Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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My Guests:
Devon Smith & Julia Robinson: Secrets of Google Analytics
Do you want to use Google Analytics smarter? Devon Smith is co-founder of Measure Creative & Julia Robinson is manager of communications at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). We talked at the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference.
Gene Takagi: What’s Permissible Advocacy?
How much can your nonprofit participate in the presidential election? Can you educate? Endorse? Lobby? Gene Takagi walks us through what’s allowed; disallowed; and questionable. He’s our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group.
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week, the child care resource center in palmdale, california, at the non-profit technology conference, three people from there signed up to be non-profit radio insiders to have unsubscribed now that’s not true these three very special thanks jamie smith, lucy capurro and evelyn juarez thanks for being non-profit radio insiders. Thanks for loving non-profit radio shout out to our listener, the weak child care resource center in palmdale, california. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d get a barton ella insula infection if you cattle e told me that you missed today’s show secrets of google analytics do you want to use google analytics smarter? Kevin smith is co founder of measure creative, and julia robinson is manager of communications at business for social responsibility b s are. We talked at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference and what’s permissible advocacy. How much can your non-profit participate in our presidential election season? Can you educate endorse lobby? Jean takagi walks us through what’s allowed disallowed and questionable he’s, our legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations, law group on tony’s take two don’t let plan giving questions go unanswered. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled. You’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay for mobile donations. Crowdster dot com here are devon smith and julia robinson from the non-profit technology conference on google analytics. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc it’s, a non-profit technology conference. Of course, this is also part of ntc conversations. We’re in san jose at the convention center, and my guests are devon smith and julia robinson. They’re session topic is hidden secrets of google analytics. We’re going to get into that very shortly, right after we cover today’s, thiss interviews, swag item rich is these small stickers from benevolent dot net they read, be fierce bowl. Be inspired. Benevolent dot net and these join the swag pile for the conference. All right, let’s. Get into hidden secrets of google analytics with devon smith, who was co founder of measure creative and she’s, sitting closest to me, and julia robinson, manager of communications at b s our business for social responsibility. Welcome, julia devon, welcome. Thank you. I have his backwards, devon, you’re sitting closest to me, i am, yes, i did, i just say this backward don’t know, i said, devon, sitting close to me, yeah, julia, you’re over there. That’s correct, you are doubt you are julia, okay, you’re devon’s all right, very good. Google analytics. Now, this is sort of an advanced session that you ran. But i am not an advanced person, a knowledgeable person of google analytics. So you’re going to help me along. And, okay, we’ll do the best we can. Using let’s. See what you talked about here. Oh, labyrinth in corners. So let’s, start with this. Devon, what is it that non-profits sometimes have trouble with around google analytics? What are we not getting quite right? Yeah, good question. So i think a lot of non-profit organizations get really intimidated by google analytics because there’s so many buttons to push and reports to look at so many options of what you might want to look at. And so people just open up google analytics, get kind of nervous, click around and then shut it down and are like, no it’s too much, i can’t handle it. S o this session was trying to show them if you only looked at four reports in all of google analytics and what should those four reports, speed? And then with a couple of other topics as well? Ok, but so we could break it down to four report that on dh still be an advanced user. Exactly. Oh, so did you so hard. Your move, people from from my voice cracked again front, like i’m sixteen fourteen. Did you put people from basic teo advanced? Or they were already advanced that now they’re super users. Good question. I mean, i think it was a mix of people in the audience? I mean, there were definitely people there who, you know, we said, if you’ve opened up google analytics, got nervous and tried it down like that’s, okay, we’ll hope that or if you are pretty advanced user, but you want to kind of take it to the next level. We can also help you do that with new front in code, a new kind of administrative setting, so it actually help you take it even further than you’ve been able to before. Okay? All right. So, julia, why don’t we start with he’s four report you what? You concur with devon, i presume four reports and ok, make sure there’s no dissension thiss pamela too. Okay. All right, so why don’t we start with four report these reports that give us an overview of the four reports? What? How way what would we gain from these four reports that we’re gonna talk about shortly? I would say first off it, as devin says, that it does kind of help you narrow down what you’re looking at. It could be a little bit scary at first to start in google analytics. And i would also say that it having that narrow focus means that you can actually go much deeper toe understand what you know, google analytics is an extremely powerful tool, and i think a lot of non-profits don’t realize that that you can go down to even understanding who specific users, maybe not a person’s name, but a certain institution or a founder fun foundation or something like that. You can really that information what they’re doing on your site exactly. So that’s, the first report that we looked at is whose browsing your website. What are you doing? What a transition. Okay, devon, what is this first report called it’s called the service provider reports service provider reports, which is not a very descriptive name, but it’s basically the internet service provider. The name of the organization who is using internet browser website. Oh, so we get s p i guess, exactly. And to and from that, we could gain glean what julia just said exactly. Yeah. So google knows the name of the organization who owns that s p and so they will tell you what the name of that organization is. We’ll give you the organization. Yeah, sure, exactly. Oh, i mean, not just the not just the number, but that number called myself, but yeah, you’re you’re you’re here. I’d be addressed. Thank you. They will not give you not just i p address actually name of exactly so it’s. An incredibly powerful report and probably the most underused report and all of google analytics is actually saying who is looking at your website? Alright, this service provider report. How do we selected? Set it up. What do we do? Yes, it’s it’s. Just a selection. It’s called in the audience section and then technology and then service provider. So there’s kind of a couple of layers of tio pulled down or something. Okay, i don’t do the analytics for my sake. We have analytics. Yeah, tony martignetti dot com. But i don’t set them up, but we do talk about them every month. Run and we react to them. And so i think i feel like you should ask your analyst to provide you. But which of the organization’s looking service provided report. Okay, so lead us through the path again. I was amazed by what it goes from audience to technology to service. Provider okay, and then what do we do? Just select this report? Yeah, just like that report. And what we actually talked about in the session is when you first see the report, it actually doesn’t look very useful because a lot of the top results are things like verizon t comcast there, although like generic internet service providers that, you know, serve internet to you at your home or on a mobile device on dso what we looked at and the session was actually screening out those not useful results just to look at the organization’s you actually care about, like the government, like funders like other non-profits appears depends who you wanna look. So so, julia, how do we screen out the ones that are not interesting to us? So you actually do have to go in and look at what the what list is coming up? And it will usually give you i mean, even thousands of results, and you have to go in and see who are the top users, and then are those people that you want to hear from? So sometimes i’ll go into a segment for government, maybe, and a communications agency will pop up on that list, and then we’ll just make sure to exclude them. How do you exclude? I am not sure. Devon. Yes, it’s. In an advanced segment, you have to build a segment of those organizations that you care most about. So in the, you know, government segment, you might say, i want the name of any organization that includes city of state of department of agency of, and i’ll just bring you back a list of all those organizations who include that particular siri’s of names and the same works with an exclusion. So if a name appears on that list because there, you know, the city of new york library, but library isn’t really. A government institution issue might exclude the word library from argast you, khun khun, select or exclude exactly in the same way, exactly. Okay. All right, so we need to get down let’s assume that big ones like horizon comcast, etcetera, not of interest us need to get down to where we really want to be out. Otherwise, i mean, they’re in the report, right? But we have to continually sift through all these top level ones that were not interested in yeah, so once you apply the right so once you apply that advance segment, then those ones you don’t care about go away and you just see the ones you actually care about, okay? An advanced segment. What does that mean? We have george in jail on twenty martignetti number on radio. I’m concerned that this session is going to be free. It’s gonna go? Yeah, google analytics jargon it. Yeah, it is. What is an advanced session on advanced segment is thin named by google analytics, so unfortunately, i can’t change the name it all but in advance segment as a way to temporarily exclude information from the report you’re looking at. So if you say i’m looking for support, but i only want to see, you know, couple of the organizations in this long list of a thousand you would apply in advance segment to that report, and then you only see the organizations you care about, ok, every time, every time you, every time you get this report, exactly, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. Fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Oppcoll how do we receive these reports? We get to my e mail, you have to goto analytics dot google dot com what good questions? So we covered automated email reports in the session, actually, so once you’ve gone through all those clicks to get to this really kind of sophisticated report, you don’t want to have to recreate that process every time so you can actually set an automated email on that email can get sent out with a pdf of that report on any time siri’s you like to the list of stakeholders that would actually care about that information. Dahna okay, like yourself with the website if you didn’t want to wait for the monthly reporting, but you wanted, you know, every week a list of the top organizations browsing her website, you’d actually get that sent it to you straight from google and what they were looking at. Ok, very good for the social manager could. Exactly all right, what else? Julia, should we know about the service provider report anything more noise? I would say that the thing that’s that could be tough going from getting that information is two then knowing what to do with it. So you have the information. You have this great data. What do you then do? How do you change your strategy so that you know, you can take advantage of it. So, for example, we use it to look at dahna potential partners on then we can understand. Okay, this partner is visiting our web site a lot. Maybe it’s time to give them a call. Do we know what pages different partners or potential partners of organizations on the list have have visited? Absolutely along. They’ve stayed on each page. You know that all that information is available. Yes. Service provider. Report. Yes. It’s. Incredible. So by organization, i can see that they looked at my contact page and they looked at this particular podcast pay whatever this show post and that they’ve downloaded a podcast that they, you know, spent twenty minutes on the site listening to the broadcast. You know any of those things? That’s, pretty scary service provider report. Okay, let’s, go to our next for what’s. The other one, it’s the next one was, i think a channel source reports. Oh, kind of how people arrive to your website from someone else’s website whether that was twitter or some other organization who linked to your website it’s an acquisition report. Okay, this’s, referring, referring the referring domains, domains. Exactly, don’t we know that our that’s not very commonly known? So what we did in this particular instance is google just gives you a long list of thousands of different websites who sent traffic to your site it’s helpful when you khun group those names together that are similar. So in bazaars case, you know, they have a bunch of kind of job listing sites that some traffic to their site for job seekers. They have other media partners, like new york times or fast company, when you can see all those sources that are similar together, and then actually start to see the trends of traffic from media or says partners were says, you know, other types of organizations, so just being able tio kind of put mohr finer detail on this poster close closer that type. Exactly. Julia, can you explain how how we do this in the channel? Sources report source. Singular gentle source report source reports that report in and kick that back over to devon actually cause she’s our she’s. More technical than me, okay, we’ll give you a chance, you’ll introduce the next yeah, so just give a little bit of background. So julie is a client of our agency, so more often, the ones kind of building reports are or talking to julie about what she wants to see in a report, and then we’ll build a financial built actually used the information with her stakeholders. So when you’re building, when you’re clustering, these organizations together it’s really applying that same advance segment technique. So you’re building an advance segment but defines who you consider a media source. And so you might say, here the top twenty media sources for organization and now when i want to see just what those twenty media organizations are doing buy-in advance segment and any report and google analytics, i can actually see projects from this because you choose the names of the different groupings clusters exactly, yes so it’s all it’s, all defined by you the organization or buy you the client, then s o that you’re using keywords in the organizational name exactly define what you want. How are you using the channel source report? Same same way or yeah, we’re we’re using it, you know, similarly, to understand where people are coming from, i actually use it quite frequently as as a gut check, so because i work on our social media side, i you know, seo, this tweet got really good engagement that must have driven traffic to the website, and if you go and look back, you can say, oh, maybe it didn’t actually do so well or yes, this did perform it did send people back to the website. One thing that was interesting is that we have a much bigger twitter following than a facebook following, but we actually get more traffic from facebook than we do from twitter, which means that maybe we wantto change our strategy so that on twitter, we’re using that to share announcements and things that we want people to make viral or spread more broadly and then on facebook, maybe where using that for more called actions or getting people to the website. Okay, would you conclude from that that you’re facebook users arm or engaged though fewer in number than your twitter users follow-up home? It’s a good question, i think it’s just that the platforms serve different purposes. I think that twitter’s more about staying on the platform. And maybe facebook isn’t. In our case, i don’t think that’s necessarily true for everyone. Okay, okay. Now, anything else we should say about the channel source report a little something. So i mean, the key to it is really using it to adjust her marketing strategy. So once you see how people are getting to your site, making sure their adjusting your approach to marketing based on the kind of return that you’re getting from that investment in those different channels. All right, julia, you wantto introduce the next next report report. Let’s say we did audiences. What are they looking for? The search reports, right? Yeah. So search reports on you can do this in a couple different ways. So one is to go into your ceo and look at the search terms that people are using on google to get to your website. And then you can also do an internal search report. So if you have a search function on your website, you can go in and see all the key words. That people used to when they got on your web site, what they were looking for once they got on your website. Okay, this one, this is it’s, also something to set up. Back-up yeah, yeah, sort of your google analytics uses google analytics. Yeah, not not when you’re searching on your own, obviously on your own side within your own site. Exactly. But okay, so you set up another so in the report in the search engine optimization report is basically what it’s called seo queries. You have to kind of connect it with this web master tools account that kruckel gives you, which is totally separate from google analytics, and then it’ll give you more information about not only what words people are using in google when they got to your site, but even just that your organization appeared in a search result, whether or not someone actually clicked it from google in tears whether or not someone actually okay, okay, i don’t feel like i have a grasp on this one as well as i did the first two. Yeah? Why is that? Yeah. So think about it. Anybody not one report. This is searching. This is not a report that schnoll analytics produces it. It does? Yeah, the report what it looks like is a bunch of search queries, so that could be everything from, you know, what is non-profit radio to how do i get help with google analytics? And if this podcast was was, you know, posted on the website on git yeah, you know, it’s really tagged exactly was properly tagged in-kind had all the right key words. You could actually see what words people are using in a google search to find that piece of content, and so the kind of point of our conversation er during the session and wass look att the content needs of your users and make sure your website is delivering on those needs. So we went through an example of searching just for the word other words, who, what, where, when, why and how? And all of your google search results and see what are those questions people have about your content that they want answered and make sure that you’re actually answering those questions on your website? Okay, that’s all thank you. Bringing me alone. Thank you, both of you. Thank you, julia. Your experience. With the with the search report, i would say there’s two things the first is that helped us understand when we had a report that an actual, you know, research report that was well titled it would get a lot more downloads or hits directly from google because people were searching, you know, how do you do this thing? And the report would be, how do you know how to do this thing? And so those would come up a lot more. So it’s learning better titles is one thing or sort of better, better tagging better content in that way on and then the other one is learning the gaps. So what are people searching for both on your website or on google? And you’re not providing it to them? How would you know that in the report? S o for the internal, if its internal search so on your own site, maybe they’re searching for a term and you know that that term isn’t on the website. Maybe you start creating some content related to that, or maybe you more closely match the words that people air using from google s o that you appear hyre in search. Or so it looks so that you are look like a better resource for them to click on, okay? And you could do that within tags to right. You could do that, you know, that meta tags you could do that in the title. You could do that in the earl and also in the body of whatever the pages. So sometimes it’s just about using the language that your audience is using instead of your own kind of internal jorgen so we went through a recent project with b s are around women’s in a quality women kind of women’s impact on the economy, and there were lots different opportunities, so you could think about gender inequality, a female inequality, just women, girls you could think about using lots of different terms in your content, but actually look to see what what words your users are actually using in their own language, and then try to adapt more of your content of their language patterns for sure doesn’t matter what you’re talking about in the office, exactly like the ones who who we’re trying to bring to the cause and to our content, right? All right, so this report helps me figure out what? What? That language is that they’re using, right? All right, very good. Fourth what’s, our last report. What did they do on your site? So did they download something that they give money to you? What other kind of events that happened on your website what’s? This one called so it’s in the behavior section and then events is that the nemo record events co-branding this’s events? What? They they they consider people traveling through your sight to be an event? Yes, the skiffle thiss gets technical any non earl based change is an event. So if you think about someone browsing your site, they go from one page to another page, not an event. If they take some action on a page that doesn’t result in a new girl. That’s an event so that could be scrolling down. The page is an event clicking on a button could be an event clicking on on anchor link that, like, drops you down the page suddenly is an event. Anything that happens on the page that doesn’t result in you moving to a new page, isn’t it so? I always thought this was totally on trackable. It’s uncrackable by scrolling down on a page is track that is one of the topics we cover in the session that’s called scroll depth tracking and we actually provide the front and code that you need to install on your website so that you can see how far down every page on your website people scrolled for a particular piece of constant incredible. I always thought that only clicks which which i guess what result in a new page we’re trackable, but i was very vastly wrong. Yeah, so about a week so about a third of the session ended up covering event tracking and how to implement new code on your website that you actually can’t track all these events. Okay, is that anywhere that listeners confined? It isthe slideshare dot net slash devin v smith slideshare dot net slash devon de vo and the smith? Yep. That’s correct. You can download all the slides from the session and it has all the code there. Korea. Whoa! That’s. Incredible. All right, so what do you do with it? You know, on whatever page people scroll. Only twenty five percent of the way. Another page they scroll thirty three. Percent away and that’s when the scrolling what else? Tell me, what else was trackable on? Don’t generally any non non earl? Yeah, changing event. But so are our item, which is an event because if you don’t change girls, it’s an event? Yeah. Okay, what are the events besides scrolling us? You could look at clicking a button on the site on dh that might, like give you, like a pop up form where you might submit an email address and then go into something else. You can even use event tracking if you’re like having event registration system that’s a third party platform. If you want to see what other sites people go to from europe site to some third party platform, that would be event tracking kapin yeah, anything that’s not just going to a new page on your site could be an event. This is vast. Julia, what do you do with this? S so we actually use probably the biggest one for us is report downloads because we have a lot of research reports, and so that helps us track how many reports they’re getting downloaded versus people just going to the page looking at the page and then going somewhere else. So there’s the you know, the page that has the report on it, and then you click on it to download. Not everybody downloads. So it’s, good to know who’s doing that. Um, i think scroll dept is great because it means that it can help understand if we should change with the designer layout of the page so that the most important information is up top or understanding how far people get down the page. Maybe we adjust what the page looks like or what information we put where, depending on what we think is the most important thing. Thanks. Okay. Anything else? There’s a ton of stuff in this? Yeah. It’s a pretty big one. There’s also con contact. So when people contact us it’s good to know which we have a bunch of different contacts for. You know, if you want to do research report, if you’re from a specific industry, we have a lot of different people. You can talk, teo. So the ones that were the most popular maybe we’ll put that button somewhere that’s, more prominent, or will ensure that the person is on the other end. Of that is properly responding to all of those e mails. Okay, ladies, we’re gonna wrap it up there because it was slightly technical and, you know, without official pretty one. Yeah, yeah. All right. It’s about as technical as they get, but perfect place to end it with joy and again slideshare dot net slash devon v smith. Okay, said it three times. And devon v smith is co founder at measure creative and julia robinson manager communications. P s our business. Is it business or business is business business for social responsibility, ladies. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Twenty martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc non-profit technology conference. Thank you so much for being with us. Jean takagi and what’s. Permissible advocacy coming up first pursuant and crowdster pursuant has a free webinar coming up. They’re inviting you donorsearch relation’s the disney way. If walt disney was your ceo, how would you treat your donors? How would you inspire your staff? What would you do differently? Webinars on may third. Registration and info are at tony dot m a slash pursuant disney. Have you checked out crowdster for your next peer-to-peer? Event, maybe that’s a run walk? Um, i just referred someone to crowdster for a lacrosse tournament, they’re micro sites and dashboards are they’re simple. They’re elegant, easy, flexible for your donors and for their friends. Who, of course, they’re broad drawing in rights all purposes. They’re drawing your networks in easy for everybody to use. The back end is easy and that’s important for your oversight of the campaign, they added apple pay for mobile donations. You can talk to the ceo jo jo the ceo joe dot ferraro at crowdster dot com tell him you’re from non-profit radio and when did you get the ceo of kickstarter? Never gonna happen now time for tony’s take two. My video this week is another story from my client baruch college and alum asked about including the college in his will. We answered his questions. We gave him what he needed. And indeed he put a bequest in his will for the college. Then he e mailed us and told us about the three colleges that didn’t answer his questions. Ah, what happened to them? The video is that tony martignetti dot com if you want to be a non-profit radio insider if you want to get advance notice of the guests and an advanced link to my weekly videos, also go to tony martignetti dot com and in the operate click the email icon that’s tony’s take two time for live lister love podcast, pleasantries and affiliate affections. I know you didn’t think that i forgot them. Perish the thought i know you didn’t, lovelace their love is going out tio. My goodness. Whole new list. Sam, give me a double. But woe. San francisco, california, san jose. Portland, oregon. Bensalem, pennsylvania. Orza, bensel. Um, it sounds like bensonmum. That’s from was that movie from a murder by death. Bensonmum. Anyway. Ben salome, pennsylvania, then for colorado. Wilmington, north carolina. I’m going to be there very shortly, not-for-profits, but buy a new home in emerald isle. They got new yorkers. We got new york, new york, brooklyn, new york and staten island, new york. That’s. Three of the five boroughs. Where where are queens and brooke? Queens and the bronx? Don’t know. Not with us, but staten island, manhattan and brooklyn are focus on the positive. Albany, new york, upstate and st louis, missouri. Thank you so much. Lots of domestic live listener love today love it! We got we got brazil has checked in brazil. We don’t hear from brazil all that often. So i’m going to say ah, is buenos tardes is would that be correct? No. That’s that’s, that’s, that’s spanish that’s, right? Brazil? Of course you speak portuguese, so i’ll just shut out the city salaries daemon treyz, brazil! Thank you so much for being with us. What is the portuguese opening? Gado? Gado gado. Thank you. Are ah ho! Jon are our intern. Thank you. We’re going. We’re going to asia. Seoul. Of course. Always always counting on seoul, south korea. So generous. Annual haserot and also in china beijing and tai yun ni hao. Naturally, tokyo is with us always counting on tokyo too. Konnichi wa lots of live listen. Love today lovett affiliate affections that comes next in the same breath i mean it’s all this it’s all the same. You know it’s just there’s. No distinction, really. Between the love and the affection of the pleasantries, it’s all the same. I just get carried away with a liberations. That’s all affiliate affections are am and fm listeners throughout the country love you. Thank you so much for being with us whatever time your station is playing us whatever day so glad you’re with us on am and fm, those terrestrial listeners and the podcast pleasantries are over ten thousand whatever event, whatever device, whatever day, whenever you’re listening binge listening, i was talking to some ah, a binge listener on twitter last week she was catching up with like the last six episodes or so six hours of non-profit radio love it podcast pleasantries to those listeners. Jean takagi is with us. I know he’s there you know him he’s, the managing editor, managing attorney of neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco and he edits the popular non-profit law blogged dot com, which is a very popular block, by the way non-profit law blob dot com gets a lot of traffic because it’s xero smart info there, done by jean and, uh and his firm and on twitter you want to check him on twitter he’s at g tak gt a k welcome back, jane takagi. Thanks, tony. Hi. Hey, how you doing out there? San francisco doing great and nice to hear all the love affection in pleasantries out there. Yes, thank you. Are you look ng segmented them. Thank you. See that gracious you are. Thank you. Yeah. That’s. What? I love it. I love it. Um, so we’re talking ah, jean because we’re in the presidential election cycle very, very timely about advocacy what you can do, what grayce area what you definitely better stay away from but, you know non-profits you know, they have interest in the outcomes here. I mean, they can’t just be totally on the sidelines. Yeah, absolutely. Tony. And, you know, i think non-profits everyone of us, if i include myself in the group, is being a boardmember way all supporting promote some cause right now, i think that’s just natural with non-profit organizations were furthering our mission. We’ve gotta support to promote our cause, and i think particularly with some of your audience tony fundraisers know that more than anybody, i’m sure they do absolutely but it’s critical, you know, supporting and promoting our cause goes beyond just talking to prospective donors. It goes to talking to the general public and making sure that they’re aware and we really can’t forget about the policy makers like the legislators. Andi even the administrative agencies out there because they set all of the rules for our playing field and there’s non-profits we want to make sure that the rules take into account our organizations and communities needs a swell because the laws can sometimes be on our side, and sometimes they can be very much against what we want to do. You know what non-profits have done in the past? I mean, really responsible of the community for really the most important public policies that that we hold most dear to us, and that really shape our country like civil rights, women’s rights, disability, right. Some education, health, religion, environmental protection, animal welfare. You know, no matter what are our causes are, um, a lot of that has been shaped by the non-profit sectors it’s just groups of individuals coming together in an organized manner and telling the lawmakers out there, be aware of our needs and our causes. We reflect ten percent of the employee population in america. We are a strong block out there on our views are important to us, and the public thinks our views are important as well. So holding potential elected officials accountable for promoting the issues that we have is important, and we can do a lot in an election year. I know a lot of organizations are afraid because five of twenty three is all about, like you can’t engage in substantial robbing, you can endorse political candidates, but there’s still a lot you could do you know what, jean? What an articulate, oh, and heartfelt endorsement of what are non-profit community sector is is all about really? That was that was very touching. That was that was wonderful. You’re absolutely right. I mean, ah, the only thing you didn’t mention is ah, what? Fifteen? I think between ten and fifteen percent of our gross domestic product is held in assets or flows through the non-profit community every year, which is around one and a half trillion dollars or so. So that was really i could. I could i could feel the emotion in that gene. I know why i know why you do the work. You do? I mean, i’ve known for years, but i felt it wonderful. Um, yes, and absolutely. Ah, there are things that we can do. Um now the things that that are some potential places where you can you might be participating in some areas? They’re basically ones that either have, i think, a direct impact on you as an organization or your mission or those who you’re serving. So i sort of capsule ate that. Yeah, i think that’s that spot on, and i’ll just give you an example of a bored i used to serve on, and they turned us off. It was a fantastic organization that worked with children and youth in san francisco, and there is a local budget cut two services to children and youth. Oh, and, uh, the leadership of the non-profit quickly organized parents and told them to bring all of their kids along to city hall. The next day, about two hundred showed up with their kids, and they also invited the news crews to come out there as well. Well, within a week, budget cuts restored back to the back two children. Snusz alright, zoho really that advocacy and action and advocacy totally makes a difference whether you’re talking about a small non-profit or or a large non-profit and you’d likely have a lot of friends out there so really important things you can do out there, yeah. Thank you for saying that you got turned off off the board. You weren’t. You weren’t thrown out my back, which would be a huge mistake. I mean, i wouldn’t even let you turn off aboard. I would amend the bylaws to keep jean guy, which explicitly say, jean takagi, lifetime or as long as desired, but, um, but i don’t run and that’s why i’m not an executive director or ceo. So all right, so budget cuts are good if there’s a law to write, if if there’s ah, law that’s going to affect you as an organization or the people you’re serving, you know those those could be advocated. Tuas well, write as well as budget. Yeah. I mean, i think think of all the non-profit listeners out there right now. And and what does minimum wage? Wass what? How did that theo used equality, equal access, you know, environmental stuff, the federal government government funding just a couple years ago. And it just got put into regs last year about recognizing the need for federal grants to start to pay for your overhead as well. I mean, before it could escape, you know, government wanted to pay. For your programs, they don’t want to pay for any of your overhead, and now there was kind of recognition and thanks tow advocacy by non-profits saying, recognize that we can only run programs with some overhead? This isn’t an all volunteer arika so all of those things are laws that affect mission, the people you served, and i’ll just give you another example because it’s just a little bit outrageous and this one is from california, but it it could spread into multiple states and there’s a bill right now that originally proposed that every non-profit raising funds in california, no matter whether they were located in california or not, if they raised funds in california, they had to put their overhead figures on their website. Now that bill has changed because that was probably unconstitutional. But now that bill has changed and it’s still being being running through committees right now, effectively putting requiring that every non-profit who’s raising funds in california again, regardless of where you’re located in the nation of these funds here on every single fund-raising document you send out every letter, every mailing, every postcard, anything, every email you’ve got to put a consumer. Protection warning label latto oh, my goodness gracious, you guys a ridiculous law that is hoexter organization that creates costs and, again, probably unlawful anyway, but without non-profit standing up and saying, hey, you’re really hurting the communities that we serve, not just us, you know, and these air based on a few, you know, bad examples of some non-profit scandals that hit the newspapers, some legislators want to jump on that you’ve got to push back yeah, california’s remarkable, i mean, it’s, it’s, it’s so progressive in some respects, and then so i guess the progressivism becomes so ah, so extreme that it becomes burdensome, i mean, and burdensome and and della tiberius yeah, you know, just some people are on our extreme progressive for mo are just don’t have enough information, and they make laws that they are going to make them champions of consumers, and they’re just not looking at the big picture and and non-profits have gotta educate lawmakers. Yeah, you and i talked months ago about the charity registration requirement that that all well, if you were fund-raising in california, you had teo you had teo comply or be subject to your your your your activities being ceased and then transferred to other other other agencies. If it was an extreme case, where does that where’s that one stand gene that that went actually passed? That’s the administrative regulation? Um, not enough, non-profit, you know, probably knew about it and spoke up against that and that actually passed through the attorney general’s office. We don’t know how it’s going to be enforced, but yeah, boardmember personal liability if you if you continue to spend money and you’re suspended or you’re not properly registered and that could affect, you know, literally a couple hundred thousand organization. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I don’t want to revisit that one because it has impact as import outside california, does it not? Yeah. You know, whenever one state makes a law and if it’s not really seen as an out liar in california because you notice you noted that it’s known as a progressive organizations are progressive state. So, you know, other states going well, we should be able to pass laws like that as well. Which sounds quite conservative and hot. So progressive right on. So, yes, you have a big state like california passing fairly draconian laws and that khun spread throughout the states. A zoo, other charities, regulators. Alright, everyone. I displayed a body’s. Think about that. They want to talk about that next time. Um, okay, um, it’s interesting with the political spectrum. It bends so far that the left meets the right. I think i think we’re seeing that in some of the presidential media coverage to but in case um, okay. Let’s, let’s continue with the advocacy let’s talk about some things that are that are permissible actual activities, not just things that you could be advocating about, but, like bills and balls, etcetera. But just we just have about two minutes before a break. So let’s, just start to get to the subject of some of the activities that you can actually do. Yeah. So? So let’s talk about first stating the organization’s position on a public policy issues. So we listed a bunch of them earlier. So let’s say it’s, equal rights like you, khun state that position and in an election year may get more visibility. Thanet might in another years. So you know, whether it be gun control or better schools are, you know, women in minority in positions of power. Whatever it is, state your organization’s positions on public policy issues and continue doing so during an election year. That’s. Absolutely. Okay, okay, so stating on your on your website on your facebook page, etcetera, that’s permissible, yeah, absolutely not. Just teo, you know, tio in your fund-raising documents, but just, you know, to get your mission out there and make sure everybody’s educated about it. Okay, okay, i’ll tell you what, let’s, let’s, take our break now and will come back. We got a lot more, ah, permissible, advocate, and you talk about with with jean. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craig’s listen marquis of eco enterprises charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that or neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Duitz i’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Thank you very much. Dahna ostomel, um okay, gene. Uh, so yes, talking you can. You can put your position out there. That’s totally fine. Even if it’s something controversial, right? That’s, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, what else but let’s talk a little about lobbying? Kendry? Sure. Yeah. So certainly we can attempt to influence legislation, including ballot measures, and they’re certain limitations involved. But charities actually have pretty broad, generous limits would respect to their lobbying the code again? Five twenty three says no substantial lobbying, really? And that scares a lot of organizations so that most charities don’t engage in any lobbying at all but lobbying released influencing legislation, so influencing the creation of laws, or i’m getting rid of laws or proposing new laws. The attempt to influence that is generally called lobbying and certainly non-profits when, when laws are going to directly impact them in the many ways we talked about should attempt to influence legislation and they can. And if they make something called the five a one h elections, um, that’s a way of measuring lobbying where lobbying is just measured on expenditures, it doesn’t look a volunteer activities or what portion of your website or your you know your staff is devoted to lopping. It just looks at how much you spend on lobbying and that’s how much the limit is it’s very, very clear. It’s very easy to elect. And we recommend that for any charity, that’s really got less than a twenty million dollars annual budget. Pretty much all public charities. Except they’re really, really big ones. Five o n h election it’s formed fifty seven, sixty eight from the irs. Sorry, but the technical dahna but it’s like a half page form the easiest form that the irs has. And it’s just my my strongest recommendation for any groups. So you can engage in lobbying and feel really safe about it. Okay, cool. A fiver. One h election. So what’s the number, the number of the form again. One more time. I arrest form fifty seven, sixty eight. Just google it and it’ll be right there. Outstanding. All right, cool. Love that of that. All right. So lobbying. Why dope now? Lobbying could be laws. We could also be regulations. Right? Like that. Attorney general regulation california. That regrettably passed, but it could be either one. Yeah. Great point. So the limitation, the lobbying latto limitations that they can’t engage in substantial lobbying on ly refers to legislative laws. So not the administrative laws which come from an executive branch of the government for executive actions and administrative regulations. You can advocate changes in those without limit as long as it’s in furtherance of your mission, you can go ahead and do it to your heart’s content. No limitations on that. Oh, wow. Okay, that is not considered lobbying. Alright, so any any agency regulation? Right? I arrest environmental protection agency, federal trade commission, all of that stuff in state, state and local as well. Yeah, state. Okay, as long as it’s not coming out of your state capital or your city legislature. But like you said, non executive branch, right or executive branch? Right. It’s coming from the executive branch, not the legislative. Sorry. Sorry. Right. My fourth grade civics class? Yes. It’s coming from the executive branch of local, state or federal. Okay, so that’s, really? I mean, regulations are enormous. I mean, the irs operates on the internal revenue code. That’s that’s a vast regulation body there’s there’s. Lots to advocate. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So regulations are wide open and then for the laws of cars we’ve got our five oh, one h. Okay, let me not miss state that educational activities probably the main way you engage in advocacy. So not just stating your position, but educating the public, educating lawmakers, educating candidates, even that’s. Okay, you can provide a briefing to them on the organization’s issues and priorities. Absolutely fine, as long as you do it in a nonpartisan manners to just give it out all your candidates. So that there where k, maybe those non-profits constituencies are really looking at this issue when you’re not telling them how to vote, you’re not asking them for, you know, for them to take a position, you’re just giving them information, but about the organization’s issues and priorities, and you’re just educating them. Okay, so educational activities we could host events, teo teo, promote our opinion of of ah homelessness or something like that. Yeah, absolutely. You can. You can hold events. And if you want, you can invite all the candidates. Now. If you have have them speak, they’re going to be certain. Things that you’re gonna have to require, but as long as it’s done in a non partisan manner, you can be super big advocates on your issues, okay? Or you don’t even have to have candidates, but you could have you going issue nights to educate the public. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And they don’t have to be directly related to your mission. Work. Yeah. I mean, they should advance your mission in some way. Okay? And all of the activity should advance your mission in some way. But yeah, they don’t have to necessarily be pinpoint. Yeah. Okay. Like you said earlier, minimum wage, for instance. Right? Ok, we could take a stand on minimum wage. You know, maybe we don’t work with people in poverty, but we have employees. And we we believe they should be paid a living wage. And we believe all organisations and companies in the state should pay a living wage. So we’re advocating for ah, for increase in the minimum wage in our state is that? Is that okay here? Because your organization, it sort of has a broad admission of working for a mission of out of community values and families and things. Like that? Yeah, absolutely. Minimum wage impacts all of that stuff. Okay, okay, so we get so lobbying and then ah, the administrative changes, which is not considered lobbying, so i don’t want to watch my terms here because i’m talking to an attorney. So, so advocating for the regulations that’s not lobbying, but its vast. And then you got your lobbying for laws, and you got your education activities all permissible, right? Right. Okay. Should we switch gears? Tio what you can’t do? Oh, wait, no that’s a good idea. Okay, but before we do that let’s talk about what individuals who are employees of your organization can do so excellent. So, yeah, what? What we talked about impermissible for non-profits doesn’t mean it’s impermissible for their employees or boardmember zzzz individuals. So, yeah, everybody has first amendment rights. Of course, individuals could endorse candidates and support candidates all they want. And they just have to be careful if their organizations are put next to their name. In terms of, like supporting a political, a particular political candidate that there’s some sort of footnotes. Listeners probably have seen this before. Some sort of footnotes that says that the name of the organization is there for identification purposes on lee and is not an endorsement by the organization of that candidate. Okay, yeah, don’t use the organization named okay, we just have about a minute and a half left. We’ve got to run through what’s impermissible. I know. Endorsing a candidate. You can’t do it right. So easy ones. No endorsements, no contribute contributions to a candidate and not just money, but using other organizational resources. And that gets subtle sometimes. So don’t let your employees use their organizational email address to engage in their first amendment rights election year. They got to use their private email for stuff like that. Okay, give us give us amore impermissible sure, be careful of working on a wedge issue that you haven’t been working on all year. So it’s an issue that that the candidates in a particular election are have a different opinion upon and that may pivot the way the election results come out and you’ve not campaigned on that issue are done. Any advocacy all year and all of a sudden, two weeks before the election, you start doing it. Looks like that’s really election nearing. Okay, getting candidates. To find pledges on an issue or endorse the organization’s agenda, coordinating activities with candidates evaluating or grading candidate positions, those air all impermissible. Okay, we’ve got to leave it there. Gene takagi. Thank you so much. We squeezed it in, but but we covered a lot. Thank you very much, gene. Great, thanks my pleasure. Always you’ll find him at the non-profit law block dot com. And on twitter at g tak next week, your emotional intelligence and peer-to-peer fund-raising tips if you missed any part of today’s show, i entreat you find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? Hyre please show me the path i need to know the way with this. Responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay for mobile donations. Crowdster dot com. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez and this outstanding music is by scott stein. Thank you for that information. Scotty, be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
