Tag Archives: 21NTC

Nonprofit Radio for June 7, 2021: Nonprofit Partnerships & Partnerships With African American Churches

My Guests:

Taylor Leake & Jack Valor: Nonprofit Partnerships

Our 21NTC panel reminds you: You don’t have to do your work alone. You can increase your exposure by promoting the work of other orgs, and even fundraise in partnership with other nonprofits. They’re Taylor Leake with Corporate Accountability and Jack Valor at Mal Warwick Donordigital.

 

 

 

 

Aneta Lee & Oliver Richmond: Partnerships With African American Churches

Now that you’re motivated to partner up, look to Black churches. Aneta Lee and Oliver Richmond help you understand the idiosyncrasies of church culture and how to cultivate a relationship. Aneta is from Aneta Uplifts and Oliver is with Kingdom Partners. This is also from 21NTC.

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:46.34] spk_3:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. We’re back to regular energy low. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with Dyskinesia if you moved me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Non profit partnerships. Our 21 NTC panel reminds you you don’t have to do your work alone. You can increase your exposure by promoting the work of other org’s and even fundraise in partnership with other nonprofits. They’re taylor leak with corporate accountability and Jack Valor at Mall Warwick, donor digital and partnerships with African american churches now that you’re motivated to partner up Look to black churches, Anita lee and Oliver. Richmond help you understand the idiosyncrasies of church culture and how to cultivate a relationship. Anita is from Anita uplifts and Oliver is with Kingdom Partners. This is also from 21 NTC. You see how the show is put together here. It doesn’t just happen. You see this pervasive partnership theme running through which is what makes it pervasive, it’s all, it’s all coordinated. It’s all thought out On Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome a new sponsor, send in blue the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue kicking off our partnership theme show here is non profit partnerships. Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC the 2021 nonprofit technology conference. We’re sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C. O. My guests now are tailor leak and Jack Valor Taylor is Digital director at corporate accountability and Jack is senior account executive at Mall Warwick donor. Digital Tell her Jack, welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:57.24] spk_1:
Thanks very nice to you. Pleasure

[00:02:58.44] spk_3:
and Taylor, I should say welcome back. Welcome back. Have you a previous uh, previous ntc coverage.

[00:03:05.11] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:03:26.44] spk_3:
Your session is what we accomplished together, building new and inclusive non profit partnerships. So who wants to start by just reminding us that we do not have to do our work alone. We can have, we can have help, who would like to start. Okay, fine. I’m gonna pick Jack, you start

[00:04:42.94] spk_4:
or um, so I think that really we came up with this concept because corporate accountability does a lot of great work partnering with a lot of wonderful organizations that have missions that are similar to theirs. Um, and we found that they were able to accomplish not only what they wanted to accomplish in ways that they didn’t have the capacity or resources to do otherwise, but also reach out to organizations that didn’t, you know, have the resources themselves to really boost their own missions and help in ways that they wanted to be able to help facilitate and grow organizations that they really believed in. So we wanted to kind of spread that message and talk through ways that organizations could partner and do things that would really change the world for the better, um, in reach out to each other and in, um, in ways that they might not expect.

[00:04:49.74] spk_3:
And, and taylor you can even, uh, increase your own exposure. The organizations don’t exposure by promoting the work of others.

[00:05:32.44] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was one of the things that really stood out as we were developing this. And one of the reasons we came to this idea was, you know, in our experience, we found that these partnerships aren’t just beneficial for both organizations, sort of as a, as a one plus one, but actually it was, it was adding even more to our work when we partnered with other groups. So for instance, we did a giving Tuesday campaign with, partnered with a group in flint called flint rising. And we found that even though we were basically fundraising and giving half of the gifts that we brought in to flint rising, we were raising more, even giving away half than we had in previous years without a partnership like

[00:05:43.03] spk_3:
that. You for giving away half than you had when you when you were on your own.

[00:05:53.74] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. So I think it’s sort of a net positive and you know, I think we are doing all we can to reject this idea that there’s sort of a zero sum, right? It’s more of a mindset of spreading the wealth and everybody being able to lift each other

[00:06:19.24] spk_3:
up rising tide, raises all boats or whatever metaphors we want to use. Well, whatever storms can this take that? That’s that’s outstanding example giving Tuesday. What other forms can this take, where you can improve your own outcomes by working with and promoting the work of others?

[00:07:27.74] spk_1:
Yeah, I mean, one other example that we talked about, um, and I think Jack, you had a couple of really good examples from other organizations as well. Um, but we, uh, we also do a lot of work with coalition actions. So that’s sort of more on the on the advocacy and list building side. But this is essentially a tactic where you can start a petition and then invite a whole bunch of other groups to participate with you. Um, and not only is that a way for you and your partners who are working together to drive folks to this petition to grow their email lists, but for us, you know, it’s been, you know, are the organization, I work for corporate accountability. We have some pretty sort of niche, complicated issues. Um, and so this is a way for us not just to sort of like gather a bunch more petition signatures, but also sort of get our analysis and our campaigns and our ideas out there to a bunch more folks by getting other groups to promote petitions that we have developed to their membership as well.

[00:07:43.44] spk_3:
Okay, Cool petition drives Jack. You have, you have examples. I love these. I want, I want folks to realize that there’s a lot of possibilities around partnering and improving your own outcomes.

[00:08:09.94] spk_4:
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, uh, one example that I think worked out really, really well is that, um, an organization that I work with simple virus fund there, a small local organization in the, they work help helping save and protect and restore uh, redwood lands in the santa Cruz Mountains

[00:08:13.76] spk_3:
and say the name of the organization again, just a little slower.

[00:08:17.37] spk_4:
Yeah. Semper environs Fund some

[00:08:20.95] spk_3:
semper environs.

[00:08:32.74] spk_4:
Mhm. Yeah, it’s a latin word that is for redwood trees. Um, it’s very, um, very, very specific. Yeah, exactly. Um,

[00:08:35.71] spk_0:
uh,

[00:09:20.94] spk_4:
so they, um, they partnered at, at the time, in august, there was a big fire in one of their parks, um, wildfire that happened during a time when there were wild fires all over California. And um, it was the very first part that they developed. Um, they partnered with California state parks as well as save the Redwoods League to um, bring together a bunch of donors who were very passionate about that park and wanted to save it and restore it back to its former glory. Um, They were able to raise throughout the entirety of the year, um, A ton more money because of that partnership. Um, they were able to increase their revenue by 152% and their gifts by 98% just through having that partnership with those organizations and spreading the word altogether.

[00:09:43.34] spk_3:
Jack, what do those campaigns look like? Give us the insight is every piece co branded? Does every piece talk about the work of the other and, or, and how the work overlaps? And what does that, what does that look like?

[00:11:01.34] spk_4:
I think, you know, it can be different. And that’s something that, you know, we definitely wanted to talk about when we put this together is that it really depends on how the organizations want to make this work, you have to come together and say, you know, what are we looking for? What do we want to accomplish here and um what do we want to, how do we want to come to the table? You know, do we want everything to be co branded? Like you’re saying, do we want um to just mention one another um in messages or do we want to um just kind of one time mention and then go about, you know, the rest of the campaign as usual. Um So you have to definitely agree upon all of your terms before the partnership even starts. Um So that you know, um you know what your expectations are and then that way no one gets hurt uh in the end so that you’re not not meeting those expectations?

[00:11:04.24] spk_3:
Okay, cool. Is there another example you have?

[00:12:21.34] spk_4:
Uh Yeah, so I think that um Mhm, pull up my notes um with World Animal Protection, which is another organization that I’ve been lucky enough to work with. Um They usually work with sanctuaries in lots of countries around the globe to save abused animals that can no longer live in the wild because they’ve been you know, in captivity um doing lots of terrible jobs or um you know, having lots of um difficult things put upon them. Uh We were able to create a giving Tuesday campaign around specifically raising money for sanctuaries um and the sanctuary campaign, because it um focused on those sanctuaries and on providing animals um direct money for them and for their needs, Brought in 161% increase in gifts and a 230% increase in revenue. Um

[00:12:24.84] spk_3:
And that’s of course that’s after sharing, Right? These numbers are incredible because it’s like over well over 100% increases.

[00:12:51.44] spk_4:
Mhm. Yeah, it’s really, really helpful too. You know, know that know what your audience cares about, know that they are looking for something different or something um that where they can really make a bigger difference and sometimes they are interested in um you know, they’re like, oh if if I can give here then I’m giving to two different organizations that are really, really wonderful and they’re meeting the um the needs of multiple different types of people or causes at the same time. So why wouldn’t I

[00:13:19.54] spk_3:
tell her somebody who was in one of these organizations? What like what detailed advice can you give for folks who are thinking about? It’s kind of a collaboration like maybe even just start with who might you collaborate with?

[00:16:50.84] spk_1:
Sure. Yeah. I think, you know, sometimes there are some pretty some pretty obvious uh places to start, right? So groups that you you know frequently partner with or that you would work with, you know, that either share sort of the kind of work that you do or share a mission and similar with you. But I think for us, one of the biggest things that we’ve actually had success with is finding groups that share our mission and share our work but have very different, different tactics are different strengths. So, you know, corporate accountability, we do a lot of sort of national and international policy based work. Um and we have had some of our best partnerships with really small state or local groups that are really focused on um grassroots or community organizing. Um and I think the reason it works is, you know, we’re able to sort of bring the bigger sort of systemic analysis and the policies and the sort of like the heavy big stuff, and then we’re able to point to these groups to say, you know, this is literally this is what how this impacts individual people’s lives, and this is how they’re going about working on fixing this, this isn’t just like a sort of zoomed out policy discussion, this is like a thing that is about real people. Um so we’ve had some really good success sort of partnering with groups that have, have different, have different approaches and different strengths to us. Um and I think those those can make really, really fruitful partnerships, um just because, you know, you’re you’re sort of complementing one another, I think, you know, you can I’ve we’ve had some really good partnerships with other sort of national policy oriented groups as well, but I do think that’s one place that I think it has been a little bit surprising to me is like actually like finding those groups that have a really different Thing that they do 2.2 is important. And then for us, you know, when we, when we started doing some of this work, one of the biggest pieces that was really important to us was um really being mindful of racial equity and equity overall. So we’re really approaching this as a way to sort of resource the movement. We’ve, you know, we started corporate accountability started Over 40 years ago with the nestle boycott in the late 70s. Um, and so that was a campaign where we were working primarily with organizations in uh, in South America. Um, and working to stop nestle from marketing infant formula in communities that it was really harmful for infant formula to be used and infants were getting sick and dying. Um, so we’ve always had this dynamic where we are a group that’s based in the Global North, in in the US, but we’re primarily, or often working with groups in the Global South and communities of color. So there’s there’s a built in power dynamic there that were always sort of aware of. And I think one of the, one of the things we really strive to do with these partnerships is to seek out, you know, black and uh of colour led organisations and Global South led organizations that we can work with and we can resource because oftentimes we have a much higher access to those resources than these other groups that are doing incredible work that you deserve this as much more more than we do. So that’s another another thing that we’ve really focused on. You know, that’s not centered everybody but

[00:17:12.24] spk_3:
corporate accountability has centered equity. It sounds like in probably across all your work. But and so it just becomes part of your D. N. A. And absolutely you have it in mind as you or it’s an objective as you as you look for these partnerships

[00:17:25.24] spk_1:
ellen-leikind

[00:17:57.14] spk_3:
How about some advice around you know like sticky points? Uh some problem issues, you know you trust your partners of course but things are gonna come up, you know no no agreement can anticipate everything or you know whether it’s a verbal agreement or a written agreement. And how do you how do you navigate some of the tricky parts like maybe somebody put something out that doesn’t quite describe your work correctly or you know things like that or whatever it might be. Oh that was it could be either one I was thinking of taylor because he’s been involved in these, but it could be either one of you, I don’t care if somebody step up this time.

[00:19:41.54] spk_1:
Yeah, I’m curious if Jack has other examples, but you know, I think, I think for us, um, really the biggest, the biggest thing is like, as Jack mentioned earlier, having agreements and having conversations in sort of, in the beginning, you know, really laying out what’s expected, what roles are going to be for each organization, uh, sort of how you expect things to look, how money is going to get dispersed if you’re doing joint fundraising, you know, sort of, all of those nitty gritty details. Um, and then, you know, it’s really, it’s really just communication, you know, checking in a ton. Um, you know, we frequently will do a whole slew of emails to try and promote some of these fundraising campaigns that are joined. And, you know, we build in a step where we literally just send the copy of the emails over to the partners and have them review them, um, just to make sure we’re being super upfront and saying like, does this sound good to you? Are we describing your work appropriately? Like, you know, is there a better way you would want to say this? Um, and so, you know, that, that I think is key for for us is just, is just that constant communication is really the most important thing. And I think, you know, even before that, just sort of building building deep relationships, um, and and sort of like cementing that trust before you are trying to jump in on something that’s big, like joint fundraising campaign where tens of thousands of dollars could be at stake. Great. Um, so it’s definitely not like a starting point in your relationship. It’s something that you want to, you want to build towards. Okay

[00:19:45.04] spk_3:
Jack, anything you want to, you want to add there about sticking points or you feel like taylor covered?

[00:21:17.34] spk_4:
Yeah, he mostly covered it. I would say, you know, to your point, tony um, about, you know, if you put something, someone put something out there and it doesn’t really meet, um, anything about your organization or what have you. I think, you know, talking about your brand, that’s something we kind of speak our touch on in our session. Um, uh, making sure that they have all of that information, your logos, um, all of that so that everything is laid out so that they’re following that information as well. That’s part of the initial communication that should happen. Um, so that they’re not, you know, using words that you would never use in your communications, things like that. Um, and I think another piece here is that you make sure that not that you’re treading lately, but that you’re working really entirely in partnership, in your in your, uh, coming to it with equity and, um, and real conversation in mind. Um, and knowing that there’s likely no harm meant from your partner because you you you want to not only build that partnership for now, but build it for the future. Um, who knows how beneficial it could be in, um, you know, the future campaigns, um, things that could come up where you could work together on something that could really, um, open yourselves up for some really, really amazing opportunities. So it makes sense to not do something that could cause some of that rift

[00:21:39.74] spk_3:
you all had. Right expanding lists by exchanging swapping is one of you more accustomed more acquainted with that than the other?

[00:21:44.64] spk_1:
Yeah, Probably me,

[00:21:49.64] spk_3:
Jack. Okay. Yeah.

[00:23:20.24] spk_1:
So we do this a ton. Um, and it’s a really, it’s a really great tactic. Um, it is something that we use Action Network, so it’s something that’s built into Action Network as a sort of email tool set and advocacy tools that not to not to bust market them, but they are the ones that have built this tool. Um, and essentially what it allows is when you set up a petition, um, you can invite other groups to also promote that petition. Um, and once you send them sort of a unique link for them to promote the petition with, um, it automatically tracks sort of where activists are coming from, and then automatically shares a proportion of the folks who signed that petition with your partners. Um, so the expectation is, you know, if if I am partnering with another group and they join and they send an email out to their list and get 100 new folks to join to sign that petition, That they would get out of the total pot of folks who take action 100 new folks to add to their list. Um So it’s sort of it’s a great way both to get more signatures than you would stand alone, right? You know, if your group can get x number of petition signatures inviting a couple other groups will get you a whole bunch more. Um but it also it also is a way to sort of for everybody to sort of grow their email lists and speak to folks who like actually care about your topics because they’re signing a petition that is based on your mission and your issues.

[00:23:46.74] spk_3:
Yeah. Cool. And of course it’s disclosed to people who sign right that they’ll they’ll they’ll receive materials from or however you were at this other, you know, the other group or groups. Okay. Any other ways any other ways of doing this besides petition drives?

[00:23:51.44] spk_1:
I mean that’s the sort of the main one I’m curious, Jack if if there

[00:23:55.60] spk_3:
you, have you seen this in other settings

[00:25:22.14] spk_4:
um in terms of um yeah, it’s mostly petitions or pledges, things like that, just mainly because it’s the easiest way to get another um organizations permission. The other way that I’ve seen it. Er Sorry, another um person’s permission to join a list. Another way that I’ve seen it done is when uh organizations will sponsor each other’s emails across um email. So one organization corporate accountability would say sponsor flint risings, email and they would just send flint risings email to their list. Um And have um flint rising whatever content that is um Those folks um people, corporate accountabilities folks just do whatever that action is for flint rising. I’ve also seen some organizations come together on things like quizzes, games, things like that. Um I put together a whole like mhm uh bracket for an organization before that was like these items like which one is the best? And then it ended up you know with a winner and it was like a couple of weeks long. Um And it ended up being really really successful where a bunch of different organizations were like fighting for which thing was the best on like social media and stuff. So

[00:29:18.84] spk_3:
okay collaborations partnerships, ventures, you don’t have to do your work alone. Right? All right, we’ll leave it there. All right. They are taylor leak. Digital director of corporate accountability and Jack Valor, senior account executive at Mall Warwick donor. Digital telephone jack. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. And thanks to all of you for being with 20 martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc The 2021 nonprofit technology conference. We’re sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C O. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Where would you like to be heard? Use outlets, conferences, podcasts, blogs, editorials. That’s all earned media and turn to can help you get it because they’ve got the relationships with the media outlets. What about your own media though? Owned media turn to can help you improve that because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. It’s time for Tony to take two planned giving accelerator. The next class Kicks off on July one. People in the first class that started in january, they already started getting gifts in month three and by month four there were multiple gifts at multiple members of that very first class. So within only three and in some cases four months of a 12 month program, the gift commitments already coming in. If you join me in the July one class, you could have gifts by Halloween, This could happen for you too. Planned giving accelerator. It’s the online membership community that I’ve created. I teach you step by step, how to get your planned giving program started. We have monthly live teachings and ask me anything sessions and a podcast. Just for members. There’s resources like templates and checklists. All the stuff I was about to say all the ship, let’s keep it. It’s the stuff well, you know, I just said it. So all this, all the things you need To get your plan giving program launched in 2021 and like I said, join, join in, July joined the July class. You could have gifts by Halloween. It happened for members of the first class. So Where you get the info for the July one class, it’s all at planned giving accelerator.com. Check it out if you’re not in planned giving, I will get you started and if that applies to you, if you’re not in planned giving, I hope to join me for the July one class. That is tony steak too. Here is partnerships with African American churches. Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC, the 2021 nonprofit technology conference. We’re sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C. O. With me now is Oliver Richmond is president at Kingdom Putnam

[00:29:25.84] spk_0:
Oliver. Welcome. Thank you for having me on tony I appreciate

[00:30:07.14] spk_3:
it, my pleasure. It’s a very interesting topic. Uh we’re hopefully going to be joined by others who I will introduce as they come in. Now, Oliver joined on time and I don’t want to cut this segment short so we’re gonna get started. You’re topic, There’s someone right now there’s Aneta. Okay, we’re bringing in Anita lee Aneta welcome. We’re already recording live. So please join the conversation with me now is in Italy also she’s chief digital specialist at anoeta uplifts LLC and I had already introduced Oliver Richmond and your topic is Black Church a different kind of non profit

[00:30:09.54] spk_2:
Yes. So let me clarify just a little bit. It is Anita, it’s pronounced Anita,

[00:30:28.94] spk_3:
Thank you very much Anita. Okay, thank you. Okay, let’s stick with you Anita. Well not right. You know what let’s give it to Oliver because he came he was right on time. So I mean okay. Okay thank you Anita. Oliver. What you know black churches. Um I don’t go to one. What do you want folks like me to know about black churches?

[00:31:03.94] spk_0:
Black churches are the heart and soul of the black community. If you go back and look at history, that was the only institution that blacks own coming out of slavery. And the black church has been the one delivered services, tutoring, mentoring, food, spiritual help over the years. They have just been a pillar and helping keep those communities safe and all the good things came out of the black church in the black community.

[00:32:02.84] spk_3:
All the good things came out of the black church. All right. Yeah. I’ve had lots of guests on through the years. I’ve been doing this podcast over 10 years. And mostly they would they would bring up black churches when when it was uh you know, like a program they were trying to carry out like a couple of cases. It was something medical and uh I don’t remember. It wasn’t research, but it was some nonprofit work. And they had emphasized the importance of working through the churches to get community buy in for the for the program that they were trying to they were trying to carry out in the in the community. Um So I’ve heard about this through the years that the black churches are critical and and the and the pastors can be sort of conduits to the to the community. Am I standing there? Okay.

[00:32:05.94] spk_2:
Yeah.

[00:32:07.20] spk_4:
Over the

[00:32:56.14] spk_0:
years, the black pastors and leaders, if you look through civil rights, all different things, they’ve been the ones who have stood up for the community because they don’t have to worry about losing their jobs. Um, so so they stood up for the community and they’re respected as leaders, no matter what size their churches and the black community expects the black pastors to be involved in the community where some churches, the pastor just preached, uh, over the bible, priests teach and then they’re done. But the black church, they’re expected to be involved in the causes if it’s gangs, if it’s feeding health, whatever it might be, they’re the ones that look to, to bring that information deliberate to the people into the community.

[00:32:58.94] spk_3:
And you did, You sounded a little, a little skeptical about the way I said it. You said, well, you said it. Okay. But what, tell me more, what, what, what, what do you want to say to me?

[00:35:54.44] spk_2:
Uh, yeah. Um, I think that you’re absolutely right. Um and when you’ve spoken to many people over the years, yeah, it’s critical um, that black churches are involved, but I think it’s it’s only a small piece, I think that the general world nonprofit community um only see black churches within the lens of whatever program that they’re deciding to do instead of recognizing black church as the literal pinnacle of the black experience. So when you think about, um, our celebrities, our stars, our um, our millionaires and billionaires that that that that made the country looks up to, many of those people have started in the black church. Like if you think about any major musical star in any genre, from, you know, gospel and soul to R and B, even into rap and hip hop, you will find that all of those artists, most of those artists, how to start in the black Church, even if they’re talking about guns and drugs and shooting and sex, they all have uh start in the black church. And I think that that was the reason why I, you know, I intend to allow me to do this because um, from politics and, and from, from health, from business, our major ivy League, historically black colleges and universities are hBc use. Many of them started in the basement of a black church. The obvious one of the more famous ones, Morehouse, um, where dr martin Luther King got his degree and Spelman, which was the female counterpart to Morehouse, was started in the basement of friendship baptist church in Atlanta Georgia. So, and I’m sure you’ll probably have, you know, you can probably hear stories in other cities as well. So I think that that’s what I wanted the nonprofits to see and to understand that were just that, that the black church and the experience of black church is not a place where you can go get your program started and you can hit your demographic. It really is a place where the, the intensity of the culture and the whole meaning the essence of African american experience is based. Mhm.

[00:36:15.33] spk_3:
Thank you. And Anita, you want us to think about partnering with African american churches? That’s the the, I mean, yeah, that’s the whole purpose of the your session. By the way, I have some work going on. You might hear a song in the background. I hope it’s not hope. It’s not too annoying. No

[00:36:15.64] spk_2:
worries.

[00:36:17.13] spk_3:
Can you hear me? You hear me over it? Can you I hear you over it? Okay, good. Okay. Um, yeah, so you want to encourage us to uh non profits to be partnering with the churches.

[00:37:41.63] spk_2:
Right? And not only do we want the nonprofits to partner with churches, We want you, we wanted nonprofits to understand the uniqueness and the idiosyncrasies that that comes with partnering with Black Church, which is reason it was called Black Church a different kind of nonprofit. Yes. It is a non profit in the essence that it’s five oh one C three and you know, things of that nature or it might not even be five oh one C three. Um, it’s structured around providing those social services, um, but it does not necessarily operate as, you know, your typical nonprofit with a board and you know, and in programs and things of that nature. And so, um, in order to have an effective partnership, um, I wanted nonprofits to understand this is the essence of what Black Church is and these are the ways that she provide or create uh, successful institute, sustainable partnerships. While you’re trying to fulfill your mission for your non profit Oliver

[00:37:47.53] spk_3:
can we, can we go to you to acquaint us with some of the, the idiosyncrasies that Anita is referring to.

[00:39:17.82] spk_0:
Yes. One of the things we work with a ton of black churches and white churches, but one of the things that you want to do is visit the church, see what kind of things they’re doing. I mean, you can look at the announcement, say if they got kids doing announcements, they’re talking a lot about you. You know that church probably want to do things with youth. That’s their where their heart is at. So as you, as you meet people try to meet people in their leadership and if you can get a meeting with the pastor, go there, Get a meeting with the pastor. You talk 10%, let him talk 90 and asked him to share his vision in his heart for the community and that out of that conversation, you’re going to see the things that he’s excited about it that he want to do. And your role is when your partner with them engaging them. If you’re doing youth and maybe they’re passionate about prison ministry, you try to connect this to somebody that can help you with prison ministry and you bring a lot of credibility to them. And guess what if you work with you, he’ll connect you to a pastor that has a big, nice youth program. I want to work with you from the community. So you got to hear their heart and listen to them and you might have the greatest thing that you want to do, but it might not be a fit because just like people, churches have capacity for a few things that they can do well. And you got to seek those out when you engage them. Uh, and you have a lot more success when you do that.

[00:40:41.71] spk_3:
It’s time for a break. Send in blue. It’s an all in one digital marketing platform with tools to build end to end digital campaigns that look professional, They’re affordable and keep you organized. So we’re talking about digital campaign marketing. Most marketing software is designed for large companies and comes with the enterprise level pricing. Send in Blue is priced for nonprofits. It’s an easy to use marketing platform that walks you through the steps of building a campaign like step by step, like playing, giving accelerators step by step, try out, sending blue and get a free month. Hit the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. It’s aptly named now you thought the baku but loads got obliterated when I didn’t invoke them after Tony’s take too, didn’t you? You were wondering, I’ve got your back, we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for partnerships with african american churches Anita, you want to elaborate on more of the idiosyncrasies folks should be aware of. I

[00:42:13.20] spk_2:
think, uh, no, I think Oliver is very, you know, and the reason why I had him on our panel is because he is the embodiment of the cross sectional of not only with black church and white church and also with black church and, and non profits. And so, um, I have to say like during our session, we did have someone that posed the question of the fact that they are not christian, uh, they’re not black and so they were concerned as to whether or not they would be able to, you know, attend church service. And uh, and I want to bring this out, Oliver because it just makes sense. Um, he said, you don’t have to be a christian to attend church, you can attend church, you don’t have to be a christian to attend church. And so you, you know, and so it’s just important that, um, just like a nonprofit has a mission. Churches have a mission, right? And so even though most of them, the main mission is saving souls and um, and, and, and provide, you know, providing the, spreading the gospel of jesus, that’s the main mission. But to Oliver’s point, you know, different churches have different sort of passion projects, just like the nonprofit has a passion project. So you’re not going to see the environmental non profit doing stuff with prison, right? Because that’s not their mission, There’s is saving the environment, Right? And so, um, it’s that research and that intentional research by visiting that church is where you will learn what’s a good fit for your organization. And then also partnering up

[00:42:54.70] spk_3:
Oliver, it sounds like the pastor is really the key, like sort of the ceo of the church. You have any other advice about getting his or her attention, You know, you said listen, listen 90% and talk 10% before we have twice as many years and only one or two layers in one mouth. But what other advice is, you know, like as you’re just trying to introduce yourself before you, before you, you know, before you, before you try to visit the church, just trying to get that,

[00:43:05.70] spk_0:
how

[00:43:07.05] spk_3:
we’ll

[00:44:07.29] spk_0:
find out who, who some of the key leaders are. You can go to their website, uh, even look at the brochure and find out who some of the key leaders are and talk with them and see if they can give you a warm introduction to the pastor. Another one the key points is, And I made this mistake years ago, I’ve been working with churches 27 years, particularly black churches wherever the pastor points you too go follow up in that direction. Uh, because sometimes you want to just get to the past. Or maybe he might give you a phone conversation and say go talk to tony and you might not tony Know that Tony is his right hand man. He’s going to rely on tony or whether we should engage in his partnership and do this program. So sometimes people try to get to the pastor, but he might have someone else that he wants you to work with and then they’ll share the big idea. He’ll rely on them. So whatever the rescue send you going, that direction followed them.

[00:44:11.49] spk_3:
Anything else Anita you want to add about trying to make that, get that first introduction that, that break that ice.

[00:46:38.58] spk_2:
Well, just to keep in mind, um, uh, that depending on the denomination, which is brings in the intricacies of the fact of, you know, now and, and that’s just protestant, the whole protestant religion totally right. You got all these different denominations and sections and districts or whatever. Um, but that’s on the onus of the nonprofit professional to do their particular research and to understand that um, one to Oliver’s point when they pointed to that person to go ahead and and, and engage, but also know in different situations. The pastor may not necessarily be the like the decision maker, right? They maybe they might not be the one that is the one that may, he may be a part of it, right? But it might be the trustee board. Um, it might be the deacon’s board, it might be, you know, some other institution. It might be the superintendent. That is the one that really has the quote unquote power to engage the church in, in, in partnerships. And so, um, that’s just, you know, an additional thing to kind of consider. And then, of course, you know, and in that vein, as I’m thinking about it, that kind of, you know, put that, that might make the nonprofit professional a little bit more comfortable because it’s almost like talking to a board, right? It’s, it’s, you know, as the other nonprofits, like here’s the board and they’re the one that makes the decisions and some denominations are set up like that. Some are totally not the ending the beginning and the end Alpha and omega comes from the past. So it’s just just an additional step. Um, you know, once you’ve, you know, visit the church and maybe, you know, like I did a little research, checking out the website, maybe attending a service or maybe not attend the service, attend an event. The church is having a volunteer. Um, no one’s gonna turn around and turn away a volunteer, no matter what. Right. That’s, that’s not probably one or one. So, you know, volunteering for something and you, you kind of get a sense of who’s, you know, who’s the kind of the one that’s kind of running the programs and, and, and making the decisions. So yeah,

[00:46:46.68] spk_3:
I needed your work at uplift. Uh, it sounded to me like it was the intersection of black churches and technology.

[00:46:54.58] spk_2:
It is, it is um, it was it’s basically, uh, my new social entrepreneurship one out of the, um, my, my own sort of personal mission around digital inclusion and um, in digital inclusion efforts and the fact that I truly believe that churches um, can be a place of opportunity when we’re talking about closing the digital divide. Now, I’ll be honest with you Tony. I’m not only am I trying to get tech folks and nonprofits to see churches as places of opportunity. I’m trying to work on the churches as well to try to get them to understand that this is a different or new evolution of ministry for them. So that’s kind of kind of my personal mission and cause and ministry, if you will.

[00:48:14.87] spk_3:
So I trying to expand everybody’s circles where they find the intersection between them and and end up doing good work for for all the communities. Yes. All right. We still got some good time together. A good amount of time together. What, what, what else would either of you like? Talk about other questions you got from your session or something else you covered in your session that we haven’t talked about yet, throw it open to

[00:49:41.37] spk_0:
you. I think one of the things tony really helped get engaged is support them. I’ll give you a prime example of a couple of quick examples when, when the virus hit and shut down everything. We partner with a technology group to bring hotspots online, uh, notebooks with urban black churches And got them online so they can get giving online. They didn’t have the technology, they didn’t know what to do, but we’ll never helped 40 of them. So guess what? I can pick up the phone anytime and call those pastors directly and say, hey, let’s look at doing this. I didn’t ask him for anything, didn’t want anything, but if you can help serve them another example, uh, it was a water shortage in Mississippi pastor said Oliver can you help get some water? I said, well let me send you a check and said no, no don’t send me a check because I got to go get the water. I need you to bring over the cases of water. So guess what? I went to Sam’s couldn’t get as much water because only so much in the car and I can push it. But guess what? Now our relationship is deeper because I was able to help a need that he was trying to fulfill to take a truckload of water down. Uh, and then, so now when I call them up with something that we want to do with his church or in the neighborhood, he’ll take that call and listen and more be more aptitude to work with us because we support them in the time of meat.

[00:50:29.36] spk_3:
Hey build trust. Yes, he had, he had a problem and you had a solution that you know, that that builds trust, I’m sure needed your degree. You know, this if you’re going to approach any of this or any other, any relationship, you know, transactional e I, you know, we want to get this out of it. We’re here for six months and then we’re moving on with some other project, then you shouldn’t even bother. I mean, but if you want to, but if you want to build a relationship, not that you have to be working together forever either. But if you’re gonna look at it as a transaction versus opening the door to a relationship, you’re, you’re short changing yourself the church, you’re trying to partner with the program. You’re trying to expand or build. You know, it’s it’s

[00:50:30.31] spk_2:
and the people you’re trying

[00:51:02.96] spk_3:
to serve and the people you hope to help. It’s not a it’s not a one and done. You know, it’s a we’re trying to build a relationship here. We don’t we don’t know the ways we might be able to work together in the future. You know, we got an idea how we could do what we can do now in this next six months or a year. But who knows what the ensuing years could bring. You know, it’s just basic relationship building. The same thing you do with your volunteers, your your donors. You know, you don’t look at them as transactions as a T. M. S. You get something out and then walk away. So, same thing here with any relationship, whether it’s with an individual or uh, an institution, like a black church. All right, that’s right.

[00:54:01.34] spk_2:
So yeah, I agree with you Tony, I agree with you so much tony I think I said that was more into the essence of why I wanted to do this. Um I think um so another reason as to why I presented this to anti china had to do with um an actual project that I did as a digital inclusion fellow um and in connection with the Rainbow push Coalition, and we were trying to establish some digital inclusion um programming at churches here in Atlanta. And it was because um the organization just did not understand each other well that the program itself for the initiative itself really didn’t experience the level of success that it could have. Um because on the church side, uh they weren’t fully educated as to what he was trying to be done. And then on the nonprofit side, they really, um, honestly did not understand the fully understand the idiosyncrasies of black church. Um, and I’ll give you a small example. Um, one of the, one of the criteria for the churches that was in the program, um, was that they needed to fundraise, um, a specific amount of dollars, and then the nonprofit was going to match that fundraisers, and then that was supposed to be, um, not quote unquote given, but sort of giving access to the fellow so that the fellow can use that those funds to build out the program. Well, as I was sitting there as one of the fellows listening to, you know, listening to how this work, I said, there’s a whole time kind of shaking my head. I said, you can’t do that with black shirts, you can’t just tell them to just fundraise for a specific a specific event and not run it through the sort of proper channels where everyone, including the leadership of the church is on board, um in order to in order to make it happen. And so what happened was, is that it kind of fell by the wayside because the church is was like, uh huh, what are you, what are you talking about? Fun. What do you mean? Like in addition to my ties and offerings or something different, something, whatever. And so unfortunately, go

[00:54:03.37] spk_3:
ahead. I need you to wrap up with with your takeaway from that. Okay. We just have a minute left. What’s your takeaway?

[00:54:09.44] spk_2:
So the takeaway is, is it’s just still important to to get that, do that research and and begin to understand one another. And it doesn’t just say, oh, you have my demographic. So let’s just do it and it takes time like you said, to build that relationship troubles.

[00:54:28.84] spk_3:
All right, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you. Need to leave Chief digital specialist at Anita uplifts LLC and Oliver Richmond, President Kingdom Partners, Anita. Oliver, thank you very much.

[00:54:38.71] spk_2:
Thank you.

[00:54:40.64] spk_0:
Take care now.

[00:56:07.84] spk_3:
Thank you very much. And thank you for being with Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o next week. CRM selection and new websites as our 21 NTC coverage continues. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. And by sending Blue, the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in Blue, our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Yeah, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty You with me next week for nonprofit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 10, 2021: Online Meetings For All & Online Accessibility Beyond Meetings

My Guests:

Cindy Leonard & John Kenyon: Online Meetings For All

Cindy Leonard and John Kenyon continue our 21NTC coverage, with strategies and tips to make your virtual meetings accessible and inclusive. They’re with Cindy Leonard Consulting and he’s with John Kenyon Consulting.

 

 

 

 

Martin Cacace: Online Accessibility Beyond Meetings

We identify potential issues, help you prioritize what to fix and pick out the low-hanging fruit. My guest is Martin Cacace at Bound State Software and this is also from 21NTC.

 

 

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[00:02:05.94] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer with a vascular necrosis if you killed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Online meetings for all. Cindy Leonard and John Kenyon continue our 21 NTC coverage with strategies and tips to make your virtual meetings accessible and inclusive there with Cindy Leonard consulting and he’s with john Kenyon consulting, both happily named and online accessibility. Beyond meetings. We identify potential issues, help you prioritize what to fix and pick out the low hanging fruit. My guest is Martin Kosei at bound state software and this is also from 21 NTCC on tony state too. It’s vacation planning time. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Here is online meetings for all. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc, you know what that is. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference conferences virtual this year Were sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C O. My guests now are Cindy Leonard and john Kenyon. Cindy is Ceo at Cindy Leonard consulting and john is principal at john Kenyon consulting. They both have aptly named companies. Welcome Welcome Cindy welcome john

[00:02:09.64] spk_2:
thank you. Thanks Tony, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having us.

[00:02:54.34] spk_1:
Pleasure to have each of you. Your session is intentional. Facilitation choices, creating online meetings for all to enjoy. I put the emphasis on all, but I think we’ll, we’ll explore, explore why we want to do that. So Uh, Cindy, let’s start with you. What, what obviously is very timely but, and, and online meetings we expect to continue right. I mean these are not going to die once the once 90 of the folks or you’ve either been vaccinated or had the coronavirus or whatever. Online meetings are not going away. What just generally, what could we be doing better? It seems like it seems like a lot of mediocrity.

[00:04:01.54] spk_2:
A lot of mediocrity. That’s an interesting. That’s an interesting way to put it. Yeah. So the part of this session, the idea was that, you know, now that everybody has been doing zoom and online meetings for about a year now, you know, we’ve all gotten used to the technological parts. Um, we felt like it was time to do a session that goes beyond that somebody at the Ntc, I forget the breakout session. Um, but they said that technology is a mirror. So when you hold it up to your nonprofit, it reveals all the broken processes and broken tools. And I thought that was very apt. And when you think about that regarding online meetings, you know, everything in terms of inequity, inaccessibility, um, lack of diversity, power dynamics tend to be magnified, you know, where those things existed in person meetings. The technology adds an extra layer of complication. That makes things more inaccessible, more inequitable unless you do specific things to counteract that. And so that’s what this session was largely about.

[00:04:12.74] spk_1:
John you want to add to the Cindy’s introduction at all?

[00:04:39.44] spk_3:
Sure. That like Cindy said, you know, we really tried to share what our vision is for inclusive meetings. And so that means that all folks can contribute equally if they desire and that it’s okay not to using things like you would in person like a talking piece to go around and make sure everyone is able to engage meaningfully and to share. And that it’s okay if if they don’t want to. But digitally we just list people’s name in the chat and have everyone go through so we make sure we don’t miss anyone.

[00:05:00.24] spk_1:
Mm Okay. Okay. Uh so how can we be more intentional as we’re setting up a meeting? Is that a is that is that a place to start? Can we like sort of maybe take this chronologically through uh through a meeting? The pre meeting? The during the meeting and then the post meeting? Is that by doing it justice, if we do it that way?

[00:05:38.94] spk_2:
Yeah, we actually um we split we split our section up into three main sections. One was about inclusion and Power Dynamics. Another section was accessibility techniques, how to before during and after with those and experiential and reflective techniques. So we actually demonstrated a variety of interactive activities that could be used to engage your as a facilitator to engage the audience. So those were the three main sections.

[00:05:45.34] spk_1:
Okay. Is it okay if we uh well I don’t, I don’t want to mess up your

[00:05:50.34] spk_2:
no, you’re fine,

[00:05:52.27] spk_1:
john can we do it? Is that

[00:06:06.04] spk_2:
okay? I think so, yeah, john and Griffin, Griffin Castillo, um who’s not with us today? Uh Griffin and john were covering the power dynamics portion of this. So I think starting there is probably a good idea to john.

[00:06:10.74] spk_3:
Sure. So yeah, tony if it’s okay, I’m going to talk about some aspects of inclusion and then I’ll start to do that. I’ll talk about before during and after a meeting.

[00:06:18.64] spk_1:
Okay, Thank you. Great.

[00:06:20.29] spk_0:
All right.

[00:07:00.64] spk_3:
So some of the aspects of inclusion that we want to make sure people are aware of are the some of the advantages that we bring to our meetings online from having the latest technology to having older technology or only phones and even recognizing folks have no internet access in some areas. Understanding there’s advantages when it comes to digital literacy with computers or software, even having a dedicated space to participate. Our co presenter, Griffin Castillo, is the racial equity ambassador for the Oakland School system and so many students are sharing space with other family members. Understanding some people can respond quickly versus those who are reflective thinkers. So providing different modes for people to share as well as the very common advantages of having expertise, seniority or rank or relational privilege. So you want to be aware of those aspects and then there are specific things you can do before, during and after your meetings to make sure that you’re creating an inclusive and accessible meeting.

[00:08:26.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Well, I mean I gotta, I gotta start with the obvious. You know, I’m asking neophyte questions. You, you all spend, I’ve spent years thinking about these things and I’m coming at it quite a bit newer, uh, for folks who don’t have the technology that’s needed. How do we include them in a meeting that we’re planning online? That has to be online by because of the pandemic, by the way. If you hear any background noise, I’m having some renovations done. So maybe you’re banging. Yeah, there’s a little hammering, buying little drilling going on. So, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s your lackluster host with talk about a non private. I mean, I guess, uh, they’re much, there are much worse environments to have to be a party to a meeting in, but I’m in a lesser one than I than I would like. But that’s what, that that’s what that is, listeners. You’re, you’re hearing my stairs being renovated. Okay. So what about folks who don’t have any, they don’t even access, They don’t have digital access. How do we accommodate them? How have we accommodated them and how can we going forward in online meetings?

[00:09:10.84] spk_3:
Sure. So two of the ways we talked about were make sure that you’re providing offline readable versions of any documents or presentations for those who can’t see them live or can’t see them online but may be able to download them as well as documenting your notes and providing recordings, either video or audio to allow folks to review materials, digest them at their own pace. And that also supports accessibility, which are some of the pieces that Cindy talked about. Okay.

[00:09:21.84] spk_1:
It still seems like, I don’t know. It still seems insurmountable though if you’re, if you’re giving them a recording, but I mean if they don’t have internet access, how can you give them the recording?

[00:09:44.34] spk_3:
Sure. So the example I use, I often work with native american people and for example sometimes they need to drive a half hour in order to get a signal on their phone. Or they could go to a library on the reservation or wherever they are. So it is possible for them to get access. It just may not be live and it just may not be high speed. So as long as you’re providing those materials and there is a way for them to get them and put them on their devices or print them out if needed. That helps.

[00:10:16.44] spk_1:
So as you’re planning meetings you need to be aware that there may be folks that are going to raise their hand and say I can’t attend the zoom meeting at one o’clock tomorrow. You know, I don’t have that kind of access or I don’t have the, you mentioned even the privacy, uh, maybe they have online access, but they don’t have a private space to to listen and, and yeah, to listen and participate.

[00:11:20.14] spk_3:
Sure. Yeah. So I’ll talk about some of the things um, that that I covered and then I’m going to pass it to Cindy because she’s got some great ideas and when it comes to accessibility for people of all abilities. So one of the things tony that like you said before the meeting, it’s really important to discuss the issues that I mentioned about, you know, advantages and and our vision um with those with privilege to get by in so that they understand we want to allow all voices to be heard and that we think about ways to include everyone when we’re planning for meetings, Um that we, you know, make sure that that is part of our planning. That we ask attendees about accommodation needs up front during registration and that we have a plan to accommodate people with different abilities so that you know, we already know somebody who can do american sign language interpretation. We already know someone who can live caption. Uh, the presentation that we’re giving. Um, and I know for example, other pieces that that Cindy helped us worked on was if you have somebody who is sight impaired or blind, um reading the description of any visuals that you have. And Cindy was also great because she added something called all text that I’ll let her talk about two images. Cindy talk about that for us.

[00:11:47.04] spk_1:
Let them uh, we’re talking about inclusion. Accessibility. Cindy, Cindy is them Cindy. Thank you. I just you know, it’s all done in politely but you know, we got to be respectful. Right? It’s

[00:11:56.73] spk_2:
all right. Yeah. Absolutely. And I don’t walk if somebody says she her I don’t I don’t freak out. Okay. I do identify this non binary.

[00:12:05.14] spk_1:
Do the better you do the best we can. All right.

[00:12:07.24] spk_2:
Yeah. So yeah. One of the

[00:12:09.54] spk_1:
we’ll never make that mistake again. I assure you that.

[00:14:21.74] spk_2:
Okay. Um So yeah, so um one of the things that we did uh did we did do as an accessibility technique during the meeting and we probably should be doing this for radio interviews as well. One would think whenever we did our introductions uh for example, I said I’m Cindy Leonard from local velocity learned consulting. And I am a white white person with long straight brown hair and green glasses and today I have on a plaid sweater and I’m sitting with a yellow blank yellow wall background behind me and the idea of describing yourself um for people who aren’t either are excited or how vision impairment, but there’s also people that, you know, if you’ve ever tried to connect to a zoom meeting on your phone, the video isn’t always great or maybe you’re not in a place where you can watch the video, but you’re listening to it. Maybe you’re commuting or in your car. Um, so having that visual described is really important, not just for people with vision impairments, but for everyone, you know, and I talked a little bit during my piece about universal design, you know, and so one of the great examples of universal design design that is good for everyone helps people with disabilities. That is also good for morgan. What more of an audience is the concept of curb cuts Now, this is a low tech example, but the curb cut that, that little cut out at the corner of a sidewalk, you know, it’s, it’s great for people with using a wheelchair. It’s great for people using on a cane, you know, walking that have blindness. But insults are great for women and strong women with babies in strollers. It’s great for delivery persons. It’s great for older people who tend to trip on, you know, as we age, we tend to trip more. Um, so the idea is to make your power point and your meeting and your handouts more accessible and it helps everyone, not just people with disabilities.

[00:14:38.64] spk_1:
I’ve had guests from previous ntc’s make that point often. Uh Usually I think in the, in the context of a web, web, web design, uh it benefits benefits everyone. It reduces, you know, if if you’re using the right contrast levels, it reduces eyestrain for for everybody uh etcetera

[00:16:22.34] spk_2:
etcetera. Alright. Yeah, it really does overlap. I’ve been one of my, one of my consulting practice pieces is web website development, which I’ve been doing for about 20 years and there is a lot of overlap. A lot of the things that I’m saying about your power point back also applies to your website. So for example, the alternative text alternative text is what is red in lieu of the file name of a photo. So if I’m, let’s say I am a person who is blind and I’m using a screen reader software that is reading the web page to me or reading the power point debt to me when it gets to the images. If it doesn’t have alternative text which is descriptive text that you deliberately added to the image, it will read the file name of the image that’s been inserted or that’s uploaded. And that means, you know, it’ll read like, like image, it will say like I M G 678 jpeg. And that means nothing to anyone. So the idea is to describe the images in the alternative tax, so that, you know, whenever whenever I’m trying to figure out how to do that, when I’m either doing a website or a power point is I like to pretend that I’m sitting here in my office with somebody who has vision impairment and that I’m trying to, you know, like, here’s a picture, I’m trying to explain to them what is on the picture. So it’s helpful to me to imagine a person beside me that I’m trying to describe something to.

[00:16:47.54] spk_1:
Mhm john how about um if we transition um we’re a little bit all all encompassing, but uh that’s okay, that’s fine. As long as folks get the information, it doesn’t really matter what, what format it comes in or what, what, what theme we use. But like is there anything you can say specific to during, during a meeting that we haven’t talked about yet?

[00:16:50.64] spk_2:
The, the,

[00:16:52.14] spk_1:
that we need to

[00:18:14.44] spk_3:
Sure. So some of the things that we did in our session and that I try to do consistently is when I introduce myself as you mentioned earlier, using uh sharing that. I’m john Kenyon and my pronouns are he and him just as Cindy’s pronouns, are they in them and I’m not enforcing that or asking everyone to, to say that, but it just helps people with different gender identities feel included. Something else I do is when I introduced myself, I say that I’m coming to you from the occupied lands of the native coast, miwok people and that I send my respects to them and their leaders past, present and emerging again to just recognize that the land on which I am currently living was not originally my land and again helps people who are native people feel included. And that’s a practice I actually learned from my Australian colleagues because they are trying to be respectful of the Aborigines, the native Australian people. I’d also say that what we try to do is have real clear guidelines for participants. Something excellent that one of our session participants shared was doing, including things such as suspending judgment, suspending guilt, suspending assumptions and embracing awareness toward understanding, embracing leaning into discomfort. If you don’t feel comfortable with the topic or sharing, being able to lean into that,

[00:18:27.14] spk_1:
lean into meaning, express it,

[00:18:29.29] spk_3:
that’s right. Being in

[00:18:31.08] spk_1:
a forum where you can you can say something

[00:18:45.24] spk_3:
right and being able to say so, you know, tony you’re you’re our boss and you’re handling this meeting and you’re not letting any of, you know, the emerging leaders of the younger folks speak and you know, finding respectful and positive ways to bring that out. So for example, just to name that, to say, you’re not letting other folks speak, why is that? I’m not judging you, I’m not shaking my finger at you, but that we’re naming it,

[00:19:02.74] spk_1:
bring out the power dynamics

[00:19:23.54] spk_2:
and some accessibility related things that we do during a meeting are they’re actually pretty intuitive once, once you hear them, but if you don’t deliberately think about them, you know that you can miss things. But for example, use plain language, you know, every industry has a lot of jargon and you cannot guarantee everybody knows the jargon.

[00:19:25.89] spk_1:
non profit radio we have drug in jail

[00:19:28.50] spk_2:
in jail. I like it. I’m not hesitant to put people in like a

[00:19:32.48] spk_1:
transgress

[00:19:33.59] spk_2:
acronyms are another big thing in our second, everybody loves their, you know, so don’t say in 10 say the nonprofit technology network first, you know, okay, well,

[00:20:27.14] spk_1:
and then they don’t want to be the nonprofit technology network anymore. They’re like, I was thinking maybe he said that, but I’ve been admonished by the CEO maybe I said and 10 earlier, but example award that the N 10 Ceo is is a regular contributor, a technology contributor to my show, she’s admonished me to stop saying non profit Technology Network. So it comes from that comes to the top, but absolutely acronyms, you know, fundraising is full of them. I do plan giving and there’s all kinds of acronyms around trusts and just the, the, the assumption that everybody knows what you’re talking about. I mean I I shoot my hand up and say, what is that? You know, I’m right, right self, I’ve been doing it all my life, so it’s, you know, Uh, so I don’t mind people, but if one person doesn’t understand it’s probably 50 or don’t.

[00:21:11.84] spk_2:
Exactly. Another another point, another point is to give sufficient time a little more than you think you need to for people getting into breakout rooms on on the online software, forgetting to any third party exercises, responding in the chat box, any interactive activities. Not everybody is a fast clicker. You know, like I’m a power user. I guess you could say I’m on a laptop or a computer, so I’m really fast on the clicking, but not everybody is like that. People need time. Some people need more time to find what they’re supposed to be doing or where they’re supposed to be calling. So you want to be careful about that as well? Yeah.

[00:21:30.24] spk_1:
All right. Mm. Um, how about after after the meeting follow up, john you had mentioned. Uh, I think it was you john readable documents. Uh, what else, what else should we be doing and follow up to be sensitive to

[00:21:52.34] spk_3:
Sure. So just to reiterate, like I said, making sure that you have all your documents and notes and things like that that you can share with people so they can download them and read them off line or print them out. Something else that was suggested in our session. And that we try to do is post meeting surveys and ask, how did we do with inclusion? How did we do with accessibility if you’re an emerging leader? Did you feel centered? Did you feel excluded or included? Did we give everyone time and space to participate whether they’re able to share immediately or There are more reflective thinkers, like many of us are

[00:22:10.84] spk_1:
Cindy, anything you want to add there?

[00:22:13.57] spk_2:
No, not at all. But that’s great, john that was a great summary. I would like to send a shout out to our, we mentioned Griffin Castillo, one of our co

[00:22:22.66] spk_1:
presenter. I was gonna, I was gonna put a moratorium on mentioning him because he didn’t join us for the interview here.

[00:22:58.84] spk_2:
No. And now so are other co presenter his name, I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet is Jean Allen and Jeanne Allen is she’s, she’s a dual role. She’s with a nonprofit, she’s on the board of a nonprofit in north Carolina with his name, which name of which I cannot remember. Um but she’s also uh independent nonprofit consultant herself. She’s been at it for many years. Very smart lady. She ran she talked about all of the interactive how exercises how to include more engagement and your breakout session to make it more interesting or in your in your online meeting.

[00:23:12.64] spk_1:
Is there anything from that that you can you can share as well as you would have. But I mean for engagement possibilities in online Yeah, what can you reveal?

[00:23:53.04] spk_2:
Yeah, it was something as simple to an exercise. She called the chatter fall exercise chatter fall like a waterfall. Um And we put a put a question on the screen that says an idea emerging for me is why. And she had them all not hit send but deployed at their answers with the reflections in the comments box of chat box. And then she had them all had sent at the same time and it was just this beautiful cascade of all kinds of thoughts and comments all coming out at once. And there was a lot of, there were a lot of unifying ideas and themes emerged from that. And then she also showed us a tour

[00:23:59.21] spk_1:
which, hold on, tell me again, what was the lead into that? What was the statement that folks were supposed to fill in the blank? What we asked

[00:24:13.34] spk_2:
them to tell us an idea emerging for me, meaning emerging from the sessions of our is. And then they were supposed to finish

[00:24:18.85] spk_1:
Thank you.

[00:24:56.44] spk_2:
Yeah, it could be any question. Of course. Of course, Yeah. Um and Jeanne also did a live example of a google jamma board. So jam, like, like let’s Jam, you know? Um and it’s a really, it’s almost like an inner john you can help me with the description on this. It’s almost like a, like an interactive, multi user whiteboard. It reminds me of a smart board, did you have in a classroom or a meeting room? Except that everybody accesses it at the same time. And you could add post it notes and and print on it and scribble on it. It’s really eat right. The double suite.

[00:25:15.84] spk_3:
That’s that’s right. Yeah. It’s almost as if, as we often do an offline meetings, you have a wall where people are putting up post its and people can put up post its and write anything they want on them. We were able even showed folks how we were able to upload images and pictures. So it’s, as Cindy said, this nice interactive place where people can share, you could even do something like here’s a question. Do you agree or not? And put your posted five is totally agree. One is, I don’t agree at all. So you get a spectrum of answers and see where people lie on the answer to the question. It’s not just thumbs up or thumbs down.

[00:25:42.14] spk_1:
This is called a google jam board jam board. And how does it relate to using zoom for meetings? Is it a is it like a screen share? Someone shares their screen and they show their jam board and then everybody, everybody can participate how zoom

[00:26:01.74] spk_2:
meeting you give them a link and you send them off to the tool, they stay in zoom, they stay in the room so they keep zoom active, but you’re sending them to their browser and it opens in a browser tab.

[00:26:16.84] spk_1:
Okay. So everybody’s doing it independently along alongside zoom. Okay. All right. We have just a couple minutes left. Anything that we haven’t talked about that either of you want to bring up in a closing a couple minutes.

[00:26:28.64] spk_3:
Uh huh. Sure. So I think for my closing, I would just share a participant quote from our session which which really resonated with me and they said, even if I’m a participant rather than a leader of a group, I can still practice and demonstrate accessible and inclusive practices by describing visuals, Making sure I engage people in the chat, sharing my pronouns, making sure I provide room for everyone to share,

[00:26:49.34] spk_1:
john why don’t you describe your background? Let’s try to put this into practice and I’ll do it in my clothes, Go ahead or describe yourself on your background.

[00:27:15.94] spk_3:
Great. So I’m john I’m a white male, I’ve got gray hair and a little bit of a beard. I’m sitting in a room that has white walls. I’ve got a kind of a delft blue curtain behind me and some flowers, the flowers are called veronica. Um and so yeah, that’s and I’m wearing a dark blue shirt.

[00:27:44.44] spk_1:
I’m Tony, I have a red t shirt on my hair is mostly white, a little smattering of dark remaining. But, but it’s, it’s stunning and dashing nonetheless, even though it’s 90% white uh, you know, you’re supposed to not supposed to editorialize right, supposed to keep it factual. I have stunning, stunning, boring background of my hp printer and uh pretty much white walls behind uh in a red t shirt and I wear glasses. I wear glasses.

[00:27:48.84] spk_2:
Thanks. That was excellent. Uh huh.

[00:27:52.54] spk_1:
Yeah, they are Cindy Leonard. Ceo, Cindy Leonard consulting and john Kenyon principal john Kenyon consulting thanks to each of you for sharing. Thank you. Cindy. Thank you john,

[00:28:03.84] spk_2:
thank you for having us. Real

[00:28:05.84] spk_3:
pleasure. Thank you.

[00:31:44.24] spk_1:
Thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Let’s talk a little bit more detail about them. The ambitious biden agenda released a couple of weeks ago. Is there anything in there that impacts your work touches on what you do at all? Anything you’d like to be heard on may be quoted on be a trusted source about you can improve your chances of getting an op ed published or being a source or getting quoted working with turn to because they have the relationships to make these things happen for you so so much better than you or someone in your office cold calling a journalist or blogger whoever it is that you’re trying to reach that doesn’t know you, you want somebody who’s got the relationships you want to turn to because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for Tony’s take two. It’s time to plan your summer time off. Yes, I uh It’s finger wagging time. No camera here. But you got to take care of yourself folks. Please. You need to take care of yourself this summer. What a what a 18 months it’s been. Maybe last summer was a blur. Certainly you couldn’t go anywhere. And I hope you didn’t because it wasn’t safe. It’s changed. You know that master of the obvious. So plan your summer. Get it. Let’s get the plans going. Get the reservations made, book the week book the two weeks. You’ve got to block it and then preserve it, preserve it for yourself. Honor it. It can’t be interrupted. You got to set boundaries set that time for yourself and make boundaries around it. Honor that time. No, I’m sorry you can’t get together then. No, I won’t be able to do that meeting. No, now now that that weekend is not good. Now that week isn’t good either. You gotta make time for yourself and preserve it. Please yourself. Your family. If you have a family, get that time away this summer, you need it, you deserve it. You want to take care of others. Whether it’s on the professional side, those folks you take care of or it’s on the family side, you want to take care of your family. You’ve got to take care of yourself, please this summer, especially of all of all summers since last summer was such a bad bust. Set the time aside. Honor it. No encroachments, do it for yourself, do it for those who you take care of. That is Tony’s take two. We have boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is online accessibility beyond meetings. Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC the 2021 nonprofit technology conference. We’re sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C o. With me now is martin caucus a president of bound state Software martin. Welcome to nonprofit radio’s coverage of 21 ntc.

[00:31:53.94] spk_0:
Hi Tony, thanks for having me

[00:32:05.44] spk_1:
a pleasure, absolute pleasure. Your session was 10 common accessibility issues and how to fix them. I would like to start at the basic ground level. Let’s just define what accessibility is before we identify the issues.

[00:33:21.64] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think you can define accessibility as making well in this case like your websites, uh, making it accessible to everyone and what that means is that there’s four different levels. So whether they’re perceivable, which means that people can like actually see what’s going on operable, which means I can actually not like use your website without um special requirements. So if you for example a mouse or something like that, they might not be able to use that um understandable. So that means that they want to be able to you want to be able to make sure that people when they go to your website or accessing some content that they can understand what’s going on. It’s not confusing and robust. It means that it’s just a future proof and it can be used across various types of like uh technology. So like web browsers or um screen readers and stuff like that. So it kind of encompasses all that is making it is making your website be accessible to to everyone apart from if they have um impairments or anything like that, disabilities.

[00:33:37.24] spk_1:
We know what the penetration rate is among nonprofit websites. If we use that definition of accessibility. Um sorry,

[00:33:37.91] spk_0:
can you say that again?

[00:33:38.78] spk_1:
Do we know what the penetration rate is? How common are accessible websites in nonprofits using your definition?

[00:34:20.64] spk_0:
Uh, to be, I don’t have a specific number per se, but from just from my research and from browsing different types of websites. non profit websites. It’s not it’s not too common, like it’s something that I think it’s becoming more uh top of mine, but like I see it in proposals or RFP s and stuff like that more and more and more and more often, especially if the organization has like some government funding and the requirements come from that, but it’s not something that’s um commonly found. So

[00:34:32.64] spk_1:
there’s a lot of room for improvement. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Okay. Um can you help us spot potential problems on our own website? Yeah. Good. Sure.

[00:35:04.24] spk_0:
Um Yeah so that’s kind of what uh my talk with and at the conference and I just wanted to give people some some tools and like some understanding of what’s going on their website. So they can they could take them take them home and start working on it and see you know, how can we make our web sites more accessible? It might not be like fully accessible in terms of the various levels but at least getting started. So at the most basic level. So somebody has used enough system technology. Can you can use your website that goes a long way. So. Yeah,

[00:35:14.44] spk_1:
well we’re not gonna be able to do everything overnight. It’s not gonna be like flipping a switch but no we can approach this incrementally and make it more make our site more accessible.

[00:36:00.13] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the right approach. So I think, to begin with, I wanted to like differentiate between a couple of different issues. So like sometimes these issues are caused by their technical issues, so it might be caused by the templates or in quotation marks, the code. Um, so you might need a developer, uh, to, to help you with it. And other ones are more like low hanging fruit. I think it’s just like things that are related to content. So a lot of the nonprofits use like content management systems to up their websites to create blogs and content. So some of this stuff can be like fixed through just having an understanding of, okay, what are the guidelines that should follow, um, to create more accessible content?

[00:36:15.33] spk_1:
Okay, yeah, So let’s let’s let’s focus on the low hanging fruit, the stuff we can do on our own because our listeners are small and midsize shops. So, you know, they may very well not have an internal developer and hiring an external developer maybe outside their means. So let’s start the stuff we can we can do on our own. Yeah, let’s do that thing. Yeah.

[00:37:06.53] spk_0:
So the first one is it’s pretty basic, but it’s um, it’s page title. So page titles are very important for for orientation. It’s the first thing, like for example, screen reader reads when you’re like when you line on a new page, it’s a good way to differentiate and move between pages and move between pages. So, um, you want to make sure that page titles are unique and they provide um enough information to know what that page is about. Um, another tip that you want to be looking for is that you want to make sure that the most unique and most relevant information comes first. So rather than putting like your organization name first, you want to put it at the end and make sure like whatever the pages about it comes up at the beginning. And this is also some of these practices are also like best practices for the web, but also for like a Ceo and things like that.

[00:37:18.53] spk_1:
Can you explain why does the organization name go at the bottom? Why is that lower?

[00:37:31.73] spk_0:
Because you want to make sure that whatever is the most important part, the most relevant to that page Comes 1st and then your organization comes

[00:37:34.17] spk_1:
after they already know they’re on your organization site. So

[00:37:53.03] spk_0:
yeah. So perhaps if you’re on the home page, you wouldn’t follow that. Like maybe like depends how your SEO strategy is. But if you’re on the about page or or blog article, you want to make sure that the title is at the beginning of the title of the blog or the title of your about page, because that’s kind of what that person is looking for, otherwise it can it can be distracting. Okay,

[00:37:58.53] spk_1:
okay. What else? What

[00:39:35.12] spk_0:
another thing is just headings like this is again pretty basic things, but you want to make sure that when you’re correct, craft and content. Um and a lot of the usability guidelines go hand in hand with like uh just sorry, the accessibility guidelines go hand in hand with usability. Um So when you’re making like, let’s say creating content for the web, you want to make sure that it’s split up and you’re using headings appropriately, so the continent’s more digestible, so it’s easier to understand, but it um and then also if you’re using these headings, you want to make sure that they follow a hierarchy. So typically pages will start with heading one, which is the largest heading. That will be the page title. And as you work down the page, you want to make sure that that hierarchy is maintained. So then that would follow by an H two tag, which again, if you’re using a content management system, you would be able to just select the H two tag is similar to like award uh like a more document and things like that. Um And then a little bit more technical is you want to make sure that when you when you’re selecting these headings that they actually look like headings and on the code side, you want to make sure that there for like their semantically um tagged as heading. So what that means is like in the actual page code is there’s like a little tag, this is H one H two H three, so it needs to be created that way because they’re used as anchors for again, for screen, right? Just to to be able to understand what’s going on. Some people that sounds like they’re sections,

[00:39:39.62] spk_1:
that sounds like it’s just a matter of highlighting the code. Sorry, highlighting the text and tagging it as H one H two H three. Yeah,

[00:39:53.72] spk_0:
exactly. And there’s little tools that you could use, like you don’t have to know how to look at the code. Like there’s plenty of um

[00:39:55.62] spk_1:
yeah, we’re trying to result there’s we’re trying to avoid the code for for right now. Yeah, you can do at our desk if we’re not a developer.

[00:40:02.85] spk_0:
Yeah, you could do this like um as long as you, if you’re using WordPress, you can just select the right appropriate tag and if the theme or or the template you’re using is properly done, then you shouldn’t have any issue.

[00:40:16.41] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Other low hanging fruit, I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of this bunch of these. Yeah.

[00:41:24.11] spk_0:
Yeah. So another one is uh your link, text a lot of the times, like people will put in something like for more information about my organization click here now um you you want to make sure that you’re when you’re creating links that people understand, like where they’re going, like where that link is taking them and so you want to be able to when you’re creating these links, you want to create, create context rich links. Um And the reason for that is because some some assistive technologies that allowed them to view all the links in one page, just so you land on a page, see all the lengths and they’re listed in order. So say that you have a lot of click here’s like they don’t really make sense out of context, so it doesn’t really help them, it’s confusing. So rather than doing something like that, you want to make sure that the the lengths make sense out of context. So you want to say, learn more about my organization, that’s the entire link. So when somebody is scanning through all the links, it makes sense to them.

[00:41:25.41] spk_1:
All right. So it’s a matter of which words are linked. Yeah,

[00:41:29.37] spk_0:
exactly. And

[00:41:30.00] spk_1:
linking the word here here here.

[00:41:42.41] spk_0:
Exactly, Yeah. And and the same thing goes with buttons, for example, you don’t want to have like buttons that are just generic like submit. You want to make sure that they’re descriptive. So, again, this goes hand in hand with usability. So you want to make sure that the button says for example if it’s a newsletter, subscribe to newsletter so they know what the action they’re taking.

[00:41:58.21] spk_1:
I see. All right. That that explains something that I’ve wondered about why some people have or some I see mostly in journalism too. And now I’m thinking about it you know like five or six words will be highlighted as the link. One of them.

[00:42:27.20] spk_0:
Yeah. And it’s also it’s also but yeah. Okay. And it’s also better for S. C. 02 because you’re that’s kind of uh in essence like google crawls your site through a boat. So and it’s very similar to a screen reader. Read it. So they would they look at the links and it’s like okay, this link is this. Um And then you would you answer that phrase and then that’s how it starts to understand what’s going on on your website and where web pages to navigate to. Yeah.

[00:42:38.70] spk_1:
Rich links. All right. Give us more. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:09.30] spk_0:
Yeah. Another one is um text alternatives. I’m sure everyone well not everyone, but this is more familiar. Like all text is the text alternative description of an image. So of course, if you’re if you can’t see and using a screen reader, you can’t see what the image is about. Uh So you can you can provide a description for the image um about what that image is about or the or why that that image is there. So what’s the function? Um If it’s just like a decorative image, you don’t you don’t need to put anything, but if it serves a purpose, it’s important to have that their

[00:43:18.98] spk_1:
description.

[00:43:26.30] spk_0:
So typically when your uploaded a new image on your content management system, you have the option that they will be like a little descriptor field even say I’ll text and then you can just put it in there.

[00:43:33.60] spk_1:
All text. Yeah.

[00:43:55.50] spk_0:
Yeah. It’s it’s it’s very common. It’s just a lot of times you’re like uploading a lot of images and going through like doing a million things. So it’s one of the things that’s easy to miss and it can be hard to also to think about what uh huh what, what to put in there. So I think, yeah,

[00:43:57.40] spk_1:
I guess otherwise the person, the screen reader is just going to see like a file name.

[00:44:02.49] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:03.68] spk_1:
Yeah. Image seven dot jpeg. Which is Yeah.

[00:44:32.29] spk_0:
Yeah. Or maybe a default value that the program are put in there. Might say default. Yeah. It’s not great. Yeah. And then in the same and lines with the, with the links that we talked about before, a lot of times you use images as links. So you want to make sure that in the all text, your including the destination, if you’re using an image for a link, making sure, okay, where is this link taking me? It’s it’s kind of tied into what we talked about before,

[00:44:40.09] spk_1:
yep. Okay. But the content, content and links. Okay. Others uh yeah.

[00:45:26.89] spk_0:
uh number five would be multimedia like so a podcast for example, um Not available like two people with with hard of hearing or death, um, visuals and videos are not able to people who are blind. So you want to, you want to provide a way to to help these people. Um not only that, it’s just people without, with without disabilities were out, I don’t know, taking the train or something, you want to watch a video, but you don’t want the sound to be on having captions. Um it’s very useful. Um, if you’re learning a new language, like I learn english like having captions, it’s very useful to understand what’s going on. So there’s many uses of why multimedia should have um, should provide an alternative to to consume that. So like a transcript

[00:45:31.14] spk_1:
transcripts, podcasts,

[00:46:42.88] spk_0:
Yeah, a transcript for podcast, for audio and visual content maybe captions. I mean they can be quite elaborate elaborate to to create, but uh, it’s it’s one of the requirements for or guidelines for accessibility. Um, I think these next two are the ones that I talked about before, but um, and they kind of go hand in hand. One is simple content. Like a lot of what I see a lot is just like people just dumping information and information on their websites. And I think it’s important, especially with, for people with cognitive disabilities are really anyone if you’re landing on a page and it’s just like blocks attacks that you have to scan through and trying to understand what’s going on. Like it’s not very usable and again it’s not accessible. So you want to make sure when you’re creating content, you really think about what message you’re trying to convey and you you formatted in a way that’s simple and use a simple language. So Try to aim for an 8th grade level and there’s some tools there that kind of help you with that and help you edit your content so it’s more digestible.

[00:46:46.16] spk_1:
Okay. 8th grade, I’m wondering if I’ve even heard lower than that. Like sixth grade? I’m not sure.

[00:46:59.68] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m not sure. I think I think there is I use a tool called Hemingway editor and I think that one even goes down even further. But yeah, I think if you get to eighth grade and it gives you a check mark.

[00:47:04.17] spk_1:
Okay. Okay Hemingway is that a free resource that listeners can use?

[00:47:08.29] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just go I think it’s just if you google Hemingway editor, it’s just like a free tool you can use online.

[00:47:18.78] spk_1:
Okay. That’s cool. Thank you. I like I like resources. All right. And you said something related to that?

[00:49:58.87] spk_0:
Yeah, So the same same thing. It’s uh your your layout. We talked about the heading simple content. All go hand in hand layout in terms of like how you’re structuring your page, you want to make sure it’s just simple, straightforward. Um I’m not going to go into more than this because it goes into more like design and things that you really can, you can really change without the help of maybe a designer or developer. So I won’t touch them more on that. But the next one I will touch on is contrast ratio and this is another one that’s quite popular when you think of accessibility, like okay, like it needs to be like the contrast needs to be enough so people can can read what’s the tax? Um Right, so one of the things you want to use is there’s plenty of tools out there if you if you just google contrast checker. Um I think one I have here in front of the web, I am dot org and it’s contrast checker. That’s I think the one I use most of the time. Um you just put in two colours and there’s just like it spits out to two different results, whether it passes or not. Um So that that’s pretty straightforward. It falls within like the template sort of but uh now more and more like with the CMS, you can you can change anything right? Like you can change the colour depending on the flexibility of the template. Um, A big one is images, so like a lot of nonprofits like to use images, um because obviously it’s an easier way to like resonate with your audience. Like you can, you get a better feel of what what they’re about. But the problem is that they like, it’s common to overlay text over there and now you’re giving your staff the ability to upload new images and then change the text. Um and then that becomes really tricky if, if it’s not a nice theme or if the image is not great. Um Now you’re having contrast issues. So like, for example, having like simple overlays, it’s like making sure your image is dark enough, so there’s some contrast um goes a long way, There’s other tips for in terms of design that you can do to overcome that but um like putting like a little background on on the actual text so it stands out more. Um But yeah, I think it’s one of the tips, let’s just be careful and the images you’re picking, making sure there’s enough contrast or and if it’s not adding some sort, if you if you have the skills just adding a bit of like a darker um rectangle overtop, like through whatever image processing software that you use

[00:50:31.26] spk_1:
and you can check this with which the well by the way, I want to just make sure everybody knows CMS is your content management system, just in case everybody questioning that, I’m not gonna put martin in jargon jail because I think CMS is pretty, pretty widely known, but if you get if you get to giardini martin then my jargon jail. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. But I’m not putting you in there for CMS. I think that’s pretty, it is widely known but just just in case there’s any listeners who don’t know CMS is your content management system and stunning. Absolutely. But be careful because you’ve transgressed, I

[00:50:34.59] spk_0:
don’t know when I go to jail, I don’t have a jail free card. So Yes, that’s right.

[00:50:40.76] spk_1:
Well I I allow um uh parole is not too hard to get.

[00:50:42.66] spk_0:
Okay. That’s good. Good to hear.

[00:50:44.42] spk_1:
What’s the contrast checker again that resource that folks can use.

[00:50:56.06] spk_0:
So it’s web uh it’s web A. I am dot org. Okay. Um and then if you go to the website it’s just under the resources as contrast checker. Yeah.

[00:51:02.36] spk_1:
Okay. And you can just google contrast checker as well.

[00:51:04.73] spk_0:
Yeah, there’s there’s probably like more than 20 different tools but

[00:51:10.96] spk_1:
martin picasa recommended one is web A I. M.

[00:51:14.66] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. They have a few other tools. That’s the one that’s

[00:51:17.37] spk_1:
it’s got the blessing. It’s got the yeah, it’s a blessing. All right.

[00:51:21.38] spk_0:
Sure. Let’s go with that. All right.

[00:51:23.36] spk_1:
So does that does that exhaust the ones that folks can do on their own without a developer? Let’s

[00:52:23.35] spk_0:
see. I think the last one is actually um it’s not really an issue but something that’s nice to have is an accessibility statement. And during my uh talk, a couple of people like this um so they’re an excessively statement is just it’s an important it’s kind of think about it like a privacy statement. But for accessibility it shows your users that you you kind of care about accessibility and about them provide some information about the accessibility of the content. What steps are you taking to to do um to make your website accessible? And then you can provide an option to to receive feedback. So if they notice any problems they can they can they can reach out and let you know because issues will come up as you create new content or things get updated, there’ll be regressions and um you kind of have to stay on top of it. Accessibility just periodically do checks to make sure that uh nothing nothing fails. So

[00:52:26.15] spk_1:
yeah, that bleeds into maintaining accessibility over time. We have a few more minutes left. What’s your advice around keeping this up?

[00:53:44.05] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think to to keep this up, but you gotta understand that again. Regressions are common if you’re constantly updating your website and upload in your content. I think having manual checks periodically, so maybe once a month you have a bit of a checklist to go through. Um It’s a good idea. I think sharing some guidelines with your team, it’s it will go a long way rather than be um reactive and unfixed changes as they come up. Like you can make sure the new content that you’re creating meets the guidelines. So just having like a little checklist of. Okay, well, these are the common things that you want, we want to stick with will go a long way and then later, like, or if your budget allows, there’s a bunch of automation tools that will like run tests for you um on your website. So if you’re a bigger site and you have thousands of articles or things like that you might want to look into into that and and and accessibility of is it important to you that it might be worth it? Um So for example, I have here um like from DEak X. So it’s like an extension um There’s also accessibility insights from Microsoft or again the same website I linked to before. Well webbing. Uh they have a wave evaluation tools that you can wait. Let

[00:54:03.84] spk_1:
it goes more at the time. By the way, I have some floor work going on. So if you hear a circular star or some hammering or drilling okay, renovations outside and no worries.

[00:54:05.58] spk_0:
If you’re a crying baby, that’s that’s my baby outside the

[00:54:08.74] spk_1:
daughter. So.

[00:54:09.46] spk_0:
Okay. I

[00:54:15.14] spk_1:
haven’t heard any. All right, okay, great. Wait, let’s tick through those um those those resources again a little slower.

[00:54:18.03] spk_0:
Yeah, sure. Um So there’s acts by deke um Let’s see if I have the I don’t really have. Yeah. So like the website is D E. Q. U. E dot com for slash X.

[00:54:34.04] spk_3:
X X

[00:54:35.37] spk_1:
X

[00:54:36.11] spk_0:
A X E

[00:54:38.02] spk_1:
X C four slash X. Okay.

[00:54:40.94] spk_0:
Then the other one is again the it’s the same website I mentioned before. They have an evaluation tool. So all these are kind of like extensions you install in your browser and then you can click a button and that tells you all these all the issues on your page. So it’s kind of like a handy thing.

[00:54:56.81] spk_1:
Yeah, the other one was what? Web dot A. I am.

[00:55:01.14] spk_0:
Yeah. That’s right.

[00:55:05.64] spk_1:
Okay. And and so all right. So there’s there’s a accessibility checker there as well.

[00:55:08.01] spk_0:
Yeah. And then the last one is by Microsoft is just this one is easy. Its accessibility insights that I owe.

[00:55:24.84] spk_1:
Okay, accessibility insights dot io Yeah. Alright. We like free tools like free totally bring this, bring this uh

[00:55:45.94] spk_0:
and I guess I’ll do one more. Um There’s a Khan Academy has one that is quite friendly. I don’t I mean I like it, it’s just like a little tool that you add to your bookmark and then whenever you go to a website you just click on that and it creates like a little pop up. Um So if you google just con economy and it’s uh it’s T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:55:49.66] spk_1:
Way Con con K. H. A. N.

[00:55:54.82] spk_0:
Yeah akademi

[00:55:56.66] spk_1:
Khan Academy. Yeah.

[00:55:58.49] spk_0:
And then the tool is it’s T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:56:03.53] spk_1:
T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:56:05.67] spk_0:
Yeah so I think I don’t have an actual you’re all for it but it’s said to I use. Okay, so we can find

[00:57:29.43] spk_1:
an account academies. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right, thank you for those uh free resources. I like those. We’re gonna leave it there, martin. All right, okay. Cool. Well thank you for having me my pleasure. He’s martin to CASA President abound state software. Thank you again martin and thank you for being with 20 martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21. Ntc the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c O next week. First generation wealth with Esther choi If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, yeah, thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty You with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Yeah.

Nonprofit Radio for April 26, 2021: Prepare To Tell Future Impact Stories & Modernizing Your IT Function

My Guests:

Stephanie Fast & Jeff Melando: Prepare To Tell Future Impact Stories

My guests from 21NTC want you to invest in technology, so you have the outcome and impact data you need to tell great stories. They’re Stephanie Fast and Jeff Melando, both from Social Solutions.

 

 

 

 

Derrick Gilbert: Modernizing Your IT Function

Now that you have a purpose for your IT upgrade, let’s take it to the next level. Derrick Gilbert explains his people, process and technology framework for IT upgrades that rival corporate achievements. He’s founder of Gil Technology Group. This is also from 21NTC.

 

 

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[00:00:02.84] spk_6:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti

[00:00:12.35] spk_7:
non profit

[00:00:12.97] spk_6:
radio big non profit

[00:00:15.11] spk_7:
ideas for the

[00:01:39.94] spk_4:
Other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh and I’m glad you’re with me I’d suffer the embarrassment of axillary hyperhidrosis if you gave me sweats with the idea that you missed this week’s show prepared to tell future impact stories. My guests from 21 NTC want you to invest in technology so you have the outcome and impact data. You need to tell great stories. There’s Stephanie fast and Jeff Blando both from social solutions and modernizing your I. T. Function now that you have a purpose for your I. T. Upgrade. Let’s take it to the next level. Derek Gilbert explains his people process and technology framework for I. T. Upgrades that rival corporate achievements. He’s founder of Gil Technology Group. This is also from 21. NTCC Antonis take two. Your mission based relationships were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And you’ll be hearing more about them throughout our 21 NTC coverage here is prepared to tell future impact stories.

[00:01:44.94] spk_7:
Welcome to tony-martignetti

[00:01:46.03] spk_1:
Non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC, the 2021 nonprofit technology

[00:01:51.64] spk_7:
Conference. We are sponsored at 21 NTC by

[00:01:57.84] spk_4:
turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o.

[00:02:01.14] spk_7:
My guest now our Stephanie Fast

[00:02:03.33] spk_1:
and Jeff Milan does. They are both with social Solutions. Stephanie

[00:02:08.26] spk_7:
is president of Impact

[00:02:10.19] spk_1:
Partners at Social Solutions and Jeff is director

[00:02:14.51] spk_7:
of Impact Partners. Stephanie Jeff Welcome.

[00:02:18.54] spk_2:
Thank you for having us.

[00:02:19.82] spk_7:
Have you?

[00:02:22.14] spk_4:
Thank you very much. Your workshop topic is impact

[00:02:25.07] spk_7:
stories

[00:02:26.13] spk_1:
combining stories and data to better prove impact.

[00:02:31.83] spk_7:
Uh Stephanie, what we see that some shortcomings in

[00:02:36.12] spk_1:
storytelling, are they either to anecdotal or two data driven? Is that the

[00:02:40.54] spk_5:
problem? Well, I

[00:03:14.74] spk_3:
think that’s the problem historically is that the nonprofits have focused on telling the stories of their work, but they haven’t been in a position to tell the data that to use the data to back up those stories. So the, the readers get heavy on one side, which is the, the emotional side of the stories without having the technological data to support them. So are you know, what we were talking about in our in our session was how do you tell a better story? How do you bring those two together to be more impactful? Because you’re balancing both the heart and the head?

[00:03:20.74] spk_7:
Okay, right.

[00:03:25.24] spk_1:
The heart and the head. Very good. All right. Uh, important distinctions to make.

[00:03:26.54] spk_7:
Right. All right.

[00:03:38.94] spk_1:
So because we want to be data driven, but we also want to have some emotional appeal. Um, so Stephanie, let’s stay with you. Why don’t you get us started? How do we, what do we first think about if we’re going to be writing and we want to write one of these impact stories?

[00:04:55.94] spk_3:
Well, one of the things that, that Jeff and I talk about a lot is that you have to plan for data, it’s not something that just happens automatically. So most of the non profits that we talked to our, our clients of SSG have already sort of gone through their reporting cycle to their funders, right? They’ve written their 2020 statements, however, you know, um, unique. And um, I want to say, you know, messed up right? For let go better where like 2020 was what it was, right? And, and there was a lot of changes that we saw with funders in terms of their requirements for reporting, they reduced requirements. They allowed nonprofits to have more flexibility and how they spend There are funds. And, and so the reports that the nonprofits created for 2020 sort of reflect that like they had to just, you know, get work done as fast as possible. Kind of blow things out and, and so they’ve, they’ve now had a chance to report back to their funders on what they’ve accomplished. The, what we’ve been talking about is how is 2021 going to be different? Right? 2021? Like when we’re sitting a year from now in March of 2022, you know, looking back at 2021, like what do you want to do differently? When you talk about your impact in 2021 and if you’re going to have a change in your story, then you got to start thinking about the data that’s going to support that story now, right? Like figure out what you want to say next year. And then let’s back it up and look at what do we need to do today to be prepared to tell that story a year from now, Jeff, Jeff, pardon me. I was just seeing if Jeff had anything to add

[00:05:17.61] spk_1:
to that. Well, I was gonna ask

[00:05:18.61] spk_7:
the same. Yeah,

[00:05:19.44] spk_1:
absolutely. We’ve got to get to Jeff Jeff. All right. So, so yes, we’re going to predict what we want to be able to say. So how do we start now deciding what to capture to say that a year from now?

[00:06:46.84] spk_2:
I think, I think a lot of nonprofits, especially the providers of human services that we get to work with in our, in our daily lives at work, they know what they’re good at inherently because they’re doing it every day. But it takes a bit of a heads up approach to think about systems and strategies and most nonprofits don’t have time to do that right there like knee deep in the river trying to catch fish. And somebody is on the, on the, on the banks of the river with like a net saying like, do you want to try something different? Um, and so that’s kind of where we sit today, right? And we, it’s a constant, constant thing, right? There’s always room for innovation. There’s always a role that technology can play. And, and the, I’ve heard it once. I’ve heard it 1000 times nonprofits are behind when it comes to tech investment. Um, and we know that, right? Look at, look at the public-sector side or even the for profit business side studies are stone for profit businesses are investing anywhere from 13 to 22 of their bottom line revenue on technology because they know experience formacion a lets them do more with fewer human resources, Right? Nonprofits. I think Anton’s latest statistics is about two of annual operating budget is spent on tech.

[00:06:49.33] spk_1:
Oh my, it’s that low 2%.

[00:09:06.84] spk_2:
That’s, that’s the latest number that I’ve seen. And I’m, I’m not all that surprised. And if you look at the types of technology that most nonprofits have universal access to its Microsoft office and it’s an operating system and it’s a calculator, Right? Well, that’s really hard to show that you’ve actually exchanged. You actually moved the family from housing, insecure you stable, right. Other than you just put that in a letter to your donors or your funders, right. Um, so to be able to invest in like the technology infrastructure and the capacity to prove it and to prove it, not only that you’ve done it for that one family but that you’ve done for every family that you’ve touched or that you do a current X percentage of the families that you touched to be able to show your success is one side of the coin. I think the other side of the coin, maybe the side of the coin nobody wants to talk about. No nonprofits wanna talk about funders I want to ask about is what are the things that we’re doing and spending time and resources on that we’re not good at. So anecdotally we work with a nonprofit uh Were there for years. Right. Big non profit they run five programs in their community. They adopted some data systems to track their impact statistically quantitatively. And what they realized is four of their programs extremely impactful participants enrolled in those programs were having just massive life changes that broke down cycles like poverty or or domestic violence or abuse. The 5th 1 they were mediocre at and when they compared their notes with another nonprofit around town that did the same service, they found out that that other nonprofit was way better. So they developed a partnership, but data driven partnership to actually extend a better experience to the people that need that service in their community. So when I think about impact, I know that um, funders want to talk about impact for the sake of nonprofits telling it to them so that they can say look at what we invested in. But really impact is about changing a person’s life, right? So I don’t want to get to like it’s all about data, it’s all about stories, It’s all about telling this to your funders and it really it comes down to doing good work to change the reality of a person’s life. Right? Does that make sense? All right.

[00:09:12.48] spk_1:
Yeah. You said a lot there. I mean, I’m trying to I’m trying to take away,

[00:09:16.43] spk_7:
you know,

[00:09:24.54] spk_1:
technology investment, uh, and there’s lessons to be learned from the corporate side, but also

[00:09:25.86] spk_7:
focus

[00:09:28.64] spk_1:
on what you do best because because the things you’re not doing well are sucking resources away from where you you can be much more efficient. Every dollar spent on a lackluster program is a is a dollar not spent on a highly efficient and impactful and successful program.

[00:09:44.24] spk_2:
Yeah, economists would call that opportunity cost, right?

[00:09:53.84] spk_1:
Yes. The opportunity cost of doing something you’re not so good at is high when you’re talking about people’s lives or clean

[00:09:54.83] spk_7:
our air. All right. All right. All right. So, let’s get we gotta get back to now. We gotta get back to the root of uh

[00:10:02.94] spk_1:
writing these impactful stories. So drill this down now, Jeff. I’m not letting you off

[00:10:05.92] spk_7:
the hook. Bring

[00:10:07.01] spk_1:
me bring us back to

[00:10:09.14] spk_7:
writing impactful stories.

[00:10:11.24] spk_2:
So what if I got

[00:10:12.96] spk_1:
a deadline I’m on. I’m on deadline here. I’ve got a I got a 250 word e newsletter piece that’s got to be done by midday tomorrow. Where am I here?

[00:11:03.34] spk_2:
So, non profit Yeah. Do you think do you think your Thunder wants to hear about all the cool stuff that you did? Or do you think your Thunder wants to be shown the impact of all the cool stuff that you did? Right? That’s what it comes down to. Right. So take your data kill your investors, whether their institutional funders, private philanthropy, corporate funders or even individual donors and show them that the dollars that they spend on you are well invested. Um There are definitely donors out there that give from the heart and that’s very nice. And they’re definitely institutional funders out there that just want to write the check and hear about how many kids you served. But the ones that are going to be long term partners, the ones that are gonna give you grants year over year, maybe long term grants. They’re the ones that are gonna want to see that you’re the type of organization that believes in proof and evidence and that you have model and the systems to tell it.

[00:11:37.04] spk_1:
All right. All right. So there’s there’s there’s a lot that has to be set up. Well, that this is back to Stephanie’s point. You need to know what you want to capture and your point you have to have the technology uh, and the most efficient programs to capture the best. I mean, your most efficient programs are gonna show better data than your lackluster programs. So. All right. All

[00:12:28.14] spk_2:
right. And it’s as much a learning her for nonprofits as it is for funders. This is we often try to separate the two conversations because there Technically two different types of organizations. This is the same problem encountered for both groups. Write a funder says, Hey, I have this grant where I gave money to this organization that went to schools and handed out brochures about dental hygiene. What’s the how do I measure the impact of that? Was like, well, you don’t, there isn’t any like that’s a sponsorship not to grant. You know, if you’re investing in a fund is invested in organization, they should also want to invest in that organization. Success. Not just right, but you faded out. Not just what, not just writing the check in. Just in the success

[00:12:32.38] spk_1:
invest, right? Investment, not just a transaction

[00:12:35.58] spk_2:
versus a

[00:12:36.30] spk_7:
transaction. All right, Stephanie, Stephanie,

[00:12:49.54] spk_1:
I want I want you to bring us back to. I still am, I still have my deadline for 250 word article. And uh that I need to plan For what I want to say in 2021. It’s not gonna help me write my my impact story with my new deadline for tomorrow.

[00:14:42.64] spk_5:
Right. So one of the things that we that we talk a lot about is about the difference between outputs and outcomes and insights and impacts. Right? So there is a continuum. And I think the old way of of sort of looking at it was like dollars per participant. Right? So you could see how many people did I serve, Right. That’s sort of the old way of doing that. And I know it because that’s kind of my background. So I came from a nonprofit, I worked as a chief financial officer of a nonprofit for 12 years. And over the course of those 12 years when we started, we that’s what we were doing. We were counting how many people got access to clean water, right? How many people got access to a school and what we were finding over the last 5-7 years. I think it coincides with what technology is able to provide, right that the abilities of um, of technology keep growing so that you’re able to use data to find more and more. You can track more and more things and you can and you can move beyond just tracking access or just tracking outputs. And I think you’ve got to, you’ve got to develop your theory of change. You’ve got to figure out what, what is the true out outcome that you want to achieve and how do the outputs relate to that? Right? That’s an activity. That non profit should go through and figure out like what is their theory of change? We we did that at my former organization because our our donors were starting to ask those kinds of questions. They were starting to get more sophisticated. They were writing bigger checks. If the bigger checks, you get, the more that they’re likely to be thinking about impacts instead of outputs. Right? And so when you start moving from that mindset of just tracking the small outputs to starting to think about the outcomes, then you start to track different things. And that’s how you build what you want to track next year by thinking about what do I need to start tracking now?

[00:14:52.24] spk_1:
Okay. All right. My hypothetical uh my hypothetical writer who has articles still not written,

[00:14:59.30] spk_7:
That’s still not

[00:15:00.13] spk_4:
right. All right. So, I should have planned. All right. So

[00:15:03.35] spk_7:
All right, Well, the lesson

[00:15:04.46] spk_4:
is that

[00:15:05.44] spk_1:
you’re not gonna be able to write a great

[00:15:07.48] spk_7:
impact story

[00:15:10.54] spk_1:
for tomorrow at noon with unless you’ve got things in place

[00:15:14.24] spk_7:
to to track real

[00:15:16.37] spk_4:
outcomes, real, real real impact outcomes versus impact, I understand the difference.

[00:15:21.05] spk_7:
Alright, alright. So

[00:15:23.34] spk_1:
you’ll have to work with the data

[00:15:24.45] spk_7:
that you’ve got

[00:15:25.74] spk_1:
and weave that into a narrative for your deadline story that’s due tomorrow.

[00:16:13.24] spk_3:
And I think that if you haven’t planned then you’re going to have to rely heavier on the case studies and heavier on the you know, taking one piece, one example of how your work has transformed someone, right? And if you don’t have the data writ large, then you’re going to have to find the data in a microcosm and then tell that story. Um as part, you know, when I was saying before, was this balance apartment head, But if you don’t have the big data to talk about, then then pick a small case study and wrap your, wrap your impact around that one individual and how they’ve been transformed by your services. Okay.

[00:16:14.74] spk_1:
Okay. All right. You got

[00:16:15.49] spk_2:
unfortunately if if you didn’t invest in the in the right infrastructure to get the data, your noon deadline tomorrow is uh there’s a sane in the south. The ship sailed.

[00:16:27.04] spk_1:
Yeah, no, that’s

[00:16:28.13] spk_2:
clear. Alright.

[00:16:36.24] spk_1:
Well, yeah, we say something in the north. Well, I’m in north north Carolina now, but I’m from the north, which is, you know, you’re screwed, you work with what you’ve got and and Stephanie, Stephanie just explained how you can take an anecdote and you can you can also craft that into a larger sum larger narrative, but maybe without the ideal without the ideal data about about true impact.

[00:16:54.44] spk_7:
And and

[00:18:01.34] spk_2:
and we’ll never we’ll never have perfect data. There is no such thing in an ideal world will have clean and complete data, but it still won’t be the entire picture. I think whether you have good data or bad data that the end goal is no, I mean make for your investors, funders, donors community understand the work that you do understand why it’s helped them understand why it’s important and who your who’s benefiting from it, right? Find outside resources. So do your research. I’m on the help out. Didn’t say I’m on the board. Help out with a nonprofit here in charlotte. Um, that does empathy education. It’s really hard to get like metrics for a nonprofit with one employee around empathy education. But what we do have is research, right? We can show that by doing empathy education. K through five people are more likely to be nicer. They’re less likely to participate in bullying, right? Um, and the research happens to come from Harvard. So that’s, that’s a start, Right? So in the absence of data, find someone else that had data and show that you’re similar enough. Right? So, okay, there you go.

[00:18:07.47] spk_1:
All right, You can use them outside. You can use some outside numbers.

[00:18:10.10] spk_7:
You’re in charlotte. We’re only about five hours away by car.

[00:18:12.92] spk_4:
Where are you? I mean Emerald

[00:18:14.54] spk_1:
Isle on the beach.

[00:18:15.69] spk_0:
Okay, Very cool.

[00:18:18.44] spk_2:
Oh, I actually went to, so I went to Unc Wilmington. So yeah, hour and a

[00:18:23.25] spk_7:
quarter of south or so. Yeah, I have

[00:18:25.08] spk_4:
the ocean across the street here.

[00:18:26.53] spk_2:
I’m very jealous how close you are to a port city java. I know on podcast we don’t want to plug businesses that aren’t necessarily sponsors, but if you are attention folks listeners, if you are in coastal north Carolina and you go pass a port city java and your coffee drinker do not drive past it without getting something

[00:18:45.32] spk_1:
as he takes a sip from his mug. It’s not a port city java mug, but we don’t have Port City java here in Emerald Isle.

[00:18:52.04] spk_7:
It’s a small thing you’re

[00:18:52.97] spk_2:
not very far from, pardon

[00:18:54.95] spk_7:
me,

[00:18:55.53] spk_2:
not very far from, not very far from

[00:18:57.23] spk_1:
maybe anymore head

[00:18:58.73] spk_7:
or something. Okay,

[00:18:59.79] spk_1:
We’re a small town, only about 3500 time residents here, which is why I like

[00:19:04.37] spk_7:
it. Um, alright, but Port city job, that’s okay. We can shout out non

[00:19:07.86] spk_4:
sponsors. That’s right.

[00:19:09.44] spk_7:
We shouted out social solutions, you’re not sponsored, So

[00:19:12.22] spk_1:
there you go. There you go.

[00:19:13.94] spk_7:
Okay. Um, all

[00:19:15.80] spk_4:
right, so let you know this is becoming

[00:19:17.12] spk_7:
more of a conversation about

[00:19:23.34] spk_1:
how to prepare to write impact stories next year, which is where you started out, Stephanie, you know, saying you need to know what you want to report on a year from now to put those things in place to have the numbers to do so.

[00:19:31.69] spk_7:
Um

[00:19:32.59] spk_4:
All right,

[00:19:33.37] spk_7:
all right, that’s right.

[00:19:34.34] spk_1:
We we got our we’ve got our

[00:19:35.81] spk_7:
my my deadline off the hook, so we’re

[00:19:38.08] spk_1:
okay, you gave some solutions for that.

[00:19:44.84] spk_2:
I think the, like the actual story is the easy part if you build the the infrastructure to Yeah,

[00:19:50.34] spk_1:
that’s the point. Right? So I’m saying that this has evolved into a plan for the

[00:19:54.31] spk_7:
future, your impact stories

[00:20:02.94] spk_1:
for sure or impactful story. Impact stories, I guess. Yeah. To write those stories. Right? So, um, let’s talk a little more about then, what since that’s where we

[00:20:11.74] spk_7:
are. Um this preparation, you know what we’ve talked about the data driven, let’s talk about some of the emotional appeal,

[00:20:15.55] spk_1:
like Stephanie, you said, you know, it’s the brains and the heart.

[00:20:18.79] spk_7:
Let’s let’s

[00:20:23.64] spk_1:
all right for this story that we’re gonna be writing a year from now. How do we bring in more of the heart?

[00:21:44.34] spk_3:
Well, I think the place to start is with the people who are closest to the work. Right? So I think the best place to start talking about Case studies is with the caseworkers, right? They’re the ones that have the most direct experience with individuals, it’s not in the marketing department, it should start with the people in the field when in my in my previous role, uh that was we were doing work in Ethiopia, and so are field workers. Were the ones that were capturing the stories, you know, in the small communities, in the small rural communities, right? Because they’re the ones taking the pictures and I think people don’t want anymore, they don’t want the cookie cutter story of this little boy gets up at 4 30 in the morning, walks six miles to go get water. I mean, unfortunately that we’ve heard those stars too often. So I think what is appealing to people now is something that’s more raw, that’s more vulnerable. That’s more uh like real life of of what somebody is experiencing in the most direct way. That doesn’t feel candor staged. It doesn’t even have to be 100% good outcome. I think people are as interested in why things fail as why things succeed. And I think the more people are willing to tell authentic stories that that come come at issues from new perspectives. I think that really resonates with with readers.

[00:21:57.74] spk_7:
Okay, Jeff you wanna you wanna hit to the heart?

[00:24:31.94] spk_2:
Yeah. And I think if if we usually, usually with nonprofits, the Hearts, the part this nonprofit was typically started to do something for people, right? So there’s an inherent emotional attachment, emotional load do that. Um, so we almost say exclusively, but a lot of times it’s getting the pulling out from the emotion. What is it’s wonderful that we we got this family stable housing. How does that, how does that help them like go go one step further with the data? Um, but I agree with Steph, it’s about getting the stories from on the ground and it’s got a very non profit and non profit. Right? Um, so your Art museum, you have have to think about, Well, we have these great exhibits and we have this much, you know, there’s many people coming to see it and they’re experiencing this art that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. I’d also think about the equity of it, right? So, Oh, but also we have, you know, we subsidize visits for people of this income level and we have school trips come through, but that’s gonna be completely different if you’re an after school program, right? If you’re an after school program, you probably have really good data around, Hey, we know after the 14th absence, this kid is 40 less likely to graduate for any given grade, right? Well, what that means for little timmy is that he means family just lost their house and now they’re in a hotel. So we had to switch schools, which meant he was out of school for 10 full days. We have to intervene, right? To show show your readers. Think, first of all, think about what your readers are interested in and what you want to get out of it. So if it’s a donor or if it’s a community member and or a Thunder, you want to be able to show that you’re solving a problem, that you are providing a unique solution to a problem that we know exists in society. Um and from there, an accurate description of the problem is often a lot of the heart, the heart will automatically respond to that. The thing about that’s the thing about the heart or the other side of the brain. It’s it’s sort of it’s very responsive to that pain and under like it’s not hard to understand what it must be like to be a family losing their home or a person that’s out of work, especially this year with the pandemic. That’s easy, right? The next step is showing and here’s how our solution solves that. But by this point, if if your if your problem is real and your solution is good, people are already crying.

[00:24:39.14] spk_1:
Yeah. And and a lot of this emotion is uh Stephanie said it’s going to come from the folks who are actually doing the work on the ground, you know, the caseworker with timmy’s family.

[00:25:07.84] spk_2:
Yeah. And there are certainly cases where like instances where you don’t want to necessarily use who real world of an example, domestic violence shelters don’t, you’re not going to use a name or anything personally identifiable? Absolutely. 100%. We there’s always going to be data sensitivities and to think otherwise is um maybe blindsided. But that’s not to say that there aren’t stories that matter. And there are stories that are both meaningful from an emotional standpoint, but also backed up by data and science and proof

[00:27:22.14] spk_3:
tony Can I offer another perspective to this conversation? Um if we have time. So one of the other things that we’re talking about when you’re, when you’re building your impact story is not to do it in a silo. So even though you are one organization, you are part of a community, right? And we um we are trying to break down the barriers between organizations working in silos to getting people to have more of a community mindset, both in terms of the nonprofits that are working together to solve a person’s needs. Like he was talking about little timmy is needs homelessness help, He needs job or his parents need job help. He probably is food insecure. You know, there are people don’t live single issue lives anymore. They need they need organizations that can work together and can think about things in a community like fashion, both on the nonprofit side and on the thunder side. Right. What Jeff and I do is strictly raise money so that nonprofits can adopt technology, whatever technology they have, whether it’s social solutions or another technology, all we’re trying to do is get money into this sector because we think change starts with technology, right? So when you can get the funders to start thinking in a community way like pools of money and getting outcomes tracked for the whole sector, right? The whole community, then you start to have a different story to tell as well. And that story also would translate into your impact stories because then you’re looking at, you’re like, hey, it’s not just about how many people I served, it’s how many families got out of poverty because I’m connected to this bigger network and through this network, working together and sharing, sharing data and sharing outcomes and sharing, you know, tracking people across organizations. We were able to get x number of people sort of out of the system, which is ultimately the goal, right? The goal is not to just give them a meal. The goal is to get them stable so that they can resist a shock when it comes their way and that they can get sort of placed out of the system. And so like Jeff and I, you know, we we are obsessed with getting money into the sector so that so that this work can start to happen on a community level.

[00:27:43.94] spk_1:
Okay, we’re gonna leave it there. All right, Stephanie, we let Jeff shout out that he’s in charlotte north Carolina. Where are you

[00:27:48.99] spk_3:
in Austin texas?

[00:27:50.86] spk_4:
All right, go

[00:27:52.11] spk_1:
on. You’ve got yes, your bio said you’ve got three daughters in what, three different gig um, horns, boola boola and

[00:28:00.64] spk_3:
and roll

[00:28:01.48] spk_5:
tide. Roll, yep, we’re waiting

[00:28:04.75] spk_1:
for the tide is Alabama. I looked these up but I don’t remember

[00:28:08.52] spk_5:
what boola boola boola

[00:28:09.50] spk_3:
boola is. Yale. My youngest

[00:28:10.94] spk_5:
one in the ROTC

[00:28:12.00] spk_3:
program at Yale. Okay, and what was the third one is hook em horns. She’s a longhorn. She’s here in

[00:28:16.62] spk_5:
Austin at the

[00:28:17.87] spk_3:
University of texas. Ut

[00:28:19.48] spk_7:
ut

[00:28:20.84] spk_1:
that’s Stephanie, fast

[00:28:22.03] spk_7:
President of recent

[00:28:23.58] spk_1:
President of Impact Partners at Social solutions and Jeff Blando. Director of Impact Partners Also, it’s social Solutions. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you

[00:28:32.28] spk_5:
Jeff, Thank you Tony.

[00:28:33.65] spk_3:
This is a great

[00:28:39.54] spk_1:
pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the 2021 nonprofit technology conference

[00:28:42.74] spk_7:
where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen

[00:30:12.84] spk_4:
two dot c o It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Here they are when there’s something in the news and you want to be heard on it. When you want to get an op ed published. When you want a guest on blogs and podcasts, speaker at conferences and be shared on social. You turn to turn to, they have the relationships, they know how to get you the coverage, they know how to get you covered. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o as you’ve heard a few times throughout the show. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Your mission is the basis for your relationships. This has come up a couple times. Just this past week, questions about, you know, what do we talk to people about or how do we open a conversation? It’s your mission. That’s what you have in common with folks. Now, I’m not so much talking about acquiring new donors that, you know, my work is planned giving. We don’t acquire new donors. That’s a different science and art. I’m talking about having conversations, planned giving or otherwise with any of your existing donors. Even even first time donors, they’ve, they’ve just done it. What’s the common denominator between you and them? It’s your work they gave to your work. Even if it’s just one time

[00:30:21.24] spk_7:
you have it in common.

[00:30:22.38] spk_4:
You build from there. That’s the basis of your relationship.

[00:30:26.24] spk_1:
Now, of course, in planned giving, you’re talking to folks who have been given to you for a long time,

[00:30:36.54] spk_4:
easily decades and lots and lots of cases, decades. So, but the, so the relationship is,

[00:30:39.14] spk_7:
is already exists to some degree and you’re just

[00:30:42.66] spk_4:
maybe trying to expand

[00:30:43.71] spk_7:
it to be a little more

[00:30:44.69] spk_4:
personal. But wherever

[00:30:46.72] spk_7:
you are in

[00:30:47.67] spk_1:
either end of that spectrum

[00:30:49.87] spk_7:
from new

[00:30:50.86] spk_1:
donor or to plant

[00:30:52.96] spk_7:
giving or

[00:31:01.94] spk_4:
anywhere in between your mission, your work, your values, the importance of all that, that’s the common denominator that you’ve got with folks. That’s what you build your relationship from. You have conversations and

[00:31:09.55] spk_7:
those conversations might be digital

[00:32:04.84] spk_4:
or you know marketing materials, I mean conversations figura figuratively your conversations are about that. That’s what you’ve got in common with other folks. That’s what they want to talk to you about now. Of course you can build a relationship from there naturally. But that’s what you’ve got to start your relationship building with, that’s what you’ve got in common. So work from that and I wish you of course fruitful relationships of all types, all types of whether it’s volunteer or the folks you’re helping, wherever those relationships are, they come from your mission That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is modernizing your I. T. Function.

[00:32:09.14] spk_7:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC. The 2021 nonprofit

[00:32:22.54] spk_4:
Technology Conference were sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn

[00:32:25.94] spk_7:
hyphen two dot C. O. I’m kicking off our 21 NTCC

[00:32:27.88] spk_4:
coverage right now. My very first guest of the

[00:32:30.63] spk_7:
conference is

[00:32:31.77] spk_1:
Derek G. Gilbert. He’s founder and chief business technologist at Gil Technology Group.

[00:32:37.38] spk_7:
He’s at D G. Gilbert

[00:32:42.04] spk_4:
I T. B A. Derek Welcome to

[00:32:43.65] spk_7:
Non private radio and uh kick off of the 21 NTC coverage.

[00:32:47.64] spk_0:
Thank you. Glad to be here, appreciate it. Been watching you last four or five. Ntc. So happy to be part of it. Yes,

[00:32:58.56] spk_1:
usually right. When we were on site, I’ve always been on the conference, the exhibit room floor. Cool. Thanks

[00:33:04.74] spk_7:
thanks for seeing us there.

[00:33:05.67] spk_4:
Okay.

[00:33:06.54] spk_7:
Um your topic is modernizing the I. T. Function people

[00:33:11.93] spk_1:
process and

[00:33:15.24] spk_7:
technology. I want to kick off by just asking what does modernization look like for nonprofits?

[00:33:22.14] spk_0:
Uh that’s the question of the day. Excuse me. I didn’t get a lot of coffee and we have a call.

[00:33:29.18] spk_7:
Okay thank you. Thank

[00:33:30.42] spk_1:
your time. We got plenty of time to talk about it. Don’t worry.

[00:34:50.94] spk_0:
Yeah. Uh non profit The whole principle proposed that session is that I believe in being able to leverage things in different industries into non profit. So I’m trying to to see how we can how the benefits the ceos of commercial enterprise leverage modernization and to improve their bottom line that nonprofits to definitely modernize their I. T. In order to their bottom line which is creating greater impact and and fulfilling the mission. So I’m organization It’s basically three phases. Once that people process and technology. I read an article. Mckinsey Company had an article about how Ceo with modernizing it for revenue games and you talked about the role of the I. T. Function needs to change a modern it uh organizations that actually become more strategic. And I know that the nonprofit has been quite a few years supporting nonprofit is technologies mostly seemed that the tactical solution to what the mission is versus a strategic element. So the first thing is to the role of I. T. Should be raised to be a strategic the culture should be more strategic and we so

[00:35:02.04] spk_1:
well so just we can you know we in the in the nonprofit community can can get the same types of benefits that we’re seeing with technology on the on the commercial side.

[00:36:59.73] spk_0:
Yes the different for different outcomes. Right? So permission for example, you know, in the commercial space, people may modernize to reduce costs in order to increase their profit line, increase better financial picture. The nonprofit space were modernized to reduce costs. But that’s also to put more money, uh, into investing into the mission or into services. But the idea is that when I see strategically, it’s like I can do more mission, more value to the constituents if I have more up to date in modern technology, uh, strategically thinking. So we look at the beginning of the front. So there are some financial and non financial benefits either way. So I was just trying to use the fact that, uh, let’s, let’s let’s position I think differently as a partner, uh, strategic partner as well as identified the right reasons we know that night, uh, non profits. They are challenged by funds for administrative or general services such as sad overhead. And so the second piece of that is you really got to have the right people that, I mean, I always quote Jim Collins book good to great to talk about the right people. So you gotta have talented and so I know you can’t have a whole slew of staff, but I think you need a leader there and you need a qualified leader. So the resources and then strategically use vendors, which were not a process. They do all the time they outsource but the right type of stuff. And then you look at how to modernize their technology infrastructure. And now we’re going to the cloud is obviously right where to go? There’s a lot of discounts for nonprofits to move to Microsoft 365, uh, and that the whole environment that right there is everything you need to do a nonprofit and then allows you to be able to scale and be more flexible. And if you do that, you just take the now you can spend more time focusing on how do we have greater impact in the work.

[00:37:21.23] spk_1:
Okay, so you’re right. Do you have this people process and technology framework, which I was, I want to drill down into a little bit. I do. But first I want to just, I want to flush out something. So folks get the idea,

[00:37:30.07] spk_7:
what does it mean

[00:37:31.49] spk_4:
to think of

[00:37:33.33] spk_1:
technology strategically versus tactically?

[00:37:36.92] spk_7:
How, what does that, what does that mind shift

[00:37:40.09] spk_1:
look like? How do we think about technology strategically rather than tactical?

[00:38:50.32] spk_0:
But the first thing is that he always teaches that technology basic has four primary purposes of roles for technology. Technology is not happen to be more efficient. What needs to have to be more efficient, Be more effective And enable you to do something extraordinary wouldn’t be able to do. And then the 4ft which is extra duct Jim Collins that put a lot of talk about technology accelerator, I had to find an E. So I had to say extra doctor. So so when you think about at a strategic level or business level or an executive level, productivity is key to being efficient in effect, when you see that technology is going to allow you to be more productive not just do more but be more effective than he becomes strategic. Now it’s imperative that you have the right technology solutions because your staff and resources are getting things done better more and more effectively and so therefore it is greater impact. So it’s not just technology keeping the lights on or utility, it’s actually helping me drive business dr missing, drive my outcomes that then openly makes me look better in the front of Okay. Yeah, So that that’s kind of, it’s

[00:39:12.82] spk_1:
kind of like, you know, adopting technology as a partner rather than like this necessary thing. Well, you know, we all need to process spreadsheets, so, you know, we need office 3 65 you know, we need we need the office suite if we’re not in the cloud, you know, whatever. Uh

[00:39:19.33] spk_7:
But

[00:39:40.22] spk_1:
yeah, so I’m thinking of it more as a partnership than like this thing that is aside, it just helps us do our work, but it doesn’t contribute to outcomes and and success. It just is like a tool. We, you know, we just, we need it because everybody’s because everybody’s got to have it. But all right, so that’s sort of that’s the way I’m I’m sort of processing what you’re describing.

[00:39:42.93] spk_0:
And in the 21st century we no longer technology just utility just keeping the lights on because now you can invest in that technology. Yeah. You’re not gonna put a lot of money. They’re gonna try to do as cheaply as possible because you don’t see how if I do invest money, my return is going to be greater for mission fundraising and everything else. So that’s that’s okay.

[00:40:09.91] spk_1:
Yeah. Excellent. No more like not just a commodity,

[00:40:13.37] spk_7:
but yeah, an integral part of your success. Okay. Uh, thank you. Thank you. I just want to make that clear for folks because because it’s hard

[00:40:23.00] spk_4:
to shift thinking,

[00:40:24.48] spk_1:
you know, we’re just used to technology is like, you know, like this commodity, this tool we, you know, everybody’s got to have it. But you know, so I like to drill down into

[00:42:05.60] spk_0:
and I can’t let me just to bring on the people process and technology got to know about infrastructure but the people that are getting the right people there you know what I find. And I had I saw this this week as well a lot of the I. T. Leaders in the nonprofit organizations didn’t come in as I. T. That came in as a programmatic person that took on responsibilities of I. T. So this is very important that you need to have an internal resource that their expertise is I. T. Planning. Leadership assessment understanding. So then you can strategically create this partnership. So there are I. T. Business partner roles in the commercial space right? Because I’ve been looking at a few of those roads and what we need to do a position I. T. As an I. T. Department in the organization. So we ride along with the programs area of development area. We’re sitting at the table with them because we can better be informed and have better information. And the process is is that that kind of leads to the processes that you’re involved in. The shaping the strategy, the development of business operations and things like that. Not because okay we need to talk about our crm. Bring in no no bring in the I. T. Director bringing it leads. You know the processes were multidisciplinary, let’s bring it at the table. And as you were strategizing around non technical things. Technology Leader the right leader will be able to see that and they understand and identify technology needs from those conversations. That can be very fruitful.

[00:42:26.60] spk_1:
Okay okay so in the on the people’s side uh you mentioned this but I want to I want to hit home that it begins with leadership because you’re talking about making I. T. Making your tech team or your tech lead. Who like you said may very well not be a person with a technical background. Making your tech lead

[00:42:32.52] spk_7:
a part of all

[00:42:33.73] spk_1:
the conversations. I mean that’s gotta start that’s gonna start with leadership and

[00:44:34.29] spk_0:
yes and I work for national the last seven years I was the I. T. Director for them and I just ended up relationship back in october so it’s fairly neat but that’s my country. And and what happened is that we got a new directive during my tenure there and actually I was promoted to director prior to him arriving then upon my arrival I had you know he was integrated into the organization. He was having all these conversations. So I believe position I teach Tv. Because I have an NBA. So I would have just fresh out of business school and not only did maybe permanent acting director but he also elevated my position to the leadership which was executive leadership team. This is where all the business units managing directors of those programs mission programs everything. So now I was at the leadership team table because he saw that it was I typically strategic to where he wanted to take a 21st century mission model ministry model he was pushing. And so that’s when the roads and the people promoting elevating I. T. To that not only just the I. T. Department but it would behoove us to have a senior I. T. Sitting at the executive table. That his role is not just like tea but it’s the shape family for an organization. So my objective director had to do that right? So no matter how well I was doing my job, the leader, the ceo of the executive director has to have see that as a true body. And so the Mackenzie are red on this recession. It talked about how what Ceos can do to drive that down in that organization. So it’s a culture change. So but definitely the leader of the organization, the one who the stuff you wouldn’t say, the buck stops at has to say you know what it is not just a utility for us. We don’t have the right technology in the right places and people understanding that we’re not going to be able to sustain our organization.

[00:44:58.39] spk_1:
Derek what is the small organization do that doesn’t have an I. T. Lead. Maybe they maybe they lean on a consultant to help them, you know? Uh Yeah so the smaller organization that doesn’t have that benefit of somebody that was in the position that you were in.

[00:47:03.48] spk_0:
Yeah. And the national Child Record, we didn’t have a funding issue, right? We had a nice endowment. So money wasn’t an issue. We didn’t spend on it because we didn’t have the money behind ever. And small organization is very talented. There are, you know, one thing is built technology group that I’m doing now been consulting had been worked for a while, but I developed this I. T. Advising the services company. But I saw this is what I thought that nonprofits small medium, they just need the right leadership. Now they can’t afford me individual right? As as an expert, but they need to have that relationship. So there’s a lot of so good partnership. So you need to have a relationship with someone you can trust I prefer. But I will have someone independent of the organization that you’re outsourcing to. But you may be obtained that advisory role, right. It could be very affordable. And actually my approach is similar to a financial advisor is that every a flat rate. Every year I come in, I spent maybe six, six times with you doing business analysis of your technology and advise you on these things and develop a plan. So once you have a plan, mm people within the organization with project management and programme management skills can actually execute, execute the plan. But the key thing is I think you need to get the right plan in place the right vision. If you engage someone independent of any vendor that you’re using, that’s just all over here is to properly advise you find out to be the fourth that amount of contractor consulting services. And I said, well I use I listen to dependent. We had a guy in our community conversations yesterday said you feel like the Ceo. Or E. D. Got in a three year contract vendor and he’s like that’s a bad idea but he didn’t no one to talk to, right? So because of the relationship they said well I’m just gonna listen to external person but you got to realize those vendors have a goal, they have to earn revenue, they gotta sell products.

[00:47:12.95] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:47:24.18] spk_0:
Alright. Yeah. So so that is tough. But I think there’s there’s opportunity independent consultants because a lot of people who have experienced but you negotiate what you need right? Uh Sorry about that. Do you know negotiate with the services that you need to look the part time come in and help us develop a three year plan and we can be able to execute that.

[00:47:40.08] spk_1:
Let’s talk about the process then we we talked about the people in the technology and maybe we’ll say more about the technology but let’s let’s move to the process. What’s what’s that part of this framework?

[00:48:34.17] spk_0:
Yeah the process is really the strategic planning process right every year. Technology assessment maybe do all those things but however you your process little little streamline I. T. Services and delivery. Right? So what I did in my role is not only the end is a top of the help this uh software package right with online through Microsoft 3 65. Again it was free versions included. Uh the main escapes from now but that allowed the I. T. Television from an operational standpoint to be able to mesh support calls better be able to manage the assets so you have the technology to do that. So The acquisition with acquisition process uh proactively meaning don’t wait two things break down to do that. Right. Right. Life people, people end up

[00:49:12.67] spk_1:
in crisis without, you know, if they don’t have a regular modernization plan, they end up in crisis when something something fails or you know, uh an outdated app is no longer supported that they’re relying on, you know, all of a sudden now it’s now it’s a crisis instead of having a I guess a modernization path, I mean

[00:49:13.89] spk_7:
it’s but

[00:49:15.42] spk_4:
really but

[00:49:16.46] spk_7:
your technology should be a part

[00:49:17.86] spk_1:
Of your strategic plan, right? I mean wherever the organization is going, the technology needs to be right alongside with I mean integrated the way we were just talking about 10 minutes ago.

[00:49:54.87] spk_0:
correct? And that’s like that’s they in that non profit prop for profit That needs to be true and that’s the strategic nature of it right now that you develop your organizational business plan, mission plan and strategies and then say okay I. T. Director this is what we’re trying to do. They they’re looking at now you really handcuffed right? So he may look at and say well we don’t we don’t have this we don’t have that. So let’s, oh so

[00:50:16.96] spk_1:
now you’re strategic right now your strategic plan is no longer feasible because you don’t have the because the technology wasn’t a part of the conversation now you find out you can’t fund the technology to support the plan that you’re bored is just just adopted last week. Yeah I just got foisted on the I. T. Vendor whatever the I. T. Person whoever is responsible for it and what your

[00:50:22.85] spk_0:
plan. Yeah. Yeah

[00:50:26.52] spk_1:
it doesn’t. Yeah it does.

[00:50:27.93] spk_7:
Now hopefully folks are avoiding this

[00:50:29.83] spk_1:
because all right so yeah it’s gotta be technology’s gonna be integrated. All right. All right.

[00:50:35.76] spk_4:
Um

[00:50:36.86] spk_7:
Should we say more about

[00:50:37.76] spk_4:
the technology that’s

[00:50:38.90] spk_7:
out there? I mean you

[00:50:44.56] spk_1:
mentioned like the office 3 65 sweet shall we say more about movement to the cloud. I mean there are a lot of organizations still not cloud based and so you

[00:51:55.56] spk_0:
know that’s like cloud breaks, it is out there. People know that they know it provides a reducing costs and infrastructure and that kind of stuff. But the key thing not only just technology infrastructure also the technology personality to manage that. Right? So we had an opportunity we actually I’ve told people this week I said well I was lucky because we was actually the last two years we actually had to get out of our building and moved to a new location. So we bought a new building and we got into the new building and had to build everything from scratch. So I was like oh great. I not only have my I. T. Budget money, I got capital money from building out a building that I can invest in a new data center. Uh You know I had one server on prim and had moved to Microsoft, We moved Microsoft 365, remove the Azure and all that and all the security thing, firewall, we use the Iraqi system product which has the I can manage to find myself in the cloud. Right? So all that flex do that modern environment that uh maybe 30 $30 square feet. I had 500 so internet connections in the buildings and wireless. We had stated R. A. V. But

[00:52:09.35] spk_1:
now you’re now you’re bragging you know now but I can do this by a building. That’s the beginning,

[00:56:15.43] spk_0:
right? Because money, so there was some purpose is not because of it because we have the opportunity. So as I looked and said, not only that, but just minimal as mobile computers. And I’m one of the greatest thing I would say is that We was prepared when the pandemic last 12 months ago because I had already began the process of upgrading and moving people first of all off of uh that solitude because because I was at the senior lower table, I understood that the mission was going to be more robust and remote, right? We had to cut down on travel and all these other things. So I said, well you have to be more mobile than staff, kind of people in mobile. So I started moving people off of desktops. Then I started moving people to from them at that time because I needed some lighter, right, lighter and doable. And I experimented with a few but I ended up with no, you know how that quality of the product, but very like, you know, I think that they passed uh IBM product computers and and so I had moved everything by the time the last March I had completely got everybody off desktop so we had to go home. Uh that was no, there was no big, the only problem was printing right? And but we wasn’t closed so people could come in a little bit locally and have to do print jobs that come in and copy and print jobs, but I was very ahead of the curve so in order to teach it to you being be more proactive and preventive and not always a break fix and usually non process, that’s kind of what we do, we’ll get the money once it really has to spend it or we get in trouble. But that impact your you don’t need technology should be helping you execute things more versus hindering and so, and that’s why it’s important to modernize not only your people infrastructure, your process infrastructure, but the technology because there’s no technology so affordable now you’re right. Microsoft text, you can now non prosecuted the technology so there’s no excuse from a monetary standpoint and then its consumer base, not consumers consumption based versus uh, you know, such an overhead costs, right, appreciate operating from the however, but you’re gonna have these large capitalist incident to upgrade servers by more servers and start getting people on digital platforms and remotely. Uh, we have a lot of access databases. I’m trying to get them out, put them in the cloud or put them in some case. And the technology for VPN now, although that’s a, it’s a trend not too big BP because some security and some other things like that. But at the time I was trying to do this completely remote thing with Microsoft 365, they have the ability to, your network can always be accessible and you need this application. Uh things happen too fast and I didn’t get that, but I can jump this app, everybody’s contributing, then they need to get the resources, but none of the resources in the house, all the resources in the cloud. So you don’t need BP. Right, you still have the security of Microsoft. And so that’s where the modern infrastructure technology, computer technology, we didn’t do something with printing technology. I invested in Canon, multi function printers can do copy and all that throughout the building. So we before I left, I was getting ready to do this. Print anywhere in the building. So no matter where you go, just put your badge in your print. So that’s modern technology that afforded you move that way. But a lot of that is if you got the right leader negotiated work with the right vendors because there’s always a win win. Right? So uh some vendors I brought in a very top non suspenders uh but they do have, they want to get in non profit, they don’t want to leave non profit money on the table. So they’re willing to work with the problem.

[00:56:18.28] spk_7:
Well plus there

[00:56:19.59] spk_1:
are other resources like you mentioned Techsoup. Techsoup gives grants. Um you mentioned, did you mention IBM is there, is there are there grants from IBM?

[00:58:01.22] spk_0:
No, I didn’t get to the great texture protection. They have a noble thing. You know I’m talking like $1500 off of a $3000 backed up, you know. And I told him this week, I said if there’s no if you’re 513 seeded you register with them. But the key thing is you’ve got the resources but what I’m trying to sell it you can no longer get away without having a leadership right smaller organizations you need to consult with somebody is in your best interest for that advisory role. Leadership role or thinking about. It’s not uncommon for I. T. Directors or leaders to be hands on. So I’m not saying that I was very hands on. I was sitting there trying to fix computers update a server but majority of my work was leadership and management M. I. T. T. So you can have a leader there that can do some hands on work but then outsource the real day to day level one level two kind of things. And so that strategy is what I enforce. So before I left I had a 24 7 infrastructure management contract. You may have heard one hammer systems is out of create and uh their affordable that in order to manage the state of the art network they told me you would need like two additional engineers, one specialized security And suburb and all this kind of stuff. And that’s that’s 200 k. For that happened. And and I was just playing a third of that for them. There’s something that probably wouldn’t be a problem because he wasn’t that high. Eric.

[00:58:06.21] spk_1:
I want to leave us with 111 I don’t maybe not necessarily a tip but one thing that small small shops without without an IT. lead

[00:58:15.82] spk_7:
could be thinking about technology wise let’s

[00:58:18.13] spk_1:
leave us leave us with something that whether it’s security related or you know whatever. What what’s your one like one top idea that a small shop should be looking at technology

[00:58:35.12] spk_0:
wise, uh minimize

[00:58:36.32] spk_7:
your technology. What

[00:59:57.02] spk_0:
footprint? Yeah. So meaning your infrastructure layout. So moving considering the cloud particularly with the Microsoft environment and shoot about what AWS has. But right now I was Windows Microsoft stopped. So I just went to Microsoft and I news relationships with some people who are certified Microsoft vendors gold and I went that right. But that’s you minimize the amount of technology because the challenges if you see if you spend too much time trying to fix technology problem where you’re changing over and trying to support these, that’s that’s the issue. So you want to minimize the amount of support needed by simplifying your technology, footprint infrastructure operation and a printing quick. Like you know, hey, you don’t need individual apprentice, get him off the desk, your network printers because they only a desk that’s gonna appreciate technical support automatically but definitely modernizing infrastructure by taking advantage of the child. And last I would say it’s always see business technology business decision that people make organizations make affects their ability to effectively leverage technology. The right technology right cost at the right time. So really think about their mission decision business decisions and make sure I. T. Is at the table before you can finalize that because that impact your ability to be successful.

[01:00:27.01] spk_1:
You mentioned the uh we’re gonna wrap up but you mentioned the the I. T. Footprint sometimes that footprint is a leaky uh like a leaky closet where the server is. The old server is like uncalled. And and it’s a it’s a humid closet where maybe there’s a slop sink in or something and somebody stuck a server up on top or something. You know it’s uh that all needs to be up in the cloud. You know, we gotta, we gotta get our servers out of these little little uncalled closets that a lot of folks have.

[01:01:27.51] spk_0:
Yeah, you think about it once we have a virus or some love or something like that, it would take two days for our managed service providers, managed our infrastructure to resource some And then you miss all these, you know, all that was like, that was a headache. And I was like, no, we can’t do this in 2020, 2019 2018. So at the end of the day, please think hard about address and putting technology in the right place and realize that it’s an investment. Technology is not investment in technology, is investment into your mission organization? Success and sustainability. I think if they change that mindset that if I invest for weird, then that’s going to help me be more sustainable in my mission, then I don’t think that the argument to to find the money or you can raise the money, you can raise money specifically for technology advancements when they’re going to connect to you bending to deliver more mission for greater mission to have greater impact.

[01:01:36.11] spk_1:
All right, let’s leave it there. Excellent. Thank you. Derek Gilbert, founder and chief business technologist, guilt Technology Group. He’s at D G Gilbert I T B A. Derek. Thank you very very much.

[01:01:48.91] spk_0:
My pleasure talking with my pleasure. Thank you. Okay.

[01:01:55.70] spk_1:
And this is tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we’re sponsored at 21

[01:02:08.10] spk_7:
ntc by turn to communications turn

[01:02:08.46] spk_4:
Hyphen 2.c

[01:02:10.60] spk_7:
o. Thanks very much for being with us.

[01:02:33.00] spk_4:
Next week. We’re all about email. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. There’s no way you’re gonna be forgetting that.

[01:03:07.70] spk_6:
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff to show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott style. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Mm hmm. What?

Nonprofit Radio for April 12, 2021: Build Lasting Supporter Relationships & Love Your Donors Using Data

My Guests:

Craig Grella & Wendy Levine: Build Lasting Supporter Relationships
Craig Grella and Wendy Levine, both from Salsa Labs, want you to build strong relationships all the time, not only when you’re fundraising. Their savvy strategies come from their own work building relationships for Salsa. This is part of our 21NTC coverage.

 

 

 

 

Shoni Field & Jen Shang: Love Your Donors Using Data
Nonprofit Radio coverage of 21NTC continues. When you are fundraising, data that tells us restoring your donors’ sense of well-being and identity will increase their giving and engagement. There’s a lot of fascinating research to unpack and apply, so join Jen Shang, the world’s only philanthropic psychologist, from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, and Shoni Field from the British Columbia SPCA.

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:18.94] spk_0:
Oh hi Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of benign prostatic hyperplasia. If you leaked the idea that you missed this week’s show, build lasting supporter relationships, craig, Grella and Wendy Levin, both from salsa labs. Want you to build strong relationships all the time. Not only when your fundraising, they’re savvy strategies come from their own work building relationships for salsa. This is part of our 21 NTC coverage and love your donors using data. Non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC continues when you are fundraising data that tells us restoring your donors sense of well being and identity will increase their giving and engagement. There’s a lot of fascinating research to unpack and apply. So joined gen XIANg, the world’s only philanthropic psychologist from the Institute for sustainable philanthropy and Shoni field from the british Columbia, s p C A and tony state too planned giving accelerator were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. Here is build lasting supporter relationships. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c O. My guests now are Craig, Grella and Wendy. Levine. Craig is content marketer at salsa Labs and Wendy is marketing director at salsa Labs. Craig, Gorilla Wendy. Levine, Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:02:22.94] spk_3:
Thank you. Happy to be here.

[00:02:24.50] spk_2:
Thank you. Thanks for having us

[00:02:38.24] spk_0:
on My pleasure to have you both. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us, your expertise on beyond fundraising, building lasting relationships with your supporters. Wendy. Let’s start with you what as an overview, what could nonprofits be doing better relationship wise do you to feel?

[00:04:29.14] spk_3:
So we work with lots of nonprofits and I’ll just start by saying, you know, as a marketing team. It’s also, we’re kind of in a unique position because we are responsible for marketing. It’s also doing all the normal things that, you know, our marketing team does, but because our software helps nonprofits market their mission and engage with donors, we often work with those nonprofit clients to help them in their marketing efforts. So that was the genesis of this workshop for the intent conference because when we work with nonprofits we see so many of them doing so many amazing things on. And yet there are everyone has their, excuse me there. Their holes are their blind spots in their in their process. So our workshop dealt with um formalizing a content development process and content calendar. Um, craig does this for salsa. So he does a great job of you know, making sure that we are talking to the right people at the right time, that we have the right content in terms of blog posts and you guys and social posts and that’s a lot of work. So when a nonprofit who may not have a whole marketing team, um like we do tries to do those things, um sometimes things get missed. So our workshop was all about providing people content, calendar templates and talking to them about things that they can do to make the whole process of building new content easier. We talked about reusing old content, um repurposing content that you have developed before, how to improve message targeting and how to do all of those things in uh simple ways that can be done with smaller teams.

[00:04:45.64] spk_0:
Well. And we’re going to talk about those things here. You know, you’re not gonna just tease.

[00:04:48.79] spk_3:
Uh,

[00:05:11.44] spk_0:
listen, I’m not gonna let you just tease non propagated. Listen and say this is what we talked about, but we’re not talking about here. So we’re gonna talk about those things to, uh, so craig so you are, you are, it sounds like you are the writer, the content marketer for salsa, and we can all benefit from the wisdom of the corporate marketing team at salsa. Yes,

[00:05:28.94] spk_2:
yes, definitely. I think to kind of piggyback on, on what Wendy was saying, the impetus for this. Uh, this presentation was, I think nonprofits can learn from the more corporate marketing. I think even if you look at advocacy, I think nonprofits can learn from uh, political advocacy, which is kind of, you know, they use their email lists like a. T. M. Machines sometimes. That’s the way it feels like. Uh,

[00:05:42.71] spk_0:
and then I think you have a background in the Democratic Party in pennsylvania. Right? That’s right, yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:09.94] spk_2:
And and I think really it happens on both sides of the aisle. I think when you look at a lot of advocacy campaigns, a lot of political campaigns, I think they tend to look at their lists in that way they go to their list more often with fundraising than other messages. Or they wrap their message in a fundraising appeal. I think nonprofits can kind of get stuck in that rut as well where, uh, they’re using their list more often as appeals. So this presentation was a way for us to say, how do you develop those deeper relationships? How do you go beyond just the fundraising appeal? How do you engage all year long? How do you, uh, take that relationship to the next level or maybe change relationships wherever your supporters are with you in their relationship now, maybe there’s a way to move them to a different relationship that involves other type of work or a different relationship with your work. So that was kind of the idea behind the presentation and how we put together the different steps and tips and things like that.

[00:07:41.04] spk_0:
Now, I suspect, you know, most dogs are doing some of this, like, you know, uh, let’s, let’s assume that an organization has a newsletter, whether digital or print, you know, and they may or may not include an appeal. But, you know, I’d like to think that there are messages going out that aren’t all that aren’t all fundraising related, I mean, but you’re, you’re sounds like you and Wendy would like us to put this into a coordinated calendar, so we’re not just thinking of it at the beginning of the month. What are we gonna do this month or, you know, even the beginning of the quarter, but we haven’t laid out for like a year or something. Uh, so be more sophisticated about it. But then also it sounds like you’re encouraging a good amount of messaging that’s not fundraising related, has no appeal affiliated with it. It’s just purely informative. Is that okay? Is that are we are we wasting? You don’t feel like we’re wasting opportunities to communicate, wasting opportunities to fundraise if we, if we send something out that doesn’t have an appeal in it.

[00:09:18.34] spk_3:
No, absolutely. I think, um, and this became, I think this came more into focus when the pandemic hit as well. Um, Some organizations, I actually had an easier time fundraising, but many had a more difficult time, fundraising really depended on where they were and what their mission was. But, um, it’s, we always talk about engaging with your supporters outside of fundraising and the importance of connecting with your supporters, making sure they are, are connected with your organization in a way that makes them, um, use the term sticky. You know, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re connected to you and, and they’re not gonna just, you know, I’m going to give you money this month. I’m gonna give somebody else money next month. I know who you are, I know who your people are. I really think that what you’re doing is great. I I understand, you know, your mission and and how you work with people. I know the names of some of your staff members, The more that you can connect with those supporters, the more they’re going to stay with you, the more they’re going to give when they can, they’re going to volunteer when they can. And that became even more important during the pandemic because some people weren’t able to give, some organizations, needed people to give more and you know, appealing to, um, people’s connection with the organization that you’ve built up over time is just so important and not just now, but even more so now I think.

[00:11:47.84] spk_2:
And I think for me it’s, it’s kind of human nature. Right? The first time you meet someone, you’re not going to ask him to marry you right there on the spot. I think there’s got to be that relationship development. Uh, there are different steps along the line, obviously that you need to take to get to know each other better. And I think the same is true for any kind of communication, whether you’re at A for profit company, a Fortune 500 company or a mom and pop type of nonprofit, uh, obviously you have a little bit of a head start because that person has found you. Maybe they joined your list or maybe they came to an event, whether it’s in person or virtual. So you have a little bit of interest there. But with so much noise out there these days, whether you’re trying to connect on social media or even through a podcast, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of noise out there and, and you have to rise above that and you rise above that by maintaining that constant relationship. And you can’t only ask for money. It can only be volunteer appeals. I can’t only be, you know me, me, me, me. I need, I need, I need you have to find a little bit of the reasons why those people connected with you and and speak to that and you have to offer a little bit of yourself too. And there are lots of ways that, that nonprofits can do that. And um, we like to it like you said at the beginning, I think this question was, uh, we do like to be organized with that. Uh, it’s a matter of sometimes nonprofits just looking at what they have, you know, oftentimes when I’ve taught courses, courses on how to create content. One of the things I hear most often is, I don’t know what to write or I don’t know what kind of content to put out there. What will resonate with people. And uh, so that holds them back and then they do nothing. And that’s obviously not a solution. So where we start with with this presentation and where we like to start in general, is to just go through the content you’ve created through the years, we tell nonprofits you’ve probably got hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of content out there. Look at your old blog posts. Look at some of the presentations you’ve done. If you’ve gone to conferences or presented, look at your social media posts, look at documents you’ve put together. If if you have programs, you probably have program information, put some of that together and turn it into something written that you can offer people, uh, and, and start there. And then once you’ve gathered all that information, put it together in a content calendar and be really deliberate about how you’re exposing that material to your audience in order so that it makes sense. And it drives a little bit of

[00:12:06.04] spk_0:
engagement, which is, which is much easier to lay out when you see it in a calendar rather than just you just kind of thinking, well I will do this in May and then this will be in june and you know, but you can be more, you’re more deliberate about it more, I think more sophisticated about it. If you if you when you commit something to writing it makes it makes you think about it more. That’s exactly right. I have a written and

[00:12:29.94] spk_2:
not only that, but you can also add responsibility and whether you have a big team or a small team, you can put names to the tasks that people need to do. You know, tony is going to do this article by this date and get it up on social by this date and there’s a little bit of responsibility there for the work that you’re doing, which I think makes people complete those tasks uh a better way.

[00:12:49.14] spk_3:
Yeah. And frankly, I think it makes it almost easier and simpler so that, you know, it doesn’t seem like quite as big of a mountain to climb. You know, I’ve got all this content to create from this quarter or this year, um, when it’s on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet. And it’s something that just seems more manageable frankly

[00:13:09.94] spk_0:
when anything you want to add about the content calendar before we move on to segmenting your, your

[00:13:15.67] spk_3:
supporters.

[00:13:18.04] spk_0:
Okay, Well I’m willing it’s okay. I feel like we’ve covered the content calendar enough. I’m not trying to, you know, I think so. I think it’s, it’s something

[00:13:50.34] spk_3:
that a lot of nonprofits, um, do. Um, but we also see a lot of nonprofits that don’t do a content calendar and it’s, it’s not difficult. It’s just taking that first step. So we provided people templates, but just just getting it down and finding a way to formalize the process of putting a content together. It’s not that difficult. And it makes a huge difference

[00:14:00.44] spk_0:
helps you organize too. So you can see blog post, you know, maybe some other section on the website newsletter, email, social, social, facebook, social instagram, social twitter, but etcetera. And

[00:14:51.74] spk_3:
it also helps you identify holes in your content. So, for example, um, just as an example, we have some clients who, um, whose mission is focused on raising funds for medical research for a certain condition or, or issue. And they have content that they create for patients and their families, but they also have content that they create for, um, you know, medical experts and they’ll run medical conferences for doctors. Uh, so, um, understanding that they’ve created enough content for each of those groups is also important in having it in a calendar. Um, so you’re, you know, another organization might have volunteer, uh, content aimed at volunteers and content aimed at, at supporters or donors or community members. So just seeing that now, think about what your goals are.

[00:15:12.24] spk_0:
However you’re gonna segment, right? It’s all very orderly. Now. You mentioned templates. I don’t like to tease nonprofit radio listeners without without providing the substance. So can we get this template? Is this somewhere on salsa site or somewhere else? Where? Where?

[00:16:10.04] spk_2:
Yeah, So we we put up a landing page that’s completely in gated as part of the NtC presentation. Uh, it’s salsa Labs dot com forward slash 21 N. T. C. And there’s a little bit of a workbook that goes with the presentation and then of course the presentation slides, PowerPoint and pdf, I think, uh, and the workbook falls along the different sections of the presentation. So the first section is what we just talked about, which is to uh, figure out what you have. You know, go through, take stock of your content, your library, that kind of thing. The second part talks about putting together your calendar and segmenting. And then the third part jumps into really getting organized and then engaging or further engaging, going a little bit further than what you’ve done in the past. And to kind of tag onto the last part you said about or what Wendy said about the content calendar. Oftentimes we see nonprofits look for these templates. Uh, and they’re really just hashtags, you know, if the only communication you’re doing on social media is to put up a post about ST patty’s day or easter or things like that, you need to go a little bit further

[00:16:34.84] spk_0:
in your engagement. That’s not that’s not educating folks. That’s right. On your, on your mission, your work and your values. That’s not going to make them sticky because they can get easter messages anywhere.

[00:16:37.11] spk_2:
That’s right. And they likely are

[00:16:39.75] spk_0:
and they are.

[00:16:40.39] spk_3:
And we’ll tell you though, that the most engagement we get on our social posts are when we post pictures of our dog, there is some value that All

[00:16:49.42] spk_0:
right. Well, I don’t know what that says about the salsa Labs content, you know, talking to the content team. So I’m not gonna All right. Believe that their salsa labs dot com forward slash 21 ntc for the template that craig just talked us through. Let’s go to, uh, a little on segmentation. Who wants to want to kick us off the value of and the depth you should go to. Who wants to

[00:19:35.74] spk_2:
be sure. I’ll take it when it comes to segmentation. The idea is to be able to understand which audience member wants to receive, which message at what time and by what medium there are a lot of different mediums. We can deliver messages through these days and everyone’s busy and like I said before, there’s a lot of noise. So you need to find your way through that noise and the way we believe you do it is through personalization. If you can understand who wants to receive the message when they want to receive it and where they want to receive it, you will have a higher engagement with that person. And this is kind of goes back to the idea of just shooting out a ST Patty’s day message, right? I mean you might get 50 or 60 likes, but if those people never volunteer or they never donate or they never come to an event, what’s the point? Um, you know, it may be, hey, let’s put out a nice message and that’s fine. But at some point you need to generate people to support your mission, whatever that means. So we like to segment in a couple different ways. One of course is looking at what you have in your own crm or your own list and trying to understand demographics about that person and to be able to split them into some sort of discernible category. You know, hey, we’ve got donors here, We have volunteers or we have people who just engage with us on social media. And then if you are doing a lot of sharing on social, which many groups are really trying to match your organization’s message to the right social network and you’ve got people out there who, you know, maybe they have a very intelligent audience, or maybe they have a very specific demographic in their audience and they completely lining up to the wrong network and sharing a message at the wrong time. Maybe they’re sharing it once, instead of sharing it four times over a month or two months. So that different people see that message. So uh part of the workbook that we put together is going a few different places through your analytics and really understanding what your audience looks like and taking some critical uh peaks at your audience and the demographics of your audience, looking through your Crm, and uh figuring out what’s important to your organization. And how do you label those people so that you understand the message that they want, where they’re going to be and then where you can get that message to them.

[00:19:43.64] spk_0:
Mhm. When you want to add to segmentation.

[00:21:01.04] spk_3:
Yeah, I mean there’s it’s a little bit science and a little bit art, frankly, I think. So, there’s a balance between having too many segments and too many groups and having too few segments or groups. So um if you’ve got groups of supporters, there are so many groups of supporters that you’re sending very similar messages to some of the groups that you probably have too many. Um it may be difficult to handle all the messaging. Uh if you have too few groups, the messages aren’t targeted enough aren’t interesting enough to each of those groups. So as you know, Craig was talking about measuring engagement on social media and and looking at analytics for your emails and things like that. And that’s very important. And that’s all the science part. And then there’s a little bit of art uh in terms of, you know, where the messaging can be split, where the different messages make the most difference on how you engage with these folks, what words you use, what you test. Um, so, you know, I think it’s, I think it’s a little bit of both. And it just takes, you know, not nonprofits know their supporters, Right? So it’s really just a matter of sitting down and looking at, um, where they’re engaging, what they’re saying on social media and you know, what they’re reacting to when, when you send them emails or messages.

[00:21:47.24] spk_0:
Well, let’s probe that a little further windy in terms of knowing knowing your people suppose, you know, you know, something, you know, some people prefer email over phone calls or written mail over email, etcetera. But, and you can gauge some depth of interest by giving history, right. If if Humane society gets donations, when cat appeals from certain people and dog appeals are making this very simple. But you know, so then you know who your dog people and cat people are, but I suppose you wanna go a little further. Like uh, you know, who wants to engage on instagram or which of our programs appeal to you, You know? Uh, So I’m envisioning a survey is one possibility. What else? How else we still have a few minutes left.

[00:21:50.50] spk_3:
Okay. So that’s

[00:21:51.29] spk_0:
what you glean. How does, how does segment?

[00:22:08.74] spk_3:
That’s a really good question. It’s actually something we addressed in the presentation uh, in 10. Um, you’re right. A survey is one way and we made some recommendations. You no longer surveys where you, where you ask more than say three or four questions. Um, are something you shouldn’t do a lot of. And when you do, you should probably combine it with some sort of incentive and it doesn’t have to be, you know, you don’t pay people to take the survey, but you know, hey we’ll send you a button or bumper sticker. You know, if you fill out a survey or this is why it’s really important, you know, um at least, you know, appealing to their uh

[00:22:34.47] spk_0:
their interest in your

[00:24:16.64] spk_3:
cause. Um But we also like the kind of one question asks in emails is another way to do it. So if you’re sending emails to people, you can ask a question in the email depending on the tool that you’re using, you can put a link or button in the email and say, hey um do you have a cat or a dog or both? You know at home? Are you, are you a cat parent? Dog parent? Um have them click on that button and then now they’re in a group and the next time you send an email out, they either get a cat picture or dog picture at the top of the email. Um, and it makes a huge difference in engagement. Um, We talk a little bit also about, um, polls on social media. So that’s not going to give you on the, that’s not going to put a particular person in a group, but it can give you information on what people are interested in. So if you’re going to focus on, um, uh, one, you know, if you’re putting together advocacy petition and uh, you know, you need to understand where people are focused on what they’re most interested in. That can help also. Um, but putting a process in place so that your staff understands what kind of data you’re collecting so that when they bring up a donor record because they’re talking to the donor or they’re about to meet the donor at an event, hopefully we’re all doing that soon. Um they can look and say, oh hey, you know, we’re missing this one piece of information or these two pieces of information. So I’m gonna make a note and I’m going to ask them that when I meet with them and I’m going to put it in there and everyone needs to know to collect that information. Um and it, it just makes it easier and, and there’s a whole process we won’t go into now, but there’s a whole process of right figuring out what information is important on and which ones, which pieces of information should affect the message that you’re sending.

[00:24:32.24] spk_2:
A couple years ago, I think last week feels like a couple of years ago, Sometimes for a couple years ago you tony you did a podcast on integrating Crm with your email marketing and other digital.

[00:24:36.70] spk_0:
That was another, that was another NTC, uh 2017 18, something like that.

[00:24:42.40] spk_2:
Yeah, I think it was a while ago, but you know, it’s funny

[00:24:45.29] spk_0:
that nonprofit radio listener thank you for saying that

[00:26:25.94] spk_2:
it’s a great episode and I think it’s important here because obviously salsa is a product that tries to put together all these different marketing mediums and they work well with each other and, and there are other um products out on the market, but we also find that a lot of nonprofits have these disparate solutions and it makes things harder. It makes collecting data harder, it makes engaging harder. And when you have that uh system that pulls it all together, it makes this process easier because when you send an email and someone clicks on it, you get that information in your crm. So these one question surveys that Wendy is talking about. You can do a survey with a cat picture and someone clicks on it. You capture that data. Uh you don’t necessarily have to go to a full blown male pole or social media poll. You can do these things when you’re systems are integrated and pull that information between those systems. And then when you’ve got the information in your crm, you can then pull that information automatically into your email without having to upload or download or move data around. So It works on two ways. One it helps you understand and track the data but it also helps you personalize the emails that you do send. I think if if nothing else uh non profit should know. Just act just just do it. If you’re not sure where to start, just you know, get a message out there and just do it and then measure and track and along the lines of what Wendy said. If you are missing some information, just ask, just ask for it, create a message and send a note and remember when you do get that data to plug it back into your system so that you can use it uh in in many ways in the future. So that’s the important part

[00:26:32.44] spk_0:
two. We’re going to leave it there. Alright, alright, very much Greg gorilla, my pleasure Kraig gorilla content marketer salsa Labs, Wendy. Levin, marketing Director at salsa Labs. Thanks to each of you. Thanks very

[00:26:44.64] spk_2:
much. Thank

[00:30:41.24] spk_0:
you. My pleasure to have you and thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by 20 we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for a break. Turned to communications relationships. We just talked about lasting relationships. The importance of building them. Turn to has them, they’ve got the relationships with journalists. So when there’s something fundraising related or philanthropic related or even more broadly, non profit related, those journalists are going to be picking up the phone when turn to calls them with you your name as a potential source, source of quotes, source of background, source of help. They pick up the phone because they’ve got a relationship with turn to, it’s the relationships that get leveraged for your benefit. Their turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for Tony’s take two. I started the second class of planned giving accelerator this week through the accelerator. I’m helping nonprofits launch kickoff, inaugurate their planned giving programs. I’m teaching members who join with me for a year, teaching them step by step how to start and grow their plan giving programs. The classes are fun. I look forward to them every week that we get together because there’s, there’s live trainings and then there’s Ask Me Anythings and I also do a podcast for them. Yes, there’s a, there’s a, there is a podcast that you can’t hear. You got to be a member of plan Giving accelerator to hear the plan Giving accelerator podcast. You see the symmetry there. So yes, I do a podcast for them too. But these trainings and of course, so we’re getting together for the training and they ask me anythings. I look forward to them. And rumors are that the members look forward to it too. I’ve heard rumors to that effect. So it’s, it’s all, it’s really very, it’s very gratifying, rewarding. Um, it’s fun and folks are starting their plan giving programs and in the first class that started in january, they’re already getting gifts. There’s already a couple of nonprofits that each have a couple of gift commitments already, just three months into the 12-month program. So that makes it enormously gratifying. I’m getting um, my synesthesia is kicking in. I’m getting goose bumps thinking about these groups that, that already have commitments only three months into the thing. So that’s playing giving accelerator. If you think you might be interested in joining the next class, it starts July one and all the info is that planned giving accelerator dot com. Check it out for Pete’s sake. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is love your donors using data. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc, you know what that is? It’s the 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C o. With me now are Shoni field and jen Shang Shoni is chief development officer at the british Columbia Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. S P C A. And jen chang is a professor and philanthropic psychologist at the Institute for sustainable philanthropy. Shoni. Welcome to the show, jen, Welcome back.

[00:30:47.44] spk_4:
Thanks for having us.

[00:30:48.55] spk_3:
Thank you.

[00:31:06.24] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure uh, in talking before we started recording, uh, came to my attention that jen chang now has a british accent, which she did not have when she was on nonprofit radio many years ago when she was at indiana University. So we’ll get to enjoy that. And you’ve been how many years in the U. K. Now jen

[00:31:11.04] spk_1:
Eight years.

[00:31:13.14] spk_0:
Eight years with Adrian Sergeant. I assume he’s still at the institute.

[00:31:16.44] spk_1:
Oh yeah still living in the house to

[00:31:19.69] spk_3:
lose your

[00:31:20.19] spk_0:
house. Oh

[00:31:21.57] spk_1:
you don’t know we’re married sorry.

[00:31:23.17] spk_0:
Oh you’re more than uh philanthropic partners. Oh really? Okay. Were you married? When were you married to Adrian when you were on the show last? Uh huh.

[00:31:32.74] spk_1:
No

[00:31:34.14] spk_0:
your philanthropic psychology brought you together

[00:31:38.64] spk_1:
Absolutely really amazing

[00:31:40.94] spk_0:
mm fundraising fundraising brought you together. That’s wild. Well it’s a it’s a relationship business. So I look at you

[00:31:46.23] spk_1:
you’ve

[00:32:19.74] spk_0:
taken you’ve taken your own science to to heart and to deeper depth than than most people do. Well we’ll give give Adrian my regards, tell him. Absolutely tell him I say hello and hello from nonprofit radio he’s been a guest also. Well look at that interesting. And for those now we’re shooting with video jen has the uh suitable professorial background. There’s papers and thick books everywhere. It’s, it’s really, really quite bad. Oh yeah, there’s, there’s ghost faces up on top um and a crucifix also. So the place is blessed. You

[00:32:25.14] spk_4:
can make up anything about what we’ve got in the background. tony

[00:32:42.44] spk_0:
best mess. Yes, we’ll show me yours is uh yours is, I don’t want to say austere. It’s just uh its proper, you know, you’ve got a couple of framed items and you got a nice uh um um what we call those windows, uh,

[00:32:45.33] spk_4:
skylight,

[00:32:46.08] spk_0:
Skylight of course. Thank you at 59

[00:32:48.14] spk_4:
terrible for when there’s video because it makes the light really horrible. But radio it’s just fine. Yeah,

[00:33:20.84] spk_0:
I know yours is, yours is a like a sort of a gallery background. That’s what I would say. And shen’s is definitely Shen’s jen’s is definitely a professorial background. Okay. We’re talking about loving your donors. Your NTc topic is love your donors using data. So let’s start with Professor shang our philanthropic psychologist. One of, are you the only philanthropic psychologist in the world or just the first?

[00:33:25.74] spk_1:
I haven’t heard anybody else calling themselves philanthropic psychologists.

[00:33:38.14] spk_0:
Okay. So you’re both the first and, uh, and the only, first and only philanthropic psychologist. Okay. I love that you’re married to Adrian Sergeant. Well, that’s, you really took fundraising to new Heights.

[00:33:39.95] spk_4:
Small world fundraising. We all know each other.

[00:33:51.24] spk_0:
Rights, new depths. Yes, But they know each other quite well. Um, All right. So jenn, um, what, what can we learn from here? What, what, what, what, what are we not doing well enough with data that you want non profits to do better.

[00:34:45.14] spk_1:
Um, the first thing that we do that we don’t think nonprofits have spent a lot of time understanding is how people describe their own identities. And when I say when people describe their own identities, I don’t mean just how people describe themselves when they give as a supporter or as a donor, but how people describe themselves as a person outside of giving. Because research after research after research after research, what we found is that the descriptors that people use to describe themselves as a person are not always the same as the descriptors that they used to describe themselves when they think about themselves as a supporter. So not understanding who is the person behind the giving, I personally think is a huge missing opportunity for nonprofits to develop deeper relationship with their supporters.

[00:35:08.24] spk_0:
And what are some of these, uh, mm dis associations or in congruence sees between the way people identify themselves generally and the way they identify themselves as as donors.

[00:36:23.43] spk_1:
So one of the most consistent findings that we saw pretty much in all the data sets we have is that when people describe themselves as a person, they like to describe the morality of themselves. And usually there are nine highest frequency words that people use to describe their own morality and they are kind and caring and compassionate, generous, fair and so forth. And for most charities, you would see quite a large collection of these moral words in people’s self descriptors. But usually you see a smaller collection of these moral words appearing when people describe themselves as a supporter. So what that says to me is that when nonprofits communicate with supporters are about giving, they haven’t connected the giving to their sense of being a kind and caring and compassionate person as well as they could be. Usually you see the word generous, show up and you see the word helpful, show us show up in the descriptor of the supporters, but not the rest of the moral words.

[00:36:44.03] spk_0:
And there’s evidence that using more of the moral descriptors that the individuals would use will increase their giving.

[00:36:57.03] spk_1:
Not only it increased their giving, it also increases their psychological well being, and that is the real missing opportunity here. So when people give out of their kindness and out of their compassion, they feel better. Even when they give the same amount of money.

[00:37:39.73] spk_0:
You studied this really. You can you can gauge and Shawnee we’re gonna come to you. Of course. I I know there’s a practical application at british Columbia. I understand. I just want to flush out, want to flush out the like the limits of the, of the science and then we’ll get to the practical application. Absolutely. Um, All right. So so we can make people feel better about themselves through our non through nonprofit communications, through our communications to them. And they will then, uh, as as a result of feeling better or is it because they feel better than they will give more to our cause or we we just know those two things are correlated, but not necessarily cause and effect.

[00:37:52.63] spk_1:
We first communicate with supporters about there being a kind person and then we see giving increase and then we measure their psychological well being and we see their psychological well being increases.

[00:38:22.72] spk_0:
Okay, So we know that the giving has come first and then then from those for whom the giving has increased. Your then you’re studying their psychological well being. Yes, wow. Through our, through our communications, through our uh, is this what method of communication do we use phone letter?

[00:38:39.42] spk_1:
We have we have a few experiments in emails. We have survey evidence from donors. And we have laboratory experiments from the general population. Okay

[00:38:47.72] spk_0:
let’s turn to show me for the for the application of this uh at the british Columbia. S. P. C. A. What did you do their show me what how did you take this research and use it?

[00:41:16.41] spk_4:
So the and it feels like I’m jumping into the story halfway because I didn’t know how we got there but how we used it was um we worked with jen and her team to do um surveys and research into our donor base because you know, not every donor base is going to have the same characteristics. And so what do animal lovers in british Columbia? Um what are their characteristics of how they identify themselves as a moral person or in that sort of aspirational sense of self? Of where they’d like to? Well, I’d like to get to and supporting the S. P. C. A. As a way of getting there for them. So we we looked at our donors and came back with Jensen, looked at our donors and came and through surveys and research and came back with some some levers that resonated stronger than others with our donors. And so then we could go out and test those with, you know, our controls and then testing these levers and see where we see if we did. In fact, um originally c boosting giving over the long term, then we’ll be able to measure retention because I think with psychological well being would become an increased likelihood of wanting to stick with that relationship that makes you feel great. And so we’re able to measure um with within that field research what then when we put it into into play, what did get higher responses. And then we’ve gone back with jen and her team to study our three tests further and identify how we can build on that. Some of those tests worked better than the others. And so we that gave us some further insight into what we needed to to dig in on. And I think our our first error had probably been, we had all this learning and we wanted to use it all all at once, all in all the same time. Uh, the second sort of round of analysis really helped us be more focused and, and jen refers to allowing donors to breathe into the moment and just really be in that. And so it allow it, it allowed us to identify, yes, there’s a ton of good things we can do, but here we’re going to do three of them and we’re going to do them really well and really focused.

[00:41:18.91] spk_0:
What were some of the descriptors that you found were the levers for your, for your folks?

[00:42:43.90] spk_4:
Well, I mean, there’s so there’s the sort of descriptors of self that jen talked about in the, you know, the generous and loving and kind. Um, and then there’s one of those in particular, uh, dig into more, But there’s also these sort of, um, oh, you know, we call like victorious hope, this sense that there can be, um, that there will be success, that people have had past success in helping rescue animals and they will have future success. And, you know, this comes out of their love for animals. And so we use this victorious hope theme. Um, we we see, uh, personal sacrifice come through and we’re familiar with that from, um, you know, male direct mail that said, you know, just for the price of a cup of coffee a day, you could, you know, you could do this or you could do that, that sense of someone giving something up to get this, this outcome that they want. So we, we’ve used those a lot and we also saw the word loyal come up a lot more, um, than we had, than we had recognized was important. And it makes sense because people’s relationships with their animals are a lot about loyalty. Um, so it makes sense that they’d also value it as in a personal trait, but we’ve, uh, we had already been doing a lot of work around generous and loving and kind and we also increased that, that sense of loyalty.

[00:43:14.90] spk_0:
And now I don’t want any frustrated guests on nonprofit radio So you said, I asked you a question that came in the middle and you you uh, you thoughtfully answered answered the question, so thank you, thank you for that. But but I’ll give you the opportunity to go back if you want to take a minute and explain how you got into the jeans jeans research.

[00:43:19.10] spk_4:
I mean, this is like goes back to weigh like my beginnings as a fundraiser

[00:43:23.10] spk_0:
where a fundraiser

[00:44:01.69] spk_4:
where I got really frustrated with people’s perception of fundraisers as sort of snake oil salesman, you know, in the nonprofit world, there was the program, people who were doing the virtuous work and then there was the fundraiser, people that were, so it was sort of a little like unclean that you were trying to make people. And to me it always felt more like I was helping someone do the work that they couldn’t do themselves because their career had taken them in a different path. Like they wanted to save the environment, they wanted to help someone with the disease. They want they loved animals and wanted to help animals, but they trained as an accountant or they trained as you know, they have run their own business and so

[00:44:17.29] spk_0:
it’s very it’s empathic and magnanimous in the same that they wish they could be doing this good work. But they chose a different path. You have your like your empathetic to them.

[00:44:50.09] spk_4:
So this when I saw gems research of this sort of aspirational sense of self, this really struck a chord with me of like this is the work people wish they could be doing and we all know how we feel when we get to do something that’s really close and really important to us. It feels really great. So that just clicked with me. The sense of if we can help people do the work that they really want to do, but they haven’t been doing because something else does their pay brings their paycheck in and paying the bills is also important. Then we’re all going to be much stronger for it.

[00:44:59.69] spk_0:
And just quickly, how did you find jen’s research?

[00:45:03.89] spk_4:
I mean, this is, you know, I, I followed it around at conferences for quite a while before reaching out and saying, hey, I love this stuff. How can I, how can I do more?

[00:46:09.08] spk_0:
There’s value in conferences. Like, like ntc, there’s value in completely. Yeah, this reminds me of the work that you and I talked about when you were back in indiana before you were married to Adrian Sergeant. And we were talking about a phone research that you had done with public radio. I think it was in bloomington indiana. And you would describe women. I think it was Well, maybe you saw more of an effect that was it. You describe you saw more of an effect with women when the caller from the public radio station would use words to say. You’ve always descriptive words. You’ve always been so loyal to us. Or you’ve you’ve been such a generous supporter of us. Would you would you make a gift again? And you you saw greater giving when the right descriptors were used for those bloomington indiana Public Radio, uh, supporters. So this seems like a continuation. Uh, you know, where your again, it’s the way you describe the donors.

[00:46:16.18] spk_1:
Yes. And it’s not just the way that we describe the donors is the way that donors describe

[00:46:29.48] spk_0:
themselves themselves. Right. And then this increases their feeling of well being, more about that. How did you, how do you measure their sense of well being?

[00:46:32.08] spk_3:
So we, um,

[00:48:00.47] spk_1:
when we started measuring psychological well being, we explored a range of different scales. Um, at the moment, the the several scales that we use most often with nonprofits who haven’t started our kind of communication with supporters, our competence, autonomy and connectedness. Those are the three fundamental human needs that psychologists have studied now for decades. They in in the giving situation, they refer to, um, competence, my ability to make a difference for others autonomy. I have a voice of my own. I’m not giving out of any social pressure and connectedness. I give to make me feel connected with the things the animals, the nature and the people that I want to connect with. Those three needs. If we lack any one of them, we wouldn’t be able to experience well being. So it’s most ideal if any given giving act can simultaneously help people fulfill all three psychological well being. And those are the ones that we have now used most frequently in giving at the range. Um Lower than $500 a year.

[00:48:16.97] spk_0:
Shoni mentioned the next step being written, measuring retention. Have have you seen in your research whether there there is greater retention among the donors who whose well being we’ve we’ve enhanced.

[00:48:41.27] spk_1:
Um, so what we have seen is that um, yeah, the factors that drives giving are not always the factors that drive psychological well being, but if you can communicate with people on only the factors that drives both than that giving is more sustainable.

[00:48:51.47] spk_0:
Okay. Wait, all right. Say that one more time. You’ve been studying this for decades and I’m hearing it for only the second time in like eight years. So okay,

[00:49:35.27] spk_1:
so say, um you have five most important factors that drives giving and you have eight most important factors that drives people psychological well being. You’re five and you’re eight are not always the same, but sometimes they are three that are common between these two sets. If you only use those three to communicate with your supporters and increase giving an increase well being, then you can expect to see repeated increase in giving over time because the same three factors both increased giving and increase people’s psychological well being.

[00:50:29.66] spk_0:
Okay. I see it’s the intersection of the two little circles in the Venn diagram. Okay, You gotta explain this to a layperson, Right? All right. Thank you. Um So, were you So it’s fascinating, fascinating. Um Plus, you’re married to Adrian. I just can’t get over this how this this career has brought you together. I’m just I’m taken by all this. Um, Were you wondering about this back when you did the public radio research? Were you wondering how the description by the by the callers from the public radio station made the donors feel you knew you knew at that point? No, you weren’t thinking She’s shaking her head. You knew at that point that that describing them in certain ways could increase giving. Were you curious then, about how it made them feel? Um,

[00:50:44.26] spk_1:
I think when I first got into fundraising, it was very important to me to find some psychological motivations that can help nonprofits to raise more money. But once I realized that actually, that is not very hard, you can pretty much

[00:50:50.98] spk_0:
like, look, we’re not doing a great job in a lot of ways. Yeah,

[00:50:55.11] spk_1:
I mean, raise money by about 10 really is not hard when, you know, a little bit of psychology,

[00:51:00.15] spk_0:
you’re being more gracious, alright. A

[00:51:48.46] spk_1:
few supporters. Um But to make the giving experience meaningful for people to make the giving experience a part of people’s lives that they treasure. And to make that giving experience and experience that can allow people to experience the kind of life that they would not otherwise have. Those are the things that are hard because those are the things that do not have the the focus that they need and those are the things that I pretty much spent the last 10 years after I graduated from Indiana doing. Because those are the things that gives me meaning in doing what I do.

[00:51:59.06] spk_0:
Sure, let’s go back to you. Uh How much increased giving are you seeing you? I’m sure you’ve quantified this. What differences are you? Are you experiencing?

[00:53:05.55] spk_4:
Well, I mean, we’ve we’ve now tested it in a number of different areas. We, you know, we test it in, uh, we we use it in thank you scripts to our donors. So we don’t, you know, that’s a long term test of if we’re using this, this language consistently and everything, we we play around with the different levers on web forms, um, where we see, you know, we can extrapolate over the year if like, okay, if we use this, you know, we have a form and the form on the donor form, what difference are we going to see? Um, so it’s, you know, it’s hard once it becomes infused in everything you do, you no longer have a test in a control. You have, you have just the way you’re doing it now because you roll it out in all these different ways. I will say. I mean within that first batch of three, we paid for our research. So, you know, we got we we made an investment. We we we learned a ton. We paid for it right away. And then everything after that is, um, is bonus or, you know, is the real game. But it’s, it would be hard to measure at this point because we’re not, we haven’t infused in and everything, but we no longer have, uh, you know, we’re getting there, but we no longer have a sort of test and control where we can say this is the difference

[00:53:24.85] spk_0:
jen where can folks find your research? Is it is it somewhere that we can easily uh,

[00:53:32.90] spk_1:
most of our research is at the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy’s web site. There are freely downloadable.

[00:53:44.55] spk_0:
Okay. At the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy, um, what do you think? Should we leave it there where we explain this adequately that we picked people’s interest? I

[00:54:50.84] spk_4:
don’t I have if you have time, I have one more thing that I really think this work is sort of um a really important bridge between the sort of donor centric, the donor is always right. We’re stroking the ego of the donor and the community centric fundraising models because jen said, you know, this is I give to connect people, give to connect to to other people to the animals. And that I think in that sense of connection and love comes a more sustainable way forward because we don’t have to have this um artificial barrier between the donor and the beneficiary. And we don’t have to talk about, well if we privilege the donor, then it’s at the expense of the beneficiary or vice versa. We can talk about it’s about making connections as humans and and and together working for change and I I see it as a really healthy way forward in that conversation.

[00:55:20.04] spk_0:
That’s a great place to stop. We’re international for this segment from british Columbia and the UK from B C. Is Shoni Field chief development officer at the S P. C. A. Society for prevention of cruelty to animals, the british Columbia and from the UK, jen, chang professor and philanthropic psychologist at the Institute for sustainable philanthropy where you will find all this valuable, valuable research Shoni jen, Thank you very much.

[00:55:24.64] spk_4:
Thanks tony

[00:56:05.34] spk_0:
What a pleasure. Thank you Next week. Susan comfort returns with team wellness as 21 NTC coverage continues. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications, pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. They’ve got the relationships for pete’s sake. Turn hyphen two dot c o r. Creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Mhm. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty

[00:56:07.05] spk_5:
Be with me next

[00:56:25.74] spk_0:
Week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Uh huh.