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Nonprofit Radio for May 27, 2016: Your Online Auctions and Raffles & It Takes More Than A Hashtag

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Jon Kazarian: Your Online Auctions and Raffles

Jon_KazarianJon Kazarian has advice to improve your auctions and raffles or help you decide if starting them would boost your fundraising. Also, what do millennials expect from you? Jon is co-founder and CEO of AccelEvents.

 

Marty Kearns & Jackie Mahendra: It Takes More Than A Hashtag

Marty Kearns & Jackie Mahendra at 16NTC

How do you connect people to your movement? How do you build the capacity of your network to create the change you want in the world? Marty Kearns is founder & president of Net Centric Campaigns and Jackie Mahendra is founding director of Open US Network. This is from the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of callous isto pile itis if you filled me up with the idea that you missed today’s show you’re online auctions and raffles, john kazarian has advice to improve your auctions and raffles or help you decide of starting them would boost your fund-raising also, what do millennials expect from you? John is ceo of excel events and it takes more than a hashtag how do you connect people to your movement? How do you build the capacity of your network to create the change you want in the world? Marty currents is founder and president of net centric campaigns, and jackie mahendra is founding director of the u s open open us network. This is from the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference tony’s take two twitter responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay for mobile donations. Crowdster dot com very pleased to welcome, john kazarian to the show. He is ceo of excel events. They do online auctions and raffles to help non-profits raise more money. They’re at x l a c c e l events dot com. John kazarian. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Pleasure. Pleasure. Have you let’s let’s first distinguish between a raffle and an auction? If we can start there? Yeah, definitely. So the general difference between the two is that with a raffle, people are essentially putting tickets into a fish bowl. They’re buying tickets and placing them for the number of items that they want to. When it comes to an auction, there’s a bidding mechanism so there’s a starting bid him out, and then each subsequent person is placing a higher bid for that item until the event ends and the highest bidder become the winner. Okay, people may very well understand that that was largely for me to get straight from for me, because i don’t deal with these that often. I’ve certainly been to them, but thank you for making it a very simple explanation. Now we could be talking about doing this strictly online, or people are still doing physical events or we could mix it up. Yeah, exactly. And what we’re actually seeing is ah, hybrid approach, where people are going to start the process online, get all the items out there, get people excited about it and a lot of people to start bidding then. But then, as our physical than actually begins, it will seamlessly transition into that. Ah, interesting. All right, so are you seeing fewer physical events or or no? Mohr maura tending toward the hybrid? You’re saying we’re seeing more tending towards the hybrid, specifically in millennial space, we’re seeing mohr physical events people like to get together. Oh, interesting. Okay, i’m not sure that that’s ah, intuitively what people would, what nonmilitary lt’s would first think that millennials want. I think the stereotype would be that they just want to do it all online, and and they don’t want to get together e i can see why they would think that but interestingly tends not to be the case. There’s actually, some studies out there talking about just that how many als actually prefer to spend their money on buy-in experience is over buying material goods, okay, okay, and including alright, so including not just experiences for themselves, but they’re actually enjoying the the company of others. Exactly. Okay. Not not to make you a spokesman for i don’t know how many tens of million i don’t know. Seventy, eighty million millennials. I don’t really know how many there are, do you? Do you know what the rough estimate is? I’m not sure what the count. Okay, okay, i know, but i’m not trying to make you a spokesperson spokesman for the entire generation either. But you happen to be the one i’m talking to solve this as these questions car, you’re getting them from a boomer. Okay, so you said, and we’re gonna spend a lot more time to about what? What millennials are specifically looking for around auctions and raffles, but experiences they like so that’s one of the categories of gifts that auction items that do well, auction and raffle items and do well, yeah, i mean within that, too, that we see doing the best our travel and something like going to a sports game or a play hard to find tickets, anything on those lives. But the general concept of going to an experience tends to be that of some sort of physical good that well, as you said, our generation will buy that online. Okay. Okay. You got any good? Uh, ones that stick out in your mind and you? Good experiences that you can recall. You’ve seen clients, uh, offering way. Host the annual fundraiser here in boston. And we do a raffle on. Actually, the reason that we do a raffle over an auction is because when you do have a younger generation that has less discretionary money, everyone can afford twenty dollars, with the raffle tickets. But not everyone can afford two hundred three hundred dollars for a silent auction, right? Very thoughtful. Yeah. And what we try to do is have a grand prize. So this year, we actually worked with ah, company that does five private flight from boston to new york. And we found another company that gave us a hotel room. And we made that our grand prize it’s an experience that you don’t normally get, uh, just did tremendously well, a private flight in one of those accident prone small jets. You mean exactly. No, i would love to do that. We’ll take this too seriously. Okay. John, please. Um so yeah, i mean a private. Charter jet like that from new york to boston. That could easily be i know. Is that a fifteen hundred a ride? If you had to pay market price, i don’t know twice that twice. Three thousand dollar mark. It was a trip for two. So it’s pretty cool package. Yeah, no kidding. How much did that go for the in the auction? Well, so it was a raffle. So that was the right? Oh, yes, okaying. About a third of all the raffle tickets that that were submitted and way had about four hundred fifty people buy raffle tickets. Okay. Okay. How much do you are a raffle? Tickets go for these days? What is it, it’s? Still a dollar each? How does that work? I think it depends a lot on the price of the items, but we’re we’re a big fan of hearing the pricing and giving people an incentive to buy more tickets. Yeah, so give us give us an example. So for that that we did one ticket for five bucks, three for ten and so on. And if you bought one hundred buck sport, the tickets came down to two dollars a ticket and and that’s what we’re pushing people to dio way ended up bringing in about fifteen grand justin raffle tickets? Yeah, outstanding. Okay, well, you know what you’re doing there? Um, okay. Tearing makes a lot of sense. Take what? Let’s, let’s, take a break. We’ll go out a little early for a break and when we come back, you know, i’ll keep talking about different types of items and and how to collect them and what to look for as you’re considering different sites. No, stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. John kazarian is with me, ceo of excel events, excel events, dot com. John, you got any other examples of cool experiences that you can share all of these stories? Yeah, so we worked with a number of different companies. Help actually procure the items and some of the other cool things that we’ve seen. Our cruises. We saw a hunting trip in africa, which is pretty interesting. And, you know, there’s there’s, a lot of easy ways to get your hands on those those different trips and things like that from these no risk providers, where they’ll give you the item to use, and you might have to pay some percentage of that. But you don’t have to pay that up front. You only have to pay it if the eye themselves for more than that. So it’s no risk to the organization. Oh, interesting. Okay, okay. All right, well, let’s, let’s, go there. Since you mentioned ways of movinto ways of getting the the items, how do you find these providers like you just described is no risk providers, there’s a number of them you can google around and find them pretty easily just providers of awful auction and raffle items. Is it that simple? Yep. Ok, usually no risk assignment items. If you google that, you’ll find plenty of them. There are usually when we work with thank you. Heritage heritage. Okay, no risk. Insigne mint items. Interesting. Um, so they put up the item and, uh, you ah, you offered. And if you don’t make enough to pay them, then then the item just goes back to them. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you needed that. Okay, you’re making this a lot easier than that. I think a lot of people realise certainly than i do. I’m used to the, you know, knocking on doors from the neighborhood, the local cos we’re not. We’re not doing that. We’re not doing that anymore. Way still are that’s a big part of okay? Yeah. You know, when it comes to fund-raising there’s, a lot of those local companies that want to get involved, but they just don’t have the cash to do it. But what they can do is donate in-kind ida and through an auction or through a raffle, you can monetize that item and makes the money the organization while still helping them get exposure, which is what they’re looking for. Okay, so local restaurants for gift certificates, things like that, okay, any other? Yeah, some other examples of ah, local local company ideas that we might not think of. So the big ones that we see our boutique clothing stores and, um, fitness especially, you know, with millennials there so into these boteach fitness classes, charlie that’s, what we’re seeing and and the cost is loved to love to donate like a block of crosses and get people in the door, okay? You mean, like spin classes? Something like that? Yup. Spin, boxing, anything like that? Okay. All right, so don’t don’t ignore the local companies. Even while you might be going to one of the no risk providers. I mean, you can keep it local and you can also be global. Yeah, and it allows you to spread out the price point of the items you have to, okay, yeah, for sure. Um, do you let’s say, you mean, you always start with a minimum bid for auction items, right? I mean, you always specify a minimum bid, right? Yeah, we always specify minimum bid, and then we also expect buy-in bid increment. Each bit has to be at least twenty dollars, more than the last yes, by item, okay, right. Or for more expensive items that might be a one hundred one hundred fifty dollars minimum increment. Okay, okay, um, all right, so that’s cool. Don’t ignore the local companies. Any other advice on gathering items? I think if you, you know, if you take both of those approaches, you’re going to be in a great spot on dh. Then, once you have the items, promoting those items is a big part of it. Actually, you know that extended ties into getting the items, and you can explain to these local companies the publicity they’re going to get from those items, going to make them more inclined to get involved. In-kind of compete against the other local companies that are donating. So if you have ah, right, so, oh, excellent. So if you’re getting companies from our donations from local companies, they’re going to be on the on the site, along with the bigger prizes, right? Yeah, okay, what back to their okay link, right, link back to their company website. What else can we offer in promotion? Uh, those big points of it. We also do banners at our events in different things like that to get the word out on. Then just the ability to share those items on social media goes a long way. You can even have the company that’s donating the item repost your auction website a raffle website on their own social media page. Good publicity for that man. For you. Yes. Okay. So, cross promotion. All right, so i’m trying to help listeners, you know, put together ah, pitch basically too. Two two potential donors of these in-kind in-kind gift. People understand what goes into making this ask. Okay, yeah, yeah, i mean, there’s, a lot of pizzazz to it. And a lot of it overlaps with the same ask that you would be doing if it was a cash donation. It’s telling your story, explaining your cause. Your event too. If there’s going to be in a van. But then also making sure that is that the donor understands the benefits that they’re going to get by getting involved. Okay, yeah, indeed. And, of course, if there’s been a history, if this is a on annual event you can share. What the what the past has been like, how many people have come, how many hits the respective sites have gotten? How many auction bids have been on comparable items? Things like that, right? That’s all huge, and we put together a sponsorship package for our events when we do that asking, communicate all that information goes a long way. Ok, did i did i mention everything that you should be sharing? I mean, you’re in this you’re in this business, anything you want to add? Yeah, i mean, ah, well, when it comes to the data, certainly website hits are important, unique users and just general hit uh, you can see the same information if you’re selling tickets on a vent, right, or just the publicity that your facebook of that might get or if you were able to get any pr news articles written about you sharing that’s also a great way to spread the word are these are these events? Are you typically just auction and raffle nights? Or are they? The auction and raffle is part of some larger gala dinner dance type thing it’s the ladder thie event itself that’s what’s bringing people in the door ok, you’re using the the event or inside the auction of the raffle to actually make more money that night? Because otherwise, most of money has been made from the sponsorships for from the ticket sales. This is a way to actually make money that night and it’s a nice way to get people involved and keep them involved throughout the night. It creates excitement to me as the auction items are are going hyre and the people getting notified about the bid that that outbid them and you know they’ve got to get the next bit in me, and that creates a buzz, right? Absolutely the way we do it with our platform is there’s ah paige, it’ll go up on a monitor, a projector, and it has a countdown time so people know how much time they have left to submit more bids or toe by more raffle tickets, and they can see which items are have most raffle tickets or which items have the highest bid, and they compete in real time and the other part of it is when it comes to outbidding we do it through text message so soon as you get out. Bid for an item. You can see that on your phone. Submit a new bid, and it creates a little bidding wars that drive the prices up right. And meanwhile, this war is projected on a screen that everybody’s watching, right? Yeah. And what? That screen is cycling through the different items. Is that how it looks? Yes. It’s cycling through the different items that showing how much money has been raised that night, how much time is left? Ok. And meanwhile, like the host of the evening is reminding you, there’s just two and a half minutes left to get your bid in, right? I mean, we’re building us all up together. Yeah, we suggest for the events that have a p a system that there that get on the mic a couple times at night or have the deejay do it and keep encouraging people. Teo continue bidding. Yeah. Okay. I could see how that would be very exciting. That’s cool. All right. And also reminding people that all the money that they’re bidding is going to the cause and just keeping that focus. Okay? Absolutely. And then i imagine when people win these bidding wars there’s like big eruptions of applause, right? Yeah, a lot of fun. So you’re out of one of the events with our platform. You’ll see people pulling out their phone at everyone’s phone goes off at the same time and looking, and then you just see little groups of circle or around everyone who won tonight and a lot of fun to watch. Okay, yeah, cool. Now, if you are looking at providers of this type of functionality, what are what are some of the things that you want? Oh, compare across platforms. The first question is whether or not you want a full fee, full service platform that’s going to bring people to your event and run the whole thing for you that usually starts in a couple thousand dollars range. Or if you want to provider who’s got to do more of a do-it-yourself model. So they’re giving you the technology. But you’re loading your own items in and people are using their own devices. That of bringing hardware and those events can start way started forty nine dollars in the back. So it’s a pretty big, pretty big difference in the price point. Yeah, okay. That’s a very broad. Range and then up the higher end. There are companies that will actually come on site and help you run the event. Yeah, there’s a handful of those companies out there and some of them even bring their own hardware to your event. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Very good. Um, now, focusing now, this part on millennials, i expect a very seamless and easy method of payment, right? Yeah, exactly. And millennials? I mean, they have their device, their iphone there droid in their pocket. They’re not expecting to carry around another device to payment all night. And they’ve already got their apple pay and our credit cards stored on their phone. So they’re expecting to get a lake, indicate about it and be done with it. Okay, no, i see that. What about people who are at these events and or participating beforehand? Like you described on dh? They’re older is there. Is there a swipe method available at the event or or now? Yeah, so they can. They can go to what we call him that volunteer. So with our system will set it up so that you know, thiss person or a handful of people who are volunteers at your event, walking around an ipad or even their own phone and they can submit bids on behalf of others. Okay, okay. So can handle payment for that. Well, okay, because there are some people you know, you hear this that are still risk averse about making payments online. Inevitably? Yeah. That’s. I mean, it’s naturally changing over time, but it’s certainly silicates that. Okay? Yes, but they’re not dying off that fast it give it. Give us a break. I’m not among that crowd, but i hear it. Ah, okay, no sharing you mentioned. You mentioned important to sharing, but let’s say more about that. If you’re if you’re comparing across platforms. Yeah, i mean, it goes backto for every aspect of it, really being able to promote individual items or your events auction or raffle page online is huge on dh. The nice thing about being able to share individual items is that if i’m one of the event attendees or from one of your donors and i’m flipping through and i see this trip to go hunting in africa to use that example again. And i have a friend who i know would be interested in. That with the click of a button, i can post it to their facebook wall. So the larger your audience toe well, spread your word personalized. Yeah, without, without having to know the larger scheme of what the event is and what the charity isn’t. All just just sharing that individual item. Yeah, huge. Okay, okay, as well as opera, obviously, the opportunity to bring bring friends to the to the event or two, you know, to the larger cause. Yeah, and then you get a piece of that is it allows people who aren’t able to actually attend the event to stay involved, participate to give back to the cause. They can continue to bid online orbit from their phone, even if they’re not at the back, or even if they leave early. Yes, ok, right, so okay, well, makes a lot of sense very good, very good. What else should we be comparing across platforms? So another part of it is whether or not they have a nap. Now, i know i already have way too many app on my phone. I bet you do too, and i don’t want to download another app that night. Use up my deed. Uh uh, the ability to have ah, mobley optimized web page and to be able to use text message something that, no matter what generation you’re in you’re familiar with goes a long life. I’m keeping the simple. Okay. Okay. Very good. Um, let’s see? All right. Uh, support support is obviously going to be important. Yeah, we all know that when it comes to pulling off your events, the last couples of ours are stressful, that’s inevitable. Having someone that you can call, no matter what time it is, i mean that’s very important. It’s it’s. Just a a little bit of a relief to you now, it’s. Not necessarily the case that you know, it’s not because something’s broken it’s just you’re gonna have a lot of questions. It happened having someone there is very helpful. Okay? And of course, these events are nights and weekends too. So you want you want that? Degree of support. Yeah, yeah. For us, we see about eighty percent of our events on thursday through saturday night. Yeah, all right. So there needs to be support those those kinds of ours. Okay, let’s, talk about, you know, behind the behind the scenes, the the dashboards and that you need for the for the management of this. Yeah, definitely. So it starts with your event set up having an easy to use dash for that allows you to upload all of your items being ableto add pictures, being able to generate sheets that display the items. So even with with an online auction or ah, mobile auction, we still encourage our event host to put together thes pieces of paper to have a picture of the item in the description and put them out on a table somewhere for everyone to say and our system will generate those for you. So that’s one helpful piece. Another aspect is setting up your payment processing there’s a lot of great payment processing options out. Their price point for them is pretty similar across the board now, so that, uh, well, easy set up their helps to and then when it comes to running the event you want to know. Who’s paid once the winners have been notified. And if you could see a doctor for that shows you who’s paid you know who to give the items, too? So they could get out of there. You can keep the lines. Sure. You know, hospice swiping credit cards at the end of the night? Yeah, on dh swiping credit cards at the beginning of the night. To that. People don’t like that line. Now. Now, i mean everyone’s excited to get into the van often to get a drink. And no one wants to wait twenty percent decline to do that. Right? Okay. Anything else that you should be looking at? Technology wise, support wise and his mother. Yeah. There’s. Other features that you see in there do you have a donation page or no donation? But and on the on your online auction, paige, how customizable it is. You want to be able to brandon and put your logo on there just to keep all of your messaging consistent. And then also it’s nice to be able to in bed that that bidding page in your own website? Oh, yes. Okay, all right. So now, on your on your dot org’s site, there’s a. Ll the auction items and raffle items were there that what you’re talking about? Yeah, exactly. I mean, your people know where to go, so no reason to send them in a couple different directions. Okay, excellent. Yes, right. Zumba, everyone place, um, is anything more you want to add about what millennials are expecting? That we didn’t. We didn’t touch on. I think we hit on the big pieces of any mobile mobile payments. Definitely, i won’t. The important part, you know, the other thing is just that in the morning. All generation people are so connected today, even if you’re unable to attend an event or didn’t even know about it. And then you’re gonna have friends who are now chatting. You might google att that night, even if you’re not there, you might come across that auction page and see that it ended an hour and realize that you can still participate in and well, the organization benefits benefits from that. You okay? John? Yeah. Okay, so it sounds like a minor earthquake, but you’re okay, alright, i get it. Okay. No headlines coming out of boston. All right. Um okay. We have just like, a minute or so left. What thoughts you want to leave people with that we haven’t covered. Yeah, i think i go out there and collect those items. Check out some of the options available online. If you’re struggling to find items. Uh, be sure to keep sharing the story in the mission that you’re going after when it comes to collecting items and also emphasize the web presence and the in person presence that the donors are going to be getting by contributing to your auction or apple and then make it easy for everyone. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Okay, you make it all break it all down very simply. Thank you very much, john. Thank you. My pleasure. John kazarian, ceo of excel events coming up it takes more than a hashtag first pursuant and crowdster pursuant has online tools to help you manage your fund-raising one of them is prospector using your existing data you’ve already got it to find your most upgradeable, most likely donors, tio dahna make hyre gift they’re going, they’re going to be the most likely to increase their giving from the fifty dollars level to the thousand dollar level the thousand dollars to the five thousand dollar level. These are the people you want to focus on prospector will help you identify who they are that focuses your time on the right people and obviously then helps you raise more money. It’s, the prospector tool at pursuant dot com over a crowdster you know them for simple peer-to-peer fund-raising sites that are easy to set up. They’re elegant looking sites easy for youto managed the campaign easy for your donors to navigate and bring their friends too easy for everyone. Good looking everyone ends up impressed and they have the apple pay. John was just talking about catering the millennials apple pay feature crowdster dot com now tony’s take two twitter twitter is a great way to get me if you want to engage with the show sometimes there are people live tweeting the show happens occasionally using the hashtag non-profit radio but more often it’s people getting me in between, you know, just i’m at tony martignetti ah, i’m pretty active. There are days when i spend a lot of time, days when some days when i spend less time, but i’m always looking at the twitter stream either live or looking back a couple hours or maybe even a half a day, but i’m paying attention to it, so if you want to feed back at all about non-profit radio, you want to get me for some reason, i mean scharpnick can use email tony attorney martignetti dot com but twitter is also a very easy way. Teo catch me and i’m spending a lot of time there. That’s tony’s take two live listen, love i believe i neglected live listen love last week and i don’t know why you didn’t berate me. You could have used twitter at tony martignetti to break me or maybe you did, because we’re pre recorded. Uh, how could i’ve forgotten live listener love podcast pleasantries and affiliate affections last week? I don’t know how that happened live listeners, you know how you who you are, you know you’re there, we know the places you are coming from, you know where you’re coming from because you know where you’re sitting and that’s your there so live listen love to you at that place each of you podcast pleasantries for over ten thousand listeners doing whatever it is you do while you listen to the show on whatever device and at whatever time very grateful for our podcast listeners pleasantries to you on our am and fm affiliate stations. Listeners across the country so glad to have you affections, affections to our many affiliate listeners in our many affiliate am and fm station duitz here are marty kearns and jackie mahindra from and t c just a couple of months ago. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc that’s twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference hosted by intend the non-profit technology network. We’re in san jose at the convention center. My guests now our marty kearns and jack eva hendra marty is founder and president of net century campaigns and jackie is founding director open us network and also a partner at citizen engagement laboratory. Marty. Jackie, welcome thanks, tony. Think standing pleasure. Pleasure to have you both your session topic is it takes more than a hashtag to build a movement network building for change, jackie let’s, start with you. What do you think? Non-profits maybe you’re not getting quite right about network building. Why do we need this session? Sure. So when marty asked me to be part of this conversation, i was really excited because i’ve been spending about a year and a half working with leaders within a network that i’ve been convening called the open us network, the online progressive engagement network and the reason that we’ve been building this network and thinking a lot about how we move forward together to tackle our longer term impact is that oftentimes were siloed within organizations, especially when we’re moving at the speed of technology when you were in that twenty four hour news cycle tried to start campaigns and win campaigns. We’re not always thinking about the longer term obstacles that are keeping us from having the kind of impact we want to have, and so networks are a way for us to be able to see our resource is across organisations and think about we’s toe move forward together that get us further than we could alone. Okay, marty, what are we talking about? A network? Maybe we should just define our terms here. What? What do we mean? Yeah, no, i think that’s a good question for off the back. Yeah, right. No, no, no. Already smooth for ah, for for us networks are not. We’re not talking about the computer networks that you typically think about at a technology conference like and then we’re talking about networks of people. So the nodes in the network, the individual components, the network, our people and how those people are connected to each other is the place where we try and focus there’s i think when you think about networks of people and a lot of organizer’s say that they’re going to build a network to create change. Often when you push on that when you ask the questions, but what does that mean? How do you how do you build the capacity of that network that’s where they struggle and what we’ve done over fifteen years of trying to figure out exactly what of those ties between people? How do we make those ties stronger? And how do those stronger ties between people lead to greater social change? So, talking with jackie, you know, her fellowship program, uh, she’s been she’s been identifying who are the key people that need to be together to create the change that she wants. And she’s been investing in exactly the kinds of things that net centric campaigns focuses on social ties, communications grid. All these elements that give that network a capacity to create the change that she wants. Okay, is this is the place to start this with the reason as answering the question, why are you creating a network? Why do you wanna have this network that you don’t feel you? You have now? No, that’s, not the place. I know. I know. I mean, i you know, i think i think the place to start is, you know, when we think about loose networks of people and we think about the social change, you know, whether some of the cases that jackie brought up some of the groups that she works with the people come from black lives matter. They come from the women’s group, they come from lgbt community. So they come from all these different communities and they recognize there’s not one boss there’s, not one big organisation that is going to be that movement. It really is a network that is, that is at play creating that change to start the story, you need to start to say, okay, how do we how do we make that stronger without trying to build a new organization? How do we build that now? Okay, so how do we build the connections across organisations and communities that already exist? Make so is our is our network a network of networks? I mean, okay, right. Black lives matter, lgbt center. Are those not networks among themselves? Those air movement, though xero comments and within those movement there are people connected to each other. The question is, how powerful are they connected to each other to advance that cause? Okay, and we want to enhance those connections. Build those country, jackie yeah, i could make it a little more concrete for a moment. So back in twenty thirteen, when we started open us that’s a disengagement lab and with many of our field partners, including move on dot org’s we thought, you know, we’re at an interesting moment in the field of technology fuelled campaigning where it’s been almost two decades since the first move on petition and what could we really see about where our field is headed and where we want to go? How do we think about are longer term strategic opportunities? And so for us, part of coming together and beginning to form a network was really having a space to step back and reflect outside of the day to day of our really busy rapid response campaigning cycles. And so having that kind of learning space having that human connection where we could actually say, oh, i know marty’s working on this, i’m also working on that from my perspective. How do we think about our collective resource is differently so that we’re not just kind of doing our own thing and our silos, but actually coming together to strategize and identify places where we could go deeper see what’s comin exactly and where we can grow from from the commonalities? Yeah, when we start similar to that often will start a process and say, ok, imagine you’re the governor or the president or, you know, five years down the road, host of non-profit radio five years down the road, this is going phenomenally the your work is achieving everything you wanted it to achieve, and you’re going to throw a party, you’re going to say all the people that made non-profit radio a huge success that increased its impact and, you know, helped us transform the space. We’re gonna invite them to a room and have a party and say whoever you invite comes, who are those people? How many dozens, hundreds, thousands of people become, you know, are part of that party, that success party, if that’s, if those people need to work as a network, they need toe work as a network to make you succeed where? They now and how are they connected to each other today? And then you can you can start to say okay, well, they don’t know each other. They don’t they don’t have each other’s contact information, they don’t have common language, there’s no, they don’t trust each other. And what what we do is we try and try and build back from that vision of this network comes together to create the change that we want. And we need to understand well, what are the pieces that need to be in place for that network to accomplish that and that’s that enables us to be very specific and very deliberate in the way that we build the power of that network to get to that end result? Okay, what are what are some examples of jackie, other organizations, networks that are out there? Sure. So one of, well, one of the examples first of work that we’re doing in the open us network that’s become something very concrete that we can share is the kairos followship and this is a case study that we shared during her her session today where, you know, groups that came together to identify their obstacles we’re saying, why don’t we stop talking about our racial equity challenges and diversity challenges? Is a field of digital fueled campaigning and start fixing that coming up with solutions? And so one of the efforts that we’ve launched this year called the kyra’s followship is about bringing in and training up the next generation of leaders of color and digital campaigning, and the way that we’ve approached that as a network is to think about, you know, we may not have all of the resource is here within the eighteen organizations gathered in the room, but there’s a larger field that also shares this challenge. And so now that we’ve developed a shared vision and shared language about what we’re trying to do, we can go out there and find new resource is and new points of common interests and bring them into what we’re doing. And so we just launched this january, we’ve got fourteen fellows on the ground and organizations across the country, from sierra club to mozilla foundation to black movements on the front lines of the movement for black lives like dream defenders in florida and it’s creating kind of a network effect across those organizations, as well as within our own open us network where we’re kind of strengthening our collaborative muscles by doing this work together. There’s gotta be a lot of trust across the across the partners because, i mean, it sounds like potentially there’s maybe requests for funding for this network that we want to create there’s it’s going to be some degree of leadership management, if not if not a structured leadership, and so these are all grounded in trust way need to we need to trust each other, right? Yes, i mean, so. So another example of one that we built was is the halt the harm network. This is a network of people say to get halt the harm network, it focuses on supporting the leaders who are fighting the harms of fracking and gas development. About three years ago, we started with what we call network opportunity assessment, where we interviewed people from across the field and tried to see where the different camps were in the folks that we’re dealing with the harms from fracking and gas development. There were people who wanted to do bans they wanted to ban like they did in new york. They wanted a moratorium. No fracking in new york in, um, in other states like pennsylvania, where fracking already existed, they wanted much tighter regulations. Some townships wanted to ban it, and there were a whole variety of opinions in between these two spaces. What they found was that there were there were some good national coalitions that worked on bands or that worked on heavily regulating fracking and gas industry. But those people in those camps didn’t really talk to each other. There was some frustration between the two camps, so halt the harm network was really designed. Two attract people from both camps. Tto bring them into some common space in the network by giving them services, but not by giving the money because, you know, there’s. A great saying what? One of my one of my staff members from the south you say, you know, all hungry dogs will get along until someone throws a stake in the yard. Money is not. Money is not a really good hook for building a network. So so you try and think of other things that the more that people use them, the more powerful they get things like media list things like outreach tools, so the more the more that they get used, the more powerful they are, the more people want to use them. So that brings the people to the table, they get something of value when they show up. Now there, there. Then you have to say, well, how do we start toe wire them together? How do we build trust? So we throw happy hours at conferences, we we introduced them to each other, we make sure that we’re capturing data about what they’re working on, how they’re doing their work so that we can share it with others. The privacy policy on our pages are very different than most non-profits they say, you know, maybe even your non-profit as has, you know, well, we won’t collect any information on you, and if we, you know and will never share it with anybody else, that’s that’s a problem when you’re building a network, you want to collect as much information as you can on people, and you wanted to share it with the others in the network so that they can figure out where their common ground is. So through those through those steps were going to say, okay, do we attract the right people? Are we getting the right people to come into snusz halt the harm network? Are we getting people from both camps? Are we getting them from new york and pennsylvania? Then once they’re there, are we able tto see that see them starting in, connect with each other there, finding each other’s profiles, they’re participating in conversations together, they’re going to happy hours together and then finally, once they’re they’re connected for this first time, do they want to collaborate and do things together? And how can the network support those collaboration? So so it’s really about attracting individuals people into a network by giving them service? Once they’re they’re in the network, connecting them powerfully to each other and waiting to see what these leaders do as they want to drive that social change for sort of attracting, connecting, and then maybe call it assessing supporting them, supporting them as their mourning for way have to be solving problems with and for people not not on their behalf, but i think if leaders are coming together and seeing the network as a place where they can get questions answered where they can get things done together, that they couldn’t do alone. That’s when you really start to see ah hyre level of buy-in an investment of time and resource is that it will take to make the kind of change you’re trying to make. Okay? Yeah, good, you know, i mean, i mean, just picking up on that, i think i think it’s really important latto people build networks and they think, oh, people come, you know? And i think it was clay shirky who had that thing every network needs needs a promise, a tool in a bargain, you know, and and those those three things. So when you show up, if you’re part of this network what’s in it for you and it’s got to be clear and apparent from day one and it’s gotta always provide value then the second is, you know, what’s the tool, how are you going to connect with each other and then what’s the promise if i stay in this network and it’s, you know and and i contribute that’s the bargain, i give it my data, i give it some information about what i’m doing what’s what’s the problems that’s gonna come out of that? I’m gonna be able to collaborate with new people and get more campaigns and more good work done. So, you know, if you think about those themes that’s, a really important kind of design approach to social change and very, very different from traditional organizing and an organizational building. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that or neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m peter shankman, author of zombie loyalists. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Dahna jackie what’s some of the sum of the value that marty was just alluding to that we come out of these network. Yeah, that’s a great question. So for us, the example of the cairo small ship is one really concrete one where a lot of organizations air hitting a wall on hiring it’s really hard to find talented digital campaigning staff have the skills to just hit the ground running, experimenting, trying things. So this is really solving a challenge for them around hiring and that’s one reason why it’s been an effort that a lot of organizations have poured a lot of time and money in dollars and and vision into right? I think other ways that were starting to address that is building community amongst technologists who are often kind of undervalued or under restore resourced within their organization with a nonprofit organizations. And so even creating a learning community is something of value to them where they actually get to step back from their work a little bit and say, how are we thinking about the next stage of email advocacy or movil advocacy? And where people are today versus where they were ten years ago? Right. Okay, marty, anything you want to know about the value is value proposition no, i mean, i it’s a great test, you know, it’s a great test, if you know otherwise, the network is going to start tio lose members, right? Right, right. I mean, think of all the networks you start to join there’s a promise. So it’s going to be great and then you’re like, hey, this isn’t panning out for me. I’m out of here, you know? So so i think i think approaching it that way is very different from building brand affinity or something like that that an organization does it’s got to be valuable to you today in your work and what you’re doing for you to keep coming back. Okay. Now, as part of your session description, you had seven elements of network design. So xero this was an e mail. Sounds like click candy, you know, check my block post seven elements toe you know, ever. But have we hit on some of these? Are there some that we haven’t discussed? You want to go into a lot more detail on you? No way have. Ah, pneumonic that we use to remember, which will help was it? Seven crocodile crocodile is crowded very slowly around food. So the the idea is that there’s, you know, have lunch today is the second time you’ve brought in food. Yeah, the crocodiles weinger you know, i have a lot of good it does feed you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That’s, that’s, that’s my payment, i think. Okay, well, well, we’ll work for food. So so yeah, the one element. So? So we don’t talk about the different types of roles in a network that types of actors in-kind a network that which is, i think, an important distinction, and we didn’t talk about feedback mechanisms and how important feedback mechanisms are looks a little time with so let’s start with feedback mechanisms because that’s that’s i think probably the biggest failing of the nonprofit sector networks. Feedback mechanisms are the only way that not that networks get smarter if you have a business or you have an organization, people report up, you know, they report they take the lessons learnt and they give it to middle management, and then they give it to senior management. Senior management says, oh, that’s a good lesson. And then they distribute it back out to everybody in the organization and a network that’s really flat. You have to say, well, how are we gonna learn? How are we going to know what’s working and what’s? Not and that’s that’s where the role of feedback mechanisms come in if you think about traffic on your way to work, you know what you have is a feedback mechanisms you, khun c o there’s ah there’s. A two hour delay on the road here, you know, like, well, i got to go anyways, i got to get up earlier and go there’s no central traffic authority that says you’re not allowed to drive. You know, on this road today other people may decide well, just telecommute. I’m going to avoid the traffic jams so feedback mechanisms enable each individual user to get smarter in our sector. You know, we have people that are that are that are being convinced to come in and do good work work every day. But we don’t actually have that data what’s working today. How are we recruiting? New people toe work on climate change today because all of that information about why they joined his segmented it out into the fifty different groups that are trying to recruit people, you know, in the in the new york stock exchange that that that network works because there’s a there’s, a there’s, a ticker, you could see this cos we’re going up on these air going down that starts to tell us where i should focus my attention and the non profit sector. We don’t have any of that, so it’s very hard for us to learn lessons it’s very hard for us to iterated quickly and improve, and when you build a network that’s, one of the things that we really try and do is what the feedback mechanisms that this network is going to travel. So what are some of them, jackie, how do we how do we overcome this? Sure, i’d love to hear from marty about if we had a breakout conversation just on that topic that i wasn’t in, but one of the ways that we tackle that with an open us is really baking in surveys and also qualitative feedback into every session that we do, whether it’s a three day in person convening or ah, training that we’re doing. We tried to make sure there are opportunities for people to say, hey, this is this is what’s working for me about this or, you know, actually we can’t do video conferencing because no one knows how to do it or whatever it is, right from the very basic to the what are the large themes that we should be talking about? Should they be more on the infrastructure side of how we grow our organizations or more on campaigning like, are we actually gonna get money out of politics today? The breakout session, there were some great examples. One of the mid food banks for a big state, they kind of supply chain for all the food pantries, and we talked about, well, what happens with your data about what people are ordering, you know, is there a shortage of peanut butter? Is there a surplus of of ah, diapers? And the idea was not not to just for central management and on that, but to reflect that back out to the network so they could see a dashboard across the state of where the need is. That would be a prime example of a feedback mechanism that would make that network smarter and more effect, you know, and they have the data, they know what they’re they just it’s not reflected back to the network so that, you know, i think those are the kinds of examples that we look for buy-in in campaigning, we look att trying to reflect back how much it cost to do advertising to bring people into the campaign and instead of just your central management person knowing, well, i spent, you know, this amount of money on change in this mountain character care dot com and this i care not organ and this much on google ads and never sharing one cost forty cents and one costs eighty cents and the other cost two dollars, you know, the network never gets smarter, that one person gets the data, but it’s not shared across the network. So what you want is you want you want feedback to capture data that we’re already getting and mirror it back to the network so that different people can interpret what to do with that data on their own and it becomes part of value becomes part of the value, right? Exactly. Exactly. I’m learning, i’m learning. You gotta give me a break. No, no, no. I think it’s forced it on me. You’ve been thinking about this for decades. Jackie let’s, move teo to some of the roles within i gathered on i suspected this that’s. Why? I kind of head julie when i talked about management. Or maybe, you know, i mean, there is no management, so but now marty is confirmed. You know, it’s, we’re talking about more flat organizations, but there are still defined roles. Help us out. Yeah, i think every network has a slightly different structure, or at least there are many different flavors of networks that marty’s built that i’ve been a part of. So with open us, one of the structural elements that we have that’s worked really well, actually came from mirroring the open network internationally, which is the online progressive engagement network. And they started out with a ko convener structure. So as they came together for the first time to kick off a sisterhood of digital campaigning organizations, they said instead of one person saying here’s, the agenda for the conference here’s what we’re going to do when we get together let’s actually bring in the heads of you know that the largest digital native organisations in the world and say, what are the questions we have? And so it’s sort of like having a governance structure, but also a convening structure that’s wider than one organization was critical to the dna of open and then also open us which kind of borrowed that structure. Some of the other ways that we have for people to really dig in together on the work is called trojan mouths working groups. And so this is ahh sort of experiment in experimentation and for us, instead of spending years building that perfect trojan horse that you send across the wall, maybe it works and there’s a huge coup and everyone celebrates, or maybe it fails and you’ve spent years building something that didn’t work. We try to be more literate, ivo, and say okay, well, this is a need we have is a network, how do we test it quickly? And so, trojan charge in mice are a sort of framework for us to do that, and we have people who step up to say, i’m going to lead that trojan mouse so it’s sort of like a working group in a traditional coalition setting. I just like the metaphor of the trojan mouse explains it very well. Alright, alright, how they got cholera, and of those old castle. My goal is to spread diseases quickly. Hyre out in victor. Okay, we’re going to wrap it up. So, marty, i’ll give you a last word. Would you like to leave people with this network’s idea? I think the most important takeaway is that both from our session today and and our work in general is that networks are our structures. You can actually understand them, and you can build them very intentionally. And when you build strong networks that’s how you create social change, i think networks have kind of gotten a fuzzy term around them. Oh, a thousand flowers bloom and they’re uncontrollable in their viral. Well, that’s that’s one way to think about networks, but networks are very controllable, and there are great mechanisms for supporting social change. So the more that we could get people to kind of think about that think about this the discipline and the approaches to network building. I think the better we’re off, we’re going to be a second. All right, thank you very much. Marty kearns, founder and president of net century campaigns donor-centric campaigns. And jackie mandra, founding director of open us network and a partner at citizen engagement laboratory. Marty. Jackie, thank you so much. Thanks for having us, thank you, tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference. Thank you for being with us next week. Monisha ca piela returns with managing up. If you missed any part of today’s show, i berate you. Find it on tony martignetti dot com. Please help, please help! We’re sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com, and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits. Now, with that apple pay crowdster dot com, why did you say that apple pay like it’s foreign to me now with apple pay crowdster dot com, our creative producers claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. On our music is by scott stein. Thank you, scotty. We with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful posts here’s aria finger, ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe. Add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts, tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell, you put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for February 27, 2015: The Convening World & Auctions and Cash Calls, Part Deux

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host oh, i’m very glad you’re with me. I’d be with acute gloomy oh ah glow mary alone a fry tous if i had to drink in the idea that you missed today’s, show the convening world there’s a new model for convening your organisation at what used to be conferences and opportunity collaboration is an example, so for wilkins is opportunity collaborations ceo and auctions and cash calls part do auctioneer bobby de l’art continues the conversation from the december twelfth show last year to get you to high performing auctions and cash calls at your events on tony steak, too. Between the guests and the newsletter that may interest you, we’re sponsored by generosity, siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks nufer wilkins he’s been convening and connecting people for social change for over a decade, it started when he co founded the highland city club, a membership community of three hundred change makers in boulder, colorado. Now he leads opportunity collaboration, a global network of twelve hundred non-profit leaders for-profit social entrepreneurs grantmaker cz impact investors, corporate and academics building sustainable solutions to poverty nufer created conveners dot or ge, a group of over one hundred fifty fellow conveners and accelerators in the impact space opportunity. Collaboration is on twitter at opp call o p p c o l l so far, i’m glad you and i are convening in studio. Thanks, tony is a pleasure to be here. Thank you. I’m glad you’re glad you’re with us from california. Yeah, all the way. Good to see you again. Thanks you’ve been you’ve been getting people together for for a long time. What do you think? Non-profits are not really doing so well around what is the typical unconference sure, i mean typical conferences as faras i’ve experienced them tend to be pretty hierarchical, pretty stratified there’s a clear dynamic between the folks who are there to seek re sources and the flukes that air there to potentially offer those resources and it creates it creates division and and there isn’t a lot of opportunity, really, for what i find a lot of conferences advertise as being available, networking time to meet each other. That’s really you’re sitting in a meal that’s the most. Time you get but there’s a speaker so you don’t get much time, speak there’s ten or fifteen minutes in between conference sessions. That’s that real isn’t really lead to a relationship building, correct? Yeah. All right. What? What are what’s going on it? Convenience dot or go where? It’s being done smarter? Yeah. Eso for conveners dahna or you know what? Ah, what i realized in in my four plus years of being the ceo of opportune collaboration, tony, was that there are a lot of other conferences out there espousing this model of bringing people together, bound together by a common passion or purpose, and figured out ways for those folks to coco come outside their silos, potentially connect potentially share ideas, and resource is hopefully elevate their own individual efforts as well as the broader space. And yet in in some very thick, ironic way, we the folks who are hosting those conferences where everyone else weren’t actually coming together ourselves. So we were we were we were not practicing. What we preach on there was we were fairly silent welchlin your own silos, we were fairly competitive. We were redundant. We weren’t sharing ideas and research. Is pretty. Classic, classic walk little and talk metaphor. Okay, so you created conveners now are are non conveners welcome there? I mean, you can they can they learn something? Sure. Yeah. There are some folks in the network that are called advocates of folks who, you know, they attend a lot of conferences. They perhaps sponsor various conferences. They’re interested in the circumventing world that large, but they may not be running conferences themselves. Okay? And then for those who are it’s ah it’s a lot more robust. Give us a sample of what’s what’s their correct yes. So, you know, over the year and a half that we’ve been around, we’ve hosted, i think about a dozen meetings for for these fellow conveners. And the first thing we we decided not to do was host another conference. More hypocrisy. So instead we ah, we saw the the more readily available function of just tacking on meetings, out of respect of events. So, for example, there was a medium computers at opportune collaboration last october. There’s a median commuters just recently at the global innovations summit in silicon valley. And for each of those meetings is a chance for us to come together like i said before share it is and best practices potentially find ways to work together and try and elevate our individual efforts as well as the broader space we’re gonna have plenty time to talk about opportunity collaboration because i was there last year and i gave about it. I block video blogged it and lots of things. Your ah, you’re you and your wife are both in the space together. You are three convening in lots of lots of different levels. Jury in yeah, after and perhaps marriages a deepest form. A collaboration of that could say so myself e i don’t know if its deepest but a pretty damn close. If not, how did you two get into the space this together? Yeah. Eso a man there’s. Ah, i will never forget this, but so my life is incredibly brilliant. She’s, a stanford mba grad, and before that, she was working for being in company large management consulting firm in san francisco. And at the end of her stanford mba program, bane and company approached her and said, hey, joining, you know, if you’d want to come back to bein, we’d give you a promotion? We give you a big fat raise, we pay off your student loans. Oh my and and we both you know, we both consider the offer. And in the end we decided that we were much better suited in terms of a fulfilling life, to offer our expertise, our education are privileged area say, to try and making the world a better place. And it was right then and there that we decided not to go down the corporate route and instead searched your passion and are and hopefully our purpose towards the world of social change on. And it was actually after i finished my my master’s degree, which is an education, not business. From where? See you, boulder, i’m not involved in colorado that we started that we co founded the highland city club together, which in essence, is a for-profit social enterprise with the membership model that was focused on convening, in other words, bringing people together, who otherwise wouldn’t have found a place to connect and figure out ways for them to form these relationships. And today you both work for opportunity collaboration, correct. Yeah, yep. That’s how did that come around on? So actually, my wife and i, after founding the highland city club, we we had a stint where we actually live down in mexico for about six months, right after our first kid was born. It was a chance to just get to know him and who we are, his parents and that way, that’s. Remarkable. Yeah. First six months of your child. Yeah, exactly. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t. I hope i don’t let something meaningful like that. Go go. By the first six months of your first child, you left the us and you moved to mexico. Correct. So we’ve found in the highland city club it was a sustainable social enterprise and, you know, everyone’s telling us as we were as my wife was pregnant, life was going to change, writes the cliche servo you don’t know what’s coming next, and we actually we took that to heart and very proactively made the change ourselves. So we hired replacements to run the city club for us sold everything we we owned and basically drove down to this little beach town on the coast of mexico, found a place to rent and took six months off. Sort of. A professional sabbatical. Just to be with this little guy that we had birth. Yeah, and figure out who we were, his parents. And what sort of valleys wanted put in place of the family? That’s? Incredible. That’s. Really? It was it was amazing. That is unique. Yeah, i’ve ever heard a unique in my life. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Doing it. Thinking of it, dreaming it and activating your will tow to make it happen. It was a big leap, but the sort of soft landing was there for us. And then you came back and life was still the united states was still here. Your lives were still in place and where’d you move. So yeah. So it’s essentially, the bank account ran dry down in mexico and we came back and again through the stanford business school network found ah, job running. A very high end luxury resort outside of telluride, colorado. My wife had an interest in hospitality, and we, you know, we love staying at fancy places. So we figure what the heck, we might as well give this a shot. We did really well, professionally. It was actually ranked in number. On all inclusive luxury resort in north america, while we’re their goodness and we turned a profit for the first time in the resource existence, so clearly we’re doing something right, but lo and behold, the second kid showed up there and had to go to and as happened with the first boat out of this time, is santa cruz, california not nearly as remote? But now i just i love the thread of first of the two of you collaborating professionally, a job after job and and ah, and convening masses of people that sit in each in each instance boulder to telluride and tell you run with opportune glamarys opportunity collaboration back down in mexico, let’s go out a little early for a break, sam, and when we come back, of course tofu and i are going to keep talking about the convening world, and we’ve got lots of live listener love stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation, really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent let’s! Send them live, listener love and let’s let’s start abroad actually, this this week chennai, india gin on china ni hao, india i don’t know how to say hello and welcome, but live listen love to you in india, tokyo, japan, osaka, japan. Konnichi wa, cairo, egypt. I don’t believe we’ve had cairo before. Welcome live listener love to you and seoul, south korea on yo haserot coming, coming ah, local fort lee, new jersey, las vegas, nevada, new bern, north carolina live listener love to each of you give a local america. We see you live tweeting. Thank you very much. And bobby de l’art, we see you in the studio. Okay, jay z, thank you for tweeting that picture and we will you and i’ll be talking very shortly. More live listener love to come in case we didn’t mention you let’s talk about the opportunity collaboration i have a lot to say, but you’re the guest so i’m looking to let you start, try to keep my manners why is this so unusual? Attractive to people coming back year after year? What? What makes this such a special ah unconference gathering, you know, you know, i think it starts with the people, first of all, tony. So in my mind, eddie, any good, convenient conference, etcetera is about eighty percent the quality of the people that are there and twenty percent sort of design in terms of the structure of the event. Eso in terms of the folks that are there, it’s, just a incredibly high caliber, influential, very collaborative group of folks all focus on solving poverty, and they come at it from many different angles, so you’ve got for-profit non-profit funders practitioners like you said earlier corporate academics, media folks. Ah, host of individual actors, consultants, authors, artists, etcetera on dh they’re just they’re amazing folks. They’ve all had their own experience, their own passion, their own purpose for building a better world. A big part of it, i believe, is the is the love of collaboration, correct? They want to meet lots of other people and spend lots of time at the on site doing that, you know, getting to know people, you know? Yeah. So let me, you know, the other twenty percent is probably worth talking about at this. Point so, you know, we call ourselves an unconference first of all, so our founder, jonathan lewis, who i know has been on the show before, you know, his his his the reason why he started it this way was that he actually attended enough traditional conferences out there that he developed, we called a bug list all the things that pissed him off around the way that most conferences in structure, and you talked about it before tony, i mean, it’s the it’s, the fact that a lot of folks come to these events, too, to make these connections with other people and yet it’s so sporadic it’s so random there’s not a lot of attention paid on that piece, and instead you put the sage on the stage, every insistent auditorium, south seating. Most of folks, they’re on their ipads or their laptops, checking up on email anyway, and then they may bump into a few people in the bathroom breaks in between so inopportune collaboration we’ve done away with all that it’s no plan arrays, gnocchi notes, no power point presentations every session is a dialogue in a conversation, literally a circle of chairs in the room. And furthermore, we put a tremendous amount of emphasis. In fact, half the day is on this sort of how consent s’more personal interpersonal work that we all are going through as it relates to arm or external professional work and it’s during that interpersonal leadership exploration that people truly bond in a really authentic way. They set aside their institutional affiliations, you know, their titles and they say, you know, look, this is who i am. This is why i care about this stuff. This is what i’m good at this, but i’m not so good at, you know, this is what i this is this is who i am. This is my story and people people get it’s a really authentic bond with the result of that. And then upon that authentic bond, the more professional partnerships and collaborations either sort, attritional networking that you see most events is cultivated. A lot of what you’re talking about is around the colloquium cz corrected every morning we have a colloquium that lasted izzie in ninety minutes or two hours, two hours, two hours, four days, so eight hours with singing two hours the beginning of each day, like eight to ten before there’s, anything else available is like breakfast and then your colloquium for two hours, same group of people each four days and and you do you build, you build these relationships and oh and it’s a very safe space, too, to share what you’re because we’re all working each of us, a sze yu said in coming out of from different angles and perspectives and nationalities and countries somehow to reduce poverty, eliminate poverty. But it’s, just these colloquium create a really a really safe space sabelo more about yeah, i’m glad i’m glad i’m going to talk about that, tony. I mean, then first of all, it was originally designed by the folks at the ass and institute for anyone is fairly with that work. They do a similar exercise in terms of bringing people together small group conversations that are expertly moderate and curated typically theres a syllabus of sort of a set of readings or videos that people view are read before they shot shoretz sets the tone for that experience i’m and you know, at this point, six years later, after the sort of first set of the cloaking it’s definitely morphed it’s. Definitely sort of evolved andi this point, actually, it’s ah, we’ve got a new partner in the opportunity irish in her name is akai, a windward of the rockwood leadership institute and a kaya and the rockwood leaderships institutes focuses all around this type of exercise bringing leaders together, helping them deal with mohr. That internal personal work as it relates to the external work and with kyle’s leadership what’s happened is that the cloak iam has become almost like a home room environment during the course of the opposition collaboration. So, you know, you mentioned these bonds that it’s a chance to sort of reflect the rest of the experience back with a trusted cohort on, and we’ve even seen at this point over the years that we’ve done this, that these cloaking groups span beyond the onsite experience. So some some groups have taken upon the cells aa schedule monthly videoconference calls this the way to check back in with each other and make sure they’re supporting each other in the way and the way that they did on down in mexico in october, some folks find ways to come together and regional sort of offline space to reconnect either. In south sets, there was a group of large and it’s it’s. Ah it’s, you know, it’s a it’s, a pure group. It’s a chance to really sort of feel like your in community urine family. You’ve got two tribe now? Yeah, well, put another feature of opportunity. Collaboration is the all the time that’s available for four one on one meetings or you know, however, but there’s a lot of unscheduled time, correct and part of that khun b thie effect of that can be overwhelming, which is why they’re having this morning colloquium to check in within this regular group. Each of the four mornings is really so meaningful, but but, you know, so it sort of says we’re ticking off features of opportunity, collaboration and a smarter way of convening people. Let’s say it’s a little more about all the free time. That’s a very great i’m first it’s ah it’s worth clarifying here that we take over the club med for five nights for two glamarys there’s nobody there, there’s nobody there no more than that. And there’s. No storm outside. Guess it’s, everyone who’s there is involved in some way or shape reform. In the opportune collaboration and therefore in poverty alleviation on and throughout the fourth phase, and i bought this place with you and that in itself is just very comforting everybody i see whether they’ve got their name badge on or not i know is part of the reason that i’m there that’s and you can have a conversation with them, no matter what. Yeah. So you know, in in terms of the in terms of the venue, you know, it’s, not attritional conference centre there’s, no satellite hotels, there’s, no outside restaurants, everyone’s i guess incubated there five nights, they don’t have to go anywhere, so we eat together. We sleep, you know, we sleep there, everyone’s in the ocean occasionally, or playing tennis, meeting to a wall, the fun recreational activities that you normally see the club matter at the delegates disposal while they’re there and, you know, as a result of that sort of inclusivity, if you will, that the incubation of the delegate community, the free time is where we see a lot of the most amazing sort of partnerships and collaborations emerged because they’re constantly interacting. People are so well taken care of their relaxed you know, people wear flip flops and bathing suits all over the place there’s no business suits and people just have a chance to let their guard down and really sort of sink into those one on one connections that everyone typically creates, that most conferences that i go to let’s deal with something quickly that i think is kind of is very short sighted, but we’re talking about poverty alleviation, and we’re at a club med in stop of mexico for the people who for the room that’s an obstacle let’s, let’s deal with why’s that not incongruous. Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s it’s definitely it’s. Certainly something would come up against over the six years that we’ve been doing this and for good reason. I mean, that the opulence of a club med it sits in the face of the poverty that we’re trying to solve. However, with our founder jonathan lewis’s vision there’s a couple clear reasons why we’re there first of all, it’s one of actually happens to be one of the rare sort of all inclusive resorts where we could bring this thing together. I don’t cost that was acceptable. More importantly, we hosted in mexico of because not only do we want to actually have a local impact in terms of the poverty that surrounds the club med, and we get delegates out into the community and connect them with local non-profit leaders, etcetera, but mme or perhaps more to the point, we want these leaders to come outside of their comfort zones a little bit, we want them to make an effort to be there, we want them to feel like this is something that they’ve they they can really sort of discard their normal day to day cells and sink into something different on dh finally, you know, with with club med, there’s, there’s initiating relationship? Actually, we’ve worked very closely with them to help them become more sustainable tto help them beam or better stewards of the local economy, and frankly, you know, because we’re there were one of the were one of the rare exceptions there they’re down season and a lot of folks are employed because we’re there, so we’re creating economic development locally, we’re giving delegates a chance to serve retreat from their day to day and in the end, it’s ah it’s, one of the rare venues that we’ve found that it’s actually conducive this type of thing, another important feature of opportunity collaboration is all the support that leads up to the gathering, especially for first time attendees. I know i had three conference calls, one was a one on one and then two were maybe too were one on one. And then one was a larger group. Let’s talk, say something. Explain the why that that support leading up? Sure, yeah. Then this is you know, this is part of our model for every delegate tony. So you know, we call ourselves an unconference and that certainly relates to the fur the on site experience itself, the five days that we’re together and stop. But it also relates to the experience leading up to that on site and the experience afterwards on dso for everyone who in rules and the opportunity collaboration, we take it upon ourselves to reach out and try and have a conversation with them before they show up and it’s along the lines of. Okay, what are you interested in achieving from being there? What do you need to get out of it? To accelerate your mission? What ideas? And resources can you contribute to the delegate community? How do we best plug you into the very souls of services that we offer? How do we connect you with folks even before you show up on dh? So it’s a chance to be in a very high touch, ways to curate the networking that hopefully naturally take place there. And furthermore, as he said for first time delegates, we have a very robust what we call ambassador program, which is probably one of the least one of the conference calls you had where we work with a team of delegates have been there at least once before to help contact and communicate with everyone who’s coming for the first time to make sure that they’re that the new delegates are are assimilated a few hill into this unique collaborative culture that we create. You know we do our part in terms of making sure delegates are taking advantage of the tools and services, the sort of the concrete mechanisms that are available to them. But it’s the ambassadors job to be like a softer cultural guide for the opportune collaboration just for myself, some of the some of the impacts. That there were two outstanding guests that i had ah, nina service dahna and nina channel core, both of whom i had meetings within the ocean because meetings in the ocean and the pool are very common. That’s right? There’s, lots of meetings over meals, too there’s lots of scheduling going on, you know, you have to you have to keep track of your own calendar who you’re meeting for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but, yeah, i met lena and nina, both in the ocean on dave, and they’ve been on the show that’s great. You ah, you just recently compiled some of the some of the impacts. Yeah, the outcome outcomes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, with our founder’s vision tony again, jonathan lewis and his creation of this, the last thing i wanted to do is create another talking has conference where nothing happened, right? So in other words, if we found that we were having some sort of concrete impact e lena, nina being on your show, lots of other examples of that we would stop doing this, it we wouldn’t we don’t exist to serve our own mission. We exist to serve the mission of the delegates there there on and we very therefore closely track outcomes as it results to people’s experience that the opportunity i wish you would do that number of ways first is pretty for most conferences, you’ll see a survey after the event concludes say, you know, how do we do? What happened exeter are survey is very shorts about four questions long one of those is exactly on this outcomes piece, sort of what what has happened for your what do you think will happen for you? And furthermore, as it relates to what i was saying before around sort of the pre event, high touch conversations that we try and have with every delegate, we do that on the back side of the onset experience, too, so that we have a one on one conversations with virtually every who’s there, and we get a very clear granular understanding of, you know, what did they see as a result of this? What connections that they make? What re sources that have they gone or what? What contribution do they make? Toe other delegates organizations in their work on and in that way? We’re very closely tracking those outcomes now. In the end, it typically falls into two buckets there’s the quantitative outcomes that we we pretty much exists for in terms of people getting funding, people getting hired, you know, people joining people’s boards, organizations actually emerging together and partying and very concrete ways, but there’s also the softer side of this, which relates back to the cloaking experience on dh it’s, the qualitative outcomes you know, i hear time and time again that people have current, quote, transformative experiences because of their time at the opportune clolery ation, and that means potentially reconfigure leadership style, potentially falling in love again with this work, a lot of us khun suffer from burnout every once in a while, it means lifelong friendships. We’ve conceded couple weddings as a result of being people bigger, the offgrid ditigal aberration. But it’s the softer side of this of this of this work and our outcomes that i love you. I’m an anthropology, guys, so any time i can see, i can see those sort of the shift, if you will, in peoples in our lives as it relates to the artwork. That’s amazing for me. I know that for myself, as i said. The remarkable outcomes just just for me. Part of what you ah, what you say is that you warn, you, warn people, new to opportunity, collaboration, that they’ll be ruined for other conferences, right? Yes, i’m afraid so. Look, it’s just it’s a very different type of event, let’s xero that i loved, and i’m looking forward to going back. We can’t wait to have you there, tony, just about thirty seconds left. Tell me what you love and maybe even bring your wife and i don’t know, but about this convening work that you do yeah, you know. So during the second opportunity climb oration, my wife and i’ve been working closely with jonathan’s, the foundry of the co ceos. At that point, our third son was born about two weeks before that second event, which meant i was going down by myself. My wife was staying at home with a two week old, a two year old in a four year old andi i was running around like a chicken with my head cut off that first that first time because it was really the first time i had stepped into my own sort of power, if you will is a professional on dh yet if i took a deep breath about halfway through step in the ocean and it hit me, tony, this work is my life’s calling on, and in fact i got my dad, on the phone a few minutes later, i think i said, hey, dad, i think this is why you among got together thirty five years ago, like this is it, you know, this is really it, yeah, so for wilkins, thank you so, so much my pleasure to see you again. I know we’ll be in touch, there’s, lots of information, all the information you need about opportunity. Collaboration is that opportunity. Collaboration, dot net, and on twitter, it is at o p p c o l l told her thank you again. My pleasure, thank you time. Tony take two and auctions and cash calls part do are both coming up first generosity. Siri’s you know them. They host multi charity five k runs and walks multi charity means that for small and midsize organisations, you can host an event with a bunch of other charities coming together, convening, collaborating because none of you could host an event on your own because you can’t have something with twenty five or thirty or even fifty you know it’s it’s, not it’s. Not enough to sustain an event, but you come together small a midsize shops collaborate that way and that’s what generosity siri’s does. They have a charity support team that you actually talked to and that will help you with your fund-raising pick up the phone. That’s. How i like to do business. Talk to dave lynn he’s the ceo. Tell him you’re from non-profit radio, please. Seven one eight five o six. Nine, triple seven of course, there are also on the web generosity siri’s dot com non-profit alumnus jonathan lewis, who tofu and i were just talking about he hosts an e newsletter on social change leadership he’s a very smart guy and it’s his thoughts about the sector? Some of the recent headlines were our social entrepreneurs people are you dancing in a social change silo just talked about that, and my secret is out. You can sign up for jonathan lewis is e newsletter which i get at cafe impact dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday twenty seventh of january eighth show of the year twenty seventh of january. Notes twenty seventh of february made the exact same mistake last week. It’s the twenty seventh of february and i am still in desperate need of an intern. But i can blame these mistakes on so i i need that in turn could somebody please get me someone so i can blame somebody? Bobby de l’art he’s with us he’s bobby de l’art b a s he’s, the lead auctioneer and ceo of called toe auction. They help plan optimizing conduct fund-raising auctions he’s also a contract auctioneer in phoenix, arizona, conducting over one hundred sixty five auctions a year from automobiles to collectibles which i don’t think it’s a very big deal. A to see ordeals to collectibles i would like to see, like automobiles to ah zebras or your macca’s or xylophones or whiskey bottles or something like victrola. But right now, he’s only working automobiles to collectibles. He’s, the reigning twenty fourteen us bid calling champion that’s that’s quite significant and a past arizona state auctioneer champion and a world automobile auctioneer championship finalist didn’t quite win that one, but two out of three is very, very good he’s, a second generation auctioneer, it’s in his blood it’s in his family. You’ll find him at call to auction dot com and bobby de l’art is with us from the studios of cage z and cabe coup in phoenix, arizona. Welcome, bobby d hey, tony. Thanks for having me. It’s. A pleasure, what’s the, uh, what’s this b s after your name b a s. Well, b a s is it’s a designation by the national auctioneers association and say what it means is that i’m a benefit auctioneer specialist, that i’ve been susan special training spent a lot of time in the classroom and have learned from the leaders in the industry to apply the latest techniques and services. Teo, raise more money for our clients. Okay, so even though you have lots of automobiles and collectibles in your background, you you do an enormous amount of work with non-profits yeah, that is my specialty and that’s and that’s my focus that’s also my passion, just like tofu had said just before the saying, you know, he’s figured out why he’s on this planet this is why i’m on this planet. I love this i love helping groups raise more money and changing lives has your has your voice feeling today? My voice is good today. I’ve had a long week of auctions sold over a thousand cars this week. I had a big fund-raising weekend last weekend, i have another big fund-raising weekend coming up this weekend and in another one next weekend. So i’m i’m gargling my throat coat, tea with lemon and honey in it, you know, constantly staying hydrated, okay, i used co two sometimes if i’m my structural store before show, i used to have a coat because i’m going to ask you to give us a sample. There you are. You up for that? I am i always that is okay, you know, why don’t you? Why don’t you go go on for, like, ten seconds or so? And because i love this stuff is like you. Why don’t you just go on? Dh, you know, but in case you can’t hear me while you’re going, you know, stop after ten or twelve seconds or so, please, i can do that, bobby d all right, so this is just an example. Ladies and gentlemen were at a fundraising event and we have a beautiful trip to new york city. Are at ladies and gentlemen, what a bit of it on this one and give it a twenty five hundred dollars it twenty, five hundred. Three thousand now thirty five. Thirty five hundred dollars that’s going for a good cause. And thirty five four thousand forty five. Five thousand. Thank you. Fifty five, six thousand and five hundred seventy five, eighty, eighty five, ninety five taels ten thousand dollars. Sold it right there. Ladies and gentlemen, ten thousand dollars give the man a big round of applause. He just made a lot of change in the room tonight. Thank you so much, bobby. D i love that. Thank you very much. Although, i think ten thousands of cheap for a trip to new york. But that was that. Well, it was late. With a private dinner with tony martignetti oh, it’s. Definitely cheap. Done are you? Can you just risked. You just made it even more valuable. Is you’re still telling me it’s only ten thousand dollars. All right. No, i love that. You know, there’s a lot of ability and that to me. I don’t know now, but there’s a lot of hair, but a habit. I mean, there’s a lot of sort of syllables in there that aren’t words, right? No, there are words, it’s. What? We are working freezes does robert head. But i had what you saying there had been a habit? What? What i’m saying i’m saying, can you bid or would you bid? How about to bid, you know, twenty five, get a bit one get it, teo, get about three. Three now. Four okay? And and those words build the melody and the melody kind of turns into a we’re trying teo put the bitters into a trance were trying to hypnotize them with that melody and and and and people get drawn into that just like you got drawn in in the last ten seconds. That is why we chant that’s, why we put those words in there and create that melody in that rhythm and that flow the people they become drawn into this and they want a bid. I guess i could almost feel your hands going in the air when i was when i was calling it is it’s melodic, as i think i said was he’s thinking if i didn’t say it sounds, it sounds musical to me is definitely melodic, all right? Well, yeah, i love it and you’re a championship and everything a champion snusz there now. We’re following up on the december twelfth twenty fourteen show when i had neil bogan, yolanda johnson and tracy dreyer on, and they were talking about auctions and raffles and cash calls and and you, you are so passionate about this, you did a video to follow-up too just give additional advice and your perspective on on all three of those areas. But today you and i just can’t talk about the auctions in the cash calls you have. You have some advice around mobile bidding for auctions? You talk about that? Yeah, mobile bidding is the new technology that’s really emerged in the past few years that’s come out toward you when you’re at a fundraising gala or a fundraising event on and everyone has the silent auction, will the mobile bidding what this is is that you’re gonna be ableto bid right on your cell phone? You know everyone has a smartphone now these days and iphone, android and there’s these new technologies that will allow the silent auction to run on your on your smartphone, whether it’s an apparatus it’s on a web browser, but what this does is it allows if using attendee to bid on multiple items without having to go from item two item two item and having to write on the old fashioned bid sheet. This allows everyone in the room to bid kind of from where they’re standing. If they’re in a conversation, you can bid on more than one item within just a few seconds, and the most important part of this is when you get those last few minutes until the silent auction closes everyone’s able to bid on all that multitude to items where is the old fashioned way with the bid sheet, you would only be able to bid on one item because, you know, although everyone has these. Sharp elbows and nobody’s going to come and bid on this item. But then you miss the other ten items that you wanted to bid on because somebody else bit above you. By using these mobile bidding to technologies, you’re able to bid on a multitude of items, and we’re finding that groups that are utilizing this, they’re raising another twenty to thirty percent within their silent auction, and sometimes more because they’re able tio have morbid on their items and that’s what you want? Morbid, more money, more change. I see. And that’s for the that’s on the silent auction side the’s the those applications okay? Yep. Let’s move to the er to the stage on the big setting. The big room where you’re on stage there’s. A lot of lot of theater involved in this. If it’s done right that’s absolutely right. And in a great fund-raising auction event, it is like a theatre it’s the production and we want to create that that that great donor experience once they once they walk into the room, you know we want that big aha moment. But then everything that’s said on stage we want to use that to build into what we, you know, the cash call or the fund a need. So the the live auction is going to build into that, you know, any videos or in person speakers that are doing the appeal they’re gonna build into that now included in this theater is people who are no you you and the organization know in advance are going to bid ah lot of times we do know, you know, that there’s prepared bidders that are ready to bid, but then a lot of times it was just this past weekend, we had a gentleman in the back he was, you know, he nobody knew who he was, but he ended up buying one of the trips for ten thousand dollars, and all of a sudden this gentleman steps out of nowhere, and he he invests in this organization and purchases ah, fabulous trip, and we didn’t know he was there because he had bought into the auction theater that was going on what’s great about the auction is it becomes an interactive theater that everyone in the room is a part of. You may have bidders that are bidding, and they’re directly involved in the auction. But then you have the rest of the audience. They’re clapping along there, encouraging there, there, there, there, helping that energy build and build well, yeah, i mean, the whole purpose of the theater is to get more people bidding, right? I mean, you don’t you don’t know all the bidders in advance. Well, yeah, you want you want you’re going to find within the live auction you’re going to see about five or ten percent of the actual audience be participants within that. But then that auction theater engages and it excites the entire room and brings everyone together, you know, that’s, that’s keys that engagement to allow everyone to feel a part of the event now on the other side of prepared bitters, there’s something called shill bidders, which are evil people talking, talking about people, people? Yeah, kind of that kind of a naughty word in auction shell bit, eh? Yeah. With in the last episode that you had talked about this, you know, that was brought up. And it was it was, you know, they were talking about having bidders that we’re going to bid the items up and the events that i like to work. With and then the clients that i work with is unnecessary. We wanna have his pure of an auction as possible. We want teo provide a how you say it transparent as auction is possible well, too, because sometimes if someone finds out that they were in that room and they were bidding somebody up, then that looks bad on the organization. I would rather have a pure auction and let everyone in that room participate. And if you do prior proper planning and marketing of these items, as well as your development with your donors that air in the room, your items, they’re going to reach the level that they need to do, but they probably will go above that is well, because once you ties the item like in exciting experience, the new york city and you’re having dinner with tony martignetti uh, and then tie that to the mission and the cause, you know that then that’s when you know that’s when the big dollars come out, it’s, not what they’re e-giving were not what they’re getting, but how much they’re giving to make this change happened with the organization of their choice. So those shill bidders are not real. They’re not really going to buy it. They’re just they’re toe inflate the price. So that’s, why that’s? Yeah, they’re donordigital yeah, they’re they’re the artificially inflate the price. A lot of groups think they need that. You don’t need that if you’re working with a professional benefit auction here now i watched some of your videos. You have a little talk technique may be this is standard this’s why we’re here. We’re all here to learn where you’ll give you’ll getyour award the prize to to the two donors to bitters sorry, i should say two bidders, but you do this. It’ll use something where you you have the person who donated the auction item there at the foot of the stage and you like you pull them over and say, listen, could we give these to two people going? Can we give this to both of these people? And now eyes that that’s arranged? I assume sometimes it is. But then sometimes it’s not what you wait. Just, you know, two weeks ago we had a lady that was donating her house in a rocky point. It was a big condominium and she got caught. Up in the spirit is well too. She was like, wow, we’re selling this for two thousand five hundred dollars. You know what? I have access to this whenever i want. If we can, you know, double the money we’re raising right now. Let’s, do it again. We actually ended up selling it three times. So that’s a great tip for organizations if they can prepare that, you know that your donor that’s donating an experience or a house or something like that toe, ask them, you know, are we going to be able to sell this again if we reach a certain level more times than not, the donors say yes, we want to raise as much money as we can. But then sometimes if the donors in the room, they do get caught up in the auction and and they’re like, yeah, let’s, sell it again. Let’s, raise some more money in the crowd loved that would be a part of that thie excitement when you talk to the person right at the foot of the stage and you say yes, she’ll do it. And that way, on a winner here we got a winner over there seventy. Five hundred dollars each. We just treyz fifteen thousand dollars. Hey, better get anna kat again. You’re getting. But hey, would you bid? Could you? But its xero it’s just love. I love it, don’t you sounding great, buddy? I well, now that you could be an auctioneer, now that i know what the heck you guys air saying, i thought it was all i just thought it was all nonsense syllables in between real words, i hey, would you be good? You be today, would you? Okay, it makes a lot more sense now, sort of workable, love, love, good love this. Okay, let’s, go out a little early for a break and bobby de l’art. Now you’re going to keep keep talking about auctions in cash calls part do, including, why is he, bobby d? Why is that so important? Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m peter shankman, author of zombie loyalists, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. More live listener love detroit, michigan are veda california, san francisco, california sun, west sun city, west arizona and there there’s multiple masked us we don’t know where you are, but if i didn’t shut you out specifically live listeners love to you also, but we just can’t see your city and state let’s go abroad. First time from the united arab emirates someone’s listening in abu dhabi welcome live listener loved to you and give local america thank you very much for tweeting so actively using the hashtag non-profit radio. Love it. Thank you. Okay, bobby d why is what? Why i come? I can’t just call you bhabhi. What? Right after you want to have to be bobby d well, bobby d there’s so many famous bobby d’s that are out there, you know? And i’m proud to be a part of him. You know, you got robert duvall, robert de niro, robert downey jr. So i get to ah bee of that high echelon of other bobby d’s. Alright, but they don’t go by bobby d though they at least while i call i call bob de niro. Bobby. But, you know, very few people do well. There is only one there’s, only one bobby d auctioneers. So it’s kind of a branding thing. And in all my clients and my friends, they’re all us. Give me. Okay, bobby d, what is this d stand for and i always go d’s for dollars. I’m gonna help you raise more dollars. Oh, my goodness. All right, all right. I mean, i could be tony am. I could go around tony, amaar or tony. My middle name is joseph. I could be toni jo, toni jo jail toni jo it’s. Uh, it’s, uh, starting to sound like a porn star, so i don’t don’t forget to scrub the tony. Joe, i don’t want to be toni jo after all. Um, let’s move on, tio cash calls now, because the auction is supposed to set us up for the cash call, right? We’re building enthusiasm for the in this event. Yeah. That’s absolutely right. The live auction builds into that cash called builds into that fund to knead. It stirs the room up into a frenzy and it and it really relieves a lot of tension. Most donors know why they’re there. They’re there to give money. And whether they give it in the silent auction in a raffle and the live auction, but we want to utilize all those tools of fund-raising to build into this cash call that’s really key? Okay, and explained what the what the cash call is so everybody’s common ground here. All right, so the cash call or we call ah, the call to action or the funda need is an opportunity for everyone in the room to give at a level that’s meaningful for them, whether it’s a million dollars or a dollar we’re going, we’re going toe open the giving up to everyone and usually, well, well, most groups will have a specific need, like i’ll be working with a group this weekend and they’re going to purchase furnishings and appliances for their emergency family shelters for homeless families, and we’re going to try to furnish all sixteen of these units that night. It’s, about seventy five thousand dollars is what we’re going to try to raise, and we’re going to start our giving at ten thousand dollars, and then we’re gonna go to five thousand and then twenty, five hundred and then a thousand five hundred to fifteen and one hundred. And we’re gonna ask for just open donations from the floor and that’s that opportunity for those that have, you know, that wouldn’t make a larger investment, they can give it that level, are they could give it a smaller level, but everyone together collectively as a family is going to come together to help us purchase these items toe fully furnished. Thie needed shelter apartments. So how does this work then you’re you’re shouting out different numbers, different, different giving levels. Hey, but attend everything’s already able to give them out, and then and then people are committing to that level, and then you moved down to the next level. Is that how it works? Well, it’s a little different than that? Usually we’d move them will move from the live auction, which is what we call competitive bidding, and then we’ll have some transition, whether it’s an in person speaker or a video or a combination, but within the production in the theater of the event, we’re going to transition from that competitive bidding where it’s exciting it’s, energetic, it’s fun, so we’re going to move in a little bit more somber, more serious note toe where, lady you know where your speakers that they’re going to talk about the impact that the organization and the particularly the donor’s dollars has had on their lives, and they’re going to ask those in the room donors like them to give the family, you know, two more families, you know, like, like those on stage and then that’s where i change and and benefit auction your specialists can change that, that kind of that tone that we have instead of, you know, being fun and flashy, we move in a little bit more, more inspiring and more serious mode right now, ladies, and heard the change that your dollars can make would you be able to give a donation and make a contribution tonight to change lives just like this at ten thousand dollars level. So that’s that’s kind of how kind of transition i say. All right, so it becomes a lot more more, more sedate, but still enormously, enormously valuable. Yeah, enormously valuable and then also enormously effective, because when you you start with that and you make that transition, we call that first gift. We call that the spark that’s going to start our bonfire of giving. And then what happens is you move through the levels everyone in the room becomes a part of this collective e-giving and everyone in the room gets to be a part of the change that’s being made in that room at that moment and it’s very inspiring. So you’re moving from competitive bidding to collective e-giving that’s absolutely that’s the transition from auction to cash call okay, is the the first bitter at that highest level? Is that usually someone who’s prepared? I prefer that and a lot of times what, that that lead gift, you know, they’re the icebreaker that i what i call the spark they do. Ah, i need to get to leverage their donations. So a lot of times you’ll have these donors that have been with an organization for many years. They want to make a big difference, and they want to make it a big impact with that. That donation and what happens is we can leverage that donation. So let’s say, ah, family is willing to give ten thousand dollars if they’re willing to be our lead gift. Usually what will happen is we’ll we build this big emotion, we build this big balloon we fill it with all this air, and when we asked for ten thousand dollars and then there’s a bid card that goes up in the air at that time, everyone in the room is like, wow, okay, we are doing this. We’re here to raise money, and then that momenta metoo continues to build and build and build. So there is theater involved in the cash call portion too, but we’re just we’re in a different emotional level. Yes, that’s absolutely right. Okay. Okay, now we just have about two minutes left. Bobby d you, like tio recommend pre swiping for for payment. Explain that. Okay, so priest wiping is, uh, uh can go along with the technology bidding platforms, there’s a lot of different companies out there that provide that. What that’s going to do is that’s going to create a ease of donation retention after the event? So where if you just do paper, you know, and people you hope people would check out? Ah, they’re going to be able to pre swipe their credit card beforehand, and then they’ll be emailed an invoice after the fact so they don’t have to wait, especially if they’d just given the cash call, they don’t have toe wait to check out. They could just enjoy their evening and then leave. But then if they don’t do, if the organization doesn’t do a priest’s wife, then they’re going to be chasing money. They’re going to be wasting a lot of time, you know, going after these donors that forgot to check out and then a lot of times it goes the other way instead of inspiring donorsearch of the donor’s become embarrassed that they that they forgot to check out and sometimes they’re like, well, i was in the heat of the moment and i gave and maybe that’s not as much as i wanted to give, and then it actually turns on the other way. You did. You’re not bringing donors in your turning them away, so i highly recommend a priest white but all the events, that idea just about a minute or so left. What is it that you love about this work, bobby? I i love using my talent and my passion to inspire more donors to give more than they ever thought was possible. I see myself as a cog in this wheel of fund-raising i mean, and in the congo, the wheel of changing the world and and if i can inspire a donor and excited a donor and in kate, engage an entire room to give mohr those dollars do equal change in people’s lives because the more money we can raise, the more lives we can change. So buy me applying the skill and the talent that i’ve been blessed with, i am able to directly affect so many in this world. Bobby de l’art, benefit auctioneer specialist, you’ll find him at call toe auction dot com thank you very much, bobby d, thank you so much, tony, for having me on my pleasure next week. Eight areas of non-profit excellence from the non-profit coordinating committee here in new york city. I was moved by an event i went to last year where they they rate charities based on eight very detailed and specific criteria, and we’re going to talk with thea, executive director of non-profit coordinating committee, and the and the woman who organizes this entire competition about what those eight areas of non-profit excellence are. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot. Com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff and sam lever, which is our line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez. Dot com and our music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. I took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for December 12, 2014: Auctions, Raffles And Cash Calls & Social Appreciation

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Yolanda Johnson, Tracey Drayer & Neill Bogan: Auctions, Raffles And Cash Calls

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Yolanda Johnson, Tracey Drayer & Neill Bogan at Fundraising Day 2014

When are these appropriate for your events? Do you need professional help? How do you create drama? And when do you get paid? Neill Bogan is director of development and communications at New York Common Pantry. Tracey Drayer is executive vice president for Nassau Region of Hadassah. And Yolanda Johnson is development manager at Princess Grace Foundation-USA.

 

 

 

 

 

Amy Sample Ward: Social Appreciation 

Picture of Amy Sample WardWe’ll look at social engagement for member appreciation or maybe your donor appreciation campaign that doesn’t include an ask. Amy Sample Ward is our social media contributor and CEO of NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.  

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Yeah. 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 geneva community radio welcome in upstate new york, they’re on the northern tip of seneca lake, one of the finger lakes in new york state. So glad to have geneva community radio as our newest affiliate welcome and i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of period in sign of itis if news leaked out that you missed today’s show auction’s, raffles and cash calls, when are these appropriate for your events? Do they need professional? Do you need professional help? How do you create drama? And when do you get paid from fund-raising day twenty fourteen, i was with neil bogan, tracy dreyer and yolanda johnson, and yes, my voice just cracked like i’m a fourteen year old. Also social appreciation well, look att social engagement for member appreciation or maybe your donor appreciation campaign that doesn’t include an ask amy sample ward is our social media contributor and ceo of n ten, the non-profit technology network between the guests on tony’s take two, no more rock star consultants. We’re sponsored by generosity, siri’s they host multi charity five k runs and walks here is my conversation on auction’s, raffles and cash calls from fund-raising day twenty fourteen earlier this year welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen. We are at the marriott marquis hotel. Thriving new york city times square with me now are neil bogan, tracy dreyer and yolanda did johnson there? Seminar topic is auctions and raffles and cash calls. Oh, my way. Talk about maximizing revenue at your events. Seated well, he’s, the only gentleman on the panel. So you know that he’s seated next to me is neil bogan is director, development and communications at new york common country. Then we have tracy dreyer. She is executive vice president at nasa region of casa. And then yolanda johnson, who is development manager for the princess grace foundation. Neil tracy. Yolanda. Welcome. Thank you very much. I was using i was a quarrel. Could be jingle singers. This is wonderful. Okay? We’re trying to maximize revenue at our events. Let’s, start in the foreign there. You’ll wonder what what are what do you feel that non-profits are not getting right at events that they could. Be could be better at well, i think that the particular area that i’m covering within our session is auctions silent and live auctions, and i think that what non-profits can probably do a little bit better is think more strategically regarding auctions and their audience do the analysis to know who’s going to be in the room and just tell you what you khun selling, how you can sell it. Um and i think as faras live auctions are concerned, really making the determination of what will work, you don’t always do a live auction, you know, when they fail, they fail publicly when they’re successful, they’re very successful public, so you’ll be able to talk us through how you know when you should do whether you should do one. Yes. Okay, okay. Tracy, what do you want to you’re part of of actions and raffles and cash calls all by my part is rapid, and the important point with rappels is that it should be considered an integral part of the entire event, not just in ad on at the end. So planning for the raffle, especially for a large ticket event, needs to begin at the same time planning for the event begins because gathering enough prizes tohave event, a raffle that looks interesting and exciting to bid on or to put in your tickets or buy more tickets, increase the number i think it’s you were planning to buy because the prizes look good is very important. Tio tio gather a lot of prizes and that can take a lot of time. Okay, neal, i presume cash calls is that your expertise exactly cash calls are a great way to provide the right kind of opportunities for your audience to give if you feel that the cash call is right for for who your audience is and what? What your organization which cultures? Okay, let’s, let’s stick with cash calls neil, what is akash call it makes everybody understand what we’re talking about. Cash schnoll is a variation of a live auction that depends on the skills on dh, maybe charisma of your auctioneer and the messaging of your organization. But rather than selling on object or an opportunity, you are offering opportunities to give what does this sound like? What is the person say kickoff akash call they’ll say thanks for being here to support. The new york common pantry, about which served forty five thousand new yorkers last year with almost three million meals and to start off five thousand dollars, will provide groceries for five families of four for an entire year. And now here she is saying this to the entire audience of the entire audio and go ahead. So now we know it’s it’s, almost always the culmination of a benefit or a dinner of another fund-raising sametz come in the end. So it’s been, everything has been prepared, everything you’ve done is leading up to this cash call on. In some ways, if you feel a casual is right for you, you’re home giving program your whole development program leads up to this moment because for some people it’s when when they want it, okay, but before we get to the context, i wantto make sure people understand what it is we’re talking about. So what are people now inspired to do? Five thousand dollars could do this. What people literally raised their hand if you’re doing it manually, let these days there are processes where you could do this almost entirely digitally, although a live auctioneer will usually still just worked with raising hand and you’re committing to five thousand dollars. You’re committing to five thousand dollars and someone will come to you immediately to confirm that in our case, we use simply a preprinted card. We have volunteers spotted around the room, just like spotted us at any auction. They come right away. Come on, get your information. Hopefully a check or a credit card number. Oh, really? Right then. This is not a pledge for within the next six weeks it can be, but the best way to cover it on our experiences. Treyz lorts credit card person is enthusiastic there. They made their public commitment and they’re ready. So so do we. Take them away from their table and no move to the side of your arse. Wipe with our swiper. No way with a hand held on a little square was swiping right there yet. Or even just write the number down on a on a traditional okay paper card. Okay, so and this comes more at the end of an evening. Yes. In our case, the messaging has built through a whole program. We have honorees. People have spoken about our organization. We capped. That with a short video that really tries to show the impact that we can have for people who need food support on show how we can make things better with these folks on dh provide some of the emotional contacts and then videos over the auctioneer steps out and begins against okay. Now, this cash call is one amount, or where we get a bunch of people with five thousand and then we’re not going up to ten thousand way we do it is we actually we start high and work down. Okay, come on. We always have abid arrange three positions. There’s no dollar amount that goes unanswered. That that’s right way. Find that if you get the top couple of prearranged lower winds will take care of themselves. Okay? Spirit is hitting a room and okay, where does the common pantry start? What dollar amount? We started at five thousand dollars. Okay. Believe one year back on your first started. Ten weii brought it. We brought it to you learning and other charities. The first cash call, maybe five hundred. I mean, i’m standing on the side of charity that wear with all of your donors. We i think all three of you say you need to know whether it’s, whether each of these is appropriate in your organization, not only weather, but how five thousand starting in five thousand, somebody else might start in one thousand, right? That’s right where they might decide that this is not really not the way that they’re okay. And why might that be? Why my cash now? The zoho pure listen, because these are all good questions for you, too. How do we know when whether, how to? Forty martignetti non-profit radio details so people can execute or or follow-up with you and just fill in a couple of missing gaps that maybe we didn’t think of together? I would say in our case our board and benefit committee are very attuned to who there who their audiences to who our community of supporters is way have some provisions and really, you know, people ask people, would you do? Akash called, i believe before the first time we ever did it, we got a positive response, okay? It worked on we’ve been able to build on okay, so if you can preposition some people at the right dollar amount, maybe it’s worth doing that that’s, right? If and of course it does depend on in general, let e-giving level on the capability of your audience on your supporters. There may be a different type of event that it isn’t the right tone for their questions of tone and taste, but it we are event is i’m not too formal, it’s it’s, really, you know, trying to be aboutthe impact. The organization has so it’s, all right, it’s, the right tone for us, okay, alright, neil, what will come back your work, by the way, you’re welcome, teo, contribute to him, and i didn’t mean to actually dahna silo you, yolanda, if you had come on time, monisha you want camera, so he you’re probably better off because you were going to the hot seat. You’re going. I was gonna position you here. I’m glad i came down for coffee and realized that was early. You got stuck, right? Okay, so you want to go? You want teo, think about staying closer to you. I didn’t want to add one thing about courage calls. And that is, we had a very successful one that the end of our awards gala last year thinking very strategically towards a big, even if you have something different that’s coming up. Our gala is usually in new york city. It’s going to be in beverly hills this year. And so we said, we’re going to beverly hills, who wants to buy the first ground level table of fifty thousand dollars? And we got a taker. And he said he wants to buy a silver table. A twenty five thousand dollars. And we sold eight in about five minutes. So when you have something exciting and new and different, i think that’s also a great opportunity for cash. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. You you don’t mind, tracy. We’re not a couple. We’re definitely will definitely get to the auction’s. Short shrift, the auction’s around. Sorry, we’re doing auction. I’m sorry. Go ahead, yolanda. You’re the first person who said you have to decide whether it makes sense to have an auction. How do you know? Well, i think that you have tio determine who’s going to be in the room. So the affluence e of the people there the intro it’s of the people there in accordance with what all items you have to offer. I have done in death analyses of our donors and what they like and those of the items that i go after. And then i know that i can sell them when those people are in the room. There’s no use in having things that are random for your demographic. So are people love travel. They love beauty treatments. You know, in certain things there’s certain things that they like. They like like that, they like to dine out. And they also like things that are mission centric, so unique opportunities with our artists. We support emerging artists in theater, dance and film at that emerging staged toe where? You know tony kushner wanted princess grace award in eighty four and look at what he did. So they love those unique experiences to be around the artists. So you need to know your no your constituents. You need to know your constituents getting to know you need to do an analysis of how much they have paid in the past. What you really think they will pay? This’s a very calculated things were just going out soliciting a villa here, or or i don’t know a car rental their you know, whatever you can get is not being particularly teacher. I don’t think so. Now there are times when you can get things. Because i also believe in packaging. You know, you have one thing that maybe, quote unquote random for your for your audience that you take something else that goes along with it that they love. And that creates a package that will still want to buy that. Do you do this on auction? Just once a year at a major gala? No, we do auctions just about every event. Okay, always with a professional auctioneer. Only with an auctioneer. If it’s a live auction. So we only do a live auction when it when we have items that are live, auction worthy, okay and what’s the other type of auction, silent auctions and online options. Okay, so silent auctions that’s where people are dropping their little tickets into no, no silent auctions where you walk up, you know, like we’d be in this room and then you have the bed sheets on the table and you have something displayed there showing you what auction the auction item is and you sign up for it. People competing, they wait around the aino labbate each other what they do, they stand around looking to see who signed up after they really will do that. Ok, ok. That’s. A silent auction? Yes. And then the online version online version, which really is very interesting, because then you have a global audience. You know, my organization, it’s, the princess grace foundation yusa. But we also have constituents in europe, so that gives them an opportunity to participate. So let’s say a little more about the live auction. Now, you said not always with an auctioneer. Oh, yes, always within our woobox naralo okay. What’s the value that the live auctioneer brings over having someone from the organization do it let’s make this clear. I’ve done it both ways. I would say that if you have someone who’s, extremely charismatic and has the experience to do it and has the report within the organization go for it, have a boardmember someone like that who’s, very charismatic, you’re live auctioneer weinger but for the most part, i would recommend having a professional auctioneer, we tend to use people from the professional auction houses who and, you know, it depends on the audience that evening. Sometimes you want someone old guard and then other times you want someone who is a little more hip. We’ve used people from paddle eight, you know, very, very hip and young, and we’ve used people from christie’s and sotheby’s, so it really runs the gamut according to what you have. Ok, i assume battle it is an auction house, it is three i’ve not heard of. Okay, well, enlighten us something else about auctions that we haven’t mentioned yet about so let’s focus on so we can start with why and a little bit about how but what else? What? Else would you like to share? You’re going? I think i would like to share that non-profits should be very weii already talked about strategy, but they should be careful in protecting themselves as faras auctions are concerned. Sometimes people don’t think all the way through, you know, the paperwork of an auction i arrest standards, you know, making sure that you have back-up for values, making sure that you have actual donation forms or emails and type of paper trail on file because things can come up later, you know that you want to make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row. What happens after someone wins an item? The auctioneer is given the item to that person what’s the next next step where they just a runner come the way neil was describing come over to them or yes, we have. I like to build drama with my live auctions, so sure. Oh, look at this she’s lighting up your life. You’ve been lighting up since you got here. Really? But now even more. Yes, sir. Share the drama in the live auction. So one two things you khun dio i’m giving away secrets here, so there you go, everybody. But you always have to have a person in the house who’s going to buy the item, okay? And then you can have someone else is going to try to outbid them just to keep the drama go. Both of those predetermined? Yeah, you figured out this’s always a lot of behind the way you need to show you the show. So i’ve got i’ve had one person in the audience once before, and we knew that he was going to bid up to one hundred thousand dollars for this item. You had explicitly asked him to do this. And we told him you can stop there because after their, you know, you’re gonna have to buy it. Okay, thie other person was we had someone on the phone who we knew wanted it very badly. So we knew strategically we could get that person to go to one hundred grand. They kept outbidding each other. It got the excitement. People were yelling in the room. Everybody was looking around and then the person on the phone one. But we’ve got to up the ante because we have the other person in the room who was going toe to keep it going. Now that khun go rogue. I’m not a person who did not have the money did she kept going and it was just like, wait because it’s out of your control that that happens. But it all turned out. All all ended. Well, she got a little too busy as well, but okay, but it ended. It ended. Fine. Yeah. On dh then the other thing that you can do to build that sort of drama and the room is to ask ahead of time if your top item can be donated twice and then it winds, you know, someone bids on it and they win it and you’re like, oh, my god, the auctioneer says this is such an amazing item and it went once oh, my gosh! Wait. What’s this okay, they’re coming over to meet. They’re going to give it again. We’re going to have tuesdays at their bill and you know, and so then people go insane and you sell two. Outstanding. Alright, so there’s. A lot of choreography. Yes. Goes into these indeed in advance. Okay. Excellent. All right, tracy. Well, can i first make a comment about you? And you may not know, but there’s a booth over there on the other side of this room where they do silent auctions on your phone so you pay them for the service, and instead of going to the traditional clipboard and writing down, you know, how much of it is you put it on you pick the ones you wanna bid on, and then if you’re outbid, they send you a message so you can keep bidding, so because more game on your phone, you can still work the room. You don’t stand next to your item, you could be having a drink with your friends on the other side room and not i forgot to go back that you will run over, right? Everybody runs over to check out what’s going on in something, make sure you’re still okay. Even got the apples don’t want to see you. I want a visual visual confirmation, ok? Yes. So, tracy, with raffles. How do we know whether we should be doing a raffle at an event? You should be doing a raffle event no matter the level of the event you could, of course, charge less for tickets if it’s. A smaller event. So add a basic meeting. We may hold a raffle and the tickets would be one for five three for ten, seven. Twenty oh, and you just got you know if you don’t have items. If you haven’t got them donated, you might just go out and buy some some nice items and people have lower expectations for the price. But at our larger event of the year, we will charge raffles at five for one hundred three, three and one grand prize for one hundred euro hyre level. So of course they anticipate that the prizes will be of more substantial value. So as i said, the raffle work begins as you start planning the event so it’s really two phases. First you have to collect the prizes so you have to go out and use all your contacts. And in a given community they could have an endless number of organizations coming to them appealing for a prize. So you have to do something to differentiate yourself or you have to have contact at a at the store. It’s best to send in a good shopper to be the one to ask for a raffle. Prize to be given, yolanda is nodding shops shopping skills are important here. Yes, indeed on. And also now, if you go to a store that’s part of a chain oftentimes it’s not that store that you walk into that can give the price, i have to go back to corporate headquarters. So then you need the manager or someone in the store to be your advocate and actually write a letter to headquarters and say, this organization deserved the price. So it’s really quite time consuming, and you want to gather prizes, and sometimes even if i’m the letter to the potential donors, it says we won a prize value of one hundred fifty or two hundred fifty dollars, they give you something that doesn’t achieve that level. So you might want to put together a basket of smaller items so that it looks more substantial. So so that’s your pre event work of really collecting the raffles and wrapping them in a beautiful way, right? Because we’re displaying these at the meeting or the event, right, everything is on is on display. So you want the look of it to be something that stimulates the purchase of the ticket so as soon as the person now now we’re at the event, and as soon as the person walks in and gets to the registration table and comes to get their names head, they’re asked if they want to purchase raffles so and what we often do at a fancier event is in the envelope with their registration ticket. We print out their names on stickers, sort of like the ones you receive from the post to put on return address, but just their name so it’s a little fancy or looking at everyone elearning princessa xero princessa reprinted we know who’s coming so we know who’s coming in an envelope, they may not use them, but we’ll give them say, twenty stickers will be very optimistic on when they go in there. They’re just fixing them to the raffle ticket instead of, you know, student with pen and leaning up. So that sets the tone of the event also it’s a little fancy. I have to interrupt nufer secretary what about something that doesn’t look so sexy? Like its a rental of villa or something but person’s giving you like a certificate? So, you know, and you all you have is an envelope. Well, this one wouldn’t go into a lovely gift bag or it can be put in cellophane and wrapped with ribbon, or or something like that. It doesn’t have to be the item it and as long as there’s a description and and at a table of, say, thirty five raffles, you could also have a list of all the raffles, and it explains what his item one is this too and so forth so the people can choose so there are a couple different types of right? Well, there are many different types of apples, but the two main that we use is as you put your name on the ticket, you can put it in a large receptacle and then i don’t want pull the first ticket item person number one gets it and so thie other way is to wrap each item’s. Watch the watch, the infrastructure here you almost made like an earthquake. What your elbow there knowing my own strength very fragile. Option two is to display each item wrapped beautifully and put a identify which number it is and have a separate receptacle in front of each item, so then the person could take their tickets, and if they like item number two best, they can put all the tickets. Is that preferred? Because then people know what they’re bidding on versus beavers of being random. It depends. It really depends. So i would think that my personal business that that i would prefer that because i don’t want to put in for i don’t want to win a raffle that’s, you know, sixty miles away from my house for nothing, but i have a friend at a recent event. We switch to that method, which we haven’t done it at our particular event, and she happens to buy a lot of raffle tickets and typically, she wins this year she did not win, and she was a little frustrated because when you put in the big one, big pot and you, you know, ten percent of the pot, right, you’re probably gonna be picked, but in a little receptacle, if you spill it, split your stuff out so she personally felt it wasn’t good, but most people really enjoyed it, and our gift wrapper takes great pride and how beautifully she wraps, and that adds to the whole. Piece and then you can spend more time. So if your cocktail hours truly an hour and you know how much can you drink or eat there, you walk around with your friend to discuss the items. Where should i put my peace on that? And also instead of just selling raffles at the front door, you also have someone selling raffles right at that table. Because if someone sees something that they really want to win, they might buy more raffles and increase their odds of winning are putting more into that individual. Recep, buy more right there at the table, right. Ok, so there are many other types with those of the two main that i’m familiar weapon and i would say, and then there’s also grant prize raffle. So sometimes you have a few raffle items, prize items that are well above the other level. So you call that a grand price so you might sell grand prize tickets for two for one hundred or as i said before, one hundred dollars each of three regular and one grant so that’s a separate drawing. So what we have started to do is when you have thirty five. Prizes to draw if you’d spend online time with your audience just drawing name after name, it wastes a lot of time so weii draw the prizes outside the room and then we deliver them. We run around the room delivering them to people so it’s very exciting drama people coming so, like last year was delivering a big item. I walk over to the table and everyone’s looking at, you know, oh, who’s the winner when we hand it to the person gets very exciting like that. But then the grand prize, you always drop publicly because that builds up a little excitement there, okay? Anything anybody wants to add either if you want to add on the raffle side, you still have a couple of minutes together. Did you want to just speak to? I’m big on the back and this year about the paperwork involved in different things with apple? Thank you. Yes, you should before raffles or anything as i’m sure you need to check with the gaming local gave the new york state gaming commission and see what then kind of you need a permit, then from your local municipality as well? Non-profits don’t always do so? They definitely don’t always do it. But it’s, they should be doing that’s between you and your accountant. Nobody listens to this show anyway don’t work, but that will never be heard. That’s really? I mean, even at a p t a level we had to do that we had to go for the gaming license and the minister, and then there’s also tax regulation depending on the value of the prize. And then there’s also an affidavit that you can have someone signed a waiver for the organization that you know what the price falls apart afterwards. You don’t them coming back after the organization so they can sign a waiver as they receive the prize. And that protects you your london you had mentioned earlier to the you didn’t say the qualified appraisal, but that’s what you meant the mixture you have documentation for the value of the prize for the value of the prize and just from our own experiences, i’ve developed several it’s, not a paperwork burden, but we’re very well protected from both perspectives from if you give us something, it becomes our property is not something you can never get back once. You donated to us and it may or may not be. It’ll be used at that event if it doesn’t sell it, that even we’ll try it at a different even. But you cannot have it back. Excellent. Good to know that policy. Yeah, wanna implement it way took a lot of time to get it to solicit it. It’s ours is ours. And if it doesn’t go this time, we’re gonna we’re gonna hold it right. Always keeping a good relationship with that donor. But being up front that we really believe in our partnership and we want to take this item we know will sell it to somebody if it doesn’t happen at this. Okay, i think you had mentioned that sometimes your donor’s tried to set the level that you should be able to get for it, like they say, the minimum bid. But we like to avoid that. You know, i’m just saying, oh, yeah, i know you said you had an item one, so i still have it. Don’t let donors minimum it’s actually their prerogative to do so? I mean, they’re giving it to you, but if you can at all avoid it, try to because some places everyone, you know, if you’re giving something of your own and you’re going to set a high value, its worth a lot to you, but it may not sell in the room, you know? We know what will sell their different inflections with different items and better as a bargain, then as a top in-kind anything, neil, i’ll give you the last words way hadn’t heard from you for a while. Well, there’s follow-up for about thirty seconds, ok, obviously taking too long, you’ve got be secure. You gotta know, let each of your donations or pledges is that you’ve got documentation for each one or the actual payment you’ve got tio secure them in a fairly hectic environment. Then get back to your shop and record them and acknowledge them right away. Just like any other donation. Okay, treyz e-giving last word. Okay, one last thing neil had mentioned before that you take credit card numbers, you take credit cards and sometimes you scan and sometimes you just write it down way had an incident with someone about two hundred dollars worth of raffle prizes on. We didn’t scan at that point, we just wrote down the numbers, went back to the office, he just they didn’t win. They disputed the charges for seeing the raffles and we lost out thatwe had we had our terror, even the even the old fashioned hoops. Swiper, even your fashions white, the old sorry that you ever really went over the side. But that’s something. We’re now very cautious because of this one incident. I feel bad you longer you want to. You want to wrap up anything you want, teo? No, just thank you so much for having us. Opportunity. You’re welcome. Thank you for your mentor. I you know, i was just i don’t want it. Thank you very much. That is neil bogan and tracy dreyer. And you latto johnson. Thank you so much. Thank you, tony. My pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen let’s do podcast pleasantries sending these out. Especially too. Katie reed levin she’s listening at simon’s rock the early college in great barrington, massachusetts, also christine to marco. I know her on twitter, big listener and fan of the show from mother’s seat in regional high school, and christina licata, literacy partners in new york city. Christina podcast pleasantries to you as well, those all women and another organization that listens. Cancer center for kids in mineola. I hope they have men. Are there any men at the cancer center for kids in mineola? Podcast pleasantries to those folks and everybody listening in the time shift. If you tell me you’re listening, i’ll shout you out, too, and we got live listener love, that’s coming up. Next is amy sample ward, but first, a little mention of generosity siri’s they host five runs and walks five k event, perhaps fits into your twenty fifteen fund-raising and engagement plan, then may i suggest you talk to david linn he’s, the ceo of generosity siri’s? If events coming up in new jersey and miami, florida, please tell him you’re from non-profit radio seven one eight five o six nine triple seven or generosity siri’s dot com this week’s video why we need consultants toe work and not be rock stars i’m finding fewer consultants who will actually talk to and work with small and midsize non-profits there there are on ly availability seems to be on stage or through a webinar on, and there are lots of organizations that will in fact pay for help doing the work actually doing it, not just telling the organization how to do it. A bunch of them are my clients, so i know they’re out there. The video got a lot of comments at tony martignetti dot com and also on facebook turns out to be a little provocative. I’m very interested in what you think about it. I do answer. Every comment that is tony’s take two for friday, twelfth of december forty eighth show of the year. I’m going to do some live listener love. St louis, missouri, honolulu, hawaii, new bern, north carolina live, listener love, las cruces, new mexico, fort lee, new jersey. Right across the river, fort lee, great neck, new york. I have a doctor in great neck. Which ones? That’s thea, the gastroenterologist. Yes, i know, i know one of those guys in great neck. Also. Georgia, cartersville, georgia, live listener, love all those locations. In japan, we got tokyo and matsuyama. Oh, my goodness, japan always appreciate you checking in konnichi juana and seoul, south korea buy-in yo haserot we got amy sample ward, i’ll have monitored for being late, but nonetheless she’s, the ceo of non-profit technology network and ten her most recent collected book, social change, anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement and we’re going to be talking about appreciation and engagement. She blog’s at amy sample, war dot or ge? And on twitter she’s at amy r s ward anywhere. How you been? Yeah, well, you may have heard the west coast had a bit of a storm last night with lots of power outages, so just dealing with getting everything back online. Sorry, that’s okay? I did not hear that i’m sorry that you had was this you don’t get snow, they’re important in oregon very much it was not. No, it was actually very warm and, um, you know, wind gusts seventy or ninety, some crazy high speed, actually a piece of building downtown just a few blocks from the intent office blew off and crashed through the fifteenth floor windows of a law office while the lawyer was working there? Oh, no. It was a very interesting evening. Pieces of a piece of a building flew off. My god, yeah, i’m doing unfortunate. Very unfortunate for that building owner that it flew into a law office right there. Prepared thing, actually, that only you know, that broken building is screwed. Okay, now i understand you’re you’re you know you’re like, like all the contributors, your typically early, not even just on time. So i understand completely. Let me ask you about something before we get to our appreciation campaigns and it’s. Just like in the past four months, i noticed at facebook they spun off their messenger handup and at four square they spun off. They’re a nap called swarm, and i’m wondering why why it is that thesis you two huge social sites would spin off two separate aps big chunks of what draws people to them. The facebook it’s, the messages message sorry messaging and it’s a four square the whole purpose of four square is checking in and they spun that checking function off teo a separate app called swarm why do they do those things? I have a few different ideas. Probably none of them have any, you know, piece of reality in them, they’re just totally my own experience trust your way, trust your judgment. I mean, i do think that one piece that factors in is the, you know, we’re all we’re using different apse all the time, and if i am using facebook to connect and i’m able to kind of, um, multitask inside of their consent messages, i can post things, whatever, and then i leave facebook and i go to some other messaging out to talk to friends. You know, facebook just had fifty percent of my time, but if i’m using facebook to do that, i close facebook and then i opened my messenger app and start messaging people there. Now facebook has one hundred percent of my time in that example, you know, so it’s providing a way for the app to be is nishi and focused as possible, but then still own the other nation focused parts that you know you want to do. So instead of having that all in one super multitask kind of ap experience, you’re splitting that off into ap, and part of that, too, is that you know, facebook is more of an example of this than four, square, but a lot of facebook users in the beginning were all using facebook on their computer where was a lot easier to kind of multitask. Have a chat, you know, send someone a message post on your news feed. Never. Well, now, you know, most people are using facebook on their phone, so it’s it’s much more difficulty to be multitasking inside of a nap. So again, you have multiple app that are all technically rolling up into the same umbrella. So it’s easier from the user’s perspective, i don’t have to import all those new contacts in new app still facebook, but it’s focused on what i’m doing there, okay, that one thing, and then you always have to factor in like, well, how are they? How are they monetizing those ap? What of the ads? What are they selling? What’s the data they’re able to capture? And if you have multiple app that are more focused and maybe have different different data pieces that air getting pulled in than that even more opportunity, i see. Okay? And that the one thing that doesn’t resonate with me eyes the ease of use of the ap facebook act it’s. A little it’s. A little busy. So i could say i see that spinning. Okay, see, that is a good reason, but okay, monetization. Tio, andi. Just time, time, time that they want you paying attention to their they’re brand okay, yeah. I mean, if you want to think about the four square example, i mean, when we first started using foursquare, it was you could check in somewhere. I am here. You know, you could see where your friends were, and then they really started in encouraging users to leave tips and post recommendations. And then they rolled out some features that were trying to see where you were and then ping you and say, hey, is this where you are? What if you do this thing here, you know, and have offers and promotions? So it became came. It became a little busy, right? So it made sense to spin off that other piece that’s more the recommendations and the where to go and where your favorite places. Because now that’s almost like competing with yelp. You know what? Give them a second app that’s more in competition with maybe at those shooters are already, you know, have installed on their phones on buy-in system apart a bit from that. Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you for those insights. I find myself actually checking in a lot fewer a lot less often. Now with the separate swarm app. That’s that’s me. I don’t know. I have no idea what the statistics are, but i just, you know, i don’t feel like i haven’t even used it since that which happened interesting. I mean, i had a very boring foursquare news feed in which i only checked in an airport, so i didn’t only used to only see you at airports that’s, right? I just thought you were just there all the time. Okay? Yes. Well, it was a way of saying, hi, i’ve come to new york, was around or i’ve come tto wherever, but all right, thank you. Let’s talk about appreciating our donors and maybe and volunteers and maybe even employees through through the social networks. We don’t always have to be asking for something, right? I don’t think that we have to be asking for something. And i also think that really great. Ah, really great. Thank you. A really great sign of appreciation will be met with eagerness to give again or to volunteer again or two, you know, come again, wherever it was that you were an event, etcetera. So i think, you know, i have worked with people and organizations where it felt like if we’re not including an ask, you know, we can’t necessarily devote the staff time and energy to put on appeal together on dh, you know, i get that if you’re really strapped, there’s only three of us, you know, we have to make this happen, but i really think that taking that time t just say thank you really goes so much further in building that relationship, which we want to talk about fund-raising a special, especially individual fund-raising that’s really that’s really the peace, right, it’s building that relationship? No, i don’t know that you could sure maybe you don’t mail, but something outside of the hard cost of mail and all those thank you letters, you know, but i think there’s got to be a way, especially with social media, where it can be so much more quick and nimble to say thank you and make it feel. Really good. So maybe for twenty fifteen, we can plan an appreciation campaign. Yeah, let’s do it. Okay. And you have a bunch of examples. We’ll get to talk about some of the examples. Okay, but what? You know, this is true of probably any campaign that were we’ve talked about in the past, but what do you think we should be thinking about as we plan our let’s make it what is most likely a donor volunteer appreciation campaign. What should we what do we have in mind? So one thing that i think we need to have in mind is the timing of when we say thank you. I think often we always think, okay, well, we’re going to ask people for money. It’s december. Right now, you know, say, everybody’s got their end of your appeals, and then when someone donates and it goes into the database, they get their confirmation email and it says, thank you, and we made sure that it was a really nice thank you letter, but it’s a confirmation email and it says thank you, and we feel great because they got thanked. I also think there’s a lot of opportunity to have said thank you before that ask went out if we if it’s december it’s the end of the calendar year, right, what if november or even that very beginning of december is when you make sure everybody that already donated, donated in the year or maybe donated last december or volunteered so far this year came to one of your events this year? Whatever it is, that’s important to you is a monthly member, whatever they get thanked for what they’ve already done. So when they received that end of year asked, they feel like, oh, i’ve already been recognized, maybe i do want to give a little bit more or maybe i do want to come to the end of your, you know, gala, whatever it is, i think that that’s really important and some thing i don’t often see organizations do say thank you. First on dh then that people up for that ask later. Yeah, you get them feeling very good when the actors come that’s really interesting. All right, we’re gonna go out for ah, quick break and we may end up dividing this into two to conversation since we got a little short and i you know, i had extra question for you, but we’ll get through. Well, well, well, great, certainly nobody’s going to be short changed on non-profit radio. It just is not gonna happen. Okay, all right, we got to go away for a few minutes, stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m rob mitchell, ceo of atlas, of giving. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I like the drama in rob mitchell’s voice. Thank you, rob mitchell s amore live listen love quick woodbridge in new jersey i love all the new jersey red fort lee woodbridge let’s go abroad croatia sorry, we can’t see your city i have a friend who works for unicef in croatia, ireland, turkey and vietnam. Vietnam we can see you cities kanto and hoochie minh city live listen, love out to each of you. Okay, let let’s continue thinking about are, uh, a campaign of appreciation. Uh, something that we’re always emphasizing together because you make me pay attention to it is you’re going to have to do this in the channels where your donors and volunteers are not in the channel where you would prefer to be thanking them exactly. And i think i think part of that is, um, uh, struggle and an opportunity so there’s the, you know, if we see just using that as an example, if we see people are tweeting about their local tech club and they’re an organizer, so they’re, you know, big volunteer for us, we want to jump right into twitter and start engaging with them and thanking them, and pointing people to them and, you know, doing whatever, but then we also want to find ways there. We leave that channel to make something private just for them, i think there’s that thank you and recognition that’s public. But for example, last week, everybody on staff sat together and just passed cards and everybody wrote thank you cards and signed everybody else’s thank you cards and mailed those out to aa group of, um what we call community champions, you know, really, really great volunteers for us. And it didn’t take that long, but everybody physically wrote, you know, out that card and we never mail things too. You know, we don’t ever male things were a technology organization. So when those folks received the cars at the end of last week, we started getting emails are like, oh, my gosh, you mean, how did you even have my address? You mailed me a card. This is so cool. Thank you for thinking of me. So i think there is that in the moment go into the same channel. That person is and thank them and engage with them. But then find something that can be special. That’s just between you and that donor or that volunteer or whatever that makes them feel extra special, excellent, excellent videos are very common as as an appreciation method, you could do them and mass, and you could do them, maybe even individually who, which i think i think what most difficulty when we think about video is one of the most often pointed two examples of how to do a thank you to your donors that i see in block post every year is charity water and how they, you know, record all these different videos so that, you know, if i donated, i opened up my email oh, my gosh, here’s a video where someone is saying, you know, hi, amy, thank you for donating, and i’m like, oh my gosh, they made this just for me, we, you know, most non-profits do not have the staff capacity to do that, or if we’re going to be really honest, maybe don’t necessarily feel like they have the technical skills to create lots of videos and edit them and feel like they know howto get them up quickly on youtube and embed them in an e mail and send them out. You know, so i think that video khun b, really personal, but i really think organizations should consider video something that can be personal because they’re being really authentic and they’re being their individual selves versus you’ve created separate videos for every single donor that makes sense. I mean, i think it’s a non opportunity for staff, whether it’s executive director, other staff to just not feel like it has to be a high production video that it’s really just me sitting at my desk, if you, you know, you sitting in the studio creating a quick, very authentic video that says thank you, and you can share that either an email or, you know, share that video on twitter, whatever that is, but i think it’s better that it that it’s really authentic as it’s created versus feeling obligated to create, you know, tons of videos just so that it has people’s names in it that makes them for sure, because you’re saying that something that’s, authentic, genuine, heartfelt will will come across and people are people don’t really expect to have a personalized video made for organization that could do that, you know, that is terrific, but the vast majority cannot, but everybody could be genuine, you know? I mean, i tried to come across genuine on a mic and video, and a ceo can do the same thing, and and you’re right, and staff to you, you have examples of each of those thie all right, the ceo of girls inc has a very nice, very thoughtful video judy reading berg and it’s just her sitting in an office and it’s like a minute nap video and she’s very genuine. Yeah, i actually i’ve talked do a lot of people at, you know, at our conference or other conferences where, you know, they say i’m the executive director, you know, i know that if i’m going to be in a video, of course it needs to be, you know, like in a nice setting or, you know, we don’t have a very pretty building, you know? We don’t have, you know, our offices and very nice i don’t know where that comes from that feeling that you know, you’re the executive director and you’re going to create a video for the organisation, it has to be in some, like, beautiful, you know, sound studio, i love it. When it’s literally your desk, like i would if i was working with girls. And judy has her video, i would say put more messiness on that desk, mate. Make it literally your desk, you know, people, maybe she’s, super neat and tidy, which i also am. I have currently two things on my desk, but but maybe that’s really her desk, but just have it be an invitation to come in and sit down with you. You know, i think that’s, um, that’s a really great and super easy way for any organization. Tohave a video feel like it’s being personal, you know, you’re just inviting them into the space. Of course, if it’s on office, where you’ve got all kinds of things in there, that could be a video. I mean, of course, there’s going to be, you know, exceptions to that statement. But i do think just invite them into your office have, you know, make it feel like someone sitting down with you have someone literally in the video sitting down with you, whatever you can do to just make it feel like you’ve been brought in, you know, personally now we just have about a minute left there’s an example of a different one from nature conservancy, which is a whole bunch of staff from all over the world, and a lot of it starts with them each saying thanks to you and then whatever it is their job is and how, how the donors all support their work, whether it’s underwater ah, you know, forest and grassland that’s a lovely one, too, thanks to you, yeah, i love that example video from the nature while we can, we’ll send out the these links and everything for listeners on dh i love that they use is an opportunity to highlight what staff do because with an organization like nature conservancy, often times you don’t even know. I mean, i want to support the nature conservancy, but i don’t know i’m supporting them because i don’t even know how to do that work. I don’t even know what you would do, you know? And so i think, it’s a great way to highlight this is actually what our organization does. These were the kind of staff that we employed to do this important work, because, again, if you’re goingto follow-up later with another ask donation request. People now have that understanding of oh, my gosh, yeah, you do need more funds because this is the scale of the work. These are the kinds of people that you no need to be on the ground doing this, and i want to support that. We have to leave it. There kayman sample ward ceo of inten you’ll find her at amy, sample ward, dot or ge and also at amy rs ward on twitter. Thanks very much, amy. Yeah. Thanks for letting me talk about appreciation. I appreciate you so much. Tony. Oh, amy. Oh, my god. That’s incredible. Thank you. I’m grateful. I’m so grateful that you contribute month after month. Thank you. Uh, i’m a little teary next week. Next week is peter shankman. Thank you. Next week is peter shankman. He’s got a new book called zombie loyalists because he wants you to create an army of rabid fans through great customer service that you missed any part of today’s show it’s on tony martignetti dot com. Keep generosity. Siri’s in mind, please. General city serious dot com. Our creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff sam liebowitz does a line production. Social media. Julia campbell remote. Producer john federico. Music. Scott stein with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out there and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful posts here’s aria finger, ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. I took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe. Add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell, you put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five per se.

Nonprofit Radio for April 15, 2011: All About Awesome Auctions and SAASy

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

All About Awesome Auctions: Roger Devine of SchoolAuction.net tells us all about online, silent and gala auctions.

  • How much staff time and expertise are required?
  • Which kind of auction makes the most money?
  • Do you know what a paddle raise is?


I’d love to get your feedback on these questions before Friday’s show:

  1. Have you done auctions?
  2. What worked or didn’t?
  3. Was it what you expected?
  4. Did you make your goal?

You can answer in the comments or on Facebook at this link. Thanks!

If you listen, your next auction won’t be a spanking.

SAASy:
Software as a Service (SaaS) is gaining popularity among nonprofits.

Our regular tech contributor and editor of Nonprofit Technology News, Scott Koegler, explains the money-saving trend and whether your office should be part of it.

 
Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

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Here is a link to the podcast: 037: All About Awesome Auctions and SAASy.
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Durney hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We’ll give a little shout tio, my predecessor, the larry bloom who hosts the divorce our right before my show. He had a big announcement today that he’s been waiting to make for some time. And that is that he’s changing the name of his show to the divorced our because his is finally final, his his his divorce is done, and he announced that today and that a little play on his show title is not my idea. That came from our producer, sam call it the divorce tower. So congratulations to larry bloom. Very nice of him to give me a little shout on this show leading up to my show, although he said that i’m felix unger and he’s oscar madison so dahna i probably own more like felix and than he is, but i don’t really like being felix, so but we love larry bloom on back to tony martignetti non-profit radio may recall let last week we helped you excel in email execution because i had dave pulis and he’s, the principal of granite partners as my guest and he shared elements of effective email marketing and gave tips for developing your list if you don’t have one and for keeping your list clean and hygienic and also had claire meyerhoff, the editorial director of the plant e-giving company, reveal how to write for email fund-raising so that your messages get opened rid and responded to this week, we’re all about awesome auctions and sassiness roger divine of schoolauction dot net is going to tell us about online silent gala auctions, how much staff time and expertise are required. Which kind of auction makes the most sense for you, which kind of makes the most money all about awesome auctions and then software as a service sass is gaining popularity among non-profits a regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, scott keller, is going to explain the money saving trend and whether your office should be a part of it on tony’s take two in between my two guests it’s going to be philanthropy one hundred years ago, little look back to rockefeller, carnegie harriman and their friends and that’s it roughly thirty two minutes into the hour on tony’s. Take two. After this break, i’ll be joined by roger divine, and we’re going to be all about awesome auctions. Stay with me, co-branding, think tooting, getting dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. Nothing. You could. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Whillans are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. 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 hello and welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m very pleased to introduce now roger divine, who is a founding partner in northwood llc, the developer of tofino auctions and schoolauction dot net management. Those are auction management software products, and he has chaired multiple fund-raising auctions for schools and groups in portland, oregon, and has an email newsletter on that subject i’m very pleased to welcome roger divine to the show. Roger, welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you thank you for joining me from from portland. Yeah, wonderful s so we’re all about awesome auctions. Why don’t we start with what the different types of auctions are? Okay, well, we before we do that let’s, give an overview of what an auction can be, and then we’ll talk about the different pieces of it. But i attended often a variation on most often it’s, a variation on the traditional gala fund-raising dinner, and it is a, oh, an event where you bring people to the to the venue and you serve them some appetizers or dinner and you include one arm or activities in the event designed to incent gas to make donations by spending money all right, guys. That’s, right? And the key thing that unites all of the the events that you can have within your gala fund-raising auction and that makes the whole thing work is a fundraiser is that these auctions tend to be, as with many gala fund-raising events of philanthropy, a spectator sport, you’ve got you’ve got an event that follows the eighty twenty rule pretty pretty. Seriously, you’re going to raise about eighty percent your money from twenty percent of your gas. But you need the other eighty percent of the guests there because they provide the applause and the public accolades that that spur that twenty percent of the guests onto hyre bidding. Okay, but so now this is the live auction. This is the live auction, right? Well, this is this is this is several of the components that happened within it. And let’s, go ahead and dive into what those components are. You know, you’ve mentioned a live auction, that’s that’s the easiest one for your guests who may not be familiar with the with the idea of the auction. Probably easiest one for them to visual. Yeah. That’s. Right. That’s where people most think of people. Mostly think of when they think of an auction, but there are other types, but there are that’s, the common one, and most often you want to include a combination of them the live auction has on auctioneer who stands up on stage. You’ve got some fairly high value items you try to and send some competitive bidding in the moment people raising up there big paddle, thie other most common type of of activity you’ll have at a gala fundraiser gala fund-raising auction is a silent auction falik auctions have typically items that air of slightly lower value than the items you auctioned off in a live auction, and you put them out on tables or you put out displays to represent them on tables and have been cheap in front of them that allow your guests too, write down their name and bid number during a specified period of time. Silent auctions will have a closing time when the bidding is closed on those items, clerks going pick up the sheets so that nobody can cheat on right there big number down after the closing time, and then the item is awarded to the high bidder on as recorded on the bedsheet ok falik options are buy-in are very popular and they have a couple of advantages over the live auction you khun do them with slightly lower value items. They don’t have to be quite as sexy quite as exciting a cz the items that you wantto put up on stage, you can also execute a silent auction with, uh a lower cost in that you don’t have to hire an auctioneer to sell them. Andi, let me take a moment to talk about that. I mean you generally some organizations feel like they don’t have to hire an auctioneer even if they do hold the live auction eyes. Is the auctioneer worth the expense? Or can just someone from the from the organization do it? It is it is, in my opinion, completely worth the expense to hyre not only a professional auctioneer, but one who has the benefit auction specialist designations. Sometimes you might find a car auctioneer or a cattle auctioneer who volunteers to do this it’s a completely different a chance. It’s a completely different mindset and you will find that benefit. Auction specialist pay for themselves four to five times over. Okay. So that’s a professional designation that somebody will have the b s benefit auction specialist. Okay, the professional designation, uh, generally auctioneers go to auction school to learn how to sell things on stage on some of them will specialize in benefits and they can go on and get their b a s a designation and it’s worth looking for. And roger, let me just ask, does that specialization come in sub categories so that there’s people who specialize in different types of objects, like maybe sports memorabilia or something like that? Or is it does it not get that refined? The specialization does not does not get further subdivided, but you certainly do have auctioneers specialized in certain types of items most commonly wine. There are there are auctioneers who are, uh, specialists and selling wine and have a great deal of knowledge that they can drawn during an auction in order to spur the bidding. Hyre okay, roger divine is with me, eyes cos schoolauction dot net where all about awesome auction’s today. And after this break, we’ll move from the different types of auctions to start to talk about what types of non-profits are can benefit most from from auctions and what they need to have in place in order to do that, so please stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna i really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness can help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two eight six five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w dot mind over matter. Y si dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Schnoll welcome back to the show on dh armed with my very welcome guest, roger divine of schoolauction dot net and we’re talking all about auctions today, roger before we get into the different types of non-profits i want to read something that came from the facebook page on the subject. She says that first he says online she finds to be easiest to run. I know we’ll talk about online auctions later on, but with respect to the live auctions, she says, holding an auction at a charity event can be fruitful, but often tremendous work for the organizer’s. The last one i did was not worth the effort. She found that sporting memorabilia sold the best, so maybe we can maybe you can come in on that. We can use that as a transition into the types of non-profits that it makes the most sense for and what non-profit needs to have in place. Indeed, absolutely is a really insightful comment on dh the core there that i want to call out, um, and used to to introduce who should be holding auctions or not is the comment that there are a lot of work gala fund-raising auctions if you’re going to have them if you’re going to hold them live, but at an event you know, it’s, a huge party that you’re planning and you’re bringing together a lot of effort’s involved to procure items, to merchandise those items and then to run the operation on the event night itself. You know, i’ve called this in various places a department store with a six hour life span that you’re bringing it all together and your your your selling items to people, and you’re checking them out and it’s all done within six hours, and it can be a lot of work now that said, it is generally work that you’re volunteers, volunteers associate with the organization are going to be capable of picking up fairly quickly. There’s not a tremendous amount of specialized expertise that is necessary to put this on. And so i would would put forward that the organizations for whom a gala fund-raising auction tens make the most sense our a those organizations that dafs, you know, our are not necessarily blessed with a high power development director if you are if you’ve got somebody that can run, eh? A strong direct mail campaign if you’ve got somebody that can do a strong fund-raising campaign that does not require event well, you’re probably better off putting your effort there. So that’s interesting. Okay, it’s, just a fact of life that there are people out there in the nonprofit world that are extraordinarily good at raising raising funds through campaigns that they can execute with a lot less work than attention put on a gala fundraiser. Okay, i just think i fundraisers don’t require specialized expertise and so there’s another tier of organizations where they make a lot of sense, which are the organizations that are, let us say ricin volunteers, but perhaps pour in professional development, you know, there’s a brand that we sell our software and our called schoolauction dot net and that’s for very good reasons. Groups like school pts booster club’s um and the like tend have lots of willing volunteers who can help who can take on a little piece of that, a lot of work, and you could spread the work among many hands, and they can mountain a event like this and have it be a very effective fundraiser for them, okay, volunteers, smaller organizations that are rich in volunteer organization schools, churches, community based non-profits community based service agencies often tend to find me to be a very successful, worthwhile effort. Okay, so how do you then start to organize your volunteers? What tasks need to be accomplished so that you can come to this come to fruition with your with your gala auction? Excellent question. I try, i try my best. Usually they’re not that good. So it’s all downhill from here. Well, let me let me try to live up to the question with the task to weigh breakdown the tasks involved in putting on a fundraising auction, i would go like this. Obviously you have to have a procurement effort. You have to get items that you’re going to offer for sale at your event, whether it be sports memorabilia, as your facebook commenter on or local business gift certificates or the like. You want to get as much of that stuff donated to your event possible. Roger, can i let me stop you for a minute? Do you agree with jane from the facebook page that sporting memorabilia sells? Well, supporting memorabilia often sells? Well, it depends a lot whether you call it the best or not, depends on who you’re grouped in, you know, who’s going to be in the audience at the event and in addition to your private part of your procurement efforts should involve, uh, sitting down is an organization and trying to analyse who you’re going to be able to get to attend your event as guests because in the end, unique if you want them to buy stuff, you have to have stuff they want to buy. So okay, very good glad you stated something that seems clear, but really not until you say it, which is you gotta know who your audience is god, if they’re not sporting fans than sporting memorabilia, is not going to go well, okay, so your procurement? Yes, there we go, there’s procurement, and then there is recruiting guest ilsen either probably the two largest efforts that you’re going to put on selling tickets to your event and getting the items that you’re going to sell once they’re there and these should go hand in hand as weii just stated there’s a connection between who your guests are and what you want to procure there, but they can be broken out and given as as areas of responsibility, two different teams. How do you like to see the procurement dahna is that? Is that literally knocking on local business? Local business doors, that’s a significant portion of the of the effort there direct male is an excellent tool to use teo sort of bulk out your procurement effort if you can get ahold of a decent list of area businesses. Um, i am building one by the way, i’m building what we’re calling the ultimate donation database and it’s going to be a free resource for everyone. I also published a free email newsletter called procurement tips for schoolauction why don’tyou neo-sage since you’re talking about yuri newsletter, i was going to it later, but since you mentioned it, why did you tell people how they could get your newsletter? Terrific. They can go and sign up for that for free from the front page of our weapons sight, which is www dot schoolauction okay, and what would we be offering the business in exchange? I mean, how, how, how, how would we tell the business that we’re going to be promoting you as the donor of one of our auction items? Another excellent question, because there is two in a row obvious easy answer, which is that they’re going to get a tax deduction for there donation. But that’s hardly the most sexy answer, and it’s hardly the most compelling one we can offer to them. One of the tips i like to give people is that if you are running a community organization, a school or a church, every donor that’s within a physically located within fiber ten miles of your organisation, you should send them a door sticker they can detail that can put in the window of their store. That says, i support this organization you want teo promote, you want to help them promote their position as philanthropist who are involved with their local communities. In addition, you can. If you have an auction website, aziz would have. If used our software, you can promote your donors from the web site. You can give the link back to their website, etcetera. We also offer a feature in our software where we can allow you to call out. Certain donors are at the bottom of every guest receipts on the end at the end of the night, so the point is, you want to be promoting that auction item donor. Like, for instance, the sticker in the window? Absolutely we’re doing this because you want to have a long, long standing, ongoing relationship with them. You want to be able to demonstrate that there was value to them and giving you a donation? Um, and at the same time, you’re also promoting your organization when you do so. Of course. So of course, the mutual benefit, right, it’s also interesting that you say that the charitable deduction is not the main motivation because that is what, exactly what i find talking to individual donors as as a fund-raising consultant, the charitable deduction is interesting to them, but rarely is it the primary motivation for the for the individual gift so interested? Just an interesting parallel with roger divine of schoolauction dot net, and we’re talking all about awesome auctions. Rodger what about using those volunteers marshaling those volunteers for the actual party planning the stuff that’s going to go on that night? Absolutely. And you really need a good crew of five, six volunteers that are excellent party planners to go in and set the event up. I find this to be one of the easier skills to marshal usually. Your organization within its volunteer pool within its reach, has got a couple of people that are really good at putting on a party on dh can work with caterers and work with decorators to get the room set up. Of course, i often ask for this because i’m miserable in this myself, and when i chair an auction, i will agree to do so only if i have somebody who is extraordinarily good at the the event set up and working with the caterers to be my co chair. Okay, so don’t go to any parties that roger invites you to when he’s hosting them. That’s not entirely true, i always hae always outsourced. Okay. Disasters all right, i know what i’m good at, and i know what i’m not all right? And that doesn’t apply to dinner parties. So you know, if you’re in the portland area, roger invites you to dinner to accept the invitation that doesn’t. That doesn’t apply them. Yes. Alright, please go ahead on. Okay. So in addition to the procurement and the ticket sales and the party planning skills, the other thing you need to have is that you really you’ve got a lot of moving pieces here, you’ve got to have somebody operationally who’s, extremely well organized and my personal biases that you should give them good tools to work with. People have been known to run successful auctions off of a stack of lined notebooks and maybe an excel spreadsheet, but i’ll tell you that it’s, a fairly inefficient way for them toe work there’s a tremendous amount of production of bedsheets and other collateral catalogs and the like that needs to happen. At a certain point. You need to be tracking all of your donations, tracking all of your ticket sales. Certainly my product or any of the other specialized software products that are out there for running benefit auctions. I tend to think that they’re they’re well worth the investment that you make. Okay, as well as that benefit auction specialist now would would. Would we expect the benefit auction specialist toe have these tools teo, to use for the the live auction? Or are they really just going to be the performer that night? The benefit auction specialists will bring much more than just being the performer. That okay, they may not provide you with the softer, although there are cases where they dio uh, they certainly can make recommendations based on what they have seen work for their other customers. But when you hire a benefit auction specialists, you should also beginning some consulting from them prior to the event on how to structure the live auction and talk about who your audience is with them. They bring a lot to the table there. Roger in in the few minutes we have left, i’d liketo transition to the online auction. Andi, open it with this comment from the facebook page from casey, i will say this starting out, it takes a little bit. I registered with ebay and they are currently limiting me to how many items i put up for sale. I called customer service, and they told me they do that for every new cellar. So far, we have been doing all right, and i’ve noticed an increase in traffic on our on our own web page. Excellent. Do you see that much spillover from on having an online auction to an increase in hits on the organization’s web page? Well, let me tell you where they come together. If you’re going to make an online auction work and you do need a platform, you can use ebay or you can use a private platform we provided as part of our software to andi, i’ve worked with a lot of organisations that have mounted fund-raising auctions online and the key skill there you may not need a party planner. You may not need an auctioneer. What you do need to have his excellent marketing skills. Because the key thing to know about online auctions is that if you build it, they will come does not apply. You have to hit your email list. I know you had a guest on last week who was was was telling your listeners howto build and clean. Ah, good email list. Just you have to hit that list hard and you have to hit it often in order to push people to register for the auction to push them toe look att specific items. You want to segment your potential universe of bitters and promote specific items to specific potential bidders. And then you really need to promote the sense of competition in the event you need to spur people on things. This particular item is out there, it’s getting these kinds of bids, um, you know, don’t let this bitter get it for this cheap yet, you know, give them some competition, get in there and did against them it’s for a great cause. So, you know, you know, clearly not just putting it up on dh, letting people come to it weigh it just doesn’t work that is just like a blogger, a web page exactly you have to promote in order for it to be successful. And if you do that, if you are promoting your fund-raising event in order to be successful, you will probably get some pass along in those emails, and you’ll probably drive as an ancillary benefit a lot of traffic to your organization’s website. Okay, another another comment from the facebook page, the host of tony martignetti radio is charming, articulate, adore bonem sir, no, this is from ana, she says bidding for good often works, but you need to know your audience very well. Can you comment on bidding for good bidding for good? Is is a company that runs an online auction platform that is out there. They have a a nice, uh, piece of software that i think. Works very well. It is one of our competitors, so i’m going to kind of limit myself and what i say about them, just a few niceties there, a print it’s certainly one that everybody needs to check out where you’re comparing and you’re doing your your shopping run for platform, you need to check them out. They are a leader in the marketplace. However, the the corner for comment that you have to know your audience is incredibly insightful and it’s one that we should repeat over and over again. If you’re going to get any fund-raising done through any of these events, you need to know who your audience in that room is, so that you can incent them in the correct ways. You can provide the right things for them to bid bid on. You can stimulate them with the right type of messaging and you can appeal to their whatever is most appealing to them, their sense of philanthropy, their sense of wanting a good deal, their sense of being a pillar of the community, etcetera. Roger divine is a founding partner in northward llc, the developer of tofino auctions and schoolauction dot net you can go to that website to get his free email newsletter on the subject of auctions. Roger, thank you very much for being on the show. Thank you, tony it’s. Been wonderful. My pleasure. We’re gonna take a break, and after this break, tony’s, take two. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big 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 do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing efforts. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile market. Their motto is we do whatever it takes to make our clients happy contact them today. Admission one one media dot com hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable race? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com zoho welcome back, it’s. Time for tony’s. Take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the our philanthropy one hundred years ago in nineteen ten, the new york times earlier this year had a ah survey. Now i’m sorry. Years ago, they had a survey of philanthropy one hundred years ago in in nineteen ten and i blogged about that article that that i found from nineteen eleven it was, actually, i think it was the january first nineteen eleven issue, which had a survey of philanthropy in nineteen ten and in nineteen ten there was one hundred sixty three million dollars given to charity, and the article talks about some of the biggest names among that hundred sixty three million, like john rockefeller and andrew carnegie. It’s. Interesting that they they ah particularly admired anonymous donors in that in that article on dh altruism was cited as the main reason for giving which roger divine and i just talked about in terms of auctions, but not always unanimous, not always altruism. Mary harriman gave thirty one thousand dollars to the town of turner, new york, on the condition that turner new york changed the name of the town to harriman. And you’ll see in my block and that the town did consent to that they wanted her thirty one thousand dollars for a new train station, and they change their name to harem in new york. And that town still exists. That’s also the family that created harriman state park, which is an up on the hudson river in new york. There’s more about that dahna the philanthropy in nineteen ten on my block, which is that m p g a d v dot com. And that is tony’s take two for today, friday, april fifteenth with me now it’s scotty kegs. Scott koegler scott is our regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news. And we’re going to talk about sassiness service as a software explaining this money saving trend and whether you should be a part of it. Scott, welcome back. Thanks, tony, but i’m afraid that i’m going to have to put you in jail because, you know, fast is actually software service, not services. Did i say, oh, here it is. I said it. I said it backwards. All right, that sze jargon jets like reverse jargon jail. I screwed that up. Okay, uh first, explain it. I know it will go ahead with your, but it occurs to me that but the basic premise of of software service really probably deserves a little bit more of an explanation. Okay, yes. Um, you know, most most everybody is or wass used to using software and software basically consists of it is something you download or a cd or a disk that you put into your computer and you install it on your little computer. Ah, and that’s called locally installed software. And sometime ago somebody got the bright idea. Teo put it someplace else other than on your computer. And actually, that somebody was ibm back in the time share days when they had these big computers, nobody could afford a little, you know, computers there weren’t any. So they installed the software on this big computer, and they ran a liars to terminal so people could use them. And so software service is installing a software on a big computer. We’re a bunch of computers somewhere connected by a wire. That wire today is the internet and way connects to that server, and we run that software, and so we’re not installing it. But we’re just using it so that’s, why it’s called as a service and so have we essentially come one hundred eighty degrees from know what? We’ve got three hundred sixty degrees from the mainframe to sixty years, right from mainframe, which you described teo locally based which we’ve been doing for a decade or two decades, i guess then back to back to centrally located software just it’s more accessible. You don’t have to be wired anymore physically. Why? And i just want to go back to the show archives and to remind people that it was my very first show, which was on july sixteenth of two thousand ten that scott was a guest. That was obviously the first time for everybody and that’s that’s the show where we talked about software is a service, so if you want to dive more into what it is, you can listen to that july sixteenth show, and i have in mind that that was my very first show and very glad that scotsman with us ever since. So scott, so you have a survey of you’ve been serving the usage of of software as a service among non-profits we did. Wait, did a survey we asked people what their impression currently was and if it’s changed over the years over the last year, and it turns out that there’s been a pretty good shift, i would say about a year ago, the there was a lot of no doubt, i guess, you know, f you the fear, uncertainty and doubt about it, letting our data really not the software self, because nobody really care. Well, nobody was that concerned whether the software worked or crashed or whatever, because something always crashes. But their concern was mohr, based around the security of the data. And, you know, tony ana non-profit world, you’re donordigital a and you’re constituents, the funds that you’re receiving and the plans we got for raising funds are pretty private stuff. Yeah, security is a critical concern, right? So that was really ah, big deal. Because nobody really had a good track record on security. Pretty much the only thing that was out there that was, uh, really heavy duty. Sas kind of software. That was maybe two or three years ago was salesforce dot com, which was really a pioneer in the business. They put out this application that allowed you to put your prospects, your customers, your contact information, and so people would use that in sales in the selling process, a lot like constituent data, actually, and at least a sensitive because what he had there was huge corporations putting there customer, and they’re prospect, date out there and you can imagine, you know, non-profit uh, constituent information is proprietary think about large corporations and, you know, they’re competitive edges and trying to get customers and make money just so salesforce dot com was really the first big one, and they were very successful. They they’ve had some, uh, some issues with their data, but nothing, nothing on the order of disaster, where there were data has been breached and the information has got out been stolen. So that’s really brought a lot of credibility, and since then, in the last two years and particularly last one year sas application have just been moving off the chart. I wonder if that, you know well, i guess you expect that trend to continue. We can talk about that. Just i just maybe i’m too cynical, but i just think some time there will be some major breach of privacy and that headline will cause a lot of a lot consternation. You agree? I believe that there will be there actually have been but they have been pretty well controlled. The systems that are out there, you think about it. If i have ah, software application in my office, i’m pretty concerned about the security. I don’t want anybody stealing my information, but the fact is that i don’t have any expertise to make that secure. I’m just kind of, you know, lock the door night during the computer off, but that limits how i can get to my data, you know, who can use it when it’s available, you know, certainly not twenty four seven, but you look at the sas based companies and they really have a stake in it if they get one breach, even if it’s just small, they’re going to get a lot of bad press. If they get to, they’re going to lose customers, and if they get three, they’re going to be out of business. So they really have much more incentive on much more at stake than than even the private organization of the singles non-profit okay, let me just digress for a second. Did you get any of the notices about the company? Absalon a breach of email addresses? Did you get any of those yourself? Because i got five there five companies that i’ve given my email, i just to marriott hilton and a couple of financial sites offgrid that i’m surprise, surprise those financial sites even mentioned because your balance is like two hundred dollars, but but it zoho approaching my area code to want to i’m trying to get my savings account to equal my area code that’s my goal for two thousand eleven, but now i have five company i’m just me five companies that use the absalon and the disclosure was pretty much all the same that that excellent company had breached through some third party my email address so that’s true, they didn’t get your your data so they don’t know your balance, although you just told us all what it was, but they didn’t know that they all they got was your email address. Yeah, now i know in that case, right, but there have been worse ones among credit card companies and all but just so you know your point. Very well taken that bad press could could kind of kill the could kill a company and and maybe substantially inger the sas industry, right? If you think about it, there is one sad company that kind of goes under the radar, people don’t really think of it. Assassin but that’s, google, gmail, google documents all those kind of things are really sas based applications and there’s no dearth of people using that mean there’s millions of people using it buy-in not that it isn’t taking hold, okay? In just a minute or so we have left before a break. Why don’t you acquaintance with one of the areas that you think is the reason why sas is growing in popularity. Based on your article on your web site, the single biggest one is cost the there’s you can get into, you can implement a sass based application, baste something usually for free for a trial period and then you rent it monthly rather than buying equipment, buying software, getting people training all those kind of things that a big deal. Okay, we’re going to take a break. Of course, scott will be with us one return and we’ll talk. More about software as a service. And why. It’s gaining popularity among non-profits talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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. Buy-in i really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. 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I’m very glad to have scott with us this week talking about software as a service. I said it right that time geever because you’re the first, you’re actually the first guest to put me in jargon jail? I think so. Well, but i blew it. I so i called it services software, you’re on it. You’re keeping my feet to the fire. So before the break, we’re talking about cost so you can get in really just aren’t they? Aren’t they often based on the pages by the number of records that you’re putting in the service? Depends. They all have some kind of a rental agreement. Heimans that rental is by the number of records, sometimes it’s by the different functions that you use, so if they’re different modules to be enabled, you know, could be an extra five dollars per month for this or that, but, um, yeah, there’s there are many different yeah, and for a small organization, this could be ideal. I mean, you’re talking about a five dollar entry cost at the very outset, right? And some of them i’ve said, uh, there are some that allow you to get in for free more of a of a trial. And you, khun set up the site, see if you like it, see how it works and go from there. And if it doesn’t work, simply delete your information and off you go with another another trial somewhere else. And isn’t that also a issue that you’re sort of bringing to mind for me the the ability of you to get your data back if you stop working with a company? Yeah, that was always a problem for at least an issue. Uh, pretty much everyone now gives you access to your own data. There were some some pretty loud screams about not getting your data back. And frankly, most of that was occurring in the in the install software world where you and i ghisolf softer on your own computer, and there really was no way to get it out. So you had to operate to the same, you know, the next version of the same stuff otherwise re entering into a different version, which which, you know, if you have even just hundreds of records, let alone thousands or tens of thousands that’s that’s out of the question. So those days of holding your data hostage are pretty are over you’re saying it’s worth a question just to be sure i haven’t run across any sass based organization that holds your data hostage. Okay? And of course, your your article on this subject is that n p tech news dot com because scott is the editor of non-profit technology news, what else is ah reason that non-profits are expanding their you? Scott, the ability to update the applications is just great. One of the things about that installed software is that you get this announcement from your software vendor saying we’ve got we’ve got an update, you can download it here or here’s the desk even and you need to install it. Well, you always have some hodja death right? About installing new software on your computer because what if it doesn’t work? You know, then you’ve got a service call you out of business. You can’t do anything. And so what software the service does is that almost everyone every sas based application i’ve seen, the updates are done in the background, and almost without you knowing it, so the company will come out and with letter rather than saying there’s a new update? You need to install it, and they’ll say we’ve been starting new update, you’ll notice these things have changed and and so they’re just there it’s kind of a seamless transition. You don’t have to worry about your data getting lost company handles it and the update that they did for you, they also did for the other ten thousand customers. They have so it’s a one shot deal? Yeah, on dh. So you’re getting the same version of the software that much bigger, more sophisticated shops they’re using, exactly and that’s a great point, you know, the year taking advantage of the pressure that the large organizations are putting on your software provider because let’s face it if they have hundreds of thousands of millions of records, they’re paying much more than you are with a few thousand records, and they have a lot more clout with the sas cos and believe me, they leverage that so thie the installations, the updates they put in place the features they had, all those things are benefit you just as much as they do the big companies getting those updates, though automatically, that could that itself could. Cause a little agenda, by the way, i love the guy, you know, koegler is telling martignetti about agita that’s because you walk into the office one day and it’s different than the way it was the day before. What you’ll find is that most of these people, these companies are very sensitive to that, so they’re not going to make wholesale changes. They’re not going to make something it says hey, what’s this they don’t make maybe a couple of menu changes, then they add a few features so that if you’re kind of searching around the menus and the functions, you may stumble upon them. But then they, you know, they have run up against that surprise before they’ve done with the phone calls, and they just they don’t do that. Okay? Okay. Excellent. Tell us another reason what else you got? The boy? Uh, one of the big things is time to market or time for implementation when you install software. There’s always the where they’re wass always the issue of well, do i have the right kind of computer? Is my server big enough to running the right version of the operating system? I running max. Or windows or winex, and sometimes you’re limited in your selection of software based on the computers were running. Now, if you have a computer or even a smartphone or a tablet or anything that has a internet browser, you’re there, you can run the software. All these things run on pretty much any browser that can connect to the to the web, and that means that people in different locations can all be collaborating, i guess at the same time, right? Absolutely that thie other thing and that’s again and great point is that if it’s installed in your office that you need to supply the outbound connection to the internet, you need to manage the user access. You need to be sure your connections on all the time and when it isn’t with such as, you know, saturday night at ten o’clock or sunday afternoon at three, you’re responsible for that and the sas cos, well, they you know, they staff around that they’ve got people that were there, they’ve got triggers that announced when something is wrong, they know it before you do, and so they take care of it again. They have a lot more at stake and then just one installation. So? So, you know, full time access and remote access are key factors. Scott, in just a minute, we have left. What are some of the functions that non-profits confined in software as a service? Well, specifically for non-profits certainly constituent management. Funda counting, mailing list management. One of the big things i just started. The tale of your last conversation about about auctions, auctions, services air great, then that’s a typical sas based application. So all those things that that a non-profit is doing all things they would like to do are probably available. Some kind of sad faces. All right, scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. Our shows. Regular contributor about those issues. Technology for non-profits scott, thank you very much for being on again. Thanks, tony. Real pleasure. Thank you. Next week, it’s going to be a conversation with hildy gottlieb she’s, the author of the polyana principles and she’s going to be my guest for the hour. She’s got some really transformative ideas for non-profits to create enormous change in their communities. And if you would like to participate in that conversation, leave a comment on the show’s. Facebook page and be a part of the conversation, just like anna and some others were today. I hope you’ll be with me and hildy for that conversation, either through facebook or by listening live, you can keep up with what’s coming up, you can go to the facebook page and sign up for our insider email alerts. You’ll know who the guest star in advance. You want to wait for the week’s show, you’ll know before everybody else. And while you’re there, please click like become a fan of twenty martignetti non-profit radio, always reminding you that you can subscribe to the show on itunes. Listen, any time on the device of your choice, automatic downloads that is, that non-profit radio dot net, creative producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff, our line producer. Who’s. Also the owner of talking alternative broadcasting is sam liebowitz and our social media is by regina walton of organic social media hope you will be with me next week here on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com that’s. Next friday, one p, m eastern. Dahna you didn’t think that shooting good ending things. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving get in, it’s. 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? 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