Nonprofit Radio for April 1, 2016: Digital Metrics & 1Q16 Fundraising Metrics

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My Guests:

Meico Whitlock & Rebecca Reyes: Digital Metrics

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Meico Whitlock & Rebecca Reyes at 16NTC

There’s so much you can measure, where do you start? Meico Whitlock and Rebecca Reyes answer that, and: What data does almost every nonprofit need to capture? Which deserves weekly attention versus monthly or annual? Plus, they have lots of resources! Meico is digital communications consultant and associate director of communications at NASTAD. Rebecca is digital marketing consultant at Spring Media Strategies. We talked at the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference last week, hosted by NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network. This is the first of 32 smart interviews from NTC.

 

Rob Mitchell: 1Q16 Fundraising Metrics

Rob MitchellHow did 1st quarter fundraising go and what’s changed in the full-year forecast since January? Atlas of Giving has the data and CEO Rob Mitchell shares all. Rob will be with me at the end of each quarter for analysis.

 

 


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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s friday, april first. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the embarrassment of galata phobia if i heard you laughing as you told me you missed today’s show digital matrix there’s so much you can measure where do you start? Mika whitlock and rebecca reyes answer that and what data does almost every non-profit need to capture, which deserves weekly attention versus monthly or annual. Plus they have lots of resource is miko is digital communications consultant and associate director of communications at nass. Dad rebecca is digital marketing consultant at spring bdo strategies. We talked at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference last week, hosted by n ten non-profit technology network, and this will be the first of thirty two smart interviews that i got from also one q sixteen metrics world about metrics today. How did first quarter fund-raising go and what’s changed in the full year forecast since january? Atlas of giving has the data and ceo rob mitchell shares at all. Rob will be with me each quarter at the end for that quarterly analysis on tony’s take two. My blue pedicure challenge we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled. You’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com here are miko whitlock and rebecca reyes, and this is actually the very last interview that i did at ntc, but we’re kicking it off with them. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc, of course that’s, the non-profit technology conference in san jose, california, where in the convention center and this is also port of sixteen. Sorry of port of ntc conversations. My guests are miko whitlock and rebecca reyes, and their session topic is digital metrics. What to measure how and why we’re going to get to that very shortly. First after high like the and, oh, auntie si swag item for this interview, which is a t shirt from service analytics. Design there, you could see that there’s uh, some artistry to this sametz analytics swag final swag altum for the conference, this joins our swag pile unceremoniously thrown into the pile, and we are wrapping up our coverage of sixteen ntcdinosaur last of thirty two interviews, which will be playing over the next many months on non-profit radio with me rico whitlock he’s, digital communications consultant and associate director for communications at nass, ted and s t a t we’ll get to that masek and rebecca reyes she’s, digital marketing consultant at spring media strategies become rebecca. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Have you want non-profit radio? We call what is nasty? Nasco is the national alliance of state in territories, directors and that’s. Just a fancy way. Territorial aids directors, directors and that’s. Just a fancy way of saying that we are a national association that represents public health officials focused on ending hiv and hepatitis. Okay, so we work in all fifty states and the u s territories. All right, rebecca, how about spring dea strategies? Were they about? We do digital marketing strategy and campaigns for non-profits. Okay, focus on an environmental organizations. All right, all right. Digital matrix how do we know we’re back-up let’s start with you. How do we know what we should be measuring for? Our organization’s obviously varies across. It definitely varies. There are a couple of metrics that just every organization should mention measure in your website, email, social media. But it really comes down to what kinds of things are you looking for? What matters for your particular organization. Okay, what are your goals? Who are your audience? All right. And we’ll get to the ones that apply toe on what you say in this description. Almost every organization. But how do we know? How do we decide? What’s what’s? Best for us. It comes down to your goals. So we’re looking for gold. What were you trying to achieve with your website? All those channels you mentioned exactly. Okay. And i would extend that doesn’t so it’s essentially a formula, right? So you understand who your audience is? Our and a hint here is that the general public is not your audience, so you won’t be as specific as possible. And then the other part of his what rebecca said, which is? You want to understand what your goals. With the audience, what do you actually want them to do once you’ve identified them? And in the last part is what does success actually looked like? So when you bring the audience in the girls together, what a success look like when you’re able to figure those things out, then you know, roughly what are you looking for? Based on the platform that you’re using it as a metrix? Okay, so some of our outcomes might be more volunteers five thousand signatures on the petition exactly ten thousand calls to senators throughout the country exactly more dollars raised. What? Whatever whatever outcome is for our organisation. Maybe for a particular campaign and all those things i mentioned could be in our individual campaigns. Yes. Alright. What are we trying to achieve? And i guess in how long? Yes, maybe a timeframe. Ok? Yeah. So exactly. So you’re smart objectives, right? So you want to you want to make sure that you have focused goals, but that they are also time bound time. Marriageable, right? Was that sports chant for hyre? Measurable, right s measurable, achievable r i forget he is a time. Yes, yes, i remember. We’ll talk about smart, smart stand for i’m using smart lower case e putting on this clock. All right, i don’t know, but they have smart goal. Yeah, it z z o way to go. All right. Okay. What are the ones that every organization or to be measuring nico let’s go nufer this or nearly every organization should know something. Something yeah, so let’s, start with the basics. So if you’re an organization, you should have a website. The and the very basic right. And if you have a website, a couple of things you won’t be looking for, you want to know how many people are coming to your website. So that looks that you sort of unique page views. You want to know how long roughly people are staying on your pages? You know, are they digest in your content and you want to know where traffic is coming from? Is it coming from google? Is it coming from facebook? Do you have a partner organization that’s using a news owner that’s that’s promoting your materials and your partner’s got a really good job driving puts you a website. You want to understand those basic measures so that over time you can begin to understand how you make adjustments, so if you want to extend your reach and you have this party organizations really good job of pushing your things out, well, can you partner with a similar organizations that are doing as good a job of helping you drive people to your website? And again, you want to be very clear about making sure that the numbers don’t exist in a vacuum as well. So you want to go to compare them to a previous time here. So it’s not enough to say that we had five thousand web site visitors this month because we’re right previous month, right? So exactly so you want to compare to the previous point in time, okay? And if you’re just starting out it’s okay, if you don’t have those benchmarks, you’re gonna build that overtime. Yeah, all right, let me point out that there’s noise behind us because and t c sixteen is coming to a close as it is for cliffs pulling apart dahna boots and there’s there’s traffic back-up for that as banners get stored but non-profit radio persevere, we’re here, we’re here for the duration. We’re not back-up early. Like like are we are co located booth across the way i won’t. I won’t say which video, organization and site that is, but they’re huge on dh. They’re close to wrapping it up, not us, not radio. Go on, bek are staying with me. Thank you, hyre rebecca, are these things that it was my voice again, cracks like, i’m twelve these things that we could just describe, referring traffic and how long people staying on the site, etcetera, is this stuff we can all we could get all from google analytics, or, or or elsewhere. Absolutely. Google analytics is kind of industry standard. I’m there are a lot of tools out there, there’s, you know, you can get into really deep, you can get into reporting, you can, um, combined it with google sheets and put on adam for google analytics, so, you know, create those nice reports for yourself, but there also some third party tools that can really, you know, send them all of their great information to your emails. You don’t even have to go into google analytics to see that kind of information, but one thing is there are there’s a difference between the kind of data that you just monitor on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. And then there are some more advanced kinds of things that you want to take a look at it just kind of everyone started maybe quarterly or yearly whenever you get a chance so you can really dig a little bit deeper and take action on those things. Help us understand what, what we should be looking at weekly or monthly versus quarterly. Which one? So you want to kind of, you know, take a look at your bounce rate or your time on sight? How many visitors are you getting those air. Kind of some of the very basic things you just want to keep an eye on. And if you see a spike or you see a dip in the numbers that’s gonna be red flag, but you can go a little bit geever and look at those some of those basic analytics alongside some of the other kinds of metrics, like landing pages or exit pages. So you know what? Air you top landing pages. Two people spend a lot of time on those pages. What are your say? You have some really important sections in your website? Um, i’ve found websites, you know, have an average of, um, some the websites that i look at having average of, say, a minute and a half for overall time. But some very specific sections have maybe an average of five minutes, which is really great. And that tells you okay, there really? Digging into the information and really taking the time to learn about your organization. Okay. Okay. Now you mention the bounce, right? That is how many? Not how many people leave after viewing only one page. Is that the bounce? Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I know a little something not trying to take over fighting. Okay, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. Fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Now. Okay, wait. Record. You mentioned? You know how long people stay on the safe? That you know, a minute and a half? Two minutes might not be bad if the site has first of all, it’s not marketing anything. Maybe there isn’t. A donation function means an education type site. And the poster short or the videos are short. Maybe a minute and a half to two minutes. Maybe that’s not so bad that it definitely. You know, this is the time on sight. The average has slowly gone down, you know, because people spend more time just going jumping around two from site to site. Especially if your traffic, a lot of it is coming from, you know, paid ads or organic search there going to be really cold leads. And so you’re gonna have a lot of people that, you know, it might not be quite the right fit and they are going to leave. But so that’s, why? It’s important to dig a little bit deeper and to see. Okay, maybe a minute and a half. That’s not, you know, super awesome. But if you have really high time on sight for some of the internal pages that really matter. If you are able to convert a lot of those people, you know, it doesn’t matter if they only spend thirty seconds. Okay, okay. Go, go. Yes, toe after that, i think it’s two things important to keep in mind. The first is what? Your goals. So people come to the website. What do you actually want them to do? R are they filling out a form? Teo, sign up for the email list. Are they watching a video? And that has to be aligned with your analysis of the time on page. The other part of it is his relative, right? So you need to be able to compare it to something else, get it having the time unpaid in isolation doesn’t really mean anything. Well, your point earlier that compared tto what’s. The trend over over a year, six months, exactly. Doing yeah, you may have different. May have different goals for your sight in a different periods over exactly pains. Yes. So two minutes might not be bad if donations are on the run. If the donation pages seymour or traffic? Yes. Okay. What about it? Yeah. Okay. Think about this. Okay. Anything? More and want to say about the metrics that nearly every organization should be following wait, so we just talked about the website, but there’s also social media there’s there’s snusz fund-raising there’s video on dso in the session that we that we covered, we sort of walk through each of these types of platforms of sort of want people through here the basic metrics that you need and hear the advanced metrics so people check out the session, notes they’ll find the slides where we sort of breakdown all of this information, ok, where the session notes i’m so that if you go to the intern website and you start for our session of digital metrics, there is a link to it they’re so intend out orders where you want to go and search for our session, okay, and the title again digital metrics what to measure, how and why, and the session hashtag is sixteen dig metrics d i g metrics with dejan metrics yes, and lost a great information on twitter if you’re following the conversation using that hashtag oh really? Yes, did you get a lot of session? A lot of live tweeting during the session? Lot allowed treating a lot of a lot of feedback and actually will be sending out the slides and alerting people to that through using that hashtag okay, okay, excellent xero forgot. What did you promise people? Tools and processes for collecting, reporting let’s not talk about some tools, rebecca, you start to touch the surface a little bit scratched. Serviceable what other tools do you? You both recommend well, very basic tools like i’m either google sheets or excel spreadsheets. That’s a really great place to just start, you know, identify the top five or ten things that you want to monitor over time that really matter to your organization and your organization’s goals just keep it, keep trucking there and then you know, whatever email tool you use. You know, facebook hasn’t really great analytics, twitter, youtube, they all have really great analytics built into the system. So whatever social media tool you use, you know, check that out. Also scheduling tools like who’d sweet buffers about social. They all have some really great analytics built into them. So that’s a good place to start. Just it, you know, see all of your social media information in one. Place. Okay. Are there any analytics tools that you like beyond what’s what’s imbedded in each of the sites that that go go even deeper? Yep. There’s some reporting tools that i really like if you check out springing a strategies dot com i have an under the block in the tool section. Um, some free tools for facebook, twitter, youtube, um, and interest. So you can see it’s, um, there’s a lot of tools out there. So i tried together some of the really best ones. Um, a lot of them are either free or very affordable because non-profits obviously on a tight budget. Another tool that i recommend checking out is k p i dashboards. So that’s key performance indicators. So this will really help you track, you know, from beginning to end. What? Uh, truck conversion. So if you really care about donations you’ll be able to see, you know, across your platforms, what’s working and that’s gonna be really great tool to bring everything all in one place. Okay, how about you make you got tools so you could recommend? Sure. So i would just echo what were rebecca mentioned? So we do use koegler analytics. For our website way, love it way also use about social in terms of the management, and i’m a really big thing of keeping it simple. And so we use google drive and the google sheets a za way to track metrics. And so those are some of the favorite tools that we use and in terms of the just basic principles, i would encourage folks to keep it simple. I think sometimes we spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect tool to get the job done. And the truth is that there isn’t a perfect tool because the audience and the goals are different for each organization is sometimes even within the organism nation that’s going to vary from campaign to campaign. And so there is no one tool that tells all of that. And so, my my recommendations for folks to find a few good tools that work and you souls ok, ok, but ntcdinosaur coming down around us. Matt hall, there’s trucks, there’s forklift, there’s there’s a manhole. That man lifting up the ceiling! Take him down. That was hanging from another boot. But we’re persevering. Wait another five or six minutes ago, okay? But very good advice, teo. You recognize that each organization going to different and and really you know what i mean? Don’t be afraid to try something. Yes. I mean, this is analytics. Yes. So try try a tool if it doesn’t. It’s not yielding what you need, then scrap it. Try something else, right? Yeah, and hard to fail it. Exactly. So and don’t remit the will. Right? So there you are in a community of organizations that are doing work similar to you. Ask someone that’s what intimacy is all about. Have someone. And if you have something that you can share with someone, share it. We grow stronger together and intent is very good about that. Yes. Over communities of practice. There’s got to be community back-up around analytics. There is one for digital communications. Okay, so okay. Are you in there? I am apart. Okay. Rebecca, you in there to get alright. And ten. Very sharing. Okay, even if you’re not a member. You khun? Yeah. There’s so much you could get from intense. Exactly. Then the membership was so during inexpensive anyway. Yeah. Amy sample ward he’s gonna say it’s cheap it’s, affordable, accessible that’s. Accessible? Like seventy dollars for a whole organs for everybody in the organization, you’ve got to be a member. All right, that’s sufficient and ten shot out. Um, okay. We still have a few more minutes together. What else have we talked about from your session that we should. So we spent a lot of time talking about strategy and process. So we we talked at the very beginning of our time together today about understanding people goals in your missions of success. That’s going to be very important because today or tomorrow, you know, there might be another equivalent to facebook. Everyone is sort of jumping on the bandwagon for yeah, if you understand your people, your goals and what you want to achieve, you can understand why they’re not that flat from actually makes sense for you. The other part of the session that we talked about was process in terms of how do you actually make this work day today before we go. Teo. Rebecca. Anything else you want to add about? Sure. We got time. Thank you. I just wanted to give a few examples of how people can go a little bit deeper. Eso you know we talked a lot about ok, these are the basics for monitoring, right? But you really want to make sure you find data that you can take action on. So that’s where, you know, combining the time on site with the top lining pages, for example, also really good easy practice to do is to take a look at your top. Paige is most visited pages or pages with a highest time on sight or whatever kind of metric you want to compare it to that particular day and look at your top ten and your bottom ten and put them side by side because you’ll likely see some differences. You you might spot cem patterns between the most popular and the least popular in that particular category. So then you can really, you know, once you spot those differences, definitely take a look at all of the rest of your articles and see if that trend holds true throughout your sight. And then you can stop doing things that don’t work and start doing things that really do work. Okay, i love the idea of comparing top to bottom. You’ve seen this and you found correlations? Yes, so things like headlines, for example, you know, obviously headlines like numbers or how to do really well versus things like questions or things that are really long and not very descriptive don’t do very well, and the difference can be huge, you know, from just five or ten klicks to an article versus hundreds, yes, okay, so buy-in top five ways to increase your facebook ad revenue versus social media strategies exactly, and of course, you want to have a variety of headlines you don’t wantto have Numbers and every single 1 but at least, but i’m just, you know, stop my head, mention numbers, okay, so no interesting. All right? Topic. Comparing kapin bottom. Excellent. Anything you want, teo. So you had some you said you have a couple of examples of another. Another strategy example. Um, let’s. See? Well, for one of the organizations that i worked with issues, they have a lot of different issue areas that they work with. So it’s really important to track, um, you know, just kind of keep the pulse on the issue. Areas that are most popular, so could be education or health care or youth was kind of a unique non-profit in that sense, and so for us, since issues are so important, that’s one thing that we really track in those, you know, nice spreadsheets. And over time, you can see in the grafts, you know, sometimes issues creep up, and sometimes they kind of drop off and that’s a really great indicator of okay. Maybe we should, you know, step back from the issue, this particular issue for a little while and focus on this other one because you’re really listening to. Then what is your audience want? And you, khun, sometimes see some trends happening before theirs. A national event that occurs, dahna okay, become anything you want, teo. No. I mean, if we were ready to sum up, i can sort of give cem really quick sort of high points that people should start focusing. Not quite. Okay. You said you were a strategy and process. Yeah, probably. I cut you off. You wanted to go to rebecca because you have a strategy. Okay. What do you say about process? No. So it’s about keeping it simple. And so we we work in a space where many of us where many different hats and we’re doing many things. And so rebecca touched on something earlier about, like, how often you should be doing things weinger you know how often should be looking at. So how certain metrics exactly versus exactly so you’re once you sort of built up practice of doing this. You have what? I have some general benchmarks in your in your mind. So you’re able to do what i call a spot checking where you are, maybe on the on a weekly basis sort of looking at your website numbers you’re looking at what’s happening on social media, and then you were able to dahna really quickly say, oh, well, that looks a little off. From where we were last week, where we were last month, i wonder what this is and you can sort of determine how you invest your time. And i think the something else to keep in keep in mind is there are lots of resources that are out there, you know? So buffer has a really great block on they talk, i think, in a very nuanced than assessable way for folks about metrics, and although they’re one of the capital tools that help people manage social media platforms, they’re also really good about sort of talking about where they have sort of fall short and where other tools might be. Ableto pick up it’s over yeah, buffer. Okay, about for dot com they have a really wonderful block where they talk about metrics. Beth cancer has a wonderful blawg and john john death camp has been on this show many times, including from yesterday, yesterday and here it ntcdinosaur before through and john hayden is also he’s. A wonderful resource is well, so they both have resource is specific to this particular topic. Um, it had been on the show also including this year at ntc. Been on before yeah. Okay, now we can wrap it up. Okay? Let’s. See, rebecca, you want to get the final word, but, uh, what’s a measure of how and why digital metrics i just want to echo what mika had said earlier of you really want to look at your particular organization schools and contextualized your data there’s lots of tools out there that well, come and go. So that’s, why i don’t. I’m a little bit hesitant to recommend very specific tools because they’re here today gone tomorrow and tomorrow. There’s gonna be lots of other great tools out there. So as long as you know what you were looking for, you know, what do you want people to do? And, um, take that time every once in a while to dig a little bit deeper? Have those come couple basic stats, you know, five, ten metrics that you just keep an eye on, make sure things are going well throughout the year and then, you know, maybe quarterly spent some time looking a little bit deeper. Like i gave some those examples about landing pages and headlines just so you can find out what works for your organization, okay, we’re gonna leave it there. That was rebecca raya’s, she’s, digital consult. Digital marketing consultant at spring media strategies. And also miko whitlock, digital communications consultant and associate director for communications. At nasty on what, again is nasty at the national line. So state in territorial aids directors. Thank you very much, vic. Oh, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc wrapping it up with the, uh, the four cliffs and the people movers and the union guys are all here. Tto back-up sixteen ntc, thanks so much for being with us. Rob mitchell and one q sixteen metrics coming up first. Pursuant, one of their tools is prospector. It uses your existing data to find your highest priority. Potential donors. You know who to focus on it identifies which of your donors are most likely to upgrade their giving, which is cool. Because then, knowing that you can prioritize your cultivation, you got limited time. And you need to raise more money. Prospector shows you who to focus on that’s already in your database. Not bringing in new names already in your database. Check out prospector at pursuing dot com what’s going on at crowdster dot com they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners get thirty days free or fifty percent off, you can try a crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising sight completely free for a month or get fifty percent off. That means pay for a month and get another month free or sign up for two months and get two months added on free. You can claim your deal at crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and choose your deal it’s that simple. Now tony’s, take two my blue pedicure challenge back in two twenty thirteen my dark age of social media when i thought facebook likes were the most important measure of success. Um, the non-profit radio page then had about one hundred fifty, likes, and since i was stuck on this vanity metric and it’s very suitable, but we’re just talking. We’re talking about metrics all day today, this silly metric i wanted more one hundred fifty seems it was embarrassing, i thought so. Two friends from high school, barbara massey and lisa martin, challenged that they would double the number of lights on the page, so they would get me to three hundred, and we agreed that if they did that, then i would get a blue pedicure. I don’t remember how we settled on that as the bet, but that’s what it became and they had to do it within. I think it was pretty short campaign was like two weeks or two or three weeks, and they did it, and so i kept up my side. I went across the street from the studio on west seventy second street in new york city, and i got a blue pedicure, and you can witness that because i shot video naturally, this is not something that you want to let go. I want to preserve this forever because it’s so important family memories. So the video is up at twenty martignetti dotcom my blue pedicure challenge that’s tony’s take two. I’m not really, you know, live listener, love podcast, pleasantries, affiliate affections. I don’t really feel it today. I don’t, uh i just, uh i’m sure they’re out there, you know, the live listeners, but no, no, i’m not. I’m not feeling up to it for on dh same thing with the podcast listeners your you know i know you’re there. Um, i’m not, and the affiliate affections, yeah, am and fm. I know you’re there, okay? You know, there’s, there’s, some gratitude. Rob mitchell, rob mitchell, you with us, right? I am with you, tony, i’m always with you. Thank you. You’re the ceo of atlas, of giving it atlas of giving dot com and of course, you’re also on twitter at philanthropy. Man, how you doing? Welcome back to non-profit radio. Hey, thanks, it’s. Always good to be with you, tony. Thank you. Always good. I think this is this the first time that you’re not in the studio. But on the show i said, i think this might be the second time i’m not in the second. Allright, i love coming to the studio for the whole new york experience in the upper west side experience. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s irreplaceable. But, tony, today, after the show, i’m leaving immediately to drive to houston to go to the final four. So that’s, that is my excuse today for not being in the studio with you. Final four is that is that is that one baseball? No, that that would be a collegiate. Basketball. Basketball. Ok, is that the one with the free throws and the field goals? Basketball is that grows field goals and lots of yelling, screaming and bands. Playing in-kind people being interested because they want to find out if they’re going to make money on there on their march madness brackets march madness. All right, that sounds like more like illness than ah then, uh, then something you better okay? You’re a sports guy. I, uh i’ve heard of sports. Okay? S so you’re going to come on every quarter now, the end of the quarter, and you’re gonna tell us what has happened in that quarter and then how that has affected your forecast? The atlas of giving forecast for twenty sixteen. So i’m very excited about this. Good. We’re going to use every quarter. That’s cool? Yeah, i’m excited about it, too. I think i think it’s a good way for listeners and listeners, whether they’re live podcast or or affiliate, i think it’s a great way to peak to keep up, keep their finger on the pulse of american philanthropy and that’s what we like to say we’re doing at the alice of giving we have an atlas of giving twitter page at atlas of giving as you mentioned my twitter pages at full answer, man and we have analysis of giving facebook page and google plus page. So there are a number of ways for people to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in american philanthropy. Okay. That’s ah, that’s. More self promotion than i generally allow. So that’s it. We cut that off. Now that we’ve cut off. All right, let’s, talk about some data. The number is not good for january. Through where we had january through march. Right? I assume january through february. Okay, just just finished march yesterday. Were quick, but we’re not that quick. Okay. Okay. So january february. The number is not good. No it’s, not it’s. Ah it’s. A disappointing number. The the through february e-giving as down nationally. One point, four percent, which some people would argue it’s flat some people may argue is yeah, but it’s not since since the atlas of giving has been around, um, since the depression, this is the first time we wait. Have we have seen two months of consecutive, um, downs down data? Altum and it’s there’s. Some explanations for it. Okay, it’s worrisome. Alright, first first time you’re saying the first time in how long? That way. So the first two months of the year have been down. When did this last happened? Two thousand nine. Okay. Depth of the recession. Okay. All right. So it’s gets down sector while yeah, nationwide. One point four percent. And what does that mean for the forecast for twenty sixteen? Well, the forecast has also taken a dip um, off of our original forecast and our forecast from last last month. The forecast today. And you have to understand that we we keeping our finger on the pulse of american philanthropy and the factors that are involved in charitable giving, including economic, demographic and event factors. We’re looking at a broad spectrum, and our forecast for calendar year two thousand sixteen is that two thousand sixteen, at least today is forecast to finish down to percent. Yeah. Okay. All right. And the point is, you know, this gets revised every single month. I mean, you’re you’re going to be coming on each quarter, but each month you revise the forecast. So, you know, this is the most the most recent data that you can analyze, which is up to one month old. Exactly. All right. And then next month, maybe maybe it’ll continue to decline. Who knows? But all right, now, what way? Not now. What was the forecast? Have to refresh? My recollection is you were on talking about it. What was the twenty sixteen forecast back in january? When when you were on the show? Well, it was a modest too. It was a modest two percent growth, two percent growth. Okay, so we’ve lost four percent from from then. Yes, because now we’re showing an annual decline of two. So okay, all right, well, you know, we keep our tracking the i mean, the news can always be good. And who knows what will happen at the end by the end of the year. But, you know, this is what this is, what data analysis is so people should be aware that the first two months were we’re tour. Okay? You have some suggestion as to why this maybe yeah, there there are several signal we’ve we’ve looked at the data, and we suspect that, um, the reason the forecasts has changed so well, i don’t want to say dramatically because that to me, four percent plus or minus i mean, if you think about political polls, they’re off four percent plus or minus so i don’t want to say dramatically that’s that’s that would be no being just keeping that stoploss that four percent of the reason that the forecast has changed from up to down is that, um, the the guy, the really smart guys who are looking at us gdp, gross sametz really gross domestic product have lowered their forecast for two thousand sixteen, and as every as most people know, gross domestic riel gross domestic product has a major is a major contributor, two charitable giving so that’s one reason. Okay, the expectations in the forecast for the united states stock market has been lowered. Also, not if you think about this time last year we were waiting for a correction, but instead of a correction occurring, the stock market was soaring at this time last year. And so instead of instead of revising numbers down, we were revised your number’s up. And so the the expectation and forecast of the stock market has been lowered so that that is that’s a contributing factor. Recent oil price increases now depends on where you live if you like that or you don’t like that. But for most americans, it’s being reflected at the gas pump, and what that means is that they’re paying more for their gasoline when they go to fill up and they have less disposable income. And since individuals account for seventy three percent of all giving, when when individuals have less disposable income, they have less to give. Yeah, so also get rob rob the objective gases such a a common commodity. I mean it’s like food. I mean, you know, in our car culture, you’re filling up, you know, once a week or something, you’re seeing this increase every week or maybe even more often, and it influences your your opinion of how much disposable income you have, it does absolutely, it does. The same thing is true for other things, like taxes when taxes go up, there’s less disposable income and i don’t care if it’s local taxes or national state taxes or national taxes. It’s, it’s all for individual givers, it’s all about disposable income, okay? And i’m just saying i’m pointing out gas because it’s such a a commodity that people buy so frequently that you know, people jog around and monitor oh, it’s one eighty seven there was one eighty nine over. At the place where i usually go to send mean people compare these pennies and if you see the penny’s going up week after week you ah, i guess you are less wealthy and you feel less well. Okay. Yes. Then then there is then there is the presidential political campaign and i have seen at least two reports from what i would consider to be reliable sources that say campaign e-giving does not affect charitable giving. I am. I am not in a position to say to you today that it does, though we are studying it and and are preparing a report to be released in june about the implications of political fund-raising on charitable giving. But what i would say to you is that campaign interest and uncertainty about future leadership is leaving potential donors on the sideline. Okay, all right, now, let me ask a question about that. How does the atlas of giving study this? How do you do that? Well, way. Have. As you know, tony, we have sixty five algorithms, and those algorithms are based on economic, demographic and event factors. And so, as as we look at each of those sixty five algorithms, whether they’re for a particular source of particular state or a particular sector durney we’re able to get a read on what is what is causing charitable giving to do what it is doing and that’s why we say, we’re keeping our pulse on american philanthropy, and right now, you know, if you look at if you look a campaign giving in terms of it’s out geever its volume in comparison with charitable giving, it’s it’s not very it’s, not very large, but when people are wondering what the leadership of the country is going to do, what taxes are going to do when there’s uncertainty, which there is a great amount of uncertainty today. Um, in both in both the democratic and republican parties, there’s talk of brokered conventions and so forth, people are more cautious, and they tend to stay on the sideline and and that’s what we’re seeing, yeah, so amazing in our algorithms. So it may not be so much the money that people spend on the presidential campaign. E-giving but the attitude of the feeling of uncertainty that’s what you’re suggesting absolutely ok, we’ll get a i think we’ll get where we’re going to. Is we’ll have you back in july because then that’ll be the end of the second quarter, and then you’ll be able to, um, talk about your june paper on on the impact of the presidential campaign on giving. How does that sound? Sounds great. Ok, we’ll take a break now we’re not wrapping up. I don’t want you think, tien, you got more to go, but we’re gonna take our break, and you and i are going to continue our convo, stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from a standup comedy, tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation. Top trans sounded life that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i am his knees. Carmela and i am his nephew, gino. Oppcoll no fools. My sweet niece and nephew. They listen to non-profit radio that they have no choice. But so that right, that that was really cool. Okay, rob mitchell, you want to share some other? Ah, some of the reasons so well is the oil and the gdp and the stock market forecast down the campaigning. What? You got other other other potential reasons or way exhausted our okay, what else? Give us one. Okay? So church e-giving, which is the largest sector accounts for the largest sector of giving in the u s that’s. Like was declining at a faster rate than the national e-giving right raid. The religion is what about a third? Right? Thirty two. Thirty three percent. Something okay now. It’s. Always it’s. It’s, i think. Now remember, tony, that about ten years ago it was about fifty percent. Yeah, well, that’s, sort of the point. I was going to make that you after year when you and i have been talking. I’m not sure it happened in twenty fifteen, but i know twenty, thirteen and fourteen. It was losing aa percent. It was it was losing market share one percent a year. I forget whether that happened in twenty fifteen i can’t remember, but i don’t expect you to remember, but but it’s been declining? Yeah, and now you’re saying it used to be fifty that was before me, but or before i used to pay attention to the stuff. So all right. And then so now, in the first two months, it declined. You think it declined faster than the one point four percent nationwide, right? I mean, sector across the how much? How much did church giving decline? Church e-giving declined. Hang on one second here, jesus was not church e-giving declined look at that rate of three point four percent three point four that’s more than double the one point four across all sectors, yes, wow! And since it’s the largest sector that we measure its impact on total national e-giving is bigger. So it is a very it’s, very significant to look a church e-giving look att gifts to religion and and really study what the trend is on trend has been that fewer and fewer americans for associating with congregations of any kind. They’re going to the they’re going to the church of trump. Well, they’re worshipping a new yorkers. So i’ll leave that worshipping at the feet of donald trump. I don’t know how relieved that you know, but what what what do you think you know this is this is because three new yorkers that are putting aside cruise it’s three new yorkers, but we don’t do politics. I’m sorry, let’s see, oh, the church giving. Why do you think church giving his declining thie elderly or dying and what the measurements have been very consistent over the last two decades, and that is that fewer and fewer people are so our affiliating with churches are attending. Church is are joining churches and altum if you’d like an analogy, look it look at western europe because i think we’re headed to the to the same. We’re sort of headed in the same places western europe. Religion is becoming less and less a significant part of american life, especially for younger americans. Millennials particularly, are not affiliating with churches at the same rate as their parents. Yeah, okay, okay. Let’s, see? All right. There’s. Some other things. Tony two interesting. Okay, but we also have to spend time with sametz commendations for what non-profits should do with this. So let me ask you all right? So let’s, move on me when we need to do that. Okay. Let’s, meet teo. I want to go now. Tio what’s happening across other sectors aside from religion, are things constant or or things changing there too? In the first two months that things are, every sector is down and giving dafs laid for two. Ok. One is the environmental sector which is up and the human service. And by the way, the environmental sector has, um, for the last five years been growing at a faster rate than any other sector. It’s call it. Call it awareness. Call it what you want. But the environmental sector, though it is the smallest giving sector is growing at the fastest rate. Um, the human needs sector are the human services sector is also growing off. All the rest all seven other sectors are in are in decline this year. Okay. Okay. Environment is that now that they have the smallest share i have your your pie chart here, environment is that two percent? Right? So so even a big increase how much is ah, how much is the environment up by how much? The environment is by two points up two point, two percent two point two and human services is up one percent. Okay, human services has about thirteen percent of total giving across all the different sectors. And that what we call an allocated, which also includes donor advised funds, is that zero percent growth. Okay, all right, let’s move to some recommendations for non-profits what? What do you suggesting? In light of what we know from the first two months of the year, it’s it’s time to use extreme caution and planning fiscal year budgets. Heimans as you well know, tony from the non-profits that you’ve worked with that you’re associated with or worked for, um, chances are the but the income budget is set by somebody sticking a wet finger in the air and saying, we’re going to do better than last year by x percent. Now, this is not the time to do that kind of planning. Uh, non-profits need to be especially careful in planning their fiscal year. Budgets it’s also time to consider delaying the launch of new capital campaigns until conditions improve. Lastly, i would say if you’re in, if you’re in mid year in your fiscal year, it’s time for you to modify you’re fiscal year budget in order to prepare for reality. So if your fiscal year, if you’re fiscal year budget was calling for an inn was with based on an increase in charitable giving of eight or ten percent now’s the time to welcome to reality it’s not gonna happen, mom now’s the time to adjust your budget to reality and to really situations. And so it means that you should cut back on your on expenses. How you cut back on expenses is a bonem organization by organization decision. But i would never recommend cutting back on fund-raising cost, because now more than ever you need your fund-raising staff out there trying to raise money for you. Yeah. Alright now, rob, we have just about a minute and a half left. So you need to keep that in mind. Now. What happens though if in the next quarter things rise and you know the forecast is now for, like a three. Percent increased for twenty sixteen. I mean hyre we can’t keep adjusting budgets down and then up, and we can’t work like that, either. Well, tony, i would disagree. I would say that the i s i would say that these organizations that are going to do the best in the future are those that are nimble enough to adjust their budgets toe what is really happening in the charitable giving economy. And so if i come back to you next quarter and say, we’re projecting that giving will be up three percent for the for the calendar year, i’m going to have a different message for you. But i do think that the the organizations that are nimble enough to to follow what is going on in the charitable giving economy are those that are going to have the best result. Okay, all right, we’re gonna leave it there. Rob mitchell that’s excellent. You’re going to back that’s a planet for july when we’ll talk about the second quarter and your paper on the political campaign and and and how it affects charitable giving, you’ll find rob mitchell at atlas of giving dot com and although also at atlas of giving, and he personally is at philanthropy, man, or is that like to point out at philantech roman? Either way, thank you very much, rob mitchell. Thanks, tony, my pleasure and watch for me on tv at the final four. Okay, i’ll, uh, i’ll be rooting for the mets next week. Next week, more from the non-profit technology conference amy sample ward on why non-profit technology network deserves your attention and volunteer training long distance what if all your volunteers can’t always come to your office? If you missed any part of today’s show, i don’t care what you do do whatever the hell you want, it’s april fool’s day and i know you didn’t buy that nonsense about live listen love podcast pleasantries and affiliate affections, apathy i know you didn’t my feeble attempt tio good, thank you. If you missed any part of today’s show, i endure you find it on tony martignetti dot com where in the world else would you go? I am still groping for the way forward. I don’t know. Maybe i need religion, but religions giving his down that’s a bad sign for me, perhaps responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. And our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for March 25, 2016: Lead and Matching Gifts & Corporate Matching Gifts

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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John List: Lead and Matching Gifts

Professor John List from the University of Chicago chairs the economics department and founded the Science of Philanthropy Initiative. No longer must fundraisers rely on tradition and conventional wisdom in campaign planning. You have rigorous science to guide you around lead and matching gifts. How big should a lead gift be to impact giving? Will a 1-to-1 match raise as much as a 3-to-1 match? (Originally broadcast on Feb 8, 2013.).

 

Chuck Longfield: Corporate Matching Gifts

Chuck Longfield, chief scientist at Blackbaud, has lots of simple ways to increase your matching gifts from corporations. Tap into the annual $1.4 billion from 20,000 companies. Did you know that volunteer hours are also dollar matched by many? We start with sector benchmarking and go from there. Recorded at Blackbaud’s 2012 bbcon conference. (Also from 2/8/13).

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host. I have to welcome again our new affiliate station love it w l r i ninety two point nine fm in lancaster and chester county, pennsylvania lanchester welcome, i love our am and fm affiliates throughout the country. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the annoyance of otitis media if i heard the words you missed today’s show lead and matching gif ts professor john list from the university of chicago chairs the economics department and founded the science of philanthropy initiative. No longer must fundraisers rely on tradition and conventional wisdom in campaign planning, you have rigorous science to guide you around lead and matching gif ts how big should lead gift be to impact e-giving well, a one to one match raise as much as a three to one match that was originally broadcast on february eighth, twenty thirteen and corporate matching gif ts chuck longfield, chief scientist at blackbaud, has lots of simple ways to increase your matching gif ts from corporations tap into the annual one point four billion dollars from twenty. Thousand companies did you know that volunteer hours are also dollar matched by many? We start with sector benchmarking and go from there that was recorded at blackbaud cz twenty twelve bb con conference and also originally broadcast on february eighth twenty thirteen on tony’s take two i’m at the non-profit technology conference we’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money hey pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation crowdster dot com here is professor john list on lead and matching gif ts my pleasure now to welcome john list he’s the homer jay livingston, professor and chairman in the department of economics at the university of chicago he’s expert in the science of philanthropy and his new project, the science of philanthropy initiative spy is funded by the john templeton foundation. It’s, a research and outrage venture and we’re going to talk about his research and spies, outreach to charities and how you can participate. Professor john list welcome to the show. Thanks, tony. Thanks for having me. It’s. A pleasure to have you from chicago. You getting snow? Out there, the way we’re getting inundated, died here in new york. Not too much, but it is pretty icy here. So it is. It is difficult driving conditions here, tony. Okay, well, i’m glad you’re safe in your little office. I was, you know, i like to picture academics. You know, my major was economics that i was an economics major at carnegie mellon university. That’s. Why you’re so smart now, that’s. Because i was rejected by the university of chicago. I hope you were not share in nineteen. I would have been applying in nineteen. Eighty. I hope you were not chair in nineteen. Eighty. I was not. I was actually in eighth grade in nineteen. Eighty rock. Okay, well, you’re a little younger than me, but you don’t look it from your photo now, okay? Let’s, talk about spy. This work is very interesting. Like i said in the in the lead in no longer must charities rely on conventional wisdom? Let’s, start with your methodology around campaigns. What are you doing? I think that’s right. I think when i first i became interested in this area. Tony what i what i found was that you had a bunch of really good people, a bunch of really good hearted people who were basing their decisions, mohr on anecdotes and gut feelings right, then the actual scientific method. So when i say scientific method, what i mean by that is basic basic experiment. So in that basic experiment, it’s always important to have a control group, because then when you have, ah, treatment groups such as some people might get a one to one match, you want to always compare that to a group of people who did not receive a match. Okay, that’s all right, that’s, the control group. Watch out. I have george in jail on tony martignetti non-profit radio you you scared it closely, but you then you defined control you defined control group, so you’re clear. But watch out. Okay. All right, so so we have this is this is the scientific method. We have a control group in a test group or treatment group. And how have you been applying this to campaigns beyond matching? Sure, sure. So when i first started, i was presented with a problem at the university of central florida. So at the university of central florida, the deen challenged me to start a center to do research in environmental policy and what the dean said it is. John, you are responsible for raising money to start the research center. So of course, the first question becomes different in need of resource is for a capital project. What are the first steps i should take? And the fundraisers will tell you you should secure a fraction of the money privately before going public. So, as an economist, i asked a simple question. Well, what is the optimal fraction? What i essentially found? Wass ah, bunch of anecdotes about what that fraction should be. For example, the fund-raising school recommended that forty to fifty percent of the goal should be pledged before the public campaign begins. Other hand books recommended figures between twenty and fifty percent. Right around the same time the university of wisconsin was building there. Cole center, which houses the basketball team in the hockey team. And what they had done in the quiet period is they had gone. Out and gathered twenty seven of their seventy two million dollar goal. So if you could see that the evidence is sort of scattered all over the place and i simply asked, how do we know which fraction is correct? And very few people had actual scientific evidence to back up their claims that a certain fraction was actually the correct fraction to gather in private before going public. Okay, so he looks like justin is i didn’t set up a direct mail solicitation, and i split ten thousand households into different buckets or different groups. In one group i advertised, we’re looking for money for our center for environmental policy analysis here at the university of central florida, and we already have ten percent of what we need. We already have that from an anonymous donor. You know, another group of households received a different kind of letter. It was identical in all respects, except it said that we already have thirty three percent of the of the goal. And another group received a letter that said, we have already received sixty seven percent of the goal and then the fourth group, which is our control group i received the letter. But there was no mention that we have received upfront money. Okay? And so this was to our knowledge to your knowledge, is was the first scientific method rigorous test at least that you could find of different match is having an impact on thie outcome of giving? And what did you find that’s? Exactly, right. So what we found is that over that range from ten to sixty seven percent that the more you advertising seed money, the more gifts that you will receive. So in this particular study, what we’ve found was that most people gave and those who were going to give actually gave mohr so the more seed money you have, you wouldn’t do it more people to give and those people who would have given anyways they actually give mme or when you have ah hyre level of seed money. Okay, interesting. And so you did this work. University of central florida. You were then stolen away, recruited away to the university of chicago for more sophisticated work. E well, i don’t know about that, but, you know, there were a few stops in between. I ended up going to the university of arizona, and then from there, i went to the university of maryland and well, i was at the university of maryland. I spent a year working in the white house at the council of economic advisers, and then after that, i came here to chicago to get smarter, okay? You work your way north from from two very south locations, work your way to the northeast and then the frigid chicago area. We’re going to take a break right now, john, and when we come back, we’ll talk about that more sophisticated work and how it’ll applies to charitable giving. Stay with us, you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Dahna welcome back. We’re talking with professor john list from university of chicago about leading matching gift in your campaign. I have to send live listener love somebody, somebody in chicago was listening. John, you’ll be gratified to know that there’s a listener in chicago and it was very good. New bern, north carolina, bethlehem, pennsylvania and washington, new jersey live listener love going out also to taipei, taiwan and shang zhi change china. I don’t know how to pronounce it. C h a n g s h z chung’s. We’re doing the best we can here. China s o tio taiwan and china ni hao. All right, professor john. Now that you’re at the university, your work has expanded and you’re doing work now with some pretty large charities. Want you describe that that’s, right? That’s. Right, tony, um, you know, after you established that upfront money is important, you can ask yourself, well, should we be using that money is simply an announcement like i did at the university of central florida? Or should we be using it as an announcement and is a match? So, for example, you could say an anonymous donor just gave us one million. Dollars now we will use those funds is a match. So, for example, for every dollar that you give, we will match with a dollar of this donors. So we ended up taking that idea, which, of course, is a common idea in fund-raising to a simple, direct mail experiment with the sierra club of canada and what we were interested in there it was simply testing the idea of announcing money, which i did at the university of central florida campaign versus announcing money and using it is a one to one match. And what we found there again, we’re we’re sending out tens of thousands of letters two households essentially using the normal ask that the sierra club uses. But here some households receive a letter that has, for example, no mention of this upfront money and that’s, a control group. Other households received the match other households received. We have some money. But there is no match campaign. And what we found there is that again. Seed money works quite well. So what i mean by seed money is that if you have up front money that’s very effective in generating people to give but the interesting. Thing there is that the one to one match worked about as well. Is the seed money treatment in both of them worked much better than the control group. Okay. Okay. Now, the one to one match. This is with the sierra club of canada. The one to one match, you said worked a little bit better than the leadership gift announcement. Actually, they were the leadership gift announcement. Worked slightly better, but they were okay, but they were statistically the same. If you look at them through a statistical tests, they were about the same. Okay. Okay. And that was a one to one match. Now, what do we know about the what have you learned about the differences between different levels of match? One, two. One, two, one. One, two, two, etcetera. Exactly. You know, tony that’s a great question. Because that’s that’s, clearly the next step in the research agenda. And when you look a man, i should have been a professor of economics. I did. Well, carnegie mellon. I have no shot having gone there so way. Always have a spot here for you at the university. Thank you. Look at this. The deed that i know you’re not the dean, just the department chair. Well, just lonely department there. Department chair. Well, i’ll use you for my letter of recommendation, right? Absolutely. Okay, what do we know about how these different levels of matching compare? Yeah. That’s a good question, because you know, the anecdotal evidence out in the field is that obviously a three to one match should work. A lot better than a one to one match in a three to one match, of course, is, for every dollar that you give, the charity will match with three dollars, and the one the one every dollar you give, the charity will match with a dollar. But of course, when we went out to the literature, we could not find any scientific evidence that indeed a three to one match was better than a one to one mad again. Just a lot of conventional wisdom. And this is the tradition. Absolutely. Okay, absolutely. Which, of course, drives an economics professor. Not what we don’t have any data or scientific evidence to back up that finding. All right. Here’s. Where we? Yeah, here’s. Where we part company c i should probably just settle for an honorary ph d from the university because it hasn’t driven me as nuts as it has you, but i’m glad it has go ahead. Absolutely so this time we teamed with a national liberal non-profit in the us, which does political and socially oriented work, and i have to be careful because i cannot mention the non-profit due to a non disclosure agreement that we made with them, ok, but essentially the background is that every month they send about fifty thousand letters, too. They’re regular donors, and they asked them for money and essentially what we did is, again, we put the households into different buckets or different groups. In one bucket, you had households that received a one to one match offer. In another group, households received a two to one match offer, and in a third group, households received a three to one match offer. And then, of course, we compare that to a fourth group, which is the control group, right? No match, no match at all, which they receive in a typical letter that says, we’re looking for money to help the cause, so to speak. Okay, so what we found here is that if you just look at the data amongst those households that received a match offer versus those households that did not receive any match offer. You raise about nineteen percent more money in those matching treatments compared to the control group. And the interesting part is that effect occurs entirely on what an economist calls the extensive margin. And what i mean by that is that nineteen percent occurs entirely because the response rate went up about twenty two percent. So more people decided to give. When there was a match available, they still gave the same amount per person. But more people give when there’s a match available. So so the effect is not because people are giving mohr, but because more people are giving exactly. And this and then the level of giving doesn’t change among among all the people who give versus the control group that’s, right? So if you were going to give anyway, on average, you give the same amount. But you just get twenty two percent more people to give some money rather than give nothing. And is that impacted at all by the level of the match? Exactly. So the other finding that we that just jumps out at you in the data is that the three toe won the two to one and the one to one match groups perform identically. Are you sure about that, e? I mean, nasa has made mathematical errors, and they forgot to convert you forgot to convert fahrenheit into celsius or something like that. Are you sure about this? I mean, it happened, you know, if you hadn’t. If you haven’t double check your math, i’ll understand. I’ll tell you what, i have double and triple checked my math, and i’ve also gone to other charities, and i’ve done the same kind of experiment with amnesty international with bly, robida, children’s hospital. And what we find over and over again is that having match dollars, really? That really matters a lot. But the size of the match does not matter. Uh, that’s. Very interesting, very interesting. And contrary to all that conventional wisdom that we were talking about. Okay, so the one to one match poles well has has the same effect as the three to one match. Okay, sure. Okay. What about the one, two two or one two three, where a dollar gets fifty cents. Or something like that or those types of matches. Exactly that’s very good questions. So we have now extended that original experiment all the way down on the other side. So we’ve looked at one to two and we have looked at one, two, three and again one, two, three and one, two, two are the same as one to one. So at least over the range that we’ve experimented with. Oneto one all the way down to one, two, three and all the way up to three, two, one we find the same result that people give the same amount of money. No, i think we need to take care here, because if we would go all the way, say, for example, to one to one hundred, if you give one hundred dollars, we will match with one dollars, i’m pretty sure that would not work very well, although that’s a gut feeling, so i i i i don’t want to break my own rules, right? Because that’s, just my intuition that suggests if you go that far, you can actually hurt your capital campaign, but i don’t have any empirical evidence for that, okay? John list is the homer jay livingston, professor of economics and chair of the department at the university of chicago, and we’re talking mostly about his work through the science of philanthropy initiative at the university spy, which you’ll find at s p i hub dot or ge, and we’re going to talk about working with it’s by very shortly. All right, john. So now we don’t know one, two one, two a one hundred match that would i guess you would expect that be different than a one to one match, but we don’t have any evidence of that, right? That’s correct. Okay. Do you plan to test a match that that that’s that largest to see if there where? Where the boundary is that the one to one effect breaks down? You know, i would love to. And just exactly as you mentioned of always looking for partners to try ideas such as that one. And i think that’s exactly. The next step that the research will take is is where does the match the effectiveness of the match actually break down? I think it’s a great research question and one in which i do wish to explore. Okay. Okay. Interesting now. You have some evidence of how this works on ah ah, warm list versus a cold list. Why don’t you describe those and what that what those outcomes are exactly exactly so when we think about warm list, what the way that we differentiate people in data sets is a warm list is a person who has given to our cause within the last three years. So if you’ve given ten dollars or ten million dollars within the last three years, we label you is a warm list person. Ah, cold list person is a person who has not given to our cause in the last three years, so that just gives you some definitions of the way that we think about cold lest versus warm list. Now you’re exactly right to pinpoint that feature in our data. What we find is that the cold list people are more influenced by the match, then the warm list people it’s not that the warm list people are not influenced by the match because indeed, warm, less people are influenced by the match. They’re just not as influenced as much is the coldness people? Okay, okay, and they’re influenced. In what way? The proportion of giving is greater, right? Because we’re talking about more people giving not people giving mohr money exactly it’s exactly proportion all about the number ofthe coldness people who give above and beyond the number of coldness people who give in the control group. Okay, okay. Interesting. All right, let’s, move to. Well, let’s, let’s spend a little time talking about the partnership. We have more to talk about your research in terms of leadership gifts. We’ve just been talking about matching gifts, but you’re you’re actively looking for charity partners to work with, right? Absolutely. So, you know, we’ve just we’ve just begun. We’ve just started spy hub dot org’s is you mentioned earlier, and even though my own research, i’ve been doing work in philanthropy now since nineteen ninety eight, we have just received a very generous grant from the john templeton foundation that allows us more opportunities and more time toe work with those charities out there who are interested in partnering with us remember, you’re going to have to put up with our craziness because we’re academics, we have crazy ideas. Yeah, you should see our listeners. If you go to my block, you’ll see, you’ll see john’s, head shot and there’s all kinds of mathematical equations behind him on a blot on a blackboard is not even a white board. I was surprised that i would have thought for sure university chicago would be using whiteboard technology, but not in your classroom anyway. Unless it’s an old photo it’s it’s chalk on a blackboard and you have the end use lambda in your and some of your equations that would know lambda always scared me as i was as i was doing economics, studying econometrics and regression analysis. I don’t know why just lambda lambda just seems intimidating to me. Lambda i don’t know a couple of land is behind you, so yeah, i looked at your picture way. Linda brings up everybody still old school here. I’m sitting in my office right now and i actually have a blackboard in my office which has lambda written on it. You do see that’s. Why i’m getting a bad vibe. I’m goingto have to bring out the love crystal here. Couple of a couple of shows ago someone held the crystal court’s love krystal i’m getting a bad vibe tau lambda it’s a lambda thing for me? I don’t know why i just since my econometrics days, lam does giving me trouble. All right, we have just a couple minutes before break. So let’s, keep talking about eso charities. Should charities that are interested in putting up with you go to s p i hub dot or gq? Or how do they get information? That’s, right? I think that’s a good spot to go to or, you know, you can actually google me if you google john list. You know, i promise you i’m not the mass murder. That guy will come up first. I’ll probably come up second. Zoho is there one of those? Okay, yeah. You know, john list is a very unfortunate name, but, you know, my email address you can email me here at the university of chicago, it’s j list at u chicago daddy to you. And, you know, we can begin discussions about forming a partnership. Our bottom line is this we don’t charge for what we do, but what we expect is that we can use the data that is generated from the cause you know, from the telephone or the direct mailer or the or the banquet that we could actually use those data when we write academic papers or we do radio interviews or television interviews or what have you that that’s really the only cost is that you allow wass to work with the data and pushed the knowledge frontier in this particular sector because that’s really what we’re in it for, we’re not in it to make money ourselves way really want the sector to undergo a scientific revolution because we believe so strongly in this sector. Okay, on dh, this can be done anonymously, right? The charity named doesn’t have to happen in your research. Okay. Okay. Professor list. Wait. Told charities how they can get involved with you. Let’s, move to your research on leadership. Gif ts. What was that about? So? So what the leadership gives essentially are about is that if you receive upfront money, there are many different ways to use that up front money. You can simply announce it is we did at the university of central florida. You can use it as a matching gift is we just talked about, or you can use it, for example, for small gifts, you know, small donor, jess teo. To give to people who actually give to your cause or you can actually use it for lottery prizes if you wanted teo link people’s contributions to a possibility tto win a large prize. Those are other ways in which you could use up front money as well. Okay, interesting. Yeah, go ahead. What we’ve been finding is that if you actually link the donation to ah probability of winning a prize that you khun considerably increase e-giving rates, in fact, is much is one hundred percent, and most of that result is actually on again the extensive margin more people are giving when they have a chance to win a prize. Okay, and how does how does this type of e-giving compare with the one to one match? You know, this type of giving is in the range of a one to one match, so if you are ah, if you’re thinking about going out and using up front money, what we’ve been finding is that a one to one match works about as well is ah lottery, where you where you give away a large prize, say a thousand dollars to one of the donors it works about. Equally as well as a one to one match. Okay. Okay. These are too different types of inducements. This is interesting. Is that the, uh one to one match is conditional on the person giving and the the other is not it’s it’s? Definitely what? Why that? What is that difference mean, exactly. So what we’ve been finding you pinpointed a very important fact in our data is that on the one case one to one match, those dollars essentially are conditional in the sense that you have to give one hundred dollars to have the anonymous donor give one hundred dollars. We’re a leadership gift is essentially the lead daughter giving money that’s unconditional. So what we’ve been finding is that that unconditional gift tends to be slightly stronger, a slightly stronger signal to donors. Then the match gift is, and we think that’s because the signaling value off that gift and what i mean by signaling value is this anonymous donor probably knows mohr information about the charitable cause than i do. So if i see her giving a large amount of money for the cause, that sends a signal to me that charitable dr is a good one it’s. A good signal of charitable quality. That’s. What our data points to time in and time again, that the leadership gift is a very important signal of the quality of the charitable dr. Okay, okay. Let’s, i want to talk a little about what you’re what you’re doing next. You have some interesting research that you’re working on your next project, the one one and done right? Yeah, right, yeah, that’s good that you bring that up because this is a project that right now has a lot of my attention, and this is a project that we’ve worked in partnership with smile train so smile train is a wonderful organization that takes care of cleft palates of of the youth overseas, so they send doctors overseas to take care of this very dreaded birth defect. And with them, we’ve developed a program which we call once and done and essentially it’s a direct mail solicitation. But within that direct mail solicitation, it says, give now and we will never bother you again if you check this box. John, we have just a minute left. Give, tell us briefly what? What? The impact of that is sure what we’ve been finding we’ve sent to about eight hundred thousand people in what we’ve been fighting is that if you use once and done, you can raise about three times more money, then you can with the control group, only thirty four percent of the people will actually check the box. And when you look into the future, you don’t actually lose donors. You raised just as much money in the future. Is you raised from the control group in the once and done group. So, in essence, you raised about three times more money in the initial mailer, and it does not compromise future fundez from those people. Okay, we have to sort of leave it there. I think you should call it one and done, though not once and done. You’re missing the good alliteration opportunity wanted done. No one gift and you’re done. Remember how many economists not an english professor? Would you go for the goal for the liberation? I don’t have more punch one and done. I think you should rename it one and done. But obviously, the impact in the outcome is what’s. More important, dahna one. Thank you very much for being a guest. Thank you very much. Look forward to talking to you soon, tony. My pleasure. John list, chair of the department of economics at the university of chicago. You confined him at s p i hub dot. Org’s spy hub dot or gq, and he and i will be in touch to schedule the date for my honorary ph d ceremony. Corporate matching gifts with chuck longfield is coming up first. Pursuant, they help you raise more money that’s your objective, you need to raise more money, they help you do it, they’re online tools or ala carte you choose what you need like velocity to keep you on task and goal oriented. Now, some people would say goal orientated, but it’s oriented let’s not get into language pet peeves i just i’ll keep you appraised, and prospector is another pursuing tool that helps you find your highest priority potential donors. So you know who to focus your scarce time on all at pursuant dot com crowdster they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners, you get thirty days free or fifty percent off. This means you can try a crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising sight completely free for a month or get the fifty percent off offer. That means you pay for a month and get a second month free or sign up for two months and get two more months free for a total of four, which deal do you want? Let them know what crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and choose the deal now. It’s time for tony’s take two. I’m at non-profit technology conference and tc this month lots of very smart people helping you use technology in all the different ways that i hope you are using it throughout your organization day to day, you know, way beyond just fund-raising but marketing, communications and volunteermatch judgment and program management, you know, outreach, all the social media topics, all this stuff at ntc, i’m doing probably thirty, maybe even a little more than thirty interviews in the three day conference, some of them that i’ve got coming. Our digital disruption seven habits of highly risky non-profits communications, mythbusters be a google adwords superhero and a ton more interviews all four non-profit radio video and the list of all the interviews is at tony martignetti dot com and that’s tony’s take two got to send live listener love. I am pre recorded this week, but the live listeners do you know who you are? Because you’re listening live right now so the latto live listener love is going to you, even though i can’t shout you out by city and state, but i love is going to make no question about that love goes, i just don’t know exactly which city it’s going to, but you know, because it’s where you’re sitting podcast pleasantries are over ten thousand podcast listeners, whatever activity, whatever device, whatever time, whenever it fits into your schedule. Thank you, thank you for being with non-profit radio, most likely on itunes, but there are lots of other platforms. Stitcher ah pod bay pod pod player on even one in delaware, delaware it’s not d not told where. Germany in germany there’s a there’s, a podcast site that it’s podcast dot d and they’re listening and i saw one in aa in, uh, in spain. I can’t remember the name of that one, but we’ve got listeners in spain listening via podcast so podcast pleasantries to each of the podcast listeners and, of course, the affiliate affections. Where would we be without our am and fm stations throughout the country? Deep, deep affections to our affiliate listeners. Thank you so much. Here is chuck longfield. We have corporate matching gift. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit. Radio coverage of b become twenty twelve blackbaud conference where outside washington dc gaylord convention center with me now is chuck longfield. Chuck is chief scientist for blackbaud chuck, welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. It’s a pleasure to have things very much. Your session topic yesterday was don’t leave money on the table. Ten proven practices for success with magic gift let’s start with a very basic why should a charity spent time with matching gift is your forms there’s compliance there’s going to be back and forth with companies? Why is this worth it? I’m currently about a little over a billion dollars a year is given by corporations to matching gifts, but one point four billion dollars it’s about twenty thousand companies in america that will match their gifts, about half of the fortune five hundred have matching gifts, they’ll match donations, and a number of them will also match volunteer hours. So, for example, if you volunteer at a non-profit you work for microsoft, they’ll actually pay you fourteen dollars for every hour that you don’t pay the non-profit fourteen dollars for every hour they volunteer and some companies if you give them a thousand. Dollar donation or one hundred dollar donation, they’ll match it. One, two one two to one, three to one. So it’s in a sense, it’s kind of newfound money caused fundrasing isn’t all that high. There are some compliance issues and paper forms and such but that’s getting easier. So in general there’s there’s a big opportunity and i’ve done a lot of research that has shown that most companies are not doing nearly enough in this area and they could be substantially increasing their revenue several percent if they pursued some of these practices. How recent is the reimbursement of volunteer time? It’s been a it’s? Been in place for a while now. It’s a relatively new thing but it’s it’s been in place for a while. Okay, so it’s worth the small administrative time that’s right in the past. The way the process worked was the employee was encouraged to go to the hr department. More recently go to the internet at their company. Get a form. Fill out the forms sent it into the non-profit. The non-profit indicates that they indeed got the donation. They send it on to the company. The company over time has been outsourcing this to other companies to do the paperwork. So it’s actually been someone burned some authority, but the internet and a lot of links now have made this easier. So most employees now just encouraged to go to a a site. They can indicate that they made this donation and the paperwork is all done. So, for example, there’s, a company in new jersey that jake group that worked with many of the fortune five hundred companies, and they have a website called easy match. And if you use easy match the processing for the nonprofit for the employees, for the corporations made much easier. Okay, give listen is the name of that company one more time? The company actually is kind of in the background, but their website is called easy match. Zizi match dot com. No, i’m sorry. E a s y m a c h dot. Okay, hyre so what was what was the first piece of advice that you shared on building this magic gift? Well, so well, one of the pieces of advice, which actually wasn’t the first, but i’ll start with it is to benchmark with against your peers. So in different organizations i have different resources. There are organizations that have probably like yours that that dahna realize a greater percentage of matching gift dollars, and so when you’re actually looking at the opportunity. So for example, if your university there are many universities now that a matching five, six, seven percent of the total revenue with matching gifts. So if you’re doing one percent in your university, you’d say, well, how are they getting five percent family getting one percent? If you are a public broadcasting station, good public broadcasting stations air getting three or four percent, but most public broadcasting stations are getting well under one percent, so they can look at their numbers and they can say, well, why am i not getting three or four percent? So it’s a good way by benchmarking first, to quantify the game that you might realise it really it does vary considerably. Sounds like across different charitable vision. Well, it doesn’t infect the public broadcasting stations could probably achieve five, six, seven percent that they would need to actually start doing some of the things that comes more easily to a university, like knowing where their people work so university can collect that more easily where’s, the public broadcasting station, might have more trouble finding out that you work for ibm. But but still, the real issue is that if you know how well some of your better peers are performing, you can actually estimate what how much money is at stake for you. And then the actual practices are relatively easy. I joked in my presentation that there’s, a surgeon, a tool go on who wrote a great book called checklist manifesto, and he pointed out in the book that if doctors washed their hands, they would get ten thousand fewer patients a year, would die of infections. And doctors don’t always wash their hands in fact, of the substantial numbers don’t even match and gives. The analogy is that if you want substantially more matching gift dollars, all you have to do is remember who matched last year and remind them when they give this year to match again. So it’s, not rocket science. But if you do it, you actually would boost your matching gift there’s. A few practices like that that are relatively straight forward, okay. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. My share another yes, sure. Lovely, simple, fun latto i consider this fun exit simple and fun that’s, right? So another one is is that a lot of people now moving, too websites to make donations it’s relatively easy to put on your website another line which says that if you work for a matching gift company, please match and you can actually hyper link it to the list of matching cos the twenty thousand companies so somebody, if they do work, they can click, they can look up apple computer, they click on apple computer indicate that they work for apple and the process can begin. And in fact, with somebody like apple, the next thing you’ll be directed to do is click on easy match and the process basically would be finished. Type in your employee i d number indicate that you made the gift and be off. Is that a list of twenty thousand proprietary? You have to be working with a company piela hyperlink. Yeah, super vis yes, it’s actually it’s a very low cost and smith it’s made available by two companies, blackbaud is one kapin isn’t now the gp is another and it cost. About a thousand dollars to license the soft with the list of companies and an awful lot of companies already licensed, it put it on their website, but yes, a small and midsize non-profit that’s not doing that should do it because it’s relatively easy, and then the donor is self serving, servicing themselves, they’re indicating it moving on. Your mother would like he’s fun. Well, another one is, is that if you’re a regional non-profit so say europe non-profit in the houston market, houston, texas market and exxon mobil is a big employer in your market, or if you’re a bank of america and urine that their market, you can actually get their blank form. And if you know some of your employees work for exxon mobil, when you thank them, you can actually just send them the form or send them an email hyper linked directly to the exxon mobil website so they could go on make a donation and it’s relatively easy to determine that some of these people work for exxon because they might already have volunteered their email address and their email address might be chuck it exxon dot com really pretty simple research making. It so much easier for the donor that’s correct that’s, right? And in fact, if you look at the university’s universities that are getting this five, six, seven percent more money aren’t doing anything more than these basics, plus making sure they find out where you work. Okay, what our strategy for finding out where you work mention public radio probably doesn’t know that how can i help the small net size shop get that information? So probably the best way is, is that if you doing phone of bronze or any type of telemarketing speaking with your donors, so for example, in public broadcasting, they have pledge drives when the person calls it in pledges, you simply ask one more question, where do you work, whether your company matches and you’re off and running if you do telemarketing you, khun called sometimes organizations calling thank their donors and you think you could ask him if they work for matching company? You can buy this data from sung third party vendors. That source isn’t so great yet that that there isn’t really an easy way to give them a list of your donors and for a third party to actually tell you where they worked, but those companies are trying to get better at that. Linked in, obviously, is a source, and so sometimes you can simply go online. And what a small and midsize non-profit could be encouraged to do is just go online and look up your major donors. You’re bigger donorsearch sabat e-giving five hundred thousand dollars. Type them into lincoln’s, see if you can find out where they work it it’s, a matching company pursuit for a matching gift. So i made you die aggressive, too easy and easy to find. Back-up are there other strategies? Wanna share that geever topic you’re talking about? Dahna no, you know, actually, i think the ironic thing about many of these things is that they’re actually relatively straightforward, you know, one of the things that is more complex and could actually make it easier, but easy matches is kind of doing away with it is some organizations can actually take the form, fill it out, file you, send it to you and all you have to do it, sign it and send it back in on dh if you’re a national non-profit that’s hard because there’s so many matching gift forms, but it turns out in most cities in america, major cities three or four five companies represent eighty percent of the matching gifts in that area. So in many cases, you don’t have to work that hard for it. One other thing you could do, which is probably true of a small local organization. That’s, right? That’s, right, it’s just, you know, most of the money is coming from the big employers in town. Now, one of the other things you could do which is kind of a clever thing is, is that say, you know, you have a lot of people who work for a company. And it doesn’t match gifts. But you may have twenty or thirty employees that worked for that company. What some people have found success in is actually just making a list of who those thirty people are, and going and visiting the company in their corporate relations and talking to them about what would you make a donation to us, either, because you’ll match your employees gifts, or you’ll just make a donation, advertise it, and you’ll know thirty, of your employees is gonna be thrilled because they support the organization as well. And so it’s, another way to engage companies and promoted and again universities have gotten very good at that. Practice is well and end up pursuing people. You have just about two more minutes, okay, just gonna throw it out. What else would like to share around? Pretty simple teo to build a scale that you give? Well, the one thing thiss isn’t the technique, but just to show the opportunity when i said that there’s one point four billion dollars donated that’s about ten percent of corporate philanthropy, so corporations make many other donations to non-profits, but about ten percent of it is matching gift contributions one point four billion that is less than and in most cases fairly well, less than one percent krauz when i said that there’s a five to seven percent opportunity and so there’s tremendous room toe actually raise total corporate philanthropy, matching of france will be by a billion or two billion dollars. I had a question this morning about what that actually lied, um, corporations to cut back on their match and give program if all of a sudden what people were doing it and i’ve talked to people both work in the company’s as well as other knowledgeable people, and they joked that it’s still such a small toe, a percentage of total corporate philanthropy that we could easily double it and the corporations really wouldn’t balk at it. So why definitely encourage non-profits to go after this money? And i think it’ll be there, take that rationalization. Off the table, you’ll end up cutting us back if we do more often. Hm. Chuck longfield is heimans, chief scientist, scientist for blackbaud. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for spending time with pleasure. Thankyou. Tony pleasure. Thank you. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage pecan twenty twelve next week, rob mitchell, ceo of the atlas of giving he checks in about how first quarter fund-raising has gone and how the forecast for twenty sixteen may have changed in the first quarter. If you missed any part of today’s show, i urge you find it on tony martignetti dot com, where in the world still still ambivalent about this, we’re sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com our creative producers clam meyerhoff sam liebowitz is on the board as the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by dina russell on our music is by scott stein be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for March 18, 2016: Relationship Fundraising

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Adrian Sargeant: Relationship Fundraising

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian Sargeant is a professor at Plymouth University and directs its Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into pulmonary history. Oh, sight. Oh, cece, if i breathed in the idea that you missed today’s show relationship fund-raising there’s a lot of conventional wisdom about howto be donor-centric and build strong relationships. But what the social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donor’s expect from you at each of the relationships stages. Adrian sergeant is a professor at plymouth university on tony’s. Take two and dc is next week and i have a referral for you. Sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com it’s my pleasure to welcome professor adrian sergeant to the show he’s, professor of fund-raising at plymouth university and director of the center for sustainable philanthropy. There he used to hold the hartsook chair in fund-raising at the lily family school of philanthropy at indiana university. Fact he’s calling today. From bloomington he’s, a prolific author, researcher and presenter. If you go to the center for sustainable philanthropy website, you will get bored scrolling down his list of books, papers, articles and presentations. Center, by the way, is c e n t r e we have ah so snooty english university there. Plymouth he’s at adrian sergeant and his last name is spelled like the military rank. Welcome, doctor. Professor. Agent sergeant. Well, thanks. Pleasure. Welcome from from bloomington, indiana. How is it there? It’s worth a lovely spring day here. And i’m looking at into blue skies in sometime. Which and it’s? Not not always the case in the u k either. No, certainly not. In my part of the uk, everything you hear about british rain and british weather is pretty much true of my region. I see. What reason? Where is plymouth? Ah, thomas is right down in the southwest tip of the country. On its claim to fame, i pose for your audience. Is that it’s where the pilgrim fathers set sail from years ago? The mayflower left from the steps of the barbeque in the area in the diplomas. Oh, excellent. Okay. That’s. Interesting. No. And then plymouth. Then we have plymouth rock on the us side, so yeah. So that was a very symmetric trip. I never knew that total symmetry ever visit. You could actually see the steps that the pilgrim fathers used teo to board the mayflower before they set bail on that. Well, that point. Very epic journey. Yeah, of course. I i guess they they called it plymouth rock teo to make it symmetric. So it’s. Not like it was named. It wasn’t named plymouth rock when they landed on it. I don’t want people to think that that’s what? I was assuming that it was named plymouth rock when they landed. I don’t believe it was ok. Very cool. Interesting. Thank you. All right. Relationship fund-raising adrian it’s. Okay, if i call you adrian, right? Yeah. Okay. I don’t get doctor. You know, you’re not calling on me for questions or anything. So doctor, a professor. Okay, adrian what’s, the current state of this i gather it’s not what it ought to be. No. Sadly, the quality of relationship fund-raising but not ugly in the states. But around the world is not in a particularly happy space right now. And the reason i say that is because now about quite a lot of data on the patent of dahna retention and loyalty that we’re able to generate and obviously the whole, the whole thrust of relationship fund-raising is that you want to build a longer term, mutually satisfying relationships and supported yes on all the evidence that the moment is that it’s going in entirely the opposite direction we lose, typically in the states, we lose around seventy percent of our supporters between the first and the second donation and then probably around two, thirty percent of them year on year thereafter. Well, you try running a business. Yeah, i’ve had other guests on, quote, that exact same statistic, and i don’t understand how this khun b because there is so much talk about donor-centric donor-centric ism, and we have to listen to our donors and pay attention to their needs and put them in the center. What? Why? Why is this not working there’s so much talk about it, why we’re not doing it? I think they’re pulling two two reasons for that one is that often when i talk about dahna lorts him attention in the sense. That kind of preaching to acquire a lot of fundraisers know what they should be doing or could be doing, but they don’t always necessarily get the stain level of investment from the board that they’re looking for on it could be oftentimes quite able to push that level of change through the second reason, i think buy-in wait might talk more about this, but i think one of the problems we have in fund-raising is that it’s one of the few professions, in fact, probably the only profession you’ve been join without actually meeting to know anything. Come on, good luck, you know, you’re going to see a dentist too haven’t studied or doctor that has studied or even employing a plumber who hasn’t studied it’s important, i think that fund-raising they’re exposed when they come into the profession to a body of knowledge. Then it’s agreed that this is what you need to know if you’re going to be a successful, competent fund-raising on that, then organizations would employ people who had demonstrably, you know, got that body of knowledge because we don’t have that right now because we don’t value it. Oftentimes people end up in fund-raising rolls where they’re really having to discover things that we already know for the first time yeah. Now, are we getting better? I mean, there are programs. There are degree programs and including at plymouth university and the ones i can think of in the us at new york university and columbia. I think fordham and those are only new york’s. You know, those ones? The ads that i get new york city, those only new york city. So there are more programs, are we? Are we starting to recognize the value of a professional pressure, professionally trained fund-raising force? I think for now that no, no, we’re not. Some of the some of the programs are burying quality. I mean, there are some good ones. Always see that there’s one come on by you and there’s, one of seminaries in minnesota. And, you know, i could go on, but the sweet spot for fund-raising education is where you gotta blend of delivery by practitioners and academics so that you get some of the emerging science of dona behavior that impacts on what people? Noah’s well, sadly, i think some programs are run entirely by practitioners. So you only get one half of the equation there on what you’ll get, obviously their, you know, their background in their experience, which obviously has a place but that’s not the same as being exposed to the modern research findings that example, on social psychology, we’re gonna talk about that. Could the incoming what they yeah, yeah, you know, you end up with more of the conventional wisdom. Yeah, we’ve got a you know, i’ve mentioned we’ve got a problem with attention right now. What i didn’t say is that actually getting worse. I’ve just completed a very large scale study in england of six million dahna records we’ve looked at people recruited way back in two thousand and compared them with people recruited in two thousand ten on their substantially less loyal now so no only we’ve got very leaky bucket, but that bucket is getting weaker by the day. Okay, uh that’s ah that’s pretty positive motivation and enthusiastic motivation. Let’s ah, let’s, go out for a break. Adrian and i are going to continue talking. Of course we’ve got what? What drives donorsearch multi. And how do you measure it? And the stages of the fund-raising relationship? Stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, adrian let’s jump in and explore what what it is that we know we’ll drive the donor loyalty that we’re trying to reverse the trend of, well, the fact of ah, really quite similar to any relationship that somebody might have with an organization so there’s a lot of learning that we can take from the commercial world that we find it equally relevant. The non-profits place andi, my guess is that many of your listeners will have had the car service recently or they’ve stayed in a hotel or they used the service online that probably they’ve been asked at some point tell us what you think of the service has satisfied were you with the quality of that experience on these kind of satisfaction, that is, in a sense, kind of quite ubiquitous? I think the’s day on the re homeless ubiquitous is because there’s a huge link between her status side somebody with the court in service they receive on their level of loyalty on people who are very status by are six times more likely to come back and purchase again, on average than people who just satisfied so there’s um active behavioral, different on the extreme of the scale, right? So the goal needs to be for our organizations to get people to the point where they’re very satisfied, actually with the way that they’re treated as a donor. That’s the last one i make here is that the multiple in our world isn’t as big as it is in the trading context. Duitz and trading world, very satisfied equates to six times more likely to come back again in our world don’t say they’re very satisfied, but the cause your service provided by the fund-raising to you are twice as likely to be giving in years, and i think people who say they’re just satisfied. So it’s been a massive factor, but the multiple isn’t quite as big as it might be in other contexts, okay? Any any thoughts? Why? That is why i don’t how come we only get one third of the the likelihood of returning that compared to the corporate world? Well, i think there’s a range of other factors that player in our space that also have an impact on loyalty and retention satisfactions an important one on one of the things i like to do is focus unconference isn’t the season, then write in the satisfaction is this is a major driver of dahna loyalty, which in terms of which in turn, is a major driver of the value of fund-raising database. So how many people actually measure it then on, if you’re lucky in a room of two hundred people, you might get one hand god, and then you are people well out of those folks, you know, who’s actually remunerated how good they make their donors feel on dh you won’t find any hands that go with that point, so we don’t take that factor seriously enough. But then there are other things that creeping in our world, the trust in the organization of your listeners might be thinking got agents talking about satisfaction with a coarse service provided by the fund-raising team. Well, what about all that really great stuff we do with beneficiaries? You know, surely that’s gotta count for something incense of retention and loyalty writhe difference that we make it on dh that’s true, but for most donors, unless they’re major donors, the mechanism for that it’s trust if i’m a major donor and i’ve given you five million to put up a building in a sense, i don’t need to trust you because i can see the building up, right? But if i’ve given you fifty dollars to help starving child that i really have to trust that you say you do exactly what you’ve told me you’re going to do with that resource s o trust for the vast majority of our donors is a big driving factor in terms of lorts potential. Okay, okay. Um, and, you know, these sound very much like not only, you know, relationship factors in a commercial sense, but also in a personal sense, they are our friends and our parents, no loved ones. Yeah, a lot of these relationship variables are just as relevant toe all human relationships. I mean, originally this study of things like satisfaction, trust and commitment all came out of something called relationship marketing, and what that was trying to do is to take ideas from human relationships on apply in that case, teo relationships, that businesses have customers, and at the core of all the relationships that we have of these notions of satisfaction, commitment and trust. No. Anything you want to tease out about commitment. We spent little time with satisfaction. Trust anything more you want to say about commitment? Yeah. Commitment is one of the really big drivers of loyalty on beauty that comes out stronger than thin. The others i’ve mentioned on what that is is a really burning passion to see the mission of the organization achieved. And you can imagine that, you know, people who are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer, you know, tend to support charities that do that on dh for extended periods of time. But that really passion to see the mission achieved eyes one of the really big drivers of lorts in retention, andi. So the question, i suppose then, is well, i had you build commitment then and again, we know from research quite a few things help build commitment that one is at risk. So if you’re running a shelter for homeless folk and i’m a donut, your organization and i believe that by canceling my gift today, somebody somewhere is going to be without a bed tonight. I am a bunch more likely to continue to support that shelter. S o that element that i see a risk in canceling will help drive commitment. So too will a personal connection. You know, if my life had been touched by breast cancer because i had lost a loved one to it, you can imagine that i’d be pretty fired-up about finding a cure for that being committed to those sorts of organizations andan also it worthy of note, is some thing i called multiple engagements and there’s a micro on a macro level to that, the macro level is that people who are donors and campaigners and service users and volunteers, and and wait till you get and you get a whopping more loyalty. And in the micro level is every time you have a two way interaction where there’s a little bit of cognition that takes place, maybe the organization asking your question, what would you like to receive? What do you think about this? How many times do you want to hear from us here? Do you want to get news? Whatever it might be. Every time you have to weigh interaction with water, you get a little teeny tiny bit more loyalty. And, of course, in the digital space, it’s now by easy toe have those little, many interactions with people and it’s really worthwhile, because ultimately it drives behave excellent. Now, there’s research supporting all this, right? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve bean doing work in the non-profit space for the best part of twenty years now, andi, we’ve done in a large scale survey work with probably a couple hundred thousand donors here in the states now getting on for two million donors in europe, um, tracking the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, trust and then behaviors of interest like like who e-giving next year with assembly upgrade on even actually leaving a bequest to the organization? What about that that’s a significant how is that a significant factor? Well, one of the big drivers off, in fact, the single biggest driver i’d say really the likelihood that somebody will leave a big quest for nonprofit organization is how long they’ve been supporting it. Yes, on and typically find working with clients, i’ll say, you know, we’re gonna have a request program that is you forget all the complicated plan giving vehicles, but just right asking somebody to remember a charity with a gift in their will or a state document. Then the single to get indicators of willingness to do that is how long people have been giving onda anytime we were three years actually is a pretty good indicator that that person cares about you is committed to the cause and therefore will at least give some consideration to that request. So surprise, surprise, you know, commitment is a pretty big indication the likelihood of doing that, okay, yeah, i don’t know if you know that, but i know this, but i do plan to giving fund-raising consulting ah, and that’s where we’re always looking for the best potential bequest donors is who are the most committed, loyal donors, and i didn’t know that a ce feu is three years can be can be a positive factor, but i’m always looking for some organizations are easily, you know, decades older sometimes sometimes even one hundred years old couple of the university’s i’ve worked, so you know, if people have been giving twenty, thirty years or twenty five of the past thirty years, they’re ah, enormously good potential donor for ah for bequest or some of the other plan gives to yeah, yeah, i’d agree wholeheartedly with it and it’s. Amazing how very few organizations even bothered to ask for a request on if they do, how many organizations think that somehow people will be inspired by the mechanics of death and dying? Some of the communications we generate just thank you. Make a will and you may change your will. And then the mechanics of the plan giving vehicles well, actually, you want the company to give you you want to inspire them with a vision of what the future could look like, that people are inherently more positive about the future on so good, positive messages about what the world might look like that evoke a little bit of emotion are actually a lot more useful in that quest. Space non-technical brochures about you know how you die. I mean that’s. Just miserable. Okay, thank you for that little digression. But it’s it’s what? I spend my time doing when i’m not when i’m not done non-profit radio. Very interesting to going back to the little micro engagements you get. You get a little uptick you said of of ah commitment when with just these small engagement. Yeah. If you heywood follow my knife on dh, you would’ve. Measure let’s say satisfaction and commitment, and you sent out a little survey to a sample of your darkness, our guarantee. If you can’t that sample of people over time, you’ll find that they’re a little teeny tiny bit more loyal than the balance of the database on that administration of this little bit of cognition, you’ve got a communication from the red cross, let’s say, and you think, oh, yeah, that’s right? I got a relationship with the red cross. I’ll go back to them and all. Well, that’s kind of a relationship with the american cancer society all that’s, right? Every time you get that little bit of interaction, you get a little bit more loyalty questionnaire getting people to take other actions on your behalf that aren’t related to fund-raising getting them to participate in an event that you’re doing online are tuning in to a podcast or tell us what you think. All of those things are really smart in terms of loyalty, because every time we have that interaction punch up just a little bit how loyal these individuals are outstanding love this. Okay, um, we need to be able to measure dahna loyalty how how, ah, what are what are the metrics? Uh, well, one of the one of the big issues we’ve got in our sector right now is the metrics are, well, frankly wrong aunt to be even more blunt about it. I think a lot of our non-profit boards need to be taken out, inspector eyes that a bare bottom spanking or they keep their pants, they keep their pants up. Isn’t this america bare bottoms bank with a paddle? Or is this a bare handed? Yeah, i think it really depends on the degree of a degree of redness you want to achieve. Okay, yeah, i mean, why did i say that? Well, because oftentimes people who serve on non-profit boards are actually quite bright. Oftentimes they had very successful business careers and that’s one of the reasons that they’re there because they’re plugging in their advice as well. Andi it’s, almost as if they part their brain that side the boardroom before they go through and into the meeting. Because in the commercial space, they know very well the measure customer, lifetime value and they understand what that is, and i understand why it’s important, they understand to the merits of measuring the things that drive customer lifetime about so that’s, why you get satisfaction survey reason people measuring commitment and so on you walk her into the non-profit boardroom and suddenly somehow all of that knowledge and understanding they had get forgotten on the only metrics we’re interested in is how much raised with part year or month having me don’t do it attracts andi, you know, don’t start the metric that short term thinking doesn’t help you think about the lifetime value of your database and you, and that was fund-raising suboptimal what you end up with this fund-raising that its content to recruiting donors on then lose seventy percent of them between that first and the second donation, but that complete kind of focus on short term measures get people to the point where all they do is chase their short term measure. So we’re going to continue trying to find you don’t no, you don’t we’re going continually trying next to my spanish money, we get out of the spokes, actually, what we need to do is to take a step back and say, you know, affection, maybe we should be measuring the things that drive longer term or lifetime dahlia and beginning. To reward our fund-raising it’s with the quality of the relationships that they build. Ron avam, you know, the dollars and cents that they raised get today. Okay? And immediately you do that. You get a huge changing culture because suddenly what people are interested in doing is building relationships, not just having that sort of burning churning. Wait. You must have a lot of examples of what we should specifically be measuring in our fundraisers. Uh, well, i would. If it were me, i would be using some of the same things that the commercial world have been using for twenty years. So i would measure satisfaction, commitment on trust on dh. You know, there are measurements girl to doing that. It’s a little survey. You track how how people feel on dh if you do that, it’s. The margin of those measures that makes the difference. Remember, i talked earlier about the percentage of people who were very satisfied, very satisfied business, that’s the important thing latto it’s the extremes of those scales and changes in that that make the difference on the good news is that even small improvements in loyalty in the here and now translate. A whopping improvements in the lifetime value with fund-raising database. So if i can improve the level of retention by little can percent in the here and now, i can increase the last time value fund-raising database by over fifty percent. Why? Because they affect compounds overtime. So if you’ve got more donors left at the end of this year, you’re gonna have even more the following year and even more than you know, the year after that, you know, for many organizations that’s not the end of the story either because most organisations lose money on going to requisition just to go out and keep finding lots of donors to replace the ones we’ve lost. Of course, that he knew a lot of money on if you factor that into my equation, my little improvement in loyalty in the here and now of ten percent and improve the lifetime deliver fund-raising database for anything up to one hundred percent. You can make a huge just by having little improvements and lucy and hearing that all right, i wonder if weaken, drill down to ah mohr, micro level in terms of the measurement of the performance of our our fund-raising staff are there? Are there individual metrics? I mean, in terms of how, how they have moved donors from one stage to the other or, you know, in terms of the the actual performance of the fund raisers themselves or their metrics there? I think i think the answer to that question depends on the form of fund-raising that you’re looking at, okay, um, and so the metrics will be different depending on what it was dark, dark now dot response or someone that made you get andi, you make you give officers a remunerated too, for the amount of money that they raised, but they’re also remunerated for the amount of time they spend in front of clients remember proposals they made the number of recognition events there, kendall, all of those good things, but one of the things i think you know it can be shared a causal the forms of fund-raising is good. Do we make our donors feel today on dh measuring that that quality of the relationship and that does come back again? The satisfaction, commitment on trust in the dark spots space? I would also be saying, you know, we should be taking decisions about investment on the basis ofthe donor lifetime value, andi what that means in your complaining that issues that if we’re going to invest in an acquisition campaign, we’re no goingto assess that campaign is a success simply because we bought in two hundred, donors on one hundred donors because it may be that most people were recruited won’t come back and give again. We’ve gone with the other alternative campaign we could have run, you know, we only recruited in one hundred donors, but actually most of those people stayed giving for the next five years, so taking longer term decisions based on that lifetime value, i think, is really smart and even in small organizations that made behind a little difficult to do some of that math, maybe because they’re working on even like a simple excel database or something, they could still be looking at things like retention lee on beginning to shift the focus of the way in which the team is remunerated to the level of loyalty that engendered. Now, if you can also measure the things that drive multi that’s great, but if you can’t, then the starting point for me is at least to get a sense of the health of that program and the health of relationships that just by, you know, the numbers of people who were still actively engaged. The portal agent, i love the idea of measuring how donors feel of, um alright were going to come back. I need you to hang out for a couple minutes while i do a little business don’t go anywhere he drink just just dahna just keep listening. Um, i have to talk about pursuant. They are a midsize. Well, they had a mid size social service agency using their tool velocity and therefore gift officers in that organization not meeting their close rate goals. The director of development challenged them to close proposals in the velocity pending repose. Als pending proposals report within two weeks. So he took this report. You have a two week challenge issued by there. There. Ah, there, boss. The foreclosed twenty gifts from the report and raised over sixty six thousand dollars, which had been their average monthly preach challenge production. But they did it in two weeks. And s so. Not only did raise the same amount of money and half the time. One hundred percent. Rate of increase, but they also increased longer term performance using that that same report. So this is all a tool at pursuing dot com the tools called velocity and, you know, along with what adrian is talking about, measuring there don’t have to be these measures as well of, you know, how much did you actually raise? And, you know, how are we doing against all of our goals? And the velocity tool helps you measure that time against goal pursuing dot com crowdster they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners get thirty percent thirty days for free or fifty percent off, that means you try crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising have them put together one of those sites for you, which are very easy to do, actually, and you try it completely free for a month or get fifty percent off, and that would mean pay for months. Get a month free pay for two months get two months added on for free. You can claim your deal, make your choice at crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and which deal you want or if you are like me and you like to talk and not chat on ah, chat window call joe he’s the ceo. Joe ferraro. He wants you to have his number. It’s two a one, three one six forty six. Double xero two oh one, three one, six, forty six double xero you can meet joe at ntcdinosaur provoc technology conference. The crowdster booth is number five forty four. Tell joe you’re from non-profit radio. I can’t make it any simpler now. Time for tony’s take two. Yes, that non-profit technology conference and tc is next week in san jose, california. Buy-in booths one thirty four and one thirty sixth, right at the main entrance to the exhibit hall. You cannot miss me, i’m there. I’ve got twenty nine interviews scheduled as of this morning, and i’m sure we’re gonna get more than thirty. There are about thirty five slots available so filled up, but not entirely my video and interview schedule for ntc is at tony martignetti dot com is my my that’s, a plural video and interview schedule are at tony martignetti dot com who writes this crappy copy? I don’t know this is why i need an intern, so i have someone to blame for this for this, i have an easy e newsletter to recommend for you it is by jonathan lewis it’s called making social entrepreneurship happened. It’s social change stuff from the book that he’s in the process of writing, he has been a non-profit radio guest. He runs the opportunity collaboration conference that i’ve been to in mexico, and he teaches social entrepreneurship at new york university. He’s, one of the adjunct professors that adrian was just saying i can add value to a program but not standing alone. He’s a very good, very good, smart guy with good ideas you can sign up for jonathan’s newsletter at cafe impact dot com and that is tony’s take two i gotta send live listener love i want to shout you out by city and state, but sam here is having board back end problems, something more talk about spanking or in the back end again. Um, we can’t see you by city and state, so i know that you’re out there. New york, new york st louis, missouri, boston, massachusetts, new bern, north carolina, california. I know there’s somebody in california listening, probably san francisco, but i know there’s, a california listener. Those are the live lister love people, the loyal, live look that loyal, live listener loved that i know are out there love, of course, toe all the current live listeners and going abroad. I know there are listeners right now in tokyo monisha while i know we have listeners in china and taiwan because we always do ni hao and i know that south korea is checking in because it does week after week. Anya haserot now, in case we are in in mexico, we’ve had listeners in mexico with no star days, the czech republic occasionally does check in dobre den, germany, we can’t get germany guten tag, okay, i think that covers the most frequent live listeners. Sorry, we can’t do you no city and state as usual, we will get this back end problem slapped and slapped ah and fixed by next week. I gotta send podcast pleasantries never forget the podcast listeners, whatever it is you’re doing painting your house, washing your dishes at whatever time you’re listening. Whatever activity whatever device over ten thousand of you, so grateful pleasantries to the many podcast listeners and affiliate affections to our multiple multiple am and fm. Stations throughout the country. Listeners from the finger lakes in new york. Two salome, oregon and lots of states in between affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners. Ok, adrian sergeant, thank you so much for for holding on. I have tio after acknowledge all of all our listeners of whatever ilk in variety they come, they all get a special shout out. So thank you for your for your patients. Um, we have ah, i love these measures, but we gotta move on. Let’s, let’s talk about the different stages you’ve identified stages of the donor relationship and there were different strategies appropriate for each first. Just please just lay out the but what the the stages are, and then we’ll come back and revisit. Well, there’s a unawareness say’s where people become aware of the organization for the first time on exploration plays people begin to kind of extraordinary that relationship might might mean for them on then you’re kind of deeper into the relationship where there begins to be an element of commitment. And then eventually, over time, you know, some relationships will come to an end. Of course not. Everybody’s going to continue giving for forever. But what we do know is how you treat donorsearch different points in that journey can make a very big difference. Unsurprisingly, how loyal durney yes, and especially knowing that these micro engagements make a difference in loyalty, i going back to that because i admire it so much, i love it. Um, okay, we have a few minutes we can spend, you know, on each of the stages, we’ll help us with awareness what’s going on and what should we be doing to give our donors what they’re seeking at that stage? Well, at this point, i suppose we’re talking about people who haven’t given to the organization before, so we’re talking about individuals that you’re trying to solicit, too get them to make a contribution for the first time on dh one of things i care about fund-raising in general is that some of what we generate is is really plan, and if you want to get people to give and you want them to give reasonable sums of money, has to make you feel something logic, leap to conclusions, emotion leads the action on dh fund-raising don’t want conclusions provoc greatest buy-in large one, people take action. Yes. And you’ve gotta get latto feel something if you’re going to stimulate them to give to your organization on dh. Too many particular kind of somebody’s letters in this country, you know, a bland three or four paragraphs in-kind all of my fire. Somebody was on the cusp of making a gift. I could, you know, that’s not gonna happen. You’ve gotta generate materials, the talon emotional story and telling to stimulate that all important first. Okay. Okay. Emotion. It’s. Very intuitive. But we still see a lot of bad practice out there. Yeah, way. Still see a lot of those sort of very bland one page letters signed by the chief executive. Maybe even the picture of the chief executive. When actually there’s a lot to say around the nature of the cause. That could be compelling. I give you one example of a pact. That’s doing the reins again has been around for years, but amnesty international, they sense that a flat pain catch a piece of card with a picture of somebody whose eyes have been gouged. Eight on the strap line effectively says what you hold in your hand is an instrument of torture when you read to your horror that actually why this person’s eyes against that is because some somebody somewhere in the world used the pen on this youngster teo teo, get guy just either and it’s horrible and you knew when you read it and you’re outraged. And of course the pen can also be a mechanism for doing something about it on immediately i get youto feel the anger or feel the compassion for that child i talked you into the corps was you understand why what i do is important at that point. And are you more likely to respond and make a gift? Of course on you know, there are lots of other examples we could talk about that solution is absolutely critical to getting people to get for the first time. That’s a brilliant one. Well, well done. The amnesty, brother, i give you one other from kidney research in the uk there was a cent a pack. I told the story of a little girl. Uh, who has kidney disease on very likely won’t won’t live for many years on the letter that was contained with the picture of this little girl was actually a letter. From her kidney, two little katie apologizing for the fact that, uh, you know, the kidney is not able to do its job and rending little story, but, you know, when you read it, you have given a really strong connection to that little girl, and you feel the heartbreak that her parents must be going through, and immediately you do that if you’ve got kids yourself, you know, you get that lump in your throat when you think, well, goodness, you know, i have to do something about that because that horrible i don’t want the little girls like katie not be hurt. I may be able to have the operation the care they need. My okay. Ah, very touching. Let’s go to aa exploration what’s happening there? Well, at that point in the relationship that they’re kind of getting to know you stage that was taking place. Andi, i know now that there are a number of chances playing very creatively with three d communications. S o you see people less in the us, but in other parts of the world out on shopping malls and high streets with three d headset so that people can experience what? It’s like to be in a school in botswana what it’s like to be in a hospital in northern nigeria or wherever it might be in the world. So you can sort of transport people away for a few moments to be able to see the work that’s being done on the ground. And i think those things are quite powerful here in st pete’s one international aid organization that does that very powerful lee was trains, and it’ll take a trailer to a community, then you can go inside that trailer and you can walk around a school in the developing world, and you can see the kind of experiences that those kids for having so thinking in a very creative way about taking people inside the cause i think is really important, you don’t necessarily need to involve the latest technology. They certainly video pictures that take you into that world, i think, is very important on the other thing i would say at this point is that you might begin to creep some choice in to the kind of relationship that you’re having with individuals i used to when i was teaching this twenty years ago, i’d say, well, it’s, awful people choice from day one. So you you allow people to choose whether they want a hardcopy newsletter. Oh, our digital newsletter or no newsletter, but just appeals or whatever since realized that it’s smarter to wait just a little bit until people get into the relationship so that they could take smarter decisions about actually what they want. Because if you ask me from day one, adrian, do you want a newsletter, then? Adrian is almost certainly going to say no, right? Because newsletters sound boring, and i’m probably not gonna want that, but if you wait, you know, for five months into the relationship, i’ve read your newsletter and actually i realized that this is really quite moving or, you know, the information that there is compelling, and i’m interested, then i’m all like, so no, actually, i’ll continue to receive that. So giving people a little bit of choice of the communications is a smart thing to do in relationship fund-raising logo, but i would begin to creep that in as the relationship begins to develop over time and i’d allow people toe, you know, identify the times of things they want in the frequency. Okay, we’re going to go out for a break. I have to mention then that so the people who attended your early programs, i did not get the they got screwed. It better be better to come to a later adrian sergeant presentation or webinar. If you were doing webinars back then probably not know. Twenty years ago, there was no, there was no web, but but you get checked the guy out now because he’s learned from his own his own research. All right, probably by the time you are exactly what i’m talking, yes, that’ll be brilliant, okay, there’s going to be, oh, it’s gonna be a nursing home. It’s going to get great, great probono advice from you, okay, let’s, go out for a break. Adri and i will talk about the next stage commitment, and then we also got to talk about next steps for you and for adrian’s research. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy, tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m chuck longfield of blackbaud. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oppcoll chuck longfield of blackbaud will be on the show next week, a little more about that coming up later on um, i won’t let you know that you can get this research at pursuant dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing is one of the funders of this research, and thankfully through their sponsorship, i met adrian, and we’re getting this enormously wonderful value on today’s show, so thank you pursuing thank you, adrian. Uh, welcome pleasure, all right, let’s go to aa now, we just have, like, five or six minutes left, so we need to be a little efficient without time. The next stage commitment what’s what’s happening there? Well, in commitment you’re really beginning then, teo buildup, that strong relationship bond with a supporter of one of the things i would be doing much earlier on at the point of acquisition, actually to gather information about the sorts of things that the individual is interested in if you’ve got a non-profit that has four or five different kinds of program or things that are going on, i’d be asking them early on in the relationship which of those things they’re particularly interested. In because if i do nothing else. But i’m going to make sure that when i’ve got something going on in one of those spaces that they’re interested in, that they know about it and have the opportunity to report it, they’re being respectful of people’s interests. I think is a particularly kind of key thing in building that commitment, okay? And that on but comes back to some of what you were saying about giving people a choice. Yeah, if you understand why people are supporting the organization that you know that that’s a powerful thing, you can then use to shake the communication going. Okay, by the way, i created a false sense of urgency, but not deliberately. When i said five or six minutes, i was alone. We have more like nine minutes left, so don’t you got an extra three minutes, so take a nap, and, uh, and then we’ll pick up after a three minute nap. No. What else we got? You can laugh openly, so i should hope you please way need somebody to be laughing thinking that my students would probably appreciate that. Thank you. Pass that on to them, but do it at the end of the class. Duvette the very end of the class. Um, yeah, okay, um, i mean, any more, you’re not good if i pick up on on the notion of commitment, i think one of the other things that the people possibly don’t realize and then came through from from our report is the the value that don’t get from the relationship shifts. A bit of the relationship deepens. So initially, when you’ve got that really powerful, emotional, packed communication that you’re not going to use, people are really interested in the impact on the beneficiary write all about did you do what you said you were going to do and have the impact on that child’s life? Well, as the relationship deepens, the donor becomes at least as much concerned about water impact on the child. I mean, from my sense of who i am, ana, i think you know what we’re talking about them is something psychologists. Call identity and i think that’s going to be the next big thing in fund-raising because it’s a little different from understanding the motives that people have for supporting you, you know, the motives for supporting little katie and her kidney operation, for example, identity is a bit different instead of what motivated used to support the organization that stays you’re asking, what are people saying about themselves when they give? So what kind of person are they saying they are when they support my non-profit adrian york, let me understand that we can begin to shape our communication to make them feel good about being that kind of person. Gen shang, your colleague at the center for sustainable philanthropy, cnt ari was on was on non-profit radio talking about something that this makes me think of she had research from public radio when people would call in to public radio to make a gift, they were greeted with something along the lines of thank you for being a kind supporter or a loyal supporter or a generous supporter, and she had different adjectives and tested different adjectives against outcomes and eyes, particularly among women. The right adjectives would increase. The the women’s giving through the through these phone calls does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, absolutely on what you’re talking about there, of course, is one kind of identity you’re talking about moral identity. Okay, so, you know, a lot of giving might be because i’m saying adrian is a moral person. I might also be saying, i’m a father, i’m a parent, i’m a cancer survivor, i’m a patriot, i’m a liberal i’ma environmentalist, i’ma, i’ma, i’ma on dh when you understand the identity that’s being articulated durney you make people feel good about that, right? Because if they’re going to give when they’re that kind of person lets lets tell him it’s good to be that kind of person and give him the kind of content that really reinforces that i don’t see it makes him feel good remember we said earlier in this conversation, i think you know, one of the things we need to do moving forward if toe worry about hitting the need of our beneficiary, so sure, but we could be at least this concerned with how good we made our donors feel today on one of the keys to unlocking that. Is to understand what they’re saying about themselves when they give tow organization and what that report of us ruling means to the sense of who they are. And i was saying that the relationship deepens people away, so what that really means for them and who they are on dh, we start to be looking for relationships over time to meet some of our hyre orr durney and by that i mean, the connectedness, personal growth, self fulfillment, yes, but what is my support my five years support of your non-profit organization say about my personal growth and how connected i am with people that are important to me and where i am in terms of myself fulfill it, andi, if we start to think about right that there are longer term supporters are maybe we could help them. I can make some of those reflections on feeling better about their support of our organization because actually, when we communicate across more than any other sex er we should really be concerned with maximizing how good we can make our supporters feel ok, adrian, i i have to stop our our substance because we’ve got to move to next. Steps, and we just have a couple of minutes left, and i want to get to both parts of this. So what can a non-profit do with this wealth of information? Well, if you visit, if they visit the pursuant website, there’ll be other download a copy ofthe there really two key volumes to the research? One is lessons from relationship marketing one is less in some social psychology, andi, they could trial some of those ideas for themselves and their fund-raising so that’s the most obvious thing that might be able to do at the end of the call go to the website, haven’t reports and see if there’s anything there that piques their interest try okay. And again, that it’s pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising that’s where you’ll find the four volumes. But adrian, you’re recommending the first two as being most valuable sounds like that, but they’ve suddenly covered most of material we talked about today, okay? And there’s a lot of other ideas from social psychology on the other thing that’s so might like to do if they’re in an organization of of a reasonable size, we’re planning on doing a serious of field experiments. Over the next two years. Yes, well worked with a number of non-profit partners, andi blitz there don’t know. Find it too. One half would continue to get the communications that they get. Now the other half would get communications. That being tweaked in some way to help build up foster. That dahna relations. Okay, very quickly. What type of organization are you looking for? We’re looking for organizations that has, um, groups have done those that are above six hundred people. So we’re not looking for organizations that are necessarily massive, but we’re looking for organizations that have a reasonable number of donors in each of the segments they want to study. Time will be willing to work with us bearing the cost of doing those experiments. Okay, we’ll get the impact of that relationship approach on money raised, but also on how good people feel. Okay? Oh, excellent. Getting to the feelings what’s your email address. If people would like to submit their organization or talk to you more about being on in the research. It’s adrian dot, sergeant a d r i n dot es a rg e a n t at plymouth a y m o u t h dahna a si dot uk. Excellent. Adrien, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much, so much valuable information. Thank you. Cheers next week. Lead and matching gif ts with another professor, john list from the university of chicago and corporate. Imagine gifts that’s with chuck longfield, chief scientist at blackbaud. If you missed any part of today’s show, i implore you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? I just don’t know about that. Responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com, our creative producer is clara miree off sam lever, which is the line producer. Gavin doll is our am and fm outreach director. Shows social media is by susan chavez, and our music is by scott stein. Thank you for that, scotty. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.