Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
I Love Our Sponsor!
Sponsored by Generosity Series, a nationwide series of multi-charity 5K events that provide a proven peer-to-peer fundraising platform to charities and an amazing experience for their participants.
Listen Live or Archive:
- On Fridays at 1pm Eastern: Talking Alternative Radio
- Listen to the June 13, 2014 archived podcast
My Guests:
Holly Wagg & Jason Shim: Online Canadian Connection
Two fundraising Canucks share online strategies from above the 49th parallel for small-and mid-size shops, including an explanation of accepting bitcoin donations. Holly Wagg is philanthropic counsel for Good Works and Jason Shim is digital media manager at Pathways to Education Canada. We talked at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. df
Maria Semple: Right To Be Forgotten
Maria Semple is paying attention to an EU opinion that Google must remove outdated links from search results. What’s the impact on your prospect research? Also, your donors’ right to privacy. Maria is our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder.
dfasdfasdf
dfasdfasdf
dfasdfasdf
Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.
You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.
If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.
Sponsored by:
Transcript for 196_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20140613.mp3
Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:12:05.413Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2014…06…196_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20140613.mp3.827070722.json
Path to text: transcripts/2014/06/196_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20140613.txt
Duitz hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I got to give a shout out to our listener of the week lynette singleton she’s our very first listener of the week when that is in atlanta, georgia, on twitter she’s at s c g number four non-profits she’s been a longtime supporter of the show, frequent re tweeter and live tweeter of the show just a very, very good friend and we’re very grateful and that’s why i say thank you very much, lynette, and congratulations being our first listener of the week, i’m glad you’re with me i’d be forced to endure the pain of dermatitis her peta for mus if i had heard that you had missed today’s show online canadian connection two fund-raising canucks share online strategies from above the forty ninth parallel for small and midsize shops, including an explanation of accepting bitcoin donations. Holly wagh is philanthropic counsel for good works, and jason shim is digital media manager at pathways to education canada. We talked at the non-profit technology conference and right to be forgotten. Maria simple is paying attention to a european court of justice opinion that google must remove outdated links from search results what’s the impact on your prospect research maria is our prospect research contributor and the prospect find her on tony’s take to a new non-profit radio knowledge base on your board relationship. We’re sponsored by generosity, siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks very appreciative of there support here’s my interview from the nonstop non-profit technology conference on online e-giving welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference two thousand fourteen and t c we’re at the marriott wardman park hotel in washington, d c on with me is jason shim, who is digital media manager for pathways to education canada and holly wag philanthropic counsel for good works there. Their workshop topic is the canadian connection. What you can learn about fund-raising from people who wear two cc’s howie! Jason, welcome thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. That’s a pleasure. Thank you. Ah, did you, uh, did you feel that canada doesn’t get the sufficient representative rebel representation that you had toe explicitly create? A workshop called learned from us above the forty ninth parallel i would say so. You get short shrift, or do you think so? Yeah, i would totally say. So. We also thought that americans should know what tuks are and that’s a really important cultural piece of education. Okay, tuks are the word is spelled t o qu es correct. What i’ll gonna jason, why don’t you explain what it is? A two is a canadian winter. A traditional canadian winter hats. What do they look like? They look like all sorts of things. Like so some of them, you know, they just have you pull it down, and some of them may have labs. Someone may have, like, prom phones, but generally it’s the just pull over there, knitted generally. Okay, so right. So they’re in place of a hood. I’m seeing those in new york city. I’m seeing a fair number of two. Cc’s. I saw one adorable one had little ears little for years. Um, so it took so it’s the difference between america, some places that would be for style and arthur definitely for survival. Okay. And where each of you from in canada? I’m from toronto right now. Okay? And i’m from ottawa latto and what? Will toronto is ontario, and ottawa is also ontario. Is it? And what else is otto? What do you know? What else is ottawa? The capital of canada. And see now you know why the caged ian’s air at t c all right? Yeah. I was thinking of auto manufacturing. So is auto and auto manufacturing center. No total government city. Forty percent of our population are government employees were learning. But i took sinew. But the capital. I did not. Okay, what can we learn? So you each work for non-profits pathways to education canada and good works. And you have some lessons you can share for those of us down south here. Who wants to go first? I’ll leave it to you. You want me to go first? Okay, so i’m not holding good works is actually i’m fund-raising consultant now on s oh, no, no that’s. That’s not a problem s o we work with a variety of not-for-profits across the country we work with, like national healthcare, charities, international charities. We also work with local hospital foundations or social services on and when i came away from end ten last year i was really aware of what all these cool things that other americans were doing on day would say it didn’t work and i’m like, but what are you talking about? Like in canada? That’s actually really good. So for example, i heard a lot of people dissing the phone and saying, you know, telemarketing doesn’t work or we’re not getting the good numbers or don’t invest there, and it got me to thinking, you know, some of differences between canadian american fund-raising on there definitely is in the direct mail market how we do our asks and how we structures are letters like canadians or just a little bit more polite and less forthright and asking for money, but it was amazing to me going back to the phone to see that i could acquire online donors, and i’m seeing on the phone, you know, five to ten percent conversion rates, which nobody else was seeing here, so the question is, if the phone about tool or you just hiring a bad vendor, you know, okay, okay, jason yeah, and i worked for pathways education canada and we’re an organization that focuses on lowering the drop of a great among youth who are living. In economic fear, just advantaged areas, and so is the high school dropout rate. Yes, do you have a you have equivalent is a high school and then and then hyre ed same thing in the states goes ninety nine to twelve and then college or university afterwards, okay? And i was finding that, you know, when i was doing presentations focused on youth and talking about the technology, adoption and things that, you know, the numbers that we’re seeing in the u s were lower compared to canada and historically, you know, for adoption, for things like facebook bonem that the adoption rate among youth has been quite a bit higher and, you know, i i don’t know if it’s because, you know, we’re just more spread out and we use more, you know, technology to connect with one another, like just pure speculation on my part, but in terms of numbers wise, like, you know, technology facebook, adoption among youth was, you know, in the upper ninety percent where is at the time of the u s it was closer, you know, but the eighty eight percent among high school students, so that also influences how, you know we do our work in that, you know, it’s way have to be on facebook to interact with her youth, and but it also is much more readily apparent when making policy and trying to convince people. But, you know, facebook is the way to go when dealing with youth and but it’s neat because, you know, we’re able to run these projects that essentially it’s, where the u s may be on some technological respects and, you know, three or four years, and we could just, you know, everyone heads up because, you know, generally what has happened? Dahna technology round, you know, ends up happening in the us a few years later in terms of the adoption related kind of things really? Is that how you see trends go? I think so. I mean, ghoul recently had a program called google partners that was geared towards our advertisers, and they’re they’re pilot audience essentially was in canada, and i mean, it makes sense because it’s a it’s a small like relative to the population of some entire states, i mean, you know, population in canada thirty five million, thirty five million, yeah, yeah, that provided a place where you know, they could test it out and make sure that the communities where, you know well serviced and that people could provide feedback, and they made sure that everything worked for the canadians before they released it to all of the us audience as well. And i mean, from a non-profit perspective, i mean, it’s not like you can necessarily, you know, copilot non-profit projects in canada before deploying them to the u s but i think when looking at broader technology trends and how some canadian non-profits have adapted to things that you know, there’s, some can be some lessons i could be running from the canadian border. Okay, we’re going. We’re going talk in detail about what those lessons are, uh, i’m learning here thirty, thirty five million in in in the entire country, and then it’s about the population of california way actually going to research that tonight. That’s good baby, i was laughing because i’m speaking this afternoon on a different topic about email and one of the panellists i was speaking with those original supposed to be danny boo from the american cancer society, and so he was talking about the size of his list on dh he said it was around fifteen million people, and i started laughing and i was like, you’re half my country that’s actually, probably like the eligible age of everybody you can actually donate over. Teo was like, wow, like, you know, so when were also coming here, you know, you’ve come to this conference, a lot of the people who were presenting are often from really big organizations who are really well resourced, and so i thought it was really interesting that our definition of a small or a medium not-for-profits and for the purposes of our thing, we were kind of saying, like under five hundred thousand dollars annually and fund-raising revenue you’d be small and between five hundred thousand and two, point, five million being medium, but i don’t know if many organizations here if i settle this organization’s raising two point one million through their entire fund-raising program, they would probably be like that’s really small but it’s, not necessarily in canada. Yeah, well, be careful now in in the u s i’m pretty sure it’s just around fifty percent of the of the non-profits i think like fifty one percent have have have annual budgets of under fifty thousand dollars, so yeah, so it’s like that on our audience here non-profit radio is all small and midsize shops, i know that i’m not talking to, and i don’t produce the show for stanford university or hyre a memorial stone kettering hospital or, you know, any of these huge organization’s, although i do think they could benefit but there’s their lives, they’re missing out, i can’t reform them oppcoll but yeah, the vast majority of non-profits are small by your definition, and i’m pretty sure it’s, like fifty one percent have budgets, annual budgets under fifty thousand dollars that’s, that’s, crazy there’s, about eighty five thousand charities in canada and half of those are don’t even have a staff member like they’re all entirely volunteer driven. So even the context that we’re talking about, we’re guaranteeing at least, that these people have one staff member or at least organized enough to have some sort of fund-raising program of some, you’re not really very aware of what’s happening in the u s do you know the u s capitol? I’m in it, thank goodness, but i didn’t know about the mall because everybody kept on talking about the mall. You figured shopping? Yeah, i was like, why? Whatever. You want to come to the mall. And then i realized it was not about a shopping center. Embarrassing, but okay. All right. Um, well, holly let’s. Stay with u and s o your old working your each working either in a small, small, mid sized organization, jason or supporting them as a consultant. Holly okay, so what are some of the technology lessons that we can bring from from above? I think one of my favorite lessons because our agency tends to we have a direct mail history. So one of the reasons why i was hired is toe build the digital size of our business. Digital side of our business on dh what’s amazing to me is nobody that i work with. Has anything that’s integrated or even a comprehends of systems approach to, like, capture their data or even an email program? So i’m really struggling with organizations who know that they need to. Aye. Like, say, for example, i need tohave an email program. I need to be able to get people to sign up on my website. So part of what we do is teaching them on coaching or executing it for them, depending what the scope of work is. But all a lot of it is, is change management and culture management within organizations like a hospital foundation, you know, didn’t didn’t didn’t dick dude e-giving dink, dink, dink, you’re listening to the talking alternative network duitz waiting to get you thinking. Dahna good this’s, the cook said about sonya wear hosting, part of my french new york city. Guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back french is that common language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it comes and desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them. Share this story. Join us. Pardon my french new york city every monday from one to two p m. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. And let’s let’s work within an example of ah client that you know, unattributed, but how not not just what you did, not just how you help them generally, but how you help specifically and what the lessons khun b for small and midsize shows here, one of one of the clients that i’ve worked with and they will see which i think is an awesome case study is that they’ve only had a gn online program, and all that online program really evolves around is email nothing else on dso they for the first time, we’ll see probably this year they’re online revenue surpassed their direct mail revenue and their direct mail revenue was pretty healthy to begin with on and some of the lessons when i came in was being ableto, for example, we have a big bulk list of people, but we had no idea who was actually honor email list. We didn’t know where they came from. We didn’t know if they were donors, if they were supporters, what kind of information? And so one of my first techniques is sort of to go in, you have to find out what information is of value to your supporters have to find out, you know, where they’re coming from, what they want. So we’ll work with our charities to really understand who their donors are on one of the things that were really big on his storytelling works exceptionally well. Let’s talk about that. Yeah, on dh. So we will help our clients find a story that will resonate with donors and then translate that and help them tell that story in an email. Mediums. So how do you how do you pick the right stories? Um, i used the very unscientific i will use a shiver that or the cry test. So if i read a story or zoho shiver a shiver castro, i got okay, but so if i hear of a story that stops and makes me pause and makes you feel like it punches me in the gut, then i know that that is the absolute right story for me. And so, you know, part of you know, sometimes i’m talking to the person to get the story. Sometimes i’m developing it, you know, off paper on dh. So for me, it’s getting teaching not-for-profits how to write a good story in an email andi think storytelling ski, but i also think regular communications is something that small not-for-profits really struggle with their, like all these big organizations, they say they send out, you know, thirty emails or, you know, five emails a month, and i we start planning out a schedule so that they don’t all get bulk dough, but like let’s say, we’re going to do one email a month and it’s just going to be telling about something in your organization that’s really important. So for example, one of the organizations i volunteer with his cold on the ten oaks project to me run summer camps for kids who have clear parent, and so we were never telling any of our donors what we were doing with their money. And so this year we have a plan series of six stories that we captured and sometimes their campers we’re talking about, you know, one girl i just finished writing her story. Her name is bernadette, and she talked about the moment when she was at school, and she found out that her friends had passed around a petition asking her to be kicked out of the girl’s changer during visit. Because her parents were gay and they presume that she was going to be making, you know, sexual passes at her. I mean, how did that story not kick you in the gut? Right? To feel like this kid, who at that time was in grade seven. This is a bunch of kids doing it, a bunch of kids and her finding out. And so really talking about the rule that this organisation has played in transforming and building her self confidence and her self esteem and, you know, helping her to successfully girl been building this community appears so for us in that organization, we’ve decided every other month we tell one of those stories so their camper stories, their family stories, their volunteer and the commonality between all of them is that look, you just got on your face. Tony was getting kicked out by your peers because it really people understand why they’re giving to this they they were there themselves. They can relate to that somewhere. They know that that’s a really important issue on dso. My job with everyone we work is to find that kind of moment until it well, that’s just remarkable kids. Becoming so bigoted at that age, kids becoming bigoted, period? Yeah, it’s horrific. And this is candy, and this is canada and we pride ourselves, you know, on diversity and tolerance. So i can’t even imagine what would happen in places that, you know aren’t as progressive is so finding that compelling story, how do you encourage the story? Teller? Teo, teo, open up. Maybe you hear about the story from program staff, for instance, some some of the way how do you induce the person teo to share personally? Well, actually, surprisingly, the best way to interview someone is over the phone, and you wouldn’t necessarily think that, but because of that little bit of distance between you and the person on, they often just open up and it’s, taking them through a journey through their questions and ask, and you should always, when you’re interviewing, someone asked the kind of leading questions if they’re not giving you what you want. But, you know, you ask him about a situation and you say, tell me how that that make you feel if they’re describing a situation, tell me what it sounded like. Tell me what it smelt likes you. Know, and you really want to get into the sensory processes when you’re interviewing that person, and sometimes a person will just go when they will tell you a story it’s and it’s an hour, and it’ll be your job to cut it back. I mean, sometimes it’s making them really comfortable in making points of identification i’m with them. And the skill i think that you develop as a fundraiser over time is that people actually tell me really everything, like, really candid because i’m a very honest and open person, and i think that relates through and they’re really comfortable being transparent with me. So it’s kind of a gift, you know, you might be a really good fundraiser of you have a natural gift for having people disclose very personal things. Teo the your advice about interviewing people on the phone reminds me of terry gross who’s who’s, the host of ah national public radio show fresh air. Yeah, she insists that her guests not not being the studio with her, they’re always remote and not just in another room, but they’re in other cities she doesn’t want them doesn’t want doesn’t want me looking at them. She feels she gets a better connection, just just having their voice in her in her head and same for them, exactly it’s unusual. But it works for it works perfectly well for her, but it’s not because eighty percent of communication is nonverbal and so all of the body language, all of the facial discomfort. Maybe if somebody’s telling you something that upsets you, none of that translates through. All you have to do is control your voice with absolutely no judgment is there, you know, sharing these really important, transformational woman’s that your cause or your organization has had in your life and there’s really nothing more beautiful or privilege to get to talk to these people who talk about how x organization helped their wife die or to talk about how they were able to get a mastectomy and then an immediate breast reconstruction at a hospital because of a piece of equipment that donors have purchased, how, you know, they were able to be get refugee status and come to canada about how they donated a kidney meat there, brother so he could live it’s a privilege to be able to hear those stories jason on the education side what uh, what can we learn from from above? Well, ah project that i was working on last year with the implementation of bitcoin donations at our non-profit and you know, within the non-profits unit is across north america are are indeed all around the world is quite unique because, you know, it’s, something that i cz perceived to be requires a lot of technical implementation, but it was actually quite straightforward, but it was further supplemented by the fact that the canadian government issued very quickly after bitcoin came out an advisor treyz saying, hey, this is how we deal with the tax implications of, you know, the coin and currency and you know, that provided guidance for people to start implementing it within the organizations and things. So in november, we became the first organization in canada to issue tax receipts for bitcoin donations, and i would like to go as far to say that, you know, the first organization in north america is your tax receipts have yet to find us organization that issues before we go much further, which we do have time for, but we better acquaint listeners with what bitcoin is. All about, i think a lot of people have heard of it. Very few people use it let’s, let’s flush that out for people and how you get it and it translates into real money because i still don’t really know. Yeah, okay, how does it translate to real mentor? So please tell us the story, but what bitcoins about so in a nutshell, bitcoin is on online crypto currency that so i use the analogy of imagine if you had to give someone who lived on the other side of the country off five dollars. Now, the options that may be available to you is you could mail that five dollars, to them. You could maybe send them a bank transfer. You could send it to them via paypal oppcoll, with the exception of emailing on an actual five dollar bill, requires central authority. So, you know, you would with your bank, you would say, you know, minus jason five dollars, plus tony five dollars, and that the bank would be in control of that for you. No papal would do the same thing part of their central ledger, but imagine a system similar to the internet where it’s peer-to-peer and no one actually has direct control as to whether or not the transaction goes through that it is the closest thing to cash that is electronically available, so if i want to send you five dollars there’s, no one in between that could stop that transaction that it’s as good as me giving you the cash there’s no government agency or organization or company that could say that could block the transaction, which is the system that currently exists now. It’s it’s, quite a revolutionary concept similar to the internet in which, you know dahna for the internet, you know, people accessing, like bulletin board zsystems that you’re dialing into a central server and, you know, people close messages, but if someone doesn’t like you being there, they could kick you out, but the magic of the internet being that anyone can communicate with anyone else in the world and, you know, if people you know, i can’t say that, you know, this piece of data is in venturing my country like you know of these what the ideas of ideals of net neutrality, um, so imagine that applied to a financial system on it’s, quite a revolutionary. Concept that, you know you could i’ll be sending, you know, large sums of money what i actually transferring what do what do you get if what do i get when you’re giving me this five dollars? What do i see? You would see just a whole bunch of code s o it bitcoin is transferred to what’s called wallets and these air usually expressed in q r code. So you would you would get a wallet that would essentially be a cure for that people could deposit. And of course, the q r codes those little black and white diagrams that that air scannable and lead to lead to websites. Yeah, okay. And if if you wanted teo hyre generates bitcoin so that this is something that’s created by the network. So every every computer that is part of the bitcoin network is actually helping facilitate these transactions in return for helping facilitate these transactions, and being the network that bitcoin in a program or algorithm itself will give those computers that are transferring everything like small bits of bitcoin. So it’s sort of like an incentive system two to keep the network flowing and everything and it’s it’s designed in such a way that you can’t just, like, manufacture more money like, you know, just you can just print more bitcoin or create more bitcoin. It’s it’s not a preset rate that you know it’s tributes at a set amount and that can only ever be like twenty one million bitcoin in the system. And yeah, okay, wait, i do have a couple questions, but we don’t really have time to go into any more details about bitcoin. We’ll have to have to leave it there. I’m sorry listeners about bitcoin buy-in because we want to get the technology lessons from jason. All right, so now we have some grounding in bitcoin let’s get to the your take away that u s o show in terms of implementation. I mean, this is a technology like we we chose to pursue it because the canadian government itself through the world canadian mint, they’ve been working on a project called the midship. Now this is a government backed project that’s what they are pursuing digital currency. So imagine the way that they’ve structure is, you know, the ideal science fiction ideal of you top two cards together and you can transfer the money straight there. So there’s no such thing anymore is like five dollar bills, a ten dollar bills that you know you could just touch the two tarts cards together and it’s just a currency transfer. No bank in between to to do that. And when we look ahead, i think one of the absolutes will be like currency will change. I think they’re that’s the way that things will be moving, like in terms of wave moving from cash systems to electronic systems. You know, like things like papale, this is the next natural evolution of currency transfer. So whether it was bitcoin or anything else, you know, that was the rational that we used to it to pursue it because the canadian government already exploring digital currency. So bitcoin came out, which seems to be a global kind of currency. So why not pursue it? So we went through the process of implementing it was actually quite straightforward men there’s a there’s, a great fund online actually goldenburg point one hundred and it’s ah, a fund that was developed by early between adopters. And they put a whole bunch of bitcoin into a wallet, and i think they started off something like over a hundred thousand dollars, and they said if a non-profit eyes interested in exploiting bitcoin and implements that further non-profit and puts the q r code on the web site, we’ll just give me a thousand dollars oh, and it’s the simplest thousand dollars that i think the organization has ever received, like you just let him know that hey, we’re accepting bitcoin and no grand proposal, they just sent the thousand dollars and be like, okay, well, have a nice day. I was like, oh, do you want to follow up on that and he’s like, no, just the best thing you could do for me is help me get rid of this fund. The money is going faster than i can spend it, like, serve your ideal philanthropy, right? But this’s only available to canadian no non-profits the gentleman’s actually based out of maryland inside dimitri and he he runs the final target. He’s he’s access a community trustee for this funds that was built around an online forum. So you know, he’s charged with distributing on how can we find him just google bitcoin one hundred and believe the website is bitcoin one hundred dahna allergy? I just let him know that you’re interested in getting the thousand dollars and you know, you should follow-up okay, that’s actually an excellent takeaway, because now we have a site we could go to weaken, learn more about bitcoin and the possibility of accepting it and, of course, bigger takeaway being the transformation. What i was thinking, yeah, there’s a thousand dollars. But i was thinking of the thinking well, brother ali, that there’s a little more profound thought that jason had dahna which was the transformation of currency, and i think that’s, you know, that’s where it will happen. I can’t say what the timeline will be. Five years, ten years, flying cars, digital currency, grandchildren yeah, those are excellent. All right, two very good lessons and think things to think about. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having us. My pleasure. Thanks. You’re welcome. Jason. Jason shim is a digital media manager for pathways to education canada and holly. Wag philanthropic counsel for the consulting firm. Good works. I want thank you very much again. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage. Of the non-profit technology conference and t c twenty fourteen, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you very much and ten and and t c generosity, siri’s, sponsor’s non-profit radio and they helped me make it. They helped make get possible for me to go to conferences like ntc and to get valuable info for you from interviews like that, general city siri’s hosts multi charity peer-to-peer runs and walks you know them? You’ve heard me talk about them if you’re thinking about including a run or a walk in your fund-raising i asked you to check them out as a possible provider. Tell dave lynn that you’re from non-profit radio he’s the c o o you could reach dave lynn at seven one eight five o six nine triple seven or generosity siri’s dot com many thanks to them for their support of non-profit radio i have a new non-profit radio knowledge base, this one is on your board relationship. I know that lots of charities are struggling with their relationship with boards and board members. Just yesterday i had lunch with a ceo and a boardmember who were sharing their frustrations with there underperforming board, i’ve got links to non-profit radio interviews on getting the best out of your trustees. There’s a panel of three women who work in non-profits talking about that building a more effective board with gail gifford working with your small organization board. That was another panel board, a six with jean takagi and a couple of other links also all about your relationship with your board and getting the most out of your board. The video and the links are at tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, thirteenth of june twenty fourth show of twenty fourteen you know maria simple she’s, the prospect finder, she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com, and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now exclamation mark she’s, our doi n of dirt cheap and free you follow-up maria on twitter at maria simple. Welcome back, maria, good to talk to you. Good to talk to you. Thank you very much. You’re not going to say glad to be here or anything. Well, i am glad to be here, actually and it’s in my summer month and i’m always happy in the summer. So this is a good thing, excellent, and even happier on non-profit radio day, right? Absolutely. Now that i ve pimped you twice and you have no choice but to say yes. And i’m happy about everything. We’re talking about the right to be forgotten. This came from a spaniard who brought a case in the european court of justice. Yes. So, you know, i thought it was very interesting and i was wondering, you know, there might not be immediate applications for prospect researchers in the united states, but you know it. It got me to thinking what implications this might have five or ten years down the line in terms of information that might end up getting erased from google searches. Um, and it just got me to wondering, you know how how we have to maybe cross check data in other places, especially going forward? If if we’re going to start seeing data, you know, becoming race could it could even be more imminent than five or ten years? I think. Very well could be. You know, right now, um, one of the one of the steps that i had seen was that over forty one thousand europeans have actually asked through this online form that google has created to be for gotten so they want mention of themselves erased off of google search results. And that huge let’s set the scene in case everyone hasn’t heard of this. This was ah man in spain who brought a case to the european court of justice because there were links in searches of his name is just searching his name. There were links to old events that he thought were no longer relevant, right? It has to do with a realist state auction that was held, teo, settle some of what they call social security debts, whatever that meant. But he was, you know, not happy that that was still out there because he felt that the debts have been settled and so forth. And so he petitioned through this, uh, europe europe’s top court, which is the court of justice of the european union, i guess it’s somewhat similar to our supreme court and petitioned. And it was ruled in his favor that yes, google is going to have to comply. So of course, if google’s going tohave to comply, you have to think that the other major search engines like yahoo and microsoft being will also have to do the same and to comply. Google came up with this online form. I don’t know if you don’t know how you go directly to the form, i guess you can just search it. I think i ended up finding a link in one of the articles led me directly to the form and it’s pretty interesting because you actually have to select from a drop down menu one of the thirty two countries that are listed that you would reside in. You do need to provide some sort of a photo id, uh, so that i guess, you know, if you’re trying to get maybe say, a competitors, you know, information swipes or something like that, they want to make sure that yes, you are you’re the person and it’s information about you, etcetera, and so there are, you know, there’s certain things that you do need to do in order to comply, to get it to get the data removed, but they really think it’s going to be a very long time before google can’t even get through all of these. Requests. And right now it on ly pertains to the european union, as you said, the thirty two countries so this does not apply teo u s residents, but it could there’s potential that someone could bring a similar action on dh similarly succeed in the us i’m not i would not put it past somebody to come up with that idea, having read, you know, all the press that there is available out there about this particular ruling in europe. One thing that i didn’t realize i mean, i just thought that you go to google dot com and that’s just the one place to do research the devil, evidently there’s a google dot ceo dot uk, which is, i guess, the european equivalent of google’s search engine, so i think what they’re from my understanding of what i’ve read is that it’s going toe wife clean the search results that you would find on the european search engine and maybe not necessarily google dot com again, it’s also new and all such a grey area and google themselves trying to figure out how they’re going to end up complying with this whole thing. The implications than for prospect. Research are becoming apparent as we’re talking. You might not find everything that you’d like to find on someone, right? Right? And, you know, i can give you an example. Tony, of a search i was doing a number of years back, i was probably about ten years ago, i was doing some donorsearch research actually, i was just doing research. I wasn’t sure that this person was actually considered a donor prospect or not, because sometimes i’m doing the research because there’s, considering having this person as a high profile boardmember and so i’m doing the research, and i kept coming up with this a person’s name connected to corporate insider trading. So the bad kind of insider trading and at first i dismissed it because i thought, well, maybe it’s just the same name? Um, but then i came across one article that actually did link the person to the insider trading and linked to the person to current employment situation. So then i knew this was indeed the prospect, so i came i had a dilemma because right, if i put this information into a written profile, then, uh, any donor and he don’t prospect really has the right to walk into your organization and say, show me what information you’ve compiled on may i want to see my donor record on. And so i really had this dilemma, and i thought, well, what do i do with this information? So i decided to call the person who had hired me to do the research, and i asked, why are you having me do this research on this individual? Is it for a simple donation, or is there something more to this? And she said, oh, there’s a lot more to it. We are considering bringing him on the board, and our board chair thinks he would make a great treasurer for organization. Oh, my. So that was you know, i thought. Okay, well, red flag. So i decided to verbally give the information that i had found. I mentioned that the person had paid their fine had done their time. It was well in their past. But i did feel that the executive director didn’t need to know that this existed. Now why? This is really interesting dilemma. But why? Just verbally? Why? I mean, if if it’s bonified and you had confirmed it, why not? Put it in the written prospekt reports, well, we discussed that i told her that i would i don’t like to put information into a written profile that would potentially sever our relationship with somebody, and it could, you know, it was a potentially great relationship that could that could have existed. Um, so i did not want to eliminate that possibility for her if if he’d read this and said, well, you know, this was dug up on me and, you know, i’m uncomfortable with this, and i’m walking away from this organization hey, you know, clearly it was in his past, everything had, you know, all fine has been paid, and as i said on time, his concert, i just felt that it could end up, um, severing the relationship ultimately, and i didn’t want to several relationship before it even began, since they’re you know they’re may not have been any issues in the future. I just told her to tread carefully. You always have in the back of your mind what the donor or dahna prospect might think if they were to read this in the organizations report that you had written, yeah, it was absolutely there was the same reason i don’t like to delve into divorce records. Yeah, well, now i can see how that wouldn’t belong, but alright, it’s, just interesting. You always have this in mind that what would happen if the person were to read this about themselves in the organ in the organization’s files are always thinking away. Okay, interesting. And what what happened in that case? Did they end up inviting the person to be on the board? Do you know, or did they not? They did. They ultimately did, but i don’t think they put him in a treasurer position immediately. You know, i’m not sure down the line if that ended up coming to fruition, but it was certainly at least something that the executive director needed to be aware of. Excellent. Okay, excellent story. Thank you. Um, this all, you know sort of brings up also the the potential, the discretion, really, that google is goingto have and other search engines as they have to comply with this. The way i read the description i read, i didn’t read the court’s decision itself, but the description i read was that, you know, there’s some vague description or vague direction about, um, what google should consider inappropriate and what not, but but but nothing’s very, very specific. And so that leaves a lot of discretion for google as to whether something like what you described still belongs. I mean, it still could be very relevant, even though it’s in the past, you know, i mean, history is all in the past, we we were studying history all the time. So just because something is in the past google and detrimental to the person, google could still very well determine that that that belongs under that person’s search results, right? So now people are wondering, you know, it’s a matter of fact, i read an article that was in a may fifteenth edition of yusa today where, you know, they talked about, you know, that the court basically is here is blaming the messenger and, you know, this person had this, you know, situations in their path, google was simply giving you access to the information, and you know it e if if reputations can now be somehow, you know, as they’re calling it in this article, airbrushed on demand, right, you know, you’re going to have to think about, you know, well, it’s people who have done things, you know, maybe doctors who have botched surgeries and you just think about the implications of all the types of people that would be thinking about having this this shady past erased there’s just a scary amount of discretion that google has because the past is still relevant, but maybe some things are irrelevant howto how do you decide what’s relevant to other people and what’s not the other? The other very interesting thing about this is the information isn’t going away it’s not going to be removed from the internet if that’s even possible it’s just going to be removed from a search result with that from of that person’s name. So there really is a matter of fact, the very newspaper articles that this spaniard, you know, was it sat about still exist on the internet, more people have probably read the articles now than otherwise would have ever read them if he hadn’t brought to court. Um and so the articles still exists. It’s just getting to the articles by searching on this individual’s name is something that has been or will be very soon i’m not sure if it was removed or not, but i think it may be it wass at this point, but, you know, is you. Yeah, data is probably still going to exist. But as a prospect researcher, your main starting point is always with a person’s name. That’s. Why? I was wondering how this was really going to affect donorsearch research. I mean, we have a lot of institutions. Buy-in particularly hyre ed, that do their research. Donors who reside in europe, right. So you’ve got people who come to this country for their education on they go back or people who started, you know, as a u s citizen and are now living is expats in another country, so you know the borders being as fluid as they are. You can imagine, i know, maybe a very small social service organisation non-profit might not be in that situation as they’re researching their donors, because for the most part, they’re serving a geographic region and their donors come from that very small, smaller pool of people. But larger organizations that serve that our international and it doesn’t even have to be hyre ed, imagine the wise of the world or united ways we have to go out for a break. When we come back, marie and i are going to keep talking about this, and we’re gonna move teo, subject of the donors right to privacy and the code of ethics around around prospect research. So stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively clamber station top trends, sound advice, that’s. Tony martignetti, yeah, that’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. And i’m tony martignetti and with me is maria simple, the prospect finder, maria appa ra, the association of prospect researchers for advancement, they have something to say about donorsearch they dio there, they actually on their web site a statement of ethics, and i’d be glad to provide that link to your tear listeners. Tony on your facebook page, okay, we’ll put that after the takeaways. Yes, yeah, sure. And so the main pages apra home dot org’s a pr, a home dot org’s and so there, you know, that is the association that most professional prospect researchers would align with and rely on for their professional development. So there is a statement of ethics that the opera has and, you know, accountability and practice as well. I mean, i’m looking at one specific line that they have in their code of ethics around practice. It says that, you know, they shall on ly record data that is appropriate to the fund-raising process and protect the confidentiality of all personal information at all times dahna so, you know, they take donor-centric mation is safeguarded at their organizations password protect the software, for example, making sure that only people who need access to that information are going to get the access to the information. Well, let’s, go back to this donor. The confidentiality. I mean, how do you protect the person’s confidentiality when your task is to prepare research about the person? I mean, at the top of the page is the person’s name and, um the pages are loaded with stuff about the person. How do you how do they balance what they mean their protect confidentiality? So you want to make sure that on ly the people who need access to this information to advance fund-raising are going to have access to the information. First of all, the information is all derived from publicly available sources, right? So google obviously is one of those publicly available sources that we get information from. We’ve talked about hundreds of those on the show. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so what? You go to a lot of different sources to gather the information and bring it all together? The role of the prospect researcher is, too. Take all of that information, wade through it and come up with a concise profile. Most of the time, the information is is going to be embedded right into the donor record because then you can pull the reports, you know, as you need in the donor software, when i’m preparing the profiles, i just do it in a word document so that they can easily cut and paste the information and if if if, need be into their at their end. Obviously, i don’t have access to donor software that my clients are using, so you want to be sensitive to then who you’re emailing these two i don’t mean you as the prospect. Well, i don’t mean you personally, but the prospect researcher and they may very well in a smaller midsize shop not even be devoted to prospect research, so that let’s say, right, the person doing this research on donors and potential donors, you want to be very conscious of who you’re emailing these reports, too, right? As who has access to the to the next two folders where these prospekt reports are stored? Yes, absolutely mn it, and then you can imagine a situation where you get your development committee together and you’re doing perhaps some sort of peer review sessions so you might have printed profiles or data pieces of data pertaining to these individuals on the table, you know, every every development office really should have a good shredder in the office, and i would really encourage people not to allow boardmember sze some other volunteers involved in the development process tow, walk out with hard copies because you just don’t want this information, you know, floating around out there that’s very good admonition caution? Yeah, that that where the hard copies go and then they end up in the person’s office or home or something. Yeah, right? Yeah. Okay, talking about shredders, you know, i can’t stand seeing those shredders where it’s like quarter inch strips like a four year old could put those back together if if they wanted to there’s quarter inch long strips. I mean, you should get at least cross cut, if not the not the ones that make those little little paper tiny bullets, which you’re supposed to be impossible to put back together, right? And there are companies that you can hyre depending on how much you really have to shred, there are companies that you can you can hire to do shredding. I think that even in local companies like u p s stores. They have shredders located within those facilities, maybe even staples. I’m not sure i know ups does, but, you know, there are places that you can go then and taken have it securely shredded. So that might be something to consider. If you do have an awful lot, maybe maybe your office’s air moving and suddenly you find that. Okay, you’ve got files and files from maybe past years, and now things are going all electronic. What are you going to do with all of this? You don’t want to move it right, because you might not need to bring all of that old data with you, but yet it contains some potentially, you know, sensitive information that people would not want just floating around out there. Yes. And as you mentioned, there are services where they’ll just place a bin in your office. And then when it fills up, you call them and then they come and shred it and they and they give you back the empty bin. Yeah, what else? What else you thinking around? We’ve just about another minute or so. What else around this data? Data? Privacy and confidentiality? Well, again, just making sure that everything is very well password protected on lee allow people have access to the donor, soft to your donordigital base that absolutely needed shred anything that is printed and keep on top of what’s happening with this with this particular law that that occurred in the european union. And just you know what? Maybe you know, i will of course keep on top of it, tony, and weaken maybe revisited as things develop, even if we make it part of, you know, a small piece of the future show, but i think that that non-profits do need to be aware that this is out there and see the potential for its effect in the united states ask and you’ll you’ll be most successful, i think, in searching if you look for right to be forgotten, maria, thank you very much. Thank you, tony. My pleasure, maria simple. The prospect finder on twitter she’s at maria simple. Her sight is the prospect finder dot com next week, cindy gibson, our grants fund-raising contributor on the logic model, and deborah sharp from non-profit technology conference on user personas. If you missed any of today’s show, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam lever, which is our line producer, shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. The music is by scout stein of brooklyn, with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Yeah. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting thinking. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. E-giving nothing. Cubine are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m we’re gonna have fun, shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com, you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking. Bonem
