Category Archives: Fundraising Fundamentals

Nonprofit Radio for June 5, 2015: Your Video Strategy & How To Get Found

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Opportunity Collaboration: This working meeting on poverty reduction is unlike any other event you have attended. No plenary speeches, no panels, no PowerPoints. I was there last year and I’m going this year. It will ruin you for every other conference! October 11-16, Ixtapa, Mexico.

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My Guests:

Bridgett CollingYour Video Strategy

Video is the most popular and fastest-growing form of content. Bridgett Colling shares her advice on fitting video into your mission. Do you know about YouTube for Nonprofits? What are WooBox and TagBoard? Bridgett is director of content marketing at See3Communications. We talked at NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.

 

Elizabeth Beachy & Arika SanchezHow to Get Found

With Elizabeth Beachy (L) & Arika Sanchez at NTC

Your content strategy needs to consider that people now search YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest almost as often as they search Google. Now that search has changed, how do you create content that gets you found? From NTC, Elizabeth Beachy is director of strategic communication at Upleaf and Arika Sanchez was formerly the Communications Specialist at the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer biliary calculus if you had the gall to tell me that you missed today’s, show your video strategy video the most popular and fastest growing form of content. Bridget calling shares her advice on fitting video into your mission. Do you know about youtube? For non-profits? What are woobox and tag board? Bridget is director of content marketing at sea three communications. We talked at and t c the non-profit technology conference hosted by n ten, the non-profit technology network and how to get found you’re content strategy needs to consider that people now search youtube, twitter and pinterest almost as often as they search google. Now that search has changed. How do you create content that gets you found from ntcdinosaur? Elizabeth beachy is director of strategic communication at upleaf and arika sanchez is communications specialist at united way of central new mexico. I’m tony take two thank you, responsive by opportunity collaboration, that working, meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for every other conference here is bridget calling from the non-profit technology conference on your video strategy. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference. Our hosts are n ten, the non-profit technology network. We are in austin, texas, in the convention center. My guest is bridget calling she’s director of content marketing for c three communications, and her topic on the workshop is video strategy how to compete and win in a video centric world. Richard calling welcome to non-profit radio. Thank you so much, tony. Pleasure to have you it’s so great to be here. Thank you very much. How does video strategy fit into our overall content strategy? Well, something that c three has been saying to non-profits for years is that you don’t just need one viral video. You need a video strategy video works five video please come get away from me. I know i know it’s so hard if it happens, but it hardly ever does. Alright. Well, especially with the ice bucket challenge happening last summer, i think a lot more non-profits now it’s, not just the viral video it’s, how can we get hundreds of viral videos in a campaign? But the truth is that that doesn’t just happen, it’s not something that you can construct inside your boardroom, it’s something that has to happen either organically or it happens over time with a lot of effort and a lot of practice and a lot of community building ondo something that we’ve seen happening really catching on with non-profits is the concept of content marketing s o producing content that’s geared towards a very specific audience with the intention of driving them toe action on dh that content is really focused around their goals and their needs and speaks very clearly to who that audience is. S o we see a lot of non-profits coming to us now asking about content strategy, wanting to know more about it wanting help with developing their own content strategy so that they can create thoughtful content around their causes on that make their constituents really excited to be involved, excited to volunteer, excited to donate on. And so we see video fitting into that really well, a za piece of i don’t know what that was. I don’t know if part of part of the science fair floor just fell down or what? Hopefully everything okay that that that that clolery but oh, it was probably the puzzle. You’re right. I don’t know what that weird little guy. You okay? Better what one i i pictured someone’s booth collapse happened. We got a little scared each foot told jungle. Yeah, well, also saying so we see video fitting into that really nicely because we we know that video is one of the most compelling forms with content you can produce on dh it really can get two people emotionally. It can really drive people to action in a way that other types of content can’t, because i mean compare i’m adding sound and video and images together just makes for a really compelling emotional story on dso, we see video fitting inside of a convict strategy really well, along with other pieces of content. So, along with your social media strategy, along with your website, along with their email, you can’t just think of video as its own entity. It’s smarter to think about it inside the lens of all the content that you’re creating from your non-profit ah, should should every piece of video in our strategy have ah have a call to action, even if it’s something small, like share should it always be a call of action? You know, i think you can’t go wrong with having a call to action. I don’t know, i wouldn’t say that every piece of video action absolutely has to have a called action, but i do think that more non-profits tend to shy away from putting a call the action at the end cause they don’t want to be too demanding was what we’ve seen in the non-profits we worked with in the audiences that we worked with is that people expect there to be a call to action. People want to take a meaningful action if they care about your cause on dh. So even if it is like you were saying something simple, like sharing or telling your friend about this or visiting this website, people tend to like somewhere to go after they see a piece of content that they find really engaging. So i i wouldn’t say that you have to, but i would say that if you want teo, you shouldn’t try away from it. Okay, i’m going, i’m going to presume to tell me if i’m wrong is the place to start with our video strategy fitting into our overall content strategy is our goals for video. Oh, yes. Okay, maybe you talk to michael about this last year. Thiss comes up a lot. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Why the hell are we doing this? My daughter? We’re talking about our goals. No, no. Why are we doing video? Our overall strategy, right? Yeah, well, i think the question isn’t why are we doing video? The question is, what do we want our non-profit to be achieving? What do we want? What kind of impact we want to make on our cause? And then once we figure out what that goal is, then we can figure out how video is an effective part of that on. And i think that’s true for all types of content. I came to see three relatively recently from a social media marketing agency and something that i heard from a lot of my social media clients was, oh, we want a facebook page so that we can get in front of young people or we want a twitter account so that we can reach more more people who are techies on and that’s great, but that doesn’t fit with your business goals or with your non-profits goals, then what’s the point on dso i think starting with what your objective zara’s a cause what you object, stars and organization is a very important place to always be able to refer back to it because otherwise things can get way out of scope. You, khun b reaching for things that don’t really matter. Michael talks about an organization not that see three works with but that michael and see three’s cofounder danny are friends with who made a really successful video, got millions of hits online, didn’t do a thing for their cause. Nobody visited the website nobody donated, nobody volunteered so you can have a viral video that actually makes no impact on and see three is definitely in the business of creating videos that actually create impact even if they don’t go go viral. Amending the michael we’re talking about. Michael hoffman was a guest of honor non-profit radio ntcdinosaur year and is the ceo? Is that right? Yeah. The cofounder of c three years ago, um, let’s spend some time talking about getting your videos found. Yes, the best video is not worth anything. If no one watches it? Absolutely where we need to be thinking about so something that we’re seeing a lot more of lately is video that’s actually directly uploaded to facebook, and i think we’re going to see a lot more video that struck the uploaded twitter as well. Youtube is still a very important platform, and we recommend that all the non-profits that we work with, upload their videos to youtube and optimize them for youtube. Eso youtube is actually the second largest search engine after google uh, number two okay, yeah, ah well, last time i check my stats, i believe that’s still true, so you choose the second largest search engine, so if you optimize your video on youtube, if you upload all the subtitles for your video, if you add really good tags to your video that will help people when they’re searching for it on youtube, you are much more likely to have it be found either in a google search argue tube search on dh if you could take the time tio upload a spanish transcript as well, we’re seeing a lot more spanish searching happening both on youtube and on google in general. On dh so uploading a transcript in spanish and english. Yes. Where do you where do you put the transcript? There is a space when you go to the creator studio and youtube to upload your transcript so you could do it there. Okay, so those are the okay, no need for me to ask what the how do you optimize for you two? You’ve just explained it. Yeah, well, that i mean there’s, other there’s other ways to optimize for you to do so i’d say i’d say creating a title and a description for your video. That is not something that’s thinking about your audience is you develop the title and the description for your video. So a lot of times in non-profit video will see things that up, things that are uploaded that say dahna gala video twenty fourteen and that’s fine if you’re just doing it internally. But if you want anybody, any of your constituents to see it who are outside of the organization, they’re not going to find it by searching dinner gala video. So you need to be thinking about your audience as you put your video on youtube and think about what? They would be looking for when they’re searching for that video in the same vein up putting are adding a description that says that tells a story about the video and invites people teo click play on not just saying, here is a video of our dinner gala in twenty fourteen um is a really smart strategy to get many more people clicking, playin and actually watching the video, alright, any other tips strategies for getting our video found? Yeah, well, i started talking about youtube and facebook at the beginning there, so we are this is a more recent trend that we’re seeing, and i actually think non-profits were a bit ahead of this curve with the ice bucket challenge last fall because so many people were uploading video to support a cause which was a less directly to facebook, and we saw that people were able to do that because we have these super computers in our pockets now and high production video teams that are located on our phones on dso, it’s amazing that people can take such high quality video insurance so easily and with the introduction of facebook auto play video, i don’t know if your facebook news feed looks anything like mine, but mine’s covered in auto player because, like, how do we stop these damn thing? You can think i can get it out now, isn’t there? That was the strategy, but there is a there is a setting for not having autoplay, isn’t they’re? Uh, they’re not off there. Maybe i think i saw i think i’ve heard about that, i don’t know specifically, yeah, but i think over time the facebook’s goal is to have mohr auto play video showing up in your news feed if you don’t have it set on auto play than at least more video showing up in news feed because both facebook and twitter positioning themselves as hosting platforms for video, not just spaces for youtube videos to be shared s so we see that all the social networks are looking at the value of video and finding ways to position themselves as a sharing mechanism between the people who are creating the video and their constituents who they want to share them with. S o, we’re actually seeing some creators who are leaving places like vine or youtube and moving to facebook as their platform. Where there is showing their videos directly, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. Fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. What else does this mean? What are the other implications of of twitter becoming, for instance, twitter becoming a a, uh, cite a site where where direct content? Yeah, video video is directly uploaded. Yeah, well, i think i think the social networks want to own your content on so the way in the way that youtube, as ownership over all the videos that are uploaded on youtube, i think twitter and facebook want a cut of that as well. On day one, they want to have really direct access to that content because they know how powerful video is and they know how effective it is moving people to action. Good. Ah, let’s talk about some of the production if some production strategies yeah, i think you’ll agree that doesn’t have to be high production value moving and compelling. Absolutely no. Okay, sure, talk about yeah, well, won. And michael and i were just talking about this earlier xero propping for the presentation. Eso won really great example that if i could point your radio listeners there you look up. Twenty fifteen dot do gooder dot tv. We’re announcing the winners of our duvette video awards awards. Yeah, so those are the where it’s the ninth annual wars they celebrate the best in video for good on die only plugged this because we had a really awesome winner in the funny for good category. So this is not the official enough, it doesn’t go out till tomorrow morning, but ah, but the winner of that category was this organization called unbound, who created a parody video between two ferns with zach galifianakis. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those videos on she’s seen the video, okay? Marissa has yeah, production assistant here at ntc geever says, yeah, but the between two friends is ah, parody of talk shows um, and so zach galifianakis and actor and usually a celebrity who come and sit between two fake for implants and zach alfano argast basically makes fun of the other actor the whole time, pronouncing their name wrong refers teo movies that they haven’t worked in and talk about how great their work was in that movie on dh so it’s, it’s it’s very funny, it’s very dry on and so this organisation unbound created a video called between two furnaces it’s a ten minute video it’s there may be two different cameras that they used on the two different interviewee are the person, the interview and the person interviewing s o they cut back and forth a bit, but aside from that, i mean there’s a little bit of sound at the beginning. Ah there’s, no motion graphics it’s, obviously, people who are in house who are doing this, the scripts are right in front of them it’s so basic, but it’s so funny on and i think it shows that, you know, we hear from non-profits all the time we don’t have the budget, we don’t have the budget and and budget could definitely be a limitation, depending on the type of video you want to create. But i think if you’re just talking about creating a video that’s getting the word out about your organization, if you think creatively, you could really push the boundaries and create something that’s, that’s really unique and very interesting. And so that video actually got over three thousand votes in the digger awards on dh we’re really poor, proud that it’s a winner because we think it shows non-profits that you could do something simple and still have a huge success. With it, how does their work related teo video they created between two furnaces, so so they actually use the video, too? Talk about the work that unbound does s o they work in, i believe it’s twenty one different countries to help alleviate poverty, and so they talk about the work that they do during the video, but they talked about it in a very funny comedy parody way on, so they kind of poke fun at the fact that it used to be a christian based our may still be a christian based organization, but they poke fun and say, you know, so don’t you hand everybody bibles? Everybody’s got to get a bible, don’t they? On dh, they poked fun of themselves, which we think was also very brave because a lot of non-profits khun feel very scared about being vulnerable like that and, you know, poking fun at their own image are their own mission or their own values, but it it was really cool seeing non-profit, you know, taking some, being a little bit bonem herbal and and getting a bigger reward in return, okay? And i guess generally the duke latto videos are good. Examples of video well done, yes. High or low production value? Absolutely. Yeah, so we definitely have a lot of other videos that contest that are very high production. I’d say our best non-profit video winner, which was cystic fibrosis trust they have a very high production video. Both of the videos that were submitted tend to be from more non-profits who have a bit of a budget? No, they’re they’re focusing on these videos, and they’re thinking about the distribution of the videos too. So when they create the videos, they know that one of the ways they’re going to promote them is by submitting them to the do gooder awards. So it tends to be organizations that have a more thought out video strategy. Um, so we do see a lot of hyre production videos, but there’s there’s a whole range in there so i’d recommend people if they’re interested in seeing examples of great video, they’ll be able to view all of our finalists in the winners on twenty fifteen that do gooder dot tv if they want to check it out. Okay. Excellent. Yeah, we still have some time left together. Okay. What more can you tell us about video strategy fitting into our overall content strategy. Yeah, well, i think so. I really i talked a lot about the low production between two ferns are between two furnaces rather, but some other video strategy chips that were going to be sharing tomorrow in terms of easy ways to produce more video, please, on some, some of those would be a really video curation using user generated content. Eso asking your fans to send our your fans i’m very i mean, youtube creator land, we’re working with a lot of youtube creators for the do gooder awards they have their fans have been a lot of videos to them, but ask your constituents. Teo create videos to help support your cause if you give them very specific talking points, tell them about what time you what length you want your video to be encouraging them to take videos but their smartphones and send them to you our upload them using a hashtag there are a lot of platforms you can use now third party platforms that will aggregate any content that sent to a certain hashtag on dh so we see a lot more non-profits using technology like that in order to really gather a lot of user generated content easy wife, what are some of those sites eso won that i’ve used before is called woobox wooo, botox, that’s good arika and so that’s actually, you can create absolute can embed on websites or you could add, is an extension to your facebook page. It’s very easy to set up on and you could you could do something like a hashtag contest that you could do, you know, hash tag non-profit radio and everyone who submitted a photo or tweet with a hashtag non-profit radio would have their content entered into this contest. Andi, it gives you all the tools basically run a contest from there another one another one of the good that’s, the main one that i’ve used in the one that i’ve used, not so much for your contest, but just just sift through content is called tag board uh, yeah on and so that’s a really good one. It it has a beautiful display. It’s totally free to use on dh i’ve used it a lot, especially when so for something like ntcdinosaur you create a tag board for fifteen and tc and see all the all of the stuff that people have submitted under, you know hashtag fifteen ntcdinosaur filter out videos, photos, tweeds, etcetera also, by the way, thank you for shouting out hashtag non-profit radio e do it often enough it’s! A pleasure to hear someone else’s thank you sort of well it’s reminding me of storify yes, but it’s maur automated yes, it’s more automated. So store five more you would take your pulling, you pull the trigger on story so this was this would be automated. So anything that kayman under that hashtag would be in there something like woobox would give you the control. Teo, sift out any content that you didn’t want to end up in there. So if someone was spamming you, someone is family. You could delete it, but something like tag board wouldn’t because a free service you wouldn’t have that, that kind of control. But i do. I find that it’s great, especially for conferences or things where if i’m live tweeting an event and i want to see it everything going on an event in one place. I use tide board to look at that. Okay, good. All right. So a little more time. Ok, tell me some more stuff that you haven’t told me yet. Yeah, sure. So tomorrow, let’s, see what else we’re talking about. A fact about video tips and tricks. We’ve talked about distribution a bit. Um, i guess i’d say some more ideas for generating video for your non-profit ah, that aren’t as high production argast high cost. We’ve been doing a lot of google hangouts recently, those great they’re awesome automatic video was completed it right at the end yet, so yeah, in order to do that, you have to do the google hangout on air. If you do, a google hangout on area video will be automatically upload to youtube. It looks great. It makes it so much easier. I know, especially for me. As a content manager, i’m looking for anything that will automate my process for me a bit and take away some of that time that that i would be taking to upload a video and optimize it. And so you could do all that in the front end through google plus, when you set up the hangout, um and it’s really great we’ve been doing hangouts we’ve been doing interviews with people in the non-profit community. So we did one a few weeks ago with jeff brooks of future fund-raising now, we did want a few months ago with joe waters and keep the lower miller on dh yeah, we’ve been really enjoying doing the girl hangouts on, and it makes it really easy to dio these quick, quick little powers with people and to be able teo transfer the video back and forth between users in a way that looks really advanced looked really polished but is very cheap and easy to dio it’s free and it’s easy today i’ve done some non-profit radio hangouts. Yeah, cool, yeah, especially when i see somebody or something that’s going to attract a lot of attention and comments. Yeah, so then we get people chatting or they’re coming into the video absolutely great, yeah, that’s so cool and the other thing i’ve been doing is webinars too, which i know is so old school, but i think especially in the age of content strategy, creating things that people that you can have people exchange their email address for in order to give them some content, so something like a webinar where you have to give your email to sign up is really valuable to non-profits we talk about condoms strategy, we talk a lot about subscription on making sure that you can have a way to collect people’s email addresses s o that you actually have their content contact information for the long term on i say a lot of times i’m not the lunar says this, but on i tell non-profits a lot that when you are building your community on facebook or on twitter, on youtube, even your but you’re building a house on rented land. Oh, and you don’t really own those network. So you know facebook could shut down tomorrow, and then your community of hundreds of thousands of likes is gone. But if you have people’s email addresses, it’s a much more secure way to stay in touch with the people who you wantto communicate within the community that you’re building. S o we always recommend that people build and email database and find ways to drive people to sign up for for your email lists and how can we use video toe? Do that so video, actually, so this is special for non-profits if you’re a part of the youtube for non-profits program, you are one of the select few on youtube who can actually take people from your video to a third party websites. So not another youtube video on and so you could take people directly to your email sign up form from a video. Ok, which is something that for-profit scant. Do what you have to be a member of your youtube for non-profit program the youtube non-profit program okay, find that sign up for it. Yeah, youtube dot com slash non-profits okay, very easy. You could drive people to third party use. A third party went from your video from your video. It was embedded clicking? Yes, exactly, yeah, and there’s a lot of other. There are a lot of other benefits to the youtube non-profit program tio they provide training and resource is especially for non-profits you get access to these things called youtube spaces, which they started creating for their youtube creators? S o they’re basically production studios that air good, especially for non-profits and their special youtube creators who want to be creating high quality video but don’t have the studios to do it themselves on and so i would say, look into the youtube non-profit program, there are a lot there are other benefits, too. I’m just signing up and it’s it’s free from non-profits to join, okay, we have another minute or two, okay, you’re loaded with information, i’m not looking like you hold back. No, i don’t remember everything from my from my presentation tomorrow i’m trying to think of anything in the topics that we haven’t covered already. Actually, the thing that we’re opening with that i’m very excited about is that buzzfeed obama video did you see that when i was making the rounds on facebook? Eso obama did a video with buzzfeed a few weeks ago that was used to encourage people to sign up for obama care by the february fifteenth deadline on and i thought that when i saw the video it’s like, gosh, this is so smart and this is going to be so this is going to be in my webinars and presentations for the next six months because it really showed that the white house understood who their audience was for that specific campaign s o they needed young people to sign up for obamacare in order to offset that a lot of people who were, you know beyond their twenties and thirties already signed up for obamacare, which is great, but they needed more young people to sign up to offset the medical costs of older people would already saying that we need help. The young people, yeah, the older but of course all the young people think nothing bad is ever gonna happen to them. They’re never going to die, so none of them were signing up. Eso aza let’s, last ditch effort the white house used busby to reach that audience on. They created a video i think it had within the first day it had over one hundred thousand shares. Had millions of hits on buzzfeed. Millions of hits on the thehe four double care act website on dh. So it was really the healthcare dot gov website, i should say on and so it was successful for the obama campaign. I looked at the stats and although i couldn’t obviously on my end, i couldn’t see specifically what factors led to this increase, but they had eight million people sign up for on healthcare dot com that govern in the last six months. What do you think? What do you think contributed to this? Well, they had. So i was going to say that eight million people saying up in the last six months, and they had one million people sign up in the last week after the video was released. So so that it was one eighth of the total sign ups, which seems pretty significant. Was it an outstanding video? So it was an outstanding video because they placed it on a network. That was really it was really targeted towards the young people who think the lights just went out in, uh, and in the science fair. But non-profit radio perseveres never own lights. We have our own electric. Unless they shut the electricity off. We’re fine. Yeah. All right. Here. We still can. You still see us in camp? Okay, wait. Persevere here. We would shut it down around us. Yeah. Means no, keep going. All right. So the name of radio but shows the right channel treyz so they knew who their audience was. First of all, they weren’t trying to reach all people. Ah, latto things were for non-profits is that? Oh, were for we’re caused for the general public and lord knows you’ve got to know your audience. They had a targeted audience. They reach him on the right channel and they use the right kind of messaging to they are on ly linked to the website once in the actual description of the videos at the very top. Ah, and then in the whole video itself, obama on lee said, you know, you have to sign up by february fifteenth, one time it was done as a joke. So and the whole rest of radio was just funny. Interesting share a bowl content. So it was really great. It was very humorous is successful. A successful video. We’re gonna leave it there. Great. Richard calling she’s director of content marketing for c three communications. Bridget thank you very much. Thank you. Johnnie. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc the non-profit technology conference. The lights came back on. We don’t care if you turn them off. Turn them on. We are here at and t c for the duration ntcdinosaur when we end and not before absolutely thanks very much for being with us. Thank bridget. Time for live listener love so grateful to all our live listeners throughout the world, we had all kinds of continents checking in weekly. I am not live this week. I will be next week. But live listener loved everybody listening right now. Right now. Right now, all the live listeners. Thank you. Podcast pleasantries to every listening. Some other time, then now ah, in that time, shift pleasantries to the manny ten thousand plus podcast listeners and those affiliate affections going out toe every person who listens at one of our many affiliate stations throughout the us. Am and fm love you, affiliate affections and a special shout out to k y e r s f m ine medical lake, spokane, washington tony, take two and how to get found. Two coming up. First opportunity collaboration, opportunity. Collaboration is so well organized and very different from other conferences. We get to know each other in small groups and explore our values. But above all, the environment makes such a difference and the amount of free time to talkto many different people about each of our programs. The diversity of people is excellent. That is sakina yaqoubi, founder of the afghan institute of learning in afghanistan and pakistan opportunity collaboration you’ve heard me talk about this, for goodness sake. Are you checking it out for pizza? You know it’s the weeklong unconference in its top of mexico around poverty alleviation, you’ve heard this there’s not profits from around the world as well as impact investors, social entrepreneurs, academics, corporation’s, even grantmaker zoho i was there last year. I’ll be there this year. You’ve heard this. You know it, for goodness sake, would you just goto opportunity, collaboration, dot net if your work is around poverty alleviation, for goodness sake, thanks so much for listening and supporting non-profit radio this is tony’s take two not a very subtle transition, but showing my gratitude nonetheless. There are over ten thousand listeners, but i really i feel my connection to you. I’m talking to you. Yes, you i thank you so much for being with me for letting me share information that helps you that helps you in the work that you’re doing the lives that you’re saving, whatever it is that you’re doing toe make social change to make this world a better place. Thank you for letting non-profit radio help you do that i feel like that’s. A privilege that you share with me, listening, letting me into your inbox with the weekly email alerts following on twitter sharing, retweeting my post on twitter, following on the facebook page, emailing me telling me how valuable non-profit radio is to the work that you do, i just thank you. I thank you so much. Four sharing your time, a very precious commodity that we all have with me. Thank you. That is tony’s take two for friday, fifth of june twenty third show of the year, and i should say, by the way, if you want to email me tony at tony martignetti dot com, here is how to get found with elizabeth beachy and erica sanchez welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen we’re in austin, texas, at the convention center. Our hosts are intend the non-profit technology network and my guests are elizabeth beachy, director of strategic communications for upleaf and arika sanchez, communications specialist for center for non-profit excellence at united way of central new mexico. Elizabeth erica, welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you both now, erica. I understand you were pulled in-kind of last minute to substitute for someone. So you’re really just talking about the organization’s website. Yes, right? So that so i just want people to know if they don’t hear from you that much. I’m not being rude and you’re not being shy, but you’re kind of a last minute. But we’re glad you’re with us. I’m glad to be here. Thank you. Record. Okay. Um elizabeth. Oh, and your subject matter for the workshop. Is does your content strategy now? Trump theo trends and tips to help you get found in two thousand fifteen elizabeth what is changing balance between content, strategy and ceo? So one big thing is changing the balance and that’s basically the introduction of smartphones. Yes, holding up her smartphone? Yes, for podcast listeners, we don’t have the benefit of the video she’s holding up their iphones. This ubiquitous smartphone is really changing everything in terms of how people discover information. So how people search for information, how people consume information and that’s it’s changing a lot of things with with regards to search engine optimization. And so if you just think about how much how much time people spend on their smartphones now, so now more than well over fifty percent of the u s adult population has smartphones, and over sixty three percent used them to regularly to go online, and the average smartphone owner will spend will look at their phone one hundred fifty times a day for like two hundred twenty one functions on their phone today. And so when you think about that and you think about how much time people are spending on facebook, and on other aps, they’re spending a very significant part amount of time consuming information on a full variety of that can’t even stop touching yours. Keep touching your phone e i want i want to demonstrate all the acts i have here on my phone, but so we spend so much time interacting with interacting with our with information through our phones and that’s changed so much so if you think about six years ago, if you wanted to find information about something you would put your first reflex was probably to go to google right now, you may go to pinterest to find certain types of information if i want to find ah recipe here, i want to find an art project i can work i can work on or i want to find interesting gardening activities. The first place i’ll go is interest if i want to get answers to other things, the first place i’ll go to search for information, maybe youtube if i want to see what’s happening with current events, i’ll go to twitter if i want to find and so those are just the social media apse that we tend to turn to. And where we spent a lot of time, so twenty five percent of time spent on the internet today is spent on facebook that’s very, very remarkable twenty five percent, twenty five percent of time spent on the internet in the united states is spent on face just on the phone. Now, just for on the internet is spent on facebook. Yes, and so millennials say that their first source of in front of news or the first source of information about, like breaking news that’s happening, they learn about it from facebook. So you think about all of the different social media apse that we’re interacting with on a regular basis, and then you also can think about the different acts that we use for just for finding a restaurant or for finding houses for sale in your neighborhood. There’s so many different maps that are available and so, with the rise of the smartphone and there’s been kind of a fragmentation of how people find an information on the web, so that has affected the volume of content coming to websites through search engine optimization or through organic searches. And so so that’s, very significant, but then of course, the search engines themselves are adapting their algorithms to take this new reality into account as well, and so they are looking at there they’re looking at a lot more factors than they used teo and certainly a lot of the traditional search engine optimization, traditional ceo things that we think of are still very important. So of course, making sure that you’ve got the right back and configuration on your website so that as soon as you published new content it’s, the search engines are notified its index, and it gets found that remains important. And still it’s estimated that around fifty percent of traffic to websites is still coming from organic searches, so it’s still important, but they are taking into account social cues so and from what they find on social media. And so this has been something that several organizations have proven, basically, that that google at least, is looking for recognition or looking for mentions on twitter and on facebook, very nufer said, this is very new, and this is something using twitter and they’re not they’re not really so yes, they seem to be paying attention to what’s to what’s being said on twitter and also on facebook and it’s more about mentioning an organization’s name. So how many times is an organization mentioned and that gives them an indicator of the level of authority that this particular organization has in their field? And then if an organization has has strong authority in their field than their content that’s published is likely to get it’s likely to bump up the ranking of that so that’s a that’s an interesting piece of this and there, and there are other elements as well, but definitely the search engines are also adapting to this new reality and a few other things that are probably worth mentioning. Are there also rewarding websites that are mobile friendly and that’s very much related to this whole idea of consuming information through mobile phones? So websites that are mobile friendly are both getting our rights hyre entire, but also now when you search for something and this is this has been going on for weeks now you’re touching your phone with e i wish i could pick it up, just demo it, right? Well, everybody’s, not everybody doesn’t have the benefit of video. A lot of this is podcast listening. So i don’t know, but so but now when you search for something on a search engine on your phone, then the results will show whether it’s mobile friendly or not so it will actually list mobile friendly or not so you can skip the websites that are not mobile friendly, so and then they’re also prioritizing so the mobile friendly peace is important. Also, security is important, so there’s several different updates that they’re making to their algorithms to kind of to adapt to this new reality. So we’ll be talking about that tomorrow, too, okay? And the engines we’re talking about are not only google, but yahoo yahoo serious search search player or not, really they’re they’re working hard at it, but i think they’re proportion of the search market is still still pretty small compared to google. How in being a swell, pretty small, small google is still google is still the the nineties ninety i mean, in terms of percentages of search is done within with with an internet search engine. Not not considering yeah, who are you or yeah, youtube without going into the content youtube, you mentioned pinterest without doing that, google is still google is still by far by far and i don’t have exact numbers, but google is still by far the leader. They say that youtube is the second most popular search engine. Okay, which is interesting do we know the proportion of fired-up global search vs within within a content provide within a within a social site search? So google vs searching in youtube and pinterest and searching in twitter we know that proportion of the amglobal versus the the channel searches e i don’t actually have exact statistics with me, but certainly pinterest is up and coming grow in terms of a search engine, so more and more people are turning to pinterest and i think pinterest is a really interesting case study also, just because they’re they have done this amazing job of getting there, and this kind of brings it back to one of the topics that will be talking about tomorrow also, which is community generated content and how powerful community generated content can be for a non-profits overall content strategy, but pinterest is an interesting example of that because they have seventy million users and they have been able to get their users basically, too. Index all of this content from across the web, but not so google indexed uses its its bots and its algorithms to index content where is pinterest is drawing on its users and on the way that they understand information and what users think is relevant and valuable and where, how users classify that information, and so it’s a very intelligent way of indexing all of that content, because it’s basically pulling together the opinions of millions and millions of people, and so i think that will seem pinterest become a more and more important search engine in the future, and certainly their visual searches very engaging, a swell. What kind of non-profit do around community created content? That’s a lot of what we’ll talk about tomorrow and let’s. Share some some tips for strategies for engaging your community to do that. Absolutely, these weigh all have multiple communities, volunteers, donors, vendor’s maybe even boardmember sze other volunteers? Yeah. How do we how do we get them engaged? Absolutely. So there are there. I would say they’re kind of two different angles to take on this one that will be talking about tomorrow is building community generated content into your infrastructure and that is something that we’ve seen work well e well, for many different non-profits and the center for non-profit excellence is a great example of this they have, and i know let erica talk a little bit more about this, too, but just to name a couple of examples to respond directly to your question, they have a volunteer connection section of the website, and that section of the website allows non-profits to post volunteer opportunities and allows community members to say, i want to take that coming that volunteer opportunity and connect and connect directly with that non-profit it has a non-profit directory that non-profits can update themselves, it has a grantmaker directory that grantmaker is khun submit information to it has a new section that the community of non-profits in new mexico can contribute news, too, and it has a community training section as well. So if there any trainings that are happening beyond what the senator non-profit excellence does, then people can submit that information as well. And there are i’m forgetting many other things, erica, you can conjunction here, there’s also a page where non-profits can post there needs for goods like computers or other donated items, and where the community and businesses composed items that they want to donate to non-profits. Another piece is where individuals or groups of individuals can post ways that they want a, donate their time or volunteer for non-profits and it’s, very much community building. And as you said, elizabeth, really a community driven mean, the content wouldn’t content only in these sections and only comes from the community. Absolutely. Postings for volunteer opportunities and volunteer needs on dh volunteer. I want to volunteer. Yeah, okay. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests are there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. And and the news all of the news on the home page that you see right when you land on the website all comes from the community as well, and we really wanted to highlight this as a as an opportunity for non-profits because content strategy is so is becoming so, so important for every non-profit oh, and you’re content strategy becomes so important online because it helps you actually push it provides content that you can push out to all of these aps and so to meet people where they’re at. It also helps boost the volume of content on your website and the key words that you can then deal that you then have to be indexed, and it broadens your net of how you can be found. But it also becomes really is absolutely critical to engagement, so bringing new people in bringing a new supporters, engaging existing supporters, building loyalty with existing supporters and then helps a really helps when organizations launched their campaigns than it helps those campaigns be really effective. And so, but often the one of the biggest challenges that non-profits face is having the resource is for a really robust content strategy. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of creativity to keep that content strategy going, and so some of our client, we do a lot of trainings and a lot of non-profits will come to us and say, you know what i know it’s important, but it’s hard for us to dio it’s hard for us to get more than one article published on our website every three weeks or what? What advice do you have? And you’re after one of the smaller midsize shops? That’s it doesn’t have the resources to spend a lot of time, but there still are some things you can do. So what advice is absolutely that bring your community in so find ways to get your community to contribute content. Don’t think about your your content strategy is just coming from one person or the person that you may have fifty percent of one person’s time to manage your entire your entire communications strategy, right? That’s? Not enough so think about can you bring in your volunteers? Ask your volunteers to contribute content, other staff members to contribute content you’re bored to contribute, content your clients to community to contribute. Content other community members to contribute content and what types of interest of of infrastructures or kind of spaces within your website can you create tau host all of this information and inspire people to share and so there’s so many what is appropriate for each non-profit really depends on the non-profits mission in-kind of what makes sense for their community, but we would encourage every single non-profit to think about how can you get your community involved and and bring them in to be a part of that content generation strategy? Erica, what have you seen some of the outcomes among the community that communities that are contributing well, what? What we’ve seen, we initially started the first area that that we opened up for non-profits to post their own content was the job section of our website and on our and we’ve seen a huge increase in visits to our website, and where are our website appears in different search engine results and an increase in the number of non-profits that air posting these listings, but we also we receive so much feedback from the non-profit saying that they’ve received a lot of of really good job applicants. And so the same goes across for volunteer connection. We receive a lot of positive feedback from the non-profits who might not have, um, the timer, the resource is two to promote their volunteer opportunities, so allowing them to post them on our website, they’re receiving more traffic and more volunteer applicants. Elizabeth what? We have another, like, five minutes or so together. What other strategies can we share for, uh, getting found is basically what we’re talking about, right? Absolutely. What else haven’t i asked you? Have you have you share? So certainly so one thing that’s really important and you in looking at the infrastructure of your website and that will help this whole content strategy work is making sure that the website is social media optimized, and by that we mean that when that any piece of content that somebody wants to share on their social network, they should be able to just click a button and immediately share it. And you would be surprised how many organizations do not have their website properly configured so they may have put a simple, sure social sharing. Yeah, and so you can use a tool like add this you add that to your website, but you’ve also you’ve gotta have the meta tags that are pulled correctly, configured so that it pulls the right thing, so if you so, when somebody clicks to share on twitter, it should be set up and then and this is something that you really just have to ask your web master to do, but it should be set up so that you click to share on twitter and it’s going to pull the title of the article a shortened link, and then it should say via at your twitter handle so that you get recognition for that content that’s coming out on facebook, it should pull the right thumb now image associated with the article, a blurb about the article and a link back to the website, and you’d be surprised how often we see that that’s not actually configured like that, so someone will try to share something on facebook or you’ll try to share something on facebook and it’ll pull the logo of the organisation instead of the thumbnail of the article. Or it’ll pull the name of the organisation instead of the page that you’re trying to share so that’s a really important pieces that social, the social media optimization piece that’s a great one and great that’s a great tip toe. Everybody could understand it. And it’s it’s not incredibly technical know and it’s, not something that’s going to take your what is your web master too long to dio but it’s something that’s absolutely critical for doing two d’oh, and then another piece is make sure that your website is responsive because if if somebody is, you could be working really, really hard too create all this content put this content out across the web, and then if somebody clicks kliks through from facebook to your website because they’ve seen this link to an article that they’re really interested in and suddenly they can’t read it on their phone because your website is not responsive and mobile adapting to the size of your phone that’s a frustrating experience that they’re gonna have with your organization and they’re going to be less likely to come back so absolutely your website should be responsive and well, you said earlier, if you it’s not mobile responsive that’s going to hurt you in search results? Absolutely, it’ll hurt your search results and it also hurt it will hurt engagement with the organization, but also at the time of launching your campaign, so you’re asking people to take action. So maybe you’re launching a fund raising campaign or you’re launching a campaign to get people to sign up for an event or to take advocacy action if they’re clicking through from social media and it’s not responsive, they are not very likely to donate to take action or to sign register for your event. So you’re basically shooting yourself in the foot. You don’t have it so much trouble forget i’ll find something else. Yeah, absolutely so that’s that’s really critical, and if we have time, do we have another minute or so? And then one more piece that that we often get questions from organizations about two is the campaign piece, and that should be a piece of every organizations content strategy. So you’re putting out your regulate your articles and you’re doing a lot of messaging on social media, but periodically you need to launch very specific campaigns asking people, mobilizing people around a very specific goal because often people don’t take action unless you ask pacific also a specific call. To action. So that specific fund-raising campaign that made that ideally lasts, you know, five to seven days it’s a short campaign, you have a very specific goal, and you can just message repeatedly during that five to seven day period asking your community to help mobilize and to help you meet that goal and that’s something that we see too many organizations kind of you may go for a year or two years with all of their messaging and their articles, and they don’t launch campaigns and it’s the campaign radcampaign time that you see the return on the investment of all of the time that you’ve invested in creating this content. So the campaigns are absolutely critical. I’ve seen something that said, every piece of content you create should have some call to action ultimately, even if it’s just a simple share, but maybe it’s sign up for the email list that’s related to this issue? Yes, something in every every music content. Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, we’re gonna leave it there. All right. Thank you, elizabeth. Erica, thank you very much. They are elizabeth beachy, director of strategic communications for upleaf and erica sanchez, communications specialist for the center for non-profit excellence at united way of central new mexico. Ladies. Thank you again. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference. Twenty fifteen. Thank you very much for being with us. Thanks to everybody at ah ntcdinosaur and and ten, the non-profit technology network next week. I’m not sure yet. It’s weeks away. I’m a couple of weeks ahead, pre recording this. So give me a break, please. But you know it’s going to be a good show. You know, it’s not going to crummy. It’ll be better than not crummy it’s going great. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com opportunity collaboration. The world convenes for poverty reduction. I’m telling you, it’s an outstanding unconference that will ruin you for every other conference opportunity collaboration dot net for pete’s sake, check it out. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is at the board on the law as line producer. The show’s social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez dot com and our music is by scott stein be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Hey! What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. I took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane. Toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for May 29, 2015: Emerging Tech Trends & Now Get Buy-In

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Steve MacLaughlinEmerging Tech Trends

Steve MacLaughlin is director of analytics at Blackbaud. He sees trends in full mobile friendliness; diversification; smarter big data; sustaining donors; and a lot more. We talked at NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.

 

 

Norman Reiss: Now Get Buy-In

Knowing what the trends are, you want to stay ahead of them. Norman Reiss reveals how to get the buy-in and acceptance you need for your new technology decisions, from your board, leadership and end users. He’s project manager for technology at the Center for Court Innovation. This is also from NTC.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Welcome kyi, rs eighty eight point one in ninety two point three fm medical lake, spokane, washington we’re in there saturday morning lineup, and i am really excited to have them as our newest affiliate. Welcome, k y our s so glad you’re with us this and this is not even the new california affiliate that i said last week over week before is coming that’s not this one it’s california, this is washington. Washington is not california, so we got that one coming up. But this week k y r s medical lake, spokane, washington welcome our newest affiliate. So glad you’re with us. Thanks. I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with lycanthropy if you howled about missing today’s show emerging tech trends steve mclaughlin is director of analytics at blackbaud he sees trends in full mobile friendliness, diversification, smarter, big data sustaining daughters and a lot more. We talked at ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference, hosted by n ten, the non-profit technology network, and now get buy-in knowing what the trends are you want to stay? Ahead of them, norman reese reveals how to get the buy-in and acceptance you need for your new technology decisions from your board leadership and and users he’s, project manager for technology at the center for court innovation and that’s also from on tony’s take to your career and third sector today, responsive by opportunity collaboration that working, meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for area every other conference. Here is my interview with steve mclaughlin on emerging tech trends welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fifteen the non-profit technology conference it’s day two, we’re in austin, texas, and the austin convention center. My guest is steve mclaughlin. Steve is director of analytics at blackbaud his workshop topic at ntc is emerging tech trends where np tech is going steve mclaughlin, welcome to the show. Great to be here, tony it’s a pleasure. I’ve known you for years, just virtually mostly through twitter and bb con con times, but never had you on the show. No, just virtually and yes, on the interwebs on the webs. All right, now we’re going to spend some real time together. See the webs do work? Yeah, brought us to this. Yeah, true engagement most is lana log, but yet digital that’s true, it is both that is on dh. The multi-channel engagement has brought us to this. Yes, to this hybrid. We had a few more buzzwords in here, and we’re also hybrid experience before jargon, ok? Emerging tech trends so you’re willing tto look, ten years ahead. Yeah, so have a time machine and have seen the future and are back to report on what the world looks like in ten years. Pretty exciting. Yeah. Ah lot of drones in the future, drones. I understand. Drove. Okay, can we categorize your your forecast for the future? They fit within some category a couple of things. So one that we’ll start with the this is probably obvious mobile, but mobile and probably some different way. So let’s just do an overview first. Sure. So mobile is a good category. Amglobal okay, that the way that non-profits have diversified where giving is coming from is different in ten years in ten years, the orig chart as we know it today of a non-profit is different. So it’s, you know, diversification organization on then a little bit about big data, but specifically hyre organizations work, you know, smarter with data as opposed to throw more people at it. More resource is at it. Those types of things, i think there’s a lot of what, what we’ll see in the future. Okay, i’m not going to take them in that. Sequence is okay. Is that all right? Let’s? Go wherever you want. Okay. Thank you. I’ve been saying that the people of old conference where do you want to go next? I’m interested in the diversity diversification of funding if i’m able to say the word yeah, in ten years. Twenty, twenty five what? What what’s going to look like. So good news, bad news today we know that about seventy percent. Seventy two percent of all giving in the us comes from individuals. And seventy five percent of that seventy two percent comes some thirty percent of high net worth individuals, right? So that’s problem number one right e-giving is concentrated in a small relative group in their individual, seventy five percent in thirty. Yeah, from thirty percent. Yeah, and then when you look at who gets the giving, so if you take faith based education, human services and giving two foundations, that seventy percent e-giving so if you’re an animal rights organization, you’re into arts and cultural, you’re all fighting over thirty percent of what’s left over, but it’s not really thirty percent it’s you know it’s also back to which individuals give teo that care about it. And so i think we’re approached, you know, in ten years we will have approached this point in time where if you’ve not diversified where the giving is coming from. So a couple examples if i was a non-profit today and in ten years from now, i want to i have a lot more success. I’m all in on sustainers i am, i am betting the future on sustainers for most of my annual giving program and other types of things, and i’m willing to take the short term hit on revenue because sustainers retained better, they feed my plan giving program there’s all these great things happen about monthly donors of sustaining donors except for you take the short term hit on revenue, and i think the smart organization today who would be looking back ten years are now saying we’re so glad we did this, i would say we bet on sustainers because all the metrics about them, our great it just takes that organisational intestinal fortitude to go all in and drive it, andi, take the short term hit and take the short term an absolutely anything else on diversification, i think the other thing, you know you’re going to see and we already seen the data today is there is this myth about end of your e-giving and as more people moved to digital channels, there’s this mad rush of everyone asking at the same period of time, but the smart organizations are diversifying throughout the year, right? They’re not all in for end of you’re giving the running spring time programs they’re running peer-to-peer events throughout the rest of the year, so it organizations and ten years from now that are really successful have mohr of ah and even flow of giving happening through the entire calendar year and not these peaks and valleys. And if we don’t do really good job in december, we’re not going to hit our number. You know, there are organizations were some someone i think said today, you know, some organizations more than more than forty, thirty, thirty or forty percent of their funding comes from november in december. Yeah, so in december alone, about seventeen point four percent of all giving happens in december, but it’s different for different org’s some more, some less, but yeah, but i think what you’re saying is there’s a diversification of when that happens, interestingly enough, and i think this ties back to the sustainers piece, if you look at environmental organizations and animal welfare organizations, they have this the straightest line with the least spikes and peaks throughout the entire year. And i believe that’s because those organizations ten years ago made the bet on sustainers and they have a much more predictable flow in revenue when things were happening. So it’s sort of like, you know, predicting the future is a little bit looking at the past and seeing what was successful before doom or of that way, do we see those types of org’s those two categories have large, larger than average sustainers program much larger than average weekly? Yeah, and in some cases we’re talking hundreds of thousands of sustainers but at some point they had xero or very few, but they’ve invested in that is a way of driving, giving on dh, you know, now it’s about the future for them, i think they set a good example of look other other organizations, khun do it there’s no secret sauce, right? You’re an art museum. You could do that to your own education. You could do that. Too, there’s. Nothing in the common denominator is we’re talking about humans. Are the donors, right? That is that’s the common denominator. And they behave in very particular, predictable ways. You know, there’s a way to leverage that for sure. All right. Cool way. Beating up the divers thinking yeah. That’s a dead horse. Move away. All right. That’s prediction. One forecast. Okay, the organization. I’m interesting. The organizational structure, the charts going to look different. So one of the observations have had over the past couple of years. You know, whenever i go work with non-profit groups, usually within a few minutes, i can figure out where their problems are located. When they show me a picture of the orig charter, someone draws it on the board. So for example, boy, were really struggling in growing are our digital revenue. And then what you find out is oh, well, not surprisingly, it’s a silo in the organization who’s responsible for that revenue reports up to somebody else. Maybe it was an i t maybe was in communications. Is it in the fund-raising office? You know, so the orange chart started starts to show that historical command and control stuff. Doesn’t work in the world of the the future, and i think what you’ll start to see over the next five to ten years is that you’ll have more non-profits rethink how they’re structured the reporting lines. You know, if you think about direct mail, for example, you know, direct mail is originally intended was for acquisition, and once you acquired those donors, you would then pass those people off to another group who grows and sustains them, and they turn into mid level donors, plan gift donors and major gift donors, but the organizational silo that created them wants to keep them because they have an annual budget, right? So it’s a self fulfilling prophecy of yeah, they’re my direct male donors, you can’t have them playing, giving department go away even though i know seven, eight years in the future, they’re going to be great prospects for you. I only want to send them mail or do certain things. I think smart organizations will sort of rethink the orange chart as it exists today. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst. Of fund-raising insights, published once a month, tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Dahna what you expected to look more like, or or how will it be different looking? So i think what you’ll have in the future is more of a scenario where you’ll have either chief development officer, chief marketing officer and both the fund-raising part of the organization and the communications part of the organization both report to the same individual and it’s not going to be an i t t technical seo the technology is going to be less and less over time, but it’s going to be more of that chief development officer, chief marketing officer and both fund-raising and communications share. You know, they’re under the same umbrella, they’re not in separate silos, they’re not separate disciplines, they don’t report to different masters, and you’re seeing some work start to make that do that do that pivot. But i also i also thinking of one where those functions were just recently divided. Ah ah ah, across two different, i guess. Vice president? Yeah, it had been one, and then they separated it. I believe that was a mistake. Maybe i should be sitting in your seat. All right. Now i have one piece of one thing, but yeah. No, i absolutely agree. Those two marketing communications fund-raising in in in hyre ed argast education. Generally, i think it should be fund-raising an alumni relations. Yeah, i think they should be together. And what you saw when i read right now in the same place the alumni association that does its events in its own things in its own silo, they call himself the friend raiser. Yes. And then the fundraisers are a different part of the order, but eventually they come together. I think the other thing you’ll see in your chart and this is as more use of the cloud and distributed technology is what’s the ceo of the future. Because today, or maybe in the past ten years, it was a lot about hardware and routers and computers, and they do the software updates and, like in the world, the future like who’s updating software, i came in and last night the cloud, wherever the cloud thing is, um, did that for me. So i think the role of what’s the ceo, i think it’s it’s more about the information part is what they’re doing and less about the technical, you know, business, hardware of stuff. You know the analytics piece, okay, move away from the organization. Sure. And we okay mobile what’s it mobile mobile. So we’ve seen a huge emergence of mobile. If you think ten years ago we didn’t have the iphone and now how do you live without that or android or whatever whatever yours you’re using? And we now know that almost ten percent of all online donations were made on a mobile device so it’s gone from zero to ten percent in a very short period of time. We know that on email, open on a mobile device and a person who then donates on a mobile friendly website that the conversion rate is like thirty six percent higher than if it’s not mobile friendly. So there’s very few things right now where you’re going to get a thirty six percent lift and conversion rate, right? You can play with the color of the button and the texts and you get two or three percent but like huge jump in conversion rate by being mobile optimized by being mobile optimized end to end, i send the email. It is mobile optimized which directs someone to a website that his mobile friendly and the donation form is mobile friendly because hello, i didn’t put my phone down, i’m still on the same thing. We’re at the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of that, but it’s ten percent of donations it’s going to increase dramatically, and so the non-profits have to prepare for that. I think on the flip side, ten years from now, if i’m working in a non-profit whether i’m a major gift officer, prospect, researcher out in the field, doing programs, my mobile device, whatever i have with me at that point in time, the iphone twelve or, you know, whatever samsung is bill that i am, i am using mobile technology to do my job, and it is impossible for me to be effective as a fundraiser or non-profit staffer without the things my mobile device does, if you think about, um, the emergence of agent technology so siri, you know, syria, where is the austin convention center or cortana or google or any this type of stuff, you know, in ten years there’s going to be a fund-raising agent on your mobile device that says, tony, these five plan giving prospects, you really want to make sure you reach out to them this week, you’re due to do a check in call with them or, you know, tony, we just noticed that we’re thirty five percent to our fund raising goal and we’re ahead of schedule, right? There’s no reason why that type of technology is not going to become pervasive in the non profit sector and be sort of one of those things where i don’t know what i did without my fund-raising agent that helped me do stuff because i’ve got a lot of stuff going on there’s only things i can keep track of and that little reminder of, you know, did you make that? Thank you phone call? Have you made that appointment where we have versus a goal that technology could make that stuff easier? So i think that’ll be great that’s when the drones and the robots take over and you know, so what? What is the smart organization doing to prepare for? Twenty, twenty five aside from full mobile, not engagement optimization, what else? What else they’re doing? Technology wise, i think the biggest thing. So for years, there’s been this concept of agile development in the software. World so intuitive you fail fast, you learn things, you’re constantly building software, building code and shipping it. And what is going to end up happening is organizations need to start being more agile. So rather than these, we have a five year strategic plan who knows what’s gonna happen five years in the future, like really what’s your five year strategic plan. You know, if you asked jeff bezos and amazon what the five year plan is, they don’t know, ok, but you’re here you’re here predicting ten years i am, but i’m i’m i’m saying there’s, general directional trends, i’m not saying in five years, this is you know, we’re going tow eclipse for hundred billion raise i don’t know that they’re things that could get us there, but i think what you’re going to have to have happen is non-profits gonna have to embrace agile, not from a software development perspective, but a za culture is a dna of how they think about doing things which is let’s do things experimentally let’s, find out. Does this work on a small scale and then iterating, iterating, iterating trying to it on a larger scale as opposed to we need a three year plan? I need my arli in twelve months or there’s no way this thing is making it off the powerpoint slide, i think. And you see examples of this it’s, you know, people point toe examples like a charity water or a room to read or others where they’re younger organizations, they’re agile, they have i don’t like using the phrase they have sort of fail fast because ultimately you want to succeed fast to you know, you could fail fast all the wayto failure. But you’ve got it is the idea of things or it’ll tive, you know? And there is i believe there is this sort of dna in the nonprofit sector, especially if you come from the direct marketing world you test, you tested mailings for decades, you know that you have to test this stuff. It’s, just more of applying that mindset to we want to try a new event. You know, we’ve been doing walkathon ds and marathons let’s. Try a different type of event. A mud run. What? I go out and put together, you know, an eighty thousand dollar budget for a mud run? No, i would see can we do one in the next thirty days in our backyard to find out. Does it actually work? If it does, like let’s, do more of that? Or can we get, you know, online donors to feed into r d r tv or plan giving prospect pool? You don’t need to do it for everything, just like, try it with one thing. Find out if it works that idea of experiment make a small bet here and there and i think that’s the big cultural change to get to the future is going to have to be a desire and a willingness to experiment with stuff on a small scale you know, you got you got some stuff’s going to work some stuff isn’t on and then, you know, rinse repeat, try again over and over again the analog in in the start up world is m v p minimum viable product yeah, getting out minimum bare bones, but test test and learn and iterated. Yeah. And speaking of someone who’s dealt firsthand with developing things for m v p the keyword and minimum viable product is viable. No one wants minimum products. I know if you if you know it’s it’s. Okay, if you have your goal eventually has to get to the automobile it’s okay to start out with a skateboard because at least there’s movement involved and you could get somewhere the problem a lot of times with minimum viol or product is we gave you two wheels. Well, i can’t go anywhere on two wheels because it’s not connected anything. You learn something if you give people a skateboard and i think it’s the same thing in the nonprofit sector, you pick one pick part of the problem you’re trying to solve doing on a small scale and scale from there. And the great thing from a technology perspective is, you know, you could do this stuff. You know, amazon web services is here and t c and you know, you can spin something up in the cloud fight, rent it, figure out if it works. If it works great, maybe you choose to buy it or you just need more need to rent mohr or didn’t work terrible idea let’s never talk about this again and turn it off and in a way you go and you couldn’t do that ten years ago like experimentation. Was really expensive, or you really had to make sure something was going to work, and that just leads to people taking less risks. Bond that z in general that’s not good, you know, you need be taking more risks if you wantto you want to change the world. What about big data? Your final category? The big data cites a buzzword. You know, lots of people talking about it, you know, the luxury we have, you know, blackbaud is we have a tremendous amount of data, and for a number of years we’d be able to do things like the blackbaud index and take sixteen billion dollars in giving and report out hey, which way is the wind blowing up? Is it down and what’s happening? I think, um, what you’re going to see in the nonprofit sector over the next ten years is the realization that a lot of this, these fundamental questions we asked like, is this person going to give the organization or what’s the most this person could give door organization? Or are they a better fit for annual fund gift or major gift or plan gift? Or who else do they give to you? Know those types of things, those air actually questions could be answered. It’s, not mysterious. You know how we get to that answer, maybe it’s a lot of statistics and variables, but but that’s sort of like, you know, if my car gets me from point a to point b at a sort of don’t care how the engine works anymore, i think what you’re going to see happen with big data is the the the non-profit sector realizing there’s a lot of things that could be done with predictive analytics that point you in the right direction and that it’s less about how did you get to that answer of and start asking better, smarter questions, right? You know how much how much money are we leaving on the table is an organization because we don’t really have the right askanase outs when we’re going to meet with someone or in a direct mail message, or even what you’re sending on you’re sending people to your website that that that really is the potential big data for the nonprofit sector is to be much more prescriptive and predictive, with the analytics and point people in the right directions and get better answers for the things, but they want to do. And i think that’s really exciting as opposed to guessing or, you know, the art side of what we do is fundraisers today. Then should we be collecting data, paying attention to our own our own collection of it, preservation of it. The first thing is collected. The second thing is, make sure that it’s cleans its garbage in garbage out riling data. And then from there, i think it’s it’s moving. And then the next thing people do is reporting. Write my report, my report, my report, it’s moving beyond reporting, which is just a view of what happened in the past tomb or what’s gonna happen next. And because you have that data, you know, there’s the ability to predict that thing, or at least do some modeling that would give you a sense of, you know, we have organ, you know? And if you look at your file, you have people who you’ve been able to retain his donors for multiple years and those you haven’t. What is it about those people who are multiyear retained donors? What can we do? You know who else in our file looks like that individual or if you if you trace it down the line, you say we’ve had people who’ve given to the annual fund for seven years, and now they suddenly given us a midlevel gift. Predictive analytics would allow you to look at the data and say, there’s, someone who just gave you the first gift that looks a lot like the person who just gave you a midlevel gift. This is who you should pay attention to, and also sometimes this is someone who you might not want to spend as much time and effort on is all the data says this isn’t this isn’t the winner is another good example of looking back to looking to look forward. You’re using your historical data, it’s all value to be prescriptive and addictive. You need the historical data have a perspective. I think the difference is don’t try driving down the road using the rear view mirror that’s the tendency that happens a lot of ties, the historical data, the launch toodle data is very valuable for this stuff, and the great thing is non-profits have it it’s, it’s, just under leveraged and i think just sometimes they don’t know what’s possible, like, wow, you could tell me how much money i’m leaving on the table because of incorrect ask amounts. Yes, absolutely can tell you the answer, that question, or you could tell me, is there a better segment to use? Yes, you know, that’s what that’s, what data scientists love they love, you know, answering that question of, you know, what’s possible, or at least what what’s the day to tell from all the things we could derive from the data, which is interesting, okay, we could spend another couple minutes, anything you want to wrap up with, um trying to think spent ninety minutes on this should read your session radio description to you let’s say, well, i’m not gonna read it to you, but try to think of what else we’re going to cover. I just, you know, i think, oh, it’s about some example organizations organisation’s doing it well, have any of those case studies? Yeah, i mean, i think, you know, for example on, you know, the organizational change side in a humane side of the united states is a great example of they’ve made changes over the years in terms of that balance between fund-raising and communications, and even they would say they’re not there yet, but they they’ve realized hard to get the most effective results from the staff and it’s, not from having separate, separate silos, that’s, robin dancer and jeff handy, who runs a lot of the so the donor care part, they’re really been focused on what can they do from a from a norvig perspective to change things? I think the other thing that they’ve learned as well is fund-raising, an advocacy for an advocacy type organization are highly linked together, a supposed to there’s an advocacy department, they don’t talk to the fund-raising people and you see this everywhere, like you go into a health care organization and you have a grateful patient program. But nobody talks to people who were doing other types of, you know, prospect research works like, why are you not talking to each other? Leave this stuff is linked together in in some way, and i think a lot of it just people let the orc chart get in the way and the smarter eggs in the future, i think, will be more streamlined around some of that. Okay, wrap it up. All right. Awesome. Steve mclachlan he is director blackboard. Ah, at blackbaud director of analytics. And this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen. We have concluded our coverage with steve mclaughlin saving the best for last, although everyone before him would disagree. Thank you very, very much for being with us. Thank you very much, steve. Thanks, tony. Thank you for your for listening. Tony martignetti non-profit radio time for live listener love i can’t shout you out by city and state. I’m sorry because we’re pre recorded this week non-profit radio is on. The road this week and next week i’m traveling in, uh, i’m in arizona and colorado and california and oregon. But of course the love goes out nonetheless toe all our live listeners. Podcast pleasantries. You know who you are, those ten thousand listening wherever. Whatever. However you listen. Thank you so much for being with us. Podcast pleasantries for those listeners and of course, never forgetting our very, very valuable loved affiliate. Affiliate affections to you, k y r s our newest but throughout the country thank you for listening on your am and fm stations. Affiliate affections to you durney steak too. And now get buy-in coming up. First opportunity collaboration. I usually connect to people in conferences, but not at such a personal level. I usually go to conferences in nice places, but definitely not this nice. I usually learning conferences, but not this much, especially about myself. I usually collaborate with other people at conferences, but never with such intent. I usually have funding conferences, but never close to this that’s leonardo le tellier, founder and ceo of satara in brazil. He’s talking about opportunity collaboration that weeklong unconference i have to disagree with you. A little bit there. Leonardo, it is an unconference in x top of mexico around poverty alleviation, it’s for non-profits impact investors, social entrepreneurs grantmaker is researchers, academics and corporations. If you’re any one of those, you should be with us in october. I was there last year and i’m going to be there this year if you work in poverty alleviation, check it out. Opportunity collaboration, dot net, i’ve got a new non-profit radio knowledge base, this one is for your career. So instead of the organization, we’re going to look at the individual. Are you considering consulting and how to have a great interview? This knowledge base joins all the others, which are shows that i put together by by topic, some of the others are storytelling boardmember ation ships board fund-raising online engagement, the links and videos are at tony martignetti dot com, including this newest one on your career and on youtube, my channel israel r e a l tony martignetti some clown up in boston stole tony martignetti so i have to be really tony martignetti but i am the real tony martignetti he’s an impostor, uh, anyway, durney martignetti dot com and youtube or where? You’ll find the videos and the links for all the non-profit radio knowledge bases. Third sector today, third sector today dot com they block tips, insights, best practices for the non-profit community. They have a podcast. They have lots of contributors and i recommend them. They are a valuable, informative resource. Ah written and they curate a lot of content from other people and it’s all done by smart folks at third sector today dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday twenty ninth of may twenty second show of the year here is norman reese from ntcdinosaur getting buy-in welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference and tc fifteen day too. We’re austin, texas in the convention center. My guest is norman reese he’s project manager technology at the center for court innovation. Norman welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Good to have your first time. Um, your topic is winning one hundred percent buy-in from staff and board for your next non-profit technology adoption that’s a that’s, a real narrow niche, but critical if we’ve gotten, we’ve decided that we need new software and we’ve gone through. The due diligence and the process of identifying the right new software for us, whether it’s, cr, m or accounting or combined now we need everybody agree with us. Where do we start? I think sometimes when you you pick out a new system, there’s somehow this assumption that the board and the management are all behind it. And in reality, that’s not always the case. So even if it is the case, things khun change once the project is planned, or once a project that started so it really has to be something that’s a continuing effort that even even if you take the time and you get people on board at the beginning and they fully support, you know, and they’ve been with you through the process, yeah, to really check in with them while the processes going on and make sure that they haven’t been diverted by other things. Or that as new people come in two management or to the board that they don’t suddenly have a change of heart. So it’s really kind of crucial to make sure that a system actually is goingto have the result that you’re hoping for when you when you first selected. Yeah. All right. So we can have sometimes turncoats. They’ve been with us through the process, and now they’re abandoning. They get nervous or they what they feel we made the wrong decision. We made a mistake somewhere in the process. There’s. So many things that could get in a way. I mean, even people with the best intentions, something just comes in that distracts them. Or they have a friend that tells them about a different solution. Or different. So it’s really? Well intentioned friend. Yeah, i mean, it’s really a zoo? A technology. Is it’s really critical to build those relationships with management and with the board all the time, even before the project is even envisioned? And if you haven’t done that, if you’re operating and kind of a silo, then soon related that’s goingto that’s going to hurt you because you need to work. You need to partner with these people when you especially when you’re bringing in a new a new software platform on a new system. They have veto power? Absolutely. And they can do that any time. Yeah, yeah. I love that. You know, the friend my friend was just telling me about, you know, something we didn’t look at all right. So the importance of relationships, even when you don’t need their buy-in the people’s buy-in but but always working together collaboratively just day to day. Absolutely. Okay. All right, all right. But that’s ah, let’s speed ahead to the process now. Like i said it there, as i set it up, we’ve chosen something and they’ve been part of the process. We’re talking about staff heimans senior staff and bored getting did really from both it’s really about working with staff that are going to be using the system as well as management as well. It’s really across the board. Because if you get the management and the board to buy-in but the staff don’t feel like they’re included, they’re not going to cooperate. And then they may not use the system once it’s rolled out. If you get the staff but you don’t get the management and the board, then you won’t have the support. You need to have a successful implementation. Get the rolling. So you have to go both ways. Okay? All right. Good. Thank you for for straightening me out. All right. How are we? Going toe? How do we start this? Ah, well, assuming we’ve had this these good relationships all along, but now there’s some some defectors or where it was the best way to start the that the topic together, i think probably just the initial stages when your first envisioning that you need something new, whether it’s a replacement for something you already have or something entirely new that you’re imagining for your organization, you really need to being you need to be in communication with everyone about why you’re doing this, because what’s obvious to you is probably not obvious to other people, even though it may seem logical and a natural evolution, it really needs to be talked through, and different people have different ways of absorbing information. You can’t just send out an email to the staff and say, this is what we’re doing. You have to really take the time to to seek out people, sometimes one on one, and explain why not only is this good for the organization, but how is how is this new system going to make their lives easier? Why should they bother? I mean nobody. I mean, i shouldn’t say nobody. But most people have problems with change, and everybody kind of gets used even bad systems because they know, you know, they know what it’s like, they know the howto work around things that don’t work, and even though you’re introducing something that is, seems to be a clear win for the organization, not everybody has that why to focus some people are just focused on their own responsibilities and their own position, and some people may see this as a threat because a new system may mean that some people’s jobs changed their what they need to do during the day, their routine, their routines air going, teo and and some people would see that as an opportunity. Other people will see that it’s a threat, and you will have people that will will try to take it down. And if you don’t try to deal with that, earl, as early as you can, it’s just going to a back fire down the road, okay? All right, so we’re explaining why and certainly including them in the process, right? Should they should should? Should people from all levels? I mean, maybe this is obvious, but be part of the the committee that is making the decision and hearing the hearing the different, getting the different presentations from all the different potential vendors for their b stakeholders from although, i mean, i mean, the reality is that it’s, hard to invite have everyone at every meeting because people don’t have time, large meetings can get a little unruly, but you have to give people the opportunity to be involved, all right? And some people will take it, and some people will say they’re too busy or they’ll send a representative, but you have to find a way to make people feel like they’re part of the process if they feel like this system is being imposed upon them, well, that it’s being chosen by someone else who doesn’t fully understand their needs, then they’re not going to be supportive. So it’s really it’s kind of a fine balance between not having too many, but, you know, really seeking out beyond the obvious people that are going to be directly using the application. But anyone who might want to get data from the application who might want to get a report from it, it’s, usually and as a project manager, i still don’t know you have to really seek out stakeholders foreign beyond what you initially think, because people outside the organization they’re going to be affected by this too, and they need to have a say in this as well. Ok, so at a minimum, you’re keeping all the stakeholders apprised of maybe milestones in the process, okay, okay. And, you know, especially reliance on email on lee, which seems to be what a lot of people do now, i mean, that’s kind of shallow, you have tio, especially people who are different locations, you may have to go out there and actually sit down with them. We just invite him out for lunch and talk about what’s going on because the humane, i mean, i’ve seen the email reliance in my office, where people said one hundred feet away from each other and they hardly ever talk to each other and that’s, you know, that’s not a good practice when you’re trying to win people’s support for a new project, yes on dh needing them to feel a part of the process and, you know, it was kind of shallow and you’re not getting any of you know, you don’t see the facial expression. You don’t hear the tone of voice, you know? You don’t really know. I mean, they may be saying one thing and actually feeling something entirely different. All right? What else? What other advice do you have strategies do you have for forgetting this? This critical buy-in anything specific to the board that might not apply for staff? Anything special there? Well, every non-profit is a little different as far as how the board works, some sometimes the board will work only with only with the d and sometimes the board has more relations with staff, but i think you just need to be aware that the board is operating in, you know, in azaz an age of management, and sometimes they will want to be actively involved. Sometimes they will have a more surface involvement. But it’s just, i guess, just a kn awareness that that they do have a role in this and that if you ignore them suddenly, at one point a boardmember will come in and maybe drive the project in another direction because you haven’t taken the time to apprise them of what’s going on, so i think just just an awareness that they may not be in your field of vision because you don’t work with them at your office or you don’t work with them on the day to day basis, but they have to be part of part of the team. Yeah, it could be easy derailment from from a boardmember the way it happens all the time. Yeah, you know, you have some bad stories about that personal experiences. Well, i mean, i’ve worked in organizations where the board dealt mainly with the and the staff really weren’t even aware of, you know, things that were happening, and it didn’t seem to make sense, and until we actually found out what was going on with the board and with the and sometimes you win an organization that’s more transparent than others, where you know you’re edie will will communicate well about what’s actually happening in other cases, things will be happening that you just have no awareness of, and suddenly things are going in a new direction, and you have no idea what so it’s, just a matter of just taking the time especially, you know, in a technology role, which is what i do in my organization, you really need tto go beyond the tech group and make sure that you’re talking with other organisations. The other thing, i also just as a precaution, is that something that happened to me in the last year. You have to be really aware of your boss’s position in this whole scheme of things, because you can’t be viewed as somebody who’s going around your boys. Or you’re trying to have a relationship with a boardmember and he’s. Not all. She is not aware of it, so you have to be respectful of who you’re working for. But on the other hand, you also have to make sure that you have relationships with people other than your boss, because your boys could leave tomorrow. And then your future with the organization will depend on those other relationships you’ve built or not. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked, and levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation. Top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m lawrence paige, no knee author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. Oppcoll you’re doing another ah workshop at ntc on getting people to actually use the technology that that is adopted. Yes, that’s it flows perfectly from this. So let’s let’s spend the next well the rest of it we’re about ten minutes or so together. It’s about half our time. It’s perfect talking about getting people to use it once it so now we’re past the decision stage and it’s implemented. Is that where we are now? And yeah, i know and this i’m really going by my own experience. I’ve been in my car enroll for almost four years now, and i’ve had a couple of situations where we rolled out systems that we thought rolled, you know, when everything went, you know, as expected, and we checked in with the users later on, and we found out that they had gone back to their old system, that they were going back to excel and that’s really it’s really it’s a point it’s really? I mean, i found that you can have the best technical solution which you know, which seems to make perfect sense, and it’s a good future path for the organisation, but because people don’t feel like it’s there’s nothing in it for them that they just and the other thing is that if you don’t take the time to actually beyond sight with people and again, this goes back to what i was saying before about over reliance on email if you if you have different sites that are going to use the system, as most organizations do now, you have to actually go over there and talk to people, and sometimes people will say different things in one on one than what they’ll say in the group, so you just can’t, you know, just hold a meeting and just invite everybody and say, ok, what do you think you’re gonna have to go over and actually sit with people and watch and talk to them at their deaths? You may need to get them out of the office where they feel safer to talk without people overhearing a conversation saying, well, what’s really going on here because it’s really a shame to go through the process of vendor selection and months of milton latto organization, money and time has been devoted a and then cross and then three, six months, three to six months later. In the same position again, you’re back using the old system. So if again, i mean, this sort of goes back to what we were talking about before if people haven’t bought into the whole idea of why they doing this and not only that is that people need you need to get training on our ongoing basis, you can’t just go in the day after you roll out of systems, okay? We’re going to train you for the next week and then disappear. You need to be on site on a regular basis because people move around, they leave new people come in or people forget and you could say, oh, i gave them documentation, but, you know, we know nobody’s going to really read that stuff, so you need to really probably plan a good chunk of time after the rollout to be on site, working through problems, because no matter how much you plan, always things come up that need to be need to be work, work through and if you take the time to plan for that and you don’t just immediately say, okay, i’m wolf on another project now and good luck to you and you need to take some responsibility for that. I mean, it doesn’t happen by itself. All right, all right. What? We still have plenty of time together. What else in the in the use of the technology, other other strategy’s tips you have for ensuring it’s going to be used? What else can we say about that? Ah, well, just in the conversations i’ve had with some other people since i got here this week here in austin, you need to take the time to really go through the business processes that you’re trying to deal with in this system early earlier in the in the in the selection and understanding back-up back-up that at the time that you’re really thinking about let’s, say you, you be the picked the system or you’re you’re at the final stages, you need to really understand what you’re trying to achieve and what the workflow looks like in the organization and it’s very hard to know that and the other tips that does that mean? Well, before we get to another table that you got your brimming with tips, but wait, let’s dive into this one because that means spending time with them. Watching them in their process is, well, sitting side by side, maybe you made you probably want to do that because what i found is that some situations where i would talk to the manager of a group on dh, she or he would tell me that, you know, they need certain things, you know? And then i find out later that the actual people who were sitting at the computer is doing the data entry. They really don’t do things the way that the manager things they so then i get involved in in between the staff and the manager, and that can be a tricky situation as well. But it’s better work to find that out early and to get the trying to get your staff on the same page, then to roll out a system based on what a manager tells you only to find out that the staff that work for that manager actually have a whole different view of what they’d like to really have it in a system. Yeah, so the end user the actual yeah, hands on keyboards. Those are the people you want to be talking to and and maybe even observing. Yeah, i mean, ideally, if you could spend some time just shattering them as they do as they go through their day, then i don’t kind of really tell you what’s really happening because it’s one thing to talk through it, it’s another thing to actually spend a week or spend a couple of days out of sight and see what people are dealing with and see how one of the other things that i found out is that ah, there’s sometimes other systems in the mix that people are dealing with. I ruled out a system about a year ago that people weren’t using, and i found out later that there was a hole of the system that they were required to use because of a grant that we had. The grant required them to put data in this other place, and you have no idea i had no idea, i mean, that nobody nobody mentioned it, and it didn’t occur to me to ask that question. But now i, you know, when i’m doing a new project, i was make sure to ask, what other systems do you maintain and sometimes those other systems, maybe paper to mean? Surprisingly enough, not, you know, there are a lot of people who don’t want to give up the traditional tools and sometimes that’s what work’s fun with a small system will not work fine as it grows, and that’s just a growing pain, sometimes of an organization that wants toe really centralized data. And, again, what’s obvious too to, ah, tech team that, you know, that’s looking at all the sexy things that are available now, a lot of people don’t feel that way back on the ground, the ground, so you really need to respect their where they are. You have another tip that you were goingto you’re going to throw out, and i made us dive into the the one about the end users probing the end users more what else we’re going to say with this one? I actually think i included in my block i have a blogged that i thought for several years now what non-profit bridge, where i talk about technology and communications and fund-raising and something i blogged about recently was that we were working with a vendor that wasn’t quite getting what we needed, so we literally just took we took screens. And we annotated them and we we showed them, is that this is exactly what we want, and sometimes you actually need to use graphics and visuals to to show on. It also helps you kind of work through the process of how the workflow is so really giving that kind of documentation to a consultant or a vendor or anybody who’s helping you implement a new system can really help them understand, because you can’t expect someone who comes into and works with you for two or three months on ana implementation to fully get what your organization is about. So it’s, really your responsibility to educate them on this is what we need, and this is how we need to do it. And, you know, some of the same way that you need to over communicate with staff to make sure that you deal with people who like to absorb information in different ways. You need to you need to make sure that your vendor or consultant really understands your business needs and how your business works and and whatever that method is, whether it’s, extensive conversation or you need a diagram it but it’s really not the vendors responsibility to get it. It’s it’s your responsibility to know your business well enough that you can explain it to someone and have them really, really understand it. Okay? We have just like a minute or so men and a half left anything. Well, i’m sure there is so throughout some or whether it’s ah it’s getting the buy-in or getting the users to use the new technology sheriff there’s a more. Well, one thing i would definitely advise people if you’re not already part of this and ten community, this is the place to be, because very often, when you get wrapped up in a project and you only see things and the vision of your own organization, you need to talk to other people from other places that it doing similar things that you are and just being here for three days and just having conversations with people on how are they dealing with similar situations approaches that you may not have thought of on your own? You need to really being in the community. And the great thing about being here at ntc is that you actually can see people and have the conversation i mean you can’t do everything on social media and on email, and you need to sometimes just pick up the phone and talk to someone, and this is a great environment, and if anyone who’s out there who’s not taking advantage of this community, especially small on non-profit they don’t have a lot of resource is important to know it’s, not only for technologists and absolutely no intent is not only in fact, one of the reasons i like and ten is that it’s, not it and it’s sort of like the way my block covers communications and fund-raising if you look at the session is that we haven’t, they cover a wide gamut for people who do different. Roseanna non-profit so there’s something here for everyone, and i would really recommend that if even if if you’re not here at ntcdinosaur year there’s, a lot of other ways to be involved in the in ten were very active and it’s very rare, and i’ve been a member for years. It’s very rewarding. Excellent, good shot latto anton, our hosts and ten and they’re at inten dot org’s, auntie em and yeah, as well as the online, they have a lot. Of there, there are meet ups throughout the country. Small, small groups meeting lots of places. Absolutely. School. Thanks, norm. We’re gonna leave it there. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Good to have you. Norman riese, project manager in technology for the center for court innovation. And this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of intends and tc the non-profit technology conference. Twenty fifteen. Thank you so much for being with us next week. Your video strategy and how to get found. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com opportunity. Collaboration with world convenes for poverty reduction it’s, an outstanding unconference that will ruin you for every other conference opportunity collaboration dot net, i’ll be there. Our creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein duitz thank you, scotty. You’re with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Buy-in what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine am or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe, add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for May 22, 2015: Linkage, Ability And Interest & Crowdfunding Legal Tips

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Opportunity Collaboration: This working meeting on poverty reduction is unlike any other event you have attended. No plenary speeches, no panels, no PowerPoints. I was there last year and I’m going this year. It will ruin you for every other conference! October 11-16, Ixtapa, Mexico.

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My Guests:

Marie SempleLinkage, Ability And Interests

Maria Semple

Introducing the LAI principle for rating potential donors. Maria Semple walks you through it. She’s our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder.

 

 

 

Gene Takagi: Crowdfunding Legal Tips

Gene TakagiGene Takagi is our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group. He raises your consciousness about legal issues around the popular crowdfunding sites.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We have a new affiliate to welcome k y r s eighty eight point one and ninety two point three fm in medical lake spokane, washington i’m looking forward to helping your non-profits welcome kyi rs thank you so, so much for being with non-profit radio and being our newest affiliate, k y our s oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with ngom nail blast iq limb, fadden apathy. If you gave me the bad news that you missed today’s show linkage ability and interest introducing the high principle for reading potential donors re a simple walks us through it she’s, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder and crowdfunding legal tips jean takagi is our legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group he raises your consciousness about legal issues around the popular crowd funding sites and he walks us through those on tony’s take two non-profit radio on the road and third sector responsive by opportunity collaboration, the working meeting on poverty alleviation that will ruin you for every other conference, i’m very glad that maria samples back with me she’s, the prospect finder, a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com, and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now exclamation mark she’s our diet of dirt cheap and free ideas you can follow her on twitter at maria simple. Welcome back, maria! Hey there, tony, how are you? I’m doing terrific, lee. Well, how are you today? Just find a little bit of allergies going on, but other than that, you know, i think everybody suffering, though, right? Well, i suppose i see you have a lot of allergens in new jersey. You know this here seems to be particularly bad. I have not been bad in past years, but ah, i don’t know. What’s going on this here against the it must have all exploded at once. Okay? I’m allergic to some people in new jersey. Ilsen listen, my family that’s what you know or not you mostly my family. Um all right, my mom and dad don’t listen, so they wouldn’t know that i just said that there, but they’re big fans. Of the show, but they don’t they don’t. Listen, um, this l a i linkage ability and interest. We’re using this for tracking and rating are potential donors. Is that right? Yeah. That’s, right. You know, i thought it would be an interesting topic today. I was i was recently asked to speak about this on another person’s webinar. And i was thinking that it was something you and i had not covered in the past, um and it’s certainly something that is freon dirt cheap, right? Because it’s being done by dafs board volunteers and, you know, khun really involve a lot of different people in this process and it’s probably, you know, a pretty important part of the overall fund-raising process when you think about it because, you know, we only have so many hours in a day in a week, in a month in a year, um, so we really need to be able to focus on where allocate our time and our resource is right. So human resource is funding, etcetera? Um, so, you know, we’re trying to really get down to is answering that most basic question and fund-raising is really how to qualify people. Right? So hopefully, you know, at the end of the next few minutes together we’ll we’ll come up with a process for your listeners that people can start to implement. Okay? All right. So, uh, what’s think our first part linkage? What is it? What i mean by linkage? Linkage to what? Right? So linkage to the organization. So how how is this person linked to your organization? Who is that? Ah, that individual that might stand between you and that prospect. So, you know, it could be that you have a boardmember who has access to this individual, maybe maybe it’s a staff member or ah, some other volunteer with the organization, so they’re really kind of like, in lincoln terminology, they’re really just two degrees separated from you. Um, and and in some cases, somebody might be more than two degrees separated on dh, then that’s going to really kind of affect how well linked they are to your organization already and how much they they already know about you, right? I have to i have to quibble with you about something now linked in did not create that two degrees of separation. That correct that comes from kevin bacon that’s, right? I don’t i don’t want the social networks taking over our r ah, story traditions, that is a kevin bacon, you know, story, whatever you’re called that is not attributed to linked in dot com, alright, right know it’s? Not absolutely, but of course, lincoln can help you in this process when you’re trying to determine linkage, right? So if you’re just trying to figure out you have a known individual, maybe they’ve come teo ah gala or something, and you’re trying to figure out, well, who can really help us, you know, cultivate and potentially solicit this individual? We want to engage them a little further in in our cause? Um, and so, you know, certainly lincoln is one of the tools that you might be able to use, i think, you know, why not use that technology that’s there to help determine how many degrees they’re separated from you? I’m not objecting, teo, speaking to that in terms of linkage and proximity to the organization. So geography, i think, in my opinion, could potentially play a knopper tune ity here into linkage. So if you really a small non-profit and you serve a very small geographic area um, you know, is this prospect living in that geographic area, or do they live somewhere else in your state? But maybe they have an interest in funding your type of cause. So, you know, i do think that that geography can play a role in this as well. Okay, okay. Um also the e-giving history, right? In terms of our their their closeness to the organization, another way of measuring that is how often and at what level have they been giving and how regularly, absolutely and, you know, we’ve all heard of the stories in the press, right of people who passed away, they leave a lot of money to an organisation, they were on ly donors that say very modest levels, but they were consistent, right? So they zsystems long time donors and and, you know, i’m preaching to the choir was talking to you about this, tony, but, you know, certainly passed e-giving history is even if even if the gift amounts have not been very high, i really do think you have to take into account that longevity how long they’ve been with you? Yes, on dh that’s particularly true looking for potential donors in planned e-giving but yeah, that that committed person who’s been giving and, you know, maybe you’ve heard me, you probably have because we’ve we’ve done seven hours together say that, you know, even if it’s ten dollars, a year or ten dollars, a couple of times a year, but they’ve been doing it for for a long, long time, like eight out of the past ten years or twelve or fifteen out of the past twenty years i mean, that’s ah, that’s a lot that’s a that’s, a really committed person, even at low, low level. So you want to consider them as potential? Maybe not for what you might consider a major gift, but certainly for potential volunteering planned gift or maybe moving them up the the e-giving in the giving ladder, you know, that consistency is really important, irrespective of the size of the gift. Yeah, alright, thanks, maria. So you know, i would agree with you, right? You’re you’re on safe ground. Yeah. Course. Plus, i i feel bad. I feel bad about my rant about the kevin bacon phenomenon, so i don’t want it. But you know me well enough that you know there’s no harm done. No, i’m intended no harm intended. Maybe harm done, but i didn’t intend any, but i don’t think so. What’s ah, what’s ability all about after linkage. So the a for ability. So really it’s it’s, really? The ability rating is it’s based on their ability of what they can give and not what we think they will give. And so that could be two completely different numbers, right? You might be talking to your board members and your board will say, you know, well, andre, go in either direction. Right? So the conversation might be something like, um, you know, where we really think that this person that we, the board, think this person is certainly capable of contributing to our annual campaign or our capital campaign at a level of, you know, five thousand dollars and, you know, maybe your research reveals that this person, you know, has never given anywhere near that amount. Maybe all of the donations use i’ve ever been able to find out what they give to other organizations in your community. Maybe two hundred dollars, and below. So certainly, you know, you wanted to raid it in that you know appropriately in terms of their ratings for the ability, but it could also be in the other direction so the conversation could be g we think this person capable of donating five thousand dollars and your research reveals that in fact there, you know, they made in the past in the recent past a twenty five thousand dollars, um, commitment to another organization. So knowing that you’re potentially leaving money on the table by not asking for a higher amount. Yes. Okay. Okay. Let’s, uh, let’s go out for our break a little early and if there’s more to say about ability, of course we will. And then we’ll we’ll cover interest, and then we got to put this all together. What the heck do we do with all this info that we’ve got? Stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there? A better way there is. Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. The small midsize shops that’s who were always about i got live listener love, cartersville, georgia. Marquette, michigan, san francisco, california, duncanville, texas cool and carmel, indiana special belated birthday wishes out the carmel, indiana live listener loved to each of you there’s others out there don’t fret if you’re still listening, there’s others out there and more live listener love coming. And of course, we’ve got our podcast pleasantries for everybody listening some other time on some other device unknown to may be many of us, but pleasantries to the ten thousand podcast listeners, and we got more. We got more love coming out, so don’t worry about that affiliate affections. All right, maria, um, anything more that we want to say about ability, that the person’s ability to make a gift, how much we think they can they’re capable of giving now, i think i’ll stay a little bit more about it in the next few minutes after we cover interest, because i want to go over some general levels of ability, so we’ll get into that when we get into the rating, okay, be little mysterious on me. Okay, that’s. All right. Okay, then. Let’s, let’s go to our interest. What is this about? So, really, you know, here we’re trying to understand, you know, if they could really be engaged in the organization, how interested are they? Do they have a specific area of interest, you know, are they connected to you because of a particular passion that they have or maybe there’s something that actually connects them to your program? You know, maybe you serve people with disabilities, and they have ah, family member, a close family member who is, you know, has disabilities and may or may not be using your services currently, you know, so what happens here is that, you know, way understand their interest so that we can fulfill a need that they have to make the world a better place. Um, and then, you know, they’re really going to be only too happy to invest in your mission or your services or your building campaign or, you know, whatever other major campaign you’re doing, perhaps an endowment campaign or a legacy planned gift campaign. So, you know, you’re really looking to fulfill a need that they have understand what they’re interested in and helping them fulfill their mission. So, you know, having a general idea of what they’re interested in is certainly going to come into play in your overall research right now, someone could be, you know, very closely connected under linkage and have very high ability, but maybe maybe they’re not connected. Maybe maybe they’re not well now, if they’re not, if they’re connected, there wouldn’t be uninterested. Let’s see, i guess around my point is someone could be very high in one or two of these, but quite low in another one that’s, right? Like maybe interest, maybe interest is very high ability is very high, but linkage, nobody knows them, they’re not connected to us at all, exactly. And then and then what do we do there? We’ve really got to find a path to that individual because, you know, if they have ah, hi ability than it’s pretty darn likely that you’re not the only person knocking on their door trying to get a gift. And now this can also apply for foundations and corporations to right. This is not just individual ratings or what you know, i want to apply this more. For individual ratings. But, you know, i suppose it could certainly apply for for foundations and corporations as well. So much of what i focus is on is individuals, but i think you could probably apply this very same formula to your foundation, corporations and corporations. I’m thinking, especially local businesses, local corporations. I mean, i guess it could apply for bigger ones too. But, you know, if your if your campaign is around cultivating local local business people, and then i think these things would apply equally. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we got are lei i laid out. Now what the heck we could do with this. Okay, so well, let’s talk about a typical rating system and how you would potentially callie up some points because what we’re trying to do here ultimately is trying to figure out who are our best prospects. Where should we be focusing our time? So this is a very general number that you might suffer in this rating process is going involved. Mathematics? Yes, very simple math, because, look, i’m not a math person either. All right, you’re probably more of a math person than maybe implant giving. You have to. Do division. No, i think i really think it’s just straight up addition. Alright. Additions. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Especially as long. There’s. No log. Arrhythmic found formulas or no, no, nothing like that. Okay, the total number of points that you can get is fifteen. Okay, your absolute best prospect is going to be raided. A fifteen. And this is how it breaks out. By the way, i got this off of a document that i found on a peace website. So if you just google les i principal it’s probably one of the first three hit that you’ll get on google lay our principal. Okay, but can we also get you? Teo posted as a comment on the on the facebook page. Takeaway here it’ll be up by three thirty or forty no around four o’clock eastern today. Could you do that? Sure. Thank you. Alright, so go ahead. So fifteen so linkage. So you’re going to go from a score of zero through four xero would be if there’s absolutely no record of giving and no contact with that donor that they’re rated xero for linkage. Okay, alright. So there’s? Yeah. There’s what i was talking about before somebody could be very low in something, okay, you’re xero now you said, xero four, can you do one to five? Um, well, for purposes of the download that i got from a p, it went from zero to four, so one would be if they made a pledge, but no gift, or maybe a one time or a memorial gift. Your organization. I’m just making trouble. All right? Xero will still xero before i prefer one to five, but we’ll go with yours. Okay, good. Um, two would be if they relapsed, or just an occasional donor. Your organization three would be if there are frequent donor let’s, say annually, but number four would be if there are frequent or current major gift donor-centric. The best would be five since i since i said at the outset, we have a maximum of fifteen points. We’d have to kind of stick with xero through four rating system for the purposes of this discussion anyway. Oh, so they’re not all going to be zero to four then, okay? Because correct, because that would only be twelve c i can multi actually multiplied, actually. Just multiplied three times for so you know, so give me a break. All right? All right. So go ahead. Now. Ability. We have different now. How many? How many do they break out to ability xero what? Seven. Okay. Let’s. Just seven. Okay. Ah, let’s. Just let’s. Just sample them a little bit let’s, not read all seven categories. Okay, so there will be if they’ve given you from one to twenty four hundred dollars, a four would be somewhere between fifty and nine. Ninety nine thousand dollars on day seven would be five hundred thousand and above all right. But of course you would. You would scale that to your organization if your largest if the largest gift you’ve ever gotten is one hundred fifty thousand dollars, no point in having half a million dollars on your scale. Right. So you scale, you scale your scale appropriately scale the scale. All right. I hope you haven’t from with this, because i am. I don’t know if i can’t tell if you are, but maybe it’s, maybe it’s tze pretty new to me, so i’m enjoying it. Okay, what do we do? S o that’s xero to seven for ability. You’re recommend, right? So we got four and seven. Eleven. So the next one must only go xero toe four. Yes, exactly. Xero for instruction at that time, i did subtraction. All right, go ahead. Interested xero no interest, no knowledge or very minimal knowledge. Okay. In your organization, on at the other end of the scale of four would mean that they’re actively involved in your organization. They volunteer. Or perhaps they’re aboard, or even a past boardmember right? Or maybe think about even a past honoree. So so for many organizations where an annual gala within an honoree is is somebody you know, if you haven’t honoree like that, certainly they would have had some more in depth connection to your organization. Hopefully, yes. Okay. There’s a good ones. Especially. Honoree that’s that’s one people might not have thought of, but all right, it’s it’s cool. All right, so we have totals in each of our three categories. I’m guessing we’re going to add these up, right? So then you would add them up. And as i said, you have a maximum of fifteen. So now you have some decisions to make, right? Like, what is that minimum score that your organization is going to need to have in place before you put that person into a a pipeline for one on one cultivation and solicitation? Right? Because you’re only gonna have, you know, so much staff and or so many board members committed to helping you reach out to do some of these major gift solicitation efforts. You know, you have to figure out how many prospects can we end up with that’s going to be manageable? Because if you give somebody an unmanageable number than people get overwhelmed and what’s gonna happen, they’re probably not going to do an awful lot. No, you know what i look? You know what i love about this is for small and midsize shops. This replaces what could be a very expensive wealth screening process and, you know, the compay cos teo to do that for you, and then they’ll stratify you’re prospects on dh. Then you’ll you’ll proceed from there, but this is for for smaller shops, you know, there’s time involved in doing the research here, but but if you could do that, um, it’s a way of stratify ing your prospects and then you got your you got your what was the top score again? Fifteen. You got your you got your fifteen toe, you know, maybe you’re fifteen to thirteen is your top prospects and then twelve to ten. Obviously, second tier, you know, but you stratify and then you apply resource is appropriately. Does that sound that’s unreasonable? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned well screening. And even if you had or are planning to have a wealth screening done that’s really going to help answer that that a part of ability helpyou, stratify where they could potentially be giving to you. So, you know, maybe you know about linkage to your organization. Maybe you know, about interest and maybe a wealth screening. Is what’s going to help you really flesh out what their ability is? Without, you know, doing major in depth research like i would normally dio i mean, you know, if you’ve got access to a wealth screening product, definitely see what the what the screening rating is going to be, even on that process through the product that you’re using. Okay? All right, so you’re now you were saying that i guess there’s a threshold may be below which you would not apply resource is, you know, maybe it’s i don’t know, i think it would depend organization by organization, but like, maybe it’s five or seven or something below a scorer now that my reaction to tony was maybe a five or seven for a small organization where, you know, you really have very limited manpower, both on staff and volunteer side. Um, yeah, you don’t want to discount anybody have again, you have to apply resource is smartly, exactly every potential, you know, every potential donorsearch can’t be can’t be pursued, but you know what else this does? It helps you see where you might have weaknesses with prospect, who would otherwise be strong. So in our example, you know, if ability and interests are high but linkages low and that puts the person below whatever you’re cut off is let’s say, it’s seven there i did division again, i was taking half the score. I’m like my mathematics game if there’s seven or below, but that’s, because they’re linkage is really low, but ability and interest are are doing well, then, you know, maybe now you’ve identified somebody who you want to try to get close to the organization and maybe that doesn’t take so much to do, you know, you know what i mean? Yeah, exactly. And it could be just, you know, a matter of sitting around and and having a very concentrated development committee meeting where you’re able to then try and figure out. Okay, look, these are our prospects that rated pretty highly for ability and interest if we could only determine what the linkage piece is, you know, so and that’s that would be a really good exercise to engage your board members in the fund-raising process because it’s still part of the process, right? It’s it’s just that there may be not involved in the direct ask because, sure, there are certainly a lot of board members who say i’ll do anything for you in the development process just don’t make me do the ad, so this is a a terrific way to engage them in the fund-raising process, and maybe they would get excited about, you know, getting out, doing some of those ass also interest mean ability, we’ve gotta face it ability is not much organization could do around ability, but interest, like if linkage is high ah, an ability is high, but the person just hasn’t shown a lot of interest. Maybe now maybe they’re not interested so that, you know, i have to consider that possibility. They just may not be interested, but if you’re not convinced that that’s the case, you know, maybe there’s some program or something that you can use as a connection and use your linkage, their relationship to try to get that person more interested in your work because they they rated low in that in that part, right, that that would be a great use of a cultivation event, for example, san, is that pool of people i’m seeing this as a way not to just stratify people, but also identify where weaknesses are with with potential donors and where you might apply. Some resource is to get them rated hyre in your l a i system? Absolutely. All right, we got another minute or so. Is that right, sam got? Yeah, just another minute or so, maria, you wantto leave us with something around l a i well, you know, good research is really what enables matching the prospects with e-giving opportunities, right again, as i said, so you’re fulfilling a need that they have to make the world a better place. So e i think if you just sort of keep that at the forefront of everything that you’re doing using the lazy eye principle, um, and always making sure that everything that you’re doing in terms of your communications, any engagement that you have with people, make it his donor-centric a possible it’s, not about you the organization. Okay, ultimately, yes, it is. But when you’re talking with people it’s, it’s trying to find that point of engagement that’s really going to get them excited and motivated and really want them to make an investment in your cause. Maria simple, the prospect finder dot com and at marie a simple thank you very much. Maria semple. Great. Thanks a lot. Always a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Hope you don’t mind that i had some fun with the l a i i don’t think so. You don’t take that stuff personal. Tony, take two and crowdfunding legal tips coming up first opportunity collaboration it’s a week long unconference in x top of mexico in october, around poverty alleviation, it’s structured but it’s, unstructured it’s structured with lots of unstructured time. So you, khun may connections and get to know the people who can help you with your work. There’s over three hundred people there you meet over meals. Drink. You mean in the ocean i had i had meetings with two women who became guests of the show we met in the ocean. It was nina chanpreet core and lena srivastava. They were on after i met them in the ocean. Well, we met on land, but then we planned our meeting for in the ocean. Um it’s ah, no power points, no keynotes. Every session is in a circle very collaborative. And i think you’re getting a sense of how it’s, not like other conference, is much better. I loved it last year and i’m going again this year in october opportunity collaboration, dot net non-profit radio is going west. We headed to phoenix actually leave tomorrow. Phoenix, l a san francisco, and in portland if you’re in any of those areas or between l a and san francisco, because i’ll be driving, then ah let’s, try to meet up my itinerary and video are at tony martignetti dot com third sector today. That’s ah, site run by amy davina. She has lots of contributors, including marie, a sample i was going to ask maria simple about that i’m going to see if she’s defecting the third certain sector today i doubt it, but she was on. Was it contributed to third sector today? Um, they have tips, strategy’s, good ideas for non-profits they are at third sector today dot com and they are at third sector today on twitter, but the third is the number three, of course that’s thea arabic number three not the roman numeral three don’t do ii rd do at arabic number three rd sector today on twitter use the arabic number that’s tony’s take two for friday, twenty second of may twenty first show of this year and now i’m very glad. That gene takagi is with me he’s, the managing editor of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, he edits the popular non-profit lob log, dot com and on g tack on twitter. He is gi tak, which is much easier than third sector because there’s no arabic numbers to explain whether used the arabic or the roman. Aggie tak, welcome back durney great to be back. Thank you, and i’m looking forward to seeing you on my west coast trip in ten days or so. Absolutely, yeah, we’re going to sit down that’ll be a pleasure. Um, you’re concerned about our brand in our name and there’s, a legal issues you want people to be aware of around the very popular crowd funding sites, right? And i’m actually picking up off your conversation with aimee semple ward of and ten last week last night. Yes, you are. Ah, and you know amy and you discuss sort of the differences between an individual raising funds for a charitable purpose, like for the victims of of the earthquakes in nepal and a charity actually raising funds, and amy was pointing out how individuals through go fund me had actually raised almost double. What a big charity half for that. And so i just wanted to work off that a little bit about about saying, well, when people give a contribution to an individual, even if it’s for charitable purposes, there is no charitable deduction for that gift. Where if they make the donation to a charity, that’s using a crowd funding site named this’s done properly, they can get a deduction for the gift of doom, or little little intricacies involved. But that’s a huge difference. Okay, wait now, if we give to an individual’s crowd funding campaign. But as amy and i were talking about there’s, there’s, there’s pretty simple ways of getting the money directly to the charity so that the individual doesn’t doesn’t have to pass it on and and then so if we so if the person has that set up, and then we get an acknowledgement from the charity, can’t we get a can we get a charitable income tax deduction that way? Yeah, that would be where an individual is authorised by the charity to represent the charity and set up the crowd funding site. But much of crowdfunding is done by individuals who are just doing it for charitable purposes, and amy mentioned example of somebody saying, well, you know, i have friends who are on the site in the paul, and if we get them the money, they can help victims immediately, directly themselves, and it doesn’t have to go through any bureaucracy, all right? Okay, well, that’s not using a charity and they’re not going to get a receipt from a charity for that type of donation. There was a fire in san francisco. I believe it was last month and a ninja vigil wanted to raise funds. Really? Charitably inclined, well intended on. And what he did was he raised one hundred fifty thousand, which he had no idea he was going to raise that much. I think he was planning to raise a few thousand to help some of the victims of that fire. He raised one hundred fifty thousand dollars. And, of course, if you give it to an individual, that the individual has no power to say that you gave it to a five, twenty three organization, and therefore you get no deduction. Okay, okay, i see. I see the distinction. Yes, all right. We also need to be aware of who is raising money under our name. Yeah, absolutely. So if charities are involved in an individual says to you, well, i’d like to raise money for your project, and i want to use a crowd funding site. The game has got that problem about, well, whether the charity is actually the named recipient on the crowdfunding site for the donations or where the individual is, and the individual’s own account is collecting the money, and then the individual man transferred that money to the charity again, you have the problem of the donor getting no receipt from the charity because the donation the check wasn’t actually to the charity was, too the crowdfunding site sort of processor that’s going to the individual and not to the charity it all unless that set up separately so that that the charity is the recipient and the individuals is basically just the agent, whether an employee or a volunteer that set it up for the charity that the donor has got to really beware of that, and of course, donors have to be where if they ever give two individuals because maybe doesn’t go to the victims of the earthquake in nepal are the victims of the fire in san francisco. Maybe itjust goes into somebody’s pocket, and you don’t really know how, because that may never get reported that’s true and and on the charity side, it seems like it would be its worth is investigating to see whether your name is being used by people that you haven’t authorized. Yeah, but how can we do that? That’s a great point, i think the easiest way to do it is just to google the charity’s name once a while, and you might even google it with the term crowdfunding just to check to see if anybody is started. A crowdfunding campaign with the name of your charity, but you’re actually not seeing any of those funds, and sometimes when they have checks, go out to the acronym of your charity. It’s very easy to set up before profit business with the same acronym and have all the funds go into that account. So fraud is a possibility, like when when you’re giving crowdfunding sites. So you want a cz a donor again? You want to be really careful about making sure that any donation that you make through a crowd funding site is actually going to the chair. I never thought of that setting up. See, i’m not a savvy thinker like these criminals are, and frankly, i never thought of incorporating a business that has the same initials as ah, as a charity as a big time charity and then and then collecting checks. Yeah, it’s actually a good tip for internal controls of the own organization because any volunteer or employee that handles cheques could also do the same thing with acronyms. So be very careful about that in your internal control you mentioned doing searches, but, you know, even severe way is and i i think every organization should do this is have alerts set for your name, whether it’s google alerts now, some time ago, maria and i talked about how google alerts were not really being not very sophisticated, and we weren’t even sure they were still supported. But there are other alert it’s companies that are free, they’ll give you a free like mention dot net is one that i use for my name and also for the hashtag non-profit radio and they give you a couple for free. Then. After that, you have to pay. But i think it’s, very smart. And then i have other alerts for my company and the show name and everything. I think it’s very smart to have alerts set for your organization name so that you you find out when it pops up real, you know, real time or near real time buy-in blog’s or on sites or, you know, wherever i think that’s fantastic advice in the press. Yeah, probably somebody might write about you in the press. Yeah, so all right, but from a risk management perspective, too. All right, gene pool. Uh, and, you know, beyond even the deductibility donation issue, if somebody’s using your name out there and harming it in any way your, you know, the loss of the value of your brand and the trust of the community is far more can be far more important than any loss of deduction by don’t. Yes, for sure, we’ve talked about that reputation. Um, what if we’re thinking about a cz, an organization engaging on a crowd funding site? We’re thinking about having a campaign, maybe it’s around an event, maybe it’s around a program or a building whatever it is. What? What? What tips? You have fur going about this dahna great question. And there there are so many crowdfunding sites out there. There are few that people are are well aware of who you are. Many people are well aware of, like kickstarter and indeed go go, go fund me or just a few of those, but there are literally thousands of crowd funding sites out there now, and you want to make sure that you’re connected. If you do connect with a crowd funding site that you’re connected with a very good one with very strong reputation with the clear understanding of what the terms are of the agreement and what type of seas they may be collecting, they also may be regulated if they’re providing fund-raising solicitation service gettinto, you’re getting into the whole morass now with the charity registrations, charity solicitation, registration morass yeah, which you’re an expert at, you know, if you know if there’s soliciting for you, if they’re controlling or receiving any money on behalf of your charity, and not just threw a payment processor like paypal, but they’re actually controlling it in one of their account or even if they’re advising you as to what to put in the content of your fund-raising solicitations, then they may be regulated as a commercial or professional fundraiser, or is fund-raising council basically anybody that’s soliciting or providing advice to the charity on solicitations and that’s, a regulated, regulated area that they’re gonna have to think about registering not only in the state in which they might be located, but in any state in which they’re engaging in felicitations without spending that could be all states so that’s something to be very careful now that okay, let’s, let’s, be careful now. That would be a burden if they were considered. And of course, the laws vary state by state. This is why it’s such a huge morass. I was going to use an expletive, but we’re on too many terrestrial affiliates. I can’t do that but it’s a morass. Okay, so because the different state laws but if a crowd funding site operator was considered a commercial now i lost it a fund-raising fund-raising counsel or you are a professional solicitor. Then you’re saying that that site would have to register, right? Yeah. That’s like would have to register. And the charity actually has some responsibility as well to make sure that they’re not engaging in a contract with a commercial fund-raising professional fundraiser fund-raising solicitor fund-raising counsel that is not registered, right? Well, then there’s disclose yes, the organization has the obligation in a lot of states to disclose those relationships and also teo disclose the start of any solicitation campaign using one of those individuals or companies, right? Right, whether it’s, crowdfunding or not, but let’s try to stick with crowdfunding, alright, i don’t wanna lose anybody here, okay, that for that morass, i think that’s as deep as we can go, but you have a but let’s give you a shout out. You have an article on this not that we’re wrapping up or anything, but on this solicitation and solicitation registration issue and on the issue that that the crowdfunding site operators could be considered fund-raising council, et cetera. Right? You have some blood post on that right at non-profit law block dot com? Yeah, definitely. If you just do a search on the block sight on crowdfunding, you’ll see a number of articles. Okay, some of them discussed that issue. Okay. Excellent. Right. But let’s weigh. Just have a minute and a half, by the way, before our break. Let’s, let’s, look at some other tips. I mean, if you’re if you’re going out to a crowd funding, you’re evaluating crowd funding sites. What what other things should you be looking about? Well, i think you want to look at how the system works, though some crowd funding sites are actually set up, his donor advised funds and that’s where their charities themselves and if they are charity themselves, what they’re going to do is they’re going to take the donation, which is going to be made in their name, and they’re going to take the advice of the donor to re grant it to your charity, but they actually don’t have the legal obligation to re granted to your charity. In that case, the only time when that’s really at risk if your charity happens to be in trouble, basically with the irs and spider onesie, tree status is in dispute or the attorney general is thing you’re doing something unlawful, then the crowdfunding site that’s a donor buy-in fund may decide that it’s not going to re granted to your charity and still re granted toe another organization with the same charitable purpose. So that’s. One thing to think about is what type of entity, whether the charitable entity or for-profit, ended the year crowdfunding site. Alright, let’s, we’ve got to go out for our break. We got some more tips that gene will share and got you some more live listener love, so stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked. And naomi levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests are there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m peter shankman, author of zombie loyalists, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Time to send affiliate affections to all our affiliates around the country, especially jet out for k y our s. But all the affiliates love the am fm stations that are part of the non-profit radio. I don’t know, empire is that? Is that overstating it is ah, network. Maybe network is more appropriate. Empire maybe empire in june. By then it’ll be an empire. Let’s uh, let’s do more live listen love new bern, north carolina and tuscaloosa, alabama live listener love out to you and let’s go abroad. We have ah couple in japan, okazaki. And also super imahara, japan. Konnichiwa, brahma, sweden is with us. Welcome brahma, sweden. I don’t i don’t know how to say in your language, what’s the closest i can get our union. Yes, germany. Guten dog. But i know you don’t speak german in sweden and cerini i i know that but that’s that’s about the closest i can come. But i do know that seoul, south korea, multiple, as always on io haserot italy is with us, but i can’t see the city. Italy. I don’t know what you’re always masked. I don’t know you, roma. Vanessa. Uh, not really, gioia. Tauro, one of the chinchilla terra cities manure ola real majority i’ve been to all of them i wish i knew where you were, but live listen love to italy and also moving up north to ontario, canada sudbury live listen, love there also sorry jean had too little world tour. I hope you don’t mind that i love hearing where all the listeners in-kind that’s cool, is it? Yes around world. Unbelievable. Brahma, sweden i love that. Um, okay, more tips for evaluating on dh comparing potential crowd funding sites that we might use? Sure, i mean, one of the things that you have to look at is whether the crowdfunding site has rules about making a charitable contributions through their sight or not. So kickstarter doesn’t allow for general unsupportive solicitation and sorry, i’m restricted solicitations you have to solicit for a particular project starter, okay, so if you solicit for particular project now, you’re raising just restricted funds and not unrestricted funds. So you’ve got to make sure that you’re counting systems and that your your infrastructure is is ready to support that. You also have to figure out whether you’re issuing the proper type of receipt. To donors. So in kickstarter, again, if you’re raising for a particular project and tip what is very typical for kick starters, you raise funds and you give something to the donor or the or the contributor to the campaign in return for that a right, too, the first production of a book or were some some benefit there? So now you’ve got a quid pro quo contribution potentially if it’s not just the low cost of minimus item and you’ve got an issue, a proper receipt to that donor that says, well, here’s, your gift of one hundred dollars, but you received something of value of twenty five dollars, in return. Therefore, duck double portion of that payment is seventy five dollars. Something like that has got to be given to the donor, and if the crowdfunding site isn’t able to facilitate the charity to be ableto offer those proper quid pro quo disclosure statements, then you’ve got a problem. You just gotta make sure that your crowd funding sites are where the charity laws well, okay, there’s also a potential fees the side to make money sometimes off the off the money that’s raised so there’s feet potential and then also donors in formacion some of the sights will not share the donor information with you, ray, which is, which is a problem in fees. Yes, you do want to compare fees to make sure that they’re not exorbitant in relation to the type of campaign that you want to conduct. And it also may indicate whether the crowdfunding site operators operating with in-kind of the ethical parameters that charity’s think that they operate. And so for example, if a crowd funding site and i don’t believe any of the major ones do this. But if a crowd funding site is saying, we want to take a portion a percentage of your donations that let’s say exceeds ten percent or twenty percent, that that may really be a problem, and you may actually run into other regulated areas if you start to take a exorbitant fees where you’re actually sharing donations with a for-profit entity oh my yeah, i could see trouble there. Ok, ok, go ahead. Sorry, but typical a credit card processing fees three and a half percent on goff often there’s kind of ah, crowdfunding site c to provide that platform for you and then the credit card processing the to taking those donations. So, you know, anywhere, uh, you know, three to four to five percent for each of those things are a total of up to ten percent. It’s probably pretty common amongst the big crowd funding site operators. Okay, okay, privacy issues, right? There’s the issue we just mentioned are they sharing the donor information with you but privacy information? What are they doing with the data? People’s people’s data? Yeah, absolutely. And that’s another issue about whether they’re regulated, professional or not. So without diving into that too deep, if they’re really just providing the platform for you, they have to disclose your donors. And if they’re not willing to disclose your donors, you have a problem because that that information you’re entitled to and in many cases, you may have to report that if it’s a large contribution to the i r s as well so that’s that’s just ah, something that you need. I think when a charity uses a crowd funding site in terms of protecting the privacy of the donors, you do absolutely want to take a look at the crowd funding site operators privacy policy tto find out whether the donors that are contributing there are are going to be now subject to a bunch of others similar campaigns and have their emails splendid with solicitation or whether they’re going to give up other, you know, information that might create both legal or just a donor relation problems for your charity. We just have about a minute and a half left one minute actually left. Just today in the chronicle of philanthropy, i saw the minnesota attorney general suing a company called savers, and they’re they’re a brick and mortar store, and they give part of their part of the revenue or from items they sell goes to charity. But the charity’s aren’t being sued, but they’re being named and he was, like disabled american veterans, absolute epilepsy foundation, lupus foundation. So, you know, this is all related to your point that reputation could be out there even if you’re not doing something wrong. Yeah, and why you talked about monitoring how your organization is being used? Because sometimes and they don’t know about this particular case, but sometimes a commercial code venture, which is a little bit of a jargon the term but any for-profit that uses the charity’s name to say, well, if you buy from us will give a portion of the proceeds to this charity may be done without your knowing it as a charity, not knowing that they’re using your name and they should obviously be be letting you know that that’s happening. But you you do have a responsibility as a charity to make sure that, you know, when somebody’s conducting a campaign like that, we have two reportedly on your behalf. Jane, we have to leave it there. I thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you in ten days or so. Jean takagi at g tack on twitter and the non-profit lob log dot com thank you very much, gene. Thanks, tony. See, you bet next week to ntcdinosaur views emerging tech trends and now get buy-in if you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com where else would you go? Opportunity collaboration with world convenes for poverty alleviation. It’s outstanding and it’ll ruin you for every other conference opportunity collaboration dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff sound. Liebowitz is on the board as the line producer shows. Social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein. I love when he affirms what i just said. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. 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Nonprofit Radio for May 15, 2015: Creating Communities & Questioning Crowdfunding

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Megan Keane, Michael Wilson, and Joe ProsperiCreating Communities

Starting an online community to engage supporters is a big investment. Learn how NTEN, Small World Labs and Relay Nation at American Cancer Society created communities that increase loyalty, fundraising, engagement and return on mission. Guests are Megan Keane, Michael Wilson and Joe Prosperi. We talked at NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

Amy Sample Ward: Questioning Crowdfunding

Picture of Amy Sample WardCrowdfunding is popular, but don’t jump in just because lots of others have. How do you decide if it’s right for your organization? Amy Sample Ward is our social media contributor and CEO of NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with four uncles and carb uncle’s if i had to hair that you missed today’s show creating communities starting an online community to engage supporters is a big investment. Learn how in ten small world labs and relay nation at the american cancer society created communities that increased loyalty fund-raising engagement and return on mission guests are meghan keene, michael wilson and joe prosperi. We talked at ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference and questioning crowdfunding crowd funding is popular, but don’t jump in just because lots of others have. How do you decide if it’s right for your organization? Amy sample ward is our social media contributor and the ceo of n ten the non-profit technology network on tony’s take two non-profit radio on the road and third sector, responsive by opportunity collaboration that working meeting on poverty alleviation that will ruin you for every other conference here is creating communities from auntie si. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen non-profit technology conference it’s day two we are in we are in austin, texas, at the convention center. My guests now are meghan keene, membership director for inten michael wilson, ceo of small world labs, and joe prosperi, digital lead for relay for life at the american cancer society. Meghan michael, joe, welcome. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Pleasure. Pleasure to have you your workshop topic. These online communities proinspire action and generate results. We’re going to get there in a second. First, i just want to point out that each interview today on day two, i’m highlighting on intense swag item. And i’ve got my zippered hoody. This is hi this’s, one of the high high end items, zipper pretty from from donorsearch. Welcome. Don’t drive, teo and ten peer-to-peer sec. Is that what they do? All right, it goes, it goes in our swag pile an outer growing pile. It is doing it all day today and i get that it’s eight eleven interviews yourself today. So good stash. Alright, let’s, build some online communities that inspire action and generate results. Um, where’s, the where’s the best place to start let’s, start down in the end there, joe, where should we start? With determining whether? It’s appropriate for us to build an online community, whether that’s really going to suit the needs of our organization, that is that a good place? Yeah, i think what’s really interesting to point out is that really for any of us that are non profit organizations, we already have community, you know, it’s already there we’ve got volunteers, we have staff, we have supporters, we have donors, those communities are already there, and how do we turn those digitally into online communities? And some of the most of organizations already have that whether it be a facebook community twitter community but the american cancer society, we decided a while a couple years ago that we really need to have a vault, a place where all of our top engaged volunteers are top supporters are kind of the big fish in terms of really, if her life had a place to gather in a place to share ideas, get inspiration from it mostly from a peer-to-peer fund-raising standpoint, but we also noticed throughout time that our community has grown too a peer-to-peer engagement place and a peer-to-peer inspiration place where we’re not relying on the american cancer society telling the story of what the american cancer society does. We’re relying on our supporters to do it for us within our community. Okay, michael let’s. Still stay at the overviews stage of community building? Yes. So when would you do it? So he’s really? Just an engagement platform. So i think similar to how email is a communication ty phone isn’t a communication like joe was saying. We have we have communities. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, just really late. You know, do do you want your communication to be isolated and one toe one like phone and e mails? Or do you want it to be many too many so in that regard, it can work and, you know, virtually any environment when you take the next step of okay, so is it going to work in this situation or for this program or for this constituency base? We generally try to look at the product of three things. So one is size so what’s the potential audience size two is what would they be able to do together? So the types of interactions that they could have at three what’s the affinity. So what is the relative similarity between each? Person that’s going to join because the hyre that affinity rate is the mohr relevant? Every thing is everybody there on and then yes, it’s floors for a fourth of that eyes the value. So how important is what they’re doing in the community to their daily lives? And so in that regard, you can have communities that are very small that are successful, that are very small in terms of potential audience, but high an affinity and high in value. Or you can have the flip side where you can have, you know, community of successful because they reach a large number of people, but they don’t have actually have that many that much in common. Facebook okay, okay, megan, about this threshold question whether we should be doing it. Yeah, well, when one thing that i think is always really important to look at is to look it like where people already are, you know, go do a little bit of hunting and kind of see, like, okay, who are the people you’re trying to reach? You know what? Platform? So they aren’t engaging on and that’s get indicated for you is like goto where they are already. Having those conversations are, you know, think about where you know where to reach him. So just doing a little bit of mapping and kind of seeing okay, are there conversations happening and kind of seeing what the landscape is and then seeing how how do you want to kind of be? How do you want to sort of guide that guide that bill? You know, if you will, you know, in terms of whether that’s thinking about your having community on your own platform, or having some other kind of group channel, that would be appropriate. Okay, interesting. Yeah. So i feel like i kind of started the wrong the wrong place because you all three made different points. But one similarity running through is the community’s exist in one way or another. We’ve got them. How? How robust can they be? How can they be built out? What methods do you want to use for the communications? Okay. Well, that’s cool. I’m i’m happy to stand suddenly corrected. Nobody is what he said it explicitly. I’m happy to do it. Ok. Where should we go next? In this community building topic what’s. Ah, if we do wantto billed out and make something special beyond what we where we are, where do we where do we get started? Something that might be helpful is we have a few community experts here that maybe could talk a little bit about what they’re doing to do to build community in their specific organisation. Ten and a cs to relay for life. Yeah, good. Megan, you want to? Yeah, sure. So one thing that we do it in ten and ntcdinosaur part of this is we really try to combine a lot of opportunities for people to network and connect and do some community building activities and sort of finding a combination of the online and the offline. So auntie si is a perfect example of, like, you know, what happens when you get a bunch of people in the right place having conversations and having an in person kind of community building, and then we really try to kind of keep that moment i’m going through some of the, you know, the online kind of community building, and so we’ve done that in terms of groups and what we have in anti seizure years, we have birds of a feather lunch. Which are lunch is for anyone who wants to meet on about a certain topics. So it’s a great way to break the ice because you automatically have something in common with someone else. So we’ve had every birds of a feather start that were women in tech table at lunch, there was another one that was a bunch of people that work at food banks, and some of those have led teo becoming more formalised communities of practice that exist online. So, for example, a year ago, we had a bunch of people howto birds of a feather table that was on arts non-profit group, and it has since become a community, a practice that has that lives on intense community platform and they meet on a monthly basis online or sometimes they have twitter chats in between the anti c and then they’re meeting up again this year. I want to explain what the inten community of practices yeah, eso our community to practice our our affinity group so it’s very similar to like thinking of like a bird of a feather in person thing on lee, it exists online on these groups will have discussions that take place in forums and usually will have some method of kind of connecting, whether that’s on, you know, on a monthly basis, whether that’s via tweet shot sometimes that’s on and online, you know, some kind of conference call with folks of shared notes, documents of different groups do different things with that, but some have some kind of kind of personal connection but mostly exists online. In between are the communities of practice on ly open toe, and ten members know they’re open to the public. So anyone who wants to join you very good about that, you don’t have to be a member. Yeah, any of our community groups, all you need is a lot in evil address and a password on your good. Excellent. All right, so pretty open ended. Kapin yeah, definitely very, very welcoming. Yeah. Go ahead, please. Joe. Relay for life. Yeah, so our online community is called relay nation and it came about really a couple years ago when we realized we didn’t have a really great way of taking all of the resource is the inspiration that we felt as an organization. We need to get in the hands of our relay. For life volunteers nationwide, you know, really, if life is such a large event, there’s just so many volunteers and they’re in all corners of the country, so getting them together in an online community to connect them to other relay er’s with similar stories, similar ideas, similar struggles even has been very valuable to us, and we’ve realized over the last two years with really nation that it’s not just an opportunity for us to share those resource is with folks, but it’s turned into even more of them, sharing things back to us, and it’s turned into almost a goldmine force in terms of online content, social content stories, videos, all of the things that for a non profit organization really help you tell your story about where the money goes, how the mission impacts people that participate in the event, and we’ve been able to use the really nation to do that. So an example, just a couple months ago, we posted a very simple question in our forum on relay nation and asked what was your moment? What was the moment? It really for life that you’ve got? What this event was all about and within? A couple weeks, we had over two hundred eighty responses from re layers across the country, some, you know, very short stories, some, you know, litanies of pages long of who they really for life for, um and many of those things came with videos and pictures, and we were able to turn a lot of that content into social sharing graphic. So by us asking one simple question in our community, we got lots of responses and lots of stories, and we really put an emphasis back on our relay for life participants telling our story for us because they could tell it so much better than we can as an organization and that’s really been the biggest highlight of having that online community is putting the storytelling of our organization back in the hands of the people that are benefiting from our services that are inspired by the events that they go to and that are, in the end going to recruit and raise more money for the american cancer society. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights. Published once a month, tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. What were the things you were thinking when you decided there’s a need for a community among all these three layers that this sort of maybe some of the symptoms would be helpful for people to understand, but yeah, so we don’t have a variety of nationwide meetings with leadership volunteers, and they always really enjoyed when we got the post event surveys back from those saying we enjoyed visiting with bree layers from other parts of the country in other divisions, other areas because they want to share the best practices as much as i hate that term best practice, it really does drive a lot of what really events dio, and they want to share their struggle. So there’s an event that’s having a tough time recruiting corporate sponsors or finding the right volunteer leadership, it not only allows them to share their concerns and get peer-to-peer feedback instead of staff at the american cancer society coaching these volunteers, volunteers air now coaching each other, and they were doing that in person, and we wanted to facilitate that online and give them a place tohave those shared meeting spaces for like minded volunteers, we have a number of featured groups in our community, so event leads kind of those key leadership volunteers have specific groups where they could just meet network, have forums, share resource is with other event leads all the way down. Two team captains and participants have their own forum specifically for their participation types on that really has been very helpful to one, you know, justified to those people that need assistance, that they’re not alone in the study, on the help that they need with their relay for life fund-raising in participation, and it makes a lot of advocates for us as well, because that peer-to-peer interaction, our volunteers air helping other volunteers which builds their confidence and their appreciation for the cause and their confidence in their leadership abilities, which grows more leaders for us. Michael, is that is that kind of segmentation in a community, and i don’t mean that pejoratively at all. But you know that kind of those kind of divisions where it’s a peer-to-peer is that eso lots of subsets? Is that important? And yeah, it is because when you think about how do you maximize going back to the, you know, the value of community affinity being one and then purpose. What can you do there and segmentation? So who’s the target audience for your community and what is going to be about when they get there helps increase that value. And so because of that, so we generally see it’s more lives, a few different community types and constituent groups that their focus on so one is event peer-to-peer fundraisers, which is where the american cancer society is doing. Another is members for more of like a association that’s what, like the american heart association is doing this with intent was doing another is for advocate. So the national wildlife federation has an online community called ico leaders targeted at student environmental activists, helping them create projects. Another is volunteers ahh par oh, very small organization in north carolina who’s here does all of their volunteer crew ting and matching through community on then the last is a kind of mission support, so for the people that the non-profit is trying to support. So the canadian cancer society is a good example of this. They’ve got a community in french for those in come back that is designed to bring together cancer survivors and those that are supporting them, you know, so that they can go through that challenge together, feel less isolated. So it’s kind of you generally do find in our experience, more success when you do kind of target who communities for and what the purpose is. All right, so you have the umbrella community, says the nation, but but lots of lots of affinity group well built build around different things. It could be geography. Yeah, language, but lots of lots of subsets. Yeah. And even really nation is that example that is targeted. Not for everybody who is on american cancer size email list. That is, for people who actually participate in the peer-to-peer or relay for life, and so that’s one segment and then below that joe is just mentioning they segment and even mohr. So carrion’s yeah, there you go. And that’s how you just helped make it, maura. And then the key there is to make it more relevant, invaluable to people so that they’re not just starting from, you know, the eternity of all space. And how do i find what i’m looking for exactly right now? And ten does a very good job of this. Andi. Carrying it well, geographically, but then carrying it to the meet ups, ted clubs all over the country. Yeah, in fact, internationally? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, similar this week, like we actually have one discussion group, which is, is kind of that sort of bigger group that’s kind of serving a bigger thing. That’s our general discussion list, which is kind of all things non-profit tech related. But then we have the individual, like, on the local level, people organizing the in person five oh, one tug clubs that will have monthly meetings, and then they’ll have an online space in which to connect in between meetings as well. And then the affinity groups i mentioned so it’s kind of similar to what you were. You know, you were saying, it’s, michael, about, you know, the kinds of things that people will connect about. And then how do you kind of narrow in that focus? So you have sort of niche is above sort of the larger what i find. Very interesting at intend those those local clubs is the names are not uniforms, right? Right. Right. Organise that the local organizations free to call itself me it. Could be tech for good maybe, and i see now on the spot, i can’t think of the group c tech friendraising cloudgood your butt you can call yourself whatever you want. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so that’s really where so comes in. I think that you kind of are segmenting indo, like kind of a good point about community building is like, you can kind of think of your community is actually being the driver of your community and you might be the person in, like the driver’s side seat, like kind of taken the steering wheel here and there, you know, to steer in the direction you want to go a little course correction course correction, you know? So you’re still staying on your mission and what your strategies and goals are, but you’re letting it be really self directed and then that way you’re communities really feeling a sense of ownership over it. Joe, what about that self directed communities is now a c s is a big organization? Is it that willing to allow that kind of decentralization alcohol it? Yeah, and it’s interesting, because when we first launched relay nation, it was fairly decentralized where we had just wide open groups that people could create their own user groups based on geography based upon participation tie based upon type of cancer that they were reeling for just a variety of things, and we noticed that we got a lot of groups right off the bat that people signed up and started those groups to try and network and that’s been great. But we realized about a year that we needed a kind of shift focus and provide some feature group some pieces that we’re setting out organizationally to put some resource, is behind moderate a little bit more cleanly and help push our resource is and our strategies out that way because, you know, after a while we noticed that for, you know, relay for life online volunteers that run our websites, there were four or five different groups that were all user generated, that we’re all competing for the same audience. So we picked out those ones that we knew had very large audiences that really applied to everybody across the country added them in a more prominent place on relay nation to make sure that the baseline strategies were out there the baseline. That’s like that’s, like one of the course corrections were just talking about you, and we’ve done a couple of those along the way. We used to have a very close community where you had toe, you know, log in to view all the stuff that’s there, and we realized, you know, again about a year ago that by unlocking that and long people to least read the information that’s there, see the stories, follow the threads, load the videos that we’re getting a lot more traffic that way, and a lot more use of john of the site and had a really great girl are alive because of that, okay? And i’m excellent at what you just said our ally and i was thinking, you know, let’s, let’s, turn the discussion to evaluation and and how do we know if these communities are successful? God, michael, you want to kick us off? Yeah, i mean, this is the this is an area where a lot of communities fall short and it’s not because they’re not achieving it. I think it’s, because of the mix of skillsets background and resource is that community managers have in that if you’re going to g o we’re going to go determine hey, what’s the r a y or if its mission related what’s the rom return on in mission from my community. Jerry lee skillsets of the community manager are to be able to kind of, you know, execute, build engagement, all of those types of things, and that’s a little different from alright, great. Now i’m to do data polls from our fund-raising database on going toe port them together with community data. And then i’m gonna run, you know, ve look ups if it’s an excel or queries, you know, if it’s a date what’s with the look up, we have george in jail on tony. Just you just seriously transgressed. All right? So, look, so we’ll look up is a function in microsoft excel that exactly that allows you to look at one cell and then say, go look in this other range over here and give me the value that corresponds to that it’s kind of a way to do a data base in my ear like myself. Okay. All right. Thank you. Probation probations allowed. So however, the the ability t get that data is there and being able to do so makes a big difference between the resource is that that community your community manager, gets and doesn’t, because, you know, after you started community and a year from now or two years from now, the cfo or whoever is in charge of finance he’s going to come around like, you know, like they should do on any project and go, you know, what’s this doing for the organization and so that’s one area where we, you know from from our perspective, so we’re kind of like a partner we don’t have, like, you know, we’re not a non-profit community provides metoo and that’s where we find that it’s really key to have not only the technology and then the strategy of the community, but also the support model for it so you can do things like, make sure your building engagement, but also run those end of the year r a y announce analyses and so joe, american cancer society, they got some great statistics that all of him share. But when you poll data together, here’s some examples of what you know it has been achieved. The american heart association has a professional online network. For their members, cardiologists, mts, nurses, it joined to be a part of us, they pay dues pre imposed, joining their online community thie upgrade rate from one paid level to another pay level went up seventy three percent, the rate at which people attend their revenue generating events, which are like conferences and sessions when a fifty percent the overall retention rate of members. So i’m a paid member one year. Do i continue to be a paid member of the next year? Ten percent and there are, you know, innumerable other quantitative, quantifiable examples like that, where volunteer hours have been increased two hundred twenty eight percent. I’m an annual giving. Yeah, i’m going to go to the folks who actually here. You don’t have a couple minutes left. Sure. So, joe let’s talk about your your comments on our oh, i do it not not just what you’ve achieved, but your advice for small and midsize non-profits teo to measure it. Yeah. So when we built out what our r o i looked like for real a nation, it was helpful to work with someone like small world labs who on their platform the users are are generated based upon their blackbaud id team, razor and blackbaud is the product we use for online fund-raising platform it relay for life, so we were able to easily export the data from the small world labs platt form where really nation is built and merge it using that constituent i’d with the fund-raising data of our users for relay for life, which makes it really easy for us to see what people that participate in really nation do fund-raising wise registration wise versus people that don’t, and we pulled that data about six months ago, and we’re just i geeked out for hours about it because it was just stunning to see that for people that participate in relay nation have had just one interaction, they’ve shared a one photo. They’ve commented on one forum those folks register on average eighty seven days earlier in the year than people that do not participate in really nation. You know, when you think about that in terms of a non-profit event, you know that’s almost three months that they register earlier there, getting your auto responders going called three months what’s three days, you know, it’s, mind blowing that what the amount of dahna the amounts that helps and to get those people in and fund-raising sooner and recruiting center was amazing. I mean, it wasn’t just their registration, it was they set goals that we’re one hundred twenty, one hundred twenty seven percent hyre i think then people that did not participate in relay nation and they achieve that goal seventy three percent of the time or all right, we gotta go turn to meghan, give her a chance on yeah, so i went again, not just not just what intends achieved, but how to yeah, one thing i would say on r o i is, you know, we’ve talked a lot about numbers, but it’s really good to keep in mind the qualitative parts of roo and so to be in continued discussion with your community and be really taking in that feedback. So we survey our community every year in an annual survey and it’s that kind of, you know? So while there’s some quantitative feedback that we get from that, we also get a lot of qualitative feedback as well, and that really informs our work in our direction for our programs and are content for the year okay. Excellent. Latto surveys, just simple surveys. All right, so now we still have a couple minutes. You were so quick. Anything anything more you want to say? Yeah. I mean, i think i on on that particular thing, i think it’s important to be, you know, when i said with constant, you know, talk, constantly talking to your community, i think it’s also good to not just have it be an annual in annual thing that you’re looking stats like ceo wants to know it’s like to be on a continuing basis, looking at those numbers and be able to course correct along the way and just being really nimble about being willing to change and be flexible with that. Okay, we got we got about another minute or so left. Anybody closing comments on community could be, yeah, i’ll jump in real quick because i think one of the takeaways i always like to share is when we share. These are aligned numbers from the american cancer society with the fellow our fellow staff, we had a ground long conversation about well, do you think that really nation is really driving hyre fund-raising or do you think? That your hyre fundraisers just naturally are migrating to really nation because that’s, what they’re doing, and after a good twenty minute debate, i kind of said, you know what? I really don’t care, you know, if they’re both really great things that we want, we want to provide a space for our highly engaged volunteers to meet and mingle, and we also want to take our less engaged volunteers and drive them to more fund-raising mohr engagement with us more recruiting and be more well rounded volunteers for relay for life. So, you know, i think it’s a good, solid mix of both, so you know, don’t think that necessarily you’re driving eight hundred percent hyre in something you are going to pull in some of those key people that are going to skew that number up a little bit, but it’s also a good thing to provide them. The resource is that they’re obviously seeking excellent. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. They are right. They are meghan keene, membership director for inten michael wilson, ceo of small world labs. And joe prosperi digital lied on relay for life at the american cancer society again thank you and thank you for being with tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen the non-profit technology conference time for live listener love. We got marquette, michigan, st, louis, missouri, new bern, north carolina, new york, new york, multiple san francisco, austin, texas. And langhorne, pennsylvania. That’s s o far part of our domestic live listener love also on twitter madeline nino’s software advice, jean takagi, thank you very much for doing a little live tweeting and, uh and your shout outs to the show and we’ll do a little bit of a broad, but we have ah, lots of listeners abroad would do just a little bit la paz in bolivia, italy, portugal and israel. Sorry, we cannot see your cities but live listener love to you and also in ah in taiwan. Ni hao, podcast pleasantries people in the time shift ten thousands of you listening wherever you are, whatever device, whatever time geever activity you’re engaged in as you’re listening, pleasant trees to the podcast listeners and, of course, those very important affiliate affections were gonna have a new affiliate starting in june. But we love can’t announce it yet. You don’t know exactly what day they’re going to start, but in california so i can, so i’m at liberty to say at this time, but for the everybody ate listening on the affiliates affections out to you, tony, stay two and ah, questioning crowdfunding coming up first, i gotta shout out the opportunity collaboration, our sponsor, the weeklong unconference in x top of mexico around poverty alleviation, it’s for non-profits impact investors, social entrepreneurs, grantmaker sze researchers, academics, corporations all of those entities will be represented there. I’ve seen it firsthand because i was there last year and i’m going this year. Any sample ward is going this year? It’s seventy eight percent sold out last week was only seventy six now. It’s seventy eight i stopped stuff to get my registration it’s selling out. Don’t be slow like me if your work is at all related to poverty reduction alleviation anywhere in the world, check out opportunity collaboration dot net non-profit radio is hitting the road, i’m going to phoenix, los angeles, then i’m going to drive from los angeles to san francisco spent a few days there, and then i’ll be in portland, so if you are close to any of those places, please. Let’s, meet up my itinerary and the video are at tony martignetti dot com third sector today at third sector today. Dot com amy davita runs it and she has lots of contributors. In fact, i met her live at ntc just what, two months ago they block tips, insights, best practices for the community. They have a podcast. Maria semple has been on the podcast stealing my guests just like guidestar did guidestar this past week had a newsletter i got the email newsletter three past guests on the guide star newsletter copying blatant copying non-profit radio it’s gross, but we love it because it’s it’s a flattering to be copied in any case, we’re not we’re talking the third sector today. That’s right, third sector today dot com valuable resource written and curated by very smart folks there run by amy de vida and that is tony’s take two for friday, fifteenth of may twentieth show of the year speaking of n ten and ntcdinosaur portland amy sample ward is the ceo of and ten the non-profit technology network. Our most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement her blog’s amy sample, ward dot or ge? And on twitter she’s at amy rs ward welcome back, amy sample ward hey, how’s it going. Thanks for having me back on. Oh, month after month. It’s a pleasure. You’re very well, thank you. Thank you for doing it all this time. Yeah, it was it was fun. And also strange at the same time to be, you know, listening in on the line muted, of course, and hearing hearing megan and then ten staff person talking, i just kept thinking, oh, i’m talking to megan. Oh, no, i’m not right. And that was all from auntie si, which you and i talk there too. I haven’t played that interview, but we will now intent has as a big announcement coming up next week. What can you share at this moment? Wait, do we have kind of two things going on, one that i can share more spoiler information about? We’ve been working for the last over a year on our new website and sharing that kind of publicly as we go along case studies of ourselves about things that we’re working on. Our things that we need to do is part of ah, website redesign. So we have nine working days until the site should be should be going live. So that’s taking up lots of energy and brain power over here. But then we also have announcement next week that will be on a new program area both kind of online content and educational programs as well as some offline pieces. Okay, okay. Eyes going, toby, is there another annual event coming up like leading change summit and and tc? Yes, the leading change summit is coming up from it. We’re really exciting. You know, last year was the first year that we did it. So we learned a lot about, you know, it’s it’s, a very different process. A ce faras an event, you know, it’s, not a conference. Where there’s lots of sessions happening. There’s no exhibit hall, things like thing, you know, the main kind of components of the non-profit technology conference or other big conferences. But this is more of a facilitated process. So everybody that comes it is kind of, you know, suspending disbelief and and going through this experience together to come out on the other side with more more kind of fully formed ideas. Concepts, new programs, whatever it may be, tio take back to their organization. So we learned a lot last year and have shifted some things around and made it just a lot more hands on. So this year it’ll be in september thirteenth through sixteen in washington d c so registration is open for that. And yeah, we got all kinds of things going on. Okay. That’s leading change summit info is, of course, that in ten dot or ge but that’s not what i was asking you. What i was asking you was, is as part of this new announcement, is there going to be on additional annual event? Is that is that now i’m not doing that, okay? No, but it will be. It will include a program and a delusional opportunities. So, you know, new areas of online programs, but then also ah, deep investment in offline capacity building. All right, all right. We look forward to that next week. And then, of course, on the website side, you and i talked about that just a few weeks ago, we were talking about mobile mobile accessibility and mobile friendliness. I’m pleased to say durney martignetti dot com is now mobile friendly. Look atyou between moving quick. We tweaked it. We did some work. Yes, it is now mobile friendly and i know you’re new and ten site will be also right. Ok? Yes, exactly. All right, let’s, move! Teo. What? We want to talk about our main topic. We lots of topics, but the main one eyes some questions about crowdfunding you were very prominently quoted in on npr blogged, along with other guests, gen shang, professor gen shang she’s been a guest. And sandra miniutti, a charity navigator? Of course. Ken berger, former ceo there was a guest multiple times on the show. So everybody’s stealing the non-profit radio guests remarkable god’s, pure steel. You’re just putting people on the map, tony, we’re i’m a pioneer in the pioneer in transit, so i better watch out for the arrows in my back. Because that’s, what happens to pioneers and the subject of this was the nape all crowdfunding. And you had some thoughts about. Well, i guess we could start with, like, organizational versus individual crowdfunding. Yeah, it’s. Interesting. I just thought that it was potentially an interesting conversation for you and i to have obviously you talk a lot about fund-raising on dh, you know, talking about crowdfunding isn’t necessarily something new to folks that listen to the show. Neither is kind of the rial surge of donations that most people are participating in after a natural disaster, whether you know, whatever country that’s in so that’s not new either. But there there does seem to be some interesting shift happening with the latest natural disaster, the earthquakes in the paul and i think, that’s why there’s been some of these, you know npr articles and others trying to figure out, you know, it’s, not it’s, not the most prominent thing this time to see, you know, text to donate to the red cross like that’s what everybody remembers from a lot of the most recent natural disasters the last few years, right? You know, as soon as something happens, we’re getting the text to donate to the red cross when there was the oil spill, you know, texted, donate teo national wildlife federation, you know, kind of big household organizational names, right? And this time, that’s, of course, happening like there are still those channels to donate to a very large international organizations, but there’s really big surge in in crowd funding efforts that are either totally personal, you know, just individuals setting up a page and some of those individuals they’re setting up fund-raising campaigns, you know, online funding pages that are not benefiting organizations they’re saying, you know, please donate and i will make sure that my parents, who are missionaries in the paul, get all the money and distribute it to villagers or, you know, donate to me, and i will fly over and help myself. So there’s, this kind of individual as the end, has the end relief effort there’s also individuals setting up pages that are directly connected to an organization so much more similar to what organizations are probably used to it they’re doing, you know, a walkathon, and everybody sets up their own fund-raising page, but the page itself is already connected to their organizational account, right? So that all the money is automatically going to them just through the system and then their organization setting that pages, you know, for themselves in the relief efforts that they’re working on. So it’s it’s interesting to see the shift where it isn’t just the red cross or use a i d or unicef, you know, very large international names, but, you know, people are just setting that pages for themselves or i know a friend that lives there, and i will send the money to them and they’ll decide what to do with, you know, and i think that, hey, it’s interesting to think about now, because this may be what it looks like more commonly as we go forward. No, crowdfunding is becoming crowded funding. Exactly. What about these? This is interesting individuals using the organization name. I mean, now you suggested an organ individual might be doing it, and then it goes just through the through the platt for the crowdfunding platform, whatever it might be on then to the organization. But what if it’s an individual using an organization’s name, but they’re not necessarily the infrastructure set up for the decoration to go directly, and they claim i will give it to whatever you know, whatever relief agency it is or something, you know? Yeah, that’s, that’s really a great point, teo, to provide some clarity on, i think it’s organizations or as individuals looking to donate if someone says, you know, i’m don’t worry send send me your money, and i will make sure you know that the red cross gets it. It is it is not. I mean, there’s no accountability and that, right? And if you if you really want to donate, you know, say, tony, you had a page set up and you are my friend and i wanted to support you, so i wanted to donate, you know, to your page because of that, you know, that feels good too. That’s, why we do individual based fundrasing right, like, i want to donate to relief efforts, but i want to do it through, you know, we’re together in this there’s there’s no reason why you couldn’t set that page up in a way that is connected to the red cross, right? So, you know, using most of these vetted, established fund-raising platforms that are are meant for organizations to receive donations. You can, as you’re setting up your page, it’s still in your name? You know, tony, this is my fund-raising page, but using one of these platforms, you can say, i want this to go to the red cross, and the money won’t go to you personally, you know? It really will connect to the red cross is account that they’ve set up in that system on dh if you are looking at a friend, our colleague page, and it says that it’s going to an organization but it’s not connected, you know, i would i would questions their own process to be able to make sure it goes, they’re not that they’re necessarily trying to be malicious, but that, you know, they’re they’re crowdfunding platform setup to facilitate that right? So why wouldn’t you take advantage of it? Yeah, it makes it a little yeah, it raises the suspicion, you know, exactly, it’s interesting. I mean, i’ve even seen, you know, there there are lots of there are so many platforms like you said it’s, a crowded crowdfunding space, and there are lots of platforms set up, you know, for organizations or entities to receive those funds, but then there are platforms that aren’t aren’t set up, you know, their intention is really individuals to receive money like, go fund me and you see people using go fund me to set up a campaign that like a you know example, you before, please donate money and i’ll give it to my parents, who are missionaries in nepal, and they’ll make sure this goes somewhere, but i’ve even seen people saying, hey, my friend, is there on the ground and, you know, they’re not really online because they’re there in the kind of aftermath and continued aftershocks of these earthquakes send me the money and also, and i’ll wire it to them without even using the platform literally just posting on facebook, you know, here is, you know, send a wire transfer to my hsbc account and i will send that money on which i think you know, of course, you want to believe your friends that you can send them some money, but i think even if you weren’t trying to be malicious, have you really weren’t trying to manage that it’s very difficult, right? You get a hundred ten dollars transfers. How are you even tracking that? So, yeah, okay, it like we said, reasonable suspicion and why not make it easier on yourself and and help the organization with accountability so that they don’t have to be concerned who’s using their name. Okay, we got to go away for a break for a couple of minutes. When we come back, of course, amy, you and i’ll keep talking about nepal. And some options is for organizations who might consider crowdfunding as a part of ah fund-raising campaign or not. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. 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. More live listener love abroad, seoul, south korea always always loyal listeners soul multiple anya haserot in japan, lots of people in japan soca, tokyo, fu chiu, saitama, konichiwa. And in china we have beijing and chung ching and ebay ni hao. I wish it was somebody from czech republic because i felt like saying dobre den, but there’s nobody nobody would understand that. So i won’t say dope breeding again. There’s nobody out there who will get that. And columbia is with us. Columbia. I don’t see your city, columbia, but live listener love to you also, amy, the the the unfortunate part of just slightly, you know, i don’t mean to be difficult or anything, but well, you are. You are. Ah, when you recorded it by npr, they referred to you as ceo of a non-profit technology organization called n ten, but here on tony money now provoc radio your intent. Everybody knows everybody knows what intern is. They need that leader all that worthy leading a technology non-profit forgone ization called and ah, i felt about oh, really, npr doesn’t know intend well as well as a cz non-profit radio does and your home here you’re home you exactly. I’m not. I’m not on every month at m p r i know you will be no, this is a stepping stone, but you’ll never forget it. You know you won’t forget us exactly what else? What? Anything else you want to say in the in the part of the, you know, organizational versus individual on crowd funding sites. Well, i just thought i could offer up during the break. I just pulled up a couple lynx to have some sort of data. Teo kind of illustrate the point we were talking about there. I thought it might be helpful. And of course, you know the caveat when i’m about to share the data, i’m about to share it, you know, on ly one to two specific examples, right? But so global giving is ah, online crowdfunding platform right, used by organisations that wanna, you know, crowdfund are raised money online and that exists and they right after the earthquakes and appall set up a relief fund and what i think interesting there is that this is global giving setting up the page, bir says, you know, say, and ten, like an actual individual organization and it was set up, i’m saying, you know, of course, here’s the situation, they just have this natural disaster and, you know, fund, add your donations to this pool, and we will work on both right away, immediate relief efforts as well as longer term rebuilding in africa, and we will put your funds in tow, locally vetted organizations, so they didn’t even necessarily say great global giving is going to raise money in this pool for these two organizations. It just said, we’re going to put this into other organizations and then over on go fund me what i was referring to a four platform that’s normally used by people who are having, you know, maybe a medical emergency, and they put up a page saying, oh, my gosh, my, you know, sibling is in the hospital, can you help us with our medical expenses? You know, things that are much more personal, personally, well, in the immediate zone, so they also have a number of people who have set up these fund-raising pages on go fund me, you know, saying, please donate and i’ll send this to my parents over there, you know, send me money, and i will you know, make sure it gets over so two different examples, right? One of organizations, but exclusively focused on organizations in one focused on individuals. So on global giving, they have received as of this moment ten fifty one a m pacific time, heimans thirty three thousand nine hundred sixty one donations totaling two million, six hundred and sixty one thousand dollars. Over on go fund me. They have fifty seven thousand one hundred and seventy two donors. So good. Twenty five thousand more and have raised four million. Five hundred forty two thousand double. Yeah, basically, two. Very interesting. Right? And i think there’s a lot to try and take a part there that we could of course, formulate our theories about, you know, the global giving sight didn’t even say specifically which organization so there wasn’t that recognition of oh, i know them, but it was focused on organizations doing this short term in this long term efforts where these individuals were able to just go out and campaign for themselves. Right? Like here’s, my page. Donate to it. You all know me and trust me, please donate and we’ll make sure that money gets over there to folks who need it and that has, you know, at least using these two platforms are two examples that go fund me is like you say, almost twice, yep, yep. Okay, wait, we have to move. I want to move to the organizations who might be thinking about crowd funding as a part of a fundraising campaign. There are different ways you could do this. Let’s, let’s, explore that like e-giving days might be one, for instance. Yeah, so i think we talked a little bit about giving daze awhile ago back after giving tuesday. So can a national international now day of giving after the u s thanksgiving holiday and there was there was also just give local, which was able to america just make was just may fifth. Yeah, exactly that i think it’s uninterested in idea when it comes to crowdfunding because, you know, you sure the nepal earthquake is happening in lots of organizations and lots of individuals or fund-raising so you’re part of you’re you’re part of that fund-raising effort, right? People could come across your fund-raising page just by looking to give to nepal, right? They don’t know who you are, but they found you by, you know, doing internet search are looking on global giving for a campaign on and that’s really, i think how to think about it when you’re thinking about giving days, it isn’t necessarily i mean, e-giving days are going to have the same kind of total donations as a natural disaster, right where you’re bringing people together all around the world, but you do benefit from the fact that you can engage your community members, and it feels like, hey, of course, we’re asking you to donate, but it’s this big organized thing, so you get a little more leeway and forgiveness and, you know, the asks of, please donate, and here we are really asking you to participate because it’s a larger event and you benefit from people participating in that event, sharing the link and others in their network coming in and seeing you there. Oh, i didn’t know about this organization, but, you know, my friend just donated to them because it’s, you know, give local america and i want to participate, and i want to donate, too, so you get a little bit of that exposure benefit by participating in a larger yeah get that bump weii just have we have actually less than a minute left. It could also you could consider crowdfunding as a part of an event. Why don’t you talk about that quick? Sure, i think that’s a real missed opportunity if you’re goingto have i mean, you even did this right? Tony, you could do a case study in yourself, you know that you’re putting on an event is an organization and you have community members who want to show their support for you encourage them to set up fund-raising pages in advance of the event, even if they’re competing with each other and have the live event in person be kind of a deadline for those donations. So people see what that timeline is, and they all come together offline and see who raised the most. Yes, i did that when i was honored by hermandad couple of weeks ago. Thank you. Yeah, we have to leave it there. Amy sample ward she’s at amy rs ward on twitter. Her blogged amy sample ward dot org’s. Thank you very much, amy. And we’ll be seeing you very shortly when i’m in portland. Thanks, tony. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Next week, maria semple and jean takagi return, so we’re hitting all the regular contributors in just two weeks. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Think of opportunity. Collaboration with world convenes for poverty alleviation, i warn you, it’s, excellent, and it will ruin you for every other conference opportunity. Collaboration. Dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam lieber what’s on the board, as the line producer shows social media, is by susan chavez, susan chavez. Dot com on our music is by scott’s dying. I love that, yeah, you with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Amador is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff sort of dane toe add an email. Address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five per se.

Nonprofit Radio for May 8, 2015: Consider Consulting & Top Skills For Your Board

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Julia Reich and Marlene OliveiraConsider Consulting

Is consulting to nonprofits for you? Do you have the personality for it? What about marketing, pricing and setting boundaries? Julia Reich is owner of Stone Soup Creative and Marlene Oliveira is principal of moflow, a communications consultancy. We talked at NTC 2015, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of giggle incontinence if it leaked out that you missed today’s show, consider consulting is consulting to non-profits for you do you have the personality for it? What about marketing, pricing and setting boundaries with clients? Julia rice is owner of stone soup creative and marlene olivera is principal of moflow, a communications consultancy, we talked at ntcdinosaur fifteen, the non-profit technology conference and top skills for your board software advice has a report on what skills to look for as you recruit board members. Melissa mccormick is their market research manager on tony’s. Take two thank you and third sector, responsive by opportunity collaboration, the working meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for every other conference here is considered consulting from auntie si. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen we’re in austin, texas at the convention center our hosts are and ten non-profit technology network with me are julie rice she’s, the owner of stone soup, creative and marlene olivera, copywriter and communications consultant with moflow julia marlene, welcome, thanks for having us thinking it’s a pleasure to have you on a busy conference day. Thank you. You’re a very interesting topic is, uh, considering consulting to non-profits i like that a lot. We don’t do a lot of career topics on non-profit radio. So that’s why? I was very much anxious toe have you and talk to you? Um, julia let’s, start with you. What do i need to be thinking about? Generally? Because we have plenty of time together if i’m thinking about making this transition to consulting what what should be what? Some of things i should be thinking about? Well, when marlene and i were putting together the session, we identified five different main topics that we’re going to cover, and one of them is actually making the leap and what to think about when you’re first starting out? Yeah, on and so we both came up with our own tips of what we thought would be important, and so i’ll just share one of my tips and it’s going to sound really obvious, but when you’re first starting out as a consultant, i think it’s important to be professional and there’s a lot of different ways, teo exude professionalism, and one of those things is really easy to do and that’s get a professional headshot so, you know, you can use something from your iphone or whatever, but that’s the selfie is not really doing it. Yeah, yeah. And i see a lot of people do that, and i think that they’re kind of it’s kind of an injustice. I think that they could really be presenting just a better presentation of themselves if they got a a professional headshot on and there’s actually, right here in the conference in the science fair, they’re actually taking professional about two boots over, right? Flux a fail you xx our neighbors are taking taking professional hit shots so there’s, no excuse, right? If you’re here it but if you’re not, yeah, and we’re in such a visual society on the web is so visual. When people go to your about paige or your bio page, the first thing they’re gonna do is look at your picture before they start reading. So it’s your first impression and a lot of ways, right? All right, marlene, you have a tip? Yeah, for sure. I think when you’re thinking about whether or not to move into consulting, my advice is to think about two things in particular. One is your personality and whether you have an entrepreneurial type of personality, whether you’re going to be able teo, learn the skills that are outside of your specialty in order to run a business, have you also within your personality, whether you’re a warrior or not, whether you’re gonna be able teo, stay, keep an even keel when the business is slow, right? We went in cash flow. We need to know that cash flow and income fluctuations very, very much a part of having your own consultant lee totally a part of it. And so i kind of think that you should potentially not be pursuing this if you’re a real warrior. Yeah, some real introspection. Yeah. Think about your personality. And and you know whether you want to run a business because it’s a big move from having a paycheck. And then the other thing is, think about your finances. So you touched on it. I think in my in my experience, it worked well to have a good cash flow. Good reserve before launching the business. So i think, you know, save up for it if you can spend some time saving up so that once again you can weather the downtime and that you make good decisions, you won’t just take any client for any reason. So i think thinking about your finances and think about how good you are with money. You know, julie and i have talked about, you know, your good favor when the money does come in. Do you spend it all? So those are things i think you think you should think about in terms of your personality way want to avoid making an impulsive decision because all of a sudden, our job sucks. Something has really just happened that we just can’t tolerate. So i’m going off on my own. Yes. Actually, that is something that we talked about as well as your motivation. Are you? What? What you said, you know, it seems like the easiest way out of a bad situation. Or do you really want to be a business owner? Okay, julie, you want to share another tip? You said you had teo just came up with. A couple, anything else or around the motivation, any opening question tips? Well, i would just add to it, marlene said, when i first went out on my own, a lot of people would say to me, oh, i could never do that, i would just be watching television all the time or, you know, going shopping and, you know, my personality is well suited to being a consultant and being self employed because i’m just really self motivated and no, i have to, you know, i have to make a living, so i’m not gonna waste my time, you know, going shopping and watching television and so it’s, just i know that part of my personality is is motivated enough teo toe work, like on a and i guess that’s going back to being professional, you know, it’s, i’m i’m sitting in my office in front of my computer basically monday through friday, nine to five, sending that setting those hours cem or introspection, but also recognizing that the need to pay bills is quite a motivation. So you may think that you may be on the fence about whether you’re whether you’re disciplined enough, recognize that you’re gonna have bills and you are going to want to make money to pay them so that that should be some help to you, right, discipline, that way of putting it. But on the other hand, if you say you’re total slouch and, you know, for a fact, you’re not gonna do it, then then this is not the right both for you, although i can’t say i kind of learned this one the hard way a little bit where the year i launched my business was also an olympic here i watched it few too many olympic duvette your income suffer, and i mean, it was mostly during a quiet time it was during the summer, but i did realize that i could have been building my business instead and started to build that structure and that discipline in a more defined way for myself started to structure it in what year was that what you live for? Two thousand eight? And how long have you been in business? Julia? Since two thousand one. Okay, oppcoll what’s something else? Well, can i presume that marketing is one of the areas of importance? Who wants to start with marketing ideas? How? Do we get this thing launched? You go first. All right, well, i have just a few of the things that have worked for me that i think are potentially surprising to people. I mean, i think you need to do what you enjoy doing and do what overtime you figure out what works but a lot. People cringe when i say i could have obtained some of my favorite and best clients by either cold calling or sending letters. Really? Absolutely. Especially in that first year, i think, you know, nobody wants to pick up the phone and do that, and i didn’t want to either. I don’t mind as much as other people, but i just did. I just made a list. I made a certain number. People i’d call on certain days. It’s good to schedule marketing days. That’s another tip that you will spend on your marketing, your business. And yes, between those calls and those those letters overtime, i did plant the seeds, and they did take a while to grow. But i got some of the best clients my favorite work because they responded to the letter or that phone call. I wonder if. It’s, because you were very careful about who you put on the list. I definitely would have been a lot of time on research, absolutely so much, so much more than the writing and the calling. Yeah, but marlene is also a writer professionally, so i’m sure it was an extremely well written letter. Okay, okay, still that’s not what i would expect all these years and you’re consultant two thousand eight, i would have expected you say comes from referrals mostly that that’s my number to me, actually between that kind of pitching, sort of cold calling or or letter writing and referrals that’s where most of my business has come. And i think referrals, arm or account for more. But that was just a surprising one. The first one that i mentioned and i’ve kept up more with referrals then with letter writing and phone calls. But, yes, absolutely referrals. And when it comes to referrals similar, i think people should be disciplined, structured about it. You make it really targeted list. What you do is you approach your clients that you like working with and you let them know i’d like to work with more awesome clients. Like you and i’m guessing, you know, like minded people, and i think that they’re to you, you said a number how many referrals will i ask for per month to say and make it a point? Make it on your calendar asked for those referrals and pre write an email that they can forward on that your contacts conversely, ford on very, very simple, just like all our sharing tools on the web. Okay, you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way julia let’s, come back to your marketing marketing tips. Well, i think when you’re thinking about positioning yourself, when you’re first starting out, that you want to position yourself as an expert, i mean, obviously, you have an expertise in whatever it is that you want to consult about. So i don’t think that that would actually, you know, be an issue. But, you know, you kind of want to just stake a claim and say, i am this expert with this with this specialty, and position yourself that way, go on and have the confidence to do that. All right, anything else? Marketing wise marketing is pretty big. Well, let’s say, i mean, julia, you mentioned professionalism and the professional headshot. Obviously, all your marketing materials should be professional might be worth investing in a professional writer if you’re not one designer. If you’re not one, definitely. I mean, you should be investing in your business. Yeah, and and i would say that in terms of marketing, something that i think has worked well for both of us is sort of building a network and developing a community and sharing your knowledge with that community. So whether that’s doing blawg posts or webinars or marlene does tweet chats, uh, different kinds of presentations, but sharing your expertise with the community and building it up that way. There’s a good way too, huh? Just build your clientele and your prospects. Julia, what is your consulting? What do you do? I do graphic design and brand strategy. Okay? And marlene, you’re a professional writer. I do copy writing in communications planning. So basically a block and a newsletter planning it’s. Not writing strategy. Not writing if it’s not writing it’s those do you think? Okay. Okay, so you’re covering it. All right. So we have writing and design. Ah, where? Should we go after after marketing? Well, they didn’t want to just say one more thing about marketing really lead to it and a lot of those efforts i know for both of us lead toward building an email list on and that’s it for me. It’s a focus now that hasn’t been a focus prior to now, but it also fits with that building a community, having people who want to hear from you and are waiting for your help and your tips and your information keeping yourself top of mind with them. So it’s ready to add that about female? Alright, excellent way wish we go after marketing. Well, we didn’t finish talking, but one thing that i love talking about a little bit of this bit working from home, one of the advantages yeah, and the productivity side for me because i think it’s both the luxury on the challenge of being self employed that you’re leaving the world of meetings if you work in a non-profit you’d probably spend forty percent of your day in meetings, and maybe maybe i’m under representing that, but you can get so much done, but you do have to be. Disciplined, so i just wanted to mention the idea about setting boundaries for yourself and for others on, and i’m very pointed about that, you know, there are certain things i won’t do while i’m writing, i won’t let an internet distractions of all that social media scheduled time for those those are put to the side until i’ve been productive enough and setting boundaries with people around you could sometimes those friends who have more flexibility in their life get excited that they can call you during the day or they can pop in, or the or the lunch thing that julia mentioned that that they think you’re available now to fit into their social calendar. So you just need to decide what you’re going to allow in if anything, during a work day and be deliberate about that boundaries. And i’ve had i’ve had an office outside of the house, and i’ve had an office inside my house, and i like them both for different reasons. Pros and cons for both. Okay, murcott how about pricing? We move, teo pricing, what base do we have around pricing? Well, i have a few tips. Sort of. I find it. Hard to give anyone advice about what they should do with pricing, but these are the things that these short, more smaller picture tips that i that i use well, the big picture point is, too. If you’re launching your business as a professional than charge professional feet, it doesn’t mean charging here here doesn’t mean charging a ton, but it doesn’t mean trying to compete with employees and related to that is to get away from hourly pricing because clients will compare you to staff and what they’re paying stuff. Oh, that’s interesting you’re recommending avoiding hourly, but i don’t think of charged hourly since since that first year since two thousand eight, when i when i realized that for me project based pricing works better clients, they like the predictability of it. They know what they’re paying, and i build in the steps that it is going to take to get there. So that’s kind of like to use the analogy, if you know you had kids say they come over your lawn for ten dollar fee or, you know, four dollars every ten minutes and you have no idea how long this kid is going to take. And i think my clients like that predictability about it other a few other tips are i think you should always give a ballpark first to see if you’re speaking the same language, maybe, you know, even in the same world and never quote in person, like always have the conversation go back and think about what that really should be and come back in writing later. Yeah, sometimes it can be sometimes hard. Teo, resist the impulse to do be thoughtful and answer the question. Well, what would this cost? You know, you always have to say step, step back, let me think about it. Let me put something in writing for you that’s usually that’s, usually sufficient to get the person toe agreed. It’s wait a few days or a week for something more. I appreciate that you’re thinking about yeah, exactly, you know, with anything that we do. We’re thinking about time, but we’re also thinking about our particular expertise, whether we’re right fit were probably building out timelines for clients. They want us to go think about what it really is and so yeah, it’s customized for them. Yeah, more, more, more tips around, pricing, anything. You wanna add julia? I wanted to add onto something marlene said about not pricing by the hour because i think it’s also a perception thing, you know, if a client is hyre is paying you by the hour, i think they’re more inclined to perceive you as a vendor, you know, like, you know, someone who most lawn and not then that’s, not really what commodity? Yeah, like that’s, not really where we are and what we do, we’re more i feel like i’m more of a valued partner with my client’s projects, and i’m really trying to understand what their goals and objectives are, and i want to help them. I want to be honestly, genuinely helpful to help them achieve their goals, and i’m helping them plan and strategize, and they’re not going to get that from an hourly rate and it sure you both of you come would come across this that you want to be helpful, so i don’t want my clients to hesitate to call me or ask me to do something because they don’t want to spend that other additional hourly fee. I want them to feel like they can talk to me. To get it right do what it takes to get it right. And then if there is a need for an additional fee, absolutely you can say, you know, i certainly can help you with that. But it’s it’s outside what we go talked about initially that’s actually is another thought about boundaries different than what we were talking about, but still that’s important about boundaries. Yeah, that’s well outside we’ve we’ve agreed, if you like, we can add that on absolutely and that, and that goes back to those careful quotes. You know, when i build a quota bill didn’t exactly what steps are included in that fie, and if it does carry on a little longer than we might talk about an additional fee? Yeah, yeah, okay, one of the topics i think you were going to discuss his establishing your niche and identifying yourself as that within that niche. How do we how do we do that with our potential clients? Julia has a great thoughts. I’ll lead over to her about the consultant versus freelance or kind of role, but for me, when your first evaluating your nation with a canadian e, i think, you know a few things to just consider again you have to find your way along the way we’ve talked about how did we each find our way? Because we can’t pin it down to any one thing, you know, but you’re you’re looking at obviously your expertise and your experience and your skills, you’re looking at what kind of non-profit you want to serve if you want to focus in on a sub sector and you probably should, unless you’re skilled that you’re offering is very specific. He wanted to think about what motivates you, how you can bring your personality into your business and how that can influence what you what you have to offer. So, yeah, that’s kind of go through my thoughts around establishing your brand in the shape of your business and of course, your marketing materials have materials need to support all that and be consistent, just like we have a consistent message within non-profits our own marketing message needs to be consistent, okay? Julia well, my answer is more sort of about the terminology that i might use to define what i d’oh on, and so now i’m using the term consultant, but i haven’t always been comfortable using that term, so i mean, when you think about graphic designers and graphic design firms, you probably don’t think of them as being consultants in the typical sense of the word, and you’re right because i do have ah, more of ah, creative agency hat and with graphic design projects, you know, and they’re and they’re, you know, project fee, and i work with a team of people, you know, like a website, for instance, and i work with developers and designers and content writers, but there is also i am also a consultant because i do brands strategy, and i work with my clients one on one, and so i am wearing that more of that consultant hat, but i also do trainings and workshops and things like that, so in that sense, i’m more of a consultant. So i guess when you’re talking about establishing your brand in your niche, you know, whether you call yourself a consultant or an agency or a freelancer or a coach on this, you’re really matters. I mean, maybe the clients don’t even really care as long as you are positioning yourself so that the client that you want to reach knows that you’re the person to call in their time of need, and that may take some tweaking, right? I’m still tweet like that been in business for fourteen, fifteen years, i’m still tweaking. You don’t always get the clients that exactly in the sweet spot that you want, right? And you might change over the years, you know, i’ve been tweaking when i started right away and interesting. Yeah, you know, i actually was focusing on not focusing i was helping with anything that fell under communications because that was my background was overall communications managing within a non-profit and in the first few months, i decided let’s focus on content because i think clients know they need it, and they don’t want to write it themselves. And then i did that for several years, and in the last couple of years i thought, you know, i can still do that, but i can help more non-profit by doing mme or things like this chat that julia mention now that’s, that’s, not for compensation. I do that for free, but i wanted to sort of change who i was, who i was in the marketplace and i offer more training and more webinars and developing a course so it’s, always evolving. I assume it will always evolve for me. That’s actually the fun part of it it’s it’s creative to be self employed to be a consultant you’re always trying to think of new ways to do things and better ways to do things many things. A twitter chat is a great example, cause it sets you up as an expert in the area, a za convener of others live in your profession as a guide and help in the niche. Yes, a resource that got all that well within the niche that you’ve selected. All very good, i think, for long term credibility. Have you ever seen anything directly business come from twitter? Chat directly? You know it’s a good question, because some of the things i do in that domain, i think, keep me top of mind, but they don’t result in a phone call. Yeah, that’s fine. So i think it’s someone who knows about the rest of it or has been to my website or his has met me through referral and then they see the other activity and that gives it. A boots that just keeps me top of mind i feel that way for the chat, but what i find with the chat specifically is also that it creates sort of a you know, my my own, even though i’m a business might maya ambassadors on social media, people who are more loyal, more willing to share what i’m providing, whether it’s block post so that kind of thing so that’s a definite benefit that i’ve had from your ambassadors on social media love that, yeah, very good in all those ways. Yeah, well, well put, well put, i’ve been doing this show for four and a half years and on lee within the past year, i’d say has it led to calls related to business? So interesting really took a good three years, i’d say before, before that started happening and and it’s it’s a love i mean, i just it’s a joint i love doing this show, but that’s just like an added benefit. A lot of marketing efforts are like that. Yeah, yeah it’s a long cycle, long term, but i do plan to giving consulting, by the way e-giving fund-raising all right, so we still have another like three minutes or so together? What? What else? What else you want to talk about? Well, one of these we’re going to be sharing in our session tomorrow is about lessons learned along the way. I don’t know if you want to keep that are julia share? So we’re going to wrap up with lessons learned along the way and when i was thinking about what i wanted to say about that it’s really more about sort of ah, something i’ve learned about myself that i’m not very good at and just acknowledging that i’m not very good at it or introspection more interest back-up introspection, asses, yeah, preneurs yeah, yeah, so one of the lessons i’ve learned about myself along the way is that i really hate to talk on the phone like i’m think i’m phobic like i will talk on the phone, you know, if a client wants to talk on the phone or one of my strategic partners wants to talk on the phone, i will do it, but i won’t almost never pick up the phone and initiate a car, so you’re definitely not doing the cold calling marketing i’m doing carlene store. Right? I’m doing cold emailing. Okay, uh, but i would rather clean out my refrigerator, then pick up the phone. Okay? And i think that’s really held me back. You know, i don’t think it’s a good thing, all right, but just you’ve identified it right way you’re not going to force yourself to do cold call marketing, right? Alright, alright. Lessons learned, marlene for me, the big one is learn to say no, you know, say no if if it’s not in your budget, if it’s not according to your fees and wait for the client that will pay your fees. Say no if it’s if it doesn’t feel right, or if it’s not the right fit for me, i say no when it’s not a non-profit because other people hear about me and they asked me small businesses and i really my passion is focusing on working with non-profit so that’s where i keep it and it’s not to say not to be leased a little flexible on work outside your comfort zone and try new things, but just understand it’s okay to say no when it doesn’t feel good so that the more you say no the more you’re actually building the business you want instead of the business that is just kind of coming around. Yes, letting it involve organically. Based on what comes in. Did you have you said yes? Unwisely? Oh, yes, definitely. And so this is a big lesson learned along the way, and i don’t know why, you know, i think it’s just a coincidence. But every time i took a large corporate client, a large corporate client, it didn’t go well out of money. A lot of money in those. Yeah, actually that’s not always true. I was surprised to hear the medical, nickel and dime with me more than a non-profit might, but just just think, it’s the common thread that whenever i took a large corporate client, like once a year for the first couple of years, something would go wrong. It would either be about a relationship or they wouldn’t pay on time, so i just took it as a sign, you know, there are they paid by not on time. I mean, like, four months later. But i took it as a sign that i’ve got to start saying no, because even when it came in someone metoo copyright a boat, nickel mining or i don’t know the subject. I don’t know the people i should’ve said no, i didn’t say yes, we’re gonna leave it there, ok, thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Oh, my pleasure. Julia rice is the owner of stone soup. Creative and marlene olivera is copywriter and communications consultant moflow m o f l o w ladies. Thank you again. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen the non-profit technology conference. Thanks so much for being with us. Julia rice has a very spotless refrigerator. Sounds like live listener love let’s start domestic right here, philadelphia p a the city of brotherly love live listener loved to philadelphia, lexington, kentucky. Langhorne, piela toronto in canada. San francisco, california. Marquette, michigan live listener loved toe all the live listeners going abroad italy haven’t had you? 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It’s in october, as of today, it is seventy six percent sold out. I in fact, i gotta get my registration in amy sample ward is going to be there also, if your work is related to poverty reduction anywhere in the world, check it out. Opportunity collaboration, dot net i thank you very much for loving non-profit radio your love keeps me going on cold, snowy nights when i have no heat or electricity. It’s a tough city here in new york, but your support gets me through. Um, actually, i’ve actually play of heat and hot water sometimes have to crack. The windows open it’s money that i could use you can send money because the love is no good if i don’t have the money. So what the hell is that? So i can’t go out for nice dinners can go on trips love is not going to be enough. Um, i can’t be golden corral and applebee’s. I can’t do those all the time. Although golden corral does actually have good salchow ices. I appreciate those, but you get the message now. But actually, i am very, very grateful for the love that you show for non-profit radio weekend week out really it’s almost it’s. Almost five full years were coming up. And my video this week is a thanks for recent prays that i’ve gotten from listeners you can hear. I got some got some quotes there and the video is that tony martignetti dot com and i do thank you very much. Third sector today at third sector today dot com amy davita runs it and she has lots of contributors. Not like my sight. She actually welcomes other opinions. Ah, third sector today. Blog’s tips, insights. Best practices for the community. They have a podcast, maria. Simple has been on the podcast and amy davita, stop stealing my guests. Don’t even try to get maria. Simple is a regular it’s not gonna happen. She’s she’s exclusive non-profit radio anyway, third sector today dot com a valuable resource curated with an open mind. I hate that. And that is tony’s. Take two for friday, eighth of may eighteenth show of the year. I’m feeling well feisty this afternoon. I know why that is. I mean, i don’t know, but i’m not going to take it out on melissa mccormick. She is a market research manager at software advice. She establishes and enforces standards and best practices for research and analysis. She oversees the regular publication of original primary research on the role of software and technology across many industries. Her research has been sighted in court’s information week, elektronik ce weekly ceo, dot com and other outlets. Software advice is a resource for software buyers. They provide detailed reviews and research on thousands of software applications there at software advice dot com and at n p o soft advice. Listen, mccormick, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks, tony. Good to be here. It’s. A pleasure to have a researcher. And rarely do i get in someone’s bio that they are an enforcer. What is that you do smack knuckles with rulers? Or is it like, stockades or or waterboarding? Which way? Now i’m really not at liberty to say i could tell you, but you have killing these air company secrets of pride. I kind of helped establish and make sure folks are following our guidelines for conducting research and analysis. Now, our researchers typically ah, like a group of anarchists. They’ll do whatever they whatever they please. Unless there’s an enforcer, not my researchers. Now you’re well oh, yeah, but because there is an enforcer. So researchers, they the they get a little loose handed if they’re not reined in. Is this is this ah, true among the research community, you know, not so much that it’s just there are lots of methods and method oppcoll method illogical approaches. So keeping everybody on the same page so that were consistent. Okay. All right. So we know the the research coming out of software advices ous high quality. It is enforced. Yeah. Okay. That’s your responsibility. All right, so how about this survey on board skills? Why? Was this ah focus area? Sure. So, you know, through other research that we’ve conducted and just talking to folks at non-profits that are looking for software solution, we’ve kind of observed that non-profits air a little bit slower to adopt new technology. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, you know, budget, obviously being a big one, maybe just lack of prior experience with software and technology, but it’s sort of a kurd twist that boardmember zahra and kind of a unique position to help guide perhaps the exploration of tech options. So having tech savvy board members could in turn, help non-profits improve their operations in the way they interact with software and technology. So that was kind of our hypothesis on land of reason. Is that your is that called that h one? We still use that terminology. H one hypothesis. You know, i actually don’t use that term, and i don’t see it’s, uh, played well. Sure. Let’s. Call it a one. No, no, no. I took statistics in nineteen eighty two. So each one is probably outdated. Now, it’s probably something else. I don’t know. Okay, we used to call it a tch one h two. And then you try to prove these and there’s something called confidence intervals. I’m sorry. Ok, ok. Is that that still exist? Count your confidence. Interval still exist? Yeah, they do. Ok. Alright, im sorry. Little digression trying to show off that i know something. Go ahead. Okay, so you had your your hat? Your hypothesis. You want to call it a tch one. You had this hypothesis about technology adoption being, i guess, a little quicker for for non-profits if they had sabat your board members. Is that is that basically it? Yeah, that was just it occurred to us that would be one entry point. So one kind of way that change could be an after would be through, um, kind of a technology progressive board. So we wanted to explore that idea and just kind of the broader impact that aboard could have. And how non-profits go about recruiting board members and how they should go about recruiting. Board members so kind of morphed into a bigger topic than purely the software and technology that that’s that’s, kind of where it started on and turned into you just to look at, um, you know from a non-profits perspective, what should you be looking for in a boardmember and on the other side of that coin from a boardmember perspective, which what should you be looking at in a potential board to join? Yeah. So you write. You looked at it, right? You said both sides. So what are people looking for? Yeah, out of board service. And we’ll get a good chance to talk about that and and how khun boards used that information to promote board service. I’m sorry. Not welcome. Non-profits use that to promote board service. Exactly. All right. On dh. What was the which method? A logical choice. Did you choose among the wide array open to professional researchers? Yeah. So we conducted an online survey of a little over fifteen hundred people. So that’s, kind of the quantitative approach. We also i did some expert interviews. So, you know, quantitative is great, especially with a big sample size. You can kind of get a degree of certainty about the results, but we really wanted teo get a little color to those results. So we also did some qualitative interviews with, uh, what i call subject matter experts, folks. In the nonprofit world who have been dealing with boardmember zoho topics related to boards and technology in general for a long time, so interesting and then how do you ah, as a researcher, how do you i don’t know what xero score those those interviews you call, they’re obviously qualitative said yeah, and using that term a little bit loosely report that we published drew most heavily on the quantitative results that were a lot of charts and graphs on dh then really used thie commentary from the interviews we conducted as just kind of quotes within the report on dhe means of almost kind of get checking our own analysis that we’ve done as well, okay, and i see those quotes are in the report. Um, yeah, a lot of mar yeah, so we kind of tied together the broad themes from the discussions we had with those folks into thank you take away that we had already identified from the survey results. I was i was not interviewed. As i recall, i that was obviously an oversight on the part of god there go. I did not coach her to say that i didn’t coach i implicitly. Begged her, too, but i didn’t say it. I didn’t say explicitly. Okay, next time. Okay. There’ll be other opportunities. All right. So what do we find? What? What? Let’s? Look at it from the non-profit perspective. What? What should non-profits b promoting as as board service values? Tio, you recruit? Sure, sure. So, um, one of the biggest, i guess, kind of most decisive findings was that people join boards for personal fulfillment on dh that’s, perhaps not really terribly surprising. You know, obviously, these folks they’re giving of their time and their money. So they want to care about the cause that they’re giving to, but personal fulfillment was number one on the tops of folks list. Okay, okay, let me get a question about that. Now, do we have to be concerned about self reporting bias that people would say the choose the altruistic fulfillment choice over networking opportunities or, you know, something more? More self serving? Sure. Yeah, that that definitely comes into play. You know, it was far in a way, the number one pick. So i think we still have a degree of certainty there. But but yeah, it’s probably safe to assume that. Consciously or unconsciously, folks are kind of elevating their their altruistic nature, as you said, but, you know, i think it also makes sense, um, kind of was validated by the folks we spoke with that, you know, this is a commitment people want two really care about what the non-profits stands for, they’re going to be dedicating so much of themselves to it. Okay, now, it’s clear why i’m not i’m on no boards, but to your point about, you know, networking. We did get folks saying acquiring new skills was important to them honing leadership skills, networking and meeting new people. Those were all other sighted benefits commonly cited benefits, okay, back to the top one, personal fulfillment? What is it? Is it those elements that they’re looking for is that is that satisfying the personal fulfillment that they’re they’re seeking? So i think there are a lot of components to that and that’s something our survey didn’t actually explore very deeply. So, um, potential for future research opportunities exposed, but, yeah, i think it’s not personal fulfillment in the sense that, you know, i am acquiring new skills or meeting new people, but also in the sense that i’m contributing to the greater good. Um so, you know, other survey results included that people really want to see the impact of what they’re doing in the non-profit and the impact that the non-profit is having on its community. So i think that certainly ties in the personal fulfillment as well focused on to feel like they’re contributing to an organization that is contributing to community. I also saw a reliability and accountability mentioned, yeah, so i think those terms specifically came up in the context of, you know, what skills should you look for in potential board way? Kind of explored to different avenues with that one being more kind of professional experience and even almost personality based skills on another being technology based skills? So when it comes to just professional experience and personal skillsets accountability, reliability, those blanked on the west, okay, um, we have just about ah minute and a half or so before we take take a break, melissa okay, why don’t you? Ah, why don’t we go into a little bit about some of the some of the tech skills that are that are sought after what we’re looking for? Sure so um, a little over half of the folks we surveyed mentioned a specific type of software in some capacity or another. So fund-raising software obviously a big one, some kind of experience with systems for doner management. But the number one that came up across the board that everyone said was important was basic computer skills again, not super surprising, but that would include stuff like email aah! Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Okay. That’s got to be there, right? Yeah, exactly. So something really foundational? Tio the the way non-profits conduct business, email documents, spreadsheets. Yeah, yeah, general kind of office productivity tools. You know, like you’re your microsoft word and excel. Not sort of saying calendar tools. Um, dahna obviously critical, but what was kind of interesting and i think what was reflected and the professional skills that we saw being requested was just the diversity of the types of tech skills folks are looking for. So you invented fund-raising and ensured time we’re going way. We’ll take a break, but hold that thought because it’s critical diversity is critical, obviously to ah, two, two boards and we’ll get to that diversity of skills and and continue right after this. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Yeah. All right, melissa let’s, keep talking about diversity, but what more can we say about that? Sure, yes. I’m probably going to throw that word around the whole lot. Ah, diversity it’s kind of a theme that came up a couple across a couple different topic areas that we covered. So i mentioned with respect to technology skills and software skills. You know, folks on boards were telling us, but the most important stuff was really a lot of stuff. So cr m donorsearch management kind of tools, tools for managing your website. Fundez counting obviously a big one and fund-raising tools in general, i mentioned already on dh that was kind of echoed when we looked at so not the technology side, but the professional skills that were most support. That was really interesting because it was almost an even mix when we asked people for the single most important we’ve got a pie chart with a bunch of pieces of pie that are very similar in size. Um, the number one that kind of had a little edge over the next few was fund-raising so experience fund-raising but others included, you know, just past experience with a similar type of non-profit so relevant volunteer experience. Um, professional services kind of experience. So stuff like legal and accounting skills. Project management provoc management, i think. It’s very grand marketing also. Yep. Marketing. Exactly. Good. You’re going to say something about project management, please? Yeah. That was one that was really echoed by the experts that we spoke with on dh. It makes sense to me that you would want someone who can, you know, manage lots of people working on tasks and keep things moving, keep things organized, keep lots of balls in the air at a time. So that’s a great one that came up in both our survey results in on our interviews, um, and then human resource, those skills, so just kind of oh, your management, which i think has tied to project management, but a little more on the, you know, actual people side. What do you think was meant by project management? What? Did you flush that out at all? Um, you know, i’m looking to see if we gave any examples. We didn’t flush it out much and mean kwan keita’s. But when we spoke to our experts, you know, they talked about the importance of this is where the reliability and the accountability came up. I think in the context of project management to the importance of, um, having the ability to hold others accountable. Tio get people to do great work without stepping on toes. And i think, you know, for non-profits, especially it’s, important to be really efficient. Anytime you’ve got a big group of people responsible for a single task. It’s, easy for, um, everyone to kind of go in different directions or, you know, lots of talking and not a lot of doing to happen. So folks with project management skills, i think, can really cut through that and keep things on track and keep everybody focused on moving in the same direction. Transparent communications was was thought as what? Where it was sought by by people aspiring to board service. Yes, what’s under that was i ah, that was very important. People want to know what the expected involvement is. So what exactly will they be doing? What will they be expected to do? Um and that includes you. You know, what kind of work will be doing but also e-giving requirements. So what will they be expected to give personally? What would what will day be expected to raise? Um, all of these things, people are looking for clarity. Um, and this was kind of echoed by some of the folks we spoke with us. Well, who said you know, non-profits tend to think that board members just understand what they’re getting in four or maybe don’t care about the specifics of what they’re getting in for, but it’s very important to have some layer of transparency and on the part of non-profits that requires maybe sametz tre thought into what the role will entail. So, you know, one thing that one of the experts we spoke to recommended was just actually writing up kind of a little job description to share with board members, you know, communicating really clearly what the expectations are in terms of, you know, frequency of getting together may be setting a schedule of meetings, like an annual schedule that you could share in advance. Um, and then kind of relating back to what i talked about earlier, the personal fulfillment thing. It’s important for non-profits to communicate the impact that they’re having and bringing things full circle. I think that’s kind of a role that technology can play, you know, helping track and also helping non-profits disseminate information about the impact that they’re having. That’s. All that’s, obviously very big topic in the community, especially now that charity navigator is looking for a new ceo. And what is that? What kind of priority priorities is that person going to bring to that to that organization? But yes, for interesting. And now, the way it ties back to technology. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, absolutely. What, whether what other questions are out there? We just have a minute and half or so left what the questions are out there that you’d like to answer. Software advice is going to answer? Sure. So, you know, i mentioned earlier i think one further area for exploration could be digging into that personal fulfillment question a little. We got the results back and saw oh, everybody’s looking for personal fulfillment and kind of went well, duh, of course. That’s what people are looking for and of course, that’s what they are going to say they’re looking for. But what does that mean? It probably means different things to different people. See? I asked. I asked that question also. So that makes me a subject matter. Exactly. You should be a researcher. Well, i’d rather just be interviewed, but i’m not a good influence. Our goal the line. All right, thank you very much. Just another minute. God, what else is out there? Um so so that was one thing another thing that i’m kind of interested in exploring, not necessarily in a quantitative way, necessarily, but just this idea of the diversity of skillsets you know what? What is the balance that you should look for? And how did these different folks with these different backgrounds worked together in the most effective ways? Um, and are there specific types of software and technology that can be leveraged by people with specific skillsets so, you know, should someone with accounting skills be advocating for accounting software for their non-profit that kind of thing? Just kind of the harmonies between the different topics that we’ve already dug started to dig into a little bit here, okay, actually, your urine unenviable position cause you can ask all these questions and then go research and find the actual answer based on quantitative analysis and not just based on best practices or tradition or anything else. I admire that, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. It’s a pretty exciting place to be cool. My voice is cracked. Melissa mccormack, market research manager it’s software advice. They are at software advice. Dot com and at n p o soft advice. Thank you very much, melissa. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. And at n p o soft advice. Thank you very much for doing some live tweeting today. Next week, another informative and tcs interview coming to the show, and amy sample ward returns. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it at tony martignetti dot com no singing this week. Opportunity, collaboration, the world convenes for poverty reduction. I’m warning you, it will ruin you for every other conference opportunity. Collaboration. Dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shoretz social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five per se.