All posts by Tony Martignetti

Are You Asking For More When They’ve Given Enough?

Last weekend’s meal at a folksy chain restaurant got me thinking about asking for more gifts when your donors may feel they’ve given enough.

As I handed over my credit card to pay for our southern meal served in central New Jersey, the woman at the register offered, “Scooter Pies are on sale today. They make great snacks.” My first thought was her faulty premise. Fresh fruit, dried fruit and nuts make great snacks. Scooter Pies make make awful snacks. My next thought was more relevant to my purposes here.

Isn’t it enough that I just bought thirty-five bucks worth of lunch? But, they’re in business and I respect–and have come to expect–a dose of cross promotion. Hell, I do it myself. I spared her my diatribe on healthful food choices, said, “No thanks” and signed my receipt.

She had a rejoinder. “We have a sale on summer clothing.”

That’s over the line. Two entreaties to spend more money when I feel I parted with enough mere moments ago.

"Spare Change for Change", courtesy of dcjohn on Flickr.

I beseech you. Don’t cross the line into hounding when your donors have recently made a gift. Evaluate your policies about what goes into gift acknowledgement letters, for instance. It’s fine to suggest they buy a ticket to an event, or urge consideration of a planned gift, but if the plea is for an outright gift of cash when that’s what you’ve just received, it may be inappropriate. If not in the acknowledgement, you still need to be sensitive to asking too soon after a gift. Let your gratitude linger, so you don’t come off as ungrateful.

This is all fact sensitive so there are no bright line rules about timing and number of asks. I’m encouraging you to heighten your scrutiny so you don’t turn off your donors.

If you’re not conscious of your donors’ sensitivities, you might get yourself a diatribe. And it won’t be on the virtues of dried, unsulphured apricots.

Nonprofit Radio for August 19, 2011: Explaining Earned Income and Leading the Leaders: Motivate Your Board to Fundraise

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Gene Takagi and Emily Chan
Gene Takagi & Emily Chan: Explaining Earned Income

Our legal contributors, Gene Takagi and Emily Chan of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group, break down what earned income is. Why it can be good. Why it can be bad. Why you need to understand it to keep your office out of trouble.

 

 

Kerry Kruckel Gibbs
Andy Robinson
Andy Robinson & Kerry Kruckel: Leading the Leaders: Motivate Your Board to Fundraise

From the Fund Raising Day conference in New York City, consultant Andy Robinson and Kerry Kruckel, Vice President for Development and Communications at WNET TV, reveal how to move your board to be the best fundraisers they can be.

 

Here is the podcast: 055: Explaining Earned Income & Leading the Leaders: Motivate Your Board to Fundraise


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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. We’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I hope you were with me last week for got women donors from the fund-raising day conference in new york city last june, we talked about successful initiatives to expand your female donor base through targeted and appropriate cultivation, solicitation and stewardship. My guests were michelle walsh from the us fund for unicef and travis fraser from united way of new york city. Then it was linked in for prospect research. Our new regular contributor, maria simple, the prospect finder, was with me to share strategies for using linked in to find people and organizations who could be your board members, volunteers and donors. This week we are explaining earned income. Our legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan breakdown. What earned income is why it can be good. Why it can be bad. Why you need to understand it to protect your non-profit and keep it out of trouble. Then it will be leading the leader’s. Motivate your board to fundraise pre recorded at that fund-raising day conference in june consultant andy robinson and carry kruckel, vice president for development and communications at w any tv public tv in new york city reveal how to move your board to be the best fundraisers they khun b on tony’s, take two from my blog’s, say what’s on your mind. I learned a lesson about better communication from somebody who sat next to me on an airplane this past weekend, and that is tony’s. Take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour we’re live, tweeting today, use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation on twitter. We take a break, and when we return, i’ll be joined by jean takagi and emily chan to explain earned income. Stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Bilich hey, are you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com lively conversation top trends, sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio and i’m samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union. Welcome back to the show and thank you, samantha cohen. Jean takagi is principal of ennio neo non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg, which you’ll find at non-profit law blogged dot com. Emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage principal contributor to the non-profit law blawg. They’re both joining me to talk about earned income. Jean emily, welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Pleasure to have you back. Jean earned income. It can be good. It can be bad. What are we talking about? Well, when we’re talking about her dinkum, we’re talking about income that said, made by non-profits that’s not true. Donations through grants through charging fees, usually for services. Good. Jean, let me let me interrupt you for a moment. Could you talk a little louder? Jane is better. Yeah, that is better if you can keep up that. Thanks. Great. So earned income is about making income from services or goods or other assets that the non-profit may have to sell. And it’s not just asking for donations or grant on it’s. A way to diversify a non-profits revenue sources. Which is a good thing. Especially in times when other revenue sources from donations and grants maybe somewhat precarious because of the economy ah, and it helped to create a self sustaining program of the non-profit another really good thing in a way for non-profits toe leverage, goodwill and other ass. Yep. Okay, so this is income aside from your fund-raising a cz you said sale of goods or services there, there there there’s a lot of earned income out there, isn’t there? Jane? Absolutely. I believe emily sighted in in a recent block post that about seventy percent of the income reported by non-profits is actually derived from earned income sources and not fund-raising okay, so the majority of the of the income all right, and emily this khun b, that could be a downsides and non-profits too, right? Yes, there are to mean reasons why non-profits should be aware of this concept of unrelated business income because first thurs attacks that the irs imposes on income coming from unrelated business activities and second for public charities there’s a requirement that the organization be operated primarily for exempt purposes. So if there is too much unrelated business activity happening, that can actually jeopardize the status. Of the organization. Okay. Jargon jail have to getyou for unrelated business income. Unrelated to what? Let’s, break this down. Yes, on that really? The key concept here. So within earned income there could be activities that are considered related to the exam purposes for which the organization was formed. And then there can also be activities that are considered unrelated to be exact purpose of the organization. Three irs defines this three part of a trader business that’s regularly carried on that’s not substantially related to furthering the except purpose. So really, it gives the definition for unrelated business and that’s kind of how we see which activities are considered related or whether they’re considered unrelated. Okay, so i think the key phrase there is substantially related. Gene what? How does the organization decide whether it’s earned income is or is not substantially related to its a charitable mission? It’s definitely a fact specific inquiry, tony. The general idea is that related business advances the organization’s charitable mission without considering where the profits go. It’s the activities himself that contribute, importantly toe advancing the mission. So even if there was no money generated from that activity, the charity would think that running that business is a good idea because it helps again further, the mission furthers, uh, the interests of the charitable class of individuals trying trying to help no unrelated business is one where the activities really have nothing to do with advancing the mission, but they’re carried out to generate revenues that will be used later to advance the mission and it’s that’s unrelated business that could be subject to the unrelated business income tax and that can get a charity in trouble if it’s engaged in a substantial amount of of that type of unrelated business activity. Okay? And you you draw and a n’importe distinction. I think, between the activity that creates this earned income and the place to where that money goes once it comes into the organization, we’re interested in the former, right? Exactly. So for this analysis, we don’t get her where the money goes. We’re just looking at the activities himself, okay? Yeah, go ahead. Sometimes very difficult to tell. Tony, for example, does selling clothes or other retail items really further a charitable mission. And, you know, on one side, you might say, well, it looks like a department store. It looks like a boutique, but it can for their mission if, like, goodwill, the operation of the business provides education, job training and work experience for disadvantaged class of individuals so it can be very fact specific, and we’d look at all the facts and circumstances to determine whether it’s related or not. Okay, and we have just a minute before the break. So so the activity that we’re interested in is the activity that generates the revenue the income let’s call keep put consistent generates income, and you’re comparing that to the tax exempt purpose, which would be the charitable mission. And that’s, how you’re determining whether the income is related or unrelated? Why am i explaining this? Right? That’s? Exactly. Right. Okay, cool. All right, so we’ll take a break, and when we come back, emily and jean will stay with us. We’ll talk a little bit more about how to determine where, where this related or versus unrelated income fits. And what happens if it turns out to be unrelated. Which sounds ominous. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio stay with us. E-giving attempting to getting thinking. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get him. Good. Duitz 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. Looking to meet mr or mrs right, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as the building as possible? Then please tune in on mondays at ten a. M for love in the morning with marnie gal ilsen as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all tune in as we discuss dating, relationships and more. Start your week off, right with love in the morning with marnie gal ilsen on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Schnoll welcome back, we’re with jean takagi and emily chan explaining earned income. So, emily, maybe we could talk about a couple of other, maybe just fact situations where i guess the irs has determined or, you know, or some court has determined that that something was definitely related or unrelated income. Can you give another example, besides the one that gene had with the goodwill? Sure, another common example is with museums that generally have this charitable and educational purpose, but they also generate income through activities like a gift shop or having a cafe. So now we’re looking at the specific activities, and the irs doesn’t a kind of a broad stroke with activities it’s going to look at each activity and even within that activity kind of separate parts. So starting first with the gift shop, i’m emily, before you go further, can you can you speak a little louder? Force? Thank you better. Yeah, it is better, thank you within a museum, gift shop, museum, maybe selling items that i’m advanced charitable and educational purposes, for example, their reputations of the art that’s displayed on other items like that, but they also may be selling things like seven years to the city for which is located, which really is not going to be considered substantially related to charitable and educational purpose at the museum. In that case, the irs look att each item, maybe even and determine whether that’s related or unrelated, and so it can get quite nuanced if we done looked to the cafe. Now we’re talking about some of the activities where the irs also make exceptions. So some cafes in a museum may be considered related if they fall under the exception of being there for the convenience of the members and the patrons who come into the museum. But then, if we’re looking at a cafe that open to the public that list, they have the street entrance. Now it’s starting to look like a commercial cafe for-profit cafe, in which case we are arrest may come in and say, this is unrelated income, and now the museum has to be concerned about the two issues we raised earlier of pre-tax or possibly okay, that’s really interesting. So so within this category of earned income, some of it can be related and some of it unrelated, and then the non-profit has to. Account for those separately, like within the same cafe or the same museum store? Yes, on so this is. And another misconception that comes up is not an activity itself, such as running a cafe can actually generate both unrelated and relieving income. I’m so again, and she noted it’s just very fact specific and the na me but they’re not the museum when it reports it’s income in its annual information returned to the irs got toe actually list out every item that generates related versus unrelated business income so it would have to say, well, we we sold some t shirts and mugs of the city city souvenirs. This generated this much income that would be subject attacks. We thought this many art prints and books on art which would be related and not subject to that attack. Yes. Ok, so they do have to account separately for all these different categories of related versus unrelated. Wow. Okay, so is that so it’s fragmented? I mean, they’re the income is fragmented and that’s exactly what the irs calls that they call it the fragmentation rule. Okay. And let’s talk a little more. Jean about the consequence of of unrelated, it earned income. It’s, you and emily both mentioned the unrelated business income tax is that what gets applied to unrelated income? Exactly, and the whole idea be behind the unrelated business income tax was to address the problem of unfair competition with for-profit businesses on dh back in the fifties, when when the law was first created, there were a bunch of large non-profits like universities buying for-profit businesses and not paying taxes when running them within the non-profits can imagine that a small business it could be very upset if this big non-profit competitors came in, didn’t have to pay tax and had this huge competitive advantage over the small business owners, plus the additional advantage of not paying property tax, et cetera, the other the other advantages, aside from not paying tax on the income right, exactly, exactly right. And so you could see how they would be this unfair competition if non-profits weren’t tacked on this unrelated business income, and there is a one thousand dollar general thresholds first, one thousand dollars sort of escape, but beyond that, then it’s considered substantial enoughto require that the non-profit file a special information return or tax return. Reporting it’s, unrelated business income tax and the income tax is a tax on the normal corporate tax rate that a corporation would have to file a for-profit business would have to file, which is generally somewhere between fifteen and thirty five percent rate. Okay, and there’s an additional return to report this beyond the nine, ninety it’s not just a schedule in the nine, ninety that you that you ah, that you file correct it’s a separate return called the form nine, ninety and just like the nine, ninety, it has to be publicly disclosed. Okay, tea for taxable. Maybe. I don’t know. Okay? Or tea for tony, i think it’s the nine. Ninety tony for i prefer that. Okay, so who should be making this call mean, does this this is definitely require an attorney? If you have this earned income that you know, outside you’re fund-raising income, you’re getting money for goods and or services? Does this have to be an attorney making the call as to whether it’s related or unrelated her candid account into it? Or or who? Offgrid i think it’s a mixture of individuals that really can help make this decision. I’m in one respect there really is a business decision that has to be made by the organization and its leaders, even if the organization is generating related income. I mean there’s questions about whether there’s capacity the resource to support it and weather engaging in these activities might even lead to something like mission creep, where the organization starts to move further and further away from the reason it was organized. I’m certainly having the help of experts can be incredibly useful for an organization as kind of our discussion is highlighting there’s so many nuances to this rule, and unfortunately, the irs doesn’t give kind of a straightforward, bright line threshold to say where you’ve crossed that line and now have based on certain consequences, such as getting your tax exempt status provoked. So i certainly think there are many people who could be useful durney i’m with jean takagi principle of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. Emily chan is an attorney in that firm. So emily, you just mentioned possible revocation of your tax exempt status. What? We haven’t gone that far yet. What? What is that about? So public charities when they first formed one of the requirements under the internal revenue code is not this organisation be primarily operated for the exempt purpose? The issue with unrelated business income is now is there’s too much unrelated business activity? The irs is now saying you’re no longer being primarily operated for related purposes. Unfortunately, though the iris has not said definitively at what point can you say now? We were engaged in substantial on really business activity many people ask for, like percentages or income amounts, but unfortunately, the irs hasn’t spoken on that. Many practitioners fall on the twenty percent rule of thumb of, um, the amount of generated income coming in, but sometimes being office may reap are looking at the amount of resource is the organization is actually dedicating unrelated business activity as opposed to how much income is generating let’s stop for one moment. So on emily, i have to remind you speak a little bit louder, please. So twenty percent you’re saying some practitioners use a twenty percent. What are we taking? Twenty percent of if that’s your if that’s the test, you’re using twenty percent of gross income from unrelated businesses, okay? And and some practitioners think that is a threshold for for what, when you have to report it or or what it’s a good rule of thumb common amount that many practitioners fallen for when the organisation should be concerned now that they may be e-giving into too much unrelated business activity in which consequences could be oh, i see. Ok, so there isn’t a bright line. There isn’t a bright line as to how much is too much. Some practitioners use twenty percent. I don’t there’s some practitioners who think as long as it’s not above forty nine percent that you’re okay, yes, but certainly arrange again because the irs hasn’t said exactly at what point they believe that the line is drawn and partially because the analysis is still back specific, it may just be difficult for the irs to say definitively across the board this is the one amount where every organization must follow-up right, i can jump in turn, please, you know the irs is really looking at all. The resource is being used by the non-profit that’s directed at the unrelated business. So if it’s, using ninety percent of its resource, is not to engage in charitable activities, but to engage in the unrelated business and the unrelated business is only generating ten percent of the total gross income. Well, that’s still probably too much unrelated business activity devoting ninety percent. You know of your resources towards it on dh. That could lead to revocation of exempt status even below that twenty percent rule of thumb. Because we’re really not just looking at the income, really looking out at how the organization is using its research. So on the sort of congress sight, if it was using only five percent of its resources and it was generating eighty percent of the growth income of the non-profit that may be okay really generated so much income is just so little resources are going towards that, and then the other ninety five percent are all going towards furthering its charitable purposes directly. So it’s it’s really more than just the percentages, but anything over twenty percent, i think emily cause that is a good rule of particularly for account that he may not be looking at the activity level, but looking at the numbers and saying, hey, you better talk to an attorney when you get to that level of income from unrelated business. Okay, interesting. So i just want to recap a little where we’re talking about earned income, which is different than your fund-raising income, but so it’s a part of your gross revenue apart from fund-raising income discerned income and then earned income could be either related or unrelated. And we’re talking about now the consequences of having too much of the income unrelated. And jean, you had said the threshold for reporting is a thousand dollars. Is that right? That’s? Right. Ok, so if you have over a thousand dollars of unrelated income that’s, when you have to file the nine ninety tony form nine ninety tony form that that’s, right? And i should add, actually sort of define what growth income means without trying to get into jargon jail here. Okay. Income for this purpose is means the gross receipts, less the cost of good souls. So, for example, if we had t shirts and we sold two thousand dollars worth of t shirts and the t shirts costs us twelve hundred dollars, how then are gross? Income is only eight hundred dollars, so we wouldn’t have to file the nine. Nineteen. Okay. Okay. Ah, are there? Are there exceptions to the so what’s could be unrelated business income, gene? Yeah, they’re they’re exceptions to the whole area, unrelated business income tax and whether it would apply and the common exceptions that that we talk about are the three basic ones. When is the volunteer exception? So if the unrelated business is carried on by all volunteers, that will be an exception, and those activities will not generate income that’s subject to that unrelated business income tax. The other one emily mentioned is when activities unrelated business activities are carried on for the convenience of members or patients or students, and that might be like a hospital, gift store or bookstore in in a and the university or the example that emily brought up a cafe inside a museum that serving just the museum patrons. That’s called the convenience exception and is another exception where you don’t get charged with that unrelated business income tax. And the third exception that’s often cited is the donated good exceptions and that’s when you run an unrelated business like a thrift store. But all of the goods inside the thrift store were donated so similar to again the goodwill model. In some cases and and other thrift stores that are run by non-profits it’s a business and it’s unrelated but it’s all donated goods so they don’t have to pay the unrelated business income tax there’s one more modification we call separate from these three basic exceptions that everybody should know about and that’s the passive income modifications. So if you’re generating a lot of income from interest and dividends and red ilsen royalties but it’s passive, you’re not doing any activities, teo, get that that income it was just based on investments that will not be subject to the unrelated business income kapin but it gets so complicated that they’re exceptions on exceptions and exceptions, those exceptions? Yeah, no kidding, especially. I’m sure about the passive income when you start getting two rents and especially ranson and there’s prints on commercial property. Okay, let’s, not go that far. But i am interested in the volunteers that first exception volunteers doing all the work. So? So if you had any employees like in a thrift shop supervising volunteers, then then you wouldn’t qualify for that exception. Is that right, jean? It would be we would look at it from a substantiality points. So it’s substantially, all of the workers were volunteers. Then we’ll get that exception. You may still have a back person sort of supervising all the volunteers, and that could still work out. Ok, ok. And emily, the donated goods that does that exception have to be one hundred percent? Or is that also? Ah, substantiality test there for that exception, we’re looking again at it reality. So with many thrift shops, we see this happening. But certainly, if there’s a combination of exceptions to the unrelated business income roll and then there’s one or i think school that are considered unrelated. Then again, the fragmentation role, as we talked about earlier is going to be triggered on the organization is going to need thio mark each category. Make sure it accounts for that. Okay? Fragmentation, substantiality unrelated business income in the nine ninety tony form jean is there anything we want to wrap up with? We have just a minute left. Anything we haven’t said about earned income that you think small and midsize non-profits should know well, apart from the whole related and unrelated part, that big driving force behind designing to engage and earned income ventures is deciding whether you really got the capacity to do it, and it makes sense it’s compatible with your mission. You’ve got the right assets that are worth selling probably want to pick the low hanging fruit first do stuff that you’re already good at because you don’t want to surprise your staff with managing a totally unknown entity and unknown venture on distracting them from from doing the mission and want to get involved too. As he plan about that, you need to know the laws and risks involved. Whether you’re selling goods, maybe sales tax are involved, you may have new employment issues and intellectual property issues, social media issues, licenses, permits, insurance and all of those things. So getting some experts to help you making sure you have the capacity to do it ahead of time. Those those are my best tips for you jean takagi and emily chan gene is a principle of neo the non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the non-profit non-profit law blogged at non-profit law blogged dot com emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage principal contributor to that blogged emily gene, thank you very much for being on, we look forward to hearing talking to you again next month. We look forward to it as well, tony. Thank you, real pleasure. Thank you. We take a break, and after the break, tony’s take two and then leading the leader’s motivate your board to fundraise, so stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. Website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications, that’s the answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. I’m leslie goldman with the us fund for unicef, and i’m casey rodder with us fun for unison. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. My block this week is, say, what’s on your mind and that’s the topic of tony’s take two on an airplane just this past weekend from chicago to new york. I was with a girl who was just very forward about saying things that that a lot of us would filter. So there was there was she’s, twenty four years old, elisa, and it was clearly, you know, some disorder that just made her say what was on her mind just as i entered the just entering the row to sit down, she asked me what’s your name, how old are you? Are you married? So, you know, that’s got me thinking, you know, she was very charming and sweet and at the same time, you know, unashamed, um and it just got me thinking, you know, they’re there we censor ourselves a lot, and we suppress things that maybe sometimes appropriately suppressed i mean, we can’t all be saying all the things we’re thinking with we’d all be without jobs without friends, but some things i think way sensor maybe should be said and and ah, not avoided just because they might be very sweet or, you know, unmanly. If you’re a guy or maybe because they might be, um, you know, a sign of weakness, so i just raised my consciousness about censoring myself and saying more things that i’m thinking and letting people be more aware of what my thoughts are in the right circumstances. And so i thought that might be a benefit to you because so much of our work is relationships in our inn. Non-profits so that’s say what’s on your mind, it’s on my block, which is that m p g a d v dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, august nineteenth. We’re now going to move to leading the leader’s motivate your board to fundraise. This was pre recorded at fund-raising day in new york city this past june, and here is that interview. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven were in new york city times square at the marriott marquis, and i’m joined now by andy robinson and carry kruckel andy is principal of andy robinson consulting. Carrie kruckel is vice president for development and communications. Wnt channel thirteen here in new york city. Welcome both of you. Thank you. It’s pleasure beings for having us. Our pleasure. Your seminar topic is leading the leaders how to motivate your board to cultivate major gift. I’ll tell you, we’ve done about half a dozen interviews today, and the board has probably come up in four or so of those of those six so far, but now critical the board’s role in fund-raising and how do you want to start the start? The topic? What? What? What is their responsibility? Well, where i would start this topic is i’d say we have to define fund-raising so it’s not just asking for money. It is the whole cycle of behavior. It’s identifying prospects, it’s cultivating it’s asking it’s, thanking it’s, recognizing its involving and so all that stuff. And if we define fund-raising is asking for money. There are a certain number of people, including a certain number of board members who will never get there. Okay. On the other hand, if we define fund-raising as this larger piece of work that we all have to do, then i would argue pretty strenuously they that there’s a place for everybody in that cycle, even the board members who hate to ask for money. There’s just the old fund-raising or something they can do? Absolutely there friendraising there. Friendraising yeah, we call it friendraising fund-raising atar side, which is the same thing. And it’s absolutely critical because actually, my feeling is that you don’t want every boardmember asking for money. Let’s, let’s try to go through a little life cycle of a boardmember how do we make sure we recruit board members who want to participate in this in his willingly? So, andy out recognizing that there may always be some that will will object strenuously and never maybe we’ll get to the difficult cases, maybe, but in the light in the opening lifecycle, how do we how do we recruit correctly? Andy? Well, the first thing is transparency mean, let people know when they’re joining your board that this is one of the expectations and i’m a believer and job descriptions, i think you specify what expected. Boardmember and i think the job description has to be reciprocal, meaning we’re gonna expect you to raise money on one side on the other side, we’re going to train you how to do it, we’re going to support you or give you some options and how you participate. Oh, so there actually is organization responsibility. It’s reciprocal? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, where a lot of lorts fail and be interested to hear your take on this carry. A lot of boards fail is they bring people on and they say, go raise money and they kick him in the butt and they supposed about the door do it there’s not training, but on the morning there’s not support. I mean, there’s, this sort of fantasy that they’re all they all come in as skilled and willing fundraisers. And that is rare. Carrie, how about you? For the recruiting side on the recruiting side were very strategic. And w n e t we have a committee that’s, just a people. So of my board of forty, only eight are formally asked by the chairman to be active solicitors for deb unity. And they partner with me. I trained them on. We have a whole business plan that they stick, teo, that we establish the beginning of the year. Now, just as important to that group a zach repairs to the organization is all trustees do. We asked him to give when they joined the board, we have a give and get yes expectation it’s very clear it’s not give or get you have to give not all of our trustees khun give it the same level, but they all have the ability to additionally get one of the criteria for recruiting a boardmember sir, is what is the network that they’re in what’s their orbit in sphere of influence and that’s we played too. We played to that strength rather than to a place that they may not be familiar. So that’s really key. So everybody comes in with a certain capacity said, but only a handful of people work with me on act, actually soliciting gifts, large gifts, the rest friendraising yeah, just once just one fifth of your board, but the andes to the point that andy made there is a role for everybody, so rule for only one fifth of your board is actively soliciting, right? But i would say another two to three fifths of our board are actively friendraising calling me all the time with great leads, contacts, ideas, and then the development committee is a very tight, working operation that, you know, we activate when we’re ready yeah, god, those eight people self selected or you hand picking the ones you want to turn into solicitor’s i’m in the process of handpicking because i just joined the organisation fifteen months ago, so i inherited a wonderful development committee, but some on that committee still are not comfortable soliciting. They’re more comfortable, say, leading a major gala that raises three million for the organization so that’s that’s significant in a different way, but know, as i handpick in this new new year, we have two new co chairs and they they go about fund-raising from a different very different points of view. One is a seven figure donor and annual basis, and one is a six figure donor, and so we tackle it different ways. One is very entrepreneurial and, you know, a tremendous seller, great talker, the other one is very focused wants to close five gifts at a million or more. So you create this this dynamic of what’s a business plan for each of them that kind of gets the whole committee where they want, and that also suggests the support that the organization has to provide in terms of a business plan, you’re talking about a business. Plan for each of them that’s i’m sure developed in collaboration with them, but your staffing that plan on dh you’re proposing the plan to them, right? Staffing that committee is probably fifty to sixty percent of my work. It’s a big part of my job and you say an interesting word, it’s, a business fund-raising is totally a business, and until trustees see how that business is an operation, they don’t really trust the process. I kind of think they might be asked out there on a whim, asking for money, but there are three major categories of running a very solid development shop, whether your staff of three or staff of seventy like we are, but you have to have those principles in place and regularly talk about them so that the trustees feel like there was a very strong foundation that’s pushing this for them and supporting them and support them now. And he talked earlier about proper training of a new boardmember what? What is training look like wnt for a new boardmember around fund-raising around fund-raising? Yeah, um, it’s pretty informal. I mean, we have formal orientation for all of our board members when they join and then every year all the board members get a mini kind of refresher, but when it comes to fund-raising, we sit down and we establish our goals and objectives together, i usually come in with a set of recommendations that i review with the chair and the co chair, but i really trained them as they get ready and go out. I equip them with basically the case for support, so anytime they’re out socially or if they’re setting that i’ve set them up for they know the elevator pitch, but until they’re actually going out on a call, i don’t train them until they’re going on a call. So that’s basically a really sell that briefing, and then you know, half an hour on the phone or sit down where we kind of go through that solicitation. Every solicitation is different, all right? But i don’t formally trained them. I don’t bring in outside consultants to train them. I’ve been doing this for twenty two years. Why generally, you know i might this year will be my first let’s see will be my second year kicking off the committee for the fall can i probably will have three new committee members, so i’ll probably take forty five minutes to kind of go through the rules of the game and how they’re set up tio have a great experience and a win win for the organisation, right? And then i’ll do one on one training and what kind of feedback do you like to see from a boardmember after they’ve been in the kind of meeting that carries talking about preparing them for afterwards, how do they feed back what they’ve learned in that meeting to the organization? Yeah, it’s a good question. First of all, the classic way we do this, i don’t know if this is true it w n e t the classic way we do this, we go out hairs, it’s a boardmember with a staff member and sometimes boardmember zehr skilled enough to go out alone and do asks and that’s fabulous, but i think that’s the exception rather than the rule. So usually what this looks like is thie carries of the world are sitting down with the boardmember after the meeting’s over, and sometimes you’re doing this in the car, you know, when you’re sitting in somebody’s driveway and what did? We learn how excited is this person? Are there other next steps that we need to take who’s goingto leave who’s going to take that next step? Who’s going to lead on that? How do we follow up with that person? It’s not a bad idea to produce some sort of scratchy where you actually have a standard set of questions you’re asking each other to debrief the meeting. So you actually have something you can then put in the database and use that to manage the relationship? What do you like to see andy in terms of the other relationship? Sorry, the other board dishpan ce abilities, aside from soliciting let’s say we have boardmember is that our? We’ve agreed, mutually, either i don’t solicit or you’re not comfortable listening, and we understand it. What are the other roles? Well, this could be an entire phone call baizman entire interview unto itself, but just off the top of my head, one is identifying prospects, even if they’re not willing to approach those people individually. Another one is creating opportunities to educate people, so if you’re at a radio station, you could bring him in and give mature if you’re a land trust you could take him out on a hike. If you’re working with children, you could bring them in to see the kids doing what they’re doing. It’s a cultivation piece on the back end? I’m a great believer in boardmember is picking up the phone and thanking donors, even people they don’t know and saying, hi, my name is andy robinson, i’m a volunteer boardmember with name of organization, i am not calling this evening to ask you for money, pause, you know, they collapsed on the other end of the phone, right? I’m just calling to say thank you, and these phone calls are revelatory because a lot of board members expect they’re going to get grief and people. Wow, i love your organization is so great it’s a privilege to give and it’s a really good way to ease people into fund-raising without the ask part that’s just half a dozen things they could do what i liked about that that last ideas having boardmember calls that ghetto learned the exuberance that’s out there, even if they’re calling fifty dollar donors, you could have boardmember calling fifty or hundred dollar don’t love that, yeah, i would love that. And then they learned that. There’s, this, this is base of support. It doesn’t only exist among the six and seven figure donors, and the variation on this and i’ve done this several times is tohave. Donors come to a board meeting and do a little donorsearch. Because a lot of board members think donors air from mars don’t know when they’re different species. And actually, they’re just like everybody else. Except they love your organization more than most people know. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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 hunters. People be better business people. Buy-in this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing efforts. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com told you. Lively conversation. Top trends, sound advice, that’s. Tony martignetti, yeah, that’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. No. Durney carrie, how are how are you using boardmember sze who the ones that are not soliciting the other, the other four fifth what are some ways that they are directly involved in fund-raising they are every board member’s assigned to a committee wnt so we have seven committees, so they’re all engaged in some aspect of the mission of the non-profit my job, as i see it is the chief fundraiser is, too connect the fund-raising relevance to other parts of the opposition they may be working on, so if they’re working on programing, or if they’re working on investments or finance is what is the value of that work to the role we do and fund-raising so making the connections is really in part because a cz you pointed out they all have thinking about fund-raising they may not all be actively engaged, so the challenge is is how do you how are they experiencing the kind of the mission in a way that they’re feeling connected that keeps them kind of, in a sense, cultivated as prospects themselves and that’s a really big challenge? Because if you’re on the audit committee, that is not really a very inspiring everybody wanted wnt everybody want to be on the education committee because that’s where the programs that work with kids, mostly and that’s what they want to do because that’s exciting, but there are other fiduciary responsibilities, so it’s a challenge? So what we do is the ceo, the chairman, and i actually spent a lot of one on one time with our trustees, we take them out to lunch, we try to meet every trustee twice a year, just one on one intimately because board meetings, you really can’t connect on an intimate level. You really getting business done that’s a really valuable idea, i think connecting the leadership with the ceo with the with the boardmember include maintaining that relationship, you created friendship and trust there, but then we also i’m a big believer in events as a way to keep the trustees kind of socially connected. They don’t have to come to all the events, but they come to one or two a year in the months that you’re not doing boardmember ings w n e t we do a lot of screenings for new shows that we’re airing and that’s when we have trustees president, we give him a role, we ask himto welcome the guests, we ask him to go meet three or four people, so they always have a role in friendraising on the external side when they’re not doing the work of the board. I’m with carrie kruckel, vice president for development and communications, wnt thirteen and i see, um and anne robinson principle of anne robinson consulting their topic at fund-raising day two thousand eleven is leading the leaders how to motivate your board to cultivate major gifts, and this is tony martignetti non-profit coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven in new york city. Andy, what do you like to see in terms of the relations, the working relationship that carry started tow talk about between the ceo and the board around? Fund-raising well, i think the first thing is that there are ceos, executive directors who embraced fund-raising get it who are excited about it, and there are those who don’t and i have been development staff, it organizations where we had one and where we’ve had the other and this was was work is a whole lot easier if the ceo gets it and embraces it and understands it. So i’m going to start with the assumption you have one of those if you do the answer, the question, i think, is to have shared expectations that air clear about who’s going to do what and to find ways to engage people at the board level who will lead on this and the way i think about this and someone taught me this term is to have a successful fund-raising board, you need someone who is the spark plugs on the board when it comes to fund-raising because usually the way this works is staff are saying to the board, you need to raise money, you need raise money, we need help, and this is basically going to your supervisors and saying to them, you’re not doing your job well, which is tricky, she’s ill should that sparkplug be the chair of the development committee? Well, that works for me, but i’m less about the title, and i’m more about the personality, the attitude i mean, if you don’t like sparkplug, we can work with the word coach, we can work with the word cheerleader. I like the word enforcer, okay, but one spark plug, good to spark plugs. Better threespot plugs you have a really good fund-raising board, and if you can invest this person with a title like chair of the development committee that’s great, but i have seen it work really well when the chair of the development committee was more about the details and logistics, but they weren’t the one who did training and inspiring and enforcing. So i’m good either way, but somebody at a board level has to has to be that person, and the role of the ceo is to make sure you have that person to support them and doing that, make sure that they can do their job at a peer to peer level on the board. Okay, carry it sounded like you had something to say around around that relation that ceo board relationship, i would add that your board chair and your president, ceo and fundraiser have to compliment each other, so if you know what you have going into the mix and you don’t have the right balance of strengths, then you need to recruit very actively. Having a strong ceo who likes to solicit as well as the chairman can often be very problematic if they’re both looking for, you know, the chance to close on a gift and you have a donor who’s got two very aggressive people at the table that’s pretty tough, so i, like i’ve always looked to find a nice balance if the current ceo i work for is somebody who’s ah, wonderful articulator, but not necessarily was comfortable with making the ask or the clothes i’m looking for a chairman or a trustee to support him. Who has that complement the personality i generally find they’re just going backto. One point is, is that it’s really the rule the fundraiser to fill that gap? Knowing what your strength or as a professional fundraiser and playing those up, i probably can wear twenty different hats a w entity at any given time to support the trustee or their ceo or the chairman in an ask or a cultivation, because i’d have so much experience and see where the gap is in terms of how they’re going to relate to a potential donor. And i think that’s a number something non-profits can’t overlook is hiring the right fundraiser who has that kind of experience and working in a lot of different settings. On gonna frame this slightly differently. And i think this is complimentary. Really? Good development directors are good at getting other people to ask for money. Yeah, and, you know, doing it themselves? Absolutely. But the good ones are empowers. And trainers and supporters and that’s another way of what you just said. It’s a good point. Can i raise a second point, please? We’re talking, quote unquote. Major gifts and carry rolled out the six figure gift in the seven figure gift. And there are plenty people listening to this who will find those numbers to be frightening. Yeah, a thousand dollars is some organizations of thousand buckle is a major gift. The principles are the same. It’s. Not about the amount of money. It’s people who we consider major donor prospects, they get treated differently. They get more attention, we get more face time with, and we’re trying to find a way to engage their interests in a personal way. And that is really irrelevant about the amount of money we’re talking about. Okay. Excellent point. Thank you. And i agree. It’s. Very good. Carrie. What do you like to see around the the organization’s support of board? Members who are who are actively engaged in fund-raising what what kind of role is the organization playing toe to support those boards? Boardmember well, what i love to see that i don’t see much is an entire organization that understands the rule of the board and threw their department say their area of expertise, whether it’s, a on the mission delivery side or the education cider, the outreach side is that the leaders of those departments are justice. Capel is a fundraiser and communicating the progress of the mission of the non-profit to that board tends to fall into the lap of the fundraiser of the chief fund-raising almost every time you’re managing all aspects of the board, so but that’s, what i like to see, even an organization that doesn’t have it is a readiness and an understanding that we all are cultivating our board on the ceo or i’m the vice president, this department, i have a role in that, so i do spend time with my colleagues training, preparing them, helping them understand their role each year in terms of how they would interface with their committees that they’re managing, but i think that’s a really key part because it can’t just fall in the hands of the chief fundraiser at any size organization because it’s, very time consuming fund-raising really has to be out there also asking for gifts of other donors, not just working with the trustee’s. It was kind of building that pipeline, and so if you’re internally managing all components of the board, it’s very challenging, so i look for that but it’s really hard for non-profits to achieve that, you know, andy would have about thirty seconds left. What do you like to see you? So you have to be a little brief in terms of the organization supporting its member, its board members well, love, um, show appreciation, even if they don’t do absolutely everything you want them to do, reinforce anything that’s a positive behavior in this direction because these people are volunteers, they’re doing this on their own time with their own love, and we need to show appreciation even if they don’t do it perfectly if they do it pretty good. That’s a step forward, so i would honor that. Andy robinson is principal of andy robinson consulting carry kruckel is vice president for development and communications. W n e t thirteen there seminar topic is leading the leaders how to motivate your board to cultivate major gifts and this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven in new york city in times square. Carrie andy, thank you very much for being guests. It was a real pleasure. Thank you, thank you for having us. That was my pre recorded interview from this past june the fund-raising day new york conference next week. Google plus for your non-profit our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, scott koegler is with me to size up the newest big splash in social networking and also break down the silos, integrating communications, pr and fund-raising for better results from the fund-raising day conference in june, my guest will be meghan galbraith, managing director at changing our world for this week. I want to thank jean takagi and emily chan of the non-profit exempt organizations law firm and andy robinson and carry kruckel as well as the organizer’s of fund-raising day two thousand eleven for their hospitality from week to week, you can keep up with what’s coming up. Sign up for our insider. Email alerts on the facebook page. While you’re there like us and become a fan of the show, you know where facebook is. Just go to tony martignetti non-profit radio. When you’re in there, you can listen live or you can listen. Archive. The archive is at itunes. Subscribe and listen anytime on your computer, smartphone or tablet that’s at non-profit radio dot net for our itunes on twitter you can follow me, just use my name and the show’s hashtag is non-profit radio use that hashtag use it with impunity, use it unabashedly non-profit radio, the creative producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff, our line producer and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting is sam liebowitz. Our social media is by the expert regina walton of organic social media. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. I hope you’ll be with me next friday one to two p m eastern here on talking alternative broadcasting always found at talking alternative dot com. I think that’s a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz to get you thinking. E-giving cubine hey, looking to meet mr or mrs, right, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as filling as possible? Then please tune in on mondays at ten am for love in the morning with marnie allison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all. Tune in as we discuss dating, relationships and more. Start your week off, right with love in the morning with marnie gal ilsen on talking alternative 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. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me, larry. Shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to go what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio dot com for the average, our is a great place to visit both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. Do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors magnify your brand exposure and enhancer current marketing efforts. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission. One one media dot com. Talking.

Say What’s On Your Mind

Courtesy of Rupert Ganzer on Flickr
I had a delightful airplane encounter this weekend.

Seated next to me from Chicago to New York was Aliza. As soon as I entered the row she introduced herself, then questioned me rapidly: “What’s your name?”, “Are you married?”, “How old are you?”

Throughout our delayed flight, she shared her anxiety about whether her caregiver would wait for her at LaGuardia; would I help her get to baggage claim (of course); could I help her get her bag out of overhead storage (yes); whether her phone would have enough battery power to call her caregiver (I offered mine); that she misses her family in Chicago; that she hates living in New York.

Aliza is twenty-four and has some disorder that makes it hard for her to get through the world alone. She also says what’s on her mind. I found that refreshing and inspiring.

Aliza was free, fresh and unashamed. The time I spent with her makes me recognize there’s plenty to say that goes unsaid because it’s not so comfortable to speak about. For some, they are feelings of affection, which is particularly tragic. For others, anxiety, because we want to be strong. For me, it’s disagreement with a proposed course or idea, because I don’t want to offend the proposer.

There have to be filters between the brain and the mouth, otherwise we’d all be friendless and jobless.

Still, because we work in a business that relies so heavily on strong relationships, I suggest the community could be a little stronger, maybe more successful, if we speak our minds more often.

Thank you, Aliza, for raising my awareness and reminding me to more often say what’s on my mind.

Nonprofit Radio for August 12, 2011: Got Women Donors? and Lovin’ LinkedIn for Prospect Research

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Travis Fraser
Michele Walsh & Travis Fraser: Got Women Donors?

From the Fund Raising Day conference in NYC in June, we talk about successful initiatives to expand your female donor base through targeted and appropriate cultivation, solicitation and stewardship.

My guests are Michele Walsh from the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and Travis Fraser from United Way of New York City.

 

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: Lovin’ LinkedIn For Prospect Research

Our new regular contributor, Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, is with me to share strategies for using LinkedIn to find people and organizations who can be your next employee, board member, donor or sponsor.
 

 

Here is the link to the podcast: 054: Got Women Donors? & Lovin’ LinkedIn for Prospect Research.


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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio on friday, august twelfth. I’m your aptly named host tony martignetti hope you were with me last week when it was wild woman fund-raising i had mazarene treyz consultant and author of the wild woman’s guide to fund-raising she was with me for the full hour to share her thoughts about career social media grants, manship and mohr. We did our live first tweeting last week, and we’re going to keep that up this week when it is got women donors from the fund-raising day conference in new york city this past june, we talk about successful initiatives to expand your female donor base through targeted and appropriate cultivation, solicitation and stewardship. My guests are michelle walsh from the us fund for unicef and travis fraser from united way of new york city second half of the show linked in for prospect research i’ll be joined by our new regular contributor maria simple the prospect find her, she’ll be sharing strategies for using linked in to find people and organizations who could be your employees boardmember sze volunteers and donors. As i said, we’ll be live tweeting this week the hashtag is non-profit radio we’ll take a break, and then we’ll start with god. Women donors you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Neo-sage 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s a lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Zoho hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com durney durney welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven at the marriott marquis in times square in new york city. My guests now are travis fraser and michelle walsh. Travis is director of mate gif ts for united way of new york city and michelle walsh’s, director of leadership gif ts for the united states fund for unicef. Welcome, thank you, thanks pleasure to have you, they’re seminar topic is success stories got women donors, and so we’re all about talking about female donors. Michelle, why are female donors important? Why are the important they’re important? Yeah, i mean, if you look at research even to start, which is where we were talking earlier today, it’s, they’re making up a larger part of the e-giving population than ever before. So i was just referencing an article earlier where in two thousand five was the first year that the irs had records that women were actually out giving men as a whole. I think it was sametz twenty one billion as compared with about sixteen or seventeen billion so and that’s already, you know, six years old at this point, but they have huge giving power and very often that they make their decisions differently, and we need to be aware of that and that they also are motivated differently, so i think they’re important because they do give and when they do give, they tend to mobilize people, so not only did they give their own funds, but they’re also generating additional support very often and travis. Of course, in the upper ages, women survive men on average, yes, moflow closer tonight. So? So if we’re talking about deferred or planned gift, women become critical because typically they’re inheriting their husbands, their husbands, states or a portion of yeah, yes, that’s that’s true, we don’t deal a lot with plant giving within our women’s group, and i think as our core group of members ages and we start looking broadening, i guess t younger populations, we might start making plans with four plan giving with them, but because of how we’re able to engage them and draw them closer to the organization, they really i thing translate into perfect prospects for for major get for plant gifts in the future. So, michelle, you mentioned different donor motivations women versus men. What are some of the differences that you see? I think that women as a whole, obviously only one particular woman relies right, but that if you look at women as a whole, very often they’re motivated by things that they can connect with and be involved with, so they’re motivated by family, they’re motivated by making a difference. We’ve noticed that it’s not usually being on a donor list or being on a donor wall, they also want to be a part of a community that’s doing something that has results so there really is a motivation about doing. Good in the world and what? What? That accomplishment iss okay, and how do you find that different than than the male donor? I think that it’s not as driven in terms of the connection. So seeing something and seeing what it’s doing hasn’t been as much of a motivator for men in that same when you can have more of ah here’s here’s the information this is what it’s going to do? Of course they want to know what the results are but it’s not as much of a desire to be engaged in the process. Okay, yeah, michelle, your work does include working with older donors seventies and eighties women in those ages. I would say that it’s across the board. So we’re looking at ultra high net worth individuals and that’s really are deciding factor. There are certainly maura’s. You get up towards those hyre age groups of people that have accumulated that type of wealth. I think you spoke earlier with some of my colleagues who were talking about the younger generation twenty one to forty, right? And so we’re looking, really hoping towards getting most of the people to million dollar giver is a leadership. Gifts for us is one hundred thousand, but if we’re looking at that group, they are going to be, you know, tend towards the older end of it, but the representation of what portion of that is seventy to eighty, you know, i wouldn’t know off the top of my head, but there are certainly some people in there that would be in that age group, okay? And when you’re dealing with women of that age, i’m trying to focus. We’re talking about dahna motivations what’s your experience with when the husband was the primary donor on dh he’s, now deceased, you’re going to the you’re going to the surviving wife, what’s your experience around their willingness to teo continue to give, i think i mean it’s so individual if they’re very defined and what they’re giving is it’s, you know, very often on lee really about honoring someone’s memory, but if in order to engage them personally is the only way that i think that you’ll be able to get to that larger gift on dh to be able to do that, we’ve had it in a couple of instances, but getting back to even what the data is. Is that women are making more of the decisions while they’re alive. We know, with the married spouses well, i think travis actually was talking about what i was yeah, yeah, don’t you want to, travis? I mean, there there have been some recent studies out that are really showing that women are making about eighty percent of all of the sort of household financial decisions, whether that be philanthropic decisions, just what they buy, what goes into the household there there really the decision makers and i i feel like as fundraisers, we’ve really been led to believe that they are making it in tandem as a couple on dh in some cases that’s, true, but what we’re really finding through some new donorsearch audis that that is that the female is thie number one sort of decider in that position, okay, even when do we know if that applies? Even when the the husband is the person with the primary relationship to the organization, you know, i’m not sure that it goes that the research goes that deep. Um and i think that anytime you have any part of a couple that’s, the primary relationship, you sort of deal with that primary relationship, but also tried to to engage the other spouse in any way that you can with the work because you really want to see that couple as, ah, holistic entity, you know, it’s it’s, not just one person, yeah, excellent and applies all the more if, if the if the husband is the primary relationship, you certainly do want to bring the wife in because, on average, she’s going to be surviving her husband? Yeah, yeah, you know, and i have to say that being at united way were somewhat unique because a lot of our donors give through workplace campaign, so we’re really dealing with one half of the couple we’re really dealing with the female leadership donor xero followers, or mohr and electing to do that through payroll deduction. So it’s really her decision of what she’s doing with her paycheck? So it really involves her more and what she’s interested in and getting into. I sort of heard interest areas, so that has been very interesting for us, especially in trying to branch out and look towards more individual donors who aren’t sitting in the workplace and developing strategies to get to those people on dh and people that are part of a couple and engaging both of them in the work that we’re doing and we’ve definitely found that. So you know, a number of our male board members and with our particular woman in philanthropy initiative it’s been female board members who have led the charge, but a couple of male board members who have really founded a great opportunity and excuse to engage their wives without them. S so where they’re not just dragging them along to an event that they’re like that’s your cause, but that they’re able teo to feel and ask the questions that they want to ask. Without that, what do you call it? A arm, candy or whatever, however you want to call it in either direction, but that there’s no one there to hold them back or push them forward to engage and it’s been a really good opportunity for us to have some good open conversations with the spouse without the key driver, the ky connection president, they didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving e-giving cubine. 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. 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Is that a part of your work? Or was it all just related to financial giving? Our entire program is volunteer related thie group that i manage is called women united in philanthropy on dh it is managed by a group of volunteers who come in volunteers steering committee that really charts the course of everything that that does so how do you start to get people engaged in that volunteer steering committee? Well, it really has been through the work of other steering committee members, we’ve been around for nine years, and this is a women’s this women’s group. Yes, it started from a conversation we were challenged by a female donor, two who asked us what we were doing to engage female donors, and we didn’t really have an answer for her. So we had a female boardmember who was very interested in getting to an answer. So she opened her home. We took a look at our lists of donors and sent out invitations to a number of our female donors to come together for a round table conversation and what came out of that conversation was very core group of dedicated women who really wanted to build something, and from that, we’ve been able to build a program that really engages women in the topic area that we’re raising money for, which is youth empowerment, and we are able to really talk about the issues that were that that we’re working towards. We give them opportunities to volunteer in the programs to see their dollars at work. Andi have educational forums that bring together some some thought leaders in the areas of education and health so that they really feel like they’re a part of the philanthropic process and that’s really what we tried to do to engage our female donors. Travis foster fraser sorry is a director of major gifts for united way of new york city and michelle walsh’s, director of leadership gif ts for united states fund for unicef and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven earlier, i said next-gen charity because we were because michelle, when we’re talking about a twenty one to forties it’s next-gen so it got me saying next-gen which way also be at the nextgencharity conference, but today we’re not they weren’t fund-raising day two thousand eleven, travis, do you see a difference in the willingness of male donors versus female in terms of the the time commitment, willingness to spend time? You know, i think that’s an interesting question, and, you know, i a lot of my work is with our our female group, but also with our young professionals group, okay? And i would say that in our young professionals group there’s really not that discrepancy between the amount of time to volunteer, the males and females of that generation are really wanted to eat together, and i would say that with with people that i’m working with on the women’s group there it is a little bit easier to get women out to volunteer opportunities because i think they just really want to see there the work in the fields, and and i think a lot of times, men, i can take it from you as the fundraiser to hear about what their work is doing. Our work is doing it. Michelle, do you see a difference between men and women in terms of their their desire for understanding outcomes? And what the impact of their gift is, is there a difference across the genders there? There probably is i think that women are often underestimated and their willingness to really want to do dig into the data and the financials and all of those pieces. And of course, if your stereo tell you, you know that they wouldn’t get it or that they don’t want to really spend time with a balance sheet or that they’re more emotionally driven or whatever the some of the negative stereotypes are on. Some of them were positive, but does though, right? But i think that women do want to understand what what the back end thinking is, and particularly as you deal with the higher end givers and the more sophisticated philanthropists, they know what they’re looking for, and there are certain delivery bols that they expect, and there are certain organizational structures they expect to be in place with their financial or otherwise, and they ask those questions, and they think very seriously about where they’re going to give their money, you know you’re going through, i can piggyback on that, you know, we have a group of our committee that comes in and meets with our program’s staff to really talk about what they’re doing and and what the investment that women united has made in united way is really is doing, and they ask the toughest questions they want to know exactly what the budget is. They want to know what the money is being spent on, and i think that that is the thinking that you were alluding to earlier is completely backwards. I think they really want to understand the entire issues they want from from costs of services to then what the services are actually doing, that they really want the whole full, holistic three sixty view of initiative. Michelle, you’re experienced. Yeah, and i would say that we’ve sound found more different is between sectors and where people worker identify themselves and professional sectors than male female. So, you know, sort of the hedge fund circle has a certain way of thinking about a problem, and they’ll come at you with a set of questions that are almost predictable, and lawyers have a certain way of approaching it more so than a cross gender lines. I’m not going to ask you to comment on your own individual situation is that united way or united states fund for your staff? Generally, do you see women adequately represent went on boards? So from where i said, i think there’s a couple of key pieces, one is that our ceo is an amazing female leader, and that has really set the tone and a lot of ways for not only supporting our initiative with women philanthropists but inboard leadership. So the four, therefore women, all board members, that air chairing our women in philanthropy initiative and the strategy around engaging ultra high net worth individuals to support the u s from for unicef, and they have all stepped up phenomenally, and i think it’s been critical in having those female representatives on the volunteer level onboard leadership roles, and they represent really influential rose rolls and the rest of their lives, and they’ve brought that to bear on this effort. It’s been absolutely critical about your travis do you worry about again? Not necessarily united way, but do you worry about there being inadequate representation of women on boards? I think there’s there’s more work that needs to be done, but i think that a lot of organizations are realizing that women make very, very strong boardmember is there much more thoughtful about the issues? They really want to understand the full picture of what is going on, and they don’t just sort of make those knee jerk reactions that sounds like an ideal boardmember and and, you know, i can say for the united way system, we recently did a survey of the one hundred and twenty different women’s leadership groups that united way has across our system, and what we have found, which is astounding, is that from the year two thousand seven to two thousand nine, which had the huge financial meltdown united ways that had boards with that were made up of thirty percent or more female participation, their women’s group grew about twenty eight percent in fund-raising and fund-raising and dollars contributed just versus those united ways that had less than thirty percent makeup of women on their board grew their fund-raising grew one percent. So really shows the power i think, of women to really come together, rally around a cause and get people to contribute at very, very critical times, i have to say credit to the person who thought toe look att that variable female representation on the board that’s not that’s, not a very and its outcome in fund-raising that’s, not by any means a typical variable that you would see and look at the outcome of the correlation with interesting let’s. See michele, in terms of let’s, talk a little about, like nuts and bolts. I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on soliciting women, but we’ll spend a couple of minutes you have advice that’s particular to women about asking, you know, your your work is an ultra high net worth but not necessary, you know, generally soliciting women advice? I don’t think it’s any different than soliciting a man because i mean ideally still stations at that level happened face-to-face one on one and it’s doing good fund-raising and reading people’s faces and listening to the cues and paying attention to what they’re interested in and compassionate about or passionate about. Rather, i think in that regard, it’s all the same, some of the messaging and the way that we engage them leading up to that is where the differences okay and that’s, the stuff we’ve been talking about. Exactly travis, how about for you closing thoughts, i think, really, the only thing that i would add is just making sure that there is a really good next step for them to be involved in a substantive way beyond writing the check, whether that is taking them out on a program visit to go see see the work, whether they they’re volunteering at a school, whatever it is, just make sure that there there’s a really solid next up for them to get involved because they really want to get involved, okay? I just realized we have a lot more time than i than i thought you’ve done yourself. You had your seminar already today or it’s coming up, we had any provocative questions from the audience that you want to share around the subject. We’re interesting, yeah, i was talking to some of my colleagues and some of the other sessions and comparing notes on questions, and i think the one that i heard that came up in all the questions was sort of how to say no, no to a gift, no to the wrong gift or no to a donor who wants to direct very specifically, in a way, that’s. Not in line or give them right. They want to make a decision. That’s not really their decision to make and navigating that. What was your what was? Did you have that in your session or what? Wait. Okay. I know. I mean, i have one of the most important things. Is the fundraisers to know when to say no? And how does they know? And it’s? Not always easy and not everyone’s. Good at saying no, but giving people what we talked about is creating option so people feel like they’ve made it legitimate choice, but not beyond what your realm of possibilities are. So a multiple choice question as opposed to an open ended question where people can say, this is really what i want to dio bye still not creating the program from scratch and tweaking the little details, but giving them real opportunity to be a part of the experience as well the experience of of whatever the program is. So if it’s, you know, for us, it’s obviously in the field and international development. But, you know, even if it’s the question came from someone who was working in parks, even if it’s a parks project making them a part of how that plays out. How about you, travis? Any questions that came up in your program that you want to share one? Well, i think that that my group is able to direct the money at the end of the year that they raise, and that can create a lot of nervousness, i think, among program staff and really, you know, and i know it’s something that unicef does as well, we don’t just open it up and say, okay, you’ve got this big pot of money, where do you want to put it? You know, we we really bring them in so that they can meet with our program staff and give them sort of a menu of options of where we think they could have the most impact and take it from there because we’ve really been able to develop relationships where they understand that we’re going to give them what we think is bad that’s for the organization as a choice, and it really allows them to feel like they’re making a choice and have an investment in what we’re doing. But then, at the end of the day, we get what we need you at the same time, so the organization obviously has a role in setting expectations, managing expectations, sort of, and michelle is, you suggested the multiple choice question, constraining things so that people are not out out in left field success stories got women donors as thie seminar topic for travis frazer, director of major gif ts for united way of new york city, and michelle walsh, director of leadership gif ts for united states fund for unicef, travis michelle, thank you very much for joining me, thinking it’s been a pleasure to have you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven. That was my pre recorded interview from fund-raising day last june in new york city. Now we’ll take a break after the break. Tony’s, take two, and then, after that, linked in for prospect research, so stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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 hunters. People be better business people. Dahna this is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. 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My block post is a test of google plus for your non-profit i was interviewed by new york enterprise report for an article on using google plus in small business, and i thought my ideas might help you to evaluate google plus for your non-profit now, of course, caveat, i’m not a social media guru expert thought leader, a small business owner. And so with that caveat, i’ll tell you what i’m doing with google plus and how i’m evaluating it, and you can see if that makes sense for your office or not. I’m really looking at the people who become my friends on google plus and the features that it ends up offering for the business profile pages, which is, you know we know them in facebook as a fan page. Google plus doesn’t have business profiles yet, but we all expect him to be coming, and google says they are coming within the next couple of months, so i’m going to be interested in who the people are, who joined me on google plus either because i invite them or they’re inviting me if they’re the same as the people i know on facebook, i’m probably going to be less likely to spend a lot of time, you know, keeping up a very active profile page on google. Plus, i would certainly have one, but how much time i devote to it is really what the issue would be on the same thing with the features. If it’s pretty much the same features as a facebook fan page, then i don’t really see advantage, but if it has some things that i’m looking for that i don’t see in facebook like for me, it’s ah good calenda ring application and a good, solid polling application like we can do in surveymonkey but built in facebook doesn’t have those things and it has polling, but not really a strong one, so if it has good features, i’ll be again more likely toe spend more time keeping a very active business profile page on google plus, so those are my ideas around evaluating whether to do that for my business, i don’t know if that’s of value to you, it might be in looking at google plus for your small non-profit um, you can see more detail about that on my block at m p g a d v dot com, and that is tony’s take two for friday, august twelfth with me now is maria simple. Maria is our newest regular contributor to the show. She’ll be on once a month. She is the prospect finder. Maria is an experienced trainer and speaker on prospect research and consults with organizations interested in finding and connecting with their best prospects for long term relationships. Her website is the prospect finder dot com, and i’m really pleased to welcome maria to the show. Welcome, maria, thanks so much. I’m delighted to be here. It’s a real pleasure to have you were going to be talking about linked in today. Lincoln has some new initiative for non-profits you want to explain what what’s up there? Yeah, absolutely so what’s kind of interesting about it is that linked in a little earlier this year, actually in may, haddon i po and so now they are actually deciding they’re going to dedicate some resource is in terms of against money, but as well as human resource is to the non profit sector now on ideo aipo means means what jargon jail mary-jo actually started issuing stock, they became a public company, so initial public offense and they actually launched something called lincoln non-profits solutions, and so what they’ve decided is that they have three point six million individual members who actually identify themselves as either employees or board members of a non-profit so they realize that there’s a tremendous amount of potential to help the nonprofit sector and they are actually i’m going to be helping people they back, they’ve launched a page called learned dot lincoln dot com forward slash non-profits, where they actually give the non-profits both as non-profit professionals, but also as organization’s best practices on tips and tools for how to make the most out of the lincoln for non-profit so they’re looking at both individuals and organizations, you say, and that that three point six million, i’m sure there are a lot more than that because there are one hundred million linkedin users, isn’t that right? Yes. So, yes, you are. But you know, what kind of interesting is that? They somehow been able to identify that there, there are, you know, the three point six million who are somehow connected to the non profit sector, right? Because i’m sure, based on keywords in their profile or just the way they what they identify their employer as, but i’m sure that’s low. I’m sure there are more than three point three and a half percent of the lincoln community working for non-profits but so maybe this initiative will will draw out some more. But even with that three point six million, yes, so they have this the the u r l you gave that’s the learning center, right? Yes. That’s correct. They have a specific learning center set up now for the nonprofit sector. And when you’re on that page, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, they actually have a contact a cab. So their interest sted in hearing from non-profits selves non-profit professionals and organizations and board members as to how lincoln can best serve the specter. So they are open to feedback at this point in their formulating this as they go along and you spoke with someone who’s in charge of this non-profit initiative. That lengthened in you? Yes. Somebody who has recently joined linked in his name is brian breckenridge. And he is heading up the new program there. And he’s, you know, he’s very excited and he’s very open to learning from the nonprofit sector. About what, how they convinced serve the non-profits and so since you had a spoke to him recently, any inside track about what we might be seeing the into the future? Well, i don’t have any specifics to share with you, but i do know that they are planning some interesting changes, hopefully that they’re rolling out in the next, you know, in the next couple of months so it’s, you know, they’re they’re formulating this, they’re looking, they’re taking in and looking for feedback at this point and anything that they can do the best help a non-profit sector they’re looking for that feedback at this time, and then they’ll be looking to roll out some new initiatives, i think okay, and you see value in the lincoln non-profit solutions for prospect research. Absolutely i do, you realise linked in for prospect research and for prospecting. So i utilize it in both, eh? Proactive sense as well, as in a reactive okay, let’s distinguish between prospect research and prospecting. What do you mean, weird? When you say those two different things differently? What do you mean by both? By each? Okay, so if i’m doing research on a potential major donor potential boardmember for the for a non-profit and i have the name of that individual lengthen is definitely one of the places that i go to to try and formulate my profile on that individuals. So that is what i would call reactive research. I have the name of someone, and this is one of my tools that i use to do prospect research. Now proactively you, khun, take linked in and use their advance people search feature to find people who might be suitable for your non-profit for connections in a variety of situations, they have a keyword search. You can focus your search down to within a radius of your zip code of where your non-profit is located, you can focus your search down to specific industries, so if you are looking, if you are let’s, take the example of a on environmental group, right let’s say they are looking to connect with more individuals in their community who are involved in some sort of environmental services so they would be able to conduct this search. Now, obviously, when you conduct a search on lincoln, first of all, you have to have your own lincoln personal on dh. This is using the advanced certain advanced search. Is that right? That’s? Correct. Have on the right on the upper right hand side called advance. Okay, you quick, matt. It opens up an entire new search screen that most people haven’t really access, you know, realize it’s there. And the more rich your own network is, the more people you are connected to, the richer the search results will be for you right now. If i were, let me give you two very contrast examples. I actually happen to have over five hundred connections in my lengthen network. So my search results would be drastically different from somebody who is a very new to lincoln and only has a network of, say, twenty, thirty, fifty people. Because you’re always shown how many degrees you’re separated from someone. So the more people i have in my network, greater search results going so so you mean when? You’re doing this advanced search you’re searching all the hundred million people in linked in and it’s telling you which of those are in your first degree, meaning you’re connected to them directly, which are too removed from you, which are three removed from you. Is that what you think you were searching the whole population of linked in? You can. Yes, but you can ask lincoln to just focused down the search results for you to the people you might be first degree connected to second degree or perhaps where you share a group membership. Because there you’re going to be ah, lot closer. You have a lot closer of an affinity and making the one toe one connection may be easier for you. Ok? Suppose you that’s really rich that you can search the whole hundred million. Suppose you find somebody who’s two degrees removed from you and they seem like a very good i don’t know. Maybe maybe we’re provoc betting for board members. Let’s say, for this, for this environmental group that you suggested you see somebody to removed from you. What? Explain what that means. And then how can you try to meet that person? Okay, tony let’s say we come up with let’s say, i do this search and i’m looking for environmental people who and i come up with a guy named oh, i don’t know john smith. And you and i are first degree connected on lengthen that much i know, but let’s say, john smith eyes second degree connected to me through you. That means he is both first degree connected to you. And i am first degree connected to you. So you are the common link between us, right? Ok, so that would mean john is a second degree. So, like those, like those kevin bacon seven degrees from kevin bacon movie. Right? Because he’s been in so many popular movies. Okay, so you can get to him through me, in other words, that’s. Right. So what did you do? How do you do that? Well, lincoln actually provide you with the the there’s a form that you can fill out so that a message would be sent to both john and to you. Looking for that introduction. I could look to be just connect with john directly and say, john, in my my request to connect, i might say john, you and i both know tony. Andi, i think we have a lot in common. I’d love to be able to connect with you here on lincoln. Always modify that that’s that standard introduction that lincoln provides to you never just go ahead and just use the standard intro, you realize those defaults aren’t aren’t very friendly, really there’s really bare bones, but so you’re allowed to your lot to connect with john smith your lot to contact john smith, even though you’re not directly connected to him. That’s correct. I could just send him an invitation to connect and just mention your name in my little intro is toe. Why? I think he and i might want to connect, you know, it’s up to him to accept my connect. Ction request? Sure. Okay, i see what you’re doing it through the request to connect. Okay. I see. On dh. Then the alternative is you could ask me to connect you to him. That’s. Right? I could ask you directly. I could go the old fashioned way. Tony, i could pick up the phone and call you and say, tony, you know, how well do you know john is? This somebody you know very well can you make some sort of a personal introduction even outside of lincoln through an email system. But at least lincoln’s provide you with the opportunity to identify potential boardmember potential donors in very specific sectors. Yes, the phone. You could pick up the phone and do it that way. And that way we don’t have to communicate through linkedin using their default messages or which we would really like. Anyway, i never thought that you could pick up the phone, imagine it could even have lunch and we could talk about it that way. Way. Imagine. See what? See what the web can do. Encourages you to pick up the phone. How do we had we operate without linked in years ago? I don’t know. So let’s, go back to the learning center. Um, yes. So they have. They have suggestions there for individuals and non-profits maria, we have just like a minute before a break. What are a couple of the not for profit? The organizational suggestions on unlinked in. And then after the break, we’re going to detail. Well, you could create a company page at no cost. So corporations, companies. Small businesses are doing this. We i highly recommend that a non-profit create a what they call a company page for their own. Non-profit, and they actually give the example of the american red cross that has attracted thousands of followers on lengthen and so other non-profits may want to check out what they have done. And, you know, look, learn from that and not reinvent the wheel. Ok, well, look att, the company profile and other things. After this break with maria simple, the prospect finder. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications, that’s the answer. You crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com lively conversation top trends, sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio and i’m ken berger from charity navigator. Oh! And i’m tony martignetti and i’m with maria simple, the prospect finder we’re talking about using linkedin to find and connect with people who could be boardmember sze donors, employees, volunteers. So, maria, the advice that you were giving before the break is that a new organization could create a ah profile page that’s correct, and i would highly recommend that they do that and the reason tony is and and i’m not suggesting that they should set aside any of their other social media strategies and presences like that they might have on facebook or twitter, but what you want to be able to do here is this is lincoln is the professional network, so you want to be able to, of course, capture the attention of people who are in the business community. You don’t want to exclude this, so this is free, you know, obviously whoever is maintaining your presence on other social media’s would want to be able to set this up and you can upload your logo. You would be able to give a nice description about the organization, provide your website, there’s, even a mapping feature where they tie it right into google maps. So that people will be able to see precisely where your non-profit is located. So, you know, it’s free, and i think that they should take advantage of that. I think the lincoln says there about one hundred thousand non-profits that have company pages, there should be many more that’s, a that’s, a good number, but there should be a lot more. How specifically does this one do they? I mean, how do you create a a company profile or non-profit profile versus creating a personal profile? Well, of course, the help affection of of lincoln is going to be very, very helpful to you, but they also have here they give you some steps on how you might be able to do that right on the non-profit learning center that we talked about earlier, okay? And again, the girl for that is linked in dot com slash forward slash non-profits actually, it starts off with the word learn ellie, are there yet i left. Yes, thank you very much. Learn dot linked in dot com forward slash non-profits thank you. And now groups are very popular and non-profits can create their own non-profits can create their own groups and you couldn’t decide if the group is going to be a closed group, meaning that everybody has to be first approved by some sort of a group moderator thatyou’re going to appoint at your end or it could be an open group. And keep in mind that if it’s an open group, all of the discussions are open and searchable and people can just join the group without any type of moderation. That and what’s the value for having creating your own group after you’ve created your profile. Well, they might. It might be in an interesting way to host certain conversations around specific topics and, uh so they, you know, if you have, if you’re a large enough non-profit and maybe you are hosting even conferences around your specific topic, that is something that you can use the group for if you want to engage people in discussions, much like you might see discussions in other types of groups that people are on on linked in, but it would be very specific to the time of organization that you are in the population that you serve, and after you create the groups than you invite people to join is that how it works. Well, you can’t invite people to join. Yes. You definitely can do that and invite people who are already in your linked in world to join the group. But people are going to be able to find you once you are set up in a group on lengthen. You are now searchable as well. So i remember i was telling you about the search functionality. The groups are a way that people, you know, look for like somebody might look for a live networking group to join. Somebody might be looking for a group around this specific area that you serve. Okay, so yeah. So if your work is for the m r d d community, the mentally retarded, developmentally disabled, you might create a group around the service around dahna discussion around the needs about that for that community in your own communities, you could make it a very localized group. Yes, you can. Some groups are geographically localized as well. But you may not want to limit it to that. I mean, lengthen is a worldwide a phenomenon, if you will. So why not? Why not? Just open it right up and allow people? To tto learn more and you never know where that relationship is going to lead. Okay, um, they also have something called linked in recruiter for for job, for organizations looking for employees, how does that work? So what they’re doing is lincoln does have a recruiting solutions portion, which is a fee based portion to their service that’s kind of steep, isn’t it? Well, yeah, for some non-profits mean, what they’re saying in an article that i read is that they are starting as low as four hundred dollars a month when you could be a little steep saw non-profit but they are, you know, offering these recruiting solutions, if you will, at a discounted price for what they would offer the for-profit world, okay, and that’s, if you’re looking for employees that’s correct, if you look nufer employees, they have they have sort of three separate sections, one is called lincoln recruiter one is called jobs network Job slots and the other 1 is called career pages. Okay, let’s, talk a little bit just in a couple minutes we have left about the offerings for individuals who are in non-profits what what’s the advice that that the learning center gives for individuals. Well, you definitely want to make sure that your profile is as one hundred percent complete as possible. So you want to make sure that your profile itself is rich so that as you go out and try and make connections with people, you will be able tio look like somebody, obviously, that other people really want to connect with that you are a thought leader within your own community, if you will. And so it’s really like a resume on steroids, you know, your opportunity to really shine and stand out from other people, so why not make it that way? Using the status updates, i’s a great way to let people know sharing articles, having to do with sector that you serve if you are a speaker, it’s a great way to let people know where you’ll be speaking, especially as it relates to your subject matter area on dh, especially if you do a lot of speaking on behalf of your non-profit it will let people know where you’re speaking either virtually and webinar format or, you know, live format if people are looking by the way tony and forgot to mention earlier fremery we have just about it, we have just about a minute left. Ok, on the resource is page of my website of the prospect finder dot com i do have a downloadable maria samples top five tips for prospecting with lincoln, so if they’re interested in some general tips about lincoln for themselves on a personal level, this will help them. I think you also learn how to use some of the more advanced features, all right, thank you for sharing that resource page that’s really all the time we have that is maria, said pompel the prospect finder again, you’ll see her at the prospect finder dot com, and she’ll be joining us once a month to talk about her advice for prospect research. Maria, welcome to the show as a regular contributor and thanks for today. Thank you, tony it’s been a pleasure next week, we’re going to lead the leader’s motivating your board to fundraise. Another interview from the fund-raising day conference last june, the consultant, andy robinson and carry kruckel, whose vice president for development and communications at w n tv reveal how to move your board to be the best fundraisers they can be. And the second half of the show explaining earned income are legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan from san francisco. Breakdown what earned income is why it can be good white-collar be bad, why you need to understand it to protect your non-profit and keep it out of trouble that’s what’s coming up next week, you can keep up with with what’s coming up week after week by signing up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page. While you’re there like us and become a fan of the show, please, you can listen to tony martignetti non-profit radio on the device of your choice. Any time you like. By subscribing on itunes getting the automatic download, you’ll find that at non-profit radio dot net on twitter. You can follow me always use the hashtag if you want to talk about the show and the hashtag is non-profit radio on twitter, our creative producer is claire meyerhoff, our line producer and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting his sam liebowitz. Our social media is by regina walton of organic social media. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. 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A Test Of Google+ For Your Nonprofit

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to comment for a New York Enterprise Report article on Google+ for small businesses. The way I’m evaluating Google+ for my small business may help your small or mid-size nonprofit.

Caveat: I’m not a social media guru, maven, thought leader or expert. I’m a user, just like you.

Google+ doesn’t yet have business profiles, but they’re expected within a few months. The question is whether your nonprofit should create a profile page and devote time to keeping it fresh. That’s not a trivial question, given the time it takes to keep content up-to-date and engaging.

What I’m doing–and you might consider–is evaluating who accepts my Google+ invitations and who puts me in their circles. If you’re not familiar with circles and how Google+ works, take a look at this explanation, from Google.

If my new Google+ friends are all my old Facebook friends, I’m less inclined to put a lot of time into Google+. But if people are connecting who I don’t already know, I’ll think differently. So far, it’s mostly people I’m already connected to, but not all. I am having fun with it.

Or, if there are terrific features that I don’t find on Facebook fan pages, I’ll be more inclined to encourage people to join me on a Google+ business profile for my radio show. I’d be particularly interested in a decent calendar and strong polling functions. You may have other needs that would draw you to the newcomer.

So, I’m judging Google+ based on who my friends are and whether there are features I crave.

I hope this gives you some help in figuring out the value to your nonprofit of what will certainly not be the last new social networking property.