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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 very glad you’re with me. You know what? Because i would suffer the embarrassment of aural facial granuloma toe sis, if i came to learn that you had missed today’s show you’re matching gift program. Adam weinger is president of double the donation he’s got great ideas about marketing about starting or scaling your matching gift program. We’ll talk about who should manage it, low effort marketing, best processes and more, and you’re bored on grants all welcome our newest contributor, cindy gibson she’s, a principal of synthesis consulting, and she will be with us monthly sharing her expertise on grants fund-raising to kick us off this month, your board’s role in the grants process between the guests on tony’s take two what i love about planned e-giving we are sponsored by and i’m very thankful for, um, generosity siri’s very thankful, very grateful and thankful for their sponsorship, and i’ll say more about generosity siri’s shortly and it feels very good to be back in the studio haven’t been live and in the studio for. A few weeks feels good going to be back live, and of course we’ll have live listener love throughout the show. I’m very pleased that adam weinger is with us, he’s, the president of double the donation, providing tools to non-profits across north america and europe to help them raise money from employees matching gift programs double the donation was recently named one of the top ten startups in atlanta. They’re at double the donation dot com and adam is at two ex donations on twitter. Adam weinger welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It was my pleasure. You okay there? Yeah, okay, you’re sound well better now. Um, matching gifts, it’s the first time we’ve talked about matching gifts on the show, i’m glad you you brought the topic to me. How important are they to fund-raising? You know, they’re one of the areas of fund-raising that is often overlooked by non-profits annual fun giving is often a top priority. Major gifts is often a top priority, and matching gets kind of some bonus money that’s out there for organizations that can impact their budgets but just aren’t always being thought about in focused on by non-profit. Yeah, often an afterthought. Well, what are what are? What are some of the numbers? Why give us give us some some motivation for for being more more thoughtful about our matching gift program across the united states? There’s probably a few billion dollars annually that’s donated from corporations through their employees matching program, which is a substantial amount, but at the same time a lot of non-profits just aren’t focusing on it and aren’t really thinking about it and aren’t promoting importing matching gets to their donors. Yeah, i think there’s a concern that it’s kind of burdensome, maybe a little paperwork intensive. Ah, people don’t really know how to get started with it. So, you know, we’re going going try to dispel some of those some of those thinking some of those myths, this all started with general electric right in nineteen fifty for was that the first matching gift program? Yes, so we’re actually hitting the sixty year anniversary of the first employee matching program so gentleman named philip rito at one point was the chairman. General electric conceptualized the idea of a matching just program as a way to really inspire general electric employees to give back, and their program started focussing out on hyre agitates him, but has since expanded to match employee donations to pretty much any five oh, one c three organization, our matching gift programs on lee, part of employment if you’re at a very big company, or does it trickle down tto smaller size organizations? I don’t know. You know, there’s definitely a bias towards larger corporations with general electric, the ibm, the four eyes in bank of america of the world. But we also have been our own database tracks small companies. You haven’t fully matching the programs. I know. I was recently contacted by an individual who, um, runs a peanut butter manufacturing company, and he has thirteen employees and was looking to start up a match and get program. Okay, so all they’re predominantly at larger companies. Definitely. A lot of smaller companies offer them as well. All right, yeah. I mean, that peanut butter company could have been craft, but with thirteen employees that’s a pretty small business. Do you know the average matching gift donation to charities? Do we know that? So we know a lot of data on. I’m kind of the minimum and maximum center out there. So if i were do kind of ballpark the average minimum, i would say cos match donations starting at twenty five dollars, none too often times a few thousand dollars. So the maximum range between a thousand and fifteen thousand dollars annually pern employees, but in terms of the actual mountain that gets matched, it’s highly dependent on the organization’s donorsearch oh, is it is an organization’s donors, small donors or some larger donors? Is it common for a company to have a cap on an annual matching gift for foreign employees? Definitely so almost every company with a matching program does have a cap turn employees, and that range is typically between a thousand dollars heimans fifteen thousand dollars, but we do see cops ranging as high as fifty thousand dollars more there is even one company out there, which matches up to three hundred thousand dollars annually. Okay, what? What company is that? Three hundred thousand it’s sort of a fund management. Okay, it’s not too surprising its financial services. Okay, is there a way i’m sure there is? How would someone know what companies participate in matching gift so there’s a couple different ways? The first is just encouraging and organizations donors to check with their hr department, so we see a lot of small non-profits really taking that approach is including that recommendation in emails in the college of letters on dh, then really just a google search. You’ll see a lot of lists of companies out there, they may. Not be one hundred percent accurate, but they’re good starting spot. I’m and then also on our website, we provide free list with detailed information on some companies, as well as a searchable database of companies that match impolite donations. Okay, i was going to ask you if one of the sources is is more reliable than others. But i guess double the donations is the most reliable. Definitely. I mean, it really goes to the core of our business. Is maintaining a database of companies that match employee donations. Okay, what are the basics of matching gift program if an organization is on? Of course, our listeners aaron small and midsize jobs. That’s what? I think the topic is perfect because they may not be paying enough attention, as you suggested, teo, to imagine, give program what? What are the basics of it? So when you looked at each company’s guidelines, um, they have a few different standard elements of their matching its programs. The first one is really who’s eligible, so is it only opens full time employees or part time employees eligible as well or retirees eligible. And in many cases, retirees are the second element is which non-profits are eligible. So, is that all five oh, one seat, three organizations, or just certain types, such as arts and cultural or civic community organizations, huh? Third element is how much will a company match, so those minimums maximums, and then the fourth element is really the submission process. Okay, is it? Is it common for companies? Teo restrict the type of charitable mission that that they’ll give. Two, you see that a lot. About sixty or seventy percent of cases companies will match teo pretty much any five oh one c three organizations online. In the remaining cases, companies do restricted to certain types of organizations. That’s interesting. Are they restricting it by charitable mission or by geography, or varies, what do you see? It’s, very typically it’s by kind of a charitable mission? Well either restricted to education, arts and cultural organizations, civic and community organizations, environmental organizations, there’s, a few different broad categories, but in most cases, companies do match employee donations to non-profits based around the country. But it is typically north america non-profits or non-profits in the u s. Okay, we have to go away for a couple seconds when we come back course, adam and i are going to continue talking about your matching gift program, hanging there with us co-branding dick, dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding, ding, you’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving thinking. Think. Duitz do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss. Our culture and consultant services are guaranteed to lead toe right groat for your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Yeah. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent we’ve got live, listener love and how glad i am that i can send live love being back here in the studio. Ellensburg, virginia, atlanta, georgia salt lake city, utah live listen her love to you let’s go abroad in china nongaming ni hao also we’ve got sakai tokyo and couture you she could dock you she japan konnichi wa i hope i said the name of your city correctly is not your not your last name, so i don’t feel as bad i’m not getting a person’s name wrong it’s a it’s a city, although i do try with cities too, but i don’t feel as bad as if it was a person. Any case konichiwa to our japanese listeners and, of course, to those nine thousand listening in the podcast, whether you’re on the subway, on a treadmill, in a car, maybe you’re at your office. Maybe you’re supposed to be listening to your kids podcast pleasantries toe all our podcast listeners adam weinger he’s, president of double the donation and we’re talking about your matching gift program, adam, if an organization is not currently doing much, or maybe doing nothing with matching gif ts. How do they get started? I think the first step is figuring out two at an organization is responsible for match. Yes, we talked to organizations all of the time where they’re doing very little, but the big problem is the organization doesn’t even know who’s responsible. So i think that first step, who figuring out well, does fall to an annual fund director, does it fall to someone from the corporate giving team, or should it be a volunteer’s responsibility? Okay, now, you know, organization that has the luxury of choosing from those onda lot of organizations, don’t. It might just be two or three people, and one person is devoted to everything. Fund-raising so it will be. We’ll be clear where it falls for them. But for an organization that has that luxury, where do you like to see the matching gift responsibility? We always recommend that it falls under the annual funds, um, just because they advantage a large number of communications that go out to their donors. So we think it’s a good fit in the annual fund department and the data that we’ve seen shows that that’s where it falls in most organizations, okay, all right, so once we’ve decided who’s in charge of it, what what do we do next? Geever the first step is really evaluating how the organisation is currently promoting that gifts. So looking through the organization’s website and seeing if there’s any wording of any time that even references magic gifts, looking through the acknowledgement letters that go out after someone makes a donation and seeing what those say are they prompting donors to think about matching? Yes. So our recommendation is i’m kind of evaluate your organization’s current marketing and see where there are opportunities to incorporate matching gift for this, ok, what what kind of matching gift messages do you like to see? You mean, you had said earlier something as simple as looking, asking donors to find out from there their employers if they have a matching gift program? What other marketing? Do you recommend right at the bare minimum? We think organizations should be saying, check with your hr department, okay, that’s the least you should be doing. Yeah, and then as you move up, i’m kind of in your matching get sophistication, starting to share examples with your donorsearch so if you’re non-profit is based in atlanta sharing examples about coca cola’s matching just program and home depot’s matching your program so that way you’re familiarizing your donors with what they are and how they work. And when you say share the details, what what would you be sharing? Um, you know, just a paragraph on a few different companies, i’m so we’re sending out a matching gift email to all of your donors you want to say? Did you know many companies offer an employee matching program? For instance, home depot will match employee donations up to one thousand dollars per year per an organization, huh? And you can submit your matching gift online so just something very, very simple that shares a few additional details about one or two companies. Sametz so you see you are you’re recommending some some communications that air devoted two matching gif ts or or you’re suggesting you see this as part of an annual fund appeal or some other some other appeal, i think of various end of the year email to all of our organization’s donorsearch is pretty valuable and easy to send, and then i also think that match and if should be incorporated into kind of the ongoing messaging that goes out. So in a tax receipt letter that he sent to a donor after they make a donation, that’s a great spot to change the organization’s conflict that we’re using to highlight match and guess, do you get frustrated at all? Because matching gift is sort of ah, you had said a step child or an afterthought. Does this, uh, this cause you personal frustration? Much? Not really, and it makes that matching gifts are never going to represent fifty percent oven organizations fund-raising so i definitely don’t get frustrated by it. I looked at all of the opportunities for organizations to make small changes in what they’re doing that could be very impactful. Okay? You’re you’re you got a better outlook than i do. I get frustrated that plant e-giving cause i do plant e-giving consulting is often a step child, you know, i on da. It has great potential as matching gift programs do. But, you know, i get a little frustrated sometimes, but i see it as an opportunity to teo help evangelize and spread the word. Um what what are somebody too? Pardon me. Sorry, tony. I guess i do get a little frustrated when you know we’re talking with larger organizations and they’re such easy winds out there. I mean that they’re small changes that an organization can make that would be very impactful. But for whatever reason, they’re not making those changes disappoint that in some cases, it’s okay, to share a little frustration, you know, it’s not, you know, not like think you’re going to be shooting people’s heads off for anything over it. But it’s okay, you know, have a little frustration. That’s ok? That’s it’s an opportunity. What are what are some of the small changes? And maybe you’ve already mentioned them, but you’ve mentioned just now. You said it a couple times. Small changes that organizations could make toe have a big impact. What are what are some of those small changes? It’s really? Two things the first is having no one being responsible for a match. And, yes, effort at an organization. Yeah, we hear from organizations that sometimes when a donor sametz a matching gift form, no one is even verifying the the donation and it’s going on claims because of that. So having a point of contact that the organization is important and working through the marketing effort. Okay, now we’re getting to the nuts and bolts a little bit, which is very good, you said, validating the the new one’s, validating the donation. How does that work in the program? Hyre so there’s a couple steps for when a donor sametz rematch and guest the first is that the donor needs to tell their company that they made a donation to an organization. So going back to home depot um what say your organization? As a donor who works for home depot, they made a two hundred fifty dollars, donation. Tina organization, the donor needs to walk into home depot’s matching gift website with their employees, user name and password, and registered the fact that they made a donation and then home depot will mail you a letter or send you an e mail to the non-profit asking non-profit to verify that in fact, the donor did make a donation. Oh, and then sometimes these emails or other communications go unanswered, and then the money is left on the table. Yes, so fey non-profit doesn’t respond to the emails or to the letters the company cannot verify that the donation was actually made, and we hear about that from organizations on a somewhat regular basis that they were viewing past donations and realized that a lot of the match tells older nations never actually got claims. Oh, my goodness, that’s never. Okay, i would have thought that that would just be done as a matter of course, but you’re you’re saying, since nobody’s in charge of it, it falls between the cracks and money’s left on the table. Yes, that’s, exactly it. Okay, all right, um, all right, so let’s, go back, tio getting started. We’ve identified who’s in charge, and we’re thinking about marketing. Now, what else? What else do we need to be doing to get this program going? Those were really the core for a lot of small non-profits because i know a lot of your westerners do fall into a smaller side. You know, my recommendation is find a volunteer who’s very organized. You can really delegate your matching gift efforts to altum someone who may not have the means to donate large amounts of money but wants to support your organization. It can really improve your matching gift effort just by being focused on that. So looking through your through an organization hyre value donors figuring out where they were and reaching out to them to see if there eligible to submit a matching gift. Okay, so this is something that we should be. We comfortable delegating teo to a volunteer in a smaller organization. Yeah, one hundred percent, especially if an organization doesn’t have the staff. She focused on matching gifts. It’s, an area of fund-raising that can be delegated to a volunteer. Okay, let’s, let’s, explore the marketing a little more. Do you have a preference for channels? Email over direct mail over social networks. So emails obviously a very affordable channel for non-profit to market matching. Yet we do see some organizations that used direct mail. But what we always you recommend. Organizations think about it’s, kind of the cost per piece to send a letter. Andi, if they’re going to use direct mail to only send matching gift forms and guidelines and communications out to some of their hyre and donors. So built sunday paper letter to a donor who made a twenty dollar donation. You just been organization. Just won’t see the ah rely on that. Okay, hyre dollar donate hollered hyre dollar donors ah, other other message you had suggested making this part of the acknowledgement letter that sounds like a very good idea to it’s a perfect time for the gift has already been made, and you’re now saying thank you seems like a perfect time to think about the have the donor think about a matching gift possibility definitely in the acknowledged that letter in the tax receipt, a letter that goes out and then he’s knowledge on emails um, and then you wouldn’t actually mentioned social media, and we see a lot of organizations promoting match and gets on social media when they were see vacek from a company um, they’re sometimes taking a picture the check and posting it to social media as a way to encourage other donors to think about that again. Oh, yeah, cool and but, yeah, yeah, now you got this visual, it encourages the program. You could put that on twitter, instagram, facebook, even okay, yeah, that’s a really simple thing to do. Take a picture of a check in it’s, a simple post and we have a variety of graphics and images on our website. As well that non-profits are welcome to use too share across different social media networks. Do they have to be working with double the donation? Tio take advantage of that. They don’t weigh just a variety of free graphics because we know there’s a lot of smaller organizations out there who may not be ready to sign up for double the donation service, but so benefit from some of the craft that we’ve created, as well as our entire marketing toolkit, which really had suggestions and examples for organizations know excellent that’s, very generous. We do him good. Um, of course, that’s double the donation dot com, since they’re so so gracious e-giving mouth shout, um, do you have? And people go to our website makes it actually access those marketing materials down in the footer. Mom it’s, the last link in the bottom of our web page under the section resource is it’s called matching your marketing materials outstanding. Excellent. You have a little ah case story of ah organization that that you saw turned things around and make a substantial difference in their in their fund-raising. Yeah, i mean, we share from a lot of organizations that we work with a lot of very positive feedback. So the lazarus cancer foundation, which is out in california, um, signed up with our service, i believe it was back in december of twenty twelve and wasn’t doing a whole lot back-up to promote matching yes, and they really implemented a number of our strategies across multiple of their fund-raising website it’s across all of their communication strategies, and, you know, we’ve seen some of the different figures on how much they’re bringing and now for matching gifts first, this previously and there’s been a substantial increase. Um, i don’t want to share the exact because they don’t have their profession, but we hear a lot of great feedback from organizations who make simple changes. Okay, we have ah, question from lynette singleton she’s, a big fan of the show, and she’s live tweeting the show, and you can follow her tweets that using the hashtag non-profit radio annette, thank you very much for tweeting very dahna grateful is the word i’m looking for very grateful when you’re able to do that, thanks for joining us, and she has a question, adam, what about you saying something on the on the online donation page? It’s a great spot to promote match and guests we see a lot of organizations who, um either pavel line on the online donation page that says, you know, check to see if your company will match your donation. Other organisations asked for a company name and then passed that name along to the individual who’s responsible for the organizations match and get efforts so that way they can look up that employer andan, other organizations who subscribes to our service. I’m actually include at length to a searchable database of companies with matching of programs, says they empower their donors too access forms and guidelines and company specific information directly while making a donation. We have to leave it there, adam weinger is president of double the donation there at double the donation dot com, you’ll find him on twitter at two ex donations adam, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you. Matching gif ts, of course. Excellent way to raise money, but so is a five k run or walk and generosity. Siri’s hosts multi charity peer-to-peer runs and walks. I am seed there five k run, walk in brooklyn a couple of weeks ago, great fund raised a lot of money for ten charities that were there. Generosity. Siri’s does the back end work from t shirts, race bibs finish your medals. They have professional chip timing. They take care of getting the permits and licenses that air needed. They take care of getting the portable restrooms and the fluid stations on the course of the photography. Videography they take care of all this back end, um, and also provide each of their charity partners with customised web pages for your charity. And also, of course, for your participants. So for their fund-raising and generosity, siri’s has a charity support team which helps you with your team building and your fund-raising that that charity swat teams there to help you. They are at generosity siri’s dot com. They have events coming up in new jersey, florida, atlanta, new york city, philadelphia, toronto. You can just pick up the phone, you know, heard me say this before for other sponsors. When it’s to pick up the phone and talk to the person, have a conversation. Um, you would talk there at general city serious to dave lynn. L i n n he’s the ceo they are at seven one eight five o six nine triple seven seven one eight five or six nine triple seven just talk to them, see what? See what they’re about and how they can help you and how you could become a part of one of these multi charity events that they host throughout the country. And ah, last week i called them so erroneously this is terrible generation siri’s, so i apologize for that is not generation siri’s that was if i had an intern, then the intern would have written out there were the name general city siri’s and i would not have abbreviated it last week g end. So i blame the intern that i don’t have since i don’t have an intern to blame. I blame the one i don’t have because it’s clearly not my mistake. Generosity. Siri’s is our sponsor working with our elders, those who are in their seventies, eighties and nineties. It is what i love about doing planned e-giving work i’ve been doing plan giving for seventeen years, eleven years in my own business, and i love working with older americans. They have this peace. About them and this comfort. Um, that is just an ease. You know, they’re not thinking about business development and social networking. That stuff is well, social networking is too some of them very foreign, or they’re just basically just scratching the surface of it and business development. That is like decades old for them. And this just leaves them with a harmony and a piece. And i just love that. And it’s it’s what i really love about planned e-giving and i say more about that on my block there’s a video on my block where going to a tiny bit more detail about why i love working with our elders. That is at tony martignetti dot com. And that is tony’s take two for friday, twenty fifth of april seventeenth show of this year. I am very glad that we have a new monthly contributor. Her name is cindy gibson. Welcome cindy. Hi. Thanks for having me. My pleasure, she’s. Our newest contributors. She’s going to be covering grants fund-raising month to month she’s our prep today, emmick she has a phd and over twenty five years of experience with non-profits, she’s had leadership roles for several national foundations and non-profits so she’s been on both sides of grants. Manship she was a non-profit times top fifty power and influence, sir cindy is principal of synthesis consulting. You’ll find her on twitter at sin gib si n g i b and synthesis consulting is see why end t h e s i s welcome to the show, cindy. Thank you. I’m glad you’re able to be in the studio first time. I’m happy to be here. It’s exciting, you’re going to be usually calling in from from boston indeed. Okay. Oh, can i say something about matching gifts? You certainly you just cover that. Just a little tip for your listeners. You might not know this, but if all of you listeners, if you have a friend who works in a foundation, a lot of foundations give two to one or three two one matching contributions for their employees who have a favorite non-profit on want to give a contribution. They can submit it to their office in the foundation and they’ll give you a match. Excellent. Adam didn’t mention foundations. Thank you very much. We want to talk about you’re the board’s role in grants fund-raising just rolled their eyes incredibly. All right, so i just thought, why is that big eye roll? What are you seeing in boards or not seeing inboard? Well, i think it’s funny because everybody always that’s like the standard topic. What? How can your board helpyou? Fund-raising and as any good fund-raising will tell you, it’s just it’s sometimes is this a fan task to get your board involved? And the grants are no exception on dh so well, we all love our board members it’s always an ongoing slog to try to get them to appreciate the their their role and fund-raising and so a lot of what we’re going to talk about spills over toe all different kinds of fund-raising but we’re the tap your expertise on grantspace ship specifically to the extent that there’s something specific to grants. But, yes, we have had guests urging, imploring, beseeching non-profits to doom or with their board. All right, how do you suggest we get started? What should we be saying at our next board meeting or before or before? So we all know it’s relational, how many times can we say that it is? But i say this all the time and i’ve sat on boards, and i watched boards, and i funded big intermediaries that do this kind of capacity building. And they all say that you really have to work on building a culture of philanthropy on your board. And what that means is it goes beyond, you know, the development director of the executive rector coming into a meeting and saying, hey, board members, who do you know what this foundation or you know, who do you know, the trustees? Do you know the president, which is great if they know them, but it has to go beyond that. It has to go beyond okay. How do you know them? Are you willing to reach out to them? How are you willing to reach out to them? Is it a letter? What is your role in getting to them? So it goes beyond just sitting around and saying to aboard, hey, give us the names and i’ve watched boardmember that the’s means literally throw pieces of paper on the drum director and there’s no time at all to sit with them and strategize. You know, you really need to have the strategy, the strategy with them just well, okay, here’s, i identified i named the name or i picked check the name off on the list. You take it from here, right? And i’ve seen that on dh some and then development directors or exactly directors walk away, and then they they’re very frustrated because they don’t know what the relationship is, and they don’t know how willing the boardmember is to follow up on it. So you the more you can get the board members and in my opinion, devote time at every board meeting to do this process to not just say, okay, boardmember is writing ball down, but okay, let’s, have a discussion, then you know our so and all brainstorm about how each of these board members in their contacts could move this forward together. Every strategy is going to be different for every funder as we know. So the third step of that is prioritizing. Which ones do you think are the most promising relationships that the board members have have identified with foundations or otherwise on which ones we’re gonna concentrate on. And then finally, what? The next steps were going? Teo, you know, really codify it so okay. So you you’ve given us a lot there. We’ll waive time, tio unpack. I had to talk fast. Okay. Don’t weigh have twenty five minutes. You don’t need to and there’ll be other months to your coming back. So we can always continue which we i’ve done with contributes before so it’s not a problem don’t okay in terms of prioritizing well now let’s seemed to take a step back before that. You want to see this at every meeting and then a discussion around strategy, just like we do with individual fund-raising now we don’t necessarily do it at a board meeting, although we may. Tuas well, but we strategize about individuals all the time. Who’s the better. Okay, we’ve identify who’s the best person. How are we going to do when wei have something coming up that they should be invited to? Or should it be maura oneto one is should we just be engaging them in our communications? Good. I just threw out three things. There’s all kinds of ways. And i think that the big challenge with bored, bored people come on boards and they think i’m going to be asked to fundraise, you know? And you really have to sort of give them a set of options like you just did very well, but i can’t stress enough you made the remark about doesn’t have to be at the board meeting, i found that it really needs to pay that’s part of the culture thing that i’m talking about literally setting aside that time in a meeting and making for everybody’s sitting there and that’s what they’re focused on for a period of time, almost in grains, a sense of value into the exercise, and then it makes people automatically think, oh, i’m going to this board meeting, i’m going to have to start thinking about it, and then i’m going to have to start and actually, you know, at the end of these sessions, if you have time to go around the room and say to each boardmember how are you going to follow up on this this contact that you just gave me saying it out loud in front of your peers? There’s some sort of contract there, and you can go and people were taking notes, you go back and say, well, you said you did this, okay, so you want to see the regular part of the agenda and it’s adding gravitas to the whole conversation because you’ve said, like you said, and i said in front of people and, oh, and you’ve got a you’ve walking away with some responsibility and, ah, a meaningful responsibility for a boardmember okay, um, in terms of the prioritising you mentioned, um, a lot of people, i think, get one off requests from boardmember zx could even sometimes even worse, i come from the executive director or ceo look at this grant that looked this grant that so and so, god, what will we do that kind of work? Send them a proposal? What do you do with that? Those kinds of one ofthe requests, which cannot, you know, sometimes you’re not so infrequent, they’re not infrequent that gets tow the prioritizing thing, you’re right. I mean, you could go around the room and talk to your board members, and you will always hear the there’s always one boardmember that we’ll say at least one ah, i know somebody at the gates foundation or i know somebody at the hewlett foundation, which are huge foundations and and while it’s actually really good to have someone on your board, who knows somebody there when you start to dig down with, um, it’s, may not be somebody that’s really the dirac act conduit or somebody who can really move things at that foundation and that’s what i mean about so that to me, that’s not a priority right now down the road? Sure, you know, give that boardmember time to get to that person, right? A couple of emails, maybe go out to lunch, test that relationship out to see if it’s worth pursuing it’s, the board members that have really the have direct relationships very close relationships with funders that are not a cz thie odds aren’t as stacked against you on dh for small non-profits that’s usually your local foundation or your community foundation are or a family foundation. Those are the kind of relationships we’re going to see that’ll probably go to the top of the last first, and then ps the more you get that kind of funding as a grounding. Ah, the more national thunders will pay attention to you because the first question that national foundation’s will often say is, do you get any local funding if you’re so cocopa non-profit and if you don’t, it is a red flag, they will say, we’ll come back to us when you can show that you actually have traction where you live first. So so that’s what i meant, okay, excellent. You like the foundation center for for grants, research att this point where we’re finding out what charitable missions, different organization, different foundations of funding and who boardmember czar like the foundation senator labbate i’m a big fan, the foundation center when i was a funder, we funded it and they continue to be the place to go. Ah, and they’ve gotten much more sophisticated. They’ve had a turn in leadership and the person who runs a broad smith is extremely technologically savvy, and they’ve really transformed it, teo, a real state of the art search and john that being said, of course, now there’s other sir tensions out in the world. I mean, you’ve got google and you’ve got, you know, i have to do is google something and you’ve got guide star, you know which part has all the nine nineties available, which you’re probably your best resource in terms of seeing who that foundation has funded before and who’s on. The board and you know, the all those kinds of things. So, you know, there’s, a wealth of materials, but certainly the foundation centers a great resource. Okay? And, of course, they have their cooperating collections exactly throughout the country. Clay on dh if you can get to a cooperating collection library. It’s absolutely free and there’s, always a librarian, that’s helping you sure there to help you, but it’s always online, too, and you can go right directly to the centre and get the website and go to their resource is pretty quickly, but okay, but then there’s ah, is there a subscription fee? If there are there’s bundles and packages, you can get your sorry, okay, no, no, no, that that was for me. You haven’t been in monisha. Um, that was sam. Give us a hand signal and cindy’s, yes, my feeling, secure, apologizing. That was for me. What do we do when we get these one off requests that aren’t such a high priority? And it does come let’s say, from a volunteer before boardmember now key, build it up and make it the worst case scenario a significant boardmember has suggested that we do go to the hewitt foundation or ford or great gates, or or what is something that’s just not a good fit, whether it’s enormous or not it’s, not a priority. What do we say to him or her so that they feel their request has been honored but isn’t going to be immediately handled, right? Well, we say that’s a really stupid idea, and you’re off the board now know it was a different scenario way. Well, that’s going to depend on your relationship with the boardmember but i think most port members, if you say to them, we really love the idea that you know, these people, i mean it again, it is a really great thing if you’ve gotta boardmember who’s gots and into some real money on a foundation, but, you know, we really just have to take our time and pursue that relationship over a little bit longer. Time period, until we build up our base of other founders that they’re going to pay attention to that sort of what i just said, okay, going back to it, yeah, so we could we could make it a lower priority that way cracked, we’ve gotta lay the groundwork before we could be, but in the meantime, but in the meantime, they should be, you know, sure, sending an email, little heads up and saying, you know, look, i’m on the sport of this non-profit and they’re great, and i know you probably can’t fund them now, but, you know, can we send you information or can we go to lunch and just sort of do an informational meeting, you know, again there’s the eye, i think it’s all good, i think all of that sending funder stuff, even though you know, they’re not going to read it, you never know on dh e mean, you may assume they’re not going to read it, but you never know and just them seeing it across their desk periodically, over and over again, they’re going to start seeing your name and associating it with an organization that maybe they should touch, too. We gotta go away for a couple of minutes. We come back cindy gibson, and i’ll keep talking about your board on grants. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Got lots of live listener love bangkok, thailand olivos, argentina welcome, argentina. We don’t get too many south american listeners. Welcome and seoul, south korea on your haserot hanoi, vietnam welcome. We don’t get too many from vietnam, but occasionally you’re you are with us. Glad you are coming back to states new bern, north carolina, las vegas, nevada live listener love to you, um, cindy gibson, our new ah monthly contributor on grants fund-raising talking about the ah, the culture of fund-raising on your board. I know you have a lot to say about the culture. Uh, what else? What else would you like to see? So i thought one of the things i wanted to mention is we always talk about how to get boardmember is more involved in to strengthen the fund-raising culture, but we very rarely talk about some of the challenges and the downsides of port involvement in some of this. But you do want us to have our board involved? Absolutely okay, theirs and i wanted to put through a few cautionary notes on their and and one, of course, is that has been a subject of huge debate is whether foundation board members foundation should sit on non-profit boards on dh that has been very, very controversial, but it’s becoming a more common practice. And so this is what let’s set the stage was not something that i’m aware of a lot the foundation is funding your organization could be yours could could be just a foundation funder who can’t find you necessarily, but it likes your organization on dh asks to be on your board or, you know, somebody nominates ok, ok, go ahead. So this this sort of came about is a bigger trend about well, fifteen years ago, um, and it sort of came out of the whole venture philanthropy world where business people were becoming more and more hands on. I wanted to be more and more involved in the things that they were funding through their foundation or through there, their individual giving. What have you? And they started asking to be on boards on dh non-profits i think at first were yeah, those so win win, it’s great, you know, to get this big funder on our board, but over time, some non-profits came to see it as a hindrance because they were either huge conflict of interests whenever a funders in the room, no matter what setting it is, people tend to shine for the thunder. Ah, they limited honest discourse, sometimes in the in the board room, even though they were all supposed to be peers. Everyone was painfully aware that this person sitting on their board had the potential to give the money or knew lots of people with money and tell them things that were going on that they may not have wanted share. Ah, in a personal story, when i was at a foundation, i had five non-profits come to meet with me and say that they wanted to have they want to see if i and some other mike funding peers could have an intervention with another funder who sat on two of the organization’s boards and was so so hands on and dictating. What? What this organization to do but everyone on the board and the organization was afraid to speak up and challenge him because he find it them so it’s. Just a cautionary tale about you might think that’s a great thing at first. But, you know, be careful with that. Okay? Excellent. What happens when you get a no from we’ve we’ve done all our due diligence and and even let’s say it was a boardmember connection and ah, we will return down. Um well, that’s, that’s always distressing and it’s hard not to take personally, but it’s usually not it’s usually a number of reasons that you get turned and we all turned down, and we all know that, but it’s particularly difficult, i think when you have a boardmember who is in a position of power already, and and you have to go tell them that you were turned down and they were the ones who may have shepherded this through, um, you know that boardmember has a personal relationship with with whomever and the funder, and they’re going to say what they need to say, you know, even if you’re not there, they’re going to have a personal conversation, probably with their friend at the foundation, and find out what went what went wrong. But what i would say is is to not look at that as a clothes store unnecessarily is tio, then work with the boardmember how’s that relationship and go back to the funders and now and say, well, can you? Do something else for us. Can you call up five other funders for us? Can you do that? Sure. I mean, good program officers will do that. They really do see that as part of their job. Um, or can you do a funders briefing for us? You know, can you host a lunch way? Have george in jail on non-profit radio and i’m sorry too. In course you’re at you and you’re very well. Second appearance, but first, first as a monthly but it’s, easy to rebuild. Rebuild do-it-yourself were very easy. Rehabilitation and parole program. Ah ah! Funders memo what? What is that? So? So this is just a briefing. Let’s say let’s say that i want to dio i’ma non-profit and i want to talk to other funders. Buy-in non-profit i could go to x foundation who turned me down and say okay, you can’t fund us. But you know these five other funders. Urine. You know the miss colleagues. Could you have a lunch? Your foundation and invite your colleagues so we could present what we dio to them and it’s a briefing it’s really not asking for money, it’s, just here’s. What? We d’oh let’s. Have a conversation, and you can even do it with two or three non-profits, you know, have sort of, ah bigger event out of it, and i have actually done a lot of those, and i know lots of other funders have done that as well on, and they’re a lot of them are glad to do it. So you get if you get the right non-profits there and the right mix of funders, the conversation could be really great. I mean, could be very rich because you start talking about the issues that large, you know, so excellent, right? But there’s, no money on the table necessarily not necessary. Just we’re opening up, we’re opening the door ok? Yep, exactly. And also that no is not the final answer. I mean, there, there’s there are other funding cycles, and they’re going to be other years and opportunities. Yeah, exactly. And something you just have to say to them, is this a definite no. Can we come back? I mean, you really have to clarify because next time you come on, you want to ah, you want to talk about what makes a good proposal, right? That’s under it, that’s. Great. Okay, am i out of jail now? Oh, yeah, you were yeah, it sze not hard to get out, but it’s. Pretty simple to get in because i’m jumping at the chance to put people into jargon. Jail jumping. Cindy gibson synthesis consulting is her practice see y in th e s i s and you’ll find her on twitter at sin gib glad you’re with us for a month the month anger in my pleasure. Thank you. Next week it is going to be, um, accounting professor brian mittendorf about using numbers in your stories and i promise you we’re not going to have a dull accounting lecture. We’re going to start with finding out how it is that always asset equal liabilities guy would like that explanation that from when i when i quit my accounting class at carnegie mellon university about two weeks into it, i want to know this magic of how assets equal always equal owners equity plus liabilities. If you could explain that to me. Well, well, i don’t know what i’ll do, but i’ll just be i’ll be excited, so this is not going to be dull. Counting conversation using numbers in your stories, that’s what we’re going to talk about. Also, maria simple, our prospect, research contributor returns and she’s going to have some wisdom. Of course, she’s, our doi end of dirt, cheap and free resource, is never lets us down there. Our creative producers, claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz, is our line producer. Shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell, social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio, helping me when i go to conferences and do remote interviews. John federico of the new rules, this music, you’re listening to it’s by scott’s dying be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. They didn’t think dick tooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. E-giving good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun, shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com you’re listening to talking on turn their network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking.