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Noah Barnett & Kenny Kane: Peer-To-Peer Peek
Our panel from the Nonprofit Technology Conference shares an overview of community-driven fundraising. How do you plan for, inspire and activate your supporters? They’re Noah Barnett from CauseVox and Kenny Kane with Testicular Cancer Foundation.
Amy Sample Ward: Poverty Porn
Amy Sample Ward returns to discuss the issues around graphic images and descriptions of poverty. How can you avoid the porn trap and white savior stereotyping, while telling compelling stories and advocating effectively? She’s our social media contributor and CEO of Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).
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Duitz hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into righteous, sardonic ous if you expected me to smile when you say you missed today’s show peer-to-peer peak, our panel from the non-profit technology conference shares an overview of community driven fund-raising how do you plan for inspire and activate your supporters? They’re noah barnett from causevox and kenny kane with testicular cancer foundation and poverty porn. Amy sample ward returns to discuss the issues around graphic images and descriptions of poverty. How can you avoid the porn trap and white savior stereotyping while telling compelling stories and advocating effectively she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of the non-profit technology network, and ten tony take two a big lump of thanks responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cps guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps dot com and by telling by telus turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream, tony dahna em a slash tony tell us, here are noah barnett and kenny. Kane from the non-profit technology conference welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of twenty eighteen non-profit technology conference hashtag is eighteen ntc where the convention center in new orleans, louisiana. This interview, like all our ntcdinosaur views, is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profits i guess now are noah barnett and candy cane. Noah is head of marketing for causevox and candy cane is, you know, the testicular cancer foundation. Gentlemen, welcome. Thanks for having us, this’s. Great talent. Yeah. No it’s. Great. Not that in ten things. Not great. It’s. Exceptional. Yeah. It’s. Exceptional. Thank you. And ten. Thank you. All right. Your workshop topic is community driven. Fund-raising how do you use peer-to-peer to cultivate dahna relationships and reach new donors? That sound familiar? Yeah, absolutely. We just wrapped up our session. We’re already done. Yeah, we’re all done outside. Yes. Yeah, we’re on the downswing. So this’s the after party’s victory last put both put it well, community driven fund-raising let’s, start with you, let’s. Start close to know what’s what’s not being done quite right. That non-profits could do better. Yeah, so i think what’s interesting is we’ve gone through a few shifts in fund-raising we went through this idea of there was, like, localized fund-raising back in the day, and then we went to mass fund-raising where we basically didn’t differentiate any of our appeals, we sent all that out. And now today, like, i think there’s a fundamental shift where we’ve moved into what we call the connected economy, where the lines between digital and offline are starting to blur, and that requires a shift in how we approach fund-raising and we see kind of a playbook for the connected economy is community driven. Fund-raising okay, b i like the way you you sort of set this up for us the lines between online and the physical world and our real life are blurring indeed, yeah, okay, so we’re bringing these things together? Yes, okay. Peer-to-peer community driven. Okay, yeah, we’re calling it the connected economy because we’re just connected to anybody anywhere, at any time, through technology and our lives are more connect xero never. So why shouldn’t our causes b similarly should should we be similarly connected to our cause is exactly through our community. Exactly. Okay, kenny, anything you want to add? To the start up? Yeah, i would just say that you know what? The testicular cancer foundation were really big on storytelling and creating compelling stories that resonate with our audience? Not only, you know, as someone who’s been through it as a caregiver myself, but, you know, we try to put ourselves on the other end of the computer screen or the phone. What have you where these stories will compel people to act compel people to donate compel people that take action? Okay, let’s, stay with you. You’re right, your description says and in fact, in bold face, your description says that you will share with us exactly how to do this. How did so where where should we start? Where we’ve been, you know, everybody sees peer-to-peer well, let me take a step back, my ok to synonymous eyes peer-to-peer and community fund-raising or you guys drawing a distinction between those two? Yeah, we’re definitely drawing in this sham. Please set. Educate me. Yeah, so i think what’s interesting is community driven fund-raising is what we’re calling the umbrella that lays over all the various aspects of fund-raising where your community of supporters are actually the key. Driver of success in the campaigns here, it appears your war is a tactic inside of that larger exactly and so in community driven fund-raising there’s kind of a scale of the different types of things that qualify as that that moves from organization led meaning, like the organization is starting a campaign like e-giving tuesday campaign, a crowdfunding campaign, an annual campaign all the way down to supporter initiated, which could be i’m wanna raise money for cancer. And i’m choosing to do that for the testicular cancer foundation. But i decided, as a supporter to do that, he didn’t created environment for me to do that was organic. Okay, thank you so well. Refrain from making those two synonymous. I’m being too narrow. Choosing one method. One tactic. Okay. All right, exactly how kenny. Where where did wish we get started? We yeah, so appealing. But i don’t know where to get going. Sure. So in this rolling in my last role, which was a broader young adult cancer non-profit called stupid cancer. The same rules apply. So you have people who are affected by cancer? Cancer was huge. Yes. Did you have in north, like millions of kids and engaged around. Um, i know you’re probably right way did pretty well. Yeah, it still exists. They’re still there. Still hammered away at it. He’s going to take a little he’s, one of the co founders of super cancer. Yeah. Ok, so? So the long story short is that my father was diagnosed at age fifty with testicular cancer, which put me on a path towards can frat advocacy in my early twenties. And about two years ago, my friend matt first learn who’s, the founder of testicular cancer foundations and eighty want move from new york latto austin i said, sure. Oh, and i’ve taken over testicular cancer foundation. Okay, but getting back to you know that the same rules apply where we serve people who are in a a disadvantage spot going through cancer. You know, whether it’s a survivor, the patient, the caregiver who is helping the person caregivers often forgot. Yes, characters need to take care of them. So i was here to be coddled and cared for one hundred percent. That was made. Uh, so what we do is we see these people go along a path of being recipients of the mission. Being beneficiaries of the mission, and then they come back, you know, to three years out and, you know, they decide they want either run a marathon or they want to create a cancerversary party cancerversary is a really big milestone where on the, you know, annual date of their diagnosis or when they finish treatment which everyone they choose people will give back, and typically they get back to the non-profit that help them? You know, i think it’s probably similar in all chronic health. I know what i know. An oncologist office where they have a bell, you ring the bell, your final treatment? Yeah, i’ve seen a bell if tina got probable. Yeah. It’s a great milestone, you know, on and i had my own i’m sympathetic to caregivers. I mean, i had some sense of it before this, but during the summer this past last year, summer and in the fall so october, my mom was declining and i was my mom. My dad and i were were caregivers and just watched her, and then she actually died early october of twenty seventeen, so i it was became even more became even more aware of how. You need to take care of yourself. I know. It’s just one component of what testicular cancer is doing. Share the caregivers. You know, i often think that they have to be selfless. Andi, can’t you cannot give up your own life, teo, give another to get to another. You’ll burn out there’s a lot of self care that goes into your caregiver. So when we talk about the community aspect of community and fund-raising, you know, and i’m so let the host tigress i’m sorry. Sorry about that. Sorry about mom. Thank you. Host back-up kottler disgust like, welcome to the show cubine xero all week so community german fund-raising candy cane is goingto yeah, so the same rules apply so people go through this process, they come back and for every person who was perhaps turned away from the person going through this acute episode of, you know, not episode, but a stretch of cancer treatment. What? Not whether somebody wanted to give them food or take them to the doctor’s appointment person kind of turned away community driven fund-raising is a great way to really activate your community of people who wanted to help you and in the past, we have created opportunities for fundraisers to convert into things like travel scholarships to a patient conference. So if you’re this arrive, er, you could fund-raising within your community to raise money for travel reimbursement, so it’s not necessarily scholarship, is a little bit more democratic of a process scholarship can get a little tricky. So this skull, this reimbursement program that we did it stupid cancer actually allowed the people around the person affected to help fund their way to the conference while doing ah e-giving back to charity, getting the tax benefits all that. But it was just a really nice way of recognizing what that person had been through. It’s time for a break pursuant. Their newest paper is the digital donation revolution. You’re online donors have high expectations of you because of the swift transactions that they enjoy at amazon. Zappos, even some banks, the digital giving bar has been raised. How do you get over? Get the digital donation revolution it’s on the listener landing page, tony dot m a slash pursuant radio now back to peer-to-peer peak and then so what’s the broader lesson for our listeners in small and midsize shops. But know anybody? Yeah, i think what’s interesting is community driven fund-raising is just a reframing of how we approach raising money and building awareness for the causes that were advocating for okay, bye, basically recognizing the true value that every person in your non-profits community and as a community of supporters, whether they’re known or unknown supporters of your organization, typically we look at it from just a financial perspective. And so what community room fund-raising says, is that it’s not just about the money, that supporter khun give you its about their influence in the time they can give you a swell? And in the connected economy, the influence that a supporter has is actually more valuable than it’s ever been before, because brands are being kind of blocked out of feeds, whether it’s, facebook, it’s becoming really difficult for non-profits to reach any new people. And so by turning inward and saying, how can we actually empower our supporters by inspiring, activating and rallying them? Latto actually be the fundraisers for organization, ok, how do we get? How do we activate this within our own organization way we need to be thinking through sure, who should be. In the team discussing, i feel like we’ve spent enough time on motivation, what are some steps? How do we get started? I’m interested, but i don’t know how to organize myself. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, i think community german fund-raising is just like a lens on how you approach fund-raising and so i think it’s important to have non-profit leadership buy-in but also a fund-raising team in general and communications because communities and fund-raising is basically saying, we’re going to inspire people in our community becomes supporters rather than guilt them, then we’re going to activate those people that have true potential to become fundraisers and advocates for our cause instead of and we’re not trying to convince people to do that. We’re just activating the potential that’s already, and they’re already exists. Exactly, and they were rallying them together so fundraisers usually see raising money and reaching new donors as their responsibility. Community driven fund-raising says no it’s, actually your job to be a player coach and basically see your community is a valuable asset to helpyou fund-raising help you grow your impact, help you reach new donors, but i’m gonna ask you again. But how do we get? Started? I mean, maybe is that identifying certain people to maybe seed the program. I understand you’re not throughout the life of the pregnant thing, okay, you do something, you do something, but we need some seeds. Yeah, i think what we do is all we always advise people to understand the different stages of community fund-raising and so the first stage is inspiring. And so as you look at your current fund-raising whether it’s an event, whether it’s a male piece, how do you look at that piece and see it from a lens that you’re not trying to convince someone or guilt someone to gives your cause? We’re actually trying to inspire them and because inspiration leads to sharing and action. Okay, so so, yes, we wanted to share exactly. And then inside your current supporters, which is the second stage, which is activation, identifying key supporters that are ready to do something more. And so one of our customers world bicycle relief every time someone donates at that moment of inspiration that they’ve someone’s been inspired to support the cause, they want to provide a next step toe activate them to actually be an advocate or a fundraiser for the cause and so it’s something as simple as that by they implement this new program and they’re just asking new donors if they want to do more and presenting the opportunity. And if you apply the commuter and fund-raising methodology, you could find things across your current fund-raising program where you just shift your mindset to be how it can we make this more community focus rather than organization driven it’s sort of empowering them to indeed, i’m just adding another i mean, you’re talking about no inspiring them so that they share and then they take action. Yep, i guess i’m calling it empowering them and giving them well in power and giving them permission and maybe some tools. Two work with yeah, right, the backdrop is shaking video would be stable, it’s not going to fall, but it shook. I would have to say that, you know, historically, we’ve created fund-raising or maybe you donate twenty dollars, to yourself so that you don’t share this fundraiser with a zero balance the same rules apply to when you’re launching a campaign, you really need the buy-in have trusted ah, folks in your, you know, in your group people that, you know will create a buzz, and you certainly don’t want to launch it on deaf ears, right? Yeah, with xero balance, etcetera. You mentioned storytelling earlier, you seem to make a point of how important that is. How does that help us? I guess at the first stage that noah was describing inspiring the community, i think i think it contextualized is and provides insight into your motivation as a fundraiser. How do we start telling these stories? I want to get into the nitty gritty here, so, you know, obviously we’re up against the algorithm of any given social media platform and, you know, you could do it whether it’s, tio email or through, you know, social post, but really providing, you know, maybe a before and after photo in my case, where people are, you know, going through treatment and they come out with a smile on their face, that’s the best case scenario and just really humanizing it. You know, we talked a lot in our session today about being human throughout the fund-raising process, i think it’s really easy to get kind of technical and robotic about it and just create opportunities. For people that self serving, you know, creative latto fund-raising page and then never to be heard from again. I think. Causevox and, you know, i know. Using causevox. We aim. Tio certainly create opportunities for more than that. So you actually have a relationship with the non-profit as you’re going through the fund-raising fund-raising stages and and finishing the campaign about empowering people tell their own stories so that it doesn’t it’s not coming from the organization, but giving them the option to create a two minute self didio or log on their own power way actually saw this firsthand so and ten is a non-profit who hosts this conference, and what they did was they said, how can we raise money for scholarships so that people could come to this conference for free? Who can afford it? And one of the biggest things they did was they said, you know, we have ten board members that have influence and ability to do this and so let’s empower them to tell the community why ntcdinosaur others to them and fund-raising on our behalf, and so they were able to raise over eighteen thousand dollars, and i just saw the banner over there and there’s, you know, fifty, sixty, seventy different donors that came together to help support that campaign, and all they did was they said, hey, boardmember is ur supporters were goingto activate you to tell your story on our behalf, and they did it with did videos they wrote like testimony is different content, and so they didn’t say one thing to the other again. Theyjust activated those supporters and said, hey, can you share your story with the community and raise money on dh. They were able to do that and there’s people at this conference because of what those board members did in the stories that they told you. Excellent. So so starting capital so we’re activating people that they share a men that they take the act take the action of, of actually beginning fund-raising fund-raising on their own as we’re okay. It’s rise. Where going through this process of empowering, i would have described how you describe it. Do we need to circumscribe it a little bit boundaries around it? For listeners, that might be a little leery of maybe the the power they were transferring too much power. Yeah, we’re powering know it talked a lot about this during the session about giving, you know, the non-profit needs to give up a certain degree of control. You want to talk about that? Yeah. And i think that’s why? The third phase of commuters fund-raising is about rallying, not controlling. And so i think our default is well, how do we control this? How do we do this? How do we do that? I think in the connected economy, all the powers with the customer and it’s on the non-profit to realize that their supporters have more power than they think. And so they can try to control them. Or they can really say hey, let’s, rally this let’s, support this and help drive this forward, and so i think if you jump to taking a control position instead of how do we actually rally people in the right direction? Um, you’re going to miss huge opportunities really activate your community. You know, this reminds me of the fears that non-profits had around facebook. Oh yeah, allowing people to come it’s been going on for years? Yeah, come on their facebook page. I don’t know if we’re going to allow those car. Yeah, we should have opened commenting and posted. Yeah, well, circling back earlier we were talking about, you know, the storytelling aspect and in the cancer world and again in the probably the chronic illness world of non-profits it’s a beautiful thing when you have somebody sharing their story, whether we are sharing on the behalf, which is most of the time when you see in the comments let’s say they have a rare type of brain tumor or something like that they’ve never met or connected with another young adult with cancer, let alone somebody who has their exact same diagnosis toe watch that unfold in the comment section where now these people are going to be able to support one another, the fact that you facilitated that on the non-profit side, i’s, amazing and it’s only going to contribute to the overall strategy of activation and engagement getting people teo really buy into your non-profit buy-in to your mission. And you showed a great example that stupid cancer had a different name before it was stupid cancer, and it was, you know, this moment when they said everyone calls us stupid cancer because that’s the tagline so let’s actually switch. So he convinced the founder of the organization to switch the name to stupid cancer and make the name of the organ kapin line right and kind of say, you know, hey, like, we’re going to give power to this community that wants to be a part of this and that’s when they saw growth from two thousand two hundred fifty thousand like you saw hundreds of thousands dollars being raised because they just again said, hey, we’re not going to control this. We’re not going to, you know, they would correct people be like we’re not the stupid cancer guys where the i got every one of the other name it wasn’t i’m too young for this cancer and it’s very slavic, every word. But they gave up that control. And then they saw, like the mo mentum in the community like flourish. And i think what was interesting is that still progressed. What their mission, ford wass maybe in ways they never expected or never would have done themselves. But it’s still pushed the mission forward. And i think that’s the opportunity that non-profits small, large, medium all have today. And we see it time and time again with our customers at causevox and in parallel, you know, you don’t get to decide what school your audience is. The same sort of thing with fund-raising storytelling. All the concepts were presenting today, it’s all about the audience and did, uh, what about let’s? Talk a little more about building this into your annual fund-raising plan? Okay, okay, uh, what you’re the experts. I have a plan now, and i don’t feel like i’m sufficiently community driven or or at all community community supported what i need to rethink. Well, not just what we’ve already covered. But how do we get this in my plan? Yeah, i think what’s interesting is fundraisers have like the same playbook, and they just think if they do more of it that there’ll be more successful. Andi, i think that’s why the burnout rate for fundraisers is so significant in our industry is because they feel as though there’s one playbook to run, which is more events, more emails, more mail in wartime decides that they have exhausted that playbook organization. W ell, move onto organization, yeah, try again no more, yeah, and i think what’s also thing is it it creates this window shopping experience where you’re always looking at other non-profits and being like man, if i only had what they have, i would be able to solve and what we challenged our people that attend our session is that you really need to look at the challenges and reframed them. And so we said is instead of saying, okay, i need to do more of these things, it’s saying as part of my annual fundraising campaign, whether other things like we can do and what we provide, it was saying, how about we take a look at our community and see if there’s opportunities that we can inspire our community, activate them and rally. Them to actually help raise more money and reach new donors. Okay, that’s part of our annual can i would i would add that, you know, people listen, this interview who were saying, all right, how do i deploy this? You certainly don’t want to cannibalize anything that’s working for you, so if you raise a ton of money in queue for, you know, don’t don’t suddenly pivot and say, all right, i’m going to try to spread that out for the rest of the year, and then suddenly you’re exhausted by q for but there’s a lot of little things you can do through out the year like being more human, connecting with your audience, giving up the control is we’ve, you know, keep reiterating on just being more of a social entity, you know, that’s kind of what it comes down to is is it’s not a one way communication channel? It’s you know, the feedback goes both ways, yeah, yeah, and i think it’s, just even seeing the potential and being able to create the opportunities were actually saying we’re asking for more things than money, so a quick story i spent six years running growth at an international relief non-profit and i was overseeing growth, but that was communications and development, and so our major gift officers, obviously we’re hard core, like, go after money, cultivate new gifts year over year, and when i told them when i oversaw them was like there’s, other opportunities for these major donors to make a difference, their influence and their time are really valuable, you know, major donors know a lot of other major donors, and so we continually go back and say, the only thing we want from you is your money. We’re only going to get a portion of their value and so weak went to them and said, hey, you know, would you want to do something interesting by, like, leveraging your major gift to run a matching gift campaign? Or do you want to do a employee engagement campaign at your non-profit or do you wantto basically go into the business network that you’re a part of and share this opportunity, teo promote and inspire other people to support the cause? And what we saw is that the more that we got them to invest, their influence and their time, the more money they like. Well, how do you make those ass? You just picked off like three things? How do you make? So i think in the major gifts side, obviously, you know, it involves, like face-to-face conversations and having a conversation and providing examples of what other individuals but that’s, what people do you wantto do this campaign or, you know, activate matching gift? So what do you make those asks? You want to do your own work? Place campaign? Yeah, so i think obviously in major gifts, it’s different because you have a personalized contextual relationship with that individual. And so if you know that they’re a ceo of a company, you can have a dialogue about that and say, you know, how are you engaging your employees to give back as a community, you obviously care and see your legacy as giving gifts into our organization. How is your company doing? And so it’s having a conversation around that, i think in the broader sense where you’re asking a broader audience to do fund-raising is again making sure that you’re not asking everybody and just being like, hey, this is a new way that you can give to our information are give to our organization rather looking for segments of your audience that are ready to do something, whether that means they’re new donors, they’re volunteers, their board members, they’ve been giving monthly for ten years looking for signals that they have the potential to do something and that’s why we say that second phase is about activation because that means they already have the ability to do it. You’re just activating that, and so it can’t just be this broad sweeping thing where it’s like hey, now you can raise money on x y and z on behalf of our cause. That’s not gonna work. You just ticked off a bunch of very good identify irs indeed you are. Whom i who this might be appropriate for kenny, i want to go back to something that you said earlier. The feedback has to be both ways yet not organization too. Everybody correct this so that involved really listening on the organization’s it’s hard. Sometimes you don’t hear things. I mean, you might not. You’re not always gonna hear things you want to hear. Talk about. You know how how an organization khun sort of shift culture in terms of real listening, engagement that way i think i think you guys were just talking about some really important, which is the signals, you know, in a non-profits situation have a lot of people who will come to the table and, you know, people have ideas, people have always do this, you should do that. And, you know, one of the things that we always say is if you don’t pay attention to mission, eh, you know, mission b, c and d, whatever we’ll all fail. So listening is important, you know, for us, the example of changing the name of the organization was kind of a really big undertaking. When you look back at it, i think that you just have to have a qualifying process, you know, kind of ah, multiphase approach to letting feed back into the top and looking at the person who is suggesting it, and kind of like i said, creating a rubric to take me back in and, you know, you have a border directors for a reason. So if the board is providing you with information, obviously it’s probably a good thing that listen to but also people who were out of the core. Of the apple can sometimes ride the most meaningful feedback and again trying to figure you gotta be you gotta be ready to hear that, you know, not only not only listening to your board and also where they’re coming from, what is their motivation for providing this feedback? And if i can have two things that what we did at my non-profit is first and foremost we had to convince the organization that the donors in our supporters actually mattered so much of our head was like, we’re doing great work, and we just need people to give us money. And so what we did was every week we had an hour designated, so we got leadership buy-in where everybody in the organization wrote thank you notes to donors, and so that started to say, hey, we’re going to center on this, and then we started doing what? Like surveying or net promoter scorer type things where we asked, hey, you know, would you recommend our organisation to a friends, family or colleagues? If so, why? Why do you support our organization? And we actually started using their responses in our fund-raising copy because they were telling us why. They support our organization in a way that was specific that we could actually share with others, and they also told us ideas on how we could improve, and so i think the person foremost is you have to cultivate that idea that you’re actually gonna listen because you value that person’s opinion, and second is you just have to ask, i think we asked for money all the time, but we don’t ask for what people think or why they support our organization or how could we improve this organization? How could we reach new people? We asked that question to a small segment of donors. They gave us tons of ideas that we were able to filter throughout our organization. Good dahna we’re going to leave it there, gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you for having us. You’re not on the you’re not watching the video. They’re both redheads on thei r noah barnett, head of marketing for causevox and can he came ceo of the testicular cancer foundation and cofounder of stupid cancer? And so i have that right way. Three a curveball and you just handled it. It’s amazing. Oh, yeah. Thank you. You get to use overviewing ingratiate something alright, way where he’s trying to get in by the back i’ve been listening sarrantonio twenty martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ninety see this interview sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits thank you so much for being with us. We need to take a break, wagner cps in the last two weeks, we had segments on storytelling. You don’t want your storytelling to be so compelling that it leads to restricted gif ts or even or just lots of restricted gif ts regular has you covered their block post is avoiding restrictions from donations inspired by storytelling it’s that wagner cps dot com click resource is then blawg in a moment. It’s poverty porn right now! Time for tony’s take two i have a big lump of listener thank you it’s not segregated it’s not discriminated against by whose name listed first or second or third. And, of course, any discrimination on non-profit radio is benign non video ce discrimination anyway, but we’re not doing that this this week. I am just grateful to everyone who listens to the show supports the show exultant and that i don’t care what platform you listen. What time of day, whether your digital or analog, however, you are listening to the show or supporting the show. Thank you. You make maybe ah, you’re just you’d listen occasionally and you get my insider alerts. So you know who the guests are each week you cherry pick that’s. Fabulous. Take it as you need it. Thank you. To everyone who listens and supports non-profit radio. My video gratitude is that tony martignetti dot com now, let’s, bring in any sample ward. She is our social media contributor and ceo of and ten, the non-profit technology network. Our most recent car, third book is social change. Anytime. Everywhere about online multi-channel engagement she’s at amy, sample ward, dot or ge and at a m e r s ward. Welcome back, amy. Sample word. Hi. Thank you for having me back. It’s. My pleasure to have you back. This is, uh uh. This is the have you been back on the show since and ten since auntie si thie ntc. I don’t think this might be the first time i think it is. I’m pretty sure because i was leaving you alone. Because i figured, you know, there’s clean up to do and thank you’s to sand and lots of stuff. So, um, and then you had a staff planning. Then you have your staff planning time. Yeah. So to two times a year. All of the staff. Because not everyone is here in the portland office. Let me have some remote dafs. Everybody comes to portland for a week together of planning and craft and happy hour and things like that. Wonderful. Yes. I think they call it staff planning, but planning is not all that we dio excellent. Nor should it be, because you’re all together only twice a year. So you have many vulture virtual employees, so congratulations on a wonderful and fun. And i hope from your perspective, successful certainly was for mine. Ntcdinosaur provoc technology conference. Congratulations. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, i think it was a really good year. You think so? Too good. Yeah. I’m good. I’m definitely fun. I know it was fun. I know that’s. Not a question, but we’re doing it for a little more off. Just the fun purpose fundez one is up, there fundez up there, but education and technology, you know. They rank, too, but congratulations, thank you for being part of it again. Thank you. It was my pleasure. We gotta lot. We got thirty interviews for non-profit. Yeah, great, no, thank you. Okay, so we’re talking today about poverty porn. You said this had come up for you in aa, some discussions or members have been raising it. You’ve you’ve been hearing ah, little more chatter about this. Yeah, i think that organizations are organizations have been criticized for participating in poverty porn for years, but i think those have often been organizations that are really, really big operating on an international scale global scale that are maybe more vulnerable to criticism, because so so many people are saying what they’re doing, and they’re raising so much money. And, you know, with all of that kind of spotlight and revenue, i think naturally organizations, regardless of what they dio, are open to criticism of lots of different forms, right? But now i think organizations, they’re starting to see yes, well, you know, maybe criticize those organizations for years, but also maybe we’re a part of that. And what does that mean for us? You know, you don’t just have to be really, really large organization are making lots and lots of revenue off of a single appeal to have some issues with the way your year doing your work, so i think it’s organizations are starting to see that there, maybe starting to ask more questions because they’re getting, you know, the the digital teams who are managing that content are starting to feel like if something does happen, you know, they’re the ones that posted that photo or sent that tweet or whatever and really wanting to figure out how how to navigate what what’s the best way to tell this story? Yeah, andan avoid a potential backlash. Yeah, um, how would you define this? Do you? Ah, i have a way, but i’m going to hear, you know, how would you define poverty porn? I got i don’t have probably an eloquent, succinct definition, but if i was explaining poverty porn, teo an organization i think you know, without knowing whoever we’re talking to what their mission is, you know, poverty point is when you’re who’s may be taking advantage of the difference between the audience you’re calling tau action most often it’s for donations and these people that you are serving in whatever way, instead of maintaining the humanity of everyone involved in that situation and honoring all that all of those people have and really owning the story. About what you do in the power of in this example, their donation, versace trying to exacerbate the difference and the things that are, quote unquote not had about this group that you’re serving and focusing on that discrepancy, i think to me and is really what it’s about you you’re not maintaining everyone’s humanity and then highlighting the service, you provide your instead, maybe kind of further opening divide and most of the backlashes that i’ve seen or, you know, examples of this on the on the web are our images, but could be written off as easy as you can see, right majority video, but a written description could also be oh, totally exploitative or, you know, you have the language that we use to describe communities we could also highlight that that gap that you’re describing, yeah, um, no it’s ah it’s it’s very sensitive, you know, because we are trying to do very good work and we are motivated and our mission statements are or are around help of this vulnerable population, whatever it might be, whatever country it might be. I mean, it’s not a lot of the lot of the images are from abroad. I mean, i see a lot of, like, south america, central america, africa, but it could, you know, it could be right here in the u s to i mean, you could certainly go astray with images and written descriptions of conditions right here, right here in the u s certainly right, but, you know, so where were motivated by the right? Um, in the right directions, but right, but we, uh, you know, it may just be is easy, if, you know, consciousness raising, which is what our conversation hopefully is doing, and certainly a lot of the conversation, you know, like i saw things back too, like twenty, thirteen or so talking about this subject. So i think a lot of it because our motivations are, you know, i always impute good motivations toe non-profits and most people no, there are good, you know, it’s just raising country business. I mean, i think that is there are lots of tactical things that we could talk. Yeah, you’re right, it’s not just, you know, you’re right your underlying the thing that’s really going to create change is that organizations and the individuals in those organizations actually do some, really hard work two to figure out an address and accepts and try and move forward from all the biases that they’re bringing to their work the again, even if their motivation, their intent internally, is field pure and good to them, it could still be coming from a really kind of dangerous place that they are the savior of that community, right? And that in itself isn’t is a bias that’s going to mean you? You cannot create content, whether that’s, you know, photos are writing these descriptions that not coming from that place, right? So i think doing that internal work to say, gosh, how are we, you know, without explicitly like deciding to do this, how are we already coming at this from not the best a place you know, and as an organization, whatever the practices or policies that we have that can help us change that? I mean, you know, if we want to start at the big picture level, don’t think about tactics, things like do every single one of your staff regularly have opportunities to interact with the community members you serve if they don’t, they’re not in a position to speak from a place where they understand the shared humanity, they understand that everyone both inside the organization and those being served all have strengths and weaknesses and hopes and dreams and challenges and are at a place to really, i think, talk about the work anymore, productive way, you know. So even just at that level are you creating opportunities for every single one of your staff to be a part of the community? I think i’m always surprised how many organizations where they say, oh, no, if you work in the office, you don’t ever talk to the community, only our program staff do that. Why would you do that? You know, why would you create this while the silo between the staff talking about the work stopped deciding how the work is going to be done and the people participating in that work? That doesn’t make any sense to me? And those opportunities need to be more than photo opportunities do no the right there’s, lots of examples, you know, it has to be meaningful, you know, there’s one of the iconic ones, i guess infamous one’s better better than iconic. What if this one’s is, you know, eyes ellen. Too generous in nairobi with lots of kids around her and, um, there’s one of each year in wearing the red nose with liberian children around him. I know so. And what i mean, i think it’s really smart to bring that up, eh? Because now people now everybody listening to our conversation, i can think of the same kind of image, but also that i think totally the kind of thing that organizations i would think to dio with staff, right is like, okay, here, the folks that we serve here’s some of quote unquote us let’s take a photo together and inevitably, these photos like the two you just suggested when you’re years ago, like ellen and nairobi or add in liberia it’s like here is this person in the center of all these other people, and you are both figuratively and literally centering yourselves instead of centering your community. This is now not a photo about those people. This is a photo about you on dh that is kind of the epitome of what we’re talking about here, right? Is that you have come in to save them your services, you’re donations, you or whatever it is. Are literally the center instead of this community truly getting too to be in that place. So i think that’s a really great, like daily kind of check, check and balance for yourself when you’re when you’re looking at two weeks or you’re looking at the way you describe something that you’re looking at, a photo you can just say is this photo centering the people that we’re serving? Or is this photo about us? Um and there are certainly times where photo should be about you, but that doesn’t mean that the photo should be you surrounded by people you served. Maybe then it’s a photo of just your staff at, you know, the conference table looking on something or if you know what i mean it it’s going to be about you make it on ly about you and not you, in contrast to your community. Very good point about figuratively and literally making the individual the center surrounded by the community in need. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. See, that’s why that’s? Why we have you on? Because i looked at the same picture was an idea that did not occur to me. But that’s the brilliance of of aa expert. You know, lots of flecks of expert well, in this case, we have one expert and me, but other other people contributing exper, having experts contribute that’s what i mean, okay, you think about this, you know, it’s value of having multiple multiple opinions and and eyes on something very it was very well said, thank you for that. Altum i was thinking you by where i wasn’t thanking me for what i just said, that that was, obviously, you’re welcome. I always had a defective. I wouldn’t. I would probably not considered an expert perspective, but it is an opinionated one. You bring a lot of insight and used him to the show. Sabat yeah, you know, another part of the problem is that these images, their descriptions, you know, that it’s one dimensional, you know, right? If i’m here or if you swoop in with your donation from the united states that’s going to solve the problem, the child will no longer have empty hands reaching out, you know? And we just have a minute, but weaken, obviously we can keep talking beyond the break. Poverty is multidemensional mean, it includes govern the local community. The local community needs to be empowered, it includes well, and i think thinking about those layers, and we can talk more about this. Those layers of change that need to happen are are important. But also, as we continue to see, the kind of donor base of america change as boomer’s got older and millennials, you know, come into more of the majority in the world of social action that there is also your community. Your audience for this kind of message also knows there are multiple layers and maybe that immediate kind of got reaction of oh, my gosh, this crisis just happened, i want to respond, is there. But if you also, if that’s the hole that you do, you may not be really seen as a sustainable organization undressing all of those layers of change and i think that’s a huge opportunity. No, you’re seeing yourself. Yes, tio. One dimensionally. All right, let’s, take this break. Tell us i have a new tell. Oh, simoni yl for you, quote tell us has allowed my business to support my favorite charity without even feeling the pinch of writing a check. I am donating money every month that i would have spent on credit card processing anyway. Also, their customer service is far better than we’ve ever had. End quote, the businesses you refer are going to love tell us one hundred percent satisfaction among the businesses that you’re among among the business is working with them. Get started with the video at tony dahna em, eh slash tony tello’s. Now, let’s, go back to poverty porn with very insightful example. Ward um, yes, and we were just saying, yeah, it it narrows that the viewers focus to just donate and there’s a lot more that you can do. I mean, and, you know, if we’re talking about bonem poverty and hunger, i mean that that could reach to, you know, advocacy around global climate change policies, which you’re never going to get from these one dimensional ideas. No, and this i mean, i also don’t want to that folks listening now to our conversation up for this idea that every single tweet, every single picture, every single email appeal needs to talk people through. How do you know this action today is connected to this action in this all the way up that’s not what we’re trying to recommend that every single one of those has to include all of that context, but it should always include the context of what really you’re asking for if you are asking for donations for a really immediate need, the donation is still not the actual transaction of those medical supplies. Most likely right? So so at least framing it truly in what it is people are donating. Teo, was there an earthquake? And you’re well, these donations are in part to buy medical equipment and to support those medical teams administering it. Well, that’s also really great story. Who are these medical team? What kind of expertise are they bringing? You know, you don’t just have to focus on transactions because when you do, you make both the donor feel like they’re participating and transaction and the people receiving this support hyre the end of a transaction, i don’t think anyone really means for that i like, you know, back to that good intent, a key intent is not impact, but also even even in this case, i don’t think that’s really what you intend, you know it, so so raise that up and don’t focus on, oh, this is just like your example, before i really like that, you know, now these hands are full does not what happens in here, you know, and so really talkto what is happening and at a a tactical level, you know, there’s, this is opportunity for terrific content. No, you can direct people to interview, and i was talking about fresh content and depth of content there you can tell the story elsewhere, so the tweet is brief. The tweet is briefed, the facebook post, the ad, whatever is brief, but then there’s a link to you know, the back story back-up more to medical in this example who these medical teams are, you haven’t instagram account well, you could do you know instagram stories with either you know, actual quick video interviews update, facebook live there like there’s a ton of rich content you could have when you move to trying to really own what you do and what your story is. Instead of trying to focus on this idea of really, really immediate really, really fast transaction because that’s not the humanity that you want to be representing anyway. Yeah on and and wrapped wrapped up in all this eyes, you know, the idea of that, the important idea that the donations air not sufficient while while they’re necessary and we do need them, they’re not going to solve the problem alone exactly. The bigger context, you know that, and i love your idea, the hero you’re not talked about this a little oaky going well, just you, khun, you can actually then shift the spotlight to some of the work that you’re doing. Like you’re saying, you know, show videos of some of the programs and some of the care that you’re actually giving, you know you can you can shift the lens back to you as the provider, you know, when it’s all in the bigger context, it’s a part of the bigger falik well, i think there’s two things to think about here one is that we talked about before any campaign, whether it’s a fundraising campaign, our advocacy or whatever it’s never gonna have only one ass, of course, every you know, kind of sector best practices. You only have one ascot a time. But once someone takes that action, they have made the donations. They have called their senator. Whatever you need to be ready with another ask because they were just willing to do what you ask them to do. You might as well tell them that to do something else right. So instead of having, you know, here’s eight different things, please do what you want. You give people want and when they do it, you take them to the next step. Then you take them to the next step and you just keep going. And well, from a tactical perspective definitely think about it that way. And from a content perspective, justus you’re recommending i love that get people hooked in and then have them kind of watch the whole thing. Play out right. Continue to see how the work is happening on the other thing to think about, i think, is that there’s a lot to be sad out in the sector right now about how you know there are certain changes in fund-raising that people are more connected to topic than necessarily a single organization that that they’re going to donate to over a year over year, you know that they care more about the topic and whoever is maybe doing something good on that topic is who gets their money. This is a great way to keep people actually hooked to your organisation instead of floating between organizations in the same cause because you’re not just getting them to have a single transaction with you because it was immediate and compelling and kind of hyre fast way for them to feel connected, you have then continuing to connect them to you with these with content, of course, but also with those continued actions, ways where they’re getting deeper and deeper into this and feeling like, yeah, i donated but also high, you know, submitted short message for the medical l came to provide to those children and, you know, they’re starting to actually feel like they are a part of your work, which is the whole goal of this instead of feeling like, oh, i feel relieved that i sent my ten dollars, for that organization, and i don’t even know who they were because it was just the organization i saw on facebook, right? So really shifting how you frame all of this is, of course, as we’re talking about today, you know, getting you out of this trap of poverty porn, but it’s also serving you to build rial community with these supporters? Yeah, it’s the how many guests we’ve had on urging the relation a ll over the transactional that’s you you put a lot of depth into it, but you and i have talked about it and other guests as well. That’s the way to stand out, you know, as you said, that’s, the way to bring people to your cause and keep them there while the ah a lot of a lot of activists and donors are you’re saying maur, mission oriented versus organization oriented. But you know, if you can draw them into your work, they’re right they will stay with you. It’s the relation act it’s the relationship of course. All right, you know, another another facet of this is that all you know, these regions are not monolithic. You know, all of central america, south america and africa are not poor on dh and needy and destitute, you know, there are thriving cities, there’s, beautiful, rich history, culture toe all of these, you know, to all the african nations and all these other parts i’m talking parts of the world i’m talking about. So, you know, e i think you want some balance there too, tuley and i think there’s argument to be made that there are can definitions that we had organizations we as americans, we as white folks can put onto what is ah, community experiencing property or what is a geographic area, that it lacks access to resources that are not going to be a shared definition by the people living in those communities. And i think that really important thing to remember as organizations trying to highlight the service you’re providing or the way that you’re serving that community, is that your definition of of their needs and comparatively to you you know how how quote unquote in poverty they are is going to feel different in their own lived experience, so finding ways where they can authentically talk about again, back to what was said at the beginning, you know, their hopes and dreams, their challenges, their life and the way that they benefit or appreciate the services is going to feel far truer and position your organization into their community than it is for you to say from the outside, you know, look at this community, we’ve kind of defined as needing this and here’s how we’re going to fix, you know, back to that idea that are you centering you and and the organization are you really centering this community? How how are you doing that? Recognizing that part of deciding you know that a certain community is or is not in need is part of that? We’re gonna leave it there. Any simple word? Excellent. Thank you so much for talking about the tony. I know it’s a a scary topic for some, but i think it was a good conversation. I absolutely agree, and we’re not scared to be a little provocative. No, not at all. Thank you. She’s. Amy sample ward at amy, sample ward, dot or ge? And at amy, r s ward, next week, two more from the non-profit technology conference. See sweet cross talk and capacity call out if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profit ofthis, data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Regular cps dot com and by telus, credit card and payment processing, your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us. Ah, creative producers claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez. On our music is by scott stein with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get you thinking. E-giving cubine you’re listening to the talking alternative now, are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down? Hi, i’m nor in sometime, potentially, ater tune in every tuesday at nine to ten p m eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show. Yawned potential. Live life your way on talk radio dot n y c geever. 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. Are you into comics, movies and pop culture at large? What about music and tv? Then you’re in for a treat. 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