A Different Take On Donor Retention

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 suffer with seborrheic dermatitis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week's show. Here's our associate producer Kate with what's going on.

Kate Martignetti
Hey Tony, here's what's going on. A different take on donor retention. Most donor retention research is on process, like get your acknowledgments letters out within 24 hours. Kerry Hecht's research takes a fresh look at how to keep folks with you. She shares her thinking on getting people to donate time as volunteers and donate through purchases. Kerry is CEO of 10K Humans. This originally aired September 9th, 2024. On Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Book author scams.

Kate Martignetti
Here is a different take on donor retention.

Tony Martignetti
It's a pleasure to welcome Kerry Hecht. She is the founder and CEO of 10K Humans, a company paving the way for a more forward-thinking and people-centric approach to market research. They're dedicated to elevating, synthesizing, and counting every voice. Demonstrating that harmony between people and data is within reach. You'll find Kerry on LinkedIn, and the company is at tenkhumans.com. Kerry, welcome to Nonprofit Radio.

Kerry Hecht
Thanks so much for having me.

Tony Martignetti
I'm glad you're with us. We got some—we got a very interesting spin on a very common topic, but you approach it from a little different perspective: donor engagement, and literally. 15 minutes before we were gonna begin our recording, I got an email from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The subject is how to stem the decline in donors.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
This literally came 15 minutes ago.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
They quote some stats I was gonna ask you, but with your indulgence, I'll just run through the dismal retention stats. Donor retention was down 3.5% in 2023. This follows 4.3% and 4.1% declines in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Yeah. When viewed by donation amount, the retention rate for donors of $50,000 or more was down 5.6%. For donors of $501 to $5,000, it was down 5.4%. And for donors of $100 or less, It was down 4.2%. The Chronicle, of course, they have some advice, and their very first piece of advice is provide volunteer opportunities.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Which leads to what we're gonna talk about first. But I wanted you to acquaint our listeners with your research related to your— which drives your advice.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, so we started working with nonprofits for a couple of different reasons, the first of which was trying to go through the world in a more purpose-driven way. So we started building into our work travel when we would go to different cities that we would line up, you know, set up some meetings with charities where we could talk to folks. And whether it turned into something or not was really not even necessarily the point. It was sitting down and talking to people all over the world who are solving the biggest problems. And what we realized in doing that is they didn't really have a strong understanding about how to leverage the assets that they had in order to make smarter decisions around things like donor retention, increasing their donor base, volunteers, as well as understanding and relaying back to the other stakeholders the impact the beneficiaries of their service were having. And that is a conversation that I actually had earlier this morning too, serendipitously. Um, and it is one that just repeats itself over and over and over again, that charities, much like, you know, businesses, don't— they have in their head what people think of them, which doesn't necessarily align with what they actually do know or think about them. And it could be donors, it could be volunteers. And there is no feedback loop that gets back to the donors about the impact the services are having. And volunteers don't really understand All of the different ways that the organization helps or all the different ways they can engage with the organization. This is— and this for me now on conversation 35 seems to be a universal truth.

Tony Martignetti
So your advice is around— the reason I said it's different than the typical take on this is that The typical take is more related to the transaction, right? The transaction of donating, typically. Like, you know, do an acknowledgment letter. You know, if it's an online donation, the person should get their first thanks within 5 minutes, and then they should get a more formal thank you by mail within 24 hours or something. You know, it's more involved around the transaction.

Kerry Hecht
I don't think about it that way at all. Yeah, we don't think about it that

Tony Martignetti
way. You're thinking about, well, 2 things: donating time, And donating through purchases. I mean, so donating through time, you're talking about volunteering.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, so volunteering, but we're— so donating through time is obviously volunteering. But really one of the things that— and, you know, maybe this is going in a sort of a slightly different direction— our biggest thing is working backwards to make sure that people have the information about what you do and really understanding So you've got— if you think about any charity, it's got the 3 stakeholders, right? You've got the beneficiaries, the volunteer base, and then the donor base. And the donor base is going to increase if they understand the impact. The volunteer base is going to, to grow if they understand the impact and the opportunities, as well as what it can do for their lives, right? And then you've got, um, the purchasing aspect of it. Which I see as something that becomes a natural consequence of these other 2 things. So in our mind, and what we have been— how we have been working with charities is working backwards from making sure that the appropriate information is getting to the appropriate people. Because without understanding how it is, what the charity is doing that is impacting it, and what their value proposition is and how they're delivering on it, those stakeholders don't have the information they need in order to determine whether to donate their time, their purchase

Tony Martignetti
Okay, so let's talk about that, starting with the donating time,

Kerry Hecht
the

Tony Martignetti
volunteering. So, you know, just as a reminder, you know, why might folks— I think there are several reasons why folks might volunteer and spend a different precious resource. Money is a precious resource, but time is as well, including Including for older folks who might be retired, time is still a precious resource. There are still opportunity costs. For every hour they spend donating to your nonprofit, they could be doing something else.

Kerry Hecht
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
And for a retiree, it might be golf or it might be the grandchildren. You know, for someone working, it might be more pressing or what you might consider more pressing. But sometimes I hear golfers talk about their precious tee times. So, you know, it's— I'm not— don't know. Don't, don't presume that work is more important than golf to workers versus retirees.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, well, what if you think about what that tee time actually represents? It's bonding time, right? It's bonding time with their group of people. It could be bonding time with work associates. It could be bonding time with friends or family. So when we interview volunteers, that is one of the first things that comes up. Is that they talk about it becoming an exercise that they can do with their peer group, that they can do with their families, that they can do with their friends or colleagues, that they can create organizations within their universities or within their, even their work environments where they create these, these, you know, pods of people that are like-minded. And then they collectively go and volunteer their time for something and they do it together and it gives them not Not just an activity to do, but then a commonality within the group. And then, you know, even as advice for a young person, as you're looking to differentiate yourself between competition in the hiring pool, this is something that people are looking at. So there's a lot of reasons to volunteer that fit in exactly with the same reason that you would go see a baseball game or that you would go play golf, or that you, you know, imagine a scenario where a grandparent is volunteering with a grandchild, right? These are activities that you can use for camaraderie, social bonding, growing your resume or your CV. All of those things exist, but we don't really talk about that very much.

Tony Martignetti
I want to pull on that one thread, uh, expanding your CV. Volunteering is a great way to show that you have interest in a mission or an organization that you might end up wanting to apply to. But if not that specific organization, just that, that type of work. That you devoted, you know, so if you don't have experience in saving whales, but the work moves you and you might want to work in an environmental cause or an ocean preservation cause or something, you know, then donating your time is a very savvy way to prove to potential employers that you do have interest because you've devoted a precious resource to it. Yeah.

Kerry Hecht
Well, right. And there's additionally, you know, if you look at the statistics around who becomes a leader within organizations, it is— there's direct correlations to the earlier you become involved in volunteer programs, especially when there is a longitudinal nature in your relationship with whoever it is that you're volunteering with. I have an affiliation with Explore Austin, which is an outdoor provides outdoor activities. This understates it completely to underprivileged kids in Austin. It's a 5-year program, and you have a group of 15 kids that stay together for that 5 years, and then a group of 5 mentors that stay with that group of children for 5 years, and they go from middle school all the way through high school. And when they start, often they don't even know how to ride a bike, and then by the end of it, they are leading Hardcore camping excursions into the mountains in Idaho, and you know. So if you think about the leadership skills and the mentoring relationships that go along with that, you know, that has taught that kid how to be a leader, how to be a good member of a team, and then how to be a mentor because they start as a mentee and end up in you know as a mentor. And I think that that is applicable with all of these things. And you know there I read an article recently about. You know, kind of how to cut through the clutter of, of, of applying and how there is a decrease in, um, bachelor's degrees being the relevant reason to hire a person. You know, that there's just not as much, um, cachet associated with having— like, everyone, it's table stakes now, right? And that there are a lot of people who don't want to take on the debt that is associated with the bachelor's degree that isn't going to necessarily get you further. So there is this whole strategy behind cultivating your experience through auditing courses, engaging with charities, becoming, you know, part of leadership groups and mentorship groups and things like that, that is setting people aside when it comes to looking at the talent pool. And so I think that there's within charities, you can, you know, to your point, you can cultivate whatever experience you want. Let's just say that you're going to apply to grad school and you're looking to be a clinician of some kind. Very hard to get a research assistant job. Well, volunteer your time at the Trevor Project, volunteer your time with Doctors Without Borders. There's a million different ways that you can cultivate that experience yourself.

Tony Martignetti
Another maybe more fundamental reason folks volunteer is they may not have the money to donate to your cause, but they still love your cause. And so you want to make sure that they have the information as you're, as you're recommending so that they know That there is an alternative. We don't, you know, our organization doesn't only want your dollars. If, if, if there's another way that you prefer to give or another way you need to donate, you know, we have opportunities.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, I completely agree with that.

Tony Martignetti
So what should we share? How do we, how do we encourage now? Now we understand why folks might do it. How do we encourage volunteers to step forward?

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, I mean, I think this is— there's, there's— I mean, that's a great question. Um, so we were working with an organization, um, in Tokyo, and they started doing advertising campaigns. So they were one of the largest organizations, charitable organizations in Japan. And the reason why this is so interesting is that culturally volunteering is not something that they do versus the United States, where we are often trained from a very early age, either through school organizations or religious organizations, that service back to the community is something that is kind of woven into the fabric of, of, of how we go through the world. And so they were talking about— so we did a lot of research on the benefits for the volunteer, and then we created advertising campaigns around that. And I think that there are a lot I think there's a lot of opportunities for organizations to work with corporate sponsors, perhaps the corporate sponsors that are giving them money. They can also work within those organizations, and we saw this in, in what was happening in Japan, working with those organizations to create corporate volunteer banks. And the people in the corporations that were volunteering would get acknowledgement within the organization that they worked for. So again, that is a way to get something besides money, even from a large corporate donor. Working with schools, working with college campuses, and really articulating the benefits of it to them. So, you know, if you think about the different things that we've even talked about already, which are camaraderie, skill set, cooperative experience with, you know, intergenerational cooperative experience with your family, all of those things can be the same thing that you would treat a brand, different pillars of advertising campaigns, and then you would hit them up in different places, right? You know, you could hit them up at college funding, you could hit them up at career fairs, you could hit them up around the holidays when you're looking to create warm fuzzies would be no different advice than we would give to a brand that was looking to sell something.

Tony Martignetti
You also want to share the impact that these volunteers are having, that you can have as an all— as a volunteer, even if it's a solo volunteer. Um, but as a, as a solo or as a group, you enter families, companies, neighbors, I guess maybe a giving circle, you know, whatever. But you want to share the impact that you're volunteering will have as well. Of course, I'm sure sharing the impact with the current volunteers.

Kerry Hecht
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
That they're having so that, so that they, they feel good about the time they're spending already.

Kerry Hecht
Yes. Well, and it's all about the stories of the people, right? I mean, and that I think is what, what we in market research are doing, you know, aim to do is to bring those stories to life because, you know, behind every number, behind all the statistics that you listed, there are human beings who are, you know, the reason that their donations are declining could be economic. It could be cultural, you know, what is going on in the world. There's so much uncertainty. It could be competition for resources. It could be they just lost, you know, track of the organizations that they were donating to, you know. So there's stories behind all of it, and it's important to understand those stories. And again, you know, I think that human beings prove time and time again, when you give them a compelling reason to to, to give. They are— they want to, right? They want to help. They want to participate, you know. And even on like a personal level, if I think about when I got into volunteering as a, as a kid, it was because we had to, right? It started with Brownies. And, you know, so that has a service element.

Tony Martignetti
I remember Brownies. Yeah, I was, I was a Boy Scout. I remember Brownies, of course. Before Boy Scouts, you have Webelos.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, right, right, right. Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Or Girl Scouts, you have Brownies.

Kerry Hecht
Right, that's right. And then we had, when we were in high school, we all had to be candy stripers at the hospital. And then as a person that's moved around the country quite a bit, when you get to a new city, there's no other, there's no better way to number one, learn how to fill up some free time before you've got your friend circle than to start volunteering in places. When I, you know, moved to Brooklyn, I was volunteering at the Brooklyn Zoo, volunteered at animal shelters, and it just gives you a way to get sticky with the community quickly. And I was doing that on an individual basis, right? And that was literally to just acclimate.

Tony Martignetti
Where did you live in Brooklyn? What neighborhood?

Kerry Hecht
I lived in Park Slope and Williamsburg.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, yeah. I was a member of the Park Slope Food Co-op for about 18 years.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, yeah. They're great neighborhoods, right? And I loved going— one of my volunteer jobs was to protect the goose from children trying to interact with it. So, you know, there's all kinds of opportunities.

Tony Martignetti
I don't know. The goose where? The goose where? At the Brooklyn Zoo. Oh, at the Brooklyn Zoo. Oh, okay. Oh yeah, kids get a little too handsy.

Kerry Hecht
Right. Yeah, they're like, leave the goose alone.

Tony Martignetti
It's very stressful. Yeah, it's very stressful on the goose. Right.

Kerry Hecht
Um, all right, well, there's opportunities for everyone.

Tony Martignetti
Pardon me? What?

Kerry Hecht
There's opportunities for everyone.

Tony Martignetti
Absolutely. Uh, just since you mentioned, you know, moving around all over the country, and before we started recording, you and I were talking about the places where you, you move around now. Acquaint folks with, uh, where you have residences at 3 different places.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, so I have a place in Los Angeles, which would— I would say is my primary home base. And then I have a place in Austin, Texas, which has been great. And, you know, I've gotten involved with a lot of different organizations there. And you talk about sort of the differences between Austin and LA. Austin is still a very accessible city where you can get yourself involved with city council and involved with charities and meaningful work very, very, very, very quickly. It's a very progressive city. So in addition to that, they're looking for people who are committed to making life in the city better for the people who are struggling with perhaps rising cost of living and so on and so forth. And then Haines, Alaska, which is a very small city outside of Juneau. So you have to take— it's like planes, trains, and automobiles to get there. It's a puddle jumper away from Juneau, which that's where I, as I was mentioning before, I'd like to go to clear my head. But even there, they have— Yeah. farmers market every Saturday in the summer, and they've got an eagle preserve. And I like to volunteer my time when possible when I'm there to either of those things because it's a great way to meet people who live there year-round and become part of the community.

Tony Martignetti
You can't drive from Haines to Juneau?

Kerry Hecht
You can, but it's going to take you a while. I mean, so, you know, it's a 30-minute puddle jumper or an 8.5-hour drive or a 4-hour ferry ride. But however you decide to get there, it's

Tony Martignetti
And how much time do you spend on an average year? How much time would you spend in Haines?

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, so I'm building a house right now, so the hope is that I will be spending more time, but I try to go up there at least for a week every other month, especially while the house is being built, just to make sure that it's like that, that is tracking and doing its thing. But you have to be— You know, there's, there's often no cell reception. So if you're not at your house, you don't have cell reception. And there's, there's a lack of, you know, infrastructure. So there's, there's literally no pharmacy, no hospital, no doctor. There's no stoplight even in Haines. And so, you know, you, you need to make sure that you prepare well in advance that your work is going to be covered or, and, you know, that kind of thing. Because once you get there, you're, you're a little bit out of touch.

Tony Martignetti
Interesting. All right, so like, how do you do supermarket shopping when you're in Haines?

Kerry Hecht
They do have 2, they've got 3 supermarkets.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, you got food infrastructure.

Kerry Hecht
You have food, yeah. But the biggest difference for me is that in Austin and LA, I am very store-averse. So I tend to be exclusively an Instacart shopper, even though there is a grocery store right across the street from my house. And I actually have to go to the grocery store when I'm in Haines because nobody will bring it to

Tony Martignetti
Yes,

Kerry Hecht
I

Tony Martignetti
see. You're— yeah, that's roughing it when, uh, nobody will— that's a real camp. You feel like you're on a camping trip then. Nobody's going to deliver my groceries.

Kerry Hecht
I know.

Tony Martignetti
All right. Um, all right, now that sounds like an interesting— I, I don't know. Uh, yeah, I mean, uh, it's kind of isolated. Like, no, you're saying no healthcare in the, in the, in the town?

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, I was climbing the top of a mountain, um, to the top of a mountain, and I got cell reception when I got to the top of it. And I— and in my I had gotten some calls from some doctors, and my phone started like blowing up. We you know had the voicemails on like bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop, and they're like, "Where are you?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm on the top of a mountain in rural Alaska," and they're just like, "Gotta stop doing that." No, I hope they

Tony Martignetti
didn't discourage you. Your doctors, which I would I would think would be encouraging you. All right.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Um. So let's, let's, uh, let's pivot a bit. So, well, before we pivot to purchasing, donating through purchasing, is there anything more you want to share about volunteering and getting folks to donate time and reassuring our existing volunteers?

Kerry Hecht
Um, I would just say it's always worth it. And, you know, there are so many opportunities out there that, um, and there's even services that match you with the kinds of things that you are interested in or have a natural proclivity to. And there are, you know, when I was growing up, of course, the internet was brand new. And now there are services that will allow you to volunteer your time through organizations that will also help you see the world. I mean, so the opportunities are really quite endless. And I think that, you know, what that means to me is there's something that can fit every scenario or every stage of life and every interest. So I think that it's, you know, it's all— I've never had anyone say that it wasn't worth their time. And I think that if you weave that into your business, you weave it into, you know, how you interact with your friends and your family, it can be really quite profound across the board. And from a purchasing perspective, you know, if you're looking at— there's a whole different conversation to have there, which is probably its own, you know, 2-hour-long conversation. But, you know, if you as consumers being purposeful in how and where we spend our money and making sure that you're doing the research to make sure that it is doing good in the world. To me, it's just a very important value. And I think that, you know, a lot of corporations are in that space now. But again, a lot of charities are getting— are funding themselves through having commerce like e-commerce websites or by selling a service. I just talked to a patient advocacy group who pays for the services with— that they provide to by providing market research services. So, you know, paying attention to the kinds of businesses that you're doing, that you're working with, and, you know, trying to align as much as possible, whether it's partners, things that you purchase, that in a way that aligns with your own value system, I think is important and worthwhile.

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

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, Kate. Book author scams. You got to be careful out there. I had no idea. I got 4 of these phony invitations. You get them by email. They're so similar that it's pretty clear that they're written by AI. They have a pattern that they praise the book. You're breaking new ground and you're questioning and challenging standard assumptions that, you know, so, you know, they're feeding the ego of, of me, the author, because I'm believing everything they write. You know, at least the first couple, I was thinking, oh yeah, I think I do. I do challenge assumptions about how to launch planned giving at your small to mid-sized nonprofit with the Martignetti 3-Step 1-Week Planned Giving Launch. Nobody else tells you you could do it in a week, but I do. So yeah, that sounds fair. Yeah, I'm not only fair, that sounds great. I agree, I agree. And then they invite you to be Part of their book circle in a coming month, you know, online, or to join their podcast. One of them actually used the, the real name of a book review, Los Angeles Review of Books, LARB, and they linked to that site. But that doesn't mean that the person emailing me is connected with the Los Angeles Review of Books. He just gives you a real site, but he's a phony. Yeah. And then comes the ask. You'd have to pay. And they usually don't— not usually. They don't give you the money part upfront. You have to inquire. Oh, that sounds good. I'm glad you loved my book and you really got the essence and the core of my book. I'm so proud that my message came through for you. You know, I'm whistling in the wind. I'm talking to an AI bot, but I didn't know that the first time. I didn't quite go there. Yeah. that overboard. But, you know, thank you for your kind words about the book. You know, and I always ask, is there a fee? And that's when they come back and they ask. I got fee quotes between $100 and $450, I think, to be, like I said, part of their book circle or do an online event with them and their club or be on their podcast. It was my book editor, Judy, who searched this for me and, and found that one of the emails was actually— it was a bona fide scam. Was one of the emails I got a message from was recognized as a scam, and that the others, uh, most likely are. Because legitimate podcasts like this one, for instance, you, you think I would know. You think the host of the show would know. But, you know, so lackluster that he doesn't even pick up on the cue. Legitimate podcasts don't charge you to be on. You know, I've been doing this for 16 years. I've never charged a single person, and I have no intention. But they charge me, and I'm thinking, oh, well, I guess that's— that sounds okay. So totally unbonafide, you know, without any credibility. Thank you, Judy. She emailed me and said, you know, these are scams. Here's this— this email address is definitely a scam, and the other ones probably are too. And she opened my eyes to the illegitimacy. And of course, I was crushed because, you know, they said nice things about the book. No, I wasn't crushed. I was grateful to Judy for flagging these scams for me. So book authors, be careful out there. Play-to-pay doesn't exist in the legitimate book review circles. And the other thing I want to do is I got a shout out Robert, a little quick tale from the gym. Robert at the gym, very nice guy. You may remember he's a former Marine, Semper Fi. Also the Harvard PhD, right, in global global politics. He bought my book, and then he he said he wanted me to sign it. So I said, okay, I'll I'll be in the gym. You know, we worked out which day blah blah. I said Monday, which is today, the day Kate and I are recording. Sure enough, today. There he was. He had a Ziploc bag with the book and a Sharpie. He's ready. He's Johnny-on-the-spot. I thought we would use a pen from the reception desk at the fitness center, but he had a Sharpie. He brought a medium point. I would have preferred a fine point, Robert, but that's okay. Still very much prepared. And there he was. So I signed the book for him and put it back in the Ziploc bag, and we both went on our— on our way is continuing our workout. So that's very thoughtful, Robert. Thank you. And that's Tony's Take 2. Kate.

Kate Martignetti
So now we gotta bring a certain fineness tip of Sharpie to get our book signed?

Tony Martignetti
I would prefer— well, you know, the 2— the book signing events, I bring a pen. I bring pens, multiple pens, and they are color coordinated with the COVID colors of the Yes, they are. You got to be you got to be on brand.

Kate Martignetti
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Yes, I prefer a fine fine point Sharpie.

Kate Martignetti
Fine point Sharpie. But you got your own pens, your own colorful

Tony Martignetti
for the

Kate Martignetti
book events.

Tony Martignetti
Yes, but this was a one-off at the gym. No, I was very grateful to Rob Robert.

Kate Martignetti
We've got buku buttloads more time. Here's the rest of a different take on donor retention with Kerry Hecht.

Tony Martignetti
You know, specifically for our purposes, you know, with our, our listeners obviously have their own purchasing decisions, as you're suggesting you be, be purposeful about. But, you know, our listeners are also working in small and mid-sized nonprofits.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
So, you know, we want to talk about— I want to, want to pull on that, the, the, uh, thinking about what your nonprofit might be able to Sell, right? And this is what we're talking about: purchases, selling in terms of services or products. You know that you may not, you may not now be exploiting. You know how to, how to think about that, what you might embark on, the types of you know what you'd need to know about the market. Let's, let's, let's, let's start where we did with volunteering. You know why folks might, why, why you might be able to induce people to purchase. Products or services from your nonprofit?

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, so we work with a clothing brand out of Australia who— they're an urban streetwear brand called Homie, and they've cracked this, right? They have. So what they do is they focus on providing skills to people who are bordering on homelessness or at high risk of becoming homeless. So they don't focus on the shelter aspect of it. They focus on literally teaching them how to be marketers, how to work in stores. They work— teach them how to make clothing. They teach them how to navigate conversations with much larger brands to get their defective products, where then they take them and turn them into limited edition, um, you know, cool streetwear that becomes collector's items, right? And they have something— so they've got a 2-year program that they bring people into where they teach them this skill set, and they have something like a crazy, like 97% success rate, and they have stores, you know, all over Melbourne, and they've got an e-commerce website and things like this. And so that is just one example of not just creating a tangible product, but creating a skillset to create that tangible project, and then becoming something that is as cool or as hip as anything could be. I mean, they're like, you know, they've won all kinds of awards for just how they've been able to crack that code. And again, this company that I was talking to yesterday about the patient advocacy. So patient advocacy is an incredibly important and necessary thing for people, especially who have chronic illnesses, given how complicated doctors and insurance and everything else are. So they, you know, they didn't start in a place where they were a market research company. They started in a place as a patient advocacy group. And then in order to pay for it, because they weren't able to get the amount of donations that they needed, they're like, okay, great. Productize what we're doing. And so what they're doing is they're interfacing with, um, you know, patients that often have rare diseases, doctors and organizations. And so they leverage that by providing brands, um, and different kinds of corporations access to those people. So that's how they make their money, which I think is really quite brilliant, right? You know, especially when you think about market research is often looking to make the lives of, um, people better, especially when you're talking about things like that. So they've monetized it in a way that, um, that, that doesn't impact who they're trying to serve. So I think that there's, there's a lot of clever things to do out there.

Tony Martignetti
Help us understand how you, how you start to conceptualize this. I mean, if I'm at a small or mid-sized nonprofit, you know, I'm— I, I, I can't see myself starting a, a brand and, and having stores selling the brand. I, I can't see myself there. But how can I think about what products or services might be appropriate for me to explore?

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, well, so interestingly, both of the examples that I gave, one started with 2 people and they started with an e-commerce site, right? And then the other one was, and this story is familiar in market research, that it was a lady who started a business at her kitchen table. Right? So both in both of those cases, they actually were you know one man two man shops that just were clever about how they were thinking about it. So for I think the smaller to mid size nonprofits, it's kind of the same way that you would think about a small to mid size business and getting you know your products out there. So you know let's just say I'm trying to think of some other examples that could be. Let's use an animal shelter as an example. So we often will see things here where it's like rent a dog for a day, right? So you get people who then they're not necessarily volunteers, but maybe they're in the city and they want or looking for something to do. And so they donate some money to the charity. They get a dog that they can then take out on a hike and spend the day with, and then they return the dog. Now that dog has been paid for. You've earned some money, and that person's had a wonderful day and a positive. Positive experience and now has a positive affiliation with your charity. So I think there are lots of different kinds of things that you can do that are, um, whether it be experiential, um, you know, if you think about the, the patient advocacy group is a combination of experience for the, um, you know, the people that they're advocating for and then monetizing that by giving companies access to it, which in essence makes these people's experience even better. Experiential with the example of the dog, um, you know, even if you think about You know, charities that are affiliated with— you had mentioned the co-op before, or for example, me with the farmers market in Haines. I do that so that I can spend the day there with them. So they're selling, you know, vegetables that they have grown. The Eagle Preserve in Haines is selling, you know, the experience of coming in and looking at their eagles. Right? And so, you know, you pay to get in, you pay to listen to someone talk about their program, you pay to listen to, you know, you get to see things up close. That's a product and a service that you're selling right there. So I think there's lots of different things they can do that don't cost you really any money to set up. You know, an e-commerce website doesn't cost you anything to set up. Giving access to, you know, the backend of an animal shelter and providing someone with the knowledge of how the ins and outs of that work doesn't I

Tony Martignetti
think inherent in what you're saying is that you don't want to take for granted the experiential possibilities that you have.

Kerry Hecht
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Because you're— because they seem mundane to you, because you've been seeing it for the past 4 and a half years. I worked there all this time, you know, well, it's no big deal what happens at the back end of the shelter. You know, we shovel dog poop and yeah, but there's medicine and there's volunteer opportunities. And there's, uh, I mean, even I was at an animal shelter that had a small surgery center.

Kerry Hecht
You

Tony Martignetti
could witness surgeries.

Kerry Hecht
That's exactly right.

Tony Martignetti
From behind the glass, you know. Um, you could maybe even assist somehow. Yeah, I don't know, you know.

Kerry Hecht
Right, that's exactly right.

Tony Martignetti
You don't want to take for granted what's mundane to you just, just because, uh, you know, you're limiting other people's perspective based on your own.

Kerry Hecht
Right. The Rent a Dog If you think about it, is one of the most— you know, for an animal shelter, is sort of the easiest possible thing to accomplish. You know, you're giving people— let's just say that 3 people took you up on it. It probably costs you nothing to put that out on your social media. You know, something that can ultimately pick up some traction as more people do it. They have a good experience, they come back, they do it again, they tell their friends about it, so on and so forth. Great for the dogs because they're getting socialized. Great for— and there's a bunch of pictures of the dog on the website out with their partner for the day. Yeah. You know, smiling in the in the woods instead of in a cage, right? So there's these again. This feeds what the goal of the charity is, right? So there's lots of different things like this. We did some work with a charity called Surfers for Strays, which is in a dog and animal rescue as well as clinic in Mexico, where they do spay and neuter clinics in in very rural Mexico. And she has a So you come, you pay to go stay at with her in her compound. She's also a yoga teacher. So your experience is a combination of having morning yoga classes and then helping take care of the animals. And then that funds the charity. So she's giving what she has on a personal level as an experience, and then combining that with the experience of the charity. So you're getting yoga. And warm fuzzies and learning about you know cultural differences and how we treat animals in different countries.

Tony Martignetti
Brilliant.

Kerry Hecht
Straightforward.

Tony Martignetti
All right. Yeah, I just I want folks to feel you know empowered that they're just just think think about what value you have and you know like we've said there. All right. So there are some market like practicalities too to to sort of constrain our thinking a little. A little bit, uh, but I don't want to constrain it too much. But, you know, value, right? You have to— you do have to provide some value. It's not— it's not going to be sufficient that you're supporting the organization.

Kerry Hecht
Correct. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you— you— if you think about anything, it has to be sticky, right? So if you think about a con— even a conversation that you have with a person, um, that is a one-off conversation, some people you end up becoming lifelong friends with, and some people That's it, right? So what is the difference? It's having more things in common, perhaps inspiring each other a little bit. And that's going to be the same thing with any relationship that you have, whether it be with a brand or a charity or a human being, right? That if you, if you can find ways to interest, engage, and elevate each other, then you will, you know, you've got that two, the two sides of that working together. And that's when you really start developing advocate networks and things like that.

Tony Martignetti
You also have to think through, you know, who you're going to be promoting this to, you know, your target, your target market. I mean, this is right in your wheelhouse as a market researcher, but, you know, I just want— I'm trying to just constrain a little bit with the, the business realities of what, you know, what, what you can do. You need to know who you're going to be selling this to.

Kerry Hecht
Yes, for sure. And I would say, I would say, you know, my advice is always to be responsive and agile, right? So if you are dealing with, with often, you know, small charities or even small businesses, you're dealing with tight timelines, small budgets, not enough people, right? So I would say, you know, there's, there's no reason why you can't try something that is small with very limited resources, but then pay attention to the outcome and iterate quickly. And I think that that is the same advice that you would give to any small business owner or any startup, right? It's, you know, keep your eyes open and keep your ears open, look for what is impacting people, and then have the conversations. You know, I just getting feedback doesn't have to be large scale. You can get feedback that, even if it's anecdotal, is still actionable. And I think that that's— so while we're talking about constraints, you know, I tend to be an eternal optimist, so I'm trying to like immediately and, and naturally pivot to, yeah, but don't limit yourself, right? Because you could have 3 conversations, one with a donor, one with a volunteer, one with a beneficiary, and you could come up with, you know, even though that is anecdotal, and but that may be all you have the resource resources for. There can be actionable things that you can pull out of that. So don't be afraid to start the— I mean, the first thing to do is just start having the conversations. Just start looking at what resources you have already in-house from, um, you know, your mailing lists and from, you know, the, the organizations that you support or the people that you support. You know, there's many things that you can do that cost absolutely nothing to start gathering information, and then that information becomes

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, you have incredible resources just in-house. You

Kerry Hecht
have incredible resources as yourself.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, yeah,

Kerry Hecht
yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Talking to the folks who are doing the work, who are meeting the service beneficiaries, you know, what— you're just having exploratory conversations.

Kerry Hecht
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, it is all anecdotal, but it's valuable still. It's anecdotal, but it's highly informative.

Kerry Hecht
Right, right. Well, and then you have 5 anecdotal conversations, and then you've got enough information to put together a small survey that you can then send out that costs you nothing, because there's plenty of free services out there that you can send out to your donor base or your beneficiaries or your volunteers. And then you don't have— then we're past anecdotal, then we're into the numbers, right? So, you know, it's, it's, you know, I think that it's just don't be intimidated by it, don't be afraid of it. And, you know, everybody has to start somewhere, and everybody doesn't get it right the first time. Right. time. Like, literally everybody iterates on every idea they have. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, absolutely. I mean, look at— I'm looking at my phone to make sure that we don't go over time. I mean, you know, Apple didn't launch iPhone 15, uh, in, in 2007 or whenever that, you know, when they launched Apple, the Apple phone, and then it was 2.0 and 3, but now we're at 15. So of course, you know, it, you know, goes back to your, uh, on a smaller scale, your advice to iterate, you know, be agile, Agile. Listen to the people. Listen to the 3 people who took out the first 3 rented dogs for a day. What did they say when they came back? You know, not that you had to talk to them for an hour, but how did they feel? What did they say? Was there any, you know, was there any problem? Yeah. Would you do it again? What would you recommend? You know, we're just getting started. You know, there's 3 data points, highly informed. They just went through your process. So learn from those 3. And then do another 5 or 6. There you go. Next thing you know, you'll be at the iPhone 15.

Kerry Hecht
That's right. And, you know, I always personally have the philosophy too that you should be generous with your time and generous with your spirit. And I think that when you go through the world that way, you end up surrounded by people who are also generous with their time and their spirit and leverage That, right?

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, that's because, that's because the people who are, uh, uh, uh, what's the opposite of generous? Are, are, uh—

Kerry Hecht
It's that guy.

Tony Martignetti
Not generous.

Kerry Hecht
I was gonna say that guy. It's Scroogey.

Tony Martignetti
Scroogey. They're Scroogey with their time and their spirit. You know, they're gonna naturally sift away from you. You're, you're gonna naturally sift them out.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Um, they're just gonna fade away because you're not gonna spend time with the Scroogey people.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I mean, I think about, um, even in my own career I had so much help and so many good mentors, and you know we have woven that I think fairly successfully into how we bring people up within our own organization. You know, and there's a million free resources out there to get people stingy.

Tony Martignetti
Stingy is the stingy is the word I was thinking of.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, sixty-two.

Tony Martignetti
You know, words are so words sometimes have diminished accessibility. Stingy is the word I was trying to get. Okay, but Scroogey works too. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Kerry Hecht
No, no, no. I was just saying, you know, there's, there's, um, you learn a lot about yourself and other people when you help open doors, right? And there's, there's, you know, using— this would be applicable to charities and small businesses as well. Like, if you're looking to cultivate skill sets, um, you know, there are a million resources out there that are low cost or free. Coursera, for example, being one. So let's just say again, you don't have— you have limited budgets to hire people, but you need them to become advanced Excel experts. Well, it costs you $40 to take a course for a whole month of as many courses as you want on Coursera. Boom. Now we're, we're, you know what I mean? So, so get out there and really start, you know, don't, don't think about the things that you can't do. Think about the things that you can.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, you know, yes. I'm routinely saying something that's directly a corollary to that. Uh, focus on how you can, not why you can't.

Kerry Hecht
Right. Yeah. And I—

Tony Martignetti
We're saying the same thing. I just put it in different words. But yep.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Yep.

Kerry Hecht
I, you know, I tend to think that anything and everything is possible until proven otherwise. And once in a while I am. But, you know, and it's usually, you know, a little bit of a painful lesson, but then you iterate and you make it possible. So navigate around the, the hurdles.

Tony Martignetti
And if you're looking for reasons why you can't do something, oh, they'll, they'll jump at you. You'll find a dozen reasons why you can't.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, that's right.

Tony Martignetti
We don't have enough time. Uh, it's not the right budget cycle. Uh, we're a little short-staffed. No, we'd have to fill this position first. No, we have an open board seat. No, we have, you know, I have to focus on that. No, the gala in 6 months. No, I just, uh, you know, hypothetical organization, I just named like 8 reasons why you can't do something. So if you're looking for those, they'll jump out at you. Focus on the how you

Kerry Hecht
Exactly right. And, and, you know, the other thing I would say too is tick as many boxes as you can, right? So when we started the, the, the, the line of— I don't even call it a line of business because it's not— but the, the internal initiative, um, that we call 10K Causes, which was doing this pro bono work for charities, right? So we had a bunch of different reasons that we were doing it, and it was to create a sandbox and training ground for our employees. So when we had employees that needed to be upskilled, or were looking to level up in their career, you know, that we could, we could create this environment for them where we could experiment. So, and then experimenting with new technology, you know, maybe we don't understand it well enough to run it on a live project. So let's experiment with it. It gives us collateral material and case studies, because most of the work we do is under NDA. So there's, you know, so if you think about it, we're helping these charities, but there is for sure a self-serving nature to it as well, you know, and it's, and I think that that's, that's really, if I could drive any point home that it's like, it goes back to that, those relationships that I'm talking about that become sticky, that it's like, these are mutually beneficial things. We're learning about the world, we're learning about our business, we're learning about what we can do. And in the meantime, we're helping small, you know, helping charities learn about their potential. And they can take, you know, what we know natively to brand building, consumer insights, and apply those learnings to their own organizations. So it's, it's, there's absolutely a mutually beneficial aspect to it, and there should be to all of these engagements.

Tony Martignetti
Outstanding advice, thinking, stuff that folks can take back and, and advance, or at least think about on their own and then advance. Why don't you leave us with some, some parting thoughts on, on your, you know, this research and and ways that we can, you know, leverage what everything we've talked about for all for the good of donor retention?

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, I would just say be endlessly curious, right? Be endlessly curious about why, what your organization is doing, how it's benefiting people. Don't take for granted that you know what is important to the donors and the volunteers from an information standpoint. Ask them what is important and then go and build on that and give them more than what they, what they're asking for, because the more they know, the more likely they are to stay engaged. And I mean, I think in a nutshell, that's what I would say: information feedback loop, information feedback loop, information feedback loop.

Tony Martignetti
Kerry Hecht, founder and CEO of 10K Humans. You'll find Kerry on LinkedIn. The company is at 10khumans.com. Thank you very much for sharing your thinking, Kerry.

Kerry Hecht
Yeah, I appreciate it. This was great.

Kate Martignetti
week, Empowering Women with Jenny Mitchell. If you missed any part of this week's show,

Tony Martignetti
I beseech you, find it at tonymartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
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
Yeah! 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.