Nonprofit Radio for September 8, 2020: Decolonizing Wealth

My Guest:

Edgar Villanueva: Decolonizing Wealth

Edgar Villanueva’s book, “Decolonizing Wealth,” takes an innovative look at the purpose of wealth. His thesis is that the solutions to the damage and trauma caused by American capitalism—including philanthropy—can be gleaned from the values and wisdom of our nation’s original people. He’s a Native American working in philanthropy. (Originally aired 11/30/18)

 

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

Dot Drives: Raise more money. Change more lives.

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

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

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

Nonprofit Radio for August 24, 2020: Text More & File Cleanup

My Guests:

Ann Marie Ronsman & Alli Stephens: Text More
Volunteer training. Board work. Continuing ed. You can do all these and more by texting, with its high open and engagement rates. Our 20NTC panel explains how. They’re Ann Marie Ronsman and Alli Stephens, both with CASA Child Advocates of Montgomery County, TX.

 

 

 

Julie Chiu & Ilene Weismehl: File Cleanup
Are your digital files a mess? Can’t find what you know is there and co-workers putting files where you think they don’t belong? Julie Chiu and Ilene Weismehl share their tips on organizing, creating and maintaining clean shared folder drives. Julie is from Cara Chicago and Ilene is at Community Catalyst. This is also part of our 20NTC coverage.

 

 

 

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

WegnerCPAs. Guiding you. Beyond the numbers.

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

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

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

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

View Full Transcript
Transcript for 503_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200824.mp3

Processed on: 2020-08-21T17:10:57.647Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2020…08…503_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200824.mp3.338064872.json
Path to text: transcripts/2020/08/503_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200824.txt

[00:02:27.01] spk_0:
way big profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with hyperhidrosis if you made me sweat about whether you’d miss today’s show. Text. Mawr Volunteer Training Board work. Continuing ed You can do all these and more by texting, which has high open and engagement rates, are 20. NTC Panel Explains how they’re Annemarie Ron Zeman and Olly Stevens, both with Casa Child advocates of Montgomery County, Texas, and file cleanup or your digital files a mess. Can’t find what you know is there and your co workers are putting files where you think they don’t belong. Julie Chu and Eileen y Smell share their tips on organizing, creating and maintaining clean shared folder drives. Julie is from Cara Chicago, and Eileen is that community catalyst. This is also part of our 20 NTC coverage on Tony’s Take two. A free how to guide were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and buy turned to communications, PR and content for non profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot CEO and in a couple of weeks will have a new sponsor here is text more welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020 non profit Technology Conference conference, of course, had to be canceled. We are continuing, persevering virtually. We are sponsored a 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Martin for a free 60 day trial. My guests on this day to coverage are Annemarie Ron Zeman and Allie Stephens. They’re both with Casa Child Advocates of Montgomery County outside Houston, Texas Casa, of course, court appointed special advocates. And Marie is director of training. And Allie is marketing and communications director. Ali and Marie. Welcome.

[00:02:39.94] spk_1:
Thank you. Glad to be

[00:02:40.82] spk_2:
here, gear.

[00:02:42.10] spk_0:
I’m glad we’re able to work this out virtually. So

[00:02:44.60] spk_4:
you’ve been

[00:03:08.67] spk_0:
doing a lot on with Well, you’re you’re NTC Topic is using text SMS to train, educate volunteers and build community. So you have been doing a lot with text messaging for volunteers. Your board? How did this all? Ah, how did it get started? Was it started? Experiment And it blew up or what? To the point now where people are asking for the messages if they don’t get them. How did it get started?

[00:03:14.44] spk_1:
Well, when I came on board a little more than two years ago, we had some training challenges that lots of nonprofits have, which are, you know, limited space, limited staff time. And our organization has a little bit of an upside down volunteer models. So we have a small number of paid staff and a large number of volunteers. And of course, some of those volunteers air retired. But many are working. And so it’s hard, tough, a time that works for everybody. And then, of course, space. And so we came across this technology that was being used for training in Fortune 500 companies, and, well, why don’t we try and adapt it for our environment? And, uh, really, we’re not sure how it would be received.

[00:04:12.98] spk_0:
Okay, I love that You, uh, picked up something from from Fortune 500 from industry and and and tried it out. And so, like I said, So now people request the messages when they when they’re not coming, If there’s a lapse, they start wondering what happened to you.

[00:05:00.44] spk_1:
Yes. So we when we started, we were very worried that our training by text was going to be seen as an annoyance and that, um, you know, it was going Teoh be seen negative by our volunteers. And actually, the opposite has has happened. People enjoy the text, they look forward to them. And, uh, you know, sometimes around the holidays or other times, we have a period of time where we don’t do texts for training or sometimes we upload our list periodically. And there’s a glitch in our database and where people off the list and they send me an email and say, I’m not getting texts, where’s our training? And that’s about the opposite of what we expected.

[00:05:03.93] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s fabulous commitment that I love it. Um, now the the special advocates Are they attorneys or or not? You are some of your volunteers attorneys or no,

[00:05:17.69] spk_1:
um, maybe one or two. Um, you know, from fields outside of child welfare, but in intact

[00:05:22.58] spk_0:
money. Okay,

[00:05:32.80] spk_1:
In Texas, they’re all volunteers from various walks of life, which is part of what makes this training so valuable. So we have stay at home moms, and we have a retired superintendents, and we have, um, you know, it’s presidents from oil and gas companies. And we have teachers and and the whole engine that makes training a challenge, because everybody is coming with a different skill set.

[00:05:48.24] spk_0:
Um, and some of what you’re doing, Ali is is, um, continuing education training. Right?

[00:06:50.20] spk_2:
Right. So are advocates are our volunteers were actually required to have Emery? Is it 16 hours, 12 12 hours of continuing education annually after they have completed their first year as an advocate? We have pre service training. That’s 30 hours, plus three hours of court observation. But then, after that, first year service advocates have to maintain 12 hours of retuning education. So that was what Emery was talking about earlier. You know, it’s hard because it is managed wearing required, but in meeting on their names are volunteers needs, um, you know, it was a definite challenge, So just the way we thought it would benefit them and making it convenience. Um, And where they could basically watch or train at their time, their own time? Yeah, it’s worked well.

[00:06:51.47] spk_0:
And how about the board communications? What do you using texting for their

[00:07:23.57] spk_2:
So that sort of something we’ve we’ve just dipped our toes in, but I’m way sort of launched the Advocate training first on dhe. We thought that was a good Well, that was really our goal at first was to train advocates. But then once we sort of got into that, we realized there were lots of opportunities that we could train. Also are board members, possibly staff and yeah, in ways that

[00:07:25.24] spk_0:
we

[00:07:39.14] spk_2:
had not done before. You know, in person training was our primary source of training. So this was something that was experimental. And we’re expanding to board training now, okay.

[00:08:01.62] spk_1:
And our board members to come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and so they’re used to being the smartest and the best educated people in the room. And eso This gives them a way to learn about the field of child welfare. You know, while they’re waiting to board a plane or sitting and waiting for a meeting in the end and, you know, helps up to understand the work we do so that they can better help serve our organization.

[00:08:08.74] spk_0:
And this transcends generations. Do you say from Gen. Z to baby boomers, right?

[00:08:21.75] spk_1:
Yes. Everybody has really enjoyed it. And again, the baby boomers were the ones that we thought would not embrace this and really have they really have?

[00:08:25.64] spk_0:
Are they some of the ones who look for the messages when when they don’t come?

[00:08:29.64] spk_1:
Yes, yes,

[00:08:53.55] spk_0:
I’m thinking probably more so. Retirees and wondering what it’s time. It’s time for my training. Where’s my yes? OK, where the Gen Z’s brother like it’ll come and you know I know, I know. I’m still in the queue where it’ll come. Okay, Um so let’s dive into some of some of the details, um, on then. Oh, you’re also doing just in time training. So last minute, I guess, like court, court decisions or things like that. I’m sorry. Before we get into the some of the details, what’s your just in time training? What is that?

[00:09:31.14] spk_1:
Well, if we haven’t that, you know, something changes in the way either. Are you know, Department of Family and Protective Service is is working. They pass a new policy or the change in the way courts are working. OK now with the Corona virus. But we’ve been using our drip learning or learning by text, um, extensively to help give our advocates the tools they need to help our kids in this it remote impairment that we’re in.

[00:10:05.04] spk_0:
Oh, and I neglected to say at the outset there, I’m I know you are both well and safe, and I meant to say that earlier. I’m glad. You know, I’m glad this worked out, but you’re also both safe and healthy. No. Good. Um, so, yes. So that sort of breaking news, you know, like a new policy at the state level or at a county level or something like that. Okay. Um, all right, so let’s go in. I mean, so how does it How does it work? Logistically, Help. Help Listeners. Understand, I guess. What? What you need to set up like there’s a technology platform you need where you advance your advanced load messages or something like that. How does that work?

[00:11:49.08] spk_1:
Yes. So we work with a company called Engaged by Cell, and they are the hosting platform. And, um then we, um, with a left, some of our own materials. So Allie and I work together and make some videos and some different documents that might be meaningful for our organization. Uh, I also pulled a lot of materials off of YouTube off of, um, resource is from other sites. Articles urge. Um, the goal is that all the videos are articles can be completed in 3 to 5 minutes. And you know, really what research that was. Our attention span has continued to x shorter and shorter. So, um, we really have held fast to that type rain. And, um So when are advocates click detect, and that has a little sentence or to do about what the topic is. And when the link, they know that within 3 to 5 minutes, the activity will be a complete, and we use a whole host of different topics. Uh, what’s nice about it is you can set it up, you know, seasonally if you want to. So, uh, example, in our field of work, the holidays are very hard for kids that have experienced trauma. Um, and so giving our advocate some tips about how to help kids, how to help caregivers put things in place. Um, so that, um you can anticipate and meet the needs of the kids in their homes way. Also use it around back to school time. Uh, and so, um and then we use it for our organization. So for putting on a policy, it may go out an email, but it also goes out in text with learning, which we call drip learning. Andare learning by text has about 85% open. Right? Um, and as you know, email is much below that. And, uh, so we’ve had a lot of success with it.

[00:12:22.32] spk_0:
Okay, Ali, your marketing communications. So you’re writing, I guess a lot of the content that is already all you know, all the content that’s developed in house, as opposed to the content that Emery was saying She goes out and curates

[00:13:53.64] spk_2:
since a team effort. I mean, Anne Marie and I started sort of came up with what we call buckets. So things that we thought topics we thought would be useful, whether it was educational, ab, etc, medical advocacy, legal advocacy. Um, and then we rely on a lot of our staff who special. I have a variety of backgrounds, may specialize in sex trafficking or, um, family, you know, toddler aged Children or teens. And they can kind of help us, um, collect that content. Henry does a lot of research and digging up what and if it doesn’t exist. That’s when we create it. So that’s something that’s already out there. You know, we don’t were very small. I mean, Anne Marie and I are essentially a team of two and on staff total it costs. We have about 2020 paid staff members. Um, for volunteers. We have over 300. So there’s very few of us that, um can pull together the content for this so we don’t try to reinvent the wheel. If something already exists out there that that we like and is useful to our volunteers in terms of training, we utilize that. But if it’s something that is especially thing that’s unique to our county or are advocates, that’s when we do our own videos or own documents or our own and log posts or whatever.

[00:14:39.87] spk_0:
It’s time for a break wegner-C.P.As paycheck protection program. Loan forgiveness. It’s still out there staring you down. You need to get your forgiveness application in. Wegner has a free webinar that explains P P p loan forgiveness. Go to wegner-C.P.As dot com. Quick resource is and recorded events now back to text more with Anne Marie, Ron Zeman and Olly Stevens. It sounds like you have a whole, um, production schedules. Not right. But a whole schedule of when, When? Throughout the year. Different messages. They’re going to be going out.

[00:15:22.81] spk_2:
We dio um, when we first started, we thought we would focus on a topic like a specific topic each month. Where And we still sort of do that. You know, if it’s back to school, we’re certainly gonna be focused on back to school and, um, effects of of the destruction of our the disruption of schedule or lack of schedule for kids who have experienced trauma. But and really, we we do a lot of like Henry said just in time training articles that come out. Um, we just give them a variety of of materials and information to consider. Learn about.

[00:15:26.44] spk_0:
Do you have any tips for writing the, um, the text message that the person actually sees before they click through to the other content

[00:15:42.24] spk_2:
is turkey. I think we have in reads like 100 40 characters. Yes, you. We better

[00:15:42.74] spk_0:
get

[00:15:47.44] spk_2:
good at being succinct and, um, trying to make it enticing, But you don’t have a lot of characters.

[00:15:58.60] spk_0:
Okay. Um, So, uh, what else Um, yeah, I know you have high open engagement rates. What What else? What other ideas do you have? People like we thinking, You know, this could work for their volunteer training. What other advice?

[00:16:08.81] spk_4:
But when one of

[00:16:44.02] spk_1:
the things that’s really nice about it is that people can click the link when they have time to view it. So we have some people who click a distance. They get it. We have some people that are sitting at their kid’s soccer camp Saturday and maybe do a month’s worth of of texts at once. And then we pull a report on the back end. Um, and the way we’ve chosen a handle, it is, um, you give our kids five minutes of continuing education credit for each, you know, training that they do each strip learning. And then that does that doesn’t telling a lot of

[00:16:46.23] spk_0:
12 hours, right,

[00:17:50.38] spk_1:
right, But over. You know, it’s 40 minutes a month, and so over the course of a year, it does add up and, um, no, it just ah, and then also they can use that information that can pass along to placements where the kids are plate, you know, if they have a resource that ah, you know, video that they found helpful that they think might be helpful to a foster parent. They can pass that along to them. And although our organization is small and we haven’t used it a lot for training for employees in a look non profit that that has a larger group of staff members work equally Well, it’s a really im not particularly Tuckey. It’s pretty intuitive to use pretty, pretty logical. And, um, you know, Allie, I find the content and alley makes it pretty. And, um, you know, it really just has worked out well for us, and it’s ah, very cost effective. But also, I can I can sit down, uh, you know, for a day or a day and a half and do all of our continent for a month or six weeks. Ah, yeah. Okay. And part of that is also finding the content.

[00:18:09.44] spk_0:
Right. Okay. Um, Ali, can you talk to some of the costs? I know, uh, you both said it’s cost effective. How did you pay by the message? Oh, are is that a standard rate for the year with a cap on number of messages or on the minute, How does that work?

[00:19:13.29] spk_2:
So we do have an annual there is an annual fee, and we are, ah, out of allotted a certain amount of text messages We actually use the majority of our text go out and are used for trained by cell, engaged by cells, the platform. And then they have to kind of stub platforms during my cell and also give by cell. So please do use it also on four developments. It’s a very small, you know, that’s we started it as trained my cell. We started the train myself technology, and then we’ve done it for a couple of giving Tuesday and our own fundraising campaign. So we’re just that last year’s our first year doing that as well. So do use it for that as well. But I think we just did the math on this or executive director did, and I think it’s about messages that right, Emory?

[00:19:39.83] spk_1:
I didn’t see what her mass ended up coming back, but basically what you do is you you, by a certain amount of, um, text messages and um trained myself been really good, giving us a non profit rate and which is I believed to be much full. Oh, you know what they charge in? And, um Oh, and then we use we buy one bucket and some of those air used for fundraising. A smaller amount in our organization and the rest are

[00:19:54.64] spk_0:
used for training. Yeah. Okay. Um, I know you both said it’s cost effective. Um, what

[00:19:55.27] spk_1:
we’re sending out, we’re sending out to tax a week.

[00:20:06.45] spk_0:
Oh, yeah, that’s right. I was gonna thank you. You reminded me where wanted to go. You said 40 minutes, 40 minutes a month. So and it’s five minutes. Right? So that sounds like eight messages per month, twice a week. Okay,

[00:20:21.62] spk_1:
way wanted it to be, um, you know, enough to keep people engaged, but not so much that it became an annoyance. And we generally in the text out between 10 AM and two PM um, and usually Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, I’m

[00:20:30.26] spk_0:
tested different times of day in different days. And then

[00:20:33.57] spk_1:
that that was actually the information that trained by cell gave us as faras the best times for people to open texts and

[00:20:51.34] spk_0:
10 to 2 and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Correct? Yep. Okay. Okay, Um I mean, we don’t have to wrap it up, e, I’ll leave it. I’ll throw it up to either of you, but we can if you feel like we’ve covered it. Anything either. If you wanna, you wanna add?

[00:21:37.72] spk_1:
I think one of the other things that has been interesting about this technology is how it has really built a virtual community. Um, and, uh, that wasn’t our intense. It actually wasn’t even non. But, you know, really, when you have advocates are advocates are all working individually. They work with individual kids or an individual family of kids to the placements. And so a lot of the work that we do is kind of an isolation that are volunteers do. And so, um, you know, they’re all getting this same article. And so what Southern? The office they can say, Hey, you know, did you see? Did you see that article about whatever? And so it’s been a really good at community building tool and, um, has has, which wasn’t on a non expected benefit.

[00:22:07.24] spk_0:
Okay, we’re gonna leave it there, then sound right. All right. All right. From court appointed special Advocates, child advocates of Montgomery County outside Houston, Texas. Anne Marie. Ron Zeman, director of training. And Olly Stevens, marketing and communications director. Thanks so much for sharing and please stay safe.

[00:22:15.74] spk_1:
Thank you very much.

[00:24:14.40] spk_0:
All right. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC virtually sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. The Nolly Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant er mountain for a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us. It’s time for Tony’s Take two unleashed the game changing power of planned giving at your non profit. That’s my free. How to guide to help you get started in planned giving. Get your program started. It will help you decide if you’re ready for planned giving. If you’re not ready, of course you can stop right there. You want to read any further? If you are like most are, it’ll show you how to promote your new program and to give you strategies for stewardship of your new plan to give donors. How do you get the guide you text you text guide to 56525 were texting more today. Remember text more text guide to 565 to 5. That is Tony’s Take two. Now it’s time for file cleanup. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC. That’s the 2020 non profit technology conference. Were sponsored a 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software. My guest today kicking off day three of what would have been the conference are Julie Chu and Eileen Y Smell. Julie is a quality. The quality and standards manager at Kara Chicago and Eileen is knowledge and database knowledge and data manager at Community Catalyst. Good morning, Eileen. Julie. Welcome. Morning. Morning. Your workshop topic is from chaos to clarity. Practical strategies for file cleanup. Eileen, let’s start with you. Why is this? Uh, it sounds daunting. It sounds dull. Why should we motivate us? Why should we be paying attention to our Ah, our shared files?

[00:25:32.04] spk_4:
Yes. Um, anything but dull for us. We We were doing it in preparation from a move from the our local server to a cloud based file system. And we were moving partially because we needed the better technology. But also, people could not find things. There were multiple drafts, people even using the very limited search function of, um, with our local server system, people would search for things, find multiple copies, not know which is the right one. There people were storing things in email attachments. There was no central way to have our information accessible to everybody on DSO. It was critical, uh, for us to do our work and move forward to both clean of our files, which was actually a first step to get a folders. I mean, you could clean up our folder structure and then to go through our files and really get rid of things that we didn’t need organized. The things we did need to make sure that people could, uh, could get their hands on what they need in a timely way and get about the business of doing their work.

[00:25:49.65] spk_0:
Yeah. You want to build? I’m not gonna pick that up now. Sorry. Um, this is what happens, You know, working from home with multiple lines, it will stop eventually. Yeah, people, people need to be able to go to their go to their directory and get what they need quickly not wondering whether we’ve got the right file or the right draft, etcetera under. Of course, Julie, How did this come up for Cara Chicago?

[00:27:21.17] spk_3:
Yeah, So are our stories a little bit different from my leans, But we did have originally were using a bowel server and it became crowded with dressed over 20 years worth of files. Eso we had a top folder structure that had over 100 folders on dhe. All of them were accessible by anybody in the organization. Even though things like performance reviews and personal files were stored in those folders. Eso they kind of had, like, they carried the legacy of how the organization had transformed over the years over the decades. Really? So you would see, like, old apartment named files in the in, In In the top level folders. Um and so we decided a couple of years ago that we needed Teoh do exactly what I lean with, saying we needed to make sure that staff were able Teoh access the files being eat it quickly. And things like organizational or enterprise resource is like the organizational map or are master calendar. I’m weren’t buried in nested folders, so we did that and we and basically looked at what each team was using currently, and moved those folders, those files only over to a new foul server. So we’re in a different file server, which we didn’t move to the cloud like Eileen’s organization did. Um, we plan to do that in the future, but at this point, we’re all using we’re using another clean folder structure in a different belt server.

[00:28:31.47] spk_0:
I want you both to know that I am sympathetic to this. Um, I’m very scrupulous about creating top level folders that for it to be a brand new category or ah, it’s a high threshold for me. But when I’m both when I’m at a client, you know, using a directory that I have access to or when I’m just organizing my own folders, I can’t my own folders, you know, including my consulting. I can’t think the last time I created a top level thought folder, so I’m scrupulous about that. I’m I’m sure it doesn’t carry down to the level that the two of you were involved in, but a taste of the top level. You know, I don’t think every new activity requires a new folder, you know, for the month or the day or something, like, you know, so I’m at least at least cautious about that. The top level. Um, you

[00:28:35.71] spk_3:
like to hear that? All

[00:29:02.94] spk_0:
right. Thanks. So trainable. Credible. But I know it goes much deeper than that way. We will to um so I guess I don’t know. It is a fair place to start. Like, how do you get your arms around this project? That who should be involved in all the all the users or just a representative from each team or something? How do you How do you get the project? Ah, the the reorganization kicked off. Julie, let’s start with you.

[00:29:14.57] spk_3:
Yeah, Yes, that’s a great question in that. That is, that was actually going to be the main focus of our present er session. So at north

[00:29:16.49] spk_4:
of our

[00:31:02.69] spk_3:
organizations, we ended up meeting with departments with individual departments. Before we met with those teams, though we had to ask each teen I mean work with each team Teoh and asked him to do some prep work. So we wean. Maybe could give a little bit more information on that because I really admire the way that she kind of galvanized each team to do that work for my organization. We I basically gave them a template, a spreadsheet, and asked them to inventory the things that they actually use on a regular basis. And I feel like that was really tedious work for the organization or the departments. But I think it really got them to think about Thean importance and the value of each of the things that they use and save on the file server. So that really just gave people kinds a kind of perspective of what they needed to bring with them into the new file server. Eso before, after after they did that, we would I would meet on Guy would organize this meetings with each team Teoh line by line and go through that spreadsheet and to talk about whether or not there were duplicates of the of each item in. Sometimes there were, um, and sometimes people did not know that they were working off of. I’m the same file but saved in different locations. So things like that kind of surfaced. So meeting with each team was definitely essential even after they did that initial inventory, because I found that teams weren’t talking about those things. They they needed somebody from the data and tech team to kind of organize them and kind of organize that conversation. I feel like, um, you know, my work and as well as Eileen’s working this project was really the importance of it was really to Teoh organize those conversations because they were not happening,

[00:31:11.73] spk_0:
All right. I mean, before we go to you on the same question, you know how to get started. I just wanna ask Julie. Did those that spreadsheet did that go down to the file level? So it was hierarchically organized spreadsheet?

[00:31:45.96] spk_3:
Yeah. Sometimes they actually did go down to the file level most of the time. Most departments have just so many individual files that we ended up just talking about folders, which it’s fine to, um, which was fined Teoh. We would just have to revisit individual files once we moved things over to the new file server. Just make sure that we were truly keeping on Lee the things that we really needed and not some spreadsheet that was really important, you know, a year or two ago, but not no longer important.

[00:32:11.83] spk_0:
People keeping old, um, male query queries of non queries, trying to say um Mail merges Mount Mel. Murder number emerges Labels. Yeah, exactly. Envelope files. Okay. All right, Eileen, about how about you? Where How did you kick this off? Help listeners understand how to get started with a project like this.

[00:32:40.57] spk_4:
And I do have to say that part of we model I modeled our way of doing it on Julie’s. Um, I had put a query out to the end 10 list. Serve is far. Aspinall cleanup. Julie responded. And so we actually this idea of working by program we I took from Julie, We completely

[00:32:45.37] spk_0:
OK, Julie. Is that why you say you admire Eileen’s work because she copied yours?

[00:32:57.34] spk_3:
I think Eileen took what we did. And just like this was 10 times better. So that’s true. Admiration.

[00:32:59.64] spk_4:
Mutually ists.

[00:33:31.54] spk_0:
Time for our last break turn to communications relationships. The world runs on them. We know this turn to is led by former journalists. So you get help building relationships with journalists. Those relationships will help you when you need to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field. Turned to specializes in working with nonprofits, their turn hyphen two dot ceo, we’ve got, but loads more time for file cleanup.

[00:35:29.24] spk_4:
Really hard to imagine sending people off to their corners and telling them just to clean. I could not imagine that happening on and it’s been tried before. And so this whole idea of doing it in groups, which there were some, you know, some higher ups that were naysayers that said, You know when and you just have people clean But the manager’s overall, we’re so grateful that I was scheduling these three hour slots, which seemed impossible, like I thought there’s no way they would do it. They were very excited, believe it or not, uh, excited about having these three hours lots to sit with their team because they said they would never do it and it has to be done. And so it really it was both, um, great for getting the work done, but also forgetting staff excited about the project and able to, ah, to see the value of it and to be a part of the solution later on. And so the prep work, which Julian mentioned that I did, we didn’t I didn’t do the inventory, um, but I had a knee email went out to managers encouraging people to do some prep work before the three hour meetings. And so I created what I called the vault, Um, which I described to people as a storage unit in another state that you need special permission to get into. So what it was is a place that for people who didn’t want to delete things, it’s like you don’t have to delete it. Just put it in the vault, you know? So it’s like it’s something that they really don’t need, but they can’t let go of So we put it in the vault, keep it out of the way. Um, now that’s different. For somewhere, they said, we need a historic archive because we sometimes need to refer. It is like Keep that. Don’t put that in the vault because you need that. So that’s there’s difference between an active archive of the history of the program and the balls, which is essentially one step removed from from deletion. And so I asked people to, you know, creative all folder and start moving things in. I gave them just, you know, simple, simple things, just so it would be overwhelmed. Look for drafts you know, to get rid of drafts. Um, I actually should have refreshed my memory of what the other one’s work, but also, you know, looking for boulders where there might be just one file, um, to get rid of. And so I just gave them a little bit of prep work and then that most of them did and then, wonderfully, one of our senior managers, um, who was part of that, wrote a follow up to say that their session was incredibly successful because of the proper work. And so that encouraged others to do the proper to.

[00:36:11.41] spk_0:
And then what did you do in these three hour meetings with them?

[00:36:42.08] spk_4:
So we did it. They were all a little different. Interesting. We had a template, and we actually unlike Julie did these herself and we hired. I had a consultant to facilitate these, and depending on the program, they went different. So basically we would go through in the best case scenarios go through just systematically folder by folder by folder. But But in the prep work, sometimes they would write, deletes with discussion. And so we go through the those two. It’s like some that people had already identified, we might be able to delete, and we really literally deleted them in real time or moved them to a vault in real time.

[00:37:13.93] spk_0:
Okay, how about the the organization? So we’ve talked so far about what files may be needed or not needed, needed actively or needed a ZX ah, vault file. But about the folder structure, the hierarchical structure. Is there people competing around that? Is that difficult to reorganize? People used to going to a certain nested folder and finding what they need. And now it’s gonna be a different name and a different different hierarchy. Is that Is that trouble?

[00:38:28.12] spk_4:
Well, we had It hasn’t been. We had a folder structure working group. It was about across organizational group, about five people who we felt identified them based on that they could see the forest and the trees. That’s what we needed. Systems people who also, you know, strategy people, but knew what was important from a systems level and working with the same consultant. And we started looking at the existing one. She had done a lot of discovery to find out. Um what? The organ it not my phone is ringing what the organizational, um needs are, um And then we started just moving pieces around until we got a structure that reflected the way we do our work. And so by the time this working group was done because their chorus organizational and because they were taking this to their teams when we were when we released the structure, people were very relieved. For the most part, there’s always resistors. You know, Julie, right? Well, or people who were You know, if that resistors people who were slower to accept it on. And so, yeah,

[00:38:51.93] spk_0:
Kallstrom’s I like to call them recalcitrance, but they you have to try to bring them along. Julie, let me ask you about something that I lean alluded to. And that wasn’t a problem for her. About, um, leadership buy in for the time that this is gonna take was that we haven’t had that go for you. Or do you have advice about it that’s basically making the case for why so valuable that your leadership supports it?

[00:39:49.48] spk_3:
Yeah. I’m really glad that you asked that because we ended up. I am a manager and I ended up. I’m talking about how to get leadership on board. We prepared like a 20 minute presentation on the leadership team meeting. It only took 20 minutes to actually Dio, um we kind of expected, like Eileen with saying some resistance at that level just because this is a file cleanup project and we were proposing that this would take, like, a year. Um, and we went into the leadership team meeting thinking, you know, just prepared for the worst. You know, eso we went through with it and they were actually very, very enthusiastic about it. We were expecting, at the worst, just resistance to the timeline, at least. Or, um, you know, just a plain, like ambivalence about it. But people were actually very enthusiastic because it impacts daily routines. We actually also did a pre survey leading up to that leadership team meeting just to amassed staff. How long they’re actually spending searching for files what they would want in a new folder structure things like that. And we took those results to that leadership team meeting put in the presentation and we, you know, like from that survey, we found that people were spending upwards of and three hours each week searching for items on trial

[00:40:26.16] spk_0:
that that’ll help make the case

[00:40:27.82] spk_3:
Exactly. Yeah,

[00:40:29.04] spk_0:
hours they aggregate the time over a week. Three hours. Okay, Right for

[00:40:51.54] spk_3:
over items. And so we way used to say that. Yeah, that would be That would mean that overall of about one full time workers. Time was actually spent each each month and little for files. So that was a really, you know, like, hard hitting kind of figure that we used for leadership team, meaning toe and really illustrate how much time was being lost doing this day to day work. So that really, really proved the case, and we started at that leadership team level, presented the plan. Teoh, do the team. My team meeting also asked that, and they support the prep work that each team would have to dio on day were They were very, very enthusiastic about that after hearing that.

[00:41:46.70] spk_0:
Okay, so you both had management enthusiasm. Enthusiasm? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, s So we still have some time together? If there’s mawr that, uh, we haven’t covered that you want you think is important for listeners who might take this on either of you is where should we go from here or yeah, anything. I have recovered it, and we exhausted the topic.

[00:42:12.70] spk_4:
Um, I think the only thing is just that, uh, for people who think that it sounds, I mean, back to the beginning of it, sounding dry that if it’s phrased is is what Julie was talking. I was just so critical to the work that it’s not administrative task. It’s really a programmatic strategic, um, piece of work. That means that people can focus on what they’re doing versus looking for things, which is no small, no small thing when you know, non profits are strapped and need to really make the most of their time in the resource is

[00:42:38.85] spk_0:
yeah. All right. We’ll leave it there, then. That’s yeah. You want to be ableto find what you need quickly, a couple of clicks and you should be there. All right. Thank you very much. That’s Ah, Eileen y smell, knowledge and database. Sorry. Did that First time to knowledge and data manager. A community catalyst. Um, your Providence, Rhode Island. Um, and Julie Chu is quality and standards manager at Cara Chicago. Eileen, Julie. Thank you very much. Thanks so much for sharing. Thank you,

[00:42:54.57] spk_3:
tony,

[00:44:01.10] spk_0:
they well, and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. Thanks so much for being with us next week. We’ll have more from 20 NTC. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com. You that vacuuming in the background, good work going on, and they clean up very well, Uh, before they depart. I appreciate that. So we persevere. Were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com Can you hear me? And by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Our creative producer is clear, Meyerhoff shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy on this Music is by Scott Stein with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for August 17, 2020: Google Ad Grants & Be A Payment Processing Pro

My Guests:

Chris Barlow: Google Ad Grants
These are generous grants, up to $10,000 per month. What do you need in place to take advantage of the grants? How do you get in? What are best practices? Plus advice on 3-year-old tantrums from a father of 6. Hear it all from Chris Barlow at Beeline.

 

 

Christina Schnoor, Lily Ickow, & Maureen Wallbeof: Be A Payment Processing Pro
You’ll keep more of your online gifts if you make informed decisions about online payment processors. They’re not all the same. Our 20NTC panel gets you where you’d like to be. They’re Christina Schnoor with American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera); Lily Ickow from EveryAction; and Maureen Wallbeoff at Practical Wisdom for Nonprofit Accidental Techies.

 

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

WegnerCPAs. Guiding you. Beyond the numbers.

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

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

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

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

 

View Full Transcript
Transcript for 502_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200817.mp3

Processed on: 2020-08-14T19:03:07.122Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2020…08…502_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200817.mp3.328677129.json
Path to text: transcripts/2020/08/502_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200817.txt

[00:00:12.58] spk_1:
welcome tony-martignetti non profit radio big

[00:01:47.54] spk_2:
non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of leptospirosis if you infected me with the idea that you missed today’s show. Google Ad grants These are generous grants up to $10,000 per month. What do you need in place to take advantage of the grants? How do you get in what are best practices? Plus advice on three year old tantrums from a father of six? Here it all from Chris Barlow at Beeline and be a payment processing pro. You’ll keep more of your online gift if you make informed decisions about online payment processors. They’re not all the same are 20 and TC Panel gets you where you’d like to be. They’re Christina. Snore with American Near East Refugee Aid Lily Aiko from every action and Maureen will be off at practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Tony Steak to a free how to guide were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen. Two dot ceo. Here is Google ad Grants

[00:01:50.14] spk_4:
It’s

[00:02:23.09] spk_1:
my pleasure to welcome Chris Barlow to the show. He is the director of Beeline, a marketing firm that helps nonprofits further their missions and grow their supporter bases through Google ads. The man, the main the main hat he wears is being a father to six kids, six kids and trying to raise them bilingual. Although most of the credit for that goes to his German wife. The company is at beeline dot marketing, and he’s at Beeline. Underscore, Chris, Chris Partlow. Welcome to the show.

[00:02:24.94] spk_0:
Thank you very much, tony.

[00:02:26.54] spk_1:
Pleasure to have you six kids. How old do they?

[00:02:30.04] spk_0:
My oldest is 13 and just start 13. My youngest is 18 months.

[00:02:41.09] spk_1:
Okay, That’s Ah, that’s a lot of kids by today’s standards. 60 s. Yeah, right.

[00:02:48.59] spk_0:
We’ve learned that we’ve learned a thing or two about how to do more with less by the share. I think that helps helps with the understanding what nonprofits after that make do it.

[00:02:58.56] spk_1:
Okay. And and eight people together during a pandemic. No school. What the, uh, were the prospects for school in Fort Collins, Colorado, this fall.

[00:03:32.84] spk_0:
Um, so they as of yesterday, they closed schools and, Ah, but we weren’t too worried about it. Our kids go to we’re just doing, ah, once a week school and and home school the other day. So we’re used to having him around. Yeah. Uh, OK. They were sad to have that. Their their enrichment classes canceled, but yeah, I’m sure, But we’re we work. We’ve been doing pretty well. It’s, uh that’s all. Things considered eight

[00:03:34.94] spk_1:
people eight people together is a lot. Yeah, and one is the youngest is with 13 months.

[00:03:40.07] spk_0:
18 months. Yeah,

[00:03:43.54] spk_1:
OK, OK. All right. I don’t Maybe this is a distraction for you from from family. No, no, not at all. Okay. Google ad grants. So the company gives up to $10,000 a month for advertising, which for most of our listeners, at least many of our listeners, that’s a lot of money and maybe even too much. So how’d oh, Adam people know if if the grants or something that they should even apply for

[00:05:19.37] spk_0:
that’s a really good question. Um, right. Cause the one thing that separates Google ad grants from any other kind of grant that I know off is, um if you’re eligible, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get in the program. If you can get through the application process, it’s not a matter of whether you’re gonna win the craft or not. So the more important question is is our non profit positions to make use of this? Is it going to be worth our time? Um, and there are four main things that, um, I would consider as a non profit to help you decide. Help me decide whether this is a program I should apply for. Um, I’ll just list them real quick, and then we want to look at talk about each one we can is how how big is our region that we serve or the or the our donor base? Are people actually searching for what we do on the Internet? Um, how strong is our website and our digital presence and forth? Do we have announced expertise or some budget to to help manage this this grant program in the ads? Okay, um, I can list those region,

[00:05:20.68] spk_1:
right? Right. Your region. And are people searching?

[00:05:24.54] spk_0:
Yeah. How strong is our digital presence or the website? Right broker and then in house expertise or budget.

[00:05:30.64] spk_1:
Okay, so let’s talk about the region. Why is why is this important?

[00:05:55.54] spk_0:
So it you can if you are a local non profit only serving within your city, you can still make use of blue black grants depending on how big your city is, or I should say anyone can apply, of course, and you can get it. But if you’re in a small city and there’s a limited amount of people searching it made, the results may not be that impactful. Okay,

[00:06:05.33] spk_1:
so you’re gonna have to put some time into creating your ad grants campaign, right? There is a potential downside if the upside isn’t gonna be significant enoughto justify it

[00:06:46.34] spk_0:
exactly. Now, I work with nonprofits in S cities, cities of you know, 150,000 people, and it’s worth it to them. Um, but, you know, if it again that the larger your region is, the bigger impact advance will be for him. So if you’ve got donors across the country or you you want to start if you if you feel like you’re going, you could have Ah, if you have a large enough mission that people could from around the nation could support you. And you want to get donors through the campaign that’ll work. Or if you serve a really large area, um, again, Then it’ll be worthwhile program. Okay, From matter.

[00:07:05.13] spk_1:
If you’re in a small community, what’s the word of mouth? People know you. Just because everybody knows the handful of nonprofits in town, there’s probably not a lot of advantage for you. Yep. Okay, if you’re not serving a broader a broader base than your small community, Okay, so so at least really to the next point. You are people searching for what you do,

[00:08:19.44] spk_0:
right? Yep. So I’m unlike a nab that you would do on social media or, you know, on a website where you put a banner you are with Google ads. You can only do keyword based ads on a Google search, and so you are limited by the number of people who are searching, So maybe you’re across the nation. But for whatever reason, what you do is very niche or people don’t think no, you even exist or even that your service’s exist. So people aren’t necessarily going to be searching for what you do or anything related. If that’s the case, you You know, I What I recommend is doing some research. There are some free tools online that you could get an estimated number of searches being done, and you could just put in different keywords and c o r people searching for this problem that we solved on. If you’ve If you find that, OK, there are, then it might be worth it. But if if if it’s really niche, you know, no one searching for what you guys do, then it’s gonna be limited. What you’re the impact is gonna be for you. So that’s one way you can kind of make the decision.

[00:08:20.84] spk_1:
Chris, can you name wanted to those sites that people can use to estimate search traffic around phrases?

[00:08:41.34] spk_0:
Yes. Um, there is one called ECM Rush s search engine marketing SCM Rush. Um, there’s another one called Spy Fu. Um, and if you just do a search, Okay? Google Google has one. It’s themselves that you can use to Google keyword planner.

[00:08:49.54] spk_1:
And how do you spell ZX by food?

[00:08:52.06] spk_0:
S s p y like you’re spying f you like, come food.

[00:09:09.51] spk_1:
Okay, I would said fo So I’m glad you said okay. SP y f you okay? Just in case listeners want to do their own the test marketing of some keywords to see whether people are searching for what they’re with their work is and then your your digital presence.

[00:10:48.04] spk_0:
Yeah, So it kind of depends on what your goal is. Um, for the campaigns. If you, um, are a local non profit and you have service is for the community a large enough community that it’s worth, um, you know, using Google advance, Um, then maybe you don’t need if you’re if you’re very service but based your in person or you’re bringing meals or whatever it might be you don’t. Your website needs to be good, but it doesn’t need to have anything particularly compelling. It just needs to really show what you guys do. And and, of course, if you want donors your goals to get donors, you need to have you need to tell your story really well digitally because you’re trying to bring new people to your site and tell your story. But if you’re just trying to help people access, your service is it just needs to really make the point clear and across and no say whether it’s making appointment with you or or showing up to one of your pop up events or whatever it might be that your non profit does. The website doesn’t necessarily need to be, you know, really, really, you know, amazing content. But if your goal is, um to get donors, yeah, you need. If you want to get people to subscribe and want to keep learning about your mission, then you have to tell your story well, and you know you have to have If you have video, that’s gonna be really important. Um, some some nonprofits, um, you know, you they provide their service is digitally they have on my courses, um, or other online resource is they’re gonna probably already have a really good digital presence. And there are a perfect fit for Google ad grants. I worked with a non profit. They do parenting resources, and so, you know they have people searching pit parents are searching across the country. How do you know sibling conflict in the midst of a pandemic and

[00:10:54.82] spk_1:
you could write those you can. You should be a contributing blogger for them

[00:11:08.59] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly. So? So they get tons of people who are finding them and go there blawg and download stuff and get on to the email list. And and so that’s what they’re great fit. Um, but you have to if you know, the stronger your online presence is stronger, website them or impact that the grants is gonna have you.

[00:11:31.68] spk_1:
Okay, cool. And then either needs some in house expertise, I guess, to manage all your campaign and or you need to have some money to spend. So I take it this is not something that say an executive director can take on and and learn and then manage when you know it’s like a one or two employees shop.

[00:11:40.44] spk_0:
I don’t think so. If you’re

[00:11:42.34] spk_4:
in

[00:11:57.16] spk_0:
the executive director with some marketing experience, are already have worked with Google, I would say, definitely, you don’t have to be running perfectly, Um, because you’re getting free ad spend. If you waste some of it, it’s not a big deal. Um, it doesn’t have to be perfect. And if you, um,

[00:11:59.24] spk_1:
there’s a learning curve to, there’s

[00:12:00.40] spk_0:
a learning curve, you have to spend a little time learning, and it isn’t the most time intensive kind of campaign you can run, but yeah, you can’t just expect you can do it while you’re wearing five other hats and you’ve never done it before. You need to have someone who can learn it in your house in house, for you have to know the higher it.

[00:12:21.84] spk_1:
Okay. Like the B line marketing? Yeah, for example, for example. Right. Okay. Okay, um, now you don’t have to take all $10,000 I guess. Or do you? Should you, Justin, may as well spend as much as you can.

[00:12:48.04] spk_0:
Yeah. You may as well spend as much. You can’t some. The thing is, it’s at 10,000 per month. 329 per day is what it actually is. So, um, you might hit that $300 million spend in our A nonprofit that really is able to spend it might hit that number really fast, and then you’re out of budget for the day. But if you’re only spending 2000 of it Hey, that’s $2000. You weren’t spending before, and now you’re getting that kind of exposure?

[00:13:03.04] spk_1:
Yeah. Okay. You may as well take the maximum and and work with it and play with it. All right, So if we feel like we’ve got our our foundation laid the way you’re just describing, how do you apply?

[00:14:28.40] spk_0:
Um, so you can just go to Google for non profits and you have tow. Essentially, you can start the application there. You have to be basically be approved by rule. As a non profit organization, they you start with tech soup, you get it verified by tech soup as non profit. Okay, that’s what Google uses to do the non profit verification process. And then applying for Google for nonprofits is really easy. That doesn’t take too much time. Um, and I have a guide. I’m happy to share with you, tony, that people can follow step by step. Uh, the checklist. The harder part is, once your angle for non profits, you have to apply for at grants. And, um, that involves setting up a campaign a start, you know, starter campaign. It doesn’t have to be what you find, you know, you can continue to work on it and change it, but you have to start with something and go will review that campaign and say, OK, you’ve done. You’ve chucked dot all your i’s and cross border tease. Your campaign looks ready to go. And now we will give you the grabs. Okay, Okay. And at the guy offer. And you could find stuff online. Two guides to to apply. What does you know Kind of give you those steps, but it doesn’t tell you how to do the campaigns that, but Google also does some of that on their site.

[00:14:39.74] spk_1:
Is this guide at your site be lined up marketing guy? Do you have?

[00:14:40.56] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s some. Yeah, it’s just under my service is tap. Um, but I’m also happy to send it to anyone who asks.

[00:14:52.64] spk_1:
OK, OK, well, people can go to your website. I don’t want you to be burdened with 1000 emails.

[00:15:22.29] spk_2:
It’s time for a break wegner-C.P.As paycheck protection program. Loan forgiveness. This is still out there looming. You need to get your forgiveness application in. Wegner has you covered? They’re free. Webinar explains p p p loan forgiveness. Go to wegner-C.P.As dot com. Click resource is and recorded events. Now back to Google ad grants with Chris Barlow.

[00:15:35.04] spk_1:
If we’ve now we’ve applied, we’ve been approved. What are some good practices. Let’s start off with what’s your top tip for using this? This $10,000 a month?

[00:17:07.23] spk_0:
Yeah. Obviously, this is kind of an obvious thing, but you want to think about what your goal is and decide what it conversion ISS, and you might have more than one goal or war. The one conversion, a lot of non profit Start with, um, how can we further our mission and help more people find us? Just that we that we conserve because those people are a lot more likely to convert, um, those that that requires less effort because you’re there to help them already and whether you’re serving them physically and you’re just making them helping them avail them of your service is or they can get something online digital from your block or whatever. Um, that is a much quicker win. Um, if you want to grow your supporter base, um that, you know, again, just being aware of what your goal is and deciding what is the smallest step a person can take toward that goal, like of my ultimate goal, is to get supporters and donors. Then what’s the smaller step that someone can take, you know, the first time they come to our site, they’ve never heard of us. The smallest step they can take is to watch one of our videos. Or can we get them to sign up for our analyst? Because if they just come to our site one time and go away, we have no way to reconnect with those people. We don’t know who they are. So the importance of realizing that Google ad grants is great for getting people to your site. Um, but you need to really know what their next step is gonna be. And the smaller that is, the easier that is, the more likely they’re going to take that step.

[00:17:15.53] spk_1:
Did you have a specific landing page of what? Your advance? Incoming traffic?

[00:17:43.81] spk_0:
Yeah. Depends. I think, you know, having a landing page is great if you have a very specific goal in mind. Um, you know, I want to offer this this resource, um, five ways toe to apply to, You know, maybe you help low income people, families or individuals, you know, get a job or whatever at my career Resource is

[00:17:48.76] spk_1:
or sign a petition or something.

[00:18:29.50] spk_0:
Yeah, sign a petition, Right. So So you have a landing page specific for that goal. It could be great. Also, just to send for people to your website, your general website, as long as there’s an easy way for them to take the next step whether that stopped in or call you or whatever it is, The main thing to consider there is I want a match. The page that I sent people to to the key where they searched as closely as I can. The more relevant, um, you know, if they’re searching for, ah, something related to, um, you know, gruel, you know, hygiene kit for homeless. You know, you wanna you want to make sure that we’re, you know, as close as you can you match. So if you just send them to your home page website, that’s a very generic place to send them. So if you have a block post addressing that specific question, that’s a great place to send them.

[00:18:50.14] spk_1:
Okay? And this all goes back to your goal. Exactly. Go is donor acquisition? Then they should get to an information page. That’s gonna Or maybe maybe they should just be right that the donation page. I don’t know what that

[00:18:54.01] spk_0:
donation page can work. A ZX long as your donation page has videos and things that will get people excited.

[00:19:22.00] spk_1:
Okay, They need a little bit more information that quite radio give you the credit card number. Yes. But you also don’t want them wandering around reading block posts. Yes. You distracted by the petition, et cetera, when you know that they searched for, you know, giving or you’re confident that whatever brought them in, they are in the mind of donating.

[00:19:25.65] spk_0:
Yeah, Yeah, you’re a ghoul Cares about relevance. And that that the relevance is what you’re abscess and how relevant are at is to the what they searched. And then the page two and goodwill measures that by

[00:19:36.84] spk_1:
oh ho hos that Google knows that your head sends people do. And they

[00:19:41.46] spk_0:
well, they know how long people stand the page. If you have Google analytics on the site, they know that. And so the longer people stay, that’s a better user experience,

[00:20:03.74] spk_1:
right? All right, maybe this is maybe this is obvious, but I’m trainable. So Google Analytics works both ways. It gives you gives you data, but it also gives feedback toe Google. Okay.

[00:20:04.52] spk_0:
And I mean, maybe

[00:20:09.91] spk_1:
that maybe that’s commonly known among Google analytics users. All right, I didn’t know that. Yeah. Let your surrendering data as well as retrieving it for yourself.

[00:21:03.91] spk_0:
Yeah, well, it’s It’s so that, you know, because if your users are having a good experience, Google will show your ads will give you give you more ad impressions because people are having a date. They won’t care about what the user experiences when they click on your ad and stuff. And so, you know, give him a good experience. If they take that, they convert. Maybe they don’t spend a lot of time on your site, but they convert. They give you guys a call or fill in a form, and that’s what you said as one of your goals. Google. You know, that gets measured into your at, um at data and Google says, Okay, we’ll show your adds more often, or, um, you know, you know how Google as is it is an auction. Well, will be it higher for this ad to show on these keywords because people tend to convert, and that’s a good experience with user. So we’re gonna make sure your ad gets shown because people are converting.

[00:21:05.74] spk_1:
Okay, Okay, is excellent advice. What else? For using this grant money.

[00:21:43.44] spk_0:
Um, if you can focus on traffic first, um, it you don’t want to ignore conversions and ignore getting people to take the next step. But higher traffic, the higher traffic you have the more of that grant or spending that it’s faster and easier to to test what? You know that conversion. Maybe you’re trying to get donors. And, you know, if you’re getting 100 people to your site, um, that’s gonna take a lot longer than if you get 1000 people to your site to figure out OK, people are really responding to this video. Are there? Are there are they’re signing up for our list or they’re donating.

[00:21:46.44] spk_1:
It’s a matter of more validity in a larger sample size. Exactly. You could drop more conclusions from 1000 people than you can from a population of 100

[00:23:20.50] spk_0:
yet, And so to get more traffic, um, I mean they’re number ways, but one of the best things you can do is to, um, add, keep adding he works, and because it’s at grants. They don’t have to be the perfect keywords that, um, are are your absolute ideal donors. They could be people who are searching for kind of related topics that they’re still, you know, related to what you do. And, um, you can, you know, get people further, further away from the final, you know, instead of the very most qualified people. So adding keywords and then another good practice is along with that, um, when you organize your campaign, people typically take a pool of keywords, say, 20 keywords, and then they create and their related to each other. And then they create one app for those keywords. Um, because they’re fairly related keywords. And I recommend using single theme or single keyword ad groups where you each at each keyword has a unique first headline. So you work. That ad is close to that. This is the key word s possible, or Hubert phrase. Or maybe you have just three or four different keywords cubits radio phrases for at so just having much smaller groups because that makes sure that the ad the first headline that people see and your ad is as close to what they actually search.

[00:23:23.58] spk_1:
Can you give an example of that?

[00:24:55.04] spk_0:
Yeah. Um, so if someone searches for it, got using this example that I mentioned before of parenting resources. If someone searches for, ah, three years, three year old tantrum, Um, the standard philosophy might be three year old tan drum, five year old tantrum child hand drum. You haven’t ad about tantrums with single keyword or single theme at groups. You instead say, three year old tantrum as the headline, and then you have a different at for five year old tantrum because it matches exactly what the person searched. Um, you don’t necessarily have to get back granular by creating that many different, unique first headlines, but you can try to make it as narrow as possible. Um, and that way, people, because here’s another best practice or way to think about Google ads as opposed to like Facebook or another kind of ad platform. It’s not about like having the ideal branded like emotional trigger that really draws people in. People do a Google search, and they look at the search results and then make a split second decision. Um, and it and you really just want to make show people. I understand your intent and I match what you’re thinking. And so the relevance that could match of the key word just getting that is as close as possible is what helps ensure that you can have a really high number of people who are clicking on your abs.

[00:25:07.34] spk_1:
Do you have a three year old?

[00:25:09.34] spk_0:
I’m a four year old.

[00:25:21.34] spk_1:
So you’ve been to you’ve been down a three year old a few times. Eso eso alright, don’t told aggression. What’s your top top top tip for three year old tantrums?

[00:25:56.04] spk_0:
Um, you’ve got Teoh. Do you show show empathy. You gotta show You have to show empathy on and telling a while that is Are you are feeling really mad about that and validate a feeling, Um, and you have to you have to be calm yourself. You have to. Sometimes you have to step away and calling yourself first. That’s probably the most important thing. And then you can show empathy and how you are feeling something really strong and back. Tens toe helped start just yet.

[00:25:56.93] spk_1:
Okay, because your your father expert as well you have six Children.

[00:26:00.40] spk_0:
I have a lot of a lot. You know, what I found is more kits I’ve had, you know, other more. I need to work.

[00:26:20.70] spk_1:
Well, yeah, OK, but there are people with one or two. You could learn a lot from a guy. Time six. So All right. Um, thank you. Topping up three year old tension, Right? So, yes, you gotta deescalate yourself. You got to take a deep yourself, then. All right, then show your empathy. You got to get yourself under control.

[00:26:25.28] spk_0:
That’s right. Yeah. If you if you’re not safe in terms of just your if your flight or flight is going off, If you’re feeling really stressed out, it’s gonna come through and how you address it. Um, that’s really how I feel. Like that’s half the battle. You can calm yourself down. You’ll be able that manage the rest.

[00:26:43.84] spk_1:
OK? All right. We still got a couple minutes left, so don’t hold out.

[00:27:13.74] spk_0:
S o. One interesting thing about adds to with Google is, um, low. The lowest common denominator. Um, with the ad itself is good, like, unfortunately, but it’s it’s just a fact like your would have your ad written at a level that third grader lower. Okay. Use really simple words. Use you. So, you know, um, you’re not trying to sound really sophisticated, because again, people aren’t reading things in death

[00:27:34.54] spk_1:
way. Think about our own behavior. And a The page of Google Search results were scanning. We’re looking for the the most closely related to what we want, and we’re grabbing it. So you do have to keep it simple.

[00:28:23.54] spk_0:
That’s right. Um, another thing that’s kind of worth trying is, um, Google Ghoul really wants to keep growing their use of machine learning and ai ai, and they have two kinds of ads that take advantage of that. There’s one kind of ad called Responsive, sir. Chats R S A. This is where you write headlines and descriptions and then Google intelligible. You mix and match and find what works best. I think this is a great advocate, great kind of way to do it because you control what and says, but Google decides what it shows instead of you writing. You know, I’m Here’s the first headline. Here’s a second and buying Here’s the description. I want you to show this exact thing. You just give it. Here’s your toolbox and you find what works best?

[00:28:27.32] spk_1:
Oh, really? And then Google chooses

[00:29:04.74] spk_0:
you. Go chooses, Um, and then another one, which is, um, has its It’s worth trying. It can work well. It can also work really merely and poorly. Um, and it’s getting It’s getting better. It’s called dynamic search Jets, and basically you just set up a campaign that’s the dynamics or Jack campaign. And Google scans your website, and it does everything. When someone does a keyword search, it picks the landing page. It writes the ad and shows the ad. So it it does the whole of

[00:29:06.75] spk_1:
your surrendering, your surrendering, training, everything. So what do you What do you give it to chips from?

[00:29:15.11] spk_0:
Um, your website? Okay, that’s it.

[00:29:16.19] spk_1:
Falls, That’s That’s this Ball Z.

[00:29:17.78] spk_0:
Yeah, so I mean,

[00:29:19.19] spk_5:
you can experiment. You can

[00:29:34.38] spk_0:
experiment, you can absolutely experiment. And, um, you know, sometimes that Google rights and add that really isn’t so good. But it does a pretty good job of matching the page that they send people to to the terms that they searched because that’s what Google does best.

[00:29:37.93] spk_1:
All right, now that was dynamic search ads. What’s the What’s the R s a

[00:30:56.74] spk_0:
responsive search at. Okay. Okay, um, and then another thing, no matter what your goal is, you really need to have you have in mind follow up. Um, especially with donors you need tohave, you know, email marketing, or have something in plant but in place where you can continue to reach out to people. Um, if you’re serving clientele, um, you know, maybe people aren’t ready to come in, like if there, if they need to make an appointment with you or our work with you directly. One on one. Maybe people searching on Google aren’t ready to do that, but so instead, you offer a non online resource where they get it for free, and then you follow up with him via email and address some other questions they might have and encourage them that now you can come in and take advantage of our service is our or whatever. It might be our you know, if it’s a petition like okay, you’re not ready to sign the petition. Here’s some questions to Beacon thinking about, you know, and along this issue care clearly you care about this issue, and so then you can follow up with them with with over email. Exactly. Now, when you consider how we asked questions why you consider signing the petition? So that’s a, um, another really important factor. And that’s actually, um, you know,

[00:30:57.39] spk_1:
plan. You don’t have a

[00:30:58.23] spk_0:
follow up, Ellen. And it’s also another factor in whether this is the right program for you. If you don’t have the resources to be able to follow up, especially if you’re trying to get you want donors from Google ads, then it’s probably not the right program for you right now. You can’t do the follow up.

[00:31:18.10] spk_1:
Okay. All right. So, uh, I certainly don’t wanna leave it on the negative. No right program for you if you can’t follow up. So leave us with ah, motivation.

[00:32:04.44] spk_0:
Yeah, well, I mean Google ad grants once you get it set up. Um, you know, if you’re just trying to do it yourself, I would say you could get it done in one of two hours per week of maintenance. And you can definitely see thousands of new visitors to your site. Hundreds of new people signing up for your email list. Um and ah, you know it. It’s like I said at the beginning. It is one of the neatest programs in terms of from on profits, because you can no, upfront. Is this gonna be something we should try And where are we going to get it? And you don’t have to take the risk of putting all the effort into applying. And then, you know, like most rants, you’re you’re lucky if you win it.

[00:32:10.04] spk_1:
Okay? I thought of another thing that I should have asked. You tell a story. Tell a good tele good at grand story.

[00:33:11.24] spk_0:
Okay, so I’m there was, ah, a lot of of nonprofits experience. They signed up for ad grants at one point, and then it didn’t go anywhere. Um, and I had a client like this, and they, um they had tried it, paid someone a lot of money, and it gotten in, but And that didn’t do anything. And ah asked me to take it over, and I just I was just trying to help them out. And I, um no volunteer my time for a little while with them and got got got things going cause I want They said, Let’s prove this out. If we can see that this is gonna be worth our while. We be happy that to hire you long term. Well, after six months, we were spending the entire $10,000. They were getting a few 100 use of strivers per month. And, uh, yeah, so it’s That was definitely an ink encouraging, uh, story.

[00:33:19.14] spk_1:
OK, yeah. A couple 100 new, quite newly acquired donors. That’s all right. He’s Chris Barlow at B line. Underscore Chris the company again. Beeline dot marketing Thank you very much, Chris. Real pleasure. Thanks for sharing.

[00:33:27.16] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Great to be on

[00:34:46.37] spk_2:
absolutely time for a break. Tony’s take two. I’ve got a free how to guide for you to get your planned giving program started. It’s time. It’s time you can do this. The download is unleash the game changing power of planned giving at your non profit. It’s my ideas for how to get your program started. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. You don’t need expertise on your board or on your staff. You’re not talking to donors about their deaths. This is not going to cannibalize your fundraising. All these misconceptions, myths around, planned giving. All right, so I bust all those, and I explained how to get your program started. Step by step. You can get the free download Very simple. You don’t have to go to a site. This is It’s amazing. It’s amazing what we can do. Just text guide guide to 565 to 5 and you will get yours. It’s that simple text guide to 565 to 5. And that is tony Steak, too. Now it’s time for Be a payment processing pro.

[00:36:01.83] spk_1:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020 non profit Technology Conference. Our coverage of 20 NTC is sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits? 20. Got em a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial, I guess now are Christina Snore Lily Aiko and Marine Wall be off. Christina is director of digital fundraising at America. American Near East Refugee Aid On era, Lily is vice president of payments and online fundraising at every action, and Maureen is non profit digital strategist and coach at practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. So if you were deliberate techie accident, if you stumbled in like so many. Is Marines the right person doctor? All right, um, your NTC session is resume or by knowing more, become a payment processing pro. Uh, really, Are we, uh, we getting screwed by our payment processing contracts?

[00:36:08.30] spk_0:
I don’t

[00:36:08.55] spk_3:
know that that’s the way I would phrase it exactly. But I do think that there’s a lot of folks who you know payments is not many people’s areas, expertise, understandably, and they don’t want it to be also understandably. But there’s a lot that I think folks are leaving on the table because they don’t know what questions to be asking. Um, the naturally what we’re trying to help people understand is how can they go in and ask the right questions and make the right choices so that their maximizing your fundraising

[00:36:50.43] spk_1:
Okay, so you know what? What’s possible to put on the table that looks like it may looks non negotiable from the contract that you’re reading. Okay, there are things we can talk about. OK, um so now, um, yeah, really. Your vice president of payments that I haven’t seen that in a title before. I know it’s not your full title payments and online fundraising, but, uh, you does your organization, um is every action spending a lot of money on payments or

[00:37:08.13] spk_3:
Yeah, so explain kind of what that means. So I work on our product team, so I help figure out what new things we want to build into our software. So where us? A software provider for non profits for fundraising in a number of other things. And I focus on our fundraising, uh, products and specifically the kind of nitty gritty of how contributions are processed as part of a nonprofit fundraising. How do we make sure that as many contributions as possible are being processing process successfully? Eso that’s kind of my area of expertise, both in the product in just kind of in our business. More generally, how do we help make sure that clients are taking advantage? Everything can there.

[00:37:45.96] spk_1:
I see. Okay, Christina, what is your relationship with payment processing?

[00:37:51.61] spk_5:
So I kind of oversee our database, so just making sure that all of that is set up and working with their finance team. Um, you know, since I’m also manage all of our online donation for him, So it’s important that we, you know, have that set up correctly so everything can come through smoothly.

[00:38:13.42] spk_1:
Okay. Thank you. And, uh, Marine, what’s your What’s your role around? Payment processing. Are you Are you Are you like the holistic counselor for people who are frustrated by their by their lousy contracts?

[00:38:26.32] spk_4:
Um, I make sure So So this session actually came out of, Ah, Facebook Live that Lily and I did last summer on my facebook page because people, when they’re looking at new systems, especially CIA, rams or databases that have some type of transactional functionality is part of the system. They often don’t know what they should be looking for. Can they move to a new system and keep their existing processor? Where can they look for glossary of terms? So Christina happened to be one of my my clients and moved into every action and part of what we did together was she just said, make sure that the finance team was participating because some stuff is is not going to be part of Christina’s purview, you know, deciding and signing contracts and things for processors. The other thing that we’re finding comes up a lot is peanut types. People want to be able to offer Apple pay or Google wallet or Bitcoin. And how does a non profit accidental techie or fundraiser kind of navigate those waters most of the time? Folks on the ground or doing fundraising really don’t understand. And I certainly didn’t. What happens once a donor puts their pardon? You know, we know that everybody takes a little bites, but really, what happens? What is the non profit themselves responsible for? What’s the process of responsible for what’s the tool provider responsible for? And that’s why we wanted to submit this session to NTC this year. Teoh clear some of that up. What’s the ownership? How does it all work? And how do I take control of my pieces if I’m working exciting organization.

[00:40:29.49] spk_1:
Okay, Maureen, since have, uh, hosted something on exactly on this. You and Lily. I’m gonna deputize you as co host of this episode because it’s so you know, it’s so niche. And I don’t wanna want to focus on the wrong area. You know, I keep saying contracts or crummy, but maybe I’m over over overemphasizing that part of it. So, um, you know, I’m not giving you carte blanche about believing leading but ah, deputized you get the idea. So, Dio where where should we start with this? But I

[00:40:54.78] spk_4:
think I’ve loved going on that we talked a little bit about, you know, some of the some of the terminology. And in my favorite phrase, lily that I learned from you that I’d love to have you talk about today is meat or beach. The the rates. So I’m not gonna be tony, because I could never be tony. But But it would be great for you to just share a little bit about the didactic ce that we were hoping to present

[00:41:23.16] spk_1:
our tactics. That’s a big word. Or see, I would never use that on. Believe me, you don’t want to be tony. It’s no place to be. Um, all

[00:41:32.28] spk_4:
right, how about definition of terms? How about that?

[00:41:35.31] spk_1:
Okay. No, didactic is wonderful. No, um, the only thing we have to bear in mind is we’re doing this in about 25 minutes. Okay? Roughly. Okay. Please go ahead. Really

[00:44:37.04] spk_3:
great. Yeah. So I think I think that’s a great point, Maureen. And I think this is often, you know, one of the first places where nonprofits run into questions on dhe feel a little bit stuck is when they’re talking to potential vendors. Often you’re talking Teoh, a digital tools provider or digital C R M. And and that’s where the payments piece of the conversation comes up is OK. What what payment provider you’re going to use with your online contribution forms may be your A digital vendor has a payment provider they work with. Maybe they have an insurer. Maybe they have, like an in house team it provider that they kind of built, and that’s that’s their offering. Maybe there’s a whole bunch of different processors that you can integrate with, Um, and I think that’s often a non profits first. Start running into these questions, and it’s hard to understand sort of the different the different pieces that you need lined up to make sure you can successfully profit contributions online alone with, You know, obviously the vendor that’s providing you’re helping you build your online contribution forms. You need a merchant account. Eso you’re gonna need a merchant account provider, which is a vendor that helps that will set up that account for you, into which you can accept donors purchase or donations online. Um, money from that merchant count will go right into your normal bank account, but it always has to a first into a merchant account that’s just sort of part of online credit card processing. That merchant account also needs a payment gateway, and this is again where it can get a little confusing For some nonprofits. Many providers can be both your payment gateway it and you’re merchant account provider. But some are not some vendors or just a payment gateway or just a merchant account provider on nothing that you know your digital tools better should be able to help you navigate that conversation. They should be able to tell you what your options are there and help you understand what you know, what accounts you might need to go out and get and help set up that conversation for you and then that merchant account and that being the gateway or at the end of the day, gonna be connecting to a payment processor. That’s the service that actually accepts the transaction, authorizes it with the credit card provider and provides a response to you and again that could be yet another vendor or it can be a part of one of those other kind of two pieces that I already mention the team, a gateway in the merchant account that’s more in the weeds than nonprofits typically need to get. Usually again, you can go to a digital service is provider like every action that can help. You kind of figure out which of those pieces you need to worry about. But those are just some terms that are often gonna come up, and it can be a little bit confusing in those initial conversations. Um, and all of those tie into the pricing fact. Ah, factor here because obviously it’s a boring allude to kind of the more vendors you have in the chain of your payment processing. Each one of those vendors is taking their own piece of every transaction. So the more vendors that you have there, but the more you have to kind of think about that and make sure you understand what fees are being taken out of each point. So again, the more you can kind of work with one provider, and they can just give you one clear fee that ties everything together. It makes it a little bit easier for you to understand what you’re actually letting from those contributions. At the end of the day,

[00:45:06.89] spk_1:
I’ve been binge watching The Sopranos, and they would call that the the big That’s right. Every three, every different level level of vendor gets, gets their big

[00:45:12.68] spk_3:
Exactly. Yeah, that’s pretty much pretty much for payment. Processing is. Unfortunately, it’s, you know, there’s one transaction and there’s just lots of little pieces that get split out to lots of different people.

[00:45:22.94] spk_1:
All right, hopefully the consequences of not quite as grave sopranos if you don’t pay your

[00:45:27.63] spk_3:
yes, hopefully,

[00:45:31.09] spk_1:
um, all right, so, Marine, please jump in. Well,

[00:45:35.75] spk_4:
one of the things

[00:45:36.69] spk_1:
that our definition of time one of

[00:45:38.71] spk_4:
the places that this gets rial for non profits, and I know it got real for Christina was, if you’ve got sustaining donors, so let’s say you’re using a system that is connected to your online fundraising system. It’s one tool, and so you’ve got You’ve built up these monthly donors for years, right? We’ve all really worked hard to get our sustainer programs up and running and healthy, but when you move, those transactions need to go somewhere and continue to be processed if you stopped. And you said, Hey, all my monthly sustainer is I want you to go sign up again on my new donation form. You could lose up to 75 or higher percent of those monthly gifts. So you’re sort of starting that program over again? Christina needed to spend quite a bit of time thinking about this in her move. So I love to hear Cristina tell her sustain sustainer story.

[00:47:26.14] spk_5:
Sure. So we actually did have our sustain er’s spread out. Unfortunately, since our program is pretty established, this happened. Unfortunately, before I, um, started working at it Neera. But we had it in them in three different places, um, two of which were easily migrate herbal, and one of which we had Teoh speak with the donors, and it was only about 40 people. So it wasn’t so bad out of our, like, 500 plus, um, monthly donors. So we had to tell them Hey, we’re moving up opportunities system, and unfortunately, we can’t migrate you over there, so we’re gonna have to cancel your gift, and will you please restart? So, um, it was a little frustrating trying to get in touch with all of all three of those and figure out how to do that. But, um, in the end, we got it done, and it was It was fine. And it was much easier than having people start and restart.

[00:47:34.48] spk_1:
Did you? Did you find a lot of attrition?

[00:47:39.78] spk_5:
Um, it wasn’t so bad. Yeah, it was okay.

[00:47:42.85] spk_1:
All right. It wasn’t the 75 or more percent that Maureen said is possible,

[00:48:21.03] spk_5:
right? I think because the majority of ours were in a system that were easily able Teoh migrate from one Teoh the other, We didn’t really have any problems. And we had previously a credit card up of data, um, with them. So those credit cards were ready, ready to go, and we had no problem moving them over. There were a couple, I want to say a handful of people with a CH monthly donations and those are easy enough to move over as well because those never expire. Um, that’s

[00:48:21.86] spk_1:
coming from their bank accounts, right?

[00:48:35.21] spk_5:
Right. Yes. Sorry, but I think there’s a lot of those 40 people are 47 people that we had Teoh to worry about, and I think where we were able to get a little over half of them to restart their gifts, so we were really happy about that.

[00:48:38.46] spk_4:
But everybody else, the lion share kind of got somebody came in with very protective gloves on, kind of, because that’s that’s data that the non profit doesn’t want. You know they don’t want to store the credit card. They don’t want to store this the, um, the Cvv, because that’s banking information and no non profit anywhere, I think, has the security in place that they need to actually keep that locked down. So that’s where Lily and her team kind of came in and helped to facilitate the transfer of that protected data from where it waas in Christina’s legacy system into the new the new database.

[00:49:56.97] spk_2:
Time for our last break turn to communications relationships. The world runs on them. We all know this. If you’re a fundraiser, you especially know it turn to is led by former journalists so that you’ll get help building relationships with journalists. Those relationships will help you when you’d like to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field. They specialize in working with nonprofits. They’re at turn hyphen two dot ceo. We’ve got but loads more time for be a payment processing pro.

[00:50:54.64] spk_3:
This is a definitely an area where I would encourage people to actually dig in a little bit more on that payment processor contract, because it’s really important that you make sure that you own your data, especially when it comes to sustain Er’s. And it’s as boring said. You don’t want to be storing that data. You don’t want to be storing the credit card numbers because there’s a lot of security PC I compliance concerns that come along with that. But you do want to make sure that at the end of the day, if you walk away from a vendor Onda payments provider that you can take that deal with you. And we say that data, really, what we’re meaning by that is the credit card tokens. So it’s the secure token that represents the credit card number, and as long as you have in your contract that you own that data, you should be able to work with your current under. If you ever are transitioning off of them to have them securely, send that data to your new vendor, your new payment provider, and they will re token, eyes it into another secure soak in that lives in their system and can then be charged to your new vendor. So that’s kind of the process of migrating sustainer is over. And so it’s really important that you make sure that at the end of the day, you are the one that owns that data. Obviously, it can still be a little bit of pulling teeth to get the thunder that you’re leaving to feel incentivised to give it to you. But you want to make sure that you know that you have that

[00:51:25.46] spk_1:
right? So So that’s there’s terminology. There’s language should say language in the contract that will specify who owns. Is this organized data?

[00:51:27.92] spk_3:
Exactly, exactly. And that’s something again where if you’re depending on kind of a model that your digital tools provider has, they can often kind of answer that question for you because it’s often written into their contract with the femur provider that they partner with eso. It’s often not something that you know. The non profit themselves has to, you know, get out there. Ah, red pen and they go through the contract for. But it’s a question you want to make sure you’re asking.

[00:51:52.11] spk_1:
Okay, Lily, do you feel like this is something that a new organization should have an attorney review? These different agreements? Or is that is that you don’t think is necessary?

[00:52:46.15] spk_3:
I mean, I don’t ever want to say you shouldn’t have been assured the review a contract before you sign it. Um, you know, I think I think again, this is where it depends a little bit on how much a non profit is going out and contracting for the service is on their own versus how much they’re going through a provider. If you know, for example, if you’re working with a digital vendor that kind of handles payments in a house, this would likely be part of your contract with vendor, as opposed to a contract with an external payment provider. A lot of digital vendors don’t handle humans and house, but then partner with someone who does, and so they can kind of help you through that process a little bit. But is it a best practice, you know, Probably have having attorney. Look at it. I would say, Yeah, it was saying this.

[00:52:58.15] spk_1:
Any advice on how we know whether the fees that were being charged are within a normal range?

[00:53:00.91] spk_3:
Yeah, that is a great question. Um, so

[00:53:04.07] spk_1:
we’ve got a good morning. Okay? Medicine. All right.

[00:55:41.12] spk_3:
Um, yes. So the first thing I would say about pricing and is that there are different models. There’s kind of three main models that you’re going to see when it comes to payment processing fees. So the first is a flat rate. This is the easiest for anyone to understand. It is We’re gonna get charged X person and X number of sense on every transaction, no matter what. That’s obviously you know, it’s it’s very straightforward. It’s easy to calculate that, um, there’s also gonna be a tiered pricing model. And a tier pricing model is meant to kind of take into account the fact that different transactions do have different fees associated with them. Um, so when a human is processed online, uh, the credit card fees are gonna vary and a very pretty significantly, depending on a number of factors. Eso There’s what’s called interchange interchanges. Basically, the combination of fees that credit card companies charge there’s they’re gonna very depending on the credit card provider they’re gonna do very depending on the type of card. For example, rewards cards have a very big effect on processing fees. It’s actually why a lot of folks have seen their processing fees go up is because is more and more and more of us have rewards cards. Those usually incur higher processing fee. So this this kind of why instead of seas and it’s hundreds of different categories for disease, it makes up what’s called interchange. And so the tiered pricing model is usually mention to kind of it. To account for that, it’ll usually mean that there’s, you know, maybe three buckets or so where the femur provider has kind of taken every possible interchange, price and category, and it’s put it in one of these three buckets, and they charge a different rate. Based on that, it’s still not exactly what the credit card company is charging for that colored, but it it kind of balances that out more as opposed it a flat rate, which is just one number, and it’s sometimes the providers actually gonna be losing money on that transaction because they’ve had to pay more than that to the credit card company to charge it. In some cases, they’re gonna be making money on it. They just sort of, you know, they find what they think is a balancing between. Okay, and then the third model. It’s called Interchange Plus on. But that basically means is that your provider is just passing on those credit card company fees directly to you. And then they’re adding on some percentage for their own profit. That one. There’s a certain used to it and that you know exactly what you’re paying that provider. They’re not obscuring that profit for you. Um, but it’s also very hard to predict because obviously, again, interchange fees from the credit card companies very on every transaction. So you don’t You don’t know what you’re gonna pay on any transaction until it happens.

[00:56:14.48] spk_1:
Okay, Lily, if you ever leave every action, you have a niche consulting practice with payments transferrable to a private practice. Maureen, What else? What else? We

[00:56:22.53] spk_4:
way. I’d love to get Kristina to speak a little bit about those ranges and fees because you were using, as you said, a mix of different processors at a narrow before you major big move. And I think you saw awesome rial fluctuation between digital tool provider. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:48.13] spk_5:
So we were using 1/3 party, a peer to peer tool, um, whose prices were or their their fees were a lot higher than our main processor. So we definitely wanted to get away from that, Um, went looking at any system, and we also just wanted to find something. Of course, that was all of one. So we wouldn’t have to worry about having so many different processing fees for all these different types of tools. So, um, it’s another thing to consider to, um So, yeah. I mean, because we those 40 people that we had to cancel, they were kind of a mystery, and it took us a while to hunt them down. I don’t I’m not even sure what those processing fees were because they were just in there for so long and, like, had transferred over to, like, our old system. So, um, but yeah, I think I think what? You know, when we were looking for a new system, we wanted to find something because we were happy with our current processing fees. And so we wanted again something that either you know, meter beat, type of thing that we were saying before. Um um, Plus, you know, what are the things that you really like? Like the credit card update? Our was something we had to have. And then we also you did something that offered different pain and types as well. So, like, apple pay pay, pal, You know all the major credit cards. Um, so, yeah, that was that was an important thing for us.

[00:59:13.53] spk_3:
And that’s a really great point that you bring up to. Is that all those kind of additional things that you’re talking about? The other payment types, credit card update or card account update? Er, those often comes with visas. Well, they may be monthly, set up fees, then maybe per transaction fees. But they made very a ch, for example, different feed and credit cards. Typically. So those are all kind of questions you wanna ask when you think about you know, what are the must have features when it comes to my own life fund raising and my peanut processing? Make a list of those and then go talk to every vendor that you’re talking to and find out what the fees are for those because it’s really easy for blunders, especially on the reason that flat rate model you just hear what number and you’re like, Great, that’s that’s in the range I want to be in like I’m good and it’s it’s easy to like, not realize kind of all these other things that may seek in there. So it’s good to kind of get that get together. A list of questions when asked the same questions of every 100 it might be talking to, um, and there’s a fair amount you confined, you know, even honestly, just doing a quick Google search for some of the processors that you may know of names that you’ve heard in the past or vendors that you’ve worked with. You can often see some pricing information right on their site. It’s not necessarily gonna tell you everything, but if you’re just kind of looking for a ballpark, that could be helpful as well. And non profit should also know that some writers are able to give them discounted rates as non profit. So that’s always you should ask.

[01:00:41.14] spk_4:
Yeah, I think this is one of those those places where nobody owns it inside an organization, you know? Does your CFO or your accounts payable person own it? Does your operations person own it? Just someone like Christina was managing all the digital fundraising. Own it. Um, So the first step, whether you’re moving or not, is to kind of huddle eternally and tap someone to be the person who’s going to own this, learn about it and kind of Carrie Carrie. Things forward, re negotiate or influence rates when you’re when you’re moving. There’s just a lot of people switching systems. Right now, there’s a ton of different products on the market, and this is one of those things that you think you know. Like Lily says. You ask your questions, you check all your boxes and then six months in. You have this horrible discovery because I’ve raised X, but only why has hit my bank account. And now what do I dio? So it’s It’s a good thing to pay attention to, even if you don’t quite know what to ask, you’re not quite sure how to go about it. At least start the conversation internally, and then you’re a little bit more empowered to go talk with your your payment processor or your tool provider.

[01:01:16.49] spk_5:
I know another thing for us was the ability to process international donations as well. So, having knowing what they’re, um, what kind of security measures they take to for that as well, and then like, how easy is it for people to donate, if their overseas, whether they’re, you know, us people traveling overseas or residents or citizens that are living in other countries,

[01:01:18.84] spk_3:
I think a great way to think about it is kind of like inventory, what your current system is doing and what you’re program looks like today and then think about where do we want to grow our program? Where do we want for him to be in a year or two years? And, you know, maybe I talked to a lot of people, for example, who they want to get more into international fund raising. They’re not doing it now, but it’s a goal. What? That’s a goal. You should make sure that you’re thinking about that. When you switch to a new vendor or payment provider. Make sure that’s making supports that as you grow your organization you could help meet those goals and that you’re working with a provider that can help you do that.

[01:01:55.71] spk_1:
Right, Marine? Uh, you think Anything else pressing?

[01:01:57.98] spk_4:
I feel like we without getting into the super Weeds, E I think we’re there. I think we got it.

[01:02:34.60] spk_1:
Okay, then, uh, we’re gonna wrap it up there. All right? Thank you. Thanks. Thanks to all three of you. And I know you reach well and safe in your own locations. I’m very glad of that. I’m glad we were able to get together. Um, it’s Christina Snore, director of digital fundraising for American Near East Refugee Aid a nera Billy I, co vice president of payments and online fundraising and future payment processing consultant. Uh, she’s currently remaining at every action. Is

[01:02:40.48] spk_3:
a guest as CEO. Something that,

[01:02:42.44] spk_1:
um, and Marine will be off non profit digital strategist and technology coach. Practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Marine, this was unprecedented that I had a co host in any show. Um, I don’t know exactly. Well, we’re and I do know exactly I’m like your 480 or so 500 is coming up in July. I’ve been doing this 10 years never had a co host.

[01:03:04.64] spk_4:
I am honored. I’m

[01:03:06.80] spk_1:
absolutely I knew I could trust you from from your contribution first, The first session yesterday. So but don’t get carried away. Don’t come back.

[01:03:15.05] spk_4:
I won’t let it go to my head. And

[01:03:17.04] spk_1:
you know weekly. Not quarterly. Not semiannual. Carried away. All right.

[01:03:22.01] spk_4:
Sounds good. Alright,

[01:03:23.96] spk_1:
Thanks, Teoh. Thank you. Especially Maureen. Thanks to all three of you

[01:03:47.20] spk_2:
next week, let’s have more 20 and TC smartness. If you missed any part of today’s show you know what I beseech you Find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and by turned to communications, PR and content for non profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo.

[01:04:16.02] spk_1:
Our creative producer is clear. Meyer shows social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by Scott Stein of Brooklyn with me next week for not profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for August 7, 2020: Donor Surveys & People-Powered Movements

I love our sponsors!

WegnerCPAs. Guiding you. Beyond the numbers.

Cougar Mountain Software: Denali Fund is their complete accounting solution, made for nonprofits. Claim your free 60-day trial.

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

My Guests:

Crystal Mahon & Christian Robillard: Donor Surveys

Make the most of the donors you have by discovering their potential through surveying. Crystal Mahon and Christian Robillard talk principles, best practices and goal setting. Crystal is with STARS Air Ambulance and Christian is at Beyond The Bake Sale. (Part of our 20NTC coverage)

 

 

 

 

Celina Stewart & Gloria Pan: People-Powered Movements

This 20NTC panel helps you build more effective and more inclusive movements by encouraging you to think about communications, power and privilege. They’re Celina Stewart from League of Women Voters U.S. and Gloria Pan with MomsRising.

 

 

 

 

Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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

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

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Sponsored by:

Cougar Mountain Software logo
View Full Transcript
Transcript for 501_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200807.mp3

Processed on: 2020-08-06T23:37:16.508Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2020…08…501_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200807.mp3.541230381.json
Path to text: transcripts/2020/08/501_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200807.txt

[00:02:40.44] spk_1:
on welcome tony-martignetti profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Welcome to our first podcast only show. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of in Texas itis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed today’s show Donor surveys. You’ll make the most of the donors you have by discovering their potential through surveying Crystal Mahan and Christian Robot Yard talk principles. Best practices and goal setting Crystal is with stars, Air ambulance and Christian. Is that beyond the bake sale? This is part of our 20 and TC coverage and people powered movements. This 20 NTC panel helps you build more effective and more inclusive movements by encouraging you to think about communications, power and privilege. They’re Selena Stewart from League of Women Voters. US and Gloria Pan with mom’s rising on tony steak, too. Planned giving accelerator were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Here is donor surveys. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC 2020 non profit Technology Conference and 10 made the excruciating decision to cancel the non profit technology conference. But we are continuing virtually. You’ll get just as much value. We don’t have to all be close to pick the brains of the expert speakers from From N 10. Our coverage is sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. The Knowledge Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Go to tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guests now are Crystal Mahan and Christian Robot Yard. Crystal is manager of annual giving at stars Air Ambulance and Christian is founder and chief podcaster at Beyond the Bake Sale. Crystal Christian. Welcome. Welcome to non profit radio,

[00:02:44.19] spk_2:
tony.

[00:02:45.00] spk_0:
Thanks, tony. Great to be here.

[00:02:46.42] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure to have both of you. You are both in ah, in Canada. Crystal. You are in Alberta and Christian. Remind me where you are.

[00:02:55.54] spk_0:
I’m in Ah, beautiful, Sunny Ottawa, Ontario.

[00:03:00.02] spk_1:
Ottawa. No other capital? Yes, in

[00:03:01.23] spk_0:
your nation’s capital. Not be not be disputed with Toronto. Who likes to think that the capital

[00:03:29.66] spk_1:
I know well and many Americans think it’s either Montreal with Toronto? Yes, but, uh, Ottawa Capital. All right. I’m glad to know that you’re both well and safe. Um, and glad to have you both with us. Thanks. Um, we’re talking about donor surveys. Your your NTC topic is ah, Dorner surveys your untapped data goldmine Crystal. Why are surveys a data goldmine?

[00:03:45.11] spk_2:
Well, we have the fortunate launching a survey. We’ve never done one prior to 2016. And when we did it, we were amazed at what we found. So we learned a lot about our donors. Education preferences. We made money, like, usually made that on that. And I’ll talk about. We actually ended up learning a lot about I’m getting prospects. And turns out that there were a lot of donors that we had no idea name Justin there will ever interested in the will. So there was a lot of revenue like hidden revenue that we were finally getting access to you. So that’s are where that line is moving your wits, but it’s preparing to you.

[00:04:23.61] spk_1:
Interesting. I’m looking forward to drilling into that more because I didn’t plan to giving fundraising as a consultant on sometimes asked by clients about doing surveys. So I’m interested in what you’re doing as well. Um, and and you’re getting gifts. You said you’ve made money back from them. So people do send you gifts of cash along with their surveys.

[00:04:53.69] spk_2:
Yes. Like this year we get. Because last year, 2019 are stars. Allies there, maybe $300,000 And that all the you people have been found for giving what? We’re looking at dollars. So it’s you cannot do a survey to seem like you. Point?

[00:04:54.30] spk_1:
Yeah. Did you say billions? With a B?

[00:04:57.21] spk_2:
No millions and

[00:05:08.78] spk_1:
millions. Okay, the audio is not perfect, so it almost sounded billions. So I want to be sure, because I’m listeners have the same question. Okay, Millions, millions is still very, very good. Um, Christian? Anything you want to head to about Why these air Ah, such a gold mine for non profits.

[00:05:14.81] spk_0:
I mean, besides the fact that you’re using data, obviously, to reinforce certain decisions and Teoh highlight certain wealth elements, I would say in terms of your sponsorship potential, I know a lot of organizations are looking more so into the corporate sponsorship corporate engagement side of things. And I think with your donor surveys, you could really reveal a lot around where people are working there levels in terms of positions within a certain company or organization. And that can lead you down some interesting pass from a corporate sponsorship perspective.

[00:06:05.94] spk_1:
Okay. Okay, um, your, um your description of the workshop said that make the most of the donors you already have. And it sounds like you both obviously are going there. Is there anything you want to add about sussing out the value that’s in your that you don’t know? You have among your current donors?

[00:06:31.20] spk_2:
Well, from our perspective, like it’s given us an opportunity to get to know our donors better in terms of what? What are they actually interested in learning about the organization or why are they choosing given that allows us to tailor messages, just be a lot more personal with them and act like we really know that was supposed to them just being a number. This is an opportunity to really cultivate that relationship and just continue bring them on war.

[00:06:41.08] spk_1:
Okay, um, is most of your content in the workshop around as practices for surveys? Is that what we’re gonna be exploring? Mostly

[00:07:05.94] spk_2:
Christian feel free to jump in and say that we were looking a lot of fast. Her best practice, then also, case studies. People would have some tangible examples how to actually launch one with consider. And what would actually need to do once they got

[00:07:24.46] spk_1:
OK? All right, well, let’s, um let’s start with, Like, where? Where do you get started? Who, Who who were the best people to send surveys to our What types of information are are you finding our most responded to or what types of questions are most responded to? How can you help us sort of frame? Ah ah, an outline of what we were to get started.

[00:07:55.62] spk_2:
Well, Christian and I talked a lot about building the proper spoke of your surveys of figuring out. Why exactly are you? What do you try to find out? And once, you kind of I guess you were down exactly what you’re trying to learn, what you’re trying to cheat, That sort of helping bigger. You need to actually reach up to what? The audience. You need to know that before.

[00:08:06.93] spk_1:
Okay, So, starting with your goals, what was the purpose of the darn thing? Yes. Okay. Okay. Um Christian. You want to jump in around, you know it’s starting to get this process started.

[00:08:15.29] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think as crystal, I were kind of building this piece at whether you’re talking about more of a philanthropic, focus for your surveying or whether you’re talking about more of a corporate sponsorship focus of it. You only want to ask yourself, I never different questions before you even get going things around. What do you ultimately want to know about your donor base? Or about this particular audience population that you’re ultimately looking for? More information on? Why are you doing this in the first place? Is, Is this more responsive? Isn’t it more of a proactive type surveyed that explore new avenues? Would you ultimately need to know? I think that’s an important element to focus on Is not asking everything but asking the right things? Who do you need to ask? So who is the actual population that you’re targeting at the end of the day? What would you do with the information? So don’t just collect information for information, say not that that’s not important. But what’s the actual actionable pieces for that? And how are you gonna protect that information? I think with today’s sensitivities around around data privacy, it’s really important for charities and nonprofits to Stuart that data as they would any type of gift that they ultimately get.

[00:09:27.71] spk_1:
Yeah, in terms of the data stewardship that that may constrain what you asked as well, because now you have, ah, conceivably a higher level of security that you need to maintain

[00:09:32.60] spk_0:
absolutely tony and even just in terms of sensitivities, of phrasing, certain questions, and that it’s important for you to think about how you phrase certain things and how intimate your ultimately getting. And if you do get that intimate, like you said, how do you protect that data? But also, what’s the purpose for collecting that particular piece of data side from? Well, it might be a nice toe have someday, instead of this actually contributes towards our bottom line.

[00:10:00.13] spk_1:
You’re doing surveys around corporate sponsorship, right? That’s the example you mentioned. So you’re getting to know where people work so that you might use that information for potential sponsorships.

[00:11:02.31] spk_0:
Yeah, I mean, when you look at sponsorship, ultimately it it’s very much a business transaction. If you look at how Forbes just define sponsorship. It’s very much the cash and in kind fee paid to a property, a property being whether it’s ah terrible run or some type of adventure conference in this case, um, in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associate without property. So anything of any other type of exploitable commercial potential, which is the most buzzer and definition you possibly could. If you think of any type of advertising medium, whether it’s TV, radio print, you want to know ultimately cruising your audience. And one of the best and most effective ways to do that is to conduct some type of survey to really tease out who are some of your very specific or niche audiences. Cannabis a niche. So it’s a bit of a cringe for for us up here in the North. But, uh, having a survey to really tease out who are who’s in your audience. And some of the more behavioral psychographic demographic features of that audience are particularly important, toe have to really make a compelling case toe corporations looking to use sponsorship with your organization,

[00:11:20.18] spk_1:
the, um what four matter using Christian crystal, I’m gonna ask you the same thing shortly. What? How are these offered to people?

[00:11:28.33] spk_0:
Yeah, so we so in the experience of I’ve high, we usually use ah surveymonkey survey of some kind that allows for a lot of cross top analysis to be able to say that people who are in between the ages of 18 and 29 this particular set of income, they have these particular purchase patterns. They care about your cause, toe ends degree. They, um, are engaged with your cause or with your property and whether it’s through social media or through certain print advertisements or whatever that might be. And we usually collect around 30 plus data points on all of those on all those elements, ranging from again behavioral to the demographic to psychographic Teoh. Some very pointed, specific questions around the relationship between your cause and the affinity for a certain corporation based on that based on not caring for that cause.

[00:12:39.89] spk_1:
Yeah. So you said collecting around 30 data points, does that? Does that mean a survey would have that many questions? Absolutely. Okay, now I’ve heard from guests in the past. May have even been ntc guests. Not this year, but, you know, the optimal number of questions for surveys like five or six or so and people bailout beyond that point.

[00:13:58.37] spk_0:
Yeah, and and usually before I had actually sent out a survey of that magnitude, I would agree with you. Tony and I agree with most. I think that the important differentiators one is that you frame it as it’s very much for improving the relationships and the ability for the cause properties, whether that’s your run, your gala, whatever that might be to raise money and usually the audience that you’re setting. That, too, is very receptive to that. I think you want to frame it also as your only collecting the most important of information. And you’re also looking at ah again like you’re incentivizing in some way, shape or form. So usually when you tailor it with some type of incentive Buta $50 gift card opportunity Teoh win something like that. Usually people a lot more or a lot more receptive. And in the time that we’ve done surveys, whether it’s in my my past days, consulting in the space or now doing a lot of work with charities nonprofits, we sent it to tens of thousands of respondents and get a pretty a pretty strong response rate and a really nominal, if negligible, amount of an unsubscribe rates. So people are not un subscribing from getting those questions, and in fact, they’re answering a lot of them and an important element, as well as making them optional. So not forcing people to house to fill out certain pieces but giving them the freedom to answer whatever questions they feel compelled to. But when you’re doing it for the cause, people are pretty are pretty compelled to respond to those states of questions.

[00:14:01.77] spk_1:
Okay, Crystal, how about you? What? What format are your service offered in?

[00:14:31.04] spk_2:
Did you both offline and online? So our donor base tends to skew a little bit older, though for us, a physical mailing is absolutely I’m only deals online, burgeon for, I guess, other parts of our donor base that are different. The graphical, just based on that person’s preference, is giving them that opportunity. But what we did find is that in terms of our offline responses, we had a lower was off rate of responses to the survey, but exponentially more donations coming through offline as online and then for online responses of the online certainly had a lot more responses to be online. Survey. There are fewer donations, so I found that there was an inverse relationship there about that very thing.

[00:15:41.08] spk_1:
It’s time for a break wegner-C.P.As paycheck protection program. Loan forgiveness This is still a front burner issue. You have got to get your loan forgiveness application in. Wegner has the info you need. Their latest free wagon are explains the state of P P P Loan forgiveness. What is forgivable? What documentation do you need? How to work with your lender? Go to wegner-C.P.As dot com. Click Resource Is and recorded events. Now back to donor surveys with Crystal Mahan and Christian Robot Yard. Do you, ah, subscribe to the same opinion about the length that that could be up to 30 questions? In a survey, a ZX Christian was saying,

[00:16:17.66] spk_2:
We personally have a practice of you tiki bars between five and 10 questions. And sometimes we even Taylor that we know that some of these interested in particular programs we might take out a certain question. But in something else related specifically to them, for their isn’t variability in the surveys, but generally quite short, but I do agree with Christian for sure in terms of really framing the purpose of the survey and you to the questions around this is the whole purpose of this is to build a relationship with them and better serve them and get to know them better. And I think that really prince, And then you also

[00:16:23.41] spk_1:
just gonna ask about incentivizing, Okay? Something similar, Like drawing for a gift card. Something like that.

[00:16:33.91] spk_2:
Yeah. We get a star’s prize package. We wanted to do something about these decisions. You couldn’t get something but elsewhere. So yeah, way start for merchandise. So that’s

[00:17:18.04] spk_1:
okay. I’m gonna thank Christian for not having a good, uh, good video appearance because, you know, I’ve done 10 of these today, and they’re all gonna be all the video’s gonna be preserved. Except this one. Because Christian, um, as a very extreme background is really just a silhouette ahead with headphones. Really? Little I can see. But I’m grateful because my background just fell. I have a little tony, I have a tony-martignetti. You watched other of these videos which you’re gonna be available. This tony-martignetti non profit radio. So the easel you know, what’s that for? A form core, you know, sign. And it was behind me. It was, and it just fell while Crystal was talking. So thank you, Christian.

[00:17:29.66] spk_0:
It was just so surprised that you could ask 30 questions on a survey and get some type of degree of response.

[00:17:38.43] spk_1:
Only it shook my house that I’m

[00:17:40.42] spk_0:
30 data points. What madness is this? I’m

[00:17:58.70] spk_1:
so a gas man. Yes. And then also the fact that you the two of you disagree. Um, all right, so but I’m shouting myself, calling myself out as having a flimsy background lasted through. And that’s through, like, seven hours of this. I

[00:17:58.85] spk_0:
love it. Also, we don’t necessarily disagree, but I think different surveys serve their different purposes. So I agree with Crystal that in that particular case, you only need descends. One that has 5 to 10 questions rise in this case, your public sending it to in a slot strip case, you’re probably sending it to a larger population of people. And you only need a certain amount of people to fill it out.

[00:18:18.73] spk_1:
Crystal, I had asked you, and you probably answered, but I got distracted by my collapsing background. What? What kinds of incentives do you offer?

[00:18:40.21] spk_2:
We offer stars prize pack. So it’s stars over two nights that we want to talk or something a little bit different other than my gift card that they could get through any other. Yeah, it’s so different Angle

[00:19:00.18] spk_1:
personalized two stars. Okay, Okay, Um, now, was yours specifically Ah, planned giving survey, or did you just have a couple of planned giving questions? And that’s where you discovered this data goldmine of future gift. And all the wheels that you found out that you’re in was

[00:19:27.84] spk_2:
it was it was not specific to plan giving, so it was more just a general survey. And then we did have a question about plan giving and that we were stunned. But subsequent years we kept asking mad, and right now we’re sort of in the middle of doing that whole. I’m giving strategy and trying to really build that out. Now that we know that there is this whole core people that are interested in this. So it’s really opened up the water opportunities President organization after all.

[00:19:43.23] spk_1:
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. All right. So you learned from the first time this is you’re in a lot more estates than you had. Any idea? Um, let’s let’s talk about some more good practices for surveys. Crystal, is there something you can one of two things you want to recommend and then we’ll come toe go back to Christian.

[00:19:53.81] spk_2:
Yeah, One of my major things is that if you’ve been asked a question, you have to know where you’re going to do with that data after the fact that you were people just ask the question to ask a question for whatever reason. But then they don’t action. Anything out of it to me is very important that if our donors are gonna spend the time actually breathe through your survey, respond, mail it in or submitted online, that we actually do something that that information is the weather bats killer. It’s a messaging or changing communication preferences or whatever it is you’re asking us to do, you were tell has I think that’s so important that you have to have all a plan once these losses come back. And what are we gonna do with them? Who was going to take action? How are we gonna reason with this? How are we going to use information.

[00:21:15.77] spk_1:
I think of date of birth is as a good example of that. If you’re gonna, if you’re gonna develop a plan to congratulate someone for their birth on their birthday each year, then that could be a valuable data point. Um, but if you just, you know, if you’re just asking because you you don’t have a purpose, you just interested in what their ages? For some vague reason, then there’s no there’s no value in asking. And if it is just to follow up, if it’s just to know their you know when you want to send a card, maybe you don’t need the year. Maybe just need the day in the month. But if there’s value to your database for knowing their age and you would ask for a year

[00:21:23.72] spk_2:
exactly how he felt down, what do we need to know? I really asking

[00:21:30.90] spk_1:
why, Kristen, you have a best practice you want to share.

[00:21:33.84] spk_0:
Yeah, I would say Consider the not just the population size that you’re not just the population that you’re serving, but also the representative makeup. So if you know that your database is predominantly on more, the senior side of things, but you’re getting a disproportion amount of more individuals who are on the younger side of things. In terms of respondents, that’s something important that you have to take into account. So the makeup of the actual population is is more important. I would argue that the amount of responses you could get a crazy amount of responses. But if it doesn’t represent the population that you’re serving and that who make up your donors, it’s it’s not gonna be valuable dated to you. I remember one time we had a ZX instance for an organization wanted Teoh do a survey for sponsor purposes, and in other cases, it’s been from or donor specific, like, I will just put it on on Facebook or Twitter or something like that. It’s not necessarily your population is not necessarily the group that you’re looking that you’re actively engaged with a fundraising perspective. You get information to the otherwise and then obviously reflect on that and use that. But be really clear about the breakdown that you need to have in order to make the information, actually, representative of the rest of your database,

[00:22:47.24] spk_1:
Um, what kind of response rates what’s what’s a decent response rate to, ah to a survey?

[00:23:06.51] spk_0:
I think it depends what type of server you’re sending. I will let Crystal speak to this more, but I’d say if it’s philanthropic. Eikenberry on the sponsorship side of things you’re looking for a response rate that coincides with the 95% confidence interval with a 5% margin of error. Let’s get market data to calculate that there’s a bunch of big captain complicated formulas that we probably have all repressed from our time in. In statistics Citizen that in university there’s ah company called Surveymonkey that actually has a calculator for its. If you go to the Surveymonkey website, you can actually just plug in a what the sample side of what the actual size of the database you’re sending into. And you can plug in what confidence interval that you want. And then what margin of error that you’d like, and it will pump out a number of a minimum that you need to have. I would say that’s a good starting point. But again, as I talked about before, make sure you have the representative break up breakdown of, ah, who’s actually within your audience reflected in the survey results and don’t have it disproportionately skewed towards a particular demographic that might be just more inclined. Teoh, respond to surveys.

[00:24:25.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay, um, Crystal, Anything you want to add about the confidence, it’s different, but yeah, I withdraw that. That doesn’t make sense for you because you’re doing individual philanthropic surveys. So each response you get is valuable. You find out that someone is interested in planned giving already, has you in their will. That one response has has great value. Yes. Okay.

[00:24:39.74] spk_2:
Our purpose of our surveys a little bit different. We don’t worry so much about that, but I actually meeting how like that in your mind. Reaching out to you?

[00:24:44.24] spk_1:
What? What kind of response rate to use for the crystal is still you know, these things? Things take time and you’re doing Some of them are offline. So there’s postage and printing, et cetera. What kind of response rate do you consider good for? For a NH effort like that

[00:25:40.43] spk_2:
in terms of financial reform? Three. So don’t verify that for us, a response to the survey doesn’t necessarily mean a gift, and it gets to the survey, doesn’t necessarily mean that they responded to a number. Yes, we usually eight or 86%. But in terms of actual response to the survey, we’ve seen his lower 2% for the highest 7% a year of channel. So either way, like we have, quite like we have quite a large database. So any of you to be So get this information, your father.

[00:25:42.89] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um, for your online surveys. Crystal, are you using surveymonkey? Also, did you say

[00:25:48.80] spk_2:
use a couple leased surveymonkey last year? It is very user friendly. What? I would caution people are always print about whatever price package designed for because, like you discussed for our surveys a big focuses financial tournament. So we needed to price plan that involved being able to redirect right from surveymonkey page to our donation form. So you had to be really mindful things like that. So in some of the basic packages, they don’t write redirect donation form in that you can’t Do you have a really negatively impact your

[00:26:27.94] spk_1:
Is there another online tool that you like? Also you?

[00:26:52.64] spk_2:
I used Teoh from cold response. Ter. We’ve there be start a sweetener somewhere in Europe, and they were very good, though there are some limitations is well with them in terms of what the packages offer. But bring out we’re using serving Look, you know what was sending out like, for example, looking at surveys. This any surveymonkey already of our to be rich 8th 1 So that’s what we’re using.

[00:26:56.04] spk_1:
Okay, how about you, Christian? Is there another one besides Surveymonkey that you could recommend?

[00:27:22.01] spk_0:
I I think it just depends on what you’re looking for. A tony. So if you’re looking for a lot of, let’s say, more qualitative answers, I’d say even a Google form would would be more than would be more than acceptable. It really just depends on what functionality want to get out of. I used every monkey pretty religiously, just cause it’s like Crystal said. It’s very user friendly. It has the functionality that I need, and it’s and it’s relatively reasonable in terms of in terms of price point for what you get. It’s also gonna depend, and it’s up to you to do due diligence on what types of functionality you need. You need to integrate with your database for other software. Do you need certain functionality. Do you actually know how to use a lot of those things? Is there gonna be support and again, like what? What are they going to do with your data? Like, do they have access to your data? Whether it’s metadata or otherwise, Are there other rules of jurisdictions you have to consider with that data privacy? So I use every monkey by lots of considerations to make.

[00:28:04.85] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. Thank you. And Kristen wanted to, uh why don’t you lead us out with some Take us out with some, I guess. Motivation. Closing thoughts like to end with?

[00:28:05.97] spk_0:
Absolutely, I would say from a sponsor perspective, whether you’re a large organization or small organization, the riches during the niches. So to do good sponsorship, it requires good data, and it requires those 30 plus data points. But whether you’re a big group or a small group, you can compete at the same scale, especially with the amount of money that’s being spent on cost sponsorship over $2 million a worldwide, which is no small amount of money. That’s that you can get access you whether you’re $100,000 a year, order a $1,000,000 plus requires good data. So make sure you’re collecting good data. Make sure you’re clear on what do you want to use your information for? And, uh, not just the diligent in ah, making training step, but the data is actually protected.

[00:28:50.64] spk_1:
Okay, um, I was I was I was gonna let Christian end, But since the two of you have such divergent purposes, which is fabulous for it’s great for a discussion Divergent purposes around your surveys. Crystal, why don’t you take us out on the on the filling topic? The individual donor side?

[00:29:51.64] spk_2:
Yes. So play for discussing. Don’t be afraid to fundraise just because survey doesn’t mean that you can’t make money off of it. People are supporting you enough that they’re willing to fill out the remainder onto you. They may be going to donators alone, and then I’ll help without it said you have to know why you do what you do with that information. It’s really important in terms of respecting your door time and back. That there giving you this information, you need to be able to use it and sort properly and safely. And then last may I just say please, please please test your survey before you actually sending out Senator One other part fans are other people that are not in the midst of building the surveys that you can find out. You phrase things appropriately. You’re actually wanting what you want to functionality is appropriate. I think that’s just so we don’t have one chance of finding out. So just make sure that

[00:30:01.59] spk_1:
okay, thank you very much. That’s Crystal Mahan, manager of annual giving at stars Air Ambulance. And with her is Christian Rubber Yard founder and chief podcaster at Beyond the bake sale crystals in Alberta. And ah, I’m sorry, Crystal. Did I just say Crystal? Yeah.

[00:30:21.02] spk_2:
You know, yesterday

[00:30:23.48] spk_1:
I say, Chris Christie, Mr Just all I know is in Alberta,

[00:30:25.30] spk_0:
you know, we don’t make it easy on your tony

[00:30:36.35] spk_1:
on, and I got through 25 minutes. So well, and I know it’s a lackluster host. I’m sorry. This is stuck with in the Christians in the capital city of Ottawa. Thank you so much, Christian Crystal. Thank you very

[00:30:40.72] spk_0:
much. Thanks, tony.

[00:33:31.93] spk_1:
Thanks to you for being with joining martignetti non profit radio coverage off 20 NTC, the non profit technology conference Responsive at the conference by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain will get you a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us now. Time for Tony’s Take two. I am still very proud to announce the launch of planned giving accelerator. This is a yearlong membership community that is going to get your planned giving program started. I’m going to give you exclusive webinars Exclusive podcasts. Yes, beyond tony-martignetti non profit radio, there’s gonna be the exclusive podcast for accelerator members. Small group asked me anything. Sessions over Zoom I’ll have Resource is like templates and checklists. All of this is to get your planned giving program started. You’ll join for a year. I will keep you filled with exclusive content, and you will get your program started. I promise I will make planned giving easy, accessible and affordable. You can check out all the information at planned giving accelerator dot com. If you may not be quite ready for membership, you don’t want to look at that quite yet. You just want to dip your toes in the water. I have a free how to guide about getting your planned giving program started to see a theme. Here, you see, you see the consistency running through here. This is not This is not accidental. Please, please the free how to guide you Download that also at planned giving accelerator dot com, that is Tony’s Take two. Now it’s time for people powered movements. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC 2020 non profit Technology Conference. Of course, the conference was canceled, but we are persevering. Virtually sponsored. A 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guests now are Selena Stewart and Gloria Pan. Selena is senior director of advocacy and litigation at League of Women Voters. US. And Gloria is vice president for member engagement at Mom’s Rising Celina. Gloria. Welcome. Hello. I’m glad we were able to put this virtually. It’s good to see both of you. Um and I’m glad to know that you each well and safe and in either D. C or just outside D. C. Selena, you’re in d. C and Gloria. Where you outside Washington Gloria

[00:33:46.60] spk_4:
I am actually near Dulles Airport. So, you know, some people commute from here, but because Mom’s rising is a virtual organization, I don’t. And so when people ask me for lunch, I’m always like, Okay, it takes a little bit more planning. I have to bend. I have to get my body injustices.

[00:34:18.24] spk_1:
Okay, Um, you’re NTC Topic is a revolution is coming. Top tactics, build people powered movements. Um, Selena, would you get us started with this? What? What was the need for the session?

[00:35:27.88] spk_3:
Well, I think, um, I think one of the things is right now it’s all about people power. You know, there’s everything is so politicized right now, and I think that there is often a conversation about how people are involved with what government actually represents or what the government is representing. So I think that that’s really, really important. Um, we also saw, like, a 2018 mawr voter turnout, more voters turning out to vote and things like that. So I think that that also is a part of us people conversation like what is compelling people to participate, even mawr, or at a greater extent in their democracy. But all of these things kind of work together to figure out. Not only do we have people engaged now, but what is important. What just community is more people become engaged. How does how does our definition of our community and communities in general changes? More people are included and participating all of those things. So I think that we’re at a very interesting and crucial moment in time. And so people powered and people involved movement. It’s it’s, I think it’s always happen. But it’s just a coin phrase. I think that’s especially prevalent right now.

[00:35:56.69] spk_1:
Good, Gloria, even though participation is is very high, were also largely polarized. So how do we overcome the opposite ends of the spectrum to tryto bring people together and and organize?

[00:36:01.33] spk_4:
Are you talking about everyone or are you talking about voters?

[00:36:17.39] spk_1:
Uh, well, I’m talking about the country. I don’t know. I don’t know whether I don’t know where the people are voting, but I’m talking about our political polarization. I don’t know if they’re necessarily voting. I

[00:36:20.97] spk_3:
I talked about voting, so I probably threw it off a little bit. Glory. They act like I’m asking for

[00:37:19.89] spk_4:
complication only because, like some of the most talented and I think unifying on politicians in recent memory. For example, Barack Obama did not succeed in unifying all of us, right? So there are some segments of our citizenry that will just not do it. We will not be able to come together with them. But I think that for, um, people who really do want the best for our country and who are open minded enough, Teoh want to hear from other people who have different, you know, slightly different ways of looking at the world. It is possible to do it, and that goes back to what Selena was saying about people powered movements. I think that one of the reasons why that’s become more more of a catchphrase is that you know, we are in an era of information overload. We are in an era of polarization and not believing everything that we’re seeing on the Internet and in the news. And so being able to actually really connect with people on the ground, in person, over the phone, but directly and not going through the filter of social media or news movements is it’s increasingly important, and that will be one of the main channels for us to unify as many people as possible.

[00:38:16.42] spk_1:
So we’re talking about creating these both online and offline, right? Um, people powered people, centred movements. Um, how, Gloria, how do we want nonprofits to think about or what we need to think about in terms of doing this, organizing, creating these these movements,

[00:39:11.07] spk_4:
I’m First of all, it’s about inclusivity. Okay, So, um, at least from where we set Mom’s rising and me speaking on behalf of Monster Rising right now, we want to make sure that whatever we do and if it’s the most people and harms no one at all, if possible. So that’s one part of it. How we speak, how we communicate to make sure that what we’re speaking and how we communicate does not reinforce add stereotypes that creates divisions. Okay, that’s one way, another way, not way. But another thing to consider are also the tools that we’re using. Are we using your people are on different kinds of communication tools. Some people only do Facebook. Other people only do on email on dhe. There also is like text messaging there. All of these new community communications goes towards coming on and being on top of the different tools. Superb, warden, Because we need to meet people where they are. Um, because you’re just a couple of thoughts.

[00:39:36.49] spk_1:
Okay. Um so sorry, Selina. So we’re talking about diversity equity inclusion. Let’s drill down into a little bit of, like, what do we What do we need to do around our communications that is more equitable and non harming?

[00:39:57.72] spk_3:
So I think that’s an important question of us. Definitely something that has been injured in the leaks work over the last, I would say five years, but more intentionally over the last two. I’m sorry. I

[00:40:01.52] spk_1:
mean, he’s sorry. Whose work?

[00:42:09.00] spk_3:
The league. I’m sorry. I always refer to the League of Women Voters with us. Okay. Colleagues were led. Sorry. Boats that are full title is just too long for me to keep saying so. I just prefer to see Oh, I got you know, d I is very, very important for us. You know, our organization has historically been older white women. We’ve also always had members of color. But I don’t know that they were always at the forefront. So for us, our work is really centered in two questions and everything that we’re doing, who’s at the table and who should be at the table who’s missing. So I think starting all of our conversation in the efforts that we’re doing with those two questions allows us to center on our work in diversity, equity inclusion and also use our power as, um, people who have had access to legislator stakeholders, et cetera. How did we use our power and in a way that allows access of inclusivity for more people. So I think that that is really important and something that DEA diversity and inclusion work. It’s hard just versus It’s not easy, you know it. It gets very uncomfortable a lot of times when you’re talking about privilege, patriarchy and all of the talk about as it relates to d I. But it’s so important to get comfortable being uncomfortable and having these conversations that the only way I think that we can start to build a bridge towards unifying Um, CA music is at the end of the day, we may be politically, but at the end of the day, we all share many of the very same values which is historically united this country. Like right now we’re in the midst of the Corona virus. The Corona virus doesn’t care where the Republican Democrat black, white, female male does. It doesn’t matter. I’m at the end of the day, we all have to make sure that we’re doing what we can to be safe as individuals. But also our actions greatly impact the people around us. So it’s more of a It’s more of a community mindset that’s required or to tap this down. So I know that that’s like a little offset. All shoot from what we’re talking about. But I think it all placed together in some way, shape or form.

[00:42:30.65] spk_1:
Okay, um, Gloria about for moms rising. And how do you ensure that your communications are equitable on dhe? Non harmful?

[00:43:35.32] spk_4:
Well, Mom’s Rising has very intentionally built an organization that tries to bring different voices to the table. We are intersectional and we are multi issue, and so from our staff were very bad person, many, many different ways, and from the way that we choose which issues to work on, we also take into consideration which these are being impacted and how we communicate about those and then the way that we campaign is that our campaigns are always overlap. And so there is different people within the organization as well as a partner policy partners from different issue areas. They help us that our issues and the way that we communicate with them to make sure that you know you are we’re not communicating in a way that that that excludes communities, reinforces bad stereotype pipes and raises red flags, make make, make people feel bad ways that we don’t understand because of where we individuals. Campaigners. No. So everything we do is very thoroughly betters through different filters.

[00:43:48.70] spk_1:
Okay, so you re vetting. Yeah, please. Yeah, so, you know,

[00:44:55.97] spk_3:
I totally agree with what glorious said. I think that’s really important because the league is also multi issue and kind of has that you have to compete when you multiple issues. You sometimes have toe think a little differently about how you present yourself on each issue in orderto not negatively impact the whole set of what you’re trying to accomplish. And so for us and the communication speaks, I’m expressly is thinking about whether it’s appropriate who’s the appropriate messenger when we’re communicating so Is it appropriate for the league to be a leader in this space, or do we need to take a step back and be a supporter? So I think that’s one of the things that’s very important for us. Communication wise is we’re figuring out what is what space are we gonna take up in the communication in space and how we’re gonna communicate this issue and then the other pieces Who’s talking? Who is the person that we’re putting in front actually speak about a particular issue and is, Is that the right person? And are they speaking from the lens that’s most appropriate for that particular issue that’s gonna be impacted most as a result of what you’re saying or doing? So I think that’s very important. With Gloria lifted up

[00:46:14.78] spk_1:
time for our last break turn to communications relationships, the world runs on them. We know this turn to is led by former journalists, so you’re going to get their help building relationships with journalists. They’ve been there, they know how to do it. They know what the pitfalls are and they know how to do it wrong so they will steer you to the right way to build relationships with journalists. Those relationships will help you when you need to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field. They specialize in working with nonprofits. They’re at turn hyphen two dot ceo. We’ve got but loads more time for people powered movements with Selena Stewart and Gloria Pan. How do you manage the conflicting issues? If you know, I guess it’s because there are issues where you have a large constituency on one side of one issue. But something else may seem contrary to that to that large constituency. A different issue that you’re taking a stand on Is that Is that my understanding? Right when you say, you know, potential issue conflict?

[00:46:51.33] spk_3:
Well, when you have a 500,000 members and supporters and you’re in every congressional district, everybody can agree on on how to approach an issue. But what grounds? The league is our mission. Our mission is to empower voters and democracy. Power people defend democracy. So I think as long as you stay rooted in what your chin values statement is that you can find some reconciliation across, you know the most seemingly divergent issues Okay,

[00:46:58.68] spk_1:
climate change That I think would probably be a good example. I was just

[00:47:11.43] spk_4:
I was I was gonna add, okay, that just to step back a little bit. The one thing that I am super super proud of, um, is that a toll east for progressives? I think that we’re actually pretty consistent in about our agreement on your shoes. We may have different levels of intensity and what we agree with, but I think they’re very few conflicts. We may not agree on how to get somewhere, but we all agree on where we want to go. Okay, So in that way, I rather feel, at least from Mom’s rising standpoint, we rarely get. I can’t even think of a single instance where we have conflicts because we’re not agreeing with each other or with policy partners on the most important thing where we’re heading.

[00:47:45.75] spk_3:
So I think that’s a difference, because are the league is it’s not left or right leaning were kind of way. We have members who are both conservative and liberal. Yeah, have some of that conflict more in that. But I think you’re absolutely right. Do we all want the same things and a healthier, more vibrant democracy. Absolutely. So you have to find some common ground in that space. But we definitely have members who are who want to handle things. One way, versus the other. We have to find common ground.

[00:49:02.57] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s the challenge. I was trying to get it. Yeah, okay. It helps. At least it helps me to think of an example like climate change. You know, some. There are some people who don’t even believe that it’s it’s human impacted. And there are others who think, where decades behind and in our inaction Teoh Teoh, reverse the effects of human induced climate change. So, um, it’s Ah, that’s that’s quite a challenge. Really. So, um Okay, Well, where else? Well, should we go with these people? Powered movement ideas? You you, you to spend a lot more time studying this. So what else should we be talking about? That we haven’t yet. I

[00:49:02.65] spk_4:
would actually love to hear from Selena how the league is dealing with. I’m doing your work remotely.

[00:49:10.59] spk_3:
You guys are already virtual. This is like, No, no sweat for you guys, right? Well, you know,

[00:49:37.30] spk_4:
I mean, we do have, you know, our plans range from virtually all the way down to the grassroots. Right? And I think especially for organizations like your Selena, we share the, um, the common goal this year of border engagements. I am very sorry I opened the door. Family a letter out. I’m

[00:49:43.14] spk_3:
very sorry. Okay.

[00:49:45.25] spk_1:
All right. So, you know, um, terms of remote working, but yeah, but how it relates to this topic of people power.

[00:50:59.86] spk_3:
Yeah. So I think that’s really, really important. We’re definitely so it is one thing to convert toe er teleworking, right? That’s one thing. But when your work is so much advocacy, um, and especially the leaders on the ground who are doing voter registration, which requires you to be on the ground talking to people, you know, that has shifted our work. So one of the examples that we have because we have our people power fair mass campaign, which is basically trying to get redistricting reform for across the country and a positive waste that we don’t have another situation like we had in North Carolina where you’re from, tell me and also and Maryland subs we wanna we wanna make sure that you know people are represented appropriately, but a lot of the states that were working in they have a signature collection campaigns going on right now. So how do you do signature collection when you can’t actually be within three or six feet of people? So now many of our leaks air converting to digital signatures and going through their legislator to make those adjustments that they can still collect signatures and meet that need, et cetera, Our love. We have a lobby core, which is 21 volunteers that goes to the hill every month. Obviously, with the hill being also teleworking, it created what we thought might be a barrier. But now our lobbies are doing virtual coffee meetings on Zoom just like this and having those conversations with legislators, legislative staff and all of those things. So I think that the Corona virus has forced us to do our work in a different way. But it’s also being great to innovate and be creative and do the work that people love just in a different way. So we it’s not perfect. I don’t even want to make you think that this is perfect because it’s definitely not. But I think that there’s a lot of positive energy about doing our work and finding ways to do our work in different ways.

[00:52:27.38] spk_1:
Which, okay, is thinking creatively. I for our for our listeners. And I don’t want to focus just on Mom’s rising and legal women voters us. I want them to recognize how what we’re talking about can be applied by them, how they they, what they need to go back to their CEOs or whatever vice presidents wegner And what kind of like discussion items they need to be putting forward at the organization is not now thinking about in terms of, you know, again, people power revolution is coming. Yeah, you know how how how can our listeners helped create it?

[00:53:21.55] spk_3:
I think just becoming involved, like when you’re talking about people powered anything, it’s really about base building. And for me, the goals of base base building are always to grow. A base of volunteers who have a shared value of some sort and you’re coming together in orderto makes the progressive movement on that. It’s also about leadership, development, communities and constituency who turn out who are players in this issue or what have you and then putting issues to the forefront. So I think that wherever you is, what do you value? What’s important to you? You could be a simple as Hey, there’s a pothole, my street that has been fixed in the last year. Can we come together as a community and really talk with our local election officials about making sure our streets are in a position that’s not gonna record cars or have someone get endangered in some way? So I think it comes down to, as on an individual level, what is important to you. What do you value and finding and connecting with those people? Also, that you something similar? And what do you want to change? What is it that you’re trying to change or that would make your life better? And who were the people who can support you in getting that done?

[00:53:55.15] spk_1:
That’s consistent with what you said down an organization level to the same. You know what? The core values, that’s what that’s what drives all the work on, brings people together finding that commonality around, whether it’s the pothole in the street and the individual level.

[00:54:01.45] spk_3:
Whoever whatever. Here, whatever.

[00:54:08.59] spk_1:
Jim Yeah, Gloria, What? What’s your advice for how people can contribute to this revolution.

[00:55:16.50] spk_4:
Um, I think that right now we’re all sitting in our homes and we’re rethinking the way that we do our work. And even as individuals, we’re rethinking the way that we are doing our activism. You think that a very important message right now for activists personally and for organizations that organize activists and try to recruit and build the base, is that now is not the time to step away. Now, more important than ever, it is important to stand top of the issues, to sign those petitions, to speak up and to share your stories, because I will give you a very, very specific example. Right now, Congress is negotiating, arguing over all of these different critical needs in the Corona virus relief bills. While Mom’s Rising has been on the forefront of trying to influence those negotiations. And the most powerful weapon we have are your stories, people stories, what’s gonna happen to your child care center that has to close down what’s gonna happen to a domestic workers who suddenly don’t have a paycheck? Um, paid family leave. This is something that a signature mounds rising issue. We’ve been working on luck forever ever since. Our founding is one of our signature issues. But now, because of the stories that we have gathered and we’re hearing from our members about the need for pay leave and the fact that if we had had paid leave all this time that the burden of Corona virus would have been much lighter this is something that we’re powerfully bringing to the negotiating table. And we’re actually seeing We’re going on paid leave. So all organizations and all individuals, whatever issues that you’re working on, do not step away, continue to share your stories because those stories have to be brought to the negotiating table for policy. And that’s the only way we’re gonna get the policy that we need.

[00:57:30.53] spk_1:
Okay, We’re gonna leave it there. That’s Ah, quite inspirational. Thank you. That’s Ah, That’s Gloria Pan, Vice President, member engagement, engagement at Mom’s Rising. And also Selena Stewart, senior director of advocacy and litigation. The League of Women voters. Us though Gloria Selena. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, Tommy. Pleasure and thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 ntc were sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial? Thanks so much for being with us next week. An archive show. I promise you, I’ll pick a winner If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Our creative producer is clear, Meyerhoff shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy on this music is by Scots Dying with me next week for not profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.