Your Emergency Marketing Plan & Your More Diverse Board

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I'm your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. Oh, I'm glad you're with us. I'd be thrown into neurochoroiditis if I saw that you missed this week's show. Here's our associate producer Kate to tell us what's up this week.

Kate Martignetti
Hey, Tony. We're wrapping up our 2025 nonprofit technology conference coverage. First, your emergency marketing plan. Our panel helps you prepare for and respond to emergencies with your digital marketing and fundraising. They also help you steward your new donors. They are Sarah Allen from BRAC USA, along with Julia Molinaro and Michelle Shen, both with the Purpose Collective. Then, your more diverse board. Board diversity remains a challenge, and Jonathan Meagher-Zayas wants to support you in diversifying. See the difference between, we welcome everyone, and, we create this space with you in mind. He's got recruitment and retention strategies and explains how you can leverage technology. Jonathan is at Equity Warrior Strategies. On Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, N10. And Kate and I are together this week. So I'm— she is in the— she's actually in the Podfather seat because she does most of the talking for this, these, uh, this part that we put together, uh, into the show together. So I'm standing, and so I probably, I probably don't sound so good, but I'm here. We're here together. Yes, we're together.

Kate Martignetti
Here is Your Emergency Marketing Plan.

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio coverage of 25NTC. This interview is kicking off the 3rd day, Friday, of the conference. We're at the Baltimore Convention Center, and our coverage of 25NTC is sponsored by Heller Consulting. Technology services for nonprofits. With me now are Sarah Allen, Julia Molinaro, and Michelle Shen. Welcome.

Sarah Allen
Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Tony Martignetti
Absolutely, pleasure. Sarah is Communications Manager at BRAC, B-R-A-C, BRAC USA. Julia Molinaro is Digital Marketing Director at The Purpose Collective. And Michelle Shen, Digital Marketing Consultant at The Purpose Collective. All right, welcome.

Sarah Allen
Thanks.

Tony Martignetti
Welcome again. I know I said welcome before. You're very welcome. Glad to talk to you in the morning. We're talking about emergency marketing plans. Your session title is One Less Thing to Worry About in a Crisis: Prep Your Emergency Marketing Plan. Let's start close here. Sarah, why don't you just give us an overview of the topic? You've done your session already?

Sarah Allen
Yeah, we were our first session of the week.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, give us an overview, please.

Sarah Allen
Yeah, so I work at BRAC. We're a big international NGO focused on poverty-related programs. And recently we ran a big emergency campaign this past summer in response to some really devastating floods in Bangladesh that were some of the worst floods they've had in 3 decades. So we worked really closely with the Purpose Collective, Julia and Michelle, to kind of launch a really comprehensive marketing plan, work on, you know, trying to attract new donors and also kind of convert them, steward them, and keep them in our world. And so our session kind of went through that case study, did a little bit of background on, you know, how you could set up your emergency marketing strategy, and we shared a checklist with all the resources and the processes that we used in order to kind of launch our emergency response.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Let's be sure to get the link. If one of you could email me, we'll include the link in the show notes.

Sarah Allen
Absolutely.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. So Sarah, is this a plan that you had prepared in advance? Did you have an emergency? This is one less thing to worry about in a crisis. Did you have this set up in advance?

Sarah Allen
Yeah. So a few years back, we had another emergency, the Rohingya refugee crisis that impacted our work and brought in a ton of donors, not You know, kind of on accident. We didn't really do anything, but we got this big mention in the New York Times. Totally broke our donation systems. So in response to that, we kind of set up this emergency marketing strategy over the last few years. And this past summer was really like the first big test of that checklist and that strategy. And so, you know, it was our first time testing it. We've kind of been refining it since then and used it a couple of times since. Awesome. So we've kind of— we're starting to not perfect it, but, you know, we're getting to use it more and kind of refining it over time.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. Okay. Julia, let's— I'm just kind of going through your session description. So basically we're talking about preparing for emergencies. So an emergency marketing plan, why don't you kick us off with what belongs in your Emergency marketing plan.

Julia Molinaro
Yeah, so just to back up a step and frame it, we wanted to bring this session because emergencies are— they're happening a lot more. They're increasing in frequency, but then also intensity. So because of climate change especially, and then also political climate, economic disasters, global conflicts.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Julia Molinaro
We're seeing a lot more of these crises and they're more intense and we're more aware of them, right? Because we have our phones, news 24/7, social media. We're so aware that they're happening. And so of course it's a big challenge for nonprofits because there's 300 million people right now who need humanitarian aid, but then also this huge opportunity to connect those people who are finding out about the crisis on social media and the news. with an opportunity to do good. And so the parts of the marketing plan, we start by preparing the things you can get done now before any crisis is even on the horizon. Yeah. So thinking about, yeah, where people are finding you. So that's Google Ads, Facebook Ads, news articles, social media.

Tony Martignetti
Where are people going to learn about the crisis? Exactly.

Julia Molinaro
Yeah, where are people learning about that crisis? Yeah, so news, social media, Google Ads, Facebook Ads. What else would you add to that?

Tony Martignetti
Michelle, starting to Michelle.

Michelle Shen
Yeah, advertising. I mean, billboards. It could be news coverage. It can be partner organizations. It can be events. It can really be anything for your organization. I think it's important for every organization to think about their reach, how they're connecting, or how supporters are learning about any emergency that they have going on. And to ensure that they have a presence on each of those, in each of those places.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, right. You want to be where your folks are. I mean, hopefully you already are, but you want to, I guess, reinforce this in your emergency plan, right?

Sarah Allen
And when you're kind of thinking about those channels where folks are, you know, what you can kind of do in advance is set up some templates. Maybe, you know, you have a really big email list and that's where most of your gifts come in. Maybe set up an emergency email template where you could drop in photos, you could drop in stats. Same with ads, or maybe you want to have some emergency graphics that you could adapt on social or other channels. So those are some of the kind of checklist items that we have in that pre-plan section that you can kind of get started on ahead of time.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right. Let's— I don't want to just keep going, you know, Sarah, Julia, Michelle, Sarah, Julia, Michelle, because that's the way they're seated. So I'm going to go to Michelle. What else? All right, so once we know what platforms, what apps, etc., what channels our folks are going to be in, so those are the ones we're going to use in our emergency plan as we're executing the plan in the midst of a crisis, right? That's where we're going to— we know that's where our folks are, that's where we're going to be. And presumably we already, like I said, presumably we already are there, but in the crisis, those are the channels we're going to use.

Michelle Shen
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Now what, Michelle?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, so I think we covered when, when an emergency happens. That's a little bit unpredictable, but we know organizations are going to face crises. So while the when, we may not know that exact moment, we do know that it's going to happen, and we can plan ahead based on some of these templates or preparing some content that's ready to go or easy to Prepare once that emergency does strike. The where, where we are connecting with our audience. Hopefully we have a presence here already, and we are just prepared for using assets when that emergency does happen, and to make our audience as aware as possible. I would say the last piece of this is like, what? What are you sharing with that audience? What are you working on? Hopefully you are keeping your audience as informed as possible about the situation unfolding with whatever crisis you are responding to. It's really important to be accurate in what you're sharing, telling stories that you have permission to tell. Emergencies in nature are hectic. They're stressful. They're unfolding really quickly. And for the folks or, you know, whoever's experiencing that emergency, it's a really challenging time. And we want to make sure that we're not contriving or exaggerating an emergency, but in fact we're sharing an accurate— Story. depiction of what's happening, because likely your supporters are— they're coming to you for information. You might be their first touchpoint in what's happening in any specific area. So it's crucial that it's as accurate as possible, and it's, yeah, with permission to share all of these stories and all of these updates from that emergency you're responding to. And I think the second half of what is how you're following up with your supporters. So once they have taken action, once they've made a donation, once they've joined in to support in responding to this emergency, how are you stewarding them? How are you following up? How are you keeping them informed?

Tony Martignetti
Yes, we're gonna get to that. We don't want to just raise it as a question. We're gonna get answers, because I don't want you holding out on Nonprofit Radio listeners. Never. But thank you, Julia— I'm sorry, Michelle— for ticking off things. We're going to go into more detail. I want to turn to you, Julia, about permission. So Michelle mentioned, you know, what do you have permission to share? How do you get permission? Sarah said you have some— hopefully you have some elements prepared. I mean, that's hard too, though. You don't know where a flood's going to happen. You don't know. I mean, it could be Bangladesh, it could be Cambodia. So I don't— maybe we'll come back to that. Yeah. How do you know what to have in advance? But what about permission? How do you get this permission that Michelle's referring to in the midst of a crisis?

Julia Molinaro
Yeah. So permission from people whose stories you're telling. Yeah. So it's really tricky, of course, because it's this vulnerable crisis situation.

Tony Martignetti
These people are not hanging around on their phones waiting to talk to you.

Julia Molinaro
Exactly. And we don't want to exploit people who are in a really tough situation. So a lot of the times we'll rely on an organization. organization staff who's on the ground, staff members who already set up, like in BRAC's example, in Bangladesh, and they were experiencing this crisis.

Tony Martignetti
So you had a presence in Bangladesh, the organization did?

Sarah Allen
Yeah, we're actually headquartered in Bangladesh. Oh, headquartered. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting flipping the typical model upside down. So here in the US, I'm at BRAC USA. We're kind We're kind of the 501 affiliate, but we are much smaller and mostly fundraising and advocacy and communications.

Tony Martignetti
Headquartered in Bangladesh?

Sarah Allen
Headquartered in Bangladesh, in Dhaka. Yeah. And then we have a presence kind of all over the country as well as 13 other countries around South Asia and Africa.

Tony Martignetti
All right. So then, Julia, I guess the permission wasn't too hard to get.

Julia Molinaro
Right. If it's a staff member, they are often likely to give you permission. Yeah. And it's a really—

Tony Martignetti
they can Suppose it was in a country where BRAC is not. How would you manage that?

Julia Molinaro
Well, if it is, if the organization is, if it makes sense for them to respond to that emergency, sharing, even sharing photos, a photo can tell a story. So if you don't have those direct connections set up and you don't want to go up to someone who just lost their home in a flood and ask them to be sharing in those vulnerable moments. So, but yeah, maybe they're okay with a photo, or when you don't— when you're not feeling good about sharing people's faces and names, you can take photos of the situation and tell the stories through the updates.

Tony Martignetti
Maybe media graphics. I mean, can you get permission like from somebody, an institution that might be there, like Yeah. The AP or Getty or something?

Sarah Allen
Yeah, we've done that before, done kind of like the Getty Images or things like that. But also, you know, a big challenge we have is maybe the staff that we have there, they are, you know, frontline humanitarian workers. They're not comms people. Their priority isn't getting stories or photos. And so we found a couple of like creative ways to work around that and kind of asked our staff to even just send us like grainy phone photos of like the scenery, or phone photos of people delivering some aid, even if participants aren't in it. And that kind of helps us not have to get that participant permission, not have to get these more elaborate stories. And then right at the beginning of the crisis, when you're first fundraising, that kind of content can still be really useful. We can turn it into a lot of different things. We have some of these ideas in our emergency marketing plan resources, but we did like 10 striking photos of the Bangladesh flood emergency as a blog, and then we packaged it as a GIF and put it on social media and sent it as an email. And it was all really like photos of scenery, not so much necessarily photos of participants. And you could just see kind of the devastating impact of the floods on homes and infrastructure. And that was really effective, even though we didn't really have that ability to necessarily collect really nice stories at the get-go. I think that's one way you can kind of get around that challenge.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. What else? What else? Anybody? What else belongs in— well, not Sarah. You had your chance. So, Julia, Michelle, what else belongs in our emergency marketing plan before we get to the follow-up and stewardship that Michelle mentioned? What else should be in here? What were you thinking about in advance?

Julia Molinaro
I think you can be in advance thinking about how you're going to make a really compelling ask. So after you've captured people's attention, they found out about this emergency, The news, all those places we talked about, you have a very short window of an opportunity to convince them to give to your organization, to respond, to take action. And so the way we think about making that ask is in 3 components. You need to be building that sense of urgency. And the fact that it's a crisis is building a lot of urgency for you, as long as you're sharing information and updates. And then create some empathy in your reader. And so that is that storytelling piece, even through photos, getting people to get that emotional component of, I care about this, I care that people are experiencing this, I want to help. And then the third point that is crucial in making your fundraising ask is having one clear call to action, and it needs to be super specific, super simple, easy to understand. We're not asking people to do one of 5 actions. We're just asking them to do one thing, donate, and here's how and here's why.

Tony Martignetti
And a simple landing page.

Julia Molinaro
Yeah, exactly.

Tony Martignetti
No distraction.

Julia Molinaro
Right. And that landing page, it should be written at a 6th to 8th grade reading level, so a 6th grader could understand what you're asking of them. And it uses a lot of you-focused language. It's talking directly to your reader. It's not saying, we're doing this, we're responding, we're helping. You have the power to help. You can make a difference. You have a place in this response.

Tony Martignetti
Michelle, did they— did BRAC do a— I could have asked Sarah, but she had a lot of mic time, so I'm trying to spread these things out. So BRAC had to create the landing page on the fly, right, in the midst of the crisis, because it's a landing page devoted to the Bangladesh flood, right? So you've got to— I don't know, is that what the Purpose Collective come through, or?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, I mean—

Tony Martignetti
I mean, you can create a landing, a simple landing page in 6th to 8th grade language, hopefully like within an hour, can't you?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, Tony, I think what you're saying is that there are a lot of things that you have to get through during an emergency. There's this long checklist of things that you need to work through, and whether it's the BRAC team or the Purpose Collective team, I think we all take a part in tackling all of these things to get live and to present to supporters that may be coming into our website or seeing our ads or whatever it might be.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, right. The homepage has to be updated. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's urgent.

Michelle Shen
And I mean, this checklist gets as detailed as like, set your budget in advance. You know, if you know you're going to run ads during a time of emergency, that's something you can do early on. You can get approval for ad budget that your organization might want to spend, because the last thing you want during an emergency is contacting, you know, a team member to make sure that a certain amount of spend is approved so you can start running these ads. These seem like—

Tony Martignetti
Well, the CFO is on vacation this week, so— Exactly. We'll go to accounts payable. You know, they're not going to approve. Okay. Right. Budget. Very good. So all these things you're talking about are in the resource, the checklist that one of you will send me. Okay. And we'll include for our listeners. Okay. Okay. No, this is good. This is good detail. What— yeah, so, all right, let's go back to you, Sarah, then. What other assets have to be created on the fly? So landing page? Yeah,

Sarah Allen
I mean, it's really thinking about like every single channel and then what can you do there. So homepage on the website, maybe a pop-up or conversion design on, you know, all the other pages on the site.

Tony Martignetti
Thinking about— We have jargon jail out here. Yeah, sorry. Sorry.

Sarah Allen
Conversion design would be like either a pop-up or, you know, some sort of bar that's at the top or bottom of the page that kind of overlays on top of your normal webpage that will have, you know, some sort of message and link. So it'll have, you know, a call to action to go to the donate page or going to go to the landing page for the emergency. Okay, thank you. So that, you know, setting that up on your site, thinking about, you know, your actual donate platform, making sure you have then a donate form set up. It's connected to your CRM platform, whatever that may be. And then also looking at all of your social media channels, what we like to do is change our bios and links on all of the platforms and even our header images for the platforms that do have a header image, notifying people about the emergency. So when you look at our page, it's clearly kind of branded for that emergency. And then doing one post That's sort of like the master post maybe on each channel that has a really compelling graphic showing the emergency and really clearly just tells supporters how they could support and get to the landing page. Usually we try to pin those posts on whatever channels we can. So those are some of the areas. Setting up an email template for an appeal. Maybe if your organization has like a media officer, You can work with them to be sending out pitches or alerting journalists that you're working. So there's lots of different areas you can work.

Tony Martignetti
You said BRAC got very good coverage in the New York Times for your response.

Sarah Allen
That, yeah, we did. This was a few years back. Oh, that was a different—

Tony Martignetti
I'm sorry.

Sarah Allen
A different emergency, but it definitely can be really impactful. And so, you know, this time we were trying to work with journalists and send out just updates. You know, here's what BRAC is doing, here's our landing page. A lot of places like CNN and others will often publish lists that are, you know, how to help if the emergency does get enough media pickup. And so you can reach out to those places and try to get your organization listed as, you know, a way people can help. So there's lots of channels you could work, and it all kind of comes at once. That's why the checklist, it's helpful to have that.

Tony Martignetti
Everybody refers to the checklist. Yeah, we'll share the checklist. Okay. Um, all right, let's move on now. After, you know, this is This is the very unfortunate part of disasters, that press moves on, the world's attention moves on, and the people are suffering for years, recovering for years. So you do move away from an emergency phase. So how long did you stay? I guess I'm going to Sarah again. I'm so sorry. How long did you make Bangladesh, the flood, A focus of, let's say, just the homepage. Let's just use that as a proxy. Yeah. How long did that stay?

Sarah Allen
I think for the homepage, maybe, you know, 2 months or so when the most urgent immediate needs. And the timing of it was, you know, as we were shifting into the year-end fundraising season. This happened in August, so maybe 2 months later as we were starting to shift into the year-end fundraising season, we took that down. But we were continuing to You know, even last month we posted a new update, you know, 6 months on, here's what's happening, here's what we accomplished, and here's, you know, the people that still need long-term support. So we're still trying to make sure we get it out there, and for people who did support, that they know that we're still thinking about it.

Tony Martignetti
And I guess, in, in during the crisis, I mean, you're assuring people that— can you say 100% of your donation goes to Bangladesh relief? Can you say that?

Sarah Allen
Yeah, so I think that's something that you need to kind of negotiate with your organization in advance as well, and it's definitely important to have that kind of like go/no-go to even know, can you start fundraising? Is your organization responding to the emergency? For us, we were able to do, you know, directly grant all of that money straight to the Bangladesh relief fund, so we had it restricted like that, but Depending on your organization, you might choose to do it differently.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right. So let's go after— now, Michelle, you brought up the stewardship. Now, presumably, we've got thousands of new donors, new to the organization. How do we start to keep them engaged in a journey, I guess? Your CEO, I know, likes to— how do you breach— You guys are— I'm going to say the same thing. She's coming later. When is she? Patty's— She's doing email marketing mistakes. Yeah, at 9:45. So she's right after you all. You are overexposed. You got 75— don't you have 4 team members? Are there 4?

Julia Molinaro
Soon to be 4. Right now it's just 3.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, so now it's 100%. 100%.

Julia Molinaro
We're so lucky.

Tony Martignetti
I call that overexposure of the Purpose Collective. But in any case, so Yeah, email. See, I use her name synonymously with email. I was trying to say Patty.

Julia Molinaro
She goes by email.

Tony Martignetti
It's her middle name. Patty talks about the email journey. I know we've— she and I have talked about that at previous NTC. So you don't have to take the email journey path, Michelle. But in fact, I think it's kind of— it's overplayed. I think it's tired. I think it's— no, it's not. It's still important. What do we do to keep these folks engaged?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, that's a great question. I think you have this flood of new donors. You want to thank them first and foremost for their support. When you had a specific need, they showed up. And I think gratitude is the first message that you want to share as soon as possible. We talked about, yeah, this welcome journey, but the first part of this journey is making sure that they feel appreciated, they feel seen, that you've acknowledged their gift and their contribution.

Tony Martignetti
Well, that would be instant, assuming it's an online donation, right? That's going to be instant and automatic, but you want it to be sincere too.

Michelle Shen
Yeah, I think a donation receipt can be instant and automatic. That is how they're set up. And I think within 24 hours, you can send a thank you email either immediately within the first hour or instantly. Sometimes if it's immediate, it gets mixed with that donation receipt, so you may want to give it a little bit more space. But a thank you email from the organization, someone at the organization, even better if it's a plain text style email. It looks like it was really personalized for the supporter, almost like someone opened up a Gmail email and composed it themselves.

Tony Martignetti
Composed it personally, right.

Michelle Shen
Exactly. I think that first part is just making sure that someone feels seen and that their support has not gone unnoticed. So

Tony Martignetti
that's within 24 hours?

Michelle Shen
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Right. But your caution, maybe not immediately, because, well, then it also kind of defeats the urgent, you know, like I personally composed it. If it comes within 2 minutes, it's unlikely that you personally composed it. Okay. All right. Within 24 hours, looks personally composed. It doesn't have graphic elements. It's just a sincere thank you from, I don't know, who did it come from at BRAC? Who did that part come from?

Sarah Allen
It was from our Director of Communications, I believe, the first email.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Julia Molinaro
And to make it even more convincing, we'll put a filter, or we recommend putting a filter that it only sends Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM, because if somebody, if the way the They donated on a Friday night and it's a little bit unconvincing if they get a personalized email on Saturday at 10 PM.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. Yeah. So recommend putting that filter in. Thank you, Julia. Yeah, good point. Right? We're trying to make this look like it was done by a person. Okay. So there's a good first step, Michelle. Yeah. Then what?

Michelle Shen
And then we recommend following up pretty consistently after that first email. So maybe a story of impact from the emergency you're responding to. Maybe an update. Again, we talked about a lot of these supporters, maybe their first touchpoint in what's happening and unfolding in this emergency is you. So being able to share a pretty robust update or just like a firsthand experience from a team member or what you're seeing is happening, that's a great message to send. For BRAC, they also use this as an opportunity opportunity to learn more about the supporter. So understanding how the supporter found out about BRAC through this emergency. So was it news coverage? I don't believe it. Was it, was it one of the ads that they were running? Was it through a partner organization? And this was done through a survey, creating a survey and saying, you know, how did you learn about BRAC during this time? And also in that survey was an opportunity to share more areas of work that BRAC covers, so the different programmatic areas of the organization, asking supporters, you know, which of these are of interest to you. And I think that's a gentle but clear way to open that supporter up to kind of the breadth of BRAC's work.

Tony Martignetti
And Julia, what kind of open rates do we see for these? Maybe not the very first one. That's probably near 100%, I would think. Okay. But as the journey continues, I don't know, are the open rates declining? You know, like the second is higher than the third, higher than the fourth?

Julia Molinaro
We tend to see overall, you see a slight decline from emails. If there's 5 emails, emails 1 to 5, you'll see that start to come down a little bit towards the end because people are most excited right when they make— they their donation and the day after, they're still pretty fired up about you and this cause. And it's as we move on with our lives a little bit, that tends to fade. But they're still almost about double the open rates that you can expect from a typical email solicitation or newsletter. Okay. So it's between 30% and 50% is typically what we see from these email welcome journey campaigns.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. Sarah, something else occurred to me. When do you start— I'm going back in the emergency now— when do you start to ask for donations? Is it, is it with your very first messaging about the crisis? If you want to rush immediate support, or do you delay a few hours? Or how do you manage that?

Sarah Allen
Yeah, I mean, I think it really depends on your situation, but for us, You know, we are the U.S. arm. The headquarters is in Bangladesh, and so it's really up to the headquarters and you know the country where whatever emergency might be happening to make the call. You know, A that they're actually responding, and B that they need outside funds. You know, from the U.S. or whatever other countries that we're fundraising in. So sometimes it takes a little bit of time to actually get that approval. And so, you know, if you're in that situation. where you can't immediately start fundraising, what we like to do is start still at least sharing some updates and posts, you know, on our social channels or other channels saying, you know, such and such emergency is happening. Our thoughts are really with our participants and our staff at this time who are impacted. You know, so sharing some things that might not be a fundraising ask, but still putting it top of mind for people so that they know You know, we are aware of what's going on. We're there. We're your source of information. We're a source of information for you, and, you know, to kind of stay tuned for, you know, the next steps.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Thank you. All right. All right. So going back to after now, Michelle, let's follow up on something that— on our journey, you had made the point that you're doing some simple surveying. Like, how did you hear about the crisis first from us? What channel? And then later in the journey, what parts of our work are most interesting to you? I want to make the point that when you're surveying, you need to be preserving the responses and then using the information, right? If somebody says that the Middle East is actually more important to me than Central Asia, but I gave to the Central Asian crisis, But in Bangladesh, but I'm actually more interested in the Middle East. You need to honor that going forward, right?

Michelle Shen
Totally. Yeah, we don't want to ask any survey questions that aren't going to be used at all or just kind of resting there. That wouldn't be helpful for the organization, nor would it be a good use of your supporters' time to fill something out that—

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, I think it's actually counterproductive. Like, if they may remember, well, I checked Middle East, you know, why do I get— why do I keep getting these Asians that say Central and South Asia appeals, you know, and information. Okay. So yes, you need— for me, I do planned giving fundraising. That comes up a lot with birthdays. People like to ask— I see a lot of organizations like to ask for birthdays, but— and then they save it in their CRM, then they don't do anything with it. They're not sending birthday reminders or even month of or certainly day of, you know, they just preserve it. It's like, okay, now we know their birthday and their So to what end? So when you survey, use the data to favor the relationship, to build the relationship, right?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's an opportunity to build a stronger relationship, even asking communication preferences and things like that. That's all a way that hopefully builds a really long-term relationship with your supporters if you honor That data that you're receiving. That's a great point.

Tony Martignetti
What else? So we kind of talked about the 5 emails. Well, let's space them out a little bit. Again, Patty and I did talk about this, I think probably 2 NTCs ago. She has definite timeframes for that 5-email journey. Can you remind us of Purpose Collective's advice there?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, in general. So you can have as many emails as you want in this journey. We often see them being between 3 and 5 emails in length from that first gratitude email all the way to the last. And our general recommendation is to send them all within 2 to 4 weeks of when that initial trigger or when that initial action took place. Like Julia said, we don't want to wait until too far after that donation in this case because folks are, you know, not losing interest, but their initial enthusiasm for the cause that they support. We really want to maximize that, that timeframe as much as possible.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. So we can still spend some more time together before Patty Beech is scheduled, and then we'll have to, of course, cut it short immediately. Her time is precious. I don't want to delay her a second more than necessary. We're fine because we started early. So we still have some more time. What else? Maybe some questions that came from— how about some of the questions that came from your session? Any interesting, memorable, provocative questions you want to share?

Julia Molinaro
Someone asked about— so the last email of the journey, we typically include another donation ask. And so you had mentioned, Tony, earlier the need for long-term support. Because people care a lot when the disaster happens, but it can take years and years to fully recover. And so we like to include that last email in the welcome series is often an ask for them to become monthly donors. That's a great email. And it starts with a lot of gratitude. It's, a month ago you made this really generous donation, you fueled recovery efforts, and it's gonna take a long time for this community community to rebuild. Will you donate just $5 or $10 a month to fuel this ongoing recovery efforts? And so we really— and that is also a plain text email, so it feels really personal. Oh, good. And a lot— still a lot of gratitude in that ask, recognizing that they gave a month ago. And somebody had asked about what the conversion rate is of that email. And to be honest, it's It's a big ask, a monthly donation ask. So it is not that high, but we still really recommend including it because it's super valuable to get a monthly donor who might stay with you for years and years.

Tony Martignetti
And maybe this is too— I like detail though. I hope listeners do too. I think they do. They've been listening for a while. I hope they do. So obviously there's a link or a QR maybe to get to the donation page. Does that donation page, does that page from that email asking for sustaining, sustainer giving, does that still give the option of making it a one-time gift? Or does it go to a landing page that only prohibits— only permits monthly?

Julia Molinaro
Still giving them the option to one-time donate, but it's defaulting to monthly. So it helps encourage.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Yeah, any other— Sarah, it sounded like you had a question that you remember?

Sarah Allen
Yeah, we had one good question that was around how many of these people actually stick around, because we know that emergency donors, they're more likely to give one time. They're less likely to keep a long-term relationship with you and your organization. So I think it's a really valid question. Definitely, we saw, you know, I mean, it's still early, but with our past emergencies that we've done, we've seen, you know, much less, much lower retention rates. So I think that's why obviously the welcome journey is important. But also continuing to kind of feed those people a little bit of a tailored diet. You should, you know, have them segmented in your email system and be sending them maybe throughout the year-end season, you know, a couple of months after the emergency, We sent them more Bangladesh-focused stories, more climate change-focused stories, things that we thought might be a little bit more interesting to them as a past donor of these floods in Bangladesh, rather than kind of sending them, you know, a story on financial inclusion from Rwanda that we might be sending to other members of our broader list. So I think that really helped us. We saw actually quite a few people convert to become unrestricted donors during the year-end season who had only ever given, you know, as one-time emergency donors. So I think it's something that, you know, to your point, they've kind of showed you this interest in this one area, and maybe if you also have survey data, you could kind of incorporate that. You want to kind of continue to feed them that and slowly introduce them to your other work rather than just letting them do this really nice welcome journey and then dumping them on your regular list where they're just going to get everything. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Anything more about the stewardship, you know, the retention? You said it's very low, folks joining. I don't know. So a year later, do you know what the percentage of initial donors from the Bangladesh flood, what percentage stayed with you a year later, were still giving?

Sarah Allen
Well, so it hasn't been a full year. It's been a, you know, it was last August. So I think this year-end season will be really interesting to see. We've already seen a lot of them since then, especially during the year-end season, make a second gift, either unrestricted or maybe a follow-up gift to the Floods. So this coming year, it's really going to be interesting to see how much they stick around for, you know, the next season. So that's something we'll definitely be tracking.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, okay. But encouraging so far.

Sarah Allen
Yeah, encouraging so far.

Tony Martignetti
Second gift is a milestone.

Sarah Allen
You know, there's other emergencies in the past where we've not done quite as comprehensive of a response or comprehensive of, you know, follow-up and stewardship after, where we see the vast majority of people, you know, never make a gift again, especially an unrestricted gift.

Tony Martignetti
Previous emergencies, you didn't have the Purpose Collective.

Sarah Allen
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Of course. You all need to start sponsoring this show. Talk to Patty Breach about that. I'm tired of doing this free promotion. Overexposed. All right, we can still spend some more time together. Anything other questions that came? Michelle, you have it? Oh, go ahead, Julia.

Julia Molinaro
Somebody asked you, Michelle, afterwards about what an emergency would look like for them because they were a nonprofit that responded to legal changes. And I just want to note that for listeners, maybe they are not in a place where they're set up to respond to natural disasters like we've been talking about. Yeah. But crisis fundraising still applies. And we encourage listeners to think about what their emergency that is real and they're in a position to respond to could be. So maybe it's a pandemic. And they're in a place to be giving healthcare providers resources. Or maybe they're an animal shelter and they can save Fluffy from the shelter. Or yeah, maybe they're a legal organization and can take some actions when— There

Tony Martignetti
are all kinds of legal issues coming up in the news now with our environment.

Julia Molinaro
Totally. So we are talking about Natural disasters, but the same rules apply to any emergency that your organization might be in a position to respond to.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Michelle, do you want to add something there?

Michelle Shen
Yeah, I like comparing it to almost a, like, a SWOT analysis, uh, if folks have done that before, like strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats for an organization. If you kind of zoom in on the threats for your organization, I— that's almost like the preliminary prep for what you can anticipate, like what could happen to your organization that you need to respond to, and how would you message that to an external audience? How would you share that more broadly and bring folks into the fold so that they're able to join your organization in responding to that? So yeah, if we're looking at it like before the disaster happens, before the emergency happens, before the crisis happens, what are those potential—

Tony Martignetti
What are the potential crises?

Michelle Shen
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Excellent. All right. Anything else that came out of the session? Anything we didn't cover in enough detail?

Julia Molinaro
We will be sending you those freebies. And one of them is also, in addition to that checklist, we have an email welcome journey template. So you can use that and tailor it to your emergency.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. All right, Sarah, you know, why don't you just take Take us out with a little motivation about creating, because you're the client here, you know, and it benefited you to have a plan in place.

Sarah Allen
Absolutely.

Tony Martignetti
A crisis emergency marketing plan. Just remind us the value of having that in place.

Sarah Allen
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think the results end up speaking for themselves. You know, past emergencies we've responded to, maybe we got a lot of interest at first, But we couldn't retain those folks. And, you know, we're seeing such a stronger response this time around with an emergency that got, you know, a lot less media coverage and lift. So I think it's really valuable. It's a really valuable opportunity to generate new leads and connect new people with your mission who might be interested in supporting more broadly. So even though it can be a big time investment to respond to an emergency and fundraise around an emergency, It's definitely worth the investment, and I think having partners like Purpose that can, you know, jump in when it's a really busy time to help was really invaluable. And just having that plan set up in advance and prepping everything in advance. So even if, you know, you can kind of squeeze in a little bit of prep here and there over the next few months, you'll be that much more ready for when an emergency inevitably probably will affect your All

Tony Martignetti
right, thank you. That's Sarah Allen, Communications Manager at BRAC USA. We also heard from Julia Molinaro and Michelle Shen, both at the Purpose Collective. Julia, Digital Marketing Director, and Michelle, Digital Marketing Consultant. All right, thank you. Thanks very much.

Sarah Allen
Thank you so much.

Tony Martignetti
Thanks, Tony. Michelle, thank you. Thanks for having us.

Julia Molinaro
Thanks so much.

Tony Martignetti
And thank you for being with Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio coverage of the 2025 Nonprofit Tech Summit.

Kate Martignetti
It's time for Tony's Take 2.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, Kate. Sitting in my seat, uh, I have to stand now. I guess I'll kneel. Uh, it's like I'm proposing because we're together, so we're at the same desk. Uh, she's in my seat and here I am kneeling next to her. Thank you, NTEN. We're wrapping up our coverage of the 25 NTC, the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference. Year after year, this is our 11th year with NTEN bringing Nonprofit Radio to the Nonprofit Technology Conference wherever it is throughout the country. As you know, last year— well, this year, earlier this year, it was Baltimore. Yeah. I'm grateful that NTEN recognizes the value that Nonprofit Radio brings. So I appreciate the partnership. You know, they understand that we're expanding the reach of their speakers, their session speakers, by playing their interviews on the show with our 13,000+ listeners each week. So that expands every speaker's audience who sits down for an interview with me. And I appreciate the value that NTEN brings because they give us a great space, visibility for the show in front of a conference of 2,000, 2,500 people. So we appreciate the value that each of us brings to the partnership. And there's value in working with people who see your value, and including year after year. So my thanks to CEO Amy Sample Ward, who we all know very well, and the entire team at, uh, at N10 for partnering with us year after year. I'm looking forward to 26 NTC, which is— oh gosh, I forgot where it is. Well, I'll be there. Uh, we'll— the show will be there wherever, wherever the heck it is. I just can't remember where it is right now. Thank you, Antenn. Very grateful. That is Tony's Take 2. Kate, swinging the mic back to you.

Kate Martignetti
I just want to say I'm not forcing him to kneel on the floor. He offered up his Podfather chair, and I was like, oh, it is such an honor to It's great to be in the Podfather space in person. We've got beaucoup buttloads more time. Here is Your More Diverse Board.

Tony Martignetti
Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio coverage of 25NTC, the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference. This interview actually closes out our 25 NTC coverage. We've been sponsored during the conference by Heller Consulting, technology services for nonprofits. With me now is Jonathan Meagher-Zayas. He's founder and chief strategist at Equity Warrior Strategies. Jonathan, welcome to Nonprofit Radio.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Thanks for having me, Tony.

Tony Martignetti
You've been listening for a number of years, you said.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Many years, yeah. When I first I think in graduate school many years ago was finding like spaces, I think 2015, and resources for nonprofit professionals. And this popped up and I remember listening very often of just all the great speakers that you had and the content to just process how to continue my leadership growth in this field.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you so much. I'm so glad we've been with you for so many years.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Oh yeah.

Tony Martignetti
2015, 10 years. That's outstanding. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad. Look, I create the podcast to help people who are nonprofit professionals.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Oh, sure.

Tony Martignetti
I'm glad that's happening for you.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Oh, sure. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
It's very gratifying. Thank you.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Awesome. Yeah, definitely many episodes over the years where you send it to clients or colleagues to give them ideas like, hey, go listen to this. This will help you process what's going on with your organization at the moment right now. So thank you again. So honored to be here.

Tony Martignetti
I'm glad it's a shareable resource. That's what— that's, that's my goal. All right, we're talking about diversity on the board. Your session topic is why your board is not diverse and how to recruit in equitable ways. Share a 30,000-foot view of your session first.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Sure. So board diversity is probably the number one issue that many boards face over time, like the composition of the BoardSource regularly does research reminding themselves that board diversity is the issue. Wow. And we wanted to really go full forward and let people know what the true issue is, and it's about really personal change mindsets. So people are really struggling with this topic and advancing with this because of their own mindset they might have related to how they should go about it too. So we take that approach and help them think about changing their own personal mindset and then using an anti-oppressive leadership framework on how to actually recruit more equitably.

Tony Martignetti
What's the best way to begin? Should we start with the changing of the personal mindsets of the— when we're talking about personal mindset, we mean board members?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Board members and maybe leaders in the C-suite. Okay. Can we start there on the personal level?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
I think so. Well, we have a great meme that we show in the presentation where, you know, a speaker asks this group of crowd and it's like, who wants change? And everyone raises their hand. And then the bottom says, who wants to change? And no one raises their hand too. Yeah. And it's a great reminder that we're mentioning this tough topic of that too. Yet, what are we doing internally to reshape our biases, think about how to approach this differently, or change our mind, you know, shift our thinking to Like, why don't people of diverse backgrounds— why can't we find them? To why don't they want to find us? You know, and kind of creating spaces on the board that intentionally welcomes people in mind.

Tony Martignetti
That's borne out in something you say in your session description, that there's a difference between we welcome everyone and we created this space with you in mind.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah. So, and we're seeing that too. There's a lot of great and good intention And they're like, we love everyone, we're so welcoming. And I welcome those. I'm so grateful for those spaces. However, you know, there's a difference when you're saying that and you haven't done the work intentionally to think about how are you restructuring your board so like the power is distributed equitably. So like the new folks coming on don't feel just like tokens. They actually have a voice on the board. Or you're thinking about your meeting structures and agendas to actually make it engaging and fulfilling for people to be a part of it. Or you're just like looking outside traditional spaces of what you've done. So it challenges the mindset of like who actually is going to be great on your board. And we're not just going for the folks that have access to wealth or access to certain connections or just our own bias and perception of what an ideal board member is.

Tony Martignetti
Just to Alert listeners, you may hear some cacophony behind us. 25 NTC is coming down around us. There's carts of furniture being wheeled away. They're not going to take out our electrical drop until we finish with Jonathan, but there's a little noise in the background as the commons, as it's called here, the commons, this open area that we have our studio in, gets taken down around us. Yeah. But that's okay. Nonprofit radio perseveres. Awesome. Doesn't make a difference to us.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Adaptability.

Tony Martignetti
Doesn't make a difference to you, right?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
No, no, not at all.

Tony Martignetti
You're not distracted. No. Might be distracted by a lackluster host, but not by the furniture being—

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
No, that's what's bringing me in and I'm just focusing in on it.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, excellent. Thank you. All right. So as a longtime listener, you know I'm digging into the details. So how do we start to— what do we need to do maybe for ourselves? And maybe what does the organization need to do to help change the personal mindset? Not the organizational culture yet. What can the organization and the people do to change the personal mindsets on the board and the C-suite?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah. My colleague, Chrissy, who couldn't make it, she has developed a personal change mindset framework, literally labeled CHANGE. And it's an acronym that kind of helps think about the process of going about internal change. So first is the confrontation to, you know, really acknowledge that you need to do things differently. You know, not all of us wake up and say, oh, we need to change our mindset tomorrow. You know, like we have to face that confrontation of what that looks like too. Then we have to handle the feedback, bring awareness of the issue, do internal negotiations, uh, going— identify ways of going forward, and then enact what we're doing. So— Um, we have— she has a great framework that we use to kind of just help walk people through to like process that initial like confrontation of like, maybe I need to change, and then processing the steps to go forward so that, uh, the change is enactable too. Yeah. You know, I see often where people are like, oh, I need to change, and they jump forward to a solution and haven't sat with the process, uh, and understanding of their background of what's happening or done the awareness Yeah. Building of like what they truly are building onto. Sometimes we think we need to change and we're changing, you know, the Band-Aid but not the true issue at hand. So really making sure that process includes tackling and addressing the true either bias or potential area of oppression or past experience that someone has that shaped you so that you are best prepared to then go about and use some tools to kind of recruit in more equitable ways.

Tony Martignetti
Was that change, uh, format— was that, uh, or a strategy— was that a resource that you shared?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
A resource we shared, yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Could you email me the link? Of course, yeah. So we can put it in the show notes?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Of course, yeah. Um, bragging about Chrissy because she developed it, has a great graphic called— and literally it's a process of personal change, um, and it uses, you know, CHANGE as an acronym to kind of spell out the steps on that too. So happy to share that.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, please. Yeah, after our conversation. Yeah, of course. I'll put it in the notes. Thank you. Um, all right, so that will help us with the, with the personal mindset, my personal mindset change. Um, how about the, uh, sort of the, like, the board culture? Yeah. So now, now if we've done our personal work, we're now a board of, I don't know, it could be anything from 4 to 25. How do we start to make this at the board and organizational level?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah, so I use an anti-oppressive leadership framework to help us first identify where some of those issues might impact our board and our organization. So this comes from how we— and I pose a series of questions that help us think about the various different ways. So I think about learning, I think about how your community talks about you, I think about how your board is structured, I think about just the personal relationships and dynamics that you have, and then I think about how we personally, you know, show up and think about ourselves too. So usually those are ways to kind of help identify to say, oh, what is, uh, the true— like, where are we struggling in some areas? And then what might an intervention be for that too? So do we need better training for the board? Because I don't know any— There's lots of great board resources out there, but not every board member comes in fully trained on what's going on or understanding. So that— or is it being better prepared to be an ambassador for the organization so they're going out to the community and understanding how the community talks about the organization? Or do we need to restructure or update our bylaws or rethink our strategies or just improve relationship building? help people strengthen how they can better connect with individuals. Unfortunately, we've seen a decline in people's interpersonal relationship skills over the last several years of just being able to talk to someone about anything. Schooling. Yeah, in that way too as well. And any conflict comes up, you might be risk avoidant or you might ignore it or it might be traumatic and you not want to address it. So how are we potentially embracing the diversity that comes in, but supporting them to actually have the conversations, learn how, and structure some procedures in some way. So, uh, I'm happy to share that framework too, because then it goes into identifying each of those different 5 domains and how you can think about, uh, some better strategies to develop your board to attract and retain the, the people representing your community you want to be on the board.

Tony Martignetti
All right, good. You got a second resource. Yeah. Excellent. All right, let's talk through the recruitment and then, and we can probably get to retention strategies too. But sure, you know, how are you— you know, part of your session topic is how to recruit in equitable ways. Sure. What's your advice there?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah, first empowering and activating your current board to be ambassadors and not just saying, hey, go find people, like really taking some time and some intentionality to say, okay, what are the strengths passions, and connections of our current board members, and how do we want to see that be able to connect with new people too as well? So, you know, understanding all of that too, and then using a board matrix and understanding the gaps on your board, and then connecting board members to empower them to find the network, connect in that way, build on that. I also really think organizations should be really intentional about their community partnerships too. Like, if you're doing referrals Or sharing shared resources with other nonprofits too. How are you connecting in those networks and expanding what that might look like for yourself to, you know, broaden and expand your base too in that way? Okay. And then as a former fundraiser too, I think a lot of folks might overlook some of their donor data unless the donor is, you know, a high-level one too. Like there could be a lot of Uh, I, I don't like the term mid-level, but like people who haven't given at the high, high level, who haven't had the opportunity to be invited into your organization yet, that might have some of those characteristics you've already been engaged with too, that you might be able to cultivate, engage, and help drive that engagement too. So that might be, you know, some other ways in kind of thinking about that too, is sometimes they overlook the people already connected. Your area too. Like, how often have you looked at really the demographics of the people who are following you on social media, or who's attended your events, or who's given to your annual campaign too, and look at some of those folks and say they already know about you. How can you potentially either tap them for future or be very clear on the type of people you're looking for with that network too and help expand and empower them to kind of These

Tony Martignetti
are great tactics. You're packed with value in a lot of— in a short time, very dense. Excellent. You know, listeners are going to have to go back and rewind, but that's fine. There's value there. You just have to hear it another time because there's so much. Leveraging tech. Your session description says using technology for equitable impact. Yeah.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah, I think a bunch more people can probably talk about accessibility engagement about tech a little bit better than me at this conference. But, you know, learning all the great ways that we've seen technology be able to utilize for better effective engagement, better effective recruitment or organization or empowerment of folks too, as well. Like, for example, I think A lot of board meetings need to be redesigned of how they're really structured in that way, because the boards I'm working with, what they really want their meetings to walk away with is better community building, better information, and better opportunities for the important generative discussions in that way too. And if you have even more than 5 people sometimes and only have 15 minutes on the topic too as well, how are you going to So can you use a tool like Mentimeter or Zoom to collect thoughts from everyone in the limited time too, so everyone still feels there's a chance to be heard in that way or share kind of that information in that sense? So stuff like that. I also think like being creative with sharing resources with your board on what makes sense. So if it's your board portal, like using your website for board portals to organize. To give autonomy for the board members to have access to the information, or if it's a Google Drive or Dropbox folder in that way, or, you know, using project management tools with your board, because they're all volunteers. So however they— unless they're pretty organized themselves too, they might need, you know, support from the staff or the leadership on continuing their tasks too. So are we setting up like a Asana project board so that each board member is assigned what they're supposed to do, it's reminded, and it kind of ensures some of that accountability that might be missing from just saying, oh, happening in between meetings in that sense.

Tony Martignetti
You mentioned one resource, Mentimeter. Yeah. That came up in another panel. Oh, yeah. It's M-E-N-T-I?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
M-E-N-T-I-M-E-T-E-R. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Mentimeter. Yes. What do you— what can you do with that?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
It's mostly a presentation. Um, platform. I actually— we used it in our session too. So like live presentations, people can feedback, you do polls and what that looks like. But you can set up meeting agendas in that way, especially if it's virtual. Even in person too, I've used it in personal where, you know, you might pose a question to the board and, you know, a few board members might be the ones really eager to talk, so they do that too. But a couple ones might need a little bit more time processing. So So they could pause a little bit and then share their answer after too as well, or they don't want to speak up too. So you can collect even live feedback during the time too so people can build on that. Or I've seen too is like using a tool to do like a ranking poll. So if you're posing a decision for your board and say, hey, how much do you agree with this decision right now? Like this is what we're voting on too on a scale of 1 to 5, you know, do that and then vote too. Hey, who voted 3 right now? Can you share your perspective in that way too? So people get a sense to, you know, hear from different ones. So just thinking about, like, ways to reimagine how you can better inform your board, empower them with the information that they need to make decisions, and then lead into discussions to have effective decision-making that's a little bit more inclusive and reducing the dynamics of— Right.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Um, what else did you cover in your session that we haven't covered here?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Uh, that's a good question. Um, we always share, uh, in that we've done the session a few times, we've always shared like some trends or best practices, but I think knowing the NTC audience, everyone is pretty on board with some of this. So we shared a handful of resource, uh, research resource to just prove that this is a real thing. And remind ourselves too about how there's studies that show board diversity leads to better organizational performance. There's studies that show that DEI, even with the political climate, is still more popular and still centered recently. Like a university in Wisconsin, I believe earlier this year, just did a study saying DEI is still favored. Most people are doing it as well, or even kind of helping sharing some state resources too on like attorney generals or legal guidances and reminding people like, hey, this is still important, this is still legal, embracing, really positive for your organization. So, and I don't think any of our attendees or the folks here like question that too. However, we realize the part of change is we're getting other people on board, so giving other folks To, um, a sense to, uh, be able to, uh, change their, you know, minds or spark that confrontation for them too.

Tony Martignetti
Help make the case. Yeah. In your nonprofit. Yeah. Get that buy-in. Is that a third resource that you can share with me?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Uh, yeah, happy to share that too as well.

Tony Martignetti
So please, we got 3 things now.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
All right, all right, awesome. We got the 3— we got the change model.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Uh, we have the 5, 5, uh,

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
domains of anti-oppressive leadership. Yeah. And then we'll share the resources on that.

Tony Martignetti
And then the research data. Yeah. Okay, 3 things you're promising now.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah, of course.

Tony Martignetti
You're a nonprofit radio listener, so don't let yourself down.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Oh no, no, not at all.

Tony Martignetti
You and your— don't let your peers down.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Oh, of course not.

Tony Martignetti
Don't let your colleague listeners, uh, I'm not—

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
I wear many hats, and one is social worker, and giving resources is like a key part of my identity. So like, I have to bring that up to make sure.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right, we leave it there. You feel okay?

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah, feel great. Thank you so much for having me.

Tony Martignetti
Jonathan, it's a pleasure. Thank you. That's Jonathan Meagher-Zayas, founder and chief strategist at Equity Warrior Strategies. Thank you very much again.

Jonathan Meagher-Zayas
Yeah, thanks for having me. Awesome.

Tony Martignetti
And thank you for being with Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio coverage of 25NTC. The hall just got quiet. It's still coming down, but there was a lull in the cacophony right now. But no matter. We're wrapping up our coverage. Thank you for being with us. And we have been sponsored here at 25 NTC by Heller Consulting, technology services for nonprofits.

Kate Martignetti
Next week, storytelling with an award-winning crime fiction author. If you missed any part of this week's show—

Tony Martignetti
Swing that mic over here. I beseech you, find it at tonymartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
Being like possessive with the mic, just share. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I'm your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show's social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein.

Tony Martignetti
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. Thank you.