Category Archives: Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Nonprofit Radio for March 18, 2024: Artificial Intelligence For Nonprofits, Redux

 

Justin Spelhaug, Amy Sample Ward, & Tristan Penn: Artificial Intelligence For Nonprofits, Redux

A second savvy panel takes on the impact, leadership demands, promises, responsibilities, and future of AI across the nonprofit community. We convened a panel in June last year. But this is an enormous shift in nonprofit workplaces that deserves another look. This panel is Justin Spelhaug, from Technology for Social Impact at Microsoft, and Amy Sample Ward and Tristan Penn from NTEN.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

Virtuous: Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer, and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving.

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

Nonprofit Radio for March 11, 2024: Election Year Activities

 

Gene Takagi: Election Year Activities

Gene Takagi

In this presidential election year, everything related to politics is prohibited, right? Not so fast. It’s not that simple. There are actions you can take, including lobbying on ballot measures. As long as you follow the rules. There’s no one better to explain those rules than Gene Takagi, our legal contributor. He’s the managing attorney of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

Virtuous: Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer, and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving.

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be forced to endure the pain of chronic inflammatory demyelinating, poly ridicule, neuropathy. If you attacked me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s coming? Hey, Tony, it’s election year activities in this presidential election year. Everything related to politics is prohibited, right? Not so fast. It’s not that simple. There are actions you can take including lobbying on ballot measures. As long as you follow the rules, there’s no one better to explain those rules than Gene Taghi. Our legal contributor. He’s the managing attorney of Neo, the nonprofit and exempt organizations Law Group on Tony’s take two 24 NTC is next week were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity, donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org here is election year activities. It’s always a pleasure to welcome back our legal contributor, Gene Takagi. He’s the managing attorney of Neo, the nonprofit and exempt organization’s law Group in San Francisco. He edits that wildly popular nonprofit law blog.com that you should be following. And he is a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is at Neola group.com and he’s at GT A. It’s good to see you, Gene. Welcome back. It’s great to be back, Tony. It’s great to see you as well. Thank you. It’s always a pleasure. I don’t mind saying it twice. I’ll say it a third time. It’s always a pleasure. And this one particularly because it’s our uh what this be our quadrennial every fourth year. Uh And you’ve been on the show for many, many years, we’ve done this several times in our presidential election cycle. It’s time to talk about uh what’s permissible and what’s not permissible around political activity. So let’s start with the upside that. I think a lot of folks may not be aware of even though we’ve, we’ve said it before, but it’s been four years to be fair. It’s been four years since we’ve talked about this um that uh nonprofits can do lobbying and uh and a decent amount of it too. Yeah, it’s, it’s so under recognized. I’m glad you’re bringing it up. There’s a study that came out um recently, but it was about the 2017 and 2018 years, about how many charities out of the more than million charities that registered with the IRS and report to the IRS, how many actually report doing lobbying and it’s fewer than 10,000. So that’s less than 1% have reported lobbying uh, as any part of their activities. And I think part of it stems from, you know, 501 c three kind of says in, in more legalese kind of uh verbiage. Hey, you can engage in substantial lobbying. Yeah. You know, that terrifies, you know, a lot of charities go, oh my God, we can engage in substantial lobbying. What does that mean? What, what, what does substantial mean? And so we better not do any of it and it keeps everybody away from it completely. It just, and then they just default to nonprofits can’t do lobbying. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, lawyers are, are not, you know, are, are, are a little bit complicit in this as well because, you know, when they’re not sure about this thing and if you don’t practice exclusively in the areas that, like, I practice it, why would, you know that, well, you know, substantial can mean a lot of different things depending upon the test you elect to, to fall under. So you’d probably say, well, you know, just to be on the safe side, better not lobbying, but that’s actually terrible advice for public charities. So let, let’s, uh, let’s debunk this insidious myth. Yeah. And, and let’s raise up, there is great reasons for charities to lobby, especially right now. I mean, we’re at a pivotal time when a lot of rights are up at issue and charities may have like very strong views about those rights, whether it be women’s rights or whether it be first amendment rights or whether it be environmental rights. I mean, there’s just a lot up in the air right now where charities and, you know, charity beneficiaries and charity supporters really have a strong point of view and they’re afraid to share it through the charity. So let’s add in LGBT Q and trans rights. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we can create a whole, a whole list of other rights as well. Charities, you know, span span the spectrum of, of all sorts of things. And so, um yeah, you know, when you have something to say, being chilled and in fear of saying it because you don’t know whether the law allows you to or not is, is terrible. So glad you’ve provided kind of the, the, the place where we can talk about it and say, hey, ok, what can charities do? And so the, the first thing to know about is there’s sort of two tests and the default test is if you have done nothing except, you know, kind of reported with the IRS regularly, your nine nineties as you’re supposed to do, you haven’t made any sort of election to, to, to do lobbying or measure lobbying in a different way. It’s called the substantial part test. So what does substantial mean? And the best guidance we have on that is like a case from the fifties. So understandable why people are concerned about it. But hey, there’s been a lot, just in the past few months, there’s been a lot of talk about going all the way back to Marbury versus Madison in the 17. No, it was 17, late 17 hundreds. It’s very old. I, yeah, I didn’t look it up. But, so, you know, that like when, when the Supreme court reporter was, was cranch, cranch, remember that? All right. Now, I’m getting a little in the weeds of law school stuff but the, the before hundreds of years ago there was a, a reporter that used to do the Supreme Court opinions and the name of that reporting volume was branch. So it just sounds like, uh, you know, it just sounds like something from Pioneer Days branch anyway. So the 19 fifties, you know, it’s pretty recent consider compared to Marbury versus Madison and Ranch. It is. But then, you know, just what’s happened over the last five years has been like event. So, um, but I think we can kind of rely on it for, you know, a rule of thumb. Like if you spend more than 5% of your total budget on lobbying, you’re probably safe any more than that you might be crossing the line. This is under the substantial part test, total budget, you said total total budget or total expenditure. So let’s say you, you spend $100,000 and if you spend 5000 of that, $100,000 on lobbying, you’re probably safe. Um The better way to look at that is probably not just a percentage of your expenditures. So it’s percentage of the resources that are going into it. So if, if you know, 5% of your total resources expended, not just money, but volunteer time and everything else. Um If it’s more than 5% you might have some issues with the substantial part test. The IRS isn’t really enforcing on this very hard. I, I would say they’re actually very poorly enforcing this. They’re openly non compliant, especially churches out there that are saying go ahead, sue us or take us to court. We want to go, we want to take this to the Supreme Court anyway and see if there is a constitutional basis for, you know, this political campaign intervention, prohibition often referred to as the Johnson amendment. Um But you know, it is what the law says right now. So more than 5% maybe you have an issue there, be careful. Ok. And again, it’s 5% of total resources expended. I would say that’s your total resources, not your, not your, not just your budget. I, I would say that is the better way to look at the case in the fifties, total expenditures only. Um So now the other way to, to do, to measure lobbying and whether it’s substantial or not is the way that we recommend the vast majority of charities to choose. Um And it’s something called the 501 H election. And I know we’ve talked about this before as well. So by electing the 501 H expenditure test, um it means that lobbying isn’t measured on all the facts and circumstances. So it’s not like a complete resource test of like how much of your total resources which involves a lot of thinking, right, volunteer time and like your office space. And like, so the expenditures test says, well, it’s too hard to do all of that. So if you elect this and it’s a very, very simple form, it’s about half a page long. Um and it’s basically name and check the box and address. So it’s super simple. If you elect it, then you have strict sort of requirements of what is substantial and what is not substantial. And so it’s very clear and it’s just based on expenditures. And in this test, you’re allowed to expend up to 20% of your 1st $500,000 in expenditures um on lobbying and it’s not considered substantial. So not 5%. Now, we’re talking about 20% of your 1st $500,000 and this is on your exempt purpose expenditures or your mission related expenditure. So it doesn’t include things like investments and stuff. So, on your mission related expenditures, you’re allowed to spend 20% of your 1st 500,000 15% of your next 500,000 10% of your next 5% of the remaining up to a total cap of $1 million in lobbying, which you’ll hit at about the 17 to $18 million range of mission related expenditures. You’re gonna, you’re gonna hit the limit, um, based on those formulas at about uh 1 million, the $1 million cap at about 17 to $18 million of mission related expenditures that is not substantial. So that’s a pretty generous amount of lobbying that’s allowed. This is right. Right. This is a, this is a good bit. Now, we, we didn’t say the name of the form. It’s the, it’s IRS form 5768 and 55 768. And it is, uh, it’s, you left out one little item. You have to put the end of the tax year that you want the election to choose to be for. But it’s so simple. It is like, it’s, it’s like a third or a half. It’s, I think two thirds of the page is the instructions and one third is the election. It’s just, it’s, it’s a name, address, end of the tax year and your signature. And it’s, and what’s great about it too is you can elect on December 31st for it to apply retroactively for that whole year. So you can make your decision last moment and say, hey, we want to fall under this expenditure test. We don’t like to think about all the facts and circumstances. We’re a charity that has less than a 17 or $18 million annual budget. Most of the listeners here probably fall into that category. Um So the 501 H election just makes things simpler and it allows you to lobby safely within the tax law limits that you’re allowed to without jeopardizing your 501 C three status. And now you can go ahead and fight including lobbying, which doesn’t mean paying a lobbyist, right? It means stating your position on your website on a particular bill saying, hey, this law should change or we need this new law or we need a budget increase that requires our city council to prove this like budget, that’s legislation as well. So if you have a position on it, it’s lobbying, charities should not be afraid to lobby like you can lobby and the limits are fairly generous, especially if you take that 501 H expenditure test. The form is available online 5768 as you said, super simple. And if you don’t like it, let’s say you grew to, to become a $50 million charity next year and you don’t like that $1 million cap anymore. You can elect out of it. Just the same, it’s elected in. So it’s super simple. Same form, yes, same form to elect out if you, if you bust the uh bust that, that limit uh or that, you know, that rough, rough uh expenditure number. Um The other thing you mentioned casually, I want to emphasize, this includes local lobbying, local local issues. This is not only our biggest national issues like first amendment and, and uh reproductive rights. This could be a local council thing like a, like a budget or uh or um now, now uh lobbying can be now, uh I’m spilling over now. Can that be there’s not candidate advocacy, right? Like not, not getting into supporting candidates or denouncing candidates. This is all about issues. This is issue lobbying. So we’re gonna get the candidates, we’re gonna come to candidate, mostly prohibitions, but some things as long as they’re anyway, I don’t want to spoil the, I don’t want to take away your, your info, but we’re gonna get the candidates very shortly. But this is, this could be very local issues like you said, like a budget or a zoning, a zoning thing. Yeah. Anything that’s gonna appear by a legislative body that appears, you know, in the law, you can comment on existing law, you can ask for a change on that. You can propose a new law or back a new law that’s coming out. You don’t have to hire a lobbyist. It might just be a communication, uh, that you put on your website that’s lobbying. It’s probably really low cost if you’re gonna like, tweet it, uh, or email, email campaign, print mail campaign if you want to go to that extent. Yeah, this is all, this is all well, within your, uh, what’s allowed, well, within your purview and just take the 501 H, now, do we have to know what 501 H says, does that matter? Do, do we have to go into what 501 H says, or just, just fill out the form? Yeah. So you just know that you’re electing to measure your lobbying under the 501 H expenditure test. That’s basically what it says. So you’re electing to measure lobbying, not on all the facts and circumstances test that the IRS and then the court would have to apply if you ever, you like argued about it. Uh just strict numbers and you know what the numbers are, you fill them out. So you’ll know exactly what happens and even better if you don’t make the election and you, you use the substantial part test, the 5% rule of thumb uh test. If you are ever examined by the IRS and you cross that threshold, they can revoke your 501 C three status for crossing that threshold in one year under the 501 H election that doesn’t happen. There may be a penalty tax applied to you in, in any given year, but you actually have to, to, to exceed that cap over four years. Um, and that’s significant. Ok. Ok. Well, you did say the IRS is not in actively enforcing this. Um, not that they’re never going to, but they’re not being very proactive about it. But still you get, you get a four year window under the 501 H test versus just a one year window in the facts and circumstances which is limited to only 5% too. There is an added wrinkle though to the 501 H test. Oh, here it comes now. All right. Read the foot. You gotta always read the footnotes. All right. Now what? It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere. Anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data, entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box life kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to election year activities. Gene and I just had uh technical difficulties which means uh since he lives in a big city and I live in a suburban beach town. Uh, my wi fi just cut out. So our sound is not gonna be as good as it was because now we’re recording on my phone. But as, you know, nonprofit radio perseveres through these minor technological let downs we, the, these things, these things don’t trouble nonprofit radio at all. So we’re still gonna, we’re gonna continue. Gene was, uh, Gene. I’m just gonna let you pick up, go ahead. Terrific. And we know charities have resilience as well. Um So under the 501 and under the 501 H expenditure test that we’re recommending to most charities. Um uh there are a couple of wrinkles. So one of the wrinkles is, is that there’s two types of lobbying, direct lobbying where you’re contacting uh uh a legislative body directly and asking for a change in the law or introduction of a new law. Um and grassroots lobbying when you’re telling your public to contact a legislator or legislative body to change the law. And so in grassroots lobbying, there’s going to be some sort of call to action. It’s going to be the charity expressing a particular view on a specific piece of legislation with a call to action to the public without that call to action. It’s not even lobbying. So you can do all of that. You want, you can actually express a view on a particular piece of legislation and not give any sort of message to the, to the public about who to contact or, you know, provide the information, the contact information of the legislature, um which is sort of implied called the action. You can include none of that, but just say, hey, this is the way our charity feels about this piece of legislation period, that’s not even lobbying uh for purposes of the expenditure test. So another good thing to note of, of advocating your point of view. But if you do decide on the 501 H expenditure test note that the grass roots lobbying limit is 25% of your total amount of lobbying. So if we said 20% is your cap on your 1st $500,000 on exempt purpose or mission related expenditures. So 100,000 of that $500,000 is safe, well, then $50,000 would be the amount that you could do of grassroots lobbying of that $200,000 limit that you have. So 25% cap on the grassroots lobbying expenditure. And as I said before, under the substantial part test, if you don’t make this election, if you exceed the amount in one year, you can lose your 501 C three exemption. Although that’s very, very unlikely based on sort of very poor irs enforcement on this issue right now. But under the 501 H expenditure test your measurement, you, you can get hit with a penalty tax of 25% of the excessive amount of lobbying if you lobby excessively. Um, but you will not get your tax exempt status, your 501 C three status revoked unless you exceeded the lobbying limit for a four year period. And you have to have exceeded it by more than 50%. So there’s a huge benefit to this 501 H expenditure test election. 5768 is the form number. We really urge most public charities to, to, to file that election. Absolutely. Yeah, I can, I can see the, the big advantages versus the cloudy, much less generous uh facts and circumstances. OK. Do the 501 H like gene just uh urged you beneath, you even do the 501 H All right. Um So what, where should, so where do you wanna go from from now? The uh the, the, the lobbying uh from, from lobbying? Where should we go? So let’s talk about what’s sort of maybe at the outset say, well, what you can’t do which you alluded to in the beginning. Tony is um you can’t endorse or support a candidate for a public office so you can’t engage in electioneering or public campaign uh political intervention. So none of that is permissible. But what is neither lobbying nor this um political campaign intervention is stuff like making available nonpartisan analysis study or research or examining broad social economic and similar problems if you do it in a nonpartisan manner, but really focusing on the issues. Um You know, if you don’t refer to specific legislation and you want to state your views on whether it be climate change or women’s rights or LGBT Q plus rights or anything, you don’t mention legislation, it’s not lobbying. And if there’s no call to action, it’s not grassroots lobbying. So there’s a lot of things that you can do. And maybe the last exception that I’ll mention and there are many others. But the last one I’ll say is if you’re communicating to a non legislative body, like an executive branch of the president, the mayor, the governor, that is generally not lobbying when it’s, you know, regarding implementation of regulations or policies because those are not done by a legislative body. Those are done by an administrative agency and lobbying has to do with legislation or if you’re sending this information to your constituents. Yeah. Uh a lot of times that may not be lobbying as well when it’s to, to your membership. It’s when you, when we talk about constituents and it gets a little bit iffy about whether that might be grassroots lobbying under the 50 mh expenditure test or just lobbying period. The, the substantial part test, the default test. Oh, so the, so the distinction is whether you have a call to action or, or whether you’re just sending something neutral, like you said, you know, just a report about a subject is that the difference? There is a call to action. Yeah, that’s probably the primary difference. There’s a little bit of differences between when we talk about sending communications to members versus to the general public. But in either case, yeah, if you don’t include a call to action, you’re probably safe and not engaged in lobbying. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you very much, Kate 24 NTC. It’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 and it is next week. I’m very grateful to Heller consulting for sponsoring us at 24 NTC. We’re gonna be sharing a double wide booth with Heller. I’ll be there capturing lots of interviews, but already more than 20 already scheduled. All these smart tech folks but not technical tech folks, right? We all we know this is the conference and certainly the interviews that I capture for us. Not, not over the top tech, not even, not even, not even top tech, just user, user friendly tech. That’s what we talk about. So uh we’ll have all these interviews playing over the coming months from the conference. Uh If you’re gonna be there, I hope you will come see us on the exhibit floor, which they’re calling the archive. No, not the archive. It’s the arcade, not the archive. The archive is in the past. So the arcade forward looking. Uh there’s gonna be, I know there’s ping pong. There’s ski ball. I know I specifically asked about ski ball. You gotta love skee ball. I used to play ski ball with my grandfather, Kate’s great grandfather, uh in Asbury Park, New Jersey, which he used to call Raspberry Park. Lots of stories about Raspberry Park. Anyway, there’s gonna be ski ball, uh in the arcade, um, and others, other games as well. We are gonna be in booths 607 and 609, nonprofit Radio and Heller consulting side by side. All the smart folks at Heller, you know, with their outstanding, um sales force, blackboard Microsoft consulting, they find you the right tech solution because they’re broad in lots of different platforms and then they do the implementation for you. Uh That’s Heller consulting again. Thankful to them for sponsoring us at the conference. Please come by, see us if you’re gonna, if you’re there in Portland, I neglected to say this is all happening next week in Portland, Oregon. Very nice city. I’m gonna spend a couple of extra nights because great, great food scene there with their food trucks. That’s 24 NTC and that is Tony’s take two. Hey, my dad loves ski ball. Every time we go to an arcade it’s always ski ball and like he’ll use my tickets because him and I go off together, he’ll use my tickets to just play ski ball. That’s it. Well, I, I have the origin story for that. I, I assure you, it goes back to our grandfather, grandpa Martinetti, taking us to ski ball back when the balls were made of wood. Yes. And a play was a dime. You put your little dime in dime for, like, I think it was a dime for nine balls. Oh, I wish it was still that. It’s like a dollar now. Oh, my God. Wooden balls. I guess they were not, uh, hypoallergenic like the plastic balls are anyway. But wood balls, I’m sure of it. It was nine plays for a dollar. No, nine plays for a dime. You pull that metal handle back and those wooden balls will come crashing down in a row and then you, then you do your play, try to get, try to get the ball in the center for the maximum points. So that’s why, that’s the story. Why your dad loves ski ball. Well, let’s carry on. What do you say we’ve got vu but loads more time. So let’s return to election year activities with gene decoy. It, it, it’s, it’s a question of doing it also aside from the call to action, doing it in a nonpartisan way, like you said, you know, objective research on an issue, right? Yeah. So, I mean, we can always do this in a partisan way that can now mean that it’s may not be lobbying, but it could be political campaign intervention that 501 CS are not allowed to engage in. So if we like, say, focused on a wedge issue like abortion, let’s say, and we didn’t talk about it, you know, for, for most of the, the, the period of time in question until just before an election. And then we started to talk heavily about that and tell people to, to really, you know, vote with their conscience lies without saying a particular candidate but mentioning abortion rights. Uh uh you know, if, if that was kind of the wedge issue between, you know, candidates and that’s the only time that we brought it up that might be seen as prohibited, you know, political campaign intervention or electioneering. Ok. So now we’re going broader, you know, what’s, what’s your typical communications about this issue? And like you said, if this is your first time and we’re in an election season, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s gonna, that’s gonna weigh against you versus something that you discussed routinely with your constituents. Yeah. And that’s gonna sort of apply to a number of different activities that might ordinarily be done, you know, regularly by an organization. But if it’s not done regularly and it’s only timed with an election, and it’s really the intent was to influence that election by picking a particular wedge issue or highlighting a particular issue just before the election that can get organizations into trouble. Although, again, the IRS enforcement on the whole electioneering issue has been pretty weak. Ok. All valuable. All right. Um You can even host a debate. Right. Yeah, there are definitely charities, 501 c three public charities that are not allowed to engage in electioneering that host candidate debates. Now, they’ve got to organize that in a neutral nonpartisan manner, including inviting all of the viable candidates. Now, not everybody might accept that invitation. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t hold the debate. But, um, yes, if you do it in a neutral nonpartisan manner, it can be done. And I think, you know, many of us are probably familiar with like the league of women voters. Um and, and others that, that uh organize some of the presidential debate. So it, it is something to, to be aware of that. It, it is a possible thing to do on a local level as well. Ok. Yeah. Right. This all applies locally too. So, I mean, we’re in a presidential year but uh think think broader than just 2024. Ok. OK. Um What, what about uh the, there’s the, there’s an issue around if you criticize the actions of an incumbent that’s running like Joe Biden. Yeah. So, you know, it’s always a little bit tricky when we talk about an incumbent when they’re also running for office. Right. So again, the timing may matter. Um but if we’re criticizing the incumbent based on their actions taken in that capacity, so if we criticize Joe Biden uh on actions he’s taken as president, that’s different from criticizing his stance in areas um which he’s campaigning on or which the other party may be campaigning on in terms of opposing his candidacy. So, yes, you can continue to criticize an incumbent’s action. If you’ve been doing that all along, that really helps if you only time it before the election and it looks like the reason for doing it was to influence that election, then maybe that could cross the line. So you have to think about it in those terms. It becomes a little bit weird too when you have the other candidate who was formerly the president of the United States as well. Right. So are we criticizing him for his actions taken when he was president or has that been so long ago? That that’s not really anything we’re doing other than to influence the coming election. So it gets a little bit dicey when, when, when, when we um look at that um in, in c through a certain lens, but you know, let’s talk not about the Biden Trump um candidacies, but let’s just talk about some local mayor uh or, or, or go, I, I’m sure all of us can criticize the actions of our executive branch officials from time to time um of, of our elected officials in the state. So um yes, um you can continue to criticize them probably again, you, you know, if that criticism was really just part of what is connected with your charity and not just for, for, for, you know, purposes of influencing their candidacy in a, in a later election. And let’s go to the next step. What about somebody who’s the candidate? But you’re hosting them for non candidate nonelection, uh type issues, a conversation, a debate, a panel, let’s say panel is probably more likely. Uh but it doesn’t have to do with their election. They happen to be a candidate. Yeah. So, you know, let’s say it, it was a um I, I’ll just pull out an example. I’m not sure that if I can come up with an actual name here, but let’s say it’s a rocket scientist, right, who happens to be running for office. Um But the charity wants to invite them because they’re a science museum and he has sort of a background in a particular initiative that the science museum has taken. And he is, you know, a very highly recognized person in the public. So that would be a great draw and he can talk intelligently about subject matter at hand, might be every right of that charity, that museum to invite that candidate, not as a candidate, but in, in his rocket scientists capacity to speak to the public and if he’s not talking about the election, um And you’ve got to sort of sometimes when you invite them, you have to talk to them about it because they may not know the 501 C three charity rules and this prohibition against electioneering. So you’ve got to make sure that they don’t speak about their candidacy or the election. Uh And the charity might even want to put a disclaimer up there, you know, when inviting him or, or when introducing him to the, to the uh audience that, hey, we’ve invited this person. Um We are not stating any position on the upcoming election, but we’ve invited him because he’s this, you know, famed rocket scientist and we’d love for him to speak with you about the science on our initiative. So that, that is ok. Ok. Ok. Uh We should probably move to what’s, what’s uh not, not allowed in. Uh Because we, we talked about what, what you can, what you can do as long as you do this on a nonpartisan basis. What, what are some things that are not allowed around the political campaign intervention? Yeah. So here’s um and I’ll speak of it in two ways. So what, what’s allowed and then what makes it wrong? So a voter registration drive or get out the vote drive. Those are really common for charities to do and they a RK unless you’re doing it in a partisan manner, right? So you’re only going out to do the voter registration drive if the voters are, you know, siding with your preferred candidate and if that’s the way you conduct the voter registration drive, then it is partisan political campaign intervention and could cost you your 501 C three status. So that would be prohibited. Same thing with like a candidate questionnaire or voter guide if you designed it or distributed it in a manner that was partisan. So you’re getting the answers that you want and using it as election materials, then that would be prohibited. Political campaign intervention if you had kind of um uh a candidate and you said, you know, we’re going to score you on all of the issues that matter to us. Then that could also be political campaign intervention when you’re just score carding a candidate just timed with the election. Now, that’s different from scorecard, an incumbent, um if it’s not timed with an election, but when you’re scorecard candidates um timed with an election really difficult if you ask a candidate to take a pledge. So you say, hey, pledge to support our environmental platform, even though you’re not saying we’ll support you. If you do that, even without that, that might be enough to say, hey, that’s still electioneering if, even if you, even if you offer that pledge to all the candidates, yeah, even if you offer it to all the candidates because if, if some pledge to back your platform and some pledges will not pledge that, then that’s seen as a message that you’re given to, to people who are looking at that uh that communication that you, you highlight after about who has backed your platform and who hasn’t. It’s kind of seeing as tacitly um uh influencing that election either by, you know, promoting or opposing a particular candidate. I see. Ok. Ok. What else? Uh, what else should we be aware of? So, avoid a big one is for me anyway, is the selective use of space or resources? So, in one sense, you know, a lot of charities will go, well, we don’t allow any of our political candidates or any political candidates to use like our space. So, you know, um, we’re not going to, you know, worry about that. But what if you invited somebody to speak to your, you know, to, to your audience about kind of the issues? And I said it would be ok if they, if they’re not doing it in their other, you know, capacity as a, as an expert in some other area. But what if they were doing it kind of as a candidate? Um, and you allowed them to, you know, to speak on the issues but you didn’t invite others to, to speak on it. That would be problem. And maybe even more of a common problem is one of the assets of a charity are its emails, right? So, if you have, uh, you know, Gene at charity.org, that’s the charity’s email address. You know, it’s my professional email, but it wouldn’t be my email in terms of, I wouldn’t own it if I, you know, if I wasn’t, you know, together with the charity anymore, if individuals who are certainly allowed to engage in, in, you know, supporting endorsing or opposing candidates for political office in their individual capacities. But if they’re using staff email to do it, um that becomes a problem if they’re using staff time or staff events, uh which they use as a platform to engage in their individual sort of first amendment rights to engage in political activity. That’s a problem because they’re using organizational resources, they can do it on their own time. Um And you might see sometimes in newspapers, people will put the name of the organization they’re with, they might even say like their position president of charity X endorsing this candidate. You’ll see there’s going to be an asterisk there that says that the titles and affiliations of the individuals are provided for identification purposes only. So it’s not an endorsement by the organization. So that’s really important to, to make sure that individual staff members or board members are not using organizational resources, including emails uh to engage in political activities that are, that are otherwise prohibited to the charity. How would you judge this one? Let me give you a hypothetical uh uh an employee drives uh a nonprofit vehicle to a rally or a anything where they’re gonna be expressing their political opinion, but use a rally so they drive it, they park it and then they walk a few blocks to the rally. What do you think about that? Can’t do it? I mean, it would be, it would be, again, the IRS rarely enforces this anyway. Um, but it is the law but it would be, it would, you know, it would probably not come to the, the, the charity’s, um, attention. But if it did, they would have to hold the employee accountable for that. So it’s not, you got to terminate somebody but you probably should have a policy that says something like you cannot use organizational resources, including our vehicles, including your email address to support or oppose any candidates for public office. You’ve got to use your own resources in your own time for that. Ok. It’s a resource. I agree. All right. If an email is a resource, then certainly a vehicle would be all right. I just wanted to just, I thought, I thought maybe she parked it a few blocks away. Uh Oh, I thought maybe it might make a difference. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity, virtuous beliefs that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive. Fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only response of nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now back to election year activities, you got some other things that we need to, we need to avoid around the political campaign intervention. Yes, I, you know, I would say another common thing is websites and social media, right? So social media on an organizational sort of account got to be careful, no electioneering on those accounts. So whether it be Twitter or X whatever you want to call it, Facebook, um tiktok, whatever, if it’s the organizational sort of account. Um And you’re promoting the charity uh on it, it’s not your individual account. Um You have to make sure that your individual sort of political endorsements or oppositions are not on that account, are not used on that social media account. On the charity website. There’s kind of this one link rule, meaning that if the charity links to another website, the charity is actually responsible for the content on that other website, not in terms of whether it contains an electioneering message or not. 00, that’s, that’s harsh. So you have to pay attention. So the general idea behind the rule is that, you know, I think any regulator would see past the the the rule of, of saying, hey, we don’t endorse political candidates but link here and this will take you to, you know, one of the political party platforms, right? And not the other. Um So, and they wouldn’t want you to say, oh, you know, that’s just a link that’s not on our page. We just included the link which has no, you know, electioneering message on it. Well, the one link rule would say no, you’re responsible for the content on that other page, but you’re right, it could be harsh because sometimes that link is to a 501 C four organization. Um And that 501 C four organization is allowed to engage in some political campaign activity so long as it’s not their primary activity. But if it goes to the page of the 501 C four that has the political campaign sort of intervention message on it, then the charity could be held responsible for it. And again, that would be a violation of the political campaign intervention rule. All right, now you’re responsible, um You’re responsible for other people’s content when you link to it in this, in this, in this arena, I I would be careful. I would say that there’s probably less likelihood of any enforcement if it’s something that is uh not intended to be an evergreen thing. So if it’s like is like a tweet and that link changes over time, I don’t think anybody is going to go back and say two years ago, you linked to this and now this link contains this electioneering message. I don’t think that’s the way it would be force, but if it’s on your, your sort of active website, uh and the link at the time that you created, you know, that website and, and published it, uh had electioneering messages on it, then I would be a little bit concerned that that would be a violation of the rules. You mentioned, uh you’re explaining about uh employees, you know, and not allowed to use any of the organizational resources. Um What about employees um wearing a hat or a button during, I don’t know, during staff time during an event, staff time, meaning working hours, you know, and they’re in their office doing that, not working, not working hours and they’re, they’re at home but working hours and they’re in their office or it’s an event. Uh and, you know, they’ve got their, they’ve got their election year on. Yes, I think that’s a really sensitive area, right? Because we each have our First Amendment rights and we’re ab absolutely wanna say individually as individuals in our individual capacity, we have every right to endorse or oppose a candidate for public office, every right to do so. Um But I said we shouldn’t use organizational resources to do so. So what happens if you show up? Um And you’re wearing a vote blue or vote red or Mega or whatever hat or t-shirt on and you go to go to work. Um Well, I think to the extent that you are representing the organization at work, especially if you have uh any interface with the public, that would be a reason for a charity employer to say no, that’s in violation of the rules. This isn’t, you know, a violation of your first amendment rights. We’re just saying as an organizational representative to the public or to the public that we’re serving, you cannot send that political message out because that looks like it’s a political message being sent by our charity. So I think that is where you would enforce it and say you can’t do it. Now if they’re at home um on a zoom meeting with other employees, I have a good one. That’s a good one. Yeah, I haven’t seen any guidance on this. I would still feel slightly uncomfortable about it, but I wouldn’t want to have to go to court to fight about that either and I’m not sure that anybody would really care. Um But yeah, what another employee said, no, that, you know, II I didn’t want to see that and that has, you know, traumatized me. Um We’re not, you know, we’re not thinking about election related materials and, you know, does that, you know, give them the same authority to say, you know, everybody of this, you know, particular viewpoint should die on their T shirt. Like that’s a first amendment right to wear, like you could walk out to an amusement park to wear it, I suppose, but Disneyland would probably throw you out and maybe a charity employer would have the right to say no, you can’t wear that on the zoom meeting either. Ok. Ok. Anything else we, we haven’t covered or you wanna cover in more detail, the quadrennial chance? Sure. So, um you know, maybe talking about what is educational like we’re allowed to educate the public if we wanted to educate the public on climate change. Is that ok? Um Yeah, you mentioned, for instance, you mentioned voter guides. Yeah, so you know, we, we could have a voter guide or maybe we’re just having educational materials, just articles um on our website or on our blog. And we, we have promotional activities about that. We hold conferences about it. We do you know seminars or trainings about it. Um Can we do all those things? Um And of course, I think we know the answer is yes, there are a lot of organizations that are, are holding conferences and seminars on climate change. Um But when is it wrong to do that? Um And it’s interesting, I, I think with climate change and the overwhelming scientific opinion that climate change and human uh cause of climate change is, is a real thing. Um that, that’s not an issue, but it once was I once got um asked by the IRS agent who reviewed uh uh an application uh for 501 C three status about an organization sort of uh educational material about climate change. And they said, well, is this a full and fair exposition of all of the facts? Are you considering both sides? Um because that’s what educational means under 501 C three. And I, I didn’t think that was appropriate of that particular IRS agent even back then, but maybe 50 years ago, maybe that would have been a legitimate question when the scientific community wasn’t as aware of those things. And maybe it could be seen as more of a wedge issue between candidates and a reason to promote one candidate over the other based on, you know, opinion rather than supported facts. Um, and so educational activities, um, of course, charities should be, you know, supporting their mission with educational communications out there. If, if it’s going to help them advance their mission, that’s what they should do. And if they aim it at candidates, if they’re aiming it at all candidates, I think that that’s a fair thing to do as well. Now, if you’re aiming certain educational communications only at the candidates that the charity leaders prefer in, in one way or the other, now you may be engaged in sort of, again, this partisan viewpoint. You’re, you’re um providing resources to one candidate and not to others, even though you might think that, well, they’re not going to read it, they’re not going to agree with it anyway, the fact that you’re not giving them the chance to, to use those resources even if to attack them, um, might be seen as preferential and partisan and therefore a violation of 501. C three. Ok. Yep. There again. You, you’re, you’re being biased, you said, you know, partisan, you’re not, you’re not doing it, um, you’re not doing it objectively. You’re not doing it across the board. You’re, you’re being selective. Yeah. I think, you know, 11 other thing I wanted to, to sort of, um, let the audience know about it is that there are other laws besides the 501 c three, sort of tax exemption laws that can apply to lobbying or political activities. Um, and so it may be a matter of taking a look at some of your state or local law resources on lobbying or political activities as well as knowing the tax laws. And there’s one great source right now, um, that was just recently made available in all 50 states and DC. It’s called State Law Resources, nonprofit lobbying. And it’s from the Alliance for Justice Boulder advocacy. So, um, uh, the Alliance for Justice has a 501 C three. They also have a 501 C four organization which we didn’t really talk about too much other than to say that they are allowed to engage in some political campaign intervention activities as long as it’s not their primary activity. Well, there are organizations that have both the 501 C three and a 501 C four organization. They are at arm’s length, but they are affiliated. Alliance for Justice is one of those organizations, but their C three has provided us some great resources, educational resources, nonpartisan that talk about state law, resources on nonprofits, lobbying and go over not only the tax laws that we talked about, but some of the political and election laws that, that apply as well on the state level. Um And again, local laws may also apply. So you just want to check out those resources if you’re going to engage in significant lobbying or political activities. J say the name of that resource again, the title of it. So it’s from the Alliance for Justice and it’s called State Law resources colon, nonprofit lobbying. State law resources, nonprofit lobbying. And there’s a different guide for each state and for, for, for the district of Columbia, you know, we love free resources. Excellent. OK. You feel like we’ve given this sufficient coverage until 2028. Yeah. Uh Other than to say, go out and advocate for your mission. Um And make sure your boards are supporting that advocacy as well. You can do a lot more than you think Gene Takagi there. You have it. You’ll find him at nonprofit law blog, which is nonprofit law blog.com and you’ll find uh him. You’ll find Gene at G Tac Gtak Jean. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Thanks, Tony. It’s always great to be on next week. The generational divide. We thought that would be this week, but things don’t always work out as planned if you missed any part of this weeks show. I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. You notice how I have Kate say we thought this would be next week. So kind of kind of makes it sound like it’s her fault. Notice I, I didn’t give the explanation, it’s not her fault but uh notice how I set her up that way. We’re sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving, virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Marinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for March 4, 2024: Publish Your Book, Thought Leader

 

Stephanie Chandler: Publish Your Book, Thought Leader

Thought leadership can be valuable to you, your nonprofit, or both. Publishing a nonfiction book is one way to become a thought leader or expand your credentials. From outlining and writing to publishing and marketing, Stephanie Chandler shares her personal experiences and professional wisdom. She’s CEO of the Nonfiction Authors Association and the Nonfiction Writers Conference.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

Virtuous: Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer, and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving.

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite Hebdomadal podcast. We’ve got co listeners of the week, Cheryl mccormick and Zach Gamber at Athens Area Humane Society in Athens, Georgia. Cheryl is the CEO and one of our longest standing listeners. She’s been with us for many years and she was in my first planned giving Accelerator class and by the way, she is crushing, planned giving with $7 million in commitments since the class. So I visited her two weeks ago at their incredible facility in Athens. Uh and I met Zach and we talked about his work there and he has sworn to start listening. So, one of our longest running listeners brought in our newest listener. I love that. Congratulations, Cheryl and Zach at Athens Area Humane Society for bringing nonprofit radios listeners of the week. And Zach welcome. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be hit with amelogenesis imperfecta if I had to chew on the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up this week. Hey, Tony and congratulations to Cheryl and Zach. Welcome. We have published your book, thought leader. Thought leadership can be valuable to you. Your nonprofit or both. Publishing. A nonfiction book is one way to become a thought leader or expand your credentials from outlining and writing to publishing and marketing. Stephanie Chandler shares her personal experiences and professional wisdom. She is CEO of the nonfiction Authors Association and the nonfiction Writers Conference on Tonys. Take two, please review who are sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org here is, publish your book, Thought Leader. It’s a pleasure to welcome Stephanie Chandler to nonprofit radio. She’s the author of several books, including the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan and the nonfiction book publishing plan. She’s CEO of the nonfiction Authors Association, a vibrant community for writers and the nonfiction writers conference. A live event conducted entirely online since 2010. She knows a little bit about writing nonfiction. I’d say you’ll find Stephanie on linkedin, Stephanie Chandler. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Hey, Tony, great to be with you today. I’m glad you can be. This is a topic we have never covered and I think it’s, I think it’s interesting and it’s timely thought, leadership, thought leadership and, and book publishing to support your thought leadership. Uh, and you’re the perfect person. Obviously you’ve got no, the, the nonfiction appears like four or five times in your, in the little bio that I read. So, uh, you’re, you’re well entrenched in nonfiction, uh, writing and publishing. Tell us about thought leadership. Why, why is it valuable to be a thought leader? You know, I think, especially from the perspective of business, right? You want to be known for what your expertise is in and in the nonprofit space. I mean, it’s great to be known for your expertise related to your nonprofit. So there’s a ton of value in that. I always say, I don’t feel like thought leadership is a title we should claim, but it’s a title that we earn through various forms of content, marketing. And that includes writing books, speaking, sharing content on a blog, a podcast. Like you have things like that. I like the idea of letting other folks decide that you are a thought leader versus you claiming yourself. I, I feel the same way about expert, expert. I, I never used to say I, I do planned giving fundraising and I never say I’m an expert in plan giving fundraising. I let other people decide that I’ll say, you know, I know a little about planned giving. I’ve been doing it for 27 years. You know, I know a thing or two like, you know, a thing or two about nonfiction, publishing and writing. But, you know, I don’t like to, I like folks to draw those conclusions on their own. I mean, I’ll give you the facts and then you decide, you decide whether I’m a thought leader or expert or if someone is or, you know, whatever II I admire that part. Um Alright, so writing a book, uh you mentioned a few things that can be valuable thought leadership. Um It sounds terrifying. Uh It sounds like something that I think a lot of people feel is beyond them. Like they don’t have 30 or 40,000 words to write a book, they struggle with a 250 word, you know, article that they have to do for a newsletter or an annual report. How could I possibly do many tens of thousands of words for a book? I’m terrified. Uh help us overcome those misconceptions. Yeah, I love this because it doesn’t have to be as hard as it sounds. And so what I usually recommend to writers is we call it the old storyboard method, right? So when I write a new book, I sit down with a stack of three by five cards and I write every topic I wanna cover in this book on an individual card and I usually end up with, you know, 30 or 40 maybe even 50 cards. And then I will literally lay them out on the floor in front of me. And I will start to put them in order and this becomes your chapter outline. And you can see, oh, this topic’s heavy. Maybe I need to divide it into two chapters. This topic is light. I need to add more stories here. Right? So when I’m talking about brainstorming the topics you want to talk about that includes case studies and telling real world stories because that’s a part of writing a really interesting book. So we lay it out, transfer that to an outline and then I challenge writers. You know, 1000 words is about three typed pages. And if you sat down and wrote three pages a day, 1000 words for 50 or 60 days, you would have a beefy manuscript. If you did it for 30 days, you’d have a nice light book. So 1000 words a day, I feel like even with my hectic schedule is doable. And also if you’re already blogging or producing any kind of content, you can pull that in. And I also recommend the flip side. So you have your outline and you’re starting to write content for your book. Start putting that up on your blog and building readership around the content. All right, this sounds too easy now. Um OK, we’re gonna break this down. What about uh what about just researching the topic? Like, should you be concerned whether other people have already covered your topic? And you know, maybe you don’t have anything new to contribute. Yes, I hear this a lot. So, you know, we call it competitive analysis, right? Go look at the similar books in your space, assess them and figure out how is your book going to be different or better than what’s already there? Because you do want to be able to have your book stand out. I recommend in the nonfiction space in particular that authors niche down as much as possible. You know, there are thousands of leadership books out there. Is there a leadership for nonprofits? Is there a leadership for tech companies? Right? So the narrower that you can, you can focus, it will help your book stand out and you want to see what other books are in that space. If you’re going to pitch a publisher, they expect you to do a competitive analysis. They want to see five or six or 10 similar titles to know how well they’ve done and how your book is different. Ok. Uh And yeah, in the nonprofit space, you know, you could, you could pick um marketing communications and then it could be, you know, within that, that’s even still broad, you know, developing your marketing plan or, you know, I mean, a multi community, it’s maybe it’s deal and maybe it’s focused on digital fundraising, communications versus digital uh leadership communications or internal, internal communications, you know, for your, for your employee teams. Um you know, in fundraising, there, there’s probably a dozen different topics whether it’s events or annual or recurring giving or plan giving, major gifts, there’s relationships, you know, relationship building in those, right? You wanna drew down to a niche? Um And then how can you be confident that, that even, you know, you, you know, you said you, you, you want to put your, you didn’t say spin on it but you’re, you know, you wanna make your influence known within, within your niche. But, I mean, you have to uh is, it is as deep as reading all the books that are closely aligned to yours to, to your space so that, you know, what already has been said? No, not necessarily because I think that we’re all attracted to different types of books, different types of authors. And in fact, I don’t want to read my competitors book before I sit down to write because I don’t want it to influence anything I say. So I’m more likely to look at the table of contents, um read some of the reviews to see what people liked about the book or what was, what they said was missing from the book. And so I really feel it’s just, it’s the same in business, right? I always feel like there’s plenty of business to go around. I don’t have competitors, right? I have peers and I try to work together and same thing in publishing. I mean, they’re like I said, there’s 1,000,000 ends of leadership books and just because others exist, doesn’t mean that you don’t have your own unique perspective to put on your own book that’s maybe similar to what’s already there. But you want to carve out something that makes it different or special. You had suggested, uh, 1000 words a day. Can I take twice as long and just write 500 words a day? I can? Ok. So, whatever is doable for us. Absolutely. And even if you, you know, it’s hard for all of us who are busy to carve out day time in a day. But you know, if you could carve out two hours twice a week and aim to get it done in three months, you know, give yourself time. But I will say I feel like writing gets easier, the more you do it, it’s like that muscle that you exercise. And another thing Tony to, to feel confident in your content is editing. You know, I’m not an editor myself. I value editing tremendously. And there’s different types of editing, there’s developmental editing where an editor comes in and kind of perform surgery on a manuscript. There’s copy editing where they’re looking line by line and they might say, you know, this is confusing. You need to explain better here or you talked about this in a previous chapter and then there’s um proofreading, right? So I always put my books through you. Typically two rounds of copy editing at a minimum and two rounds of proofreading because it’s also a human function and different sets of eyeballs can help. But for somebody who’s maybe never written before, developmental editing can help you feel really confident that you’re producing, you know, a book to be proud of this kind of leads to something else. I want to ask about getting help for the, for the writing. Um I mean, so you have to be disciplined yourself. I mean, I’ve heard writers say that, you know, they like to write very early or they have a special time, they like to write. So I’ve heard writers say they like to write very early. There’s no interruptions. It’s, it’s something they can wake up and do and they want to, they want to get it done, kind of know that they’ve accomplished their, whatever their hours of writing or, you know, whatever it is. Um So there’s a personal discipline you’re saying, you know, 500 day or day, 500 words a day or a couple of times a week or, you know, but you, you do have to be diligent about it. It’s gonna take some personal discipline. It does. And some people address that with working with a book coach. There’s lots of people out there who help writers have that accountability and kind of talk them through the writing process. And so there’s book coaches out there. This is the reason why people join writers groups to connect with other writers. You know, there’s these um, be quiet and write events where people go sit in a cafe and just sit down and write. Some people are doing this on Zoom now. So if you need accountability, there’s lots of ways to get it. Oh, that’s interesting. People are going on Zoom or going to a cafe and not talking to each other and they just say hello and then they sit down and this is their first time to write. Ok. All right, we’re gonna go on Zoom but I’m not gonna talk to you. But you have to keep your, I imagine you have to keep your camera on for full accountability. You need to see that you’re, you’re not, you know, you’re, you’re not feeding the Children or doing anything else. I mean, I would think you gotta keep the camera on. You do. And I, I personally, I think I’d find it weird and a little distracting but some people really love it. Yeah, I don’t think I would but, but I could say, you know, if, if, if you need that, you use what, OK, use what it takes for you to be disciplined and accountable. Ok. But then, then the help of others. So you’ve mentioned different types of uh, editors, uh, a book coach. Um, so we may need, you know, we’re gonna have to spend some money as well as time. Um All right. So different, like, I guess a book coach would be the first is that somebody, that somebody helps you, helps keep you accountable or what, what, what would you expect from a book coach? Instead of, instead of me guessing, maybe you should just tell us, I’m sure I just keep guessing. Let me get Susan. You tell me which one is, right? Which one is right? We’ll do a game show. Yeah. So book coaches often help with the outline and, you know, setting goals for what you’re going to get written this week. A lot of nonfiction isn’t written from beginning to end, you might hop around, right. So if you’ve got an outline and es especially with non fiction, I mean, you can tackle it like you’re writing many articles. I find that um an easier way to attack it, but it’s also great for reading, right? As a reader, you don’t want to read a, a giant tome these especially these days, you know, we can thank Seth Godin for creating this trend of shorter smaller books and we are in a short attention span society. So writing things succinctly in short order can really help your reader and also help you as a writer. So you’re not having to, I think we all suffer from the overthinking, right? So, and if you go and you take AAA creative writing class, they would tell you just get it out on paper. That’s an Anne LaMotte Bird by Bird. Don’t edit as you go, don’t stop to look up a fact, right? So a trick for me when I’m writing is I’ll make a note in my manuscript if I put an XXX, meaning I need to come back to this and look up a stat or find a case study or just something I want to reference later so that I can keep my writing flow going. Um So book coaches can help you with tips like that and, you know, you might meet weekly to say, did you get your 1000 words written this week or your 1500 words? And it’s a great relationship for people and they might be reading it and also doing some level of editing. So every coach is different. Ok. Ok. By the way, I love your index card approach. You start with index card, it reminds me of high school writing thesis. We just write a thesis papers and then you had to have your, your opening paragraphs would lead to your thesis and then you had to explain, justify your thesis. But each card would become a paragraph, I think. And then you move the cards around and then that was your, you know, like a four page thesis you had to write. Reminds me of the, so I like, I like the idea of laying it all out in front of you on the, on the floor. It’s a really popular method in Hollywood too. They storyboard movies. And so it’s used for lots of things I do. It when I create a presentation, right? So anything that has got to have a lot of content and I really want to think it through carefully. It helps me get my thoughts organized. How about these other folks? WW uh You mentioned proof proof editors, copy editors. Uh what other, what, what other support might we but we need, yeah, for the writing part, I think editing, editing tends to be, by the way, one of the biggest expenses in publishing because it is a human function and you’re going to pay the most for a developmental editor. That’s somebody who’s really going in and kind of reworking your manuscript for you. Oh OK. Yeah. So it’s kind of a back and forth, but they’re kind of performing surgery on it and going giving it back to you ideally in better order than how they received it. And then the copy editing is more of a line by line review. So at a minimum, I think every book, every manuscript needs copy editing. At least one round. Like I said, I typically like to do uh one or two with my book, my own books and then at least two rounds of proofreading. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in-person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets, no team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box like kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024 visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to publish your book, Thought Leader. Now one of your own books was uh was very deeply personal to you. Tell us, tell us that story. Yeah. So in the nonprofit space, I’ve been involved with the Sacramento area, nonprofit called Friends For Survival had been on the board. This nonprofit was started, I believe about 30 years ago for families who’ve lost a loved one to suicide. So I lost my husband in 2013 and I started attending meetings there and then I joined the board and I thought, you know, I wish that someone had handed me a guide on how to deal with this. And so they said, why don’t you write the guide? And I did that. And so it’s um it’s called When Someone You Love Dies by Suicide. It’s a short, it’s really a short guide, small book that they had bound in a like a three by six size. And the idea was to get it in the hands of first responders to give to families when they’re delivering that news, right? I was given nothing, no guidance. Just that, of course, Chaplin showed up whatever. But um, so, and, and since then, and we give them away for free, but it’s driven donations, right. So you put these out, make it available to order copies on the website and we’ve shipped thousands of copies all over the US and I believe two or three other countries as well. So it feels really good to take a, a big uh personal lesson and be able to help other people in some small way. And it becomes kind of a fundraiser without being a blatant fundraiser for the organization. And you were in that situation where you were informed of your husband’s suicide by a stranger by a police officer. Yeah. And it’s awful and they, they don’t know what to say other than, you know, we regret to inform you, we’re sorry to say that kind of thing. And then, and then you go, well, now, what, what do I do? Right? I was in my early forties at the time and um, so, and I had a son, so it just talks and suicide in particular has a lot of complexity in the grief process as far as guilt. A lot of families feel guilt. Um So it addresses some of those challenges and also points people to resources because I didn’t know where to go. But one of my first thoughts was I can’t do this alone. I need to find some sort of support with other people who’ve been through this So that was kind of the mission of the mini book we created. Thank you for sharing that personal story. Uh And it aligns perfectly with your, with your work. You know, that was your, that was an outlet for you. Maybe it was a little cathartic too. Always, it’s always cathartic to tell your story. And, um you know, maybe you’ve got listeners that want to write a memoir or something like that, it can be a really healing process because you’re also, you know, coming from a place of wanting to help others. And so for me, that feels better than anything. That’s what our listeners do. They’re, they’re all helping others or causes that are the moving, moving to them. Um, and Tony can I just piggyback on that because that’s also a perspective when writing a book, right? This is why I fell in love with nonfiction because nonfiction helps people, right? If you’re going through a divorce and you read somebody’s divorce memoir, you feel a little less alone or you’ve just been diagnosed with an illness and, and you read somebody’s book about how to deal with that illness or you’re, you’re starting a nonprofit and you have no idea what to do. Books are what help us, you know, achieve goals, heal all kinds of things. So it’s exactly what I love about nonfiction and from the perspective of a nonprofit telling stories of the members, you know, things that lessons learned, there’s just so many ways to turn that into something that helps people. Should we know before we start writing, how we’re gonna publish this book, whether it’s gonna be, we’re gonna try for traditional publisher or a hybrid or self publishing strictly or there are publishing coaches. Should we know this in advance? How, how we hope to get, get this book distributed? I mean, it’s nice to know or to at least have some plans. Um I will say, I think traditional publishing has gotten less appealing over the years, I’m traditionally published as and chose to leave traditional publishing because of the lack of control over my own work. And it’s kind of this myth that traditional publishers are going to do all the marketing. They want authors that are going to do the marketing, that have a platform that have um an audience essentially. So having a podcast is a great platform. Having um a large email list is a great platform, having a large social media following. Those are things publishers look for. But here’s the reality. Tony publishers pay authors an average of $1 per book sold. So even if you’re given an advance and advances have gotten much smaller, I I mean, 5 to $10,000 is pretty typical for a first time author, you will not see another dime until you earn that advance back $1 at a time. So it’s a, it’s almost like AAA low that you have to earn back from those book sales. And what really bothered me about traditional publishing was that um they, I had my book titles changed. I had covers design that I didn’t like and they didn’t care that I didn’t like them. Uh One publisher called me right before we went to press and said, we want you to cut a chapter. We don’t care which one we just want to save on costs. Now, I had delivered within my word count. I, I mean, and I thought I am never letting this happen again. So, and also by the way, bookstores, brick and mortar is not where we’re buying our books anymore. There’s some estimates that Amazon is selling 70% of all books. We don’t know for sure because Amazon doesn’t really tell us in detail. But the fact is I love a bookstore. I used to own one, but it’s not where I get my books anymore. Right. So, and it used to be traditional publishing. The big goal was to get on a bookstore shelf. But if you have a niche topic, like something for the nonprofit community, people aren’t going to bookstores looking for that. They’re looking for that online. So self publishing gives you more control. You do spend some money upfront, but you will earn much more on the back end of your book sales. I’m talking, you know, 510 $15 a copy depending on, on how you’re selling your books and you, you maintain all that control. It’s not easy. It’s a, you know, there are a lot of steps in producing a high quality book. Um And that’s why a lot of people go to hybrid publishing, which is basically a publisher that does all the heavy lifting. But you’re paying for that service for them to produce a high quality book for you. And a lot of busy people like us, that’s what we want to do. We want to hire that out. I don’t want to go and find my own book designers and editors and distribution and all that stuff. So there’s lots of choices today. Do you need to know for sure when you sit down to write your manuscript? No, but it’s good to, to be aware of what your options are. The um travails of traditional publishing is something I’m just scratching the surface of because there’s a large well known publisher that’s considering a proposal that I’ve uh edited for them and now so submitted a second time. Um And I’ve talked to a lot of authors of this uh same publisher who have said uh essentially right down the line. What, what you said, there’s the old uh idea that they help with the marketing. They do very little. Uh They, they may, they may help you on the Amazon page. Like some, they, they may be a little more sophisticated on the your Amazon book page perhaps than you would be on your own something having to do with video or something. But it, it’s, it’s not, uh, let, let’s take it as true that Amazon sells 70% of all books. Let’s just, let’s just assume it’s true. Uh You’re in the industry, I’m sure it’s closed, but let’s just assume it is. But even then, you know, they’re not, it’s not like they’re being dogged about, uh, Amazon lifting your book. It’s just, there was this one thing in on your Amazon book page that it seemed like a, a traditional publisher was able to help you with more than you would be able to on your own. I thought it had to do with video on the page or something, something like that. But overall, the the marketing help is is minimal. They, they are looking for the author to come with a platform. In fact, that’s there was a section in my proposals, the author’s platform, the A me the, the author’s platform, here’s what I have. Um And I’ll even say in the first round when I submitted the initial proposal, all the questions that came back were related to how many books I could sell. There wasn’t a single, I’m not exaggerating. There wasn’t a single comment or question about the substance of the book plan to giving or, or my my experience uh and why I’m the right person to write it. Not a single question about either of those two topics. It was all about how much can you sell? What’s your consulting? Like I teach an online course. How many people are in that online course? Is that, uh, uh, how much speaking do you, do you know it, it was all of all the feedback was about sales. Ok. And now you’re saying they changed, they changed your title, you got titles. You didn’t, like they told you to cut a chapter even though you came within your word count. I mean, you did what your contract calls for. And then they, they just, they, they changed the contract term. They have all the control. That’s the challenge. They, they um they, they can and you know, I hear horror stories all the time. So let’s say you do get a deal, by the way, I have a book with the publisher you’re talking to. So let’s say you do get a deal. It’s typically going to take them a year to get the book out. And there’s, I’ve heard stories about publishers signing an agreement and then they decide, oh, we’re going to sit on that where we’ve got other titles we’re going to release. I worked with one author. Her book was released. Um It went two years before they got around to releasing it. So you just lose all this control. And I don’t know about you, Tony. I am type a, that’s why I run my own business and do it on my own because I don’t want other people telling me how to do things. And I just found it incredibly frustrating, um especially when I’m already doing all the work, right? I’m building my own audience. I’m, I’m engaging with my audience. So it was really empowering to take that the control back. It’s time for Tony’s take to thank you, Kate. I beseech you once again. This is gonna, so this is the first beseech, of course, it’s gonna be a second beseech uh later on naturally, but I’m beseeching you. Uh second row, 2nd, 2nd time in a row to rate and review. I would be grateful if you would rate and review the show, whatever platform you listen on Apple uh Amazon now, Amazon music, we’re on Amazon music now, by the way, um you know, Spotify, et cetera, wherever you listen, wherever fine podcasts are heard. I would be grateful for your five star review and a rating. If you can’t do the rating part, the narrative, I’d be grateful for the five star review. We could do some recent reviews though too. So, uh I do beseech you. I’d be grateful. Please rate and review and that is Tony’s take two, that nifty little rhyme again, Kate, please rate us and review us and you know, give us like five stars. Thank you. Absolutely. We’ve got Buku but loads more time. So let’s return to publish your book, Thought Leader with Stephanie Chandler. The other options are strictly self publishing and, and the hybrid. Those are the three, those are the three ways of getting a book published. Correct. Those are the three primary ways, um, is, is the, is the hybrid, essentially a publishing coach. Aren’t there publishing coaches who will do some of the lifting for you also? Correct. Yeah, they’re definitely book coaches. Um, book Doulas. They, you know, they have different do. Oh, that’s a good one. Book Doulas do. Yeah, because it really is a like giving birth. But, um, yeah, so you can have somebody coach you through the self publishing process. But a hybrid publisher typically comes with some sort of name recognition, right? And they’re, they’re going to do all that heavy lifting, but you still own the rights to your content. So you’re basically paying them a fee up front for them to handle the whole process for you and then you’re approving the cover design, you’re approving the interior layout, you’re, you’re reviewing the edits and, and they’re helping you get the book out into the world. What else? Uh, what else? Haven’t we talked about that? Uh, well, le let’s talk, let’s talk. I, I got, I got one before the launch, the launch. You’re supposed to, you’re supposed to be preparing your book launch. I don’t know, six months in advance or a year in advance or something, conferences, uh, podcast opportunities. I don’t know, op EDS, you know, tell us about the preparation and the launch the public, which is the publishing date. Right. Correct. Yeah, this is so important and it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see authors make is that they wait until the book is about to come out and then they go, uh, oh, what do I do? Right. So you do want to start building your marketing plan in advance. And, you know, as podcasts are one of my favorite strategies for authors go get on podcasts and a lot of podcasts are booked months ahead. So if you want it to coincide with your book launch, you need to start pitching three or four months in advance. And the same thing with industry book reviews, you want to get the um advanced review copies out. Um Today we have Amazon ads, which I think is fantastic opportunity for non fiction in particular. They are pay per click based ads. So when you’re shopping on Amazon for a book, there’s always or any product really, there’s always sponsored products below the book you’re or the product you’re looking at, those are done through paper click ads and those clicks could be as little as 20 cents. They could be $2 or more depending on how much competition is in that space. This is why it’s, I think a lot easier for non fiction, especially if you have a niche because you’re coming up with keywords that your target readers are looking for and maybe you’re paying 30 40 50 cents a click, but you only pay one, the ad is clicked. And if you’ve done a good job with your book, it’s going to convert into a sale. Right. So, as long as your clicks are converting into sales, you’re coming out ahead. So I’m a huge proponent of Amazon ads and Amazon is incentivized to make those ads work because they’re making money on both ends. Right. They’re, they’re making money on the ad spend. And then they’re also getting a piece of every sale that you make. So I’ve seen these ads perform really well. In fact, I worked with a memoir writer. He’s just about to cross the 50,000 book threshold. He sold 50,000 copies of a memoir, which is really hard to do if you’re not a celebrity and you’re not on a reality show. And he has zero platform, Tony. He’s a real estate investor and he said I’m going all in on Amazon ads and sure enough, it’s worked incredibly well for him. Ok. He’s got that niche. Yes. Yeah. His niche, by the way was a memoir about betting on a horse to win the Kentucky Derby. A long shot and, and the, the Philly ends up winning and he has to go collect his seven figure prize and he didn’t realize he had bet with the Mexican drug cartel. This was back in the eighties. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a fun read. It reads like a novel and it appeals to different audiences and that’s something to think about too horse lovers, people who gamble, right. He’s got different sectors of audiences that are interested in that book. All right. And one of your whole books is about, uh is the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan. So, all right, clearly, clearly. And uh you mentioned podcasts booking several months, 34 months in advance conferences, if you wanna bring books to a conference and maybe they give some away for free and maybe you have a table where you’re signing and you’re hopefully selling books there. I mean, that, that could be easily nine months and 89 months in advance. Yeah. And I’ll say speakers sell books and publishers love to hear that an author speaks and reaches thousands of people every year. Speakers sell books. But also, and let’s say if we flip it back to the self publishing conversation and you, you tie that in with nonprofits, you can get sponsors to, to give books away to a conference attendees, right? So I have a friend who teaches tech companies how to grow their businesses and he gets software companies to sponsor his books. He’ll put their logo on the cover, let them do an introduction page. He charges them several grand to set it up and then they’ll buy copies to give out at their, you know, trade events or conferences. So it can actually become a revenue stream. But your traditional publisher won’t have the capability to do that. So if you want to turn the book into a sellable asset that makes money, that’s one way to go about it. Now, I, I assume all these ideas are in your uh, non, non fiction, book, marketing and launch plan book, right? The Amazon ads, the sponsorships. Ok. Ok. So I wrote the book as a companion to the six week course that I teach and people kept ordering copies for their clients. I had book coaches in my courses and things like that. So it’s really a very step by step process of figuring out who’s your target audience, by the way, we didn’t talk about that. But that’s so important when you’re writing a book, who are you writing for? What do they want to leave your book having gained? What, what are their struggles and challenges that you can address in your book? And that also becomes part of your marketing messaging, right? If you read this book, here’s what you’ll do. If you read my book, marketing book, you’re going to be equipped to set up your own book launch and marketing plan. So you want to have that in mind when you’re producing your book and when you’re setting up your marketing plans and one really important um tactic that I recommend Tony is your community of influence. Who do you know that can help support your book in some way, who can bring you in as a speaker who do you know that has a podcast that can interview you? Who do you know that could um get their company to buy 500 copies of your book or do a sponsored printing of the book? So I do this exercise myself every time I, I release a book, I literally spend an afternoon making a spreadsheet. Who do I know? What is my ask? And your ask might be as simple as who’s going to write a review on Amazon, right? Or who do I want to give early access to my manuscript so that they’re ready to promote it when it comes out too. Um But I have found this exercise of who do you know your community of influence is oftentimes your, your community is bigger than you realize, right. So my book has only been out since January and I have this wonderful several dozen peers in my, in this industry that were out there putting it on their blog, interviewing me for their podcast, putting it out on social media, recommending it to their readers. One trade association called me and said, we’re going to build a mastermind group around this book. So they’re all buying copies, right? So reach out to your peers. That’s a huge, huge part of the process that very few marketers talk about. Who do you know? And what is your ask? It’s, it’s actually parallel to uh fundraising in nonprofits who are our, who are our donors who are our potential donors? Who are our volunteers and what are we gonna ask of them? Right. Um Anything more about the target audience? Um I think that you really just want to feel like what problems are you solving for them? II, I say to authors, what questions do you find yourself answering over and over again? That’s a clue that they want to know that. Um If you’re not sure, survey the audience, what do they care about? What are they struggling with? What solutions can you bring to them? If your nonprofit does consulting, you know, what are the common issues that you’re addressing in your consulting or in the courses that you teach? Because these are good indicators of what your target audience is looking for. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools you need to create more responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now back to publish your book, Thought Leader. Definitely, I see in your, your office background, you’ve, you’ve got a bunch of nostalgia. Uh you got three typewriters. You have an old microphone, uh old tabletop microphone looks like it goes back to the 19 fifties or something. Are you a nostalgic person or just a collector of old, old, old stuff related to communications or what, uh, related to communications? Especially? Right. I’ve always wanted to write and quite frankly, Tony, I set out to write fiction after I left my soul sucking Silicon Valley job 20 years ago. And I opened a bookstore in Sacramento and thought I would write novels in the back office and I was a terrible fiction writer and I thought, oh, no. Now what, because I’d always wanted to write and it was just a, a lucky turn to realize, oh, I can write nonfiction and leverage teaching, which is also I had set out to be an English teacher and did this kind of, you know, U turn and ended up in the Silicon Valley. But, um, yeah, so I love all things, word related and speaking related, all of those topics. It’s, it’s a great way for us to help make the world a better place. II, I was in a sort of a collectibles store, uh, over the weekend and I saw old, they, they had an old Remington typewriter. So brother is the one that I knew because I, I got for, I think for my high school graduation, I got a brother typewriter. Um, that was 1980. Yeah, 1980. Um, but Remington goes even further back. Those are the beautiful ones with the, with the ribbon, the, the metal spools with ribbon on them. And it’s when you used to put a little piece of correcting tape in the backspace for people under uh I guess for people under 50 or so you, you, you type, make a mistake, you had to hit the backspace key. Then you had a little piece of uh erasing paper, eraser paper which, which would put white powder. It was, it was coated with white powder on one side. So you put the powder side towards your page, you would retype your mistake and then it would, it would put powder in that. It would fill in the, the, the black ink space on your white paper with the white powder and then your mistake is corrected and then you would type the correct letter and you continue on until you made your next mistake. Do you remember? Do you remember that? I absolutely do that tape correction paper like that, right? You put that thing in my son thinks I’m crazy. Right? He’s 17 and he’s like, what do you do? Typewriters? I mean, what do you? Well, yeah, I am. Yeah, I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t know, you were thousands of years old, right? All right. Um What else? What else do you want to talk about around this, uh thought leadership, book publishing topic? You know, so books are a great tool for um reaching people, right? So you can leverage a book to get speaking engagements. I mean, if you’re talking to the speaking industry, they will tell you every speaker needs a book, it helps build that credibility. So, and I would say in nonprofits, you know, friends who survival, who I’ve volunteered with for a number of years now has a variety of books. They’ve acquired books from writers in the, the suicide space as a way to help the members. So I think that there’s other ways to think of books as a tool for reaching more people for um impressing donors for, you know, maybe you give out a book to every new member and you get a corporation to sponsor that investment. So it can actually be a powerful fundraising tool and also establish that thought leadership. And I, I’m working with another nonprofit. It’s um but it’s more of an association and the ceo of this gigantic association wants to establish that leadership in that space. A book is one of the best ways to do that. So that it’s really important to think about the power of how you will use that book. I mean, very few writers make money on books, but you can make money on all the things you can build around that book, your author with the 50,000 copy memoir that he’s, he’s an outlier he’s doing, he’s doing very well with his book, but it’s not, yeah, don’t expect to make a lot of money uh with your book. But your point is all the, all the ancillary things you might build your own Mastermind se series. Perhaps it might lead to online courses, uh might lead to a follow up book. Uh and, and all the things you mentioned, speaking gigs, et cetera and it can raise awareness for an organization, you know, and there’s different formats of books, right? It could be a workbook, it could be something that uh a journaling journal prompts book. There’s just so many ways to produce content that’s valuable to your target audience if you know what they care about. Well, and one of the purposes of the book could be education like your, like your mini book on how to deal with the suicide of a, of a loved one. It doesn’t have to be something that is your own personal thought, leadership venture. Uh Certain, that’s certainly right, but it doesn’t have to be that it could be your organization producing a book, writing a book for education on your, on, on your work for the community. That’s right. And fill a hole, right? What’s not there? So when you do that, competitive analysis oftentimes there’s holes in niche niches you know, I set out to work solely with nonfiction authors and I couldn’t believe I couldn’t, nobody else was, had an organization for this. Nobody had an online conference back in 2010. Nobody was doing this stuff. And I was speaking at writers conferences and I was like, why is the name would be talking to those of us who write nonfiction. It’s very fiction centric in the writers world and children’s books and maybe a little bit of memoir. But nobody’s talking to those of us who write business books. Um, you know, and science and history and, and prescriptive how to type books. So I saw a need and I filled it and for those of your listeners, what need needs to be filled, whether it’s with a book or other type of content, of course, uh, you know, speaking topic, all those things are ways to engage your audience, your community, your members and deliver value that helps keep them loyal for a very long time. That’s cool. All right. Uh, I feel like that’s a good place to end. How do you feel? I love it. This is really fun. Oh, I’m glad. My pleasure, Stephanie Chandler, uh, a couple of her books, the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan and the nonfiction book publishing plan. She’s CEO of the Nonfiction Authors Association and also the nonfiction Writers Conference. You’ll find Stephanie on linkedin, Stephanie, what’s the website for the Nonfiction Authors Association? It’s just nonfiction authors. Association.com and same thing for the conference, which is coming up in May. Oh, they’re both aptly named. Ok. Ok. Um, and you’re in Folsom? You’re in Folsom, California, right? You’ve mentioned Sacramento a couple of times. You’re Sacramento area in Folsom. That’s right. Just 10 minutes, 10 minutes out of Sacramento. North Cal, sunny weather. It’s, we’re very spoiled here. Does everybody ask you about Folsom Prison? Yes, I do. I, I have Johnny Cash’s album. Uh Folsom live from Folsom prison. As do I and we have, you do too. Oh, I absolutely do. And we have walking trails named after him. And ironically we’re the safest city in all of the Sacramento metro area, even though we have this giant prison tucked way out in the hills and, and the prison is all due. It’s for 18, 1880 I think I saw or 86. It opened eight, late 18 hundreds. It’s really old. It’s very historic and it’s very active. I mean, that’s, it’s a large facility and, but for the most part we forget it’s even there. All right. Well, Long Live Folsom Prison. Well, uh maybe not prison. Long lived Johnny Cash, immortalizing Folsom prison. So that, that’s a great album, Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison. Stephanie Chandler. Thank you very much. Real pleasure. Thank you, Tony. My pleasure as well. Next week, the generational divide. If you missed any part of this weeks show I beseech you second time today. Find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supports, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyer Hall. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez Clar Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for February 26, 2024: Your Partnerships With FGWs

 

Esther Choy: Your Partnerships With FGWs

First Generation Wealth creators have different values and mindsets than those who inherited their wealth. And FGWs far outnumber the inheritors. Esther Choy’s research helps you understand these folks and how to build valuable relationships with them. She’s president of Leadership Story Lab. (This originally aired May 17, 2021.)

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

 

 

I love our sponsors!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

Virtuous: Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer, and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving.

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into lateral epicondylitis if you gave me the elbow and told me that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights. Hey, Tony, this week, it’s your partnerships with F GWS first generation wealth creators have different values and mindsets than those who inherited their wealth. And FGWS far outnumber the inheritors. Ester Choi’s research helps you understand these folks and how to build valuable relationships with them. She’s president of leadership story Lab. This originally aired May 17th 2021 on Tony’s. Take two. Please review we’re sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporter generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow. Giving. Virtuous.org. Welcome again, virtuous. So grateful for your sponsorship. Here is your partnerships with FGWS. It’s a pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio, Esther Choi. She is president and chief story facilitator at leadership story lab, teaching storytelling to institutional and individual clients who are searching for more meaningful ways to connect with their audiences. She’s a contributor for Forbes Leadership Strategy Group and you may have seen her quoted in leading media outlets like the New York Times and entrepreneur.com. Her practice is at leader story lab and leadership story lab.com E Choi. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a real pleasure. Welcome. Um You, you have uh you have some new research out that we need to, we need to talk about transforming partnerships with major donors. What are uh let’s, let’s just jump right in and why don’t you explain what FGW folks are and uh tell us a little about your, the research that you did with these FGW folks. FGW folks. Well, I recently published this research report um and lucky enough to have a really, really good exposure such as the one you mentioned in the New York Times. And there are a lot of surprises about the folks that we generally in the broader society, just, just overly sort of broad and call them the rich people or the wealthy folks or the high net worth individual or the ultra high net worth individuals as if they all belonged in this monolithic group that they all think a belief in the same way. And So I got curious about them after I’ve taught uh in this major Gift strategy program at Kellogg for a while wondering why are these people so hard to get? What uh because so many nonprofits are doing amazing and moving and important and urgent work that no one else is doing. So why is it so hard to reach them? So I dug further in and did a lot of homework and I interviewed 20 very um they were ultra high or folks and I just ask some questions about how did they get to their wealth? What is it like? Um Are there any downsides to wealth, having wealth and so on and so forth and focusing on philanthropy? Um So this report, I can talk about any one number of ways. So you tell me, what do you, what do you want to most learn about these first generation wealth creators? Well, let’s uh let’s start with how big a proportion they are of the, of the wealthy. Wow. I am glad you start. That’s the starting point. Um That’s one of the biggest surprises that I’ve learned because they are at least 68% of the, the, the this massive group that we call wealthy ultra high net worth. They are at least 68% of them earn their wealth instead of inherited. Now, that’s a big, big difference between inherited wealth versus earned wealth. And that means they’ve traveled a entire social economic class that they did not grow up with. And so some of them, um, very few of them really make the majority of their wealth in their thirties or even forties. Most of them are in their fifties and sixties. So we’re talking about full on grown adults with Children and maybe even grandchildren by the time they become, um, this wealthy. So it’s a very interesting transformation of your life, your community, your social circles, the things that you worry about or not worry about all happen around starting from the point of fifties and sixties, right? So, so there are at least two thirds, maybe even a little more than two thirds of all the, all the wealthy folks. The way we would describe, as you’re saying, high net worth, ultra high net worth. These are, these are two thirds of those folks, at least you said 68 68%. I picked the most conservative number, but I’ve read elsewhere to and put that to um somewhere 80 80%. OK? And everybody you interviewed is first generation wealth. That’s, that’s where your research was correct on those folks. OK. So let’s get to know them a little bit. Um Your research has uh AAA nice chart. Um I like, I like pictures. The first thing I look for in books and pictures. Uh Simple, simple mind. You, you’re burdened with the host with a simple mind. Um But you do have these, these pillars of wealth generation that. So let’s describe these folks. Not, not, not all three, I mean, people are just gonna have to get the research, you know, I don’t, I’m not gonna quiz you. I’m not quizzing you on block number four in line three on the No, we’re not doing that. I don’t want to go like word by word because people got to get the research which, which is at Leadership story lab.com, right? That’s the way that you can download. Yeah, there’s an executive summary and you can download the full report as well, right? So Leadership story lab.com for the full thing for the full, for the full study. Um But let’s get to know these folks a little bit, these, these first generation wealth creators. Um you, you start by saying they’re, they’re understated. They’re, they’re maybe even humble. Are they, are they, are they to the point of being humble and modest, humble and modest? And they have a hard time, they have a hard time with the, with the word wealthy, they understand the size of their assets. Um They understand what they are capable of affording, which is basically anything but they have a hard time with the label wealthy. And um they oftentimes think of and regard and never really left their middle class roots and that’s majority of them come from very middle class. You know, they don’t want to be flashy nor do they enjoy flashy things that attract attention So, um, you know, make no mistake. They are a part of things that are very, um, you know, shiny and, and sophisticated and, and, and high quality, but it’s not who they are inside. So that’s one thing to keep in mind is that they are very understated themselves and they often appreciate other people as well as other things that are understated. You, you make the point a couple of times of saying that they don’t, they don’t identify themselves as wealthy even though they know that they fit into that category, correct? Ok. Um So you sat down and you, you met these folks, you, well, maybe not face to face but you, you spoke with these people or couples or how did, how did that all work? Yeah. So I did all the interviews uh with in partnership with the research firm and it’s all done virtually because it was done in 2020. Um There was one noted exception um where I was invited to her home. Uh and uh I met all her kids and her husband and, you know, it’s just like the whole family in the background and it’s kind of funny to talk about her family while her family was around, but for the most part, it was done through Zoom. Uh one through calls and, and um there are four people, so two couples, um I interview them at the same time together and the lengths just got doubled. Um you know, it’s usually 50 50 minutes to an hour and with a couple, um we talked for over an hour and a half. How do you, I’m interested in some of the details. How do you reach out to these folks? How do you, how do you get their attention? It’s really hard. So, the first thing we mentioned in one of the four pillars is they’re understated, right? They don’t identify with the word wealthy. They certainly don’t make big advertisement to the world that they are wealthy. And so to find them and to get them to agree, to speak on record, although it’s anonymous um and to get them to open up and talk about money and wealth, it’s really hard. So I have to rely on a couple of key relationships. Um One is through one of my alma mater, um Texas A and M University and my friend and colleague, uh the CEO of Texas A and M Foundation helped me recruit a few, quite a few of these interviewees. Um my business partner who also happens to be a um uh trustee at the University of Cincinnati Cincinnati Foundations and um through a couple of my own uh resources as well as my research firms. So 20 for qualitative studies is, you know, sufficient. It’s definitely not a lot, 20 people doesn’t sound like a lot but 20 of these type of people and get them to talk about very sensitive topic. Um, was, it took quite a bit just to get them to agree to talk to me. Well, thank you. Um, absolutely. Um, and what was the median income for these 20 folks families? So, um, at this point I don’t think their income is very meaningful any anymore. So, we’re, I, I’m, um, by median, I would refer to their, um, uh, their, their net worth. So the net worth the median range is 50 to 80 million. Um, although, um, the low, I would put it in the low teens, the highs, I would put them in 100 and 50. So just give you, give, you, give our listeners a sense as well of what we’re talking about. Like by, well, you know, millions is like a lot of zeros, you know, at some point it’s just like my mind can’t keep them all in one place. Um, according to the fed in 2020 the top 1% of the US, um, folks have 11 million. So these are all, um, uh, you know, sort of the top one percenter and, um, for the 1% even mid teens to 50 or so was the, was roughly the median net worth. Exactly. Exactly. But then if you think about the 1% of 300 million people in the US, that’s 3 million, 3 million people. And that is about the size. If you put them all in one city, all in one location, they’re just below New York City, just below New York, uh just below Los Angeles, but just above the city of Chicago. So 3 million people, that’s a lot of people. Ok. And, and you estimate conservatively that of those 3 million 68%. Uh our first generation, they earn their wealth versus inherited. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try Donor Box Live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to your partnerships with FGWS. Let’s go back to get to know these folks a little bit. Um um They’re entrepreneurial. No surprise but tell us what, what does that mean for the way they think about themselves and the way they might think about uh their philanthropy. Yeah. So in the most literal sense, they are were entrepreneurs. That’s how they created most of them, created their wealth and with a few um less than 20% of them uh had a very lucrative corporate careers and entrepreneurial also means that is the mindset. It’s the lenses in which they apply all things through. Um, so it could be the way that they would like their Children or grandchildren to approach. Um, you know, if I wanted to study abroad even, um, and, you know, I need additional funding. Well, how much you think about it as what untapped opportunities might there be out there for you in this country that you want to study? But it is not currently fully leveraged. Um But entrepreneurial could also means to, as they think about nonprofit, as they really think about how they want to leave their social impact and how they want to fully make sure that their philanthropic dollar is put to good use that also applied and um compatible with their middle class values. So, uh it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s up and downside, right? Um Sometimes something just can’t be measured. Sometimes nonprofits are run by people who are philanthropically minded and socially minded and they don’t necessarily have the same sort of business acumen as, as well as um fear competitiveness um that these donors tend to have and embody. And so the, the downside of having that entrepreneurial mindset is that sometimes it creates um clashes and if you know, at the very least disagreements on is this really the best use of the, the, the, the precious dollars that your organizations have? Um Sometimes there’s no straight black and white answer. Yes and no. Um So um, that’s what I mean by entrepreneurial and, and, and what else, what, what comes next in those four pillars? So, the third is free and I truly, it seems like a very simple, no nonsense. And, and, and we’re like, oh, we live in a free society. Uh, but I think the truth of the matter is that a lot of people aren’t not free, they’re not free to pursue whatever they want. They are under certain professional career obligations or financial pressures and they are a lot of options. Yeah, exactly. And that’s why a lot of career counselors asked mid to even late career folks, you know, what would you do if money is not an issue? Right. Uh, I’ve heard that question asked a lot in care counseling because a lot of people are under that, uh, pressure. But these FGWS they are not and for them it’s oftentimes for the first time is, wow, now it’s not a theoretical questions anymore. I really don’t have to worry about money. Ok. So now what, what do we do? And so, um, a lot of them pursue experiences. A lot of them want the same thing for the Children and grandchildren. Um, they, uh, pursued 3rd, 4th, 5th careers that they’ve always are interested, intrigued by, know that they are not very good at and know that they probably may not, may or may not be able to make a ton of money with. Um, but they do it anyway. So it’s that sense of freedom. Um that I think a lot of people, as long as they have to still worry about saving for retirement saving, for making sure you can pay your mortgage and things like that. It’s, it’s really hard to wrap your mind about. And then these folks are just sort of fully embracing, they want their Children to understand that having a, a wealth of options doesn’t just come, it comes from hard work and, and devotion, which is what they devoted their decades to. So they, they, they want their Children to understand that that doesn’t just happen for everyone. Yeah. I’m glad you bring up Children, um, across all 20 of them, even though the ages ranges from late forties to a few eighties. Um, they all worry about their kids even though their kids have all grown up or they have worried about their kids or have regrets about the way that they raised the ways that they passed on their assets, uh, to their kids. And the, the funny thing is that they did not tell me. Oh, I have so. And so, um, I really can confide in or I know these, uh, uh, professional resources, uh, that I can go to and, um, all of them are just kind of like, I hope I’m doing the right thing. In fact, I know I haven’t done the right thing but then talking to peers surprisingly was not an option across any of them. And so although they’re free, but this taboo topic of money and wealth have prevented them from really searching for the right answers at the time when decisions had to be made. So Children, it’s a constant universal worries, especially for people with wealth. Um We’ve seen from studies after studies that for example, substance abuse tend to affect um Children from families with means disproportionately higher than those who are not from uh family with means. I wonder if there’s some tension for them because they’re not comfortable talking to those who inherited their wealth or, or even just other wealthy people because they don’t, they don’t identify that way, but then they’re not comfortable talking to those folks that they knew when they were struggling in their careers. And before their, their great success, their great financial success would qualify that because success can take lots of d have lots of different levels to it. But before their great financial success, because they, they, they like, they don’t wanna, they don’t want to appear uh overbearing to their non wealthy friends who they know from high school and college and, you know, maybe professional school or, you know, whatever. Uh So they’re, they like caught in the middle, like, they don’t have valuable personal relationships to, to leverage and count on in, in, in times like when they’re questioning what, what to do with Children and, you know, sort of existential questions like that. Yeah. So this is another downside of being entrepreneurial. Um Another way to call someone very entrepreneurial is what you know, he’s, he has a can do spirit, she has a can do spirit. So if you can do, you can do it yourself. You don’t need to count on other people, people to help you, you can pull yourself up by the bootstrap. So uh that’s one and two is again the, the subject of wealth, it tends to be taboo. Um In fact, the Brooking Institute economist Isabel saw Hill made this really apt observation and she said that people rather talked about sex than money and money than class. So first generation wealth creators have travel across classes. And so that makes it really hard for them to say, you know, I don’t know what’s the right way if we do if we travel, is it wrong for us to buy business class or first class? And what are your middle class friends going to say? Oh, poor Tony, poor Esther, you’re struggling with questions like should you trust travel in business versus first class? And it’s not something that a lot of people, first of all empathize with and second of all have the right context to give sound counsels. And what about professional coaches and counselors and whatnot? I didn’t actually cover in a report. I chose to exclude it and just in the in favor of focusing on nonprofit and fundraising. But their experience with uh wealth management advisors are very mixed because it’s an industry that has a lot of conflict of interest. There are some really, really good let us in on something that uh that didn’t make the report. This is great, not proper radio. You gotta let us in on the, on the, on the back story. What uh say a little more about these, the trouble they’ve had the mixed results, mixed results. I’m sure some have been, some results were fine and some relationships are fine but say you a little more about uh what didn’t make the final report there. Um I cut a whole section off just because I think it, it might be detrimental to getting people to read it when it’s beyond a certain length. So this whole section that I cut off was on um how they view advisors, um counselors and, and things like that. And indeed, you know, uh two words to describe the entire section is that it’s very mixed. Um some um have great experience, some on the other end of the extreme is, um they thought the people they interacted with is just uh the advice weren’t very good or too obvious or that again, they can do it themselves. Why do I need to pay you so much money to tell me something I know already. And um, and by the way, that is somewhat parallel to their experience with uh fundraisers. So I don’t want to just put the hammer on um wild advisors and, and, and um tax advisors and whatnot. Um Because this idea that, oh, we know you’re wealthy, we know what you can do with your money, either for the benefit of yourself as well as for me or my organizations that really changed the dynamic of the conversations as well as the services, how services rendered and this to their relative to their expectations. Um So that’s why it’s not very helpful. I think just to come off and um list a bunch of things that they’re not happy with without being able to say what would be helpful. So I just removed the whole section and also in favor of keeping it at readable length. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. I’d be grateful if you would rate and review the show on whatever podcast app you’re using. Uh, we’re a little, a little low on reviews, recent, recent reviews, uh and ratings. So I hope you would give it a five stars. Uh Certainly nothing below four, I would think, but five is best five is best. And if you could do a little review, I know it takes a little time, you know, it takes a few minutes. I understand that I’d be grateful if you could rate and review the show wherever fine podcasts are heard, wherever you’re listening, please do. Thank you very much. And that’s Tony’s take two. Don’t forget to rate and review. Now, look at the little jingle, Tony’s take two rate and review Kate. That was a very beautiful jingle. But yeah, don’t be afraid to rate and review and let us know what you’re thinking of the show. Not only, don’t be afraid, please go ahead and do it. Absolutely. Take the next step, go do it, do it. We’ve got book who but loads more time. So let’s return to your partnerships with FGWS, with Esther Choi. All right. Finally, these folks are lone Rangers. What does that mean? Um We touch upon it a little bit where we, um, you know, they are part of this new class of wealth. They’re like immigrants in some way, by the way, I really wanted to recommend a few books. Um Not just mine. Um, that really helped me round out my understanding. So this whole idea of, um, think of first generation wealth creators as immigrants. Um They have migrated from a different class altogether and enter into this world where the beliefs, um the values and oftentimes even language um are foreign to them. And although it’s great, this is paradise, um, they often find that there are uh tricky conditions, some even would say, um because their native born Children and grandchildren, um, don’t understand the privileged privileges that they were born and then they’ve gotten accustomed to. Um, and the, the cliche or the adage or however you want to want to call it, shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves, rice paddies to rice paddies, wealth does not last past three generations and they know that. And so when you think about this special land of paradise again, um by the way, this is a uh I learned it through the book called um uh Strangers In Paradise by James Grutman. Um their native born Children and grandchildren, statistically speaking will be deported back to harsher land where the first generation have migrated from. And um and here’s the kick Tony, I just, I just found it fascinating and this is why I can talk about this, you know, forever and ever mismanagement of their wealth, taxes and inflations and bad investments. All of those are more of and just the natural delusions from, you know, the couple to Children to grandchildren, right? All of those reasons are reasons for wealth not being able to last past three generations, but you will probably, I’ve never found any one cases or example or family where the story basically is. Well, grandpa and grandma gave it all the way to charity and left nothing to us. That’s why we’re poor again. You know, that just doesn’t happen. And so what my II I think what I really want to focus on, I think the opportunities for nonprofit is that what might there be an um different way to think about the conversations that you have with these donors where you help them solve a problem or maybe many problems and then you also help yourself um solve a problem. By the way, I’m getting like, way, way, way. This is a problem when we have no script. I’m getting like way away from the Lone Ranger questions. I bring you back. But that’s all right. But I think I’m getting to the whole thing. No, radio. No, no, you’re not. What you’re saying is still valuable. Don’t, don’t second guess yourself. What I, what I’m getting at is that it’s lonely to be first. It can be lonely to be first generation immigrant. Except that most immigrants have somehow found other immigrants. And they talk, they share notes, they commiserate, they help each other out. But um first generation wealth creators are particular type of immigrants where for all the reasons that we’ve talked about, they don’t actively look for help nor was real quality help. Um Readily available. Interesting, really fascinating analogy analogizing to, to immigrants. Um Did you, did you put any of them together? Uh uh uh since you met 20 of them and got to know them. So these folks that are uh feeling, lone, feeling, lone, I don’t know, lonely. I’m, I’m just using a word. I’m not saying they’re lonely in their lives. Maybe they are, but they’re lone rangers. Did you, did you uh put any of these folks together and say, look, you know, I met, I met so and so like 22 or three weeks ago and she was saying the same thing that you’re saying, you know, why don’t the two of you talk or would you be interested? You know, did you put any folks together to help them, uh, commiserate, at least help, maybe at best, help each other. I, I, I think I would, I would if I were asked but with these 20 because of the promise of confidentiality, um I don’t share their names or contacts with anyone. But um I have done uh webinars since then where I was asked. So how do you find these people? And then if, if they ask me, then I will help? OK. OK. Well, I’m like a connector. So I was thinking, you know, if I could get her permission, would you like to talk to her? Because the two of you are saying things that are really identical and maybe together you could help each other as well as having very similar questions. And this is where I was getting at the opportunity part. Um because they have asked questions like how much and when should I pass my asset to my kids and grandkids? It’s dealt with by um with wealth advisors on a very case, by case basis. And I think that should be, that’s the way it should be done. But what’s really sorely missing is, well, how do other families handle this right to your questions of? Well, there are other people like me, what do they do because they’re in my boat. Um So as well as questions like, how do I get in sync with my spouse? Um And then they also have questions on like, how do you truly vet um a non, a non for profit, you know, and how do you help? Not my, you know, the nonprofits that you support, uh become more efficient and they are aware that not coming off as because I’m a donor, I give money and um you should do what I tell you to do um Things like that, you know, that productive relationship with nonprofits. So there are endless questions like this that they can talk about, not just commiserate, although commiserating is, is great too. All right. I don’t know. I think you could be a connector, a major connector. Um And I notice uh I’ll leave that there. That’s, but, you know, the title of your research is transforming partnerships with major donors. So, so let’s, let’s let’s transition to some of those opportunities you talked about problem solving that could be mutually beneficial. How, how do, how would a fundraiser ceo uh uh approach someone with that with, with that kind of opportunity? Yeah. Yeah. So I want to break it down to um three steps. Um I want 123, a three step process. OK. Yeah. Well, yeah. OK. You can call it a three step process, but I didn’t invent it. You made it up. I think the first thing is you have to really think about the questions you asked them. And uh oftentimes how curious, how respectful for how informed you are, are all sussed out by the kind of questions you asked? Are your questions mostly really at the end of the day self serving? Um Or are you only focusing on a very narrow aspects of the donors? Um or are you really broadly interested in problem solving? Now, here’s another thing that entrepreneurs like to do, they like to solve problems. And oftentimes they take the same mindset towards nonprofit, am I really giving to an organization that are going to solve real major problems in the system uh system for way? Um So that’s the first thing is the questions that you ask and then two is reading once you really find out about uh uh you know, what you could learn from the donors is that really being able to pair what your nonprofits have to offer and that structure in a way as well as well as frame it in a way that um fits the mindset of. Um Well, oftentimes the folks are very busy, they know they need to do something but they’re very busy. So, um how is it, uh how do you make it easy for them, in other words? And then um the last thing I would say is um it would um how do you acknowledge them? Right. Um It sounds really obvious, right? You know, their stewardship program, there are people were involved in, uh, thanking donors. But what I’ve found is that people, uh, people thought there’s not enough. Thank you, or there’s too much. Thank you. And they’re not thank through the right medium. And so, uh, we’re not talking about, you know, $10.20 dollars where there are maybe hundreds and thousands of them and you can’t manage them one by one and customized it. But with major donors, it’s absolutely worth it to make sure that it’s customized to their preference and needs. So questions the way that you frame as well as the acknowledgment part. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with each donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now, back to your partnerships with FGWS and the, the acknowledgment of the stewardship is interesting um you say somewhere that uh the the they these folks have a hard time understanding uh the name on a building, you know, why that, why people find that appealing, why some donors find that appealing? So, so a brick and mortar in fundraising, you know, was a brick and mortar recognition would not necessarily be appealing to them, but, but finding out what is appealing comes from, you know, maybe this, this three steps is sort of iterative, right? And if you’re starting to get near uh near something promising, you wanna, you wanna be finding out too about what they would like in terms of acknowledgment. Yeah. Yeah. How would you like to be recognized? What’s important to you? So, I have a friend of mine who advised nonprofits with operations like this and um she helped one of them, she said, you know, what, why don’t you just, why don’t you just ask? So he did, he created a survey through Survey Monkey and, you know, they, they have more than a handful so they can’t just call them up and ask them individually. So he created AAA survey and he got over 70% response rate, which is really, really good, right? If you work for, for survey and um so the the survey basically center around 33 things. Um How would you like to be thanked? How often would you like to be thanked? And through which medium do you most prefer to be thanked. And it’s not only do they have really good feedback, but it’s such a positive gesture from the nonprofit to the donors saying, hey, we actually admit we don’t know, but we care and we should, we know what we don’t know and we care. And now we really would like to learn more from our donors. And that truly is a practical helpful informative donor centric step to take. And by the way, her name is Lisa Greer. She also has a incredibly helpful book called Philanthropy Um Revolutions. So it’s a mix of um it’s a mix of memoir. It’s a mix of uh research because she told her story, but she also has interviewed over 100 principal gift level donors and um and uh and the last mix of how tos so super helpful. How does Lisa spell her last name? GRE er Lisa Greer? What else? What else can you tell us Esther uh that uh in terms of approaching these folks? Um Ho how might you get? Uh I have a question for, I have a little more specific question. How about you get their attention? Oh, yeah, I know um getting the first meeting, it’s like 50 or 60 or I don’t know, 70% of the work just being able to get in the call. Um I, I think everything matters in the smallest amount of space, which is if you have no other ways to reach them. What do. Most people do emails and so make sure that your subject line is the most attention grabbing as well as intriguing possible. Um way to, to get people’s attention, by the way I have um I don’t know if I can memorize uh the, the, the four persona um off the top of my head. Oh, actually I do. I have it right in front of me. Um, my uh colleague, Scott Mord. Um, he is the longest serving CEO of YPO Global young president’s organizations. So these are a lot of the highly concentrated um first generation wealth um around the world, 30,000 of them around the world. Um He actually put the, their philanthropic tendencies in four ways. Um The idealist is the first one. Those are the ones that who want to make a true impact, uh long lasting impact, solve societal problem. Another one is called the legacy leader. Those are the one who really loves to leave, make sure their name last generations and generations that they are getting credit for the big impact that they made. The third one is called the model citizens. And those are the ones that look around and understand what is the highest and highest of highest level of service and they want to be there. And the philanthropic effort reflects that. And then the fourth one is called the Busy Big Week. That’s the ones who are busy, extremely busy and yet they know they should do something but they don’t know what and how and so back to your questions of how do you get their attention? I think you should first by starting with having a point of view of, of these four possibilities, which one is this person most likely going to be? And then once you have a persona in mind, then is a lot easier for you to craft a message with a subject line that is most intriguing and attention grabbing for you. I, I get, despite what my clients and friends and colleagues know about me, I still get these extremely bland and generic um email messages that are, you know, if you just replace the logo of the nonprofits that would fit anybody at all. And so, uh that would be the first thing I think about is have a persona in mind, even if you’re wrong, it’s ok, even if you’re wrong, at least you have a point of view about that person. But the upside is that even if you’re not 100% right? Just having the personal, that persona is going to help you speak to that person as if you know a lot about them already. Are you really only gonna get to them through an introduction or like if somebody has to give you their email or, I mean, there’s not a directory of first generation wealth creators. Is there now, I know yours was yours was anonymous but is there I don’t know. Is there a directory or something? And that’s a really interesting question is what I major in a really, really interesting question. I love the way you think about things Tony. Um, not only is, isn’t there one? Um, they really know how to, how to hide their wealth. You know, they believe in stealth wealth, not only because of the way they live their lives, but they know how to put things in all things and trust. And so everything comes through a different name and um data can help um the right kind of data and data enriching as well as data matching. Um It, I I don’t know a ton about it, but I know enough because there’s another company that I co-founded that like that’s all we do because in the old ways, how do you get names of donors? Right? You ask, you’re bored, that’s how you start a small organization starts. But um but then now, I mean, now we have social media and you can have a campaign and see who gives to that. And then you, then you do some research on those folks to see who, who might be uh have the capacity to do more and then you expand your relationship even with the others who may not have capacity but a willingness. But see, I I think there’s a lot in your current database that is not being fully utilized. That may be for some folks. Yeah, and, uh, well, because we’re talking about stealth wealth. I mean, yeah, that’s, that’s certainly possible. I mean, these, these folks live modest, live, modest means. I mean, uh, uh, at least outward. Um, I mean, what, 20 years ago there was the book The Millionaire next door. I mean, that’s essentially what we’re talking about. This is, there are more zeros now and there are more of them and we’re, we’re in a more financially mobile society now than we were 20 years ago. But the, the, the concept is the same that there are these hidden families of wealth that, uh, that are may very well be in your database. You know, then it was the, the millionaire next door. Now the millionaire in your, it’s the ultra high net worth in your database. Yeah. Yeah. And, and when you, you know, go back to the questions, the way that you ask questions of when you have an opportunity to talk to a donor directly, as well as the way that you ask questions about your databases that can really help you look for hidden millionaires billionaires right in front of you, right in front of your eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised that there are already, uh, but you aren’t, you, you’re not even aware that you’re pretty close when Lisa and I, um because of our share passion about this topic and she’s really doing it full time. I’m doing this. This is because this is my baby. Uh you know, the first time she wanted to make a principal gift um to um her local hospital. Um she budgeted for $2 million for um her hospital and it took the hospital seven months to pay attention to her and $2 million isn’t a small amount for that hospital. It is definitely a major amount, latent unconscious sexism. I’ve, I’ve heard this from women. I do plan to giving fundraising, but I’ve heard this many times from women just ignored when they, they made explicit overtures, not just subtle hints but explicit overtures. You know, I want to do this. I wanna remember the organization in my estate plan and, you know, ignored, repeatedly ignored. So, unfortunately, what you’re describing your friend Lisa’s uh I, I don’t think it’s so uncommon. I think it’s, I think there’s some, I think there’s just unconscious latent sexual uh um not sexuality. Uh sexism in uh yeah, in uh in, in, in, in fundraising. It’s, and money is left on the table as a result. I mean, aside from the morality of the uh of the, of that, that misunderstanding. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it’s, I haven’t seen quantitative research on just how frequently that happened, but that’s leases from her research from her personal experience from your experience. So I think there are actually plenty of money within reach of nonprofits that they probably have missed, but they didn’t know they have, we’re gonna leave it there. It’s perfect. Now you have opportunities and uh I know that our conversation has uh stimulated thinking about how to find these folks and how to transform your partnership with them. Esther Choi the, the research is transforming partnerships with major donors. I’ll give you the full title. Aligning the key values of first generation wealth creators and fundraisers in the age of winner takes all you get the research at leadership story lab.com. That’s where Esther’s company is. Leadership story lab and also at Leader Story lab, Ether Troy. I want to thank you very much. Thank you. This is such an invading conversation. Thank you for the opportunity and thanks for saying you were glad that I asked a question. You were one of the generous, generous guests. I’m glad you asked that. Oh, I got, I got chills. Thank you, Esther. Next week, publish your book, Thought Leader and you can blame me here. I thought that was gonna be this week’s show. I blundered just had it wrong. You, you, you’d think more attention would go into these things, but uh made a mistake. Definitely, it will be next week’s show uh short of uh natural disaster or illness or death. Uh It’ll be next week’s show if you missed any part of this week’s show, I do beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Love that alliteration. Love it. Pass flexible, friendly fundraising forms. All right. Sorry, I just had to get that in and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show Social Media is by Susan Chavez and Park Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for February 19, 2024: Frustrations & Opportunities With Jay Frost

 

Jay FrostFrustrations & Opportunities With Jay Frost

Jay returns to share his reflections on four decades in the nonprofit community. There are things he’d like to see us doing better, that the sector has been talking about for many years. But they haven’t changed much. Yet he remains optimistic, so he recognizes the brighter future that’s possible if we practice more of what we preach. Jay is on LinkedIn.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

 

I love our sponsors!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

Virtuous: Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer, and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving.

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. We have a new sponsor. Welcome. Virtuous to the nonprofit radio family. So glad to have you. I’m grateful for your sponsorship. Welcome. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of irises if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s going on this week? Hey, Tony, we’ve got frustrations and opportunities. Jay Frost returns to share his reflections on four decades in the nonprofit community. There are things he’d like to see us doing better that the sector has been talking about for many years, but they haven’t changed much yet. He remains optimistic so he recognizes the brighter future. That’s possible if we practice more of what we preach on Tonys take two last chance were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supports, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org. Thank you again for your new sponsorship. Virtuous. Welcome. Anyway, here is frustrations and opportunities. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome Jay Frost back to nonprofit radio. Jay has worked in the nonprofit community since 1985. That’s 39 years. Let’s call it 40 years between friends. He’s been a grant writer, fundraiser service provider and now he’s a consultant and content creator. You’ll find Jay on linkedin and he hosts Donor Searches Philanthropy. Masterminds series. Welcome back, Jay. It’s good to see you. It is always great to see you, Tony. We talk a lot on the Masterminds series. You’ve hosted me there probably by mistake or, or you had last minute cancellations. Uh I don’t know, three or four times. I’ve been on a bunch of times. I think you’re a popular guy. I, I like to draw a crowd. I, I like to think I draw a crowd but, but we’re focused on you today. The crowd that you draw, the thinking that you have the wisdom of let’s call it 40 years, 40 years in philanthropy. What does that feel like? What does it feel like to have done something? 40 years? Who, when you say the number over and over and now so far it’s 100 and 20. Uh I I it, it uh it, it really, it really makes me feel old Tony. So, thank you. Um But, ok, so there’s a line from Mary Oliver that I want to quote because it’s what I’m thinking about a lot, which is that, um, when it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I’ve made of my life something particular and real. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world. So that’s what I’m thinking about these days. And, uh, and it’s a good place to think about it. Right. I mean, we have a lot of fun in our world, especially when I’m hanging out with, with a friend like you. Um, but it’s serious stuff too. And when you say 40 years, 40 years, 40 years, the first thing I think of is, oh, my gosh. I’m just getting started for, well, first of all, it’s not additive. So it’s, it’s not 100 and 20. So, uh, it was, it was keep you with your 40. Let’s not get carried away. Don’t get a big hit. Um, no, but, you know, uh, well, I like the, I like the idea of not, not simply visiting our world. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Um, what was your very, very, very first job? Was it the grant writing job or? Very, very, very first job in, in nonprofits? Oh, my gosh. Ok. So, first I wanted to be in the film business. I went out to LA. I lived in a garage. I didn’t have a car. I took buses, you know, you don’t do any of that in L A and I did all those things and that’s why I left. So I was there for a brief time, came back tail between my legs to Washington DC where my parents then had, had uh moved and I was introduced to a person at the National Endowment for the Arts. And very quickly, somehow miraculously got a job there as what was called a floater, which is back when people typed stuff and printed stuff, I was running around just doing all those odd jobs at the National Endowment for the Arts. And it was the dream for me because I was raised to study poetry and music and all these other things. So the ne A it was the citadel of all those things. And so very quickly, I, I had the opportunity to work in the inter arts program which was very interesting and controversial place. What program inter arts which is introduced plenty of arts work and um lots of controversy there. And then I worked at the literature program which also had a share of controversy, but that’s where I had a chance to as a 24 year old identify poets who would then be reviewing manuscripts from all the people, writing poetry and fiction and so forth around the country to review it and make investments in writers. I mean, it was, that was my first job. I was 24 I had $2 million in grants responsibility but, but uh I was not making the decisions. I was administering that work. But still, since nobody else really knew a heck of a lot about poetry then or now it meant that I got to be in this candy store of being with people who cared about words and their, and their impact. And that was 1985. That was, yeah, I was, I got there at 85. I was there through just a brief time through 87. Yeah. What happened in what, what happened in uh Hollywood, Los Angeles filmmaking? Oh man. Uh well, you know, you can only live so long on patty melt sandwiches served to you from behind a plexiglass screen for cash um working across in the Kit Kat Club in a theater that’s closed most of the time. Uh I I that was, that was my life, you know, occasionally getting into 50 bucks in the Kit Kat Club. You could have been a, oh my God, you could have been a floater instead of a floater. It could have been many things on that street with Santa Monica Boulevard in the eighties. Yeah, it was an interesting place. Um Alright, but it didn’t go, it just you didn’t take off. No, I did not take off. I had the opportunity to write some uh some scripts for things that probably didn’t need the scripts. Um and I decided not to do that over Christmas vacation. Looking in the mirror. Um, and then was able to rededicate myself to things that have, you know, aesthetic value. I see. All right. Oh, this sounds like a conversation that we should continue over a beer at a conference, uh, on a, on a Friday night. All right. All right. But, yeah, it’s fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so let’s turn to, uh, your thinking. I mean, I, I invited you on to, to share your thoughts about our, our community. You have 40 years to reflect over. You’ve seen the things we’ve emphasized over 40 years, the things we’ve accomplished not accomplished. What uh what strikes you first? Wow. It’s a lot of it that occurs to me first are the kinds of things that you and I have chatted about um over the transom every time we’ve, we’ve talked a lot of the petty frustrations that kind of, you know, gnaw at you. Um The things that we laugh over such as uh such as, you know, um why don’t organizations we know, do the things that they should do that are relatively easy to do um such as, uh you know, send out a personal thank you note once in a while. And then we get into all these debates about whether or not people should write thank you notes, whether they’re vestiges of the past, whether they’re too elitist, there are other terms that are less polite for doing this kind of thing. But the, but the thing that really drives me bananas about all that is that it focuses on a tiny, tiny sliver of activity. Uh instead of thinking about the whole, where we can say, what is it that we’re here to do? What is it we’re trying to address what are the best ways of engaging with people who believe in the same things we do, making sure so that they know that we see them, that we hear them, that we know that they’re human and they’re valuable and then we truly partner with them to get things done. Instead, we’ve divided all this stuff up and these little uh actions and then half the time we ignore some of those things to do and I’ve been guilty of it too. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that that I haven’t failed at almost everything because I have. But rather that once we learn these things, I’d like to think that we could put some of them into practice. And I have seen best practices over 40 years. So if we could just pull them together, sort of like our own little mini Bible and actually practice that stuff. I think we could have better partnerships, better friendships and be better trusted and then have better results. Let, let’s take off a few of the things that uh you’re talking about these, these small things that uh accumulate into better, better relationships. What you’re saying, stronger relationships, longer, more devoted donors pick off a few things that pick you off. Yeah, I took some notes so I wouldn’t forget. Um So what are these are so reverential to you? So I have to take notes to you that you have to write them down to remember. Ok, there are two levels here. So what we’re talking about first actually are kind of the appetizers of a conversation like this. They’re the annoyances, right? So those are the things we mess up that we can control for if we thought they were important. So it’s treating donors like ATM machines. This has become a common phrase now. Uh But uh but I think I’ve been saying it for a long time, I’m sure you have to and it’s not just because we see other people doing it and we say tis tis you should do what I say and not what I do. No, it’s because as donors, we experience this, we wonder what in the world is going on here. We make it donation and then we don’t hear from anybody or we get a digital receipt and they think that’s enough. It’s never enough. So uh just one practical example. And I think I’ve told you this before. Um off offline is that I started giving to an organization that this was two years ago now. So it was in the middle of the pandemic uh based on a book and a movie that I thought was just so powerful emotionally wrenching. And so I won’t mention the name of the organization because what I’m about to say suggests that they, that they are not taking care of their donors. And I’m hoping that what I’m going to tell you is isolated, although I fear it’s not. And I know it’s also true for many organizations that is it. I saw this powerful story. I’m really engaged. It’s a way to help people who are getting out of the prison, industrial complex. It is a big deal. We have more prisoners in this country than anywhere else on earth. And so, uh what do we do for these people when they get out? Well, pretty much nothing. Their life is almost over unless they’re lucky or they happen to live in a state with a program for that. I mean, it’s just awful on every level. So, wouldn’t it be great to help out? So I start giving an amount every month, which for me was a fair amount every month. Um And, and even though it’s not a lot of money, I knew it was probably putting in the top like five or 10% of donor pool just because of the stuff we know from fundraising. And so they keep, you know, sending me the kind of the notes uh via email that say dear friend. So I made a point of calling at one point just to say, you know, I’m doing this. They didn’t call me back and then at the end of the year I stopped giving, I thought, well, let’s see what happens. Not because I don’t care. But I was hoping that this would be kind of jarring and they do something and then I’d have a discussion not trying to get business, just trying to say, hey, I’m not special. There must be a lot of people like me silence every once in a while. I’ll get a note from the organization saying, dear friend asking me to give, not even mentioning my past giving. Now this all sounds pretty petty on my part. But the reason I’m mentioning it is because I think it’s just emblematic of a larger problem. Um On the one hand, we don’t have a lot of time in this world, fundraisers just don’t have a lot of time. We’re, we’re, you know, we got a lot to do, we aren’t particularly well paid to do it and we’re doing it out of love. All of those things are true. We don’t often have a lot of support staff. We don’t have a lot of great resources. It’s all true. But then there’s what we do with our time. And if there’s not, I don’t know that there’s anything more important than saying to people who believe in the same things we do that I see you and you’re important and this is important to do together. And I, and I know that organizations can do it and they’ve done it very well in some places, but somehow in the nonprofit industrial complex, we’ve forgotten a little bit of that. And I’m not sure that some of the new technology is, is helping us to become more human. I think sometimes it just relieves us of this nagging responsibility to, to have those little personal engagements that make this work so personally rewarding and so financially successful. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in-person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk, the smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data, entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try Donor Box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to frustrations and opportunities. Well, the promise of artificial intelligence is that it’s going to free us up for, for all the things that you’re talking about. So we’re gonna be better to our donors because we’re gonna relieve ourselves of the mundane writing tasks. Uh I think it’s mostly right. I’m gonna use that as the example. That’s what I see the most, you know, the the writing tasks, whether it’s annual report or a 200 word article or whatever, you know, and that’s gonna, the promise is that it’s going to give us time for the, for the human relationships and in my, uh, now we’re on Tony Martignetti s frustrations that, that sounds familiar. It’s a good show. I, I think the, I think the smartphone was supposed to do that for us too. Yeah. And I wonder if the telephone was supposed to have done that in the, I don’t know, 19 tens or I might be off on when, when that was became a widespread technology. But I think I’ve heard this promise before that we’re going to have more time for other activities and, uh, the promise hasn’t been realized in my mind. Right. Yeah. No, I, not only do I agree with you but I think it’s, it’s going back to what I was trying to get to, which is that this is a symptom of a larger issue and the technology it is, seems like a patch on this big tire that we’ve created to try and drive down this road of social change and, and it’s good. I mean, I, I’m all about tech because tech is, is awesome and we really can use it for good. Um, but at the same time if we’re using it as a patch to just keep driving down the same road in the same ways, it doesn’t necessarily serve the purpose. Um, so I’d like to think that if we can go back to what it is that’s supposed to be guiding us. What is the principle behind this work? You know, keep that in mind all the time, keep it up on our wall and look at it all the time. Then hopefully we’ll be doing the more human things. Um There’s a book written years ago by Robert Putnam, you know, Bowling Alone. And the reason I’m mentioning it here is because this concept about uh this kind of fracturing of society where we don’t know each other as well has been potentially exacerbated by some of these technologies, not because of the technologies themselves, but how we use them to avoid actual interaction with one another. And I think that the nonprofit sector and fundraisers specifically not only have potentially a responsibility to do something about that, but it’s more of an opportunity to do something about it that we could decide every time we employ a technology or a technique um that we can use that in order to get closer to people instead of just to mechanize and uh efficient and make more efficient our work because I know what we’re trying to do is get more money. But what we really need to do is build stronger connections in order to get that money, be mindful of your use of the technology. I mean, if, if, if it does, in fact, if artificial intelligence does, in fact relieve you from the, the drudgery of writing your annual report then what are you gonna do with those extra 15 hours that you saved? Because nobody’s gonna tap you on the shoulder and say you’ve got 15 free hours. Now, what are you, how are you going to use the time that the A I saved you? You’re, you’re boasting over coffee. Whoa, the writing, the annual report was so easy this year? Ok. What did you do with the quote surplus time that the, the A I uh allowed you? Did you, did you make more donor calls? Did you have more donor meetings? Did you write more handwrit notes? Did you uh pick up the phone to somebody you haven’t talked to in a, in a while? And this implication, this leads over into the personal too, not only the professional, but you and I are talking about fundraising and fundraisers. So I’ll, I’ll keep it there but use that time consciously if you feel A I is or some other technology has relieved you of a burden. How do you use the new time that, that you used to uh devote to that burden? But, but we kind of forget then about those other things that we can do because if we’re all then trained to engage with one another in these almost mechanized ways like by text and I use text all the time like we all do. But if, then that’s what we’re used to. How comfortable does it feel to just call somebody. So every once in a while I’ll do this, I’ll just grab a number on my phone of somebody I haven’t talked to for a long time and just call them up. And it’s almost shocking because we’re all now so used to communicating in this other way that to do that other thing, sometimes it can be refreshing but sometimes it can be off putting because we’re not accustomed to it. And I, and I, and if that’s true in the personal world, I know it’s also true in this professional world, you, you feel like it’s off putting, I find it more refreshing, then off putting it, you can mean off putting to yourself or to the person receiving the call to the person, receiving the call. And I’m not suggesting we don’t call. I’m saying the opposite. I’m just saying that I think people have become used to a certain kind of thing. And so this new thing, some people do find it refreshing like you and I do. But other people just, they don’t know what make of it. Like, why is this happening? Why is this thing happening? We have to do that. We have to break up that thing and, and do those things to, to engage with people in these ways to make it more human. I, I think my experience is, you know, I I’m working in Planned Giving. So I’m usually talking to people who are 70 80 90. And there’s one woman who’s 100 and one and one who was 100 until she died recently, they grew up with handwrit notes and then they had decades and decades of phone conversations before we went virtual that many decades, like 4050 decades of, oh, no, 40 or 50 years of, uh, phone calls. So to them, uh, a phone call is very thoughtful. A handwrit note is even more thoughtful as the recipients of those. And I, you know, I, I think, um, I think when you do more than what’s typical, I think it’s more refreshing to the recipient than it is off putting. So I guess I’m pushing back a little bit. You know, I, I would and I know you’re not discouraging folks from doing the extra, you know, look, customer service is, um, I have a recurring show that I, uh, replay called Zombie Loyalists with a, a marketing and, uh, pr guy named Peter Shankman and he says, well, he said years ago when he was first on the show and I’ve replayed it many times since then, you know, the average, but it remains true, the standard of customer service is crap. So if you could just be a little above crap, you’re setting yourself apart. So just don’t, just don’t do crap. Yeah, I absolutely agree. You know, whatever it looks, whatever, taking an extra step looks like for you and your donors do it because you’ve got this, uh a surplus time theoretically from the, from the, from the technologies that we, that are, that are saving us so much. But if you do find you have extra time, um, use it, you know, use it consciously. That’s, that’s kind of what I was getting to is, you know, conscious use of time. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I use off putting that as the way I feel about it but as how some people react even to the idea of doing it. Um It’s, it’s funny though because in talking about these things and you, you’re going through the idea about people who were used to handwrit notes of a certain age than people used to phone calls. And if you talk to people who are maybe of the successive generation, they might say, well, we don’t do these things or people in this age group, they make assumptions, they don’t do these things. But in fact, if we go on to Twitch right now and we see a Twitch streamer who’s raising money for, you know, pick your cause, it might be Saint Judes. It might be something we know as well. What are they doing? They’re engaging with people live right now. They’re talking to them. They’re, they’re um they’re doing that through the chat. They’re engaging with people in a meeting that makes sense for them today. But the reason why I mentioned this is, it’s not about the tech that’s just today’s tech, they’re really engaging with people so anything we can do to properly engage with people, uh, I think is that is exactly what we should be doing. And I, and I, and once again I don’t think it is off-putting. I just think that’s the objection. I think what we really need to do is bring things up a little to, to be better than the boring to go back to your point. Yeah. Oh, I see. You’re, you’re concerned. Yeah, I see what you’re expressing that people might be put off. No, I think people will be uh elated. You know, I write a lot of handwrit notes and not surprising that I get a fair amount of handwrit notes back. But again, I’m writing to older folks. 70 plus, it’s time for Tony’s steak to do. Thank you, Kate. This is the last Chance for Planned Giving Accelerator. The last few weeks. The class starts in early March. If Planned Giving is on your to do list, you wanna launch it. Your board has talked about it. You’ve been thinking about it. I can help you in Planned Giving Accelerator Guide. You step by step week after week, how to launch Planned Giving at your nonprofit. Of course, there’s the incredible peer support too. Besides what you learned from me. Lots of cross talk. We, we set this up as zoom meetings, not webinars, so you can talk to each other. Folks get to know each other. Share successes, frustrations uh help each other. That, that part has been much more uh than I than I expected the, the, the peer support. So there’s all that if you’re interested, the info is at Planned Giving accelerator.com. If you use code nonprofit Radio, 1500 you can claim $1500 off the tuition. It’s all at Planned Giving accelerator.com and that is Tony take two. Hey, I hope people join in the class. Thank you. We’ve got just about a butt load more time. Let’s return to frustrations and opportunities with Jay Frost. What you’re espousing is be relational, not transactional, but that’s something that we’ve been talking about for 20 years. Donor centric. How long about 15 years we’ve been talking about being donor centric. Do you feel like we’ve improved? II I, I’m not experiencing it when you give, when you leave the prison. The prison charity is, hasn’t heard about donor centrism or hasn’t put it into practice. I think that’s it. I think that they haven’t put it into practice. I mean, we have had a really important discussion about whether or not organizations are community centric or not. And I think that’s a valid and important conversation, whether the organizations themselves are accurately representing the needs and interests of the community by having people within the community uh on the board and engaged in the activity and engaged in the fundraising and all these things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the organization, uh, shouldn’t do these things we’ve been talking about, shouldn’t have a note written to somebody. Shouldn’t pick up the phone and just say I appreciate so much that you care about the same things and what can we do to, you know, to make sure that you have the information you need to keep being involved. These, I think these things work well together. So I understand why we’ve had this discussion. I don’t understand. It sounds like you don’t understand it either is why when we’ve been talking about these things for so many years, whether it’s about donor Centricity, whether it’s about actively engaging the community that we end up in the same place of not doing it, of sending a digital receipt of not just finding whatever the current version of picking up the phone is. And here’s the reason why I think this really matters. I, I think it’s much more than just whether or not we’re going to hit this year’s retention figures and make this quarter’s goals. That’s important. All of that is important. But what’s far more important is that it’s about building relationships of trust that’s fundamental to major gifts, that world that I spend some time in. It’s obviously important to plan gifts, which you spend so much time in. But, and there’s so much revenue there that that’s important, but far more important if people don’t trust our organizations as a whole. And the Edelman Trust survey shows that nonprofits are also seeing declining uh faith in, in our organizations. If people don’t trust our organizations as a whole, then that means they won’t start, they won’t come on the on ramp to supporting us as volunteers, as, as employees, as board members, as contributors. And if they won’t, then we can’t meet the big challenges of our time. So these little things that we choose not to do either because we think we’re too busy or because they’re not important. End up having a direct correlation to whether or not people trust our organizations to take on the biggest challenges of our time. And these are existential. I mean, if, if we can’t get anybody to trust uh the government um or major institutions about issues like climate change, why should they trust, you know XYZ organization either if, if they are engaged with us that we haven’t asked them to volunteer, we haven’t invited them to sit down and have a discussion in the local community. We haven’t invited them to invest. And if they’re not really engaged with us, why in the world should they listen to us about why we need to make sure that we don’t go above 1.5 °C, which we just hit, we just hit this week, the thing that we were supposed to avoid for, for decades, just like for decades we’ve been talking about. Write a Thank you note. It’s, it’s almost parallel to see the decline in trust, the decline in generosity and ultimately the decline, our ability to address existential challenges and we have the ability as fundraisers to do little things to achieve great things just by building these bonds. That’s a terrific sort of segue to, you know, what we can do. And we’ve, we’ve toyed with this, uh uh while we’ve been talking, but we keep saying, don’t do this or do the other instead. But, um yeah, I, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m with you. These, these small, these small things, small tasks lead to bigger uh either trust or a lack of trust if you’re not doing them, which impinges our ability to uh stop hunger and homelessness and, and reverse climate change and, and save whales and animals from kill shelters and domestic violence victims, survivors and all, you know, all of it and, and the arts education that, yeah. So, all right. So we have the ability to write the ship. It’s just, you know, we haven’t done it. We’ve been talking about it for decades. I’ve only been in philanthropies for 27 years. It got me beat by, by 1312 or 13. Um 12 or 13. Yeah. Right. 12 or 13. I don’t wanna overstate the case. Um But you know, but, you know, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not seeing big uh I’m not seeing big impacts. I’m not seeing big outcomes, outcomes is really what we want to be measuring. So, but that doesn’t mean we stop talking. That doesn’t mean we stop trying. No. And I, I wonder if maybe the, the thing is that we need to give people a bigger goal. Um, I mean, climate change is a pretty, pretty large, pretty existential goal. Right. But that’s, that’s too big too. Right. I mean, an individual or even in an organization, probably many people and many organizations don’t feel like they can do a heck of a lot to make a change to something like that. Um They can do the little things but they can’t do the big things. But maybe there are, there’s a, there’s something in the middle that ties together the work that we do in our world of, you know, um fundraising, for example, and philanthropy together uh with um uh with that bigger, bigger existential um question and, and I wonder if it’s stuff like um determining how we work with other organizations to build trust, you know, consolidating and coordinating our efforts so that instead of everybody forming another nonprofit. Um No, well, maybe we find a way to bring these nonprofits together, not just out of financial distress, which is where we typically go with mergers, but out of AAA true desire to share power, to share resources and to achieve greater things, bigger goals, bigger impacts, you know, through consolidation and cooperation’s, that’s one and that’s a bigger goal that I, I think is also attainable. And um it, something it’s a little easier to sort of imagine rather than how am I going to make sure that the ocean water levels don’t rise too high in the Carolinas. Um, you know, but it does lead there, I mean, if we can get people to work together as organizations instead of all being separate entities, then maybe it’s going to be a little easier to communicate to the public about the importance of taking actions to lobby the government, which is another thing that we can do that we don’t do because we’re so fearful that if we lobby that it’s going to run afoul of the law and that also we won’t be able to receive all the donations we want. So lobbying is one and then we can do things like um ensure that we are partnering with the kinds of supporters who also best represent our values. So we’re not just going for whatever money is out there, but we have big audacious goals supported by larger consolidated and cooper entities in pursuit of these bigger goals, supported by people who are willing to make big investments towards those goals. So not just trying to get uh a few dollars together for a small thing, but bringing more actors together with bigger support from well aligned actors for bigger things. The first one you mentioned the partnerships and those are all valuable uh the the partnerships with other organizations. That’s something I feel that the community, the sector is doing better. I remember um grant making foundations focusing on uh on, on collaborations and, and I think that that made a difference. Um II, I do still hear that there’s, you know, fear about, well, you know, we don’t, we don’t really know what a partnership looks like, you know, is it just a memorandum of understanding or are we doing events together or, or grassroots activities together like uh an advocacy day on Capitol Hill or, or in the State Capitol or whatever? Uh you know, what, what does it look like? And, or our, our board is, is uncertain about working too closely because it kind of suggests that we can’t do the work ourselves. You know, I’ve heard some of these arguments against the, the, the, the partnership ideas, but I do still think we are further along in working collaboratively than we were like 10 years ago. You, you may be right about that. Uh But I do on my end in the consulting work that I do still see so many emerging organizations all the time. They’re popping up like, like weeds or maybe dandelions. I mean, something prettier than weeds. But they, but the problem is that they still are thinking I need to do this alone. And I, and I, and I don’t see the trouble there. I pardon my interruption, but you’re accustomed to it, you know. You know, I, I do that all the time and the, the trouble there is, you know, these are folks new to the sector. So like, you know, they have passion about something. It may have, may be an event that a AAA trauma in their life that they want to create a, an advocacy cause around, you know, but, but they jump in, I mean, their first thought is I want to start a nonprofit or maybe, you know, maybe the first thing is they do a uh a fundraiser, you know, on one of the platforms or something. And then they say, oh, you know, we made $1500. Well, you know, maybe I’ll start a nonprofit, you know, so they, they’re not acquainted with the sector. They don’t, they don’t know what they’re jumping into. And by the time they start to meet the partners, you know, they’re, they’re already incorporated for three years and they’re raising, you know, now, $5000 a year and they’re flailing. But, but they got in with all with passion, which is necessary but not sufficient. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world. And in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the Needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising, puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now back to frustrations and opportunities. It’s, it’s uh it’s hard to watch because you want to take people’s, you know, all that, all that energy and passion that they have and, and help them to achieve that result that they, they say that they want to see in the world. Um At the same time, they’re never going to, it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to hit the scale that they want. What is it? Three quarters, three quarters of all nonprofits uh annual revenue under, isn’t it three quarters under $75,000 or something like that? But, but I, I don’t know, have, have you ever had these conversations with folks who just reach out to you because you’re in the sector and you’re well known and they want to start a nonprofit and they’re like, pick your brain. I, I, I’ve, I’ve had a lot of those pick your brain kind of conversations and the folks are resistant to the idea of donating to an existing cause. That’s, that’s already doing the work they’re talking about or volunteering with it or, or uh just approaching them about how can I help somehow if, if you don’t know what the structure looks like, just they, they feel like they have to do it themselves. It’s, it’s not that the existing organizations are not sufficient. But, yeah, but they’ve already, but they may have already scaled. They’re certainly more scaled than your non-existent organization. They’re, they’re, they’re way beyond where you are now, but folks are, are resistant to that line of thinking. They, they’re just so motivated. They don’t really want to hear the reach out to the existing community versus incorporating and taking on management of a, of a nonprofit corporation. You, you really don’t know what you’re getting into. So this is, this is one of the questions that I have for myself. It rattles around in my head all the time. How much of that is the result of the way we have kind of trained the community to understand how they can engage with the existing organization. I, I mean, some of there are going to be some people who tomorrow want to start their own organization and that’s just the way it’s gonna be, but it could be that they aren’t even aware of how they could be involved with another organization. So let’s take this down to the very, you know, practical kind of fundraising stuff that we do all the time. If we look at many organizations, websites, it’s very difficult in most cases to find out how to volunteer and sometimes volunteering is not only difficult to understand within the website, but there might be barriers to it. Um And those barriers are sometimes practical on the inside. But what it means externally is if you’re the person who says I really need to help the kids in my community um with an after school program. Uh And you don’t know any, any of the programs that are existing right now. Well, maybe that’s a bit of your own personal ignorance, maybe you can do more research, but it could be also that the organization already performing that role, or more likely several organizations have not found a way to bring everybody with that passion in. So I don’t mean to blame us for not being sufficient in our marketing, but I do think that we can open the doors wider to people who share our values and our passions than we have done. And we can certainly do it even in very simple, practical ways that fundraisers have some degree of control over like our websites, our Facebook pages, other places where we are acting as an acquisition tool. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s a way that we can say you don’t need to in indirectly say you don’t need to start your own thing. We’ve already got a thing here. We value you. That’s why we’ve already invited you to participate in this and that and the other thing and to give. So why don’t you come on in and work with us and that work may be as a volunteer, it may be as a advisory board member. It may be as some kind of community event or organizational um activity person, but I’m not sure that we’re doing that job very well. And in fact, if anything, I think that we have in our efforts to streamline our operations once again, um we have narrowed the portal through which people can discover and engage with us so they can find their passions through our organizations instead of coming up with 10,000 other competing organizations. I mean, let’s put it another way. 1.6 million organizations in the United States is just too many, it’s just too many. Some of that is uh the, the, the accessibility, you know, volunteering with us could look like two hours a week. I, I it could look like just a few hours a month, you know, or you, sometimes you see volunteer options but, you know, it’s not, I, I don’t, I don’t know, you, you sounds like you’ve, you’ve spent more time thinking about it and, and looking at them. Um II I, I’m thinking about, you know, volunteering. We, what does it look like? I mean, define, define what folks could do as a, as a volunteer. I mean, I think a lot of people would like to enter as a volunteer and then may very well become donors when they see the, the good work that you’re doing and they’re helping do it firsthand. They’re doing it with you firsthand. Um All right, Jay. Um what else? Now, what else? Uh What, what else would you opportunities on the opportunity side? Well, we also talked about the importance of, of coming up with advocacy um of making sure that uh we are taking a more pronounced role and discussing the issues that are important to us. And that might go a little bit beyond just a statement of our mission, our immediate mission. Uh maybe we once again get together with other organizations and say that this is our common platform, the thing that we all need to do together. So if we’re working with Children, there are lots of organizations working with Children and we need lots of them. Uh Maybe we don’t need as many as there are. I don’t know, but we do need a lot of people out there working with kids, but together, they probably have some common threads and if they worked together, I would think that they could also have more um more weight in lobbying their state legislatures. Um and, and their, their congressional representatives, um the federal government for more aid to Children um in various forms, whether it’s for head start programs or for after school programs. What have you. So in other words, we don’t have to have tons of organizations trying to fight over small amounts of money, kind of that scarcity principle, but instead coming together uh in pursuit of larger goals and then lobbying together uh to make sure that there are more resources available to address these common needs. So I think that advocacy is something that we don’t pursue as well as we could. Um And, and we could, we could do it in a more concerted and um, and successful way uh advocacy days in Washington or in state legislatures are a great example of this, but they’re usually done by individual organizations rather than by a group. Um, and so that’s one more way that I think that we could find common causes together and work together for, uh, a more, more successful outcomes, an advocacy day. I mean, I see that as perfect, uh, fertile ground for partnering, you, you’d rather have six busloads of people than one or a half and one of the organizations may have other organizations are gonna have relationships that you don’t have with, with staffs and, and this could be like we both said, Washington or at the state level. Um, I, I don’t know, I see that as ripe opportunities for, for partnering door knocking campaigns. The same thing. We, we’d rather have hundreds of people than a dozen. And I would think that would be easier if we’re working with a coalition of them. I mean, that’s, that’s definitely what happens in a political campaign. And there are some things that political campaigns do well and some things that they, they don’t, they’re much more transactional, but there are some things they do well that we can learn from and we can uh make sure that we employ those same tools and, and techniques and approaches to reach more people, get them more engaged. You had a, a dalliance with uh political campaigns. You were, you were considering running for uh for the US House at one point. I remember years ago, years ago, I never, I never jumped into the, into the, you were considering, I admire that you were thinking about it. You were serious enough that you, you publicize it to some of us, some. Well, I, I was involved at the state level with uh with the Democratic Party. Um And uh so uh was involved as a finance chair for our congressional district and doing other activities like that. Um There’s also a history of politics in my family on both sides of the aisle, uh especially with advertising and marketing, interestingly enough and in, in, in that world, what I find really interesting is advocating for ideas. So it’s not just, it’s not just the politicking over the bills, but it’s also saying that this is what’s important to us. Let’s fight for it together. Um And I, I think if there’s a kind of a through line in all this discussion, it might seem like we’re bouncing around a little bit. Uh But for me, it’s that if, if we can figure out what it is that we’re pursuing and then find out what our common interests are and common pursuits, then we should be able to attract more people to that together, um, to work on those things and more resources to, to accomplish those things. That’s certainly true in politics. And I believe it’s true in the nonprofit sector. Um, and if there’s something that, uh, that has driven me kind of crazy in the last few years, it’s this almost disaggregation. It’s this breakup we’ve had um that uh that I think that, that fundraising in part can help to fix. Um that instead of uh finding the way to divide up the population into a million different conversations, we can find common conversations and invite people to have those with us. Um instead of fighting over red and blue and, and so forth, whether it’s political or, or sports teams or our approaches to fundraising, um Instead we can find what it is, the majority of us need to do together in order to achieve these common objectives. Um So, yeah, uh politics in some ways is very appealing to me. Um What has been most uh um uh disturbing about politics is also in some ways reflected in the nonprofit sector, we may not have the same kinds of fights here in the nonprofit world that we do in politics. Thank God for that. Um But I do think that sometimes uh we, we get involved in these little uh rivalries over ideas when in fact, some things are, are pretty simple and direct, like sitting down with people across the table and listening to them first, um showing them that we heard them and then invite them to participate equally with us in achieving a mutual, you know, mutually desired result. And I know that in earnest, most of us feel that we are doing that. We are working hard to do that in this sector, but especially in some of the ways we’ve talked about so far today. Um I think we can do better. I think that’s an a, a fine place to stop if uh if, if you’re comfortable with that. Yeah. Is there? No, I need you to work with. I was kind of all over the place. No, no, you, you were restrained, right? All right. I think you like. That’s uh those are, those are excellent parting words and we, we, we can do better and we’ve got existential challenges that are at stake back to J Frost. Oh, thank you. Um Yeah. And we had a, you know, I should have given you a little more space for humor, Tony because this wasn’t the laugh fest. It usually is with you. That’s the only problem. Well, that’s when I’m, when I’m the centerpiece. It’s, it’s more uplifting. No, you were quite uplifting. Maybe. Uh maybe I wouldn’t go so far as to say jovial. But uh you’re uplifting, uplifting. All right. He’s Jay Frost. He hosts the, uh, you do this a couple of times a week, right? The Donor Search philanthropy Masterminds series. You do one a week or a couple of week, 22 per week, plus one podcast per week for 46 weeks. This year, I’m giving myself a little vacation. All right. Let’s not get too slack. 46 444 weeks of vacation. 4 to 4 to 6 weeks of vacation. Um, You’ll find him on linkedin and you’ll find him at the uh philanthropy Masterminds series, which is he’s the host and donor search is the sponsor of the, of the series. Thank you, Jay. Thank you for uh Thank you for opening up. Thank you to really, really appreciate it next week. Publish your book, Thought Leader. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com or sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving, virtuous.org. Welcome again. Virtuous. Thanks so much. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Marinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week. For nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.