. But that is absolutely crucial even for a small organization to dio to thank people especially, and give them the tools to sort of have already in your maybe on your website toe have a little bit of a tool kit. Maybe it’s a one page document with tips for fundraisers to really elevate their campaigns because we know nobody was born a fundraiser. No one’s born knowing how to fundraise. And if someone’s trying to raise $200 for their birthday, it’s a win win. If they can succeed because they’re gonna feel great and it’s going to be an amazing legacy for them and they’re gonna be really excited, and then you’re gonna build that relationship with them because you helped them. So, yeah,

[00:34:06.96] spk_1:
so how do we identify if we don’t have a tool? How right? Go to Facebook O. R. And find who’s doing this for us.

[00:34:14.09] spk_3:
I’ll turn that over to net cause there’s a couple ways.

[00:34:25.07] spk_5:
Okay? Yes. So Facebook. When you signed up to Facebook giving tools, you get a tab on your fate on your non profit Facebook page that says fundraisers. So you can see fund raisers that have raised more than $50 in that list. The problem is that you over about 70 60 to 70% of your fund raisers don’t reach $50. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of big fundraisers, but there’s also a lot, a lot of small fundraisers.

[00:34:41.89] spk_1:
All right, so you’re not going to capture the smallest ones. You won’t be able to say thank you to them. Maureen, what do we do? Once we have identified the people who have have launched these fundraisers for US

[00:35:35.06] spk_4:
micro appreciation, I’ll use next term. You have to find small ways to recognize and appreciate the effort that these fundraisers air making, no matter how much or how little they’re raising for you. Facebook is the great equalizer in that everybody sort of knows what everybody is doing, and your fundraisers expect it. They expect you to be paying attention. They expect you to thank them and acknowledge them all within the tool, you know? Yeah, you certainly want to try to get enough information and their permission to move them over onto your email list so that they can learn more about your organization. They can be more empowered to fundraise more for your get otherwise involved, but, you know, sending a message. Knicks got a great program where people send a tiny little gift like a like a pin, a piece of swag that in your non profit they have sitting around It’s pennies. Teoh access it a diner to to mail it out, and then that person has a tangible thing that is reinforcing that relationship. They knew that I did it. They took a minute to say thank you. They actually gave me a thank you gift. And so every time an opportunity comes up in my personal life for me to start a fundraiser, I’m gonna go back to that organization and show my loyalty.

[00:36:20.11] spk_1:
And what can we do to encourage these fundraisers, whether it’s birthday or or whatever, How can we? How can we be promoting that idea to To our constituents?

[00:36:34.41] spk_4:
You do have to promote it. Radio promoting Julia, which I

[00:37:28.28] spk_3:
guess you have to be proactive rather than reactive. So sure, setting up the tools and registering for Facebook payments. Make sure you’re you know I’s are dotted and your T’s are crossed and your registered and you have all the tools set up. But it’s just like with the Donate button on websites 5 10 years ago. If you just put it on your website and don’t tell anybody, then you can’t just expect the donations to rolling as much as they could. You really have to be proactive. So advertising it, telling people this is an exciting new way. It’s effective. It’s safe Facebook doesn’t take any fees, kind of dispelling the myths and misconceptions out there around Facebook fundraising showing people examples of other fundraisers that have occurred, giving them the tools like, um, giving them photos, giving them videos, giving them text, explaining to them here the top five things to do when you start a Facebook fundraiser. Here’s what to do when you hit your halfway point but actively encouraging people. I’ve seen it in a welcome email sequence. Actually. Ah, lot of nonprofits. When you sign up for the email issue, make a donation. I’ve seen them encourage you in their little sequence. Say, to make a bigger impact. Would you be interested in setting up a Facebook funders or force? Put something on your website? Put something in your email signature. Do a Facebook live. You know, you really have to look at it as all hands on deck promoting this.

[00:38:06.00] spk_1:
What do we know about the characteristics of people who are most likely to do this? Are they necessarily the under 30?

[00:38:13.12] spk_3:
I don’t know, Nick. You might know that we

[00:38:15.41] spk_5:
we don’t have any demographic information. What we do have is that its acquisition, actually, this isn’t for something for your existing supporters donors as much as it is people who are getting noted, verified a week before on Facebook, a week before their birthday. Hey, do you want to set up a birthday fundraiser? And then they’re searching for breast cancer? They’re searching for arthritis. They’re searching for dunk cap, you know, whatever they want, their passion about what they want to give to. So 90% of our client data From what the studies we’ve done our new to the organization. They’re not people that were already on the database. So this is acquisition and its huge. We have clients that have 30,000 fundraisers a month. I mean, when you get it right, it’s by big.

[00:39:05.70] spk_1:
I’m surprised to hear I’m surprised to hear its acquisition. I didn’t expect that at all. We’re committed donors who thought of you on their birthday. You’re saying they’re thinking that their birthday is coming up and they’re looking for a cause?

[00:39:39.52] spk_5:
Yeah, that’s like So my my wife lost unfortunate, lost her mom to breast cancer two years ago. She wasn’t she just fighting breast cancer and shows the 1st 1 that came up on what we’re seeing is as more nonprofits get on Facebook, the slice of the pie is getting thinner and thinner, so you need to get in early is growing, but so is the adoption. And so organizations that go on it two years ago did very well. It’s not the birthday. Fundraising is slowing down is the fact that actually more organizations are jumping on because they’re seeing how successful it is.

[00:39:46.57] spk_1:
Okay, we’re gonna start to wrap up, Julia. I’m gonna give you ah, a shot and then never go to Maureen for the final. What do you want to leave people with? Maybe how to get started. Whatever final thoughts.

[00:39:59.52] spk_3:
Well, if you’ve not started yet, go to social good dot FB dot com and see if you’re eligible to register. It’s not open in every single country yet. And some tools air open in some countries and some are not. But the very the second thing I would dio is understand that this can Onley augment and enhance what you’re doing. What we’re saying is not to completely replace everything that’s working. I’m not saying Onley to face with fundraising and throw out your direct mail, which is what people are hearing. I think sometimes when I talk, I’m not saying that. I’m saying this is gonna enhance. And like Nick just said, it’s a way to acquire new people that are passionate. That could be even more passionate about your cause. Because everyone’s already on Facebook all day already. You know, there’s millions. Billions of people on Facebook is the leverage, the tools and do the best you can with what you have.

[00:40:55.84] spk_1:
Okay, Marine, would you wrap us up, please?

[00:41:31.71] spk_4:
Sure. Um I would say, Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good, you know we can. We’re very terrible about snow. Sometimes in non profit culture. We take a really long time to think about things. A really long time to change gears. This is a time for action. Even if the world wasn’t dealing with the pandemic, it is a time for action for nonprofits. Try something having experimental frame. Get buying from your leadership, but try it. Try it. You really have nothing to lose. How’s that?

[00:41:38.24] spk_1:
Would an impassioned plea Yes, that Z from from Kit God, that’s Marine will be off digital strategist and technology coach with practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Also, Julia Campbell, The

[00:41:47.02] spk_3:
Penis of your voice over Any time you talk

[00:41:49.93] spk_1:
work what it is. The company right?

[00:41:52.11] spk_4:
It absolutely is

[00:42:10.80] spk_1:
way. Non profit. Accidental techies. Julia Campbell, author, speaker, trainer, author, speaker, teacher and trainer. Well, teachers Train right, Jay Campbell, social marketing and Nick Byrne with Any at the end. Founder and CEO Give Panel Marine and Julia and Nick. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

[00:42:15.43] spk_3:
Thanks, tony. Thank you.

[00:43:41.52] spk_1:
Stay Well, I’m glad we were able to work this out and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the virtual 20 NTC workshops sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. The Knowledge Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us next week. The special episode on the racism conversation and more from 20 NTC on the regularly scheduled show. If you missed any part of today’s show, I’d be sent. You find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com. But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and my turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Ah, creative producer is clear. Meyer off Sam Liebowitz Managed stream shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our rep guy. This music is by Scots You with me next week for not profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great