Nonprofit Radio for February 2, 2018: Your Donor Experience

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My Guest:

Brian Lauterbach: Your Donor Experience

What are you putting your donors through? How do they feel about it? What can you do to make it better? Brian Lauterbach is with Network for Good and he walks us through what works.

 

 

 

 


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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 it’s ground hog day. Thanks, tony fail emerges and gives us his prediction for winter today also, this is show number three hundred seventy five on our way to four hundred, which will be in july three seventy five today we have a new affiliate station w c r s fm, columbus, ohio central ohio’s community radio station at ninety two point seven and ninety eight point three fm welcome to the affiliate family w c r s so glad to have you affections to those affiliate listeners. I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into a pure a phobia if you told me that forever after and eternity you’d miss today’s, show your donor experience. What are you putting your donor’s through? How do they feel about it? What can you do to make it better? Brian lauterbach is with networks for good and he walks us through what works. Tony’s take two, know when to pull out. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio and by wagner cpas guiding you beyond the numbers regular sepa is dot com tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us it’s my pleasure to welcome brian latto back to the show. He is vice president of programs, impact and sustainability that’s, a big portfolio at network for good. Leading a national team of consultants, he’s worked as a professional fundraiser and consultant for a hundred plus non-profits over twenty years, he’s talked fund-raising and non-profit management at george washington university, indiana university and wayne state university. Midwestern boy he’s at b r lauterbach. They’re at network for good dot com, where f l r is spelled out, and they’re at network for good, where number four is the arabic number. You don’t don’t use the roman numeral four, because then you’d be doing network ivy. Good, don’t do that. Use the arabic number four. Welcome brian latto back buy-in brian. Brian latto box. Okay, we don’t have brian. Hopefully he will call back in, but we also have in the studio lisa bonano, who is vice president of digital marketing for network fur. Good. And she and i will chat while, uh well, brian, hopefully calls back called back. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks for having us welcome. Thanks for being in the studio. Absolutely ghastly. I love that corporate us, your your team. Even though brian is not with us in spirit, you’re you bring him in by the problem. You’re all you’re all you’re all with us. Ok? Do we have brian back? Sam? No. Okay, um, we’re talking about dahna experience. You’re on the way. We thought it was going to brian toe open, but you’re the opener. Okay, i’ll take it so donorsearch spear ian ce uh, what were we talking about? So dinner experience is an interesting topic for us because we see so much commentary around consumer experience. Many reports many sets of thought leadership pieces and everyone in the consumer space is trying to understand why customer experience is so important. And now that everyone is on board with why now, it’s everyone’s trying to figure out the how so for us and i work for good, you know, we’re providers of donorsearch software we’re constantly thinking about how can we improve the donor experience for our non-profit customer? Okay? And we can learn from the customer experience on the corporate side exact. Hopefully you and brian. Well, we will be talking about not hopefully. Okay, let’s, try again, brian. You with us? I am. Excellent. There’s a nice, strong voice. Did you hear that wonderful introduction i gave you? I didn’t, didn’t. Okay, well, but i felt it from the cold hundred. Columbus. Ok. Ok. Well, first of all, you’re in columbus, ohio, where you didn’t hear that we have a brand new affiliate station in columbus, the u c r s fm joining us, joining us this week. First time that’s. Wonderful. Now is if i would have known that and i want to go, i would have yeah, they’re they’re not with us live though they know that’s very ambitious. It would have been cool. Yeah, they were on their schedule on thursdays at four p m they leave us in so that the filling station they’re not live, but now so columbus is columbus, you’re home. No, columbus is a inconvenient layover route from chicago. Okay, against the good buckeye people, but i’m just saying that. Yeah, and unforeseen way, les, thanks to the airline with nevertheless, here we are. Yeah. No, no, we’re yeah, i know we’re going to focus on the transit for a little bit. Don’t worry. We’ll get we’ll get to dahna experience there’s plenty of time together. So you were originating from where? Today? From chicago. Okay. And then there was a connecting flight that got delayed. Is that right? That what happened? Delayed, then cancelled on dh. Yeah, and then re booked for later time. I understand. And it wasn’t going to get you here in time. Okay? Don’t you know, they have to delay before they re book. You really? I mean, they have to delay before they cancel. You realize that, right? We have to be led on buy-in fifteen or twenty minute increments, and then then they’ll give you the ultimate the cancellation, which you are all you know, anticipating as you were being led on thinking, oh, fifteen or twenty minutes. But if you travel enough, it sounds like you do. You knew that you were just being led on it’s just a matter of time before they cancel. Absolutely. Did you hear lisa give a very cogent introduction tio to a donor experience? Did you hear that or no, i did. Yes, okay, always does. Okay, s o ah, anything you want to you want to add in the sort of overviewing we have a full hour together, obviously to go into details, but i thought you’d like to add to the overview of dahna experience, i think i think, you know, beyond the obvious and what networks for good is doing with technology and software and services for, you know, the one hundred twenty five thousand organizations that we touch each year. What we’ve been talking a lot internally about is how do we operationalize this donorsearch experience, but and from a top level, what we’re talking about is this concept of subscription giving the idea that, you know, not unlike content marketing description giving is what we’re what we’re discussing and how we can align information and inspirational content with the non-profit stakeholders to really engage them, not only just leading up to a gift, but what happens. After that gift is made because, as we all know where now the listeners know that you know, donorsearch retention certainly is something that we all should focus on habitually, but now coming up for air after giving tuesday in year, and we have to really think about it from the donor’s perspective, what is it that we can provide them and an ongoing and cost effective basis that wilkie remind them about not only what they did but the value and impact that it has not just about a fundraising goal, but really about the programmatic impact that it creates for the organisation that this donorsearch invested in? Okay, okay, there’s a lot in there, we’re going to have we have the hour to unpack it, and when we come back from this break, which i’m about to teo, enter, then we’ll get to this idea of the experience and howto had a planet for for your for your donors. So stay with us while we take this break. Pursuant the field guide for data driven fund-raising it is their newest resource on the listener landing page, which is now at tony dahna slash pursuant radio note, the new bentley the new custom bentley. Okay, tony dahna slash pursuant radio that’s their listener landing page. No surprise with this kind of content, this field field guide because the company is data driven and as where are we saying? Technology enabled, but focusing on the data the field guide, it is of a paper that will make your data less daunting so what’s in it they got five high level steps you can take to translate your business objectives into action. Real world case studies so you, khun benchmark and a worksheet with thought starters to help your team find the right focus and start to build this data driven culture that you you wantto you want to achieve it’s the field guide for data driven fund-raising at tony dahna em a slash pursuant radio. Now, let’s, go back to brian latto back and your donor experience. And so brian let’s let’s do what i what i pledged, how do you how do you think through this? In terms of a and you’re you’re you’re in a small midsize non-profit how do u plan what this donor experiences spectrum of activities and contacts and communications is going to look like? Yeah, i think first, what we have to do a small, emerging and midsize non-profits is embrace the reality that just because we’re tax exempt doesn’t mean we’re tech exempt the idea that because of our budget size, we can ignore the consumer behavior of companies like netflix and apple and google, and what they created and really institutionalized could not be further from the truth, of course, as small non-profits we have to figure out a way to replicate some of those things and embrace that consumer behavior that stage appropriate with are, you know, staff or lack thereof and certainly budget in time, our most precious asset. But it really begins with an understanding that you, as are we as a nonprofit organization or is a sector, cannot just be the lagging adopters of how to create an experience for not our consumers but our donors. And because those same consumers that are buying things on amazon subscribing the netflix, i’m getting new information about their movies and tv shows. Well, those guys are also our donors as well. So the idea that we can have this incongruous experience because, well, we’re a non profit organisation, could not. Be further from the reality. Yeah, we don’t like that. Yeah, yeah. That’s zoho that’s kind of a, you know, sort of a poverty mentality. We don’t mean it like that, right? I got to do something. Yeah. What about s o z explosive labbate what can we learn specifically from these high touch cos that you’re mentioning netflix, amazon were all engaged with them. We’re all getting their emails. We what? What? What specifically could be a couple of takeaways that that we can weaken gleaned from the corporate side? Yeah, the biggest thing i would think you know, whether you’re subscribing to a software or buying sweater or dog food online, the idea is what these companies do very well and what we was sector would be well served to embrace, let alone with our replicator. Is that the idea that when you buy something, these companies not only continue to remind you why you bought it and the value of that purchase, but they also want to make sure that you are satisfied with that purchase. So you will buy mohr by again. Upgrade your subscription. So the idea that you can buy something and the transaction is complete. Well, that may be true, but the relationship is just beginning. And so what? I think some of these, you know, larger companies, as you said, tony, all of us are kind of plugged into as consumers and buyers, we need to think about why they create this continuum of contact and activity and what i love about it. Most of them, especially my favorite, is netflix because they aren’t intrusive about their ongoing engagement. I get an email, i mean, sure, i’m sure it’s timed and based upon data and when they know i oktay now, but my point is that i always opened that because i get no more than two females a month from netflix that, you know, is highly visually engaging, low on written content and compels me to take an action which is, you know, watch this new show that that’s like the other show that you have been watching so it’s almost there, almost helping me use their product and exploit the functionality of you know, i get thes e mails, i get them from mm, hbo, i have their ah, hbo. Now i get them from amazon prime. I get them. From land’s end, you know, and i’m i’m in fact, i think i’m wearing a lance and sweater. Lisa, this is the lands and mock turtle. Thank you very much. Oh, yeah, she just said it was your mike on when she said looks great. So again, you look great. Thank you very much. Your lands and very well, ok keeper mike on way like her. Yeah, keeping michael um yeah, so, you know, and i’m a i mean, you know, i get thes e mails, and i sometimes i’m amazed at how interested i am in them voice is cracking like a thirteen year old interested, you know how often i read them? It’s it’s um, sometimes i sit back and, you know, it was like the fourth email this week, you know, from land’s end and i’m still opening it and reading the things and saying the same thing with the with the media ones i get because, well, you know, there was a sense of incredibly words help you do that because you were happy with your purchase and you you were made to feel good. You you, you you like wearing that sweater, and so you’re open to getting mohr information from in this case, land’s end because, um, you jump through the hoop and they jumped through yours well, and as you per said there, reminding me of the value i get and the satisfaction i get, you know, definitely worded communications. Lisa yeah, i wouldn’t pick up on some of that brian had had thrown out there about the word relationship, so even though we’re not using the word relationship that’s really what we’re describing here, right through these emails, through these touches they are, you know, in their their marketing code, building this relationship with you, unbeknownst to you right through through all these different communications and how they’re inviting brian to try a new a new piece of content or listened to a podcast or watch a movie and i think that’s one of the things we’re recognizing there’s only one podcast that people should be listening to and it’s this one it’s twenty martignetti non-profit in case you were confused, yes, in case there’s, any questions? So, you know, i know there are hundreds of thousands, but this should be when you’re down, you should be at the top. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, our our donors or definitely thinking about how do i build that relationship? I’m sorry, non-profits or thinking about how do i build that relationship with thes donor is much like on the consumer side, and i think the interesting new wrench in, um and the cycle is and i love for for, for brian even talk more about this guy he’s a lot of thoughts on this is that you have these new entrance, these new platforms, which you’re making it extremely easy for everyone to collect donors and b i’m sorry collectibe nations and be kind of fun raisers on behalf of non-profits they can set up a fundraising page very quickly for the causes that they love and invite all of their network of community in teo to make a donation on the b on behalf of the non-profit and then on the experience is so important, you know, teo, to reinforce, you know, the what what lisa just outlined for us is that you’re not going to get people to become committed advocates to your organization just by virtue of facilitating a filling provoc transact, you have to create a qualitative experience that reinforces not only the value of what they did, but the impact that it has, and when they can connect those two things value it, impact they they’re going to want to fly their flag, so to speak alongside yours and tell everyone that they court this organization, they’re proud of that. But then, as lisa suggested, they take that first and next action in terms of non-profit ask assi and start to do something for you on and on helping you raise money and spread awareness are two of the easiest things that certainly technology enables, but are the natural next thing’s a happy and committed donor for ought to do for your organization? I’d like to think this transactional mentality is a thing of the past, you know, and should be anachronistic by now, but but i think that a lot of non-profits it’s not, you know, they i feel like we got a gift and we’ll say thank you, and we’ll come back in the next cycle, whatever our next campaign is or what, whatever our next need is and that’s that’s antithetical to everything that you’re saying this transactional mentality needs to be a relationship mentality. Lisa, you know, at least we know we’re talking about relationships you need i mean, you wouldn’t just invite your parents over for thanksgiving dinner and then not talk to them again until christmas, you know, because that’s, your next campaign is to get them to come for christmas dinner. Oh, you know, maybe you should be going to them if you don’t have children, you should be going to them because you’re more mobile, but anyway, you know, so too much detail, but, yeah, i’m getting it, and we’re going to end up being my therapist by the end of this. And but, you know, in all fairness to the small organization and the chief, everything officer is out there that runs that you know, what it takes is blocking, tackling some time in your schedule to be able to not only think about or created experience, but deliver on it, it needs to be stage appropriate and aligned with your, you know, your constraints, not just your limited resources and, you know, as those small and even side’s non-profit organizations think about how to create that experience, well, they really need to think about the tools that they used there’s more and more options out there that can that can create, you know, automated e mails, autumn and automated tech messages that some of stuff that we do it now for good kind of the the phrase that lisa uses a lot, you know, when talking about this internally is, you know, set it and forget it, not that not forget it, because it’s not important, but you designed this experience and operationalized deployed with technology, and then you can evaluate it and make sure the metrics are lining with some of your bigger goals, not not necessarily financial but relationship goals and bridle the idea that your small non-profit that you can’t do this, you can’t afford not not this longer. And, you know, i know there’s, you know, some purists and traditionalists think about giving tuesday as this one and done phenomena. Well, maybe sometimes it is, but it doesn’t have to be, and it shouldn’t be because the number one thing that when i talked to, uh, non-profits throughout the country is that they’re they’re so focused on the ask and getting that done and getting it out, they forget that the ask or getting that gift is the first step in a series of many steps that you need to not only create an experience, but two to begin a relationship. Brian zoho i was just in north carolina earlier this week talking about two hundred non-profits and all these town halls and learned that not many of them has have even had the opportunity two thank all they’re giving tuesday donors and their december thirty first donor. And so but what? We need to understand that thanking someone for a gift does not inexperienced create yeah, okay, that’s a irs compliance thing, you know, thank you for your tax deductible give no good services were exchanged, blah, blah, blah, but and that isn’t the achievement. The achievement is what’s next, how do you communicate what they did and how and why, how it creates impact for the organization? Okay, let’s, let’s, start diving into some detail now, i think we’ve spent enough time with the motivation can we can we agree that segmentation of your your donor community is essential to a za basis of what we’re talking about? Being able to do without a doubt? Ok, but it depends on how well we’re going to get you up. So what? What should we be? What should be be segmenting by what? What? What do we want to learn from from the transaction that will help us in the really build the relationship? Yeah, so i would say, you know what? How did the gift come to you? Right? So not so much the channel. Like, was it online or in the mail, but rather what was the vehicle that compelled someone to give? And so, you know, in a in a very basic construct of segmentation, you know, a non donor-centric attendee versus a donor, someone that has current or last giving history, those air three distinct segments that all has nuanced, uh, information metoo and so a cz well, as you know, the business or the foundation, because what often happens thiss time of year when people think about you no acknowledgement letters, it’s, basically, they dump all the data into the spreadsheet, or if there are hopefully some sort of donor management system, uh and then spit out the receipts and it’s this monolithic message that doesn’t doesn’t acknowledge why someone are from where someone case, because i think all of this, as practitioners would agree that someone who came to an event that you hosted versus someone that gave on giving tuesday had a different point of entry experience with your organization and air go needs to be that needs to be acknowledged and dumping them all into one funnel and hoping for the best isn’t going to do that isn’t going to do the job, okay, so we’re looking at segmenting by, you know, we want to learn what the person gave to ah programmatically, basically where they came from, right? How did they find us and what they’re what their interests are, perhaps beyond what they gave to sew that so that we can we can focus our communications to them a marry my lisa, my on the right amount, right track? You’re exactly right. I s exactly right, not even just the right track for the needle a little bit more say, you know, we kind of talked about how there’s so many parallels obviously i’m head of marketing so there’s, so many parallels in what would you do on the marketing on the for-profit side and what we’re encouraging non-profits to do when it comes. To dahna retain retention, you know their revenue line is thes these donors making making contributions? Ditigal must think like, how do i get that recurring? How do i create the subscription model? How do i get in front of these donors and connect to them in the way they want to be connected? Teo much like how brian said he loves being connected that twice twice a month cadence with a with a message about what toe reader or watch next so it’s knowing why that donor is giving to you what is drawing to them, drawing them to your organization that you can then capitalize on was it that specific program that you’re offering to teo, you know, malnourished children? Is that the program you’re offering over here to do to do this, that the other knowing what’s drawing them and connecting them to your organization is literally the foundation for building that relationship and ultimately building community and look at the corporate analogies that we were talking about earlier, you know, why is amazon stock at twelve hundred dollars a share and continuing to grow? Because you know the messages we get from them? Well, other people who into interested in what you purchased were interested in these other things also related connecting point related to yes, real connection to what drew you in you might also be interesting these things so the analog we have these other programs that may be of interest to you because of what you gave to last year, that zaveri basic, but that right and that’s, why segmenting and having having a tool at your disposal so you can segment those donors in a line likes with likes to say the’s owners all came in because they care about this type of program and that’s what they’re that’s their connection to this non-profit versus this segment that might have a different reason, a different draw to the non-profit that that allows a non-profit to message very specifically and deliberately to those segments in a more congress, in and measured way. And so often, i mean, brian knows is even better than the most so often when you talk to non-profits they barely have the infrastructure that they need to support the bare basics, like he was saying thank you for your donation is not even like it’s, not even a step. Up from from the bare basics of building that community and those relationships, brian, anything you want to add? Yeah, i think the other thing is, while segmentation is optimal, consistency is essential. And ah, you know, if an organization has the capacity and the wherewithal of technology to do some basic segment, by all means, my gosh, do it because it improves results, but for those that can’t you got to put a stake in the ground and at least create an experience that presumes that organization or excuse me donorsearch port your organization not because they wanted a tax receipt, but because they care about what you do. You know, i think what non-profits really need to think hard and long about is this, you know, that i believe donors don’t give to hear organization they give through it. And as soon as you embrace that, this idea that donors are outsourcing their desire for public good and impact in their community, teo you the non-profit because you’re set up to do it, that suddenly changes the paradigm and should change the communication dynamic to one of thank you to one of accountability and ongoing accountability. Okay, so that’s a no that’s your your message you’re suggesting consistency? Yeah, murcott consistency makes things easier to measure if you have apples to apples. If you’re creating the same experience for every donor let’s say that gives online, you know that they’re gonna receive one two and three at these intervals, then you khun then if you implement that with consistency, you khun start to measure its efficacy. Okay, okay, hold that we’re going to continue their we’ll take another break standby. We’re gonna see piela i love this testimonial that that they have. This is my first year and we’re growing non-profit weinger cpas was completely attentive and gave the impression as if they were right next door when handling our review engagement. Even though we’re in a different state, they made me feel like we were the only client they had blah, blah, blah gushing, gushing, amazing, effusive praise all while feeling supported and genuinely cared for in the process. Endquote supported and genuinely cared for that’s from cps. Right? So i’m is like you. Would you expect that from something like lift or uber, or curb or grab or ola and allies for our moon by listener? We have we actually have a live listener in mumbai and we often having from delhi. So i added, i had a lot to that. You know, these air sepa is they’re they’re not bellman there, not front desk associates agents, really, but associates, if you like concierges elevator operators, i’d like to stay in classic hotels, housekeepers, restaurant managers. Are they servers or bus boys? No, no thiss gushing praise is for cps on that bike, by the way, and that testimonial was from a small cancer research non-profit on the east coast. So we’re not just talking big non-profits taking advantage of of wagner cpas. This was small organization. Check them out. Witness cps, dot com. And then, you know, do what i always advocate. Pick up the phone, give them a call, see if it works. And the person you want to talk to is the partner you eat. Which tomb? You touched him. You know him. Because he’s been on the show twice. He’s he’s. The first time he was on, he had this genius idea. You’re nine, ninety as a marketing tool. Who would think of that? That this ubiquitous nine. Ninety that’s on guide. Star and it’s, your your attorney, general’s office and it’s ah, charity navigator. If you’re bigger or ge, use it as a marketing tool. Use the narrative space in there to promote your your work. Don’tjust recite from your from your from your statement of inc. You know, use it more smartly. That’s yeats. Ok, so wagner, cps dot com talk to you coached him he’s been a guest, you know, he’s bona fide. Totally legit. The jetta means more than legit he’s brilliant regular cps dot com okay, now, time for tony steak too. You gotta know when to pull out of a bad donorsearch relationship we’re talking about dahna relationships today i was on a cruise thiss one idea came from st so while i was in st kitts, i got stimulated and i started to think about pulling out. Now what we’re talking about, you could just have to watch the video to get to learn see what got me thinking, but you don’t want to pull a push a bad position with a donor if if this if the if the signals are negative, you know they’re not returning your calls they give, but they give considerably less than you’re always asking. They’re not turning out for events despite repeated invitations. These air all signals that it’s a bad relationship. It’s. Well, it’s it’s, not a growing relationship, and you need to spend your valuable time cultivating. Face-to-face you know, this is your face-to-face cultivation time, someone who’s going to be more forthcoming for you. There are other ways to cultivate the donors that are not forthcoming, but in terms of your face-to-face relationship, you know, major gift time, you have to move on when when this the signals are negative from your donors and that is tony’s take two now, let’s, go back, teo well, before we go back to brian, we’ve got to do the live listener love, and we have lots of live listeners live listener loves going out tio tacoma, washington, say los angeles, california, woonsocket, rhode island, new york, new york multiple we got multiple new york, new york woodbridge, woodbridge i told you, you have to identify yourself, you’re you’re upsetting me. Woodbridge, new jersey. You’re so consistent listening. I want to know who you are. Please, please. I’m gonna stop shutting you out now. I wouldn’t do that. But the live lister love is going out to woodbridge in jersey. Yes. Tampa, florida. Uh, let’s. Go abroad, germany. Good dog, orilla canada. Is it? Orilla looks like a really canada welcome live. Listen, love there. We’ve got tehran, iran, we’ve got as i said, mumbai, india. Andi got sent to cruise the tenor teeth in spain when it started the live listen, love always goes out and on the heels of that has to go the affiliate affections to our way it supposed be podcast pleasantries. What would do the affiliate affections? First to our affiliate station listeners throughout the country dozens of stations carrying the show affections to those listening on their and their local am and fm stations. And, of course, we again. Welcome to the family. W crs in columbus, ohio, were brian’s calling from and the podcast pleasantries to the over twelve thousand listeners on the podcast listening on your own schedule pleasantries to you. So glad that you are with us. You are the book of our audience. And i thank you for being with us pleasantries to the podcast listeners. Now, let’s, go back to buy-in brian latto back and lisa padano talking about your donor experience. Okay, brian, anything else you can flush out detail wise about consistency, the consistency in those messaging? Yeah, i think it comes down to what it is that you’re going to measure because you know the old adage you can’t manage what you can’t measure, so you know, some of the things while obviously, the ultimate goal is to get a second gift or renewal at the time of an appeal. But you know, some of things that you need to be looking at under the hood to inform or you have to inform whether or not your experience is a good one is you gotta look at open rates, you gotta look at, click through rate and shares on social media, and my experience has been that, you know, there are so many digital tools out there that you can use to operationalize, let alone create your donor experience. But for those of us that our resource constraints you know, i think the basic donorsearch panitch mint system that can help you deploy emails but then also integrates ah, your facebook and your website. If you could make those things work, you’re going to be able to make a donor experience work. But the key thing as we talked about before the break is you have to be able to measure it, and measurement means consistent execution, and this is something that should be thought through. This donor experience by the organization, and not necessarily just the talent and tenacity of the fundraiser that’s employed by the organization. Okay, you know what, brian? Hold on, you know, it’s exactly right? I mean, i’m thinking about all the different calculators that not network for good has to literally walk a non-profit through the different metrics they should be thinking about, they’re donorsearch tension rate, their return on investment, if they’re spending certain amount of money on on a particular campaign, what is it bringing in? So we have we have brought kind of forward these metrics that they’re not intuitive to non-profits to say these air something’s, the highest level you should be paying attention to and then from that you can and they okay, how do i actually operationalize it into my non-profit brian’s, exactly, right? This is not a fundraisers problem to be solved it so isolating when non-profit seeing the way it is a non-profits problem to solve how do we operationally think about the money we need to bring in to support the programs you wantto we want to serve and that and carry out our mission? So bye by knowing what we’re doing so, it’s not just spaghetti up on the wall, let’s see what sticks thinking, you know, count, count, count, let six and be like, oh, yeah, we got ten threads upon the wall versus for the last time. So knowing what you’re aiming for being more more targeted with that segmentation being consistent and thought and and measurement you can only win, give me an idea of some of the things that we should analytics that we should be looking at. Yeah, there are a few, you know, i mentioned dahna retention rate. So how many of your donors are coming back repeatedly your year after year? Or ask after ask you want to be looking at your return on campaigns of your spending a certain amount of money for a direct mail drop? How much are you getting in return? Is it above a dollar? You know, you pay a dollar, get a dollar, you’re at least break even. You’re not you’re not losing money so there’s air, you know, to at the highest level. And then there were other ones, like brian was mentioning even a click through rate. You know how many of your e mails are going through what’s the hygiene of your of your donor list, you know, are you sending emails and they’re they’re bouncing or their hard bouncing, you know you need to be cleaning up that the database, otherwise the message is never going to be reached. So it’s, how many people are being reached are the clicking through? Are they is your is a language for which your packaging, that message appealing and that’s measured through that click through rate? Are they clicking the bait right? Are they? Are they following through on your ask so these are also, yeah, that everyone should should take note of that for my experiences of annual fund warrior for small and large organizations alike when it comes to donor experience, if you are getting a fifty percent click through rate on your engagement and retention emails, you are ninety percent more likely o r ninety times more likely rather to get a second gift within the same fiscal year, because what that fifty percent click through rate means is that you’re delivering the relevant content at an appropriate frequency that is peeking their interest. And if you’re doing that right, that means that you have someone that’s engaged and wants to consume the information that you’re putting out, and that should not stop any non-profit from asking again because it’s, an engaged enthusiastic on pre advocate donor-centric get a second gift, and the reason why that’s hugely important is there’s a lot of talk and commentary around the average of retention rate is what forty five percent or something make like that bryant yet the cost per acquisition is so high, so just like on the consumer side and the for-profit side it’s much more cost effective to retain a customer or donor-centric require new one. I’ve had lots of lots of guests say that exact same thing, i think the retention baizman like twenty five or thirty percent on dh, i’ve had many guests emphasized that, and as you said, you know, the cost of the cost of acquisition is so much higher than been retaining and and and it’s, you know, a relationship you don’t want. We’re trying to build relationships, you don’t want people dropping off that’s, this’s action just bad, bad for business. Yeah, and it just doesn’t feel good, you know? It is transactional, right? Right. Um okay. Let’s sum let’s. Just switch gears a little bit about some examples. Brian, you got you got a maybe a small midsize non-profit example, you khun, you can share with us of someone that improved. You know, the analytics improved fund-raising improved, etcetera. Yeah. One of my new favorite organizations called one pulse. They’re based its just outside of los angeles. Actually met the founder and executive director of twenty something year old in a coffee shop. When i was out there, unconference and anyways, fast forward gave him, you know, the technology stack from that good that he needed. And not only did he increase the number of donors that he had by about two hundred percent he’s up to about, you know, four hundred, donors now, but the major headline is that of those four hundred, you know, more than three hundred of them gave again. And then about one hundred fifty of them gave more than they did last year. And so when we unpack that this guy’s, the classic chief everything officer it’s one guy who has more passion than he does. Ah, grass of his, you know, time constraints and makes it all happen. He made it all happen by simply exploiting the functionality of technology, and that is setting up an email drip campaign that has a simple and very compelling image in it and a clever subject line in less than fifty words of content that that reminded a donor what the organization is doing every month, but also tells them the impact of what their support meant to the organization as relates to delivering, executing and scaling programs. And to me, it doesn’t get much better than that on dh it all comes down to, you know, intentionality and leveraging the existing functionality of his, you know, small but mighty software back, yeah, lisa yeah, well, i was just going to say a cz brian was talking. I was literally thinking about ah, conversation i was having with one of our product people. We were not is here having this conversation around, you know, the thought leadership of dahna experience, why it’s important? You know, we were living and breathing it and how we think about our product. We’re iterating on our product design all the time in this agile way of how is the donor touching this donor form? How are they choosing to click this button over this button? How would the font appear over this background versus this background? These of the thoughts and questions were talking about internally and never forget all the time, so we can always serve up that best tool and solution for our non-profits so they can then in and have the best experience for for their donors and bringing the most the most funding. So i think that it’s, it’s, it’s not just, you know, as you know, sitting here talking and, you know, it’s it’s a living, breathing, exactly. We’re living and breathing, and we’re kind of taking our own advice and thinking about how can we turn around this superior product that is putting donorsearch mirian ce kind of frontal lobe? Yeah, so we so where we need to encourage hyre non-profits to listeners to be very intentional and really and also a lot of testing i mean, it could be, you know, you may you may just have the wherewithal to do just simple abie testing one email, subject line versus another email subject line, right? Just not to be overly complex exactly right, but a lot of a lot. Of intention has to go into it, you know, the sort of slapdash thing that’s put together by an intern, you know, it doesn’t really know the organization that, well, it’s, you’re going to get returns consistent with the effort and thought that an intentionality that goes into it. Okay, all right, let’s, take our our last break. Lisa. Brian, if you would stand by for me, tell us credit card and payment processing, you could check out their video at tony dahna slash tony tell us explains the process of how business has switched to tell us and how you the non-profit that referred the business gets fifty percent of the revenue from the from the from all the transactions. Now this is transactional is talking about credit card transactions and fees and as tell us, earns fees from the companies that you refer, you get fifty percent of what they earn that simple. Okay, also, because you’re non-profit radio listener, if tello’s cannot reduce their credit card processing fees, then they’re going to send you two hundred fifty dollars. That part, that two hundred fifty dollars bonus is only for non-profit radio listeners. But i gotta tell you, it’s, probably not likely because odds are tell us is going to be able to save the money and that’s going to encourage the business to switch over, to tell us and then forget the two hundred fifty dollars, you’ve got a indefinite revenue stream because as that company processes credit card transactions, you are getting fifty percent of the revenue that tello’s earns from all those transactions indefinitely tell us, has one hundred percent satisfaction rate, so those businesses are not going to be leaving long tail passive revenue for you. Check it out, tony dahna em a slash tony, tell us. Thank you very much. Brian and lisa stood by. You stood by studiously. Alright, you’re not doing backchannel communications. Are you? Every every sponsor’s name tony. Oh, the girls are yeah. Are we talking about brandon? I was talking about consistency. We’re talking about message. I’m liking it. Tony dahna slash. We’re gonna have to come up with something for ah networked for good. We’re going to be on board. Where? There’s a lot to say about that coming up in the future. Future? Um, like march time. So yeah, i mean consistency branding, messaging right, you got it by learning something from seven and half years of listening to experts. Okay, um, you’re good student let’s. See? Thank you. Is that it? The not mentor? Not qualified to be a mentor. Coach. Student. Okay, like freshmen neo-sage thank you very much. A few more years, right? Shut off the mike. Now that we’ve had enough of her off, i was let’s. Go back to the lands and shirts like greater color. Like that part better. Yes. All right. So, brian, you’re not feeling left out there, are you, brian? No, not at all. Okay, you’re supposed to be here. We should. We should. I just wanna make this explicit met. Maybe i was probably understood early on, but you were supposed to be here. That was the whole point. You’re trying to get here in the studio, so we didn’t want you, but, you know, by phone is second. Yeah. Let’s. Talk about experience, right? Yeah. You’re years of experience. Customer experience today was not good. Yeah. That’s. That’s. Correct. Okay, i’m not going to ask you which which airlines you’re gonna fly, but you can tweet them. You know that you network for good has a lot of followers don’t. You probably didn’t want the corporate. Well, i know if it was the corporate card, if you have some degree of corporate sabat dissatisfaction that the the other vice president couldn’t get here, right? Okay, it was the corporate card. Maybe network for good should be tweeting. I don’t know who was we won’t say. All right, we only with a deposit of shout outs here. Um, okay, let’s, switch gears a little bit. Brian, i’m interested in some trends that you might be seeing emerging since we’re in the early stages of twenty eighteen. What what are you seeing coming on the horizon this year and beyond? Yeah, so a couple of things, i think the first is a real desire to, uh, automate fund-raising activities that all of this you’re not, you know, replace humans and, you know, the old fashioned stuff that works the best. But, you know, kind of what i was saying earlier, the senate forget it. Let’s design and experience and let’s put it in motion and watch it work for us, you know, kind of like engagement while we sleep. You are well non-profits we don’t upleaf we focus on delivering program, but you get what i’m saying, so that is one of the, i think, quickly growing emerging trends and feast out there, the sector and that is, what can we do to automate ous much of this experience so that we don’t have to be, you know, conjuring up emails every week and creating bliss, deploying them and testing subject line? Yes, but that that, uh the idea is, what do we do to create an experience that we think is the first and best generation and deploy it starts a man to measure it, you know? So what, we’re really keen from ten thousand feet is moving beyond donor-centric mint and really starting to talk about donor it’s one thing to make sure you have all your names and gift amounts and addresses in a cr m r donor-centric management system that’s great, but that that now is kind of like the most functional basics of fund-raising now you need to expand the aperture and say, well, what can we do to actually engage our donors with technology and not just doing it through, you know, likes and follows on facebook? But what do we do to automate some of those? Yeah, because it is. How do we make that accessible to small organizations that deposed tio? Very large ones that would buy, you know, hub spot for marquette owes or, you know, all those big, huge automation. And and so what we see is increased chadband interest and experimentation with automation of as much of the fund-raising function beginning with communication is possible. And automation does not have to sacrifice personalization that, you know, we just had it. Pardon me, brian. What you say got no gosh, no. Okay. Good. I got you. Okay. Yeah, we just had i just had a me sample ward on ceo of inten, our social media contributor last week. E-giving you know, very much the same sort of future. Look, andi, she explained how in ten of an organization that has an office in portland, oregon, but also has employees virtually uses automation toe run their office and to maintain their membership of, like, forty thousand or so. You know what? Maybe the membership is not big, but their constituencies, like forty five thousand, something personalization is definitely i mean, this is your right, brian. We’re past you. Know, get off spreadsheets moved to a crn now use that cr m segment and you don’t have to sacrifice personalization, lisa’s, champion jumper the bitter no, i was just going to say, you know, we we we cast forward it’s interesting because the the ese for which it is to give has changed, and platforms like facebook, among others, have completely changed that dynamic and is actually creating an interesting situation for non-profits because in one breath, you want to say how lovely all this money is coming in twenty five bucks at the clip from all these different directions, my revenue line is growing, but then when you dig a little deeper and it’s like, but are you able to build a community with those folks, are you able to get them to become the subscription? Geever exgagement true engagement it’s a lot harder for these non-profits to think about how do i turn that transactional giver? Because maybe tony you gave cause? Bryan asked you, right? But you don’t have a connection to my non-profit you know, i have to go back to you, tony, and say, hey, how can i build a relationship with you? How? Can i engage you, tony, and thread you into what i am doing over here into my mission? So you feel compelled to give on your own whether brian asked or not? So that kind of yeah, no, please go point it comes into, uh donorsearch mirian there’s also relationship between donor experience and board participation and fund-raising now we all probably accept as no one joins the board so they can ask their friends and family for money. But if staff does it, writing creek, that culture of philanthropy than and equipped trained board’s view it, then something good happens. But my point here is my experiences sends that boardmember zehr, reticent to ask their friends, come for money because non-profits are habitually poor at creating an experience that makes that boardmember feel proud and that’s not to say that boardmember is ashamed of the organization, but what the boardmember doesn’t want is that that donor that she or he or say bring to the table gets dropped into a you know, a same spray funnel of getting his letters, reports and every every invitation, uh, any type of event that that non-profits having the boardmember is very conscious. Of what experience that they want, or that they realized that that friends, family and co worker will have, as a result, e-giving to that organization. And so if if non-profits out there, if you want more board members to participate fund-raising you’ve got to create an experience for donors that raise rises to the level of satisfaction and pride of every one of your board members, so they’re feel proud. Teo asked their friends for money and have their friends be donors of to your organization and what brian was saying of having a solution that is a little set it and forget it. It’s this idea that you can have a tool that embeds within the tool all these best practices because at the end of the day, the non-profit doesn’t want to be thinking about did i bring in that hundred dollars that are bringing that thousand dollars in here? I mark right that’s not why they’re there that some what’s motivating them that’s, that’s like a means baizman end. So the tools that are stepping up to solve this problem are the ones that said, hey, you know what? We get that, right? We’re putting embedded. Best practices into this tool, so you’re going to focus on other things, but still trying to bring in that money and create that relationship in the most effective, meaningful way, because that’s what’s going to propel your non-profit for-profit forward and help you grow. Brian, i love that connection that you made between your donor experience and bored participation that’s a real that’s a connection i’ve never heard before on and i think it’s significant, and it and that could be a great topic for aboard conversation. Bored ceo, senior fundraiser conversation are you satisfied with the experience? I mean, it was some riel introspection that could be a difficult conversation, but one that’s important to have. Brian, i have to i brian brian, i got a limit. You we got, like, thirty seconds left. So this is your wrap up that you and then i’m gonna i’m gonna shut you off. So go but twenty eight seconds got it. So number one things that each and every non-profit should be doing this year is putting a stake in the ground and coming up with their first iteration of a donor experience. Um and keep it simple and keep it cost. Okay, you can animate email your website and facebook together you are catapulted yourself into a realm of hyre functionality that will help you raise more money. We got to leave it there. Brian lauterbach, vice president of programs, impact and sustainability and network for good lisa banana, vice president, digital marketing network for good they’re both network for good dot com where the forest spelled out lisa brian, thank you so much. Thanks. Such a pleasure. Thank you. My pleasure. Next week, joe garrick and your online giving plan i think you’re going to see some threads continue from this week. If you missed any part of today’s show, i’d be seat. You find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuing online tools for smaller midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio whether cpas guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps, dot com and tell his credit card in payment processing your passive revenue stream. Tony dot, m a slash tony tell us he still loves us, tony, that i’m a bit lise or creative producers claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer show social media is by the excellent susan chavez on our music is by this very cool. Scott steiner, brooklyn with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s, why should i give it away? 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