Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Tony’s Guest:
Consultant and author Amy Eisenstein returns. She’s the principal of Tri Point Fundraising and her new book is “Raising More With Less: An Essential Fundraising Guide.” We’ll talk about her strategies that get small nonprofits to diversify and increase fundraising revenue.
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Here is a link to the audio: 140: Small Nonprofits: Raise More Money. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.
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Dahna hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s friday, may third have you been to itunes, teo rate and review the show? If you haven’t, i’d be very grateful if you did love to reflect the fact that there’s over nine thousand listeners in among the ratings and reviews you just go to itunes, you can go to non-profit radio dot net that’ll get you to itunes and click readings and reviews. I’d be very grateful for your one two five star rating and a quick review. I hope you were with me last week. I’d suffer peptic ulcer if it became known to me that you missed a conversation with eugene fram, professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology, dr frame is author of policy versus paper clips introducing non-profits to a corporate model of board governance to cut out the minutia from agendas so that your board can focus where it should on policy and planning, he explained what the model is and how to implement it, and we talked about specific week board practices like ignoring term limits and bad meeting attendance. This week, small non-profits raise more money consultant and author amy eisenstein returns she’s, the principal of tripoint fund-raising and her new book is raised more with less, raising more with less sorry, amy, raising more with less that’s her book, we’ll talk about her strategies that get small non-profits to diversify and increase fund-raising revenue about halfway through on tony’s, take two fund-raising fundamentals for the chronicle of philanthropy remember that it’s, my other podcast on i’ll refresh your recollection, my pleasure to welcome a xero amy eisenstein easy you’re not easy, you’re amy. Tony, how are you? Happy to be here. Thank you very much. Let me give you the proper introduction. Now that we’ve got your name straight. Amy, author of fifty, asks in fifty weeks and her new book is raising more with less. Both are part of the trench in the trenches siri’s from charity channel press she’s been director of development for shelter, our sisters, a battered women’s shelter and the douglas college at rutgers university. So she’s been in the fund-raising seat now, she’s. A consultant she’s with us from westfield, new jersey. Amy eisenstein. Welcome back. Thanks, tony. All right. Um let’s. Start with the fund-raising cycle that small and midsize shops may not be familiar with what the parts of that? Yeah, there is a basic fund-raising cycle that you want to take your donor’s through, whether their grant thunders, foundation thunders or corporations or individuals, the sun, the basic fund-raising cycle starts with identification. The question is, who are you going to fund raise from the second that stage and the cycle is cultivation and that’s about relationship building so that’s about getting to know your potential donors your perspective, donors on dh educating them about your organization, but also really learning about what makes them philanthropic. What touches their heart good, good step is solicitation that’s what i call the moment of truth that’s when you actually ask for the donation on daz, i said, whether you’re asking an individual face-to-face whether you’re sending an appeal letter, whether you’re sending a grant application, that’s, the ask and then the fourth stage is a stewardship and that’s the thank you and follow-up and unfortunately, lots of organizations neglect this process or don’t do it well because they’re so happy and relieved that they’ve gotten the gift that they don’t say. Thank you or follow-up later and let the donor know how their money was used. And unfortunately, this is, you know, one of the biggest reasons for donor attrition a donor’s not returning to make a second gift so really does do significant harm to a fund-raising program. If you skip that fourth and final step, we’ll talk about these in a little more detail. How do you know which step you’re at with each prospect or each donor? Uh, well, it’s, something that a development director or an executive director has to juggle and manage that’s one of the things that they’re responsible for doing so maintaining your list and figuring out where you are with each donors, the process is an important part of raising more money, right? But all right, so suppose someone has made a gift now that they’re they’re donorsearch were stuart ing them? Yeah, but we’re going to be hoping that they’re going to make another gift. You know, thinking of the annual fund, which we’ll get to. How do you know when to start the cultivation again? Right? Well, once you have a donor who’s, you know, once they’ve made their first gift and hopefully their second gift, then the lines between stewardship and cultivation do start to blur, so you’re thanking them. You’re keeping them updated about how their gift it was used and that’s also part of the cultivation, the relationship building process so those lines, they’re definitely blurred once the prospective donor is an actual donorsearch as opposed to a non donor-centric telefund you’re goingto ask, at least annually, depending on the type of ass you’re making, you may ask more than annually. For example, if you’re sending appeal letters, you might send an appeal in the spring and in the bottle and also ask for an event or a raffle to get sale so you can ask several times a year of the same donor that you’ve done proper stewardship. Thank you and follow-up in between each act. But if it’s more something like a major gift, you’re only gonna ask once a year. If it’s for your annual fun, we’re probably not going to touch capital campaigns today, so annual fund you want to ask at least annually, right? Okay. Let’s, let’s, get some help with identifying this is ah small non-profit let’s say, i’m the ceo and on i do prefer the title ceo over executive director on and, you know, we’re just two years old, and we’re i don’t know. What should we be engaged in? What kind of work should we be doing? Yeah, all right. Let’s ah, let’s. Well, you’ve worked with sheltering victims of domestic violence so let’s say that we are ah, domestic violence shelter. We’re only two years old. We’ve only been fund-raising through events in the past two years. We don’t have a list of people to start an annual fund with what do i do? Yeah, so one of the activities that i do with organizations when they don’t have a list toe look back on first of all, i’ll say that that example that you just give gave they should act absolutely be starting to build their list. So you said, you know, they’ve had some events right over to you. They’re capturing everybody, who’s, attending what they’ve given at those events and their contact information at a minimum. Okay, do start have some donors okay, don’t list so that they can look back on them in the future in the near future for doing this type of identification. But let’s, say that there’s no list right now. So i bring staff and board members at board retreat through an exercise. It looks like a spider grid and i start with a circle in the middle and i put the organisation in the middle and i say, okay, who does the organization know? And we do spokes out like a wheel better than a spider. Think of a wheel with both the organizations in the middle. Okay, so the the organization notes board members, they know volunteers, they know clients, they know service providers. They know all these types of people. So that’s your first list, you know, who are the contracts of the organization? Know, looks so boardmember volunteers, clients, those type of things dunaj did the exercise with you as an individual staff member or boardmember in the middle? Who do you know personally? Friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, people. You went to college with parents of your kid’s friends, people at church, etcetera, etcetera. So i asked boardmember sze to make this type of wheel and lift all the group of people they know and then pick one or two people from each group so to friends to family members, to colleagues, to neighbors that they’re willing to start building a relationship with you for the organ on behalf of the organization on these people may or may not become donors, but their perspective donors amy amy let’s say that i on we just have about a minute and a half before a break let’s say that i’m a fairly savvy ceo, so i did capture all the people from that have attended the events through the two years, but we would do this spoke exercise spoken well, exercise anyway, right? These vendors and friends of non-profit friends of board members and it’s, several community leaders. Okay, we’re still going to do this. Yeah, absolutely. And add them to your list. Okay, s o just in about a minute, we have left or so before we go away for a couple minutes, what? How are we going to identify the cultivation strategy for these people? Yeah, well, it’s going, we’re going toe pick probably depending on who you’re looking at. But if we’re looking for potential individual face-to-face type of donors, so are bigger donors for the organization, whether that means five hundred dollars or thousand. Dollars or ten thousand dollars and up um, i encouraged small organizations that are just getting started with this toe pick their top twenty list so people that they think all good donors need to things. They need capacity, which is the ability to give so they need some money on. They need inclination so they need an interest in the organization or the cause. Um, and so looking at these lists that you’ve come up with whether it’s event attendees or people that your board members know where members now and saying, who has who has the best potential in both those categories, who do we think has has money based on what we know about them, what their jobs are and where they live, etcetera and who’s shown an interest in the organization or the cause? Okay, amy, we got we got to go away for a couple of minutes. We’ll come back and we’ll continue talking about the fund-raising cycle. Stay with all right, stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? Hi, i’m ricky keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant. 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The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s the answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dahna welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I wish i could send live listener love, but we’re not live this week. Sorry, but, you know, you know that the love is out there for all the live listeners throughout the country and and the world lots of listeners in asia, i’m sure of that they’re always there always are in china, japan, taiwan, korea welcome amy let’s. See, now we’ve we’ve thought about who these people are, and we know that they have we know are top our top people in each category have capacity and and willingness, what’s our next step, the next step is building relationships with them off cultivation. So i always joke around with people that non-profits try and build relationships with people without ever meeting them. So they send the mail, they send them e mails, but that’s not really relationship building. So you have to pick up the phone on schedule a meeting with them as nerve racking as that may be for the first time on on game me the person to do that, we’ll vary based on who our prospect is, right? Yes, absolutely can be development. Staff members that can be the executive director or board members if they know the perspective donorsearch or even if they don’t quite frankly, everybody is part of the development team, the fund-raising team and depending on who has the relationship and if there’s no relationship there than it’s either development staff boardmember or executive director. Okay, okay, on dh building, that relationship is going to be inviting them to events or maybe a one on one meeting or it’s going to vary. It’s going very right, right? One on one meetings is always going to be the most effective in terms of really getting to know the person on answering their questions and learning about their philanthropic needs and tendencies. So you always want to take somebody out to coffee or meet them at their home or office wherever their most comfortable. It doesn’t have to be for lunch, which is something. Ah, a lot of novice fundraisers make the mistake of they think it must be for lunch, but it can be a twenty minute meeting and somebody’s office or at their home. And, of course, you always want to invite people on tours of your organization and two events there’s all different types of cultivation, but definitely a one on one should be in there during the course of the year. Ok? And then as the relationship develops, um, well, and also based on your scheduling of your annual fund appeal, you’re going to know when the right time is teo to solicit the person. Yeah, it’s actually, based on the relationship with the donor and how that’s going so it doesn’t donordigital really care about your annual fund cycle. So so you should really take your cues from your donor on dh. Ask honestly, i tell organizations task as soon as possible because usually people who are an x variants and nervous wait too long. So i asked as soon as possible and then on and then go from there, all right? And then when the gift is made, we you know, we talked some about you mentioned the importance of stewardship. Yeah, so a thank you letter and the tax letter needs to go out right away. Best practice, or is within forty eight hours. But i like to tell small organizations if they can get it out within a week. That’s perfectly acceptable and then, of course, it’s about really telling donors what impact there gets made and why there made the difference. Now believe thank you. Letter. Now, believe it or not, you you’re treading within jargon jail. Very close. At least with the tax letter. Thank you. Letter in the tax letter let’s. Explain what? That i think we know. What the thank you letter is. The tax letter has to be separate on dh. What do you mean by the tax letter? Yeah. So in my experience, most organizations combined them, which i personally think is ok. It just needs to be appropriate tax language. About what? That it’s a five a one c three. And that it’s a tax deductible gift on dh. Then you can thank the donor within the context of that letter as well. So it doesn’t have to be two separate letters. Okay, andi, as you’re saying that it’s tax deductible, you wantto say that, you know, it’s tax deductible. Something like to the maximum extent allowable by law, you know, check with your advisors, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Keep me. Keep me honest. Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, i don’t wanna get people in trouble, but i’m you know, you’re thinking that way, ok, thank you. All right, let’s, let’s talk about the different players that we’ve already you’ve already alluded to them, but what’s the ceo’s i’m the ceo what’s my responsibility around this new new individual fund-raising initiative. You know, i have to say it’s going to be different at every organization because it’s going to depend if the organization has any fun paid fund-raising staff members and how engaged and involved the board members are but that’s practice, and in theory, the executive director has a very significant role in fund-raising because, honestly, the donors want to meet with the ceo, the person who has the vision and the ability to implement that vision. And so the ceo is going to meet with most of the major donors, even if there’s development staff around just because you’re able tto hyre your first development director doesn’t mean that the executive director ceo can cy ah big sigh of relief and then say, i don’t have to do fund-raising anymore that’s just not the case. So the development director i like to think of as more behind the scenes and coordinating the visits, providing the information on the donors to the ceo before they go out and do the meetings. The development director certainly will meet with lower level, lower tier donors. Andi help with training and coordination of board members. Okay on dh there was something in the chronicle of philanthropy back in january january twenty ninth, there was an opinion piece called development directors are not a miracle worker, i don’t know. Did you see that? Do you remember it? I don’t remember saying ok, well, it goes to your point of the ceo sitting back and saying, oh, we have we have a director of development now so my responsibility is done. The money is just going to start coming in because we have our miracle worker. Yes boardmember sze, make that mistake a lot too let’s talk about the board what’s what’s their responsibility. So board members are responsible for helping with fund-raising. And the first thing that board members need to do is make their own personal contribution. And we call this one hundred percent participation. So we want every organization tohave every boardmember making a personal gift to the organization. And the reason that this is so important is that other thunders grantmaker sze primarily but also individuals want to know that the board of the organization is supportive of the organization and investing in the organization, because why should any other donor invest in the organization if don’t if their own boardmember sze won’t invest? So that’s the first thing duitz we also need boardmember to help with fund-raising because they’re the most effective fundraisers in terms of peer-to-peer solicitation, they can ask other individual donors without having any perceived or really all terrier motive like they’re not getting a salary from the organization. Their motive is completely voluntary and pure and so very persuasive when you say as a volunteer as a boardmember i made my contribution, and now i’m asking you to support the organization as well. So the most effective fund-raising campaigns i’ve ever worked with are where volunteers and board members are deeply engaged. What do we do with the boardmember who says? And maybe you have an example if you have a real life one. Well, welcome it, but the boardmember who says, you know, i either i can’t give or i won’t give i’m giving my time, i don’t need to give money also, i haven’t in the past two years, let’s put this person on my board, they haven’t given they’ve come to the event, they’ve come to some of the events that we’ve had over the years, but they’ve never made an outright gift. What are we going to say there? Yeah, you know, i so two examples one is i was working for a literacy volunteers organization here in new jersey a couple years ago, and we had a situation where a boardmember wouldn’t give and the executive director had applied to a foundation for a grant that required one hundred percent participation and the rejection letter said, the only reason we’re not giving you this grant it’s because you don’t have one hundred percent participation. Murcott and we showed that letter to that boardmember on dh, he made a twenty five dollar gift, and then he resigned off the board and quite frankly, most of the time when boardmember sze aren’t e-giving anything, they’re usually not productive in terms of volunteering or helping, and they’re not that valuable in other respects either where you get into sort of ah, piccoli situation is when you have a very active very committed, hardworking, dedicated boardmember who won’t give on dh, then you don’t want to lose that person, so then you have to sit down and have an honest conversation about how it’s hurting your mother. Fund-raising but i was actually on an airplane going to the, uh, speak at the conference just last week, and i was sitting next to a guy, and once i told them what i did, he said he’s on a board, and he doesn’t want to be told that he has to give um so it was very interesting hearing it and sitting on a plane for six hours next to someone who was very adamant again. E-giving he says it gives him time, and at the end, we agreed that he didn’t want to be told how much to give, but he was okay giving a donation and and i agree with that. Frankly, it should be up to the individual boardmember to give, in my opinion a significant gift for their personal budget, as opposed to a specific amount when you said you have a conversation with the boardmember did you say honest or ominous? Honest? Ok, well, it could be ominous. Also also, sure, but boardmember needs help with fund-raising because they can leverage gift that the staff can never get their hands around andi organizations that have boardmember that participate raised significantly more than organizations that have boardmember that don’t let’s move to recruiting the right board. Now, we my guest last week, eugene fran, we talked a lot about boards and the corporate model, but i want some of your advice on just a couple of points around onboarding croup, mint the you recommend great meetings. What? What makes a great meeting for boards. Yeah, well, let me start by saying what makes a terrible mistake. And i think that’s when the staff just reports out and reads reports, or even if boardmember zehr handed reports by staff and they read them, um and that makes for a boring board meeting and that i mean, you just cut out there after you said, and that makes waiting. Ok, about that. And so what makes for sorry? What makes for a great meeting is going to be when boardmember zehr engaged in discussion and so making sure that on the agenda there’s, meaningful discussion point toe have so that you are tapping into their skills and expertise, that’s the reason that you have them on the board so that they can discuss the hard issues that the organization might be facing? Ah, a second way to have a great boardmember thing is what we do is integrate what we call a mission moment, so bring a testimonial or a client or a letter from a client talking about the importance of the organization and what difference it made in that client’s life so that the board members who may be removed from the mission slightly can get back in touch with it. Maybe one of the women from my from our shelter is willing to come and talk, really, and it just has to be brief, right? Like five or seven minutes or something at a board in five, six minutes that’s it on dh. That really does amplify. What? What eugene fram recommended last week. You like to see annual retreats also, i dono i think that the most effective board’s always have annual retreat. It’s important to have a meeting once a year that has a totally different agenda from your regular board meeting agenda and that’s really? What i mean by a retreat and usually it’s, you know, slightly extended meeting, so it might be a half day it might even be a full day and there’s usually two things on the agenda to items on the agenda of a retreat, big items one is planning strategic planning and the other needs to be fund-raising and development on dh so many organizations don’t have retreats at all, and of the ones that do many just focus on planning and neglect the fund-raising and i strongly encourage organizations tio have these annual retreat and include both pieces. So as you’re doing your bored, look, rooting, you can assure perspective boardmember is that you have great active meetings that you’re going to tap into their expertise, they’re not going to be looking envelopes on dh that there’s an annual retreat to look forward to and that all of these things together, we’re goingto mean a meaningful boardmember experience for them, exactly. Let’s, let’s just remind listeners that i’m talking to amy eisenstein and she’s, the principal of tripoint fund-raising which your pine find it tripoint fund-raising dot com, we’re talking about her latest book, raising mohr with less amy. What are the what of the three points in tripoint? Are there three points? You know, there were ages ago. I started his business, and now it is morphed. And i’m embarrassed to say that there is not trust three points anymore. Well, what were the big three originally? I think of them after the break. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Okay. I don’t even know anymore. That’s. Horrible. I will. I will try and get back to you. All right, all right. Well, it’s multi point fund-raising. Yeah, exactly. Right. Weii, just have about a minute and a half before we go away again. Let’s. Introduce the idea of the annual fund. How do i know that? It’s it’s. The right time for me to start an annual fund or should i have started one two years ago when i started the organization? Yeah, i do encourage all organizations have an annual fund. What annual son really means is that it’s money used to pay your annual operations. So whether it’s, programmatic money or administrative money, a combination of them both. So anything that you’re raising for an annual basis is comprising your annual fund. And that can include events. Because that is going to fund your annual operations so that’s, the ball that an annual son really means. I guess many people think of it as a mail campaign. I include everything that you’re raising annually for annual operations. All right, we’re going to talk a lot more about the annual fund when we return. And, ah, right after we return, it’ll be tony’s take to stay with us. You don’t think that shooting the good ending, you’re listening to the talking alternative network, get in. Thing. Good. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? 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Geever if you have big ideas and an average budget tune, tony martignetti non-profit radio we dio i’m jonah helper, nari team in co founders of next-gen charity. Welcome back time for tony’s take two fund-raising fundamentals that is my monthly podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy, it’s different than this one and that’s first only once a month, and it’s also much shorter. Each episode sewed is only about ten minutes and that a podcast is devoted to fund-raising topics my guests have talked about online giving and grant seeking ira e-giving events using volunteers smartly. Your end e-giving amy eisenstein has been a guest on that show. You will find fund-raising fundamentals on the chronicle of philanthropy website, also on itunes, where you can subscribe and there’s information about it on my block. There’s a link my blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, the third of may eighteenth show of the year. Easy, easy. You’re still there time here. Okay, i know you were, um all right. We are broaching the topic of the annual fund. I’ve a fairly savvy board ceo, but we did not start the annual fund two years ago, but i feel like we’re ready now. I feel like we need a steady a source of fund-raising and i just want to diversify. Away from strictly events, so i’m on the right track in that respect, right? Yeah. I mean, i do want to diversify. Yeah, we talked about building the list already, but that list needs to be sort of personalized, right? Yes. Most effective annual campaign is when you’re going to be sending mail or email or communications with an individual as personalized as possible. Okay, mail or email. And how do we how do we start personalizing? So, depending on what resource is you have in terms of list on dh revenue and money to start mail campaigns can be more expensive at the beginning than they generate. And so it is an investment at time. Encourage organizations, tio have a multi pronged approach of both male and email solicitations. Um, and also, you strongly want to consider monthly or recurring giving programs. So investing in the technology to have, uh, bank withdrawals and automatic credit card charging so that you know, instead of having one hundred dollars, a year donor-centric e for fifteen dollars a month or twenty dollars a month and that significantly increases what individuals are able to give or willing to give to your organization. Okay. So let’s, there’s a lot in there. That zone pack some of this let’s start with the direct mail way. Certainly, we wantto personalize by using their name in the letter. And and not dear friend of the organization, something like that. What more can i do around direct mail? Tto make it personal? Uh, well, first of all, on the outside envelope, you wantto look att make it look as less less bulky as possible. Bulk mail. So, using a live stamp, a supposed teo bulk mail stamp. Okay, well, let’s, start with that. I’m gonna now there are i mean, i for planned e-giving mailings that i do for clients. I always prefer live stamps. Absolutely. But sometimes people will say, well, you know, there’s research from direct mail gurus that the life stamp doesn’t pull as much or doesn’t necessarily pull to the to make it worthwhile over a bulk stamp. Ah, bulk mailing or ah, something that’s. Ah, maybe not. Bulk mail. But it’s it’s ah, a male looks at a male indicia what’s. That stamp called. I’m blanking on the world, but a meter metered male sam thank sam. Thank me. Thank you. Yeah. What? Do you? What do so what do you say when you get those objections? Well, i have to say, i’d like to see those studies because i would bet they don’t exist. My guess is that stan envelopes that don’t look like bulk mail that looked like their personal mail, which is a live stamp. Uh, get opened it significantly higher rates and if you’re direct mail piece, no matter how good inside the envelope is going in the trash before it’s opened, it doesn’t matter what’s inside that’s for sure. And so i actually also encouraged my client’s hand right envelopes teo as many as they can maybe fifty or a hundred of their top donors or perspective donors so that they really increase their chances of getting that mail open because it looks like personal mail. Oh, hand, write thie outside the address on your side. Ok, ok, do you? Ah, do you use first class pre sort to save money sometimes? Yes, so definitely you can work with your post office. I don’t know all the ins and outs of reducing the prices, but there are all sorts of ways to reduce the postage by working with pre sort and your post office, but still having that live stamp, basically, yeah, the details are pretty arcane, but basically you’re doing some of the sorting that’s what called pre sort so you’re saving labour for the post office, so they give you a reduced rate on each piece, but it still is alive stamp, and if you’re working with a male house, they’ll do that, and your database will sort by zip code and whatnot, so hopefully you’re not actually hands sorting it. It should be automated at this point, whether you’re doing it in house or whether a male house is doing it for you. All right now, if we’ve got, i don’t know a couple thousand pieces, maybe in our list or eventually, if we get there, maybe not in our inaugural list, but forget there, then it may be worth paying a printer or male house. Yeah, i mean, i encourage organizations usually i think they wait too long, and they’re spending hours and hours with dozens of volunteers on dh taking over their whole conference room for weeks at a time to get a big mailing out when it’s cost effective to use a male house so i would definitely look into that because some of what you spends paying the male house you save in postage and what they’re able to dio in terms of pre sort another thing. All right, do you have advice around how to find the right male house to work with you? You know, i would call other local non-profits and see who that they use and then get two or three quotes that’s what i would do all right, how about inside the inside the envelope? How can we personalize their aside from just saying, using the person’s name and addressing them as their name in the in the greeting write a couple things to do is if you have the technology to sort by interest or certainly donorsearch non donor-centric donors differently than people who have never given before. So that’s one way of personalizing by saying, you know, we acknowledge that you’ve given before, and we thank you for it, and we’re asking you again versus people who have never gotten given which you would address slightly differently. So the bulk of the letter can be similar, but you’d change a few lines and that’s to personalize it, other bigger organizations even sort personalize it by programs. So if we know that this donor is interested in our children’s program and that donor is interested in our senior citizens program, you know, we’d send them slightly different letters. But that’s, you know, once you get down the road, you’re more sophisticated, okay? And that all falls under segmentation, right? Okay. Would you recommend addressing the person as formally mister or missus, or using or using first name in the letter? You know, i i’m on the fence with that one. I think it depends on the organization and the donor base. And so, depending on what you know about your donors, i would start formally on dh. Then as you get to know them, maybe get less formal. Okay. Now, when i was in the air force there’s something that i think could apply to fund-raising, too. And i’ve seen clients do it when there was a formal greeting. You know, dear colonel, whatever. If the person from who was going to be signing the letter i knew the person, they would cross it off there. Just put a line through dear colonel smith and they would write the person’s name in, you know, fred, right a za personal touch as far as i know that that’s still the appropriate protocol. And that brings up a great point in terms of personalization. You wantto put personal notes on as many of these letters as you can, and especially by people who know the person that it’s going to the recipient. So ifyou’re boardmember can put personal notes on letters to people that they’re sending these letters teo than the rate of return increases significantly. Alright. And i love all this detail. Thank you for getting into detail with me. How about who’s going to sign the letter? Should should everybody sign the should the same person signed all the letters or since we’ve segmented shouldn’t vary, or if there’s relationship should that vary the signature? Yeah, i mean, yes, based on relationships, if somebody knows the person that’s the signer often the board chair will be the signer of ah campaign. Like this ilsen annual appeal campaign. But also maybe the executive director and the keyboard chairs signature it’ll be a dual signature at the bottom. Ok, dual signature. Ok. Interesting. Um anything else that? You want to suggest about direct mail before we move teo using email? Yeah, i think the best piece of advice i ever got actually came from thomas hearns on direct male paces. And that is to go through your letter and circle all the time you read, write i or we and replace them with you and make the little letter donor so you don’t want to don’t the letter to be about the organization as much as possible. You want it to be about the donor? What the donor’s done to support the cause in the organization and how much the donors of importance does that make sense? Yeah. You want to emphasize also what the donor’s gift is going to do for the organisation? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. So that’s. Interesting. Right? So change them all to teo. You a donor? Focusedbuyer er, do you have advice around? Does this matter whether it’s one page or more than one page? Some people get hung up on one on the lens. Do you have a concern about that video? All the research i’ve ever seen shows that a longer letters better. And that means four pages now there can be a lot of white space in your letter and pictures and pulled out quotes and all sorts of interesting things. So it’s not four straight pages of text, but that would be good if you could argue for a shorter letter. You know they don’t have the research to back this up. And so organisations listen to these loud board members who say i only want a one page letter but all the studies show that for paid daughters do better. Okay, so if i say to you, i wanted what you said to me earlier. You want to see the studies? You have the study’s? Yeah, you do. Okay. Okay. Interesting. All right. Ah, couple minutes about two minutes before we go away briefly let’s switch online email. If we can personalize email also. Can’t we? Absolutely as much as possible. So the same sort of segmentation can happen. You can send one set of emails to your donor’s versus your non donors toe. Add those quote unquote personal notes email. They can you can have them coming from board members who know the recipients. So you might take you know these twenty e mails and asked this boardmember to send them to their left. Okay, so, it’s okay, it’s okay? If it comes from someone’s personal email, then that’s better aren’t you more likely to open an e mail from a friend? And you are from an organization? Yes, i am, but okay, okay, but it’s so and then replies, going back to the person also, you know, that’s a tricky one, because technology and programs that have it go back to the organization, but if you’re small, start up, you’re not going to invest in that, and you’re just gonna have to rely on your individual volunteers to get that information back to you, but hopefully they’ll be following a donation now linked to your website on, and they shouldn’t be replying to your boardmember anyways, okay on, i want to put in ah little caveat that donate now button on your web site triggers the charity registration laws i’m always always aware of this, so you need to make sure that you’re in compliance with the state laws and all the states across the country. When you donate now, button goes live doesn’t matter if anybody ever clicks it from wyoming or in nebraska, you need to make sure you’re in compliance in those states and all the states because you’re deemed to be soliciting when that donate now button goes live that’s, the solicitation that’s. What triggers those registration requirements and i’ll say, if i have time for one last thing about direct mail, email and direct mail is that it’s not a solicitation if it doesn’t have a reply macken mechanism. So that means it has tohave a donate now button, and it has to have a reply envelope in your direct mail. Otherwise you won’t get any response. Okay, you do. You do want to see a reply envelope in the direct mail, absolutely it’s worth spending that money. Yes, and you need to be able to accept credit cards online and have that donate now button. Okay, we take a break, and when we come back, amy and i are going to start talking about the individual solicitations, maur, face-to-face and helping you overcome your fears for those. So stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent again live listener love let’s see the states that usually are listening live california, texas, north carolina, virginia those are the most common going abroad almost always have listeners from japan, konnichiwa, china and taiwan knee how and very often from korea on yo haserot you know, i’m thinking about you, even though we’re not live today, okay? Amy eisenstein, i’ve never as the ceo, i’ve never faced somebody done somebody asked somebody face to face for gift whether it was fifty dollars or five thousand dollars. I haven’t done it. Help me overcome my fear of asking somebody fate, looking in their eye and asking them it’s, it’s terrifying me, it is terrifying. And i have to say part of the issue is that we come from at least here in the united states a culture of where money is taboo. We can’t talk about it, right? Yeah, some people would rather talk about death and and sex than than money. It’s absolutely true. I say that all the time and so talking about money is very hard because we were raised to think talking about money. Is rude, and so we have to overcome that. So i like to encourage people to think about a time that they gave to a charity, and how did it make them feel it made them feel great, not horrible. We have to get away from the idea that fund-raising is like arm twisting or begging, right? Okay on and think of it as investing in the community. And i like to think of fund-raising as helping somebody do something great that makes them feel good. So it makes me feel good too. Okay, how do i put that into action? I’ve i’ve called the person they’ve agreed to meet with me. I won’t make the novice mistake of doing it over lunch, although i will add parenthetically, i do like to meet people over lunch. I don’t know, i just like the sharing the space and the meal together, but that’s just me that’s just me. Let me just say about that. I think taking someone to a thank you lunch after they’ve made the gift is a wonderful idea because we do like to eat with people and break bread with them. But the problem with asking for a donation in a restaurant is that it’s often loud, you are having a private, confidential converse station. You are talking about money the waiter can interrupt at the wrong time and it’s hard to talk with your mouth full. So good reasons not actually asked in a restaurant. Okay, maybe i’m more skill. Can we say? I’m a little more skilled maybe and i’ve overcome those i’ve overcome those things and i go to restaurants where the service is bad so the waiter never interrupt now, okay, but i’m not fighting use i’ve i’ve made my appointment and i’m meeting the the prospect where she’s most comfortable in her office, which makes me uncomfortable. Help me out. Well, hopefully, first of all, you’ve been through the cultivation process with her, so you’ve met her in her office before, so it shouldn’t be as uncomfortable as you may think, okay? And during that cultivation process, you’ve asked her a lot of questions about your organization. Why she’s been a supporter in the past? Why she might like to support in the future and what types of things she might like. Thie open ended questions that you recommend in the book yeah, so she’s not surprised. This isn’t a surprise visit that she doesn’t know why you’re coming or that you’re going to be asking her for support. You know, nobody wants to be surprised, not the askar and not the donor. So when you set up the appointment, make it clear that you’re coming to talk about increased support in the future and that you want to talk about ways that they’ll get more involved in more supportive financially so that nobody’s caught off guard. Ok, ok, okay. Help me out a little more what’s what’s. Next. Okay, so you go. You want to have a specific amount in mind, you need to ask for a specific amount because if you ask for a gift but our donation and don’t say an amount, they don’t know what you’re thinking about and when they give you fifty dollars bill, thank you. They’ve done what you asked and you’ll be totally disappointed. So you’ve got to ask for an amount we like to say. A good good phraseology is we’d like to ask you to consider a gift in the range of five hundred dollars or a thousand dollars. Now you’ll notice. I didn’t actually give arrange it and say five hundred to a thousand because what happens if you actually asked for a ranger? They go to the low number, correct? They goto the low number, so to give them a little wiggle room, you say i’d like you to consider a gift in the range of a thousand dollars then if they come in, you know, seven fifty, they’ve done what you’ve asked, and everybody feels great, okay? Okay, no one asked for something specific, uh, program salary support a ban on these will be things that we are. We should be pretty confident they isa touchpoint for them it’s something that they like because of the previous meetings and all the cultivation we’ve done. Okay, so that shouldn’t be a surprise. Also you like you like rehearsals? Can you say something about rehearsing briefly? Yeah, because it’s such an uncomfortable thing when you’re just getting started with fund-raising i strongly encourage rehearsal and role play rehearsal is what you can do in front of the mirror, but yourself alone, we’ll play is what you do, especially if you’re going with a partner. So maybe the boardmember and the ceo. Are going together task? You absolutely need to know who’s opening the meeting who’s doing the ass who summarising who’s, making a follow-up plant at the end all of these important roles so that everybody knows what they’re doing. All right, we have to leave that topic there. You have a major gift challenge on your blogged that is free for people to get your advice. Why don’t you share what’s up there? Okay, great. This year, i’ve decided to dedicate my block for the full year tio what i call the major gifts challenge, and i’m encouraging people at all types and sizes of organizations to get involved with face-to-face individual asking, usually for the first time, and i’m taking people step by step through the process of doing everything we’ve talked about in terms of getting to a major gift or a personal ask it’s totally free, and i just encouraged people to spend two hours a week on the weekly tax that i suggest, whether it’s getting your list together or making a cultivation call up until we get to the ass. Alright, you’ll find amy and information on the major gift challenge at tripoint fund-raising dot. Com if you think of what those points are, amy, you’ll have to share them. Did you think of the three points you got the right? Same fast, same, very fast hyre empower a team. Okay, excellent. Her book, the latest is raising mohr with less. Get that book. Amy eisenstein, thank you very much for being a guest sharing your expertise. Thanks for having my pleasure next week. Make money when you move and kayman ceo of new york grant pany shares ways that non-profits all over the country can tap into grantspace loans and other financial incentives around real estate, and our legal contributor, jean takagi returns also, we’re all over the social web i’ve given up on the italian were just all over the social web itunes if you’re listening live, consider eyes my solicitation consider going toe itunes and subscribing so you don’t miss a show when you can’t be with me on a friday because you know it’s bound to happen, especially during the summer. Why take that chance? You can go to aa itunes at non-profit radio dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff sam labor, which is our line producer, an assistant. Producer is janice taylor. Shows. Social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, may tenth, twenty thirteen, one two two p m eastern at talking alternative dot com dahna i think they’re getting sick. Do you? You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz get him. E-giving you could hi, i’m donna, and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life will answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications? Then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way look forward to serving you! You’re listening to talking alt-right network at www. Dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect, no more it’s time. Join me, larry shop a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio dot com everytime was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Com. Hyre
