Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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John List: Lead and Matching Gifts
Professor John List from the University of Chicago chairs the economics department and founded the Science of Philanthropy Initiative. No longer must fundraisers rely on tradition and conventional wisdom in campaign planning. You have rigorous science to guide you around lead and matching gifts. How big should a lead gift be to impact giving? Will a 1-to-1 match raise as much as a 3-to-1 match? (Originally broadcast on Feb 8, 2013.).
Chuck Longfield: Corporate Matching Gifts
Chuck Longfield, chief scientist at Blackbaud, has lots of simple ways to increase your matching gifts from corporations. Tap into the annual $1.4 billion from 20,000 companies. Did you know that volunteer hours are also dollar matched by many? We start with sector benchmarking and go from there. Recorded at Blackbaud’s 2012 bbcon conference. (Also from 2/8/13).
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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. I have to welcome again our new affiliate station love it w l r i ninety two point nine fm in lancaster and chester county, pennsylvania lanchester welcome, i love our am and fm affiliates throughout the country. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the annoyance of otitis media if i heard the words you missed today’s show lead and matching gif ts professor john list from the university of chicago chairs the economics department and founded the science of philanthropy initiative. No longer must fundraisers rely on tradition and conventional wisdom in campaign planning, you have rigorous science to guide you around lead and matching gif ts how big should lead gift be to impact e-giving well, a one to one match raise as much as a three to one match that was originally broadcast on february eighth, twenty thirteen and corporate matching gif ts chuck longfield, chief scientist at blackbaud, has lots of simple ways to increase your matching gif ts from corporations tap into the annual one point four billion dollars from twenty. Thousand companies did you know that volunteer hours are also dollar matched by many? We start with sector benchmarking and go from there that was recorded at blackbaud cz twenty twelve bb con conference and also originally broadcast on february eighth twenty thirteen on tony’s take two i’m at the non-profit technology conference we’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money hey pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay mobile donation crowdster dot com here is professor john list on lead and matching gif ts my pleasure now to welcome john list he’s the homer jay livingston, professor and chairman in the department of economics at the university of chicago he’s expert in the science of philanthropy and his new project, the science of philanthropy initiative spy is funded by the john templeton foundation. It’s, a research and outrage venture and we’re going to talk about his research and spies, outreach to charities and how you can participate. Professor john list welcome to the show. Thanks, tony. Thanks for having me. It’s. A pleasure to have you from chicago. You getting snow? Out there, the way we’re getting inundated, died here in new york. Not too much, but it is pretty icy here. So it is. It is difficult driving conditions here, tony. Okay, well, i’m glad you’re safe in your little office. I was, you know, i like to picture academics. You know, my major was economics that i was an economics major at carnegie mellon university. That’s. Why you’re so smart now, that’s. Because i was rejected by the university of chicago. I hope you were not share in nineteen. I would have been applying in nineteen. Eighty. I hope you were not chair in nineteen. Eighty. I was not. I was actually in eighth grade in nineteen. Eighty rock. Okay, well, you’re a little younger than me, but you don’t look it from your photo now, okay? Let’s, talk about spy. This work is very interesting. Like i said in the in the lead in no longer must charities rely on conventional wisdom? Let’s, start with your methodology around campaigns. What are you doing? I think that’s right. I think when i first i became interested in this area. Tony what i what i found was that you had a bunch of really good people, a bunch of really good hearted people who were basing their decisions, mohr on anecdotes and gut feelings right, then the actual scientific method. So when i say scientific method, what i mean by that is basic basic experiment. So in that basic experiment, it’s always important to have a control group, because then when you have, ah, treatment groups such as some people might get a one to one match, you want to always compare that to a group of people who did not receive a match. Okay, that’s all right, that’s, the control group. Watch out. I have george in jail on tony martignetti non-profit radio you you scared it closely, but you then you defined control you defined control group, so you’re clear. But watch out. Okay. All right, so so we have this is this is the scientific method. We have a control group in a test group or treatment group. And how have you been applying this to campaigns beyond matching? Sure, sure. So when i first started, i was presented with a problem at the university of central florida. So at the university of central florida, the deen challenged me to start a center to do research in environmental policy and what the dean said it is. John, you are responsible for raising money to start the research center. So of course, the first question becomes different in need of resource is for a capital project. What are the first steps i should take? And the fundraisers will tell you you should secure a fraction of the money privately before going public. So, as an economist, i asked a simple question. Well, what is the optimal fraction? What i essentially found? Wass ah, bunch of anecdotes about what that fraction should be. For example, the fund-raising school recommended that forty to fifty percent of the goal should be pledged before the public campaign begins. Other hand books recommended figures between twenty and fifty percent. Right around the same time the university of wisconsin was building there. Cole center, which houses the basketball team in the hockey team. And what they had done in the quiet period is they had gone. Out and gathered twenty seven of their seventy two million dollar goal. So if you could see that the evidence is sort of scattered all over the place and i simply asked, how do we know which fraction is correct? And very few people had actual scientific evidence to back up their claims that a certain fraction was actually the correct fraction to gather in private before going public. Okay, so he looks like justin is i didn’t set up a direct mail solicitation, and i split ten thousand households into different buckets or different groups. In one group i advertised, we’re looking for money for our center for environmental policy analysis here at the university of central florida, and we already have ten percent of what we need. We already have that from an anonymous donor. You know, another group of households received a different kind of letter. It was identical in all respects, except it said that we already have thirty three percent of the of the goal. And another group received a letter that said, we have already received sixty seven percent of the goal and then the fourth group, which is our control group i received the letter. But there was no mention that we have received upfront money. Okay? And so this was to our knowledge to your knowledge, is was the first scientific method rigorous test at least that you could find of different match is having an impact on thie outcome of giving? And what did you find that’s? Exactly, right. So what we found is that over that range from ten to sixty seven percent that the more you advertising seed money, the more gifts that you will receive. So in this particular study, what we’ve found was that most people gave and those who were going to give actually gave mohr so the more seed money you have, you wouldn’t do it more people to give and those people who would have given anyways they actually give mme or when you have ah hyre level of seed money. Okay, interesting. And so you did this work. University of central florida. You were then stolen away, recruited away to the university of chicago for more sophisticated work. E well, i don’t know about that, but, you know, there were a few stops in between. I ended up going to the university of arizona, and then from there, i went to the university of maryland and well, i was at the university of maryland. I spent a year working in the white house at the council of economic advisers, and then after that, i came here to chicago to get smarter, okay? You work your way north from from two very south locations, work your way to the northeast and then the frigid chicago area. We’re going to take a break right now, john, and when we come back, we’ll talk about that more sophisticated work and how it’ll applies to charitable giving. 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. Dahna welcome back. We’re talking with professor john list from university of chicago about leading matching gift in your campaign. I have to send live listener love somebody, somebody in chicago was listening. John, you’ll be gratified to know that there’s a listener in chicago and it was very good. New bern, north carolina, bethlehem, pennsylvania and washington, new jersey live listener love going out also to taipei, taiwan and shang zhi change china. I don’t know how to pronounce it. C h a n g s h z chung’s. We’re doing the best we can here. China s o tio taiwan and china ni hao. All right, professor john. Now that you’re at the university, your work has expanded and you’re doing work now with some pretty large charities. Want you describe that that’s, right? That’s. Right, tony, um, you know, after you established that upfront money is important, you can ask yourself, well, should we be using that money is simply an announcement like i did at the university of central florida? Or should we be using it as an announcement and is a match? So, for example, you could say an anonymous donor just gave us one million. Dollars now we will use those funds is a match. So, for example, for every dollar that you give, we will match with a dollar of this donors. So we ended up taking that idea, which, of course, is a common idea in fund-raising to a simple, direct mail experiment with the sierra club of canada and what we were interested in there it was simply testing the idea of announcing money, which i did at the university of central florida campaign versus announcing money and using it is a one to one match. And what we found there again, we’re we’re sending out tens of thousands of letters two households essentially using the normal ask that the sierra club uses. But here some households receive a letter that has, for example, no mention of this upfront money and that’s, a control group. Other households received the match other households received. We have some money. But there is no match campaign. And what we found there is that again. Seed money works quite well. So what i mean by seed money is that if you have up front money that’s very effective in generating people to give but the interesting. Thing there is that the one to one match worked about as well. Is the seed money treatment in both of them worked much better than the control group. Okay. Okay. Now, the one to one match. This is with the sierra club of canada. The one to one match, you said worked a little bit better than the leadership gift announcement. Actually, they were the leadership gift announcement. Worked slightly better, but they were okay, but they were statistically the same. If you look at them through a statistical tests, they were about the same. Okay. Okay. And that was a one to one match. Now, what do we know about the what have you learned about the differences between different levels of match? One, two. One, two, one. One, two, two, etcetera. Exactly. You know, tony that’s a great question. Because that’s that’s, clearly the next step in the research agenda. And when you look a man, i should have been a professor of economics. I did. Well, carnegie mellon. I have no shot having gone there so way. Always have a spot here for you at the university. Thank you. Look at this. The deed that i know you’re not the dean, just the department chair. Well, just lonely department there. Department chair. Well, i’ll use you for my letter of recommendation, right? Absolutely. Okay, what do we know about how these different levels of matching compare? Yeah. That’s a good question, because you know, the anecdotal evidence out in the field is that obviously a three to one match should work. A lot better than a one to one match in a three to one match, of course, is, for every dollar that you give, the charity will match with three dollars, and the one the one every dollar you give, the charity will match with a dollar. But of course, when we went out to the literature, we could not find any scientific evidence that indeed a three to one match was better than a one to one mad again. Just a lot of conventional wisdom. And this is the tradition. Absolutely. Okay, absolutely. Which, of course, drives an economics professor. Not what we don’t have any data or scientific evidence to back up that finding. All right. Here’s. Where we? Yeah, here’s. Where we part company c i should probably just settle for an honorary ph d from the university because it hasn’t driven me as nuts as it has you, but i’m glad it has go ahead. Absolutely so this time we teamed with a national liberal non-profit in the us, which does political and socially oriented work, and i have to be careful because i cannot mention the non-profit due to a non disclosure agreement that we made with them, ok, but essentially the background is that every month they send about fifty thousand letters, too. They’re regular donors, and they asked them for money and essentially what we did is, again, we put the households into different buckets or different groups. In one bucket, you had households that received a one to one match offer. In another group, households received a two to one match offer, and in a third group, households received a three to one match offer. And then, of course, we compare that to a fourth group, which is the control group, right? No match, no match at all, which they receive in a typical letter that says, we’re looking for money to help the cause, so to speak. Okay, so what we found here is that if you just look at the data amongst those households that received a match offer versus those households that did not receive any match offer. You raise about nineteen percent more money in those matching treatments compared to the control group. And the interesting part is that effect occurs entirely on what an economist calls the extensive margin. And what i mean by that is that nineteen percent occurs entirely because the response rate went up about twenty two percent. So more people decided to give. When there was a match available, they still gave the same amount per person. But more people give when there’s a match available. So so the effect is not because people are giving mohr, but because more people are giving exactly. And this and then the level of giving doesn’t change among among all the people who give versus the control group that’s, right? So if you were going to give anyway, on average, you give the same amount. But you just get twenty two percent more people to give some money rather than give nothing. And is that impacted at all by the level of the match? Exactly. So the other finding that we that just jumps out at you in the data is that the three toe won the two to one and the one to one match groups perform identically. Are you sure about that, e? I mean, nasa has made mathematical errors, and they forgot to convert you forgot to convert fahrenheit into celsius or something like that. Are you sure about this? I mean, it happened, you know, if you hadn’t. If you haven’t double check your math, i’ll understand. I’ll tell you what, i have double and triple checked my math, and i’ve also gone to other charities, and i’ve done the same kind of experiment with amnesty international with bly, robida, children’s hospital. And what we find over and over again is that having match dollars, really? That really matters a lot. But the size of the match does not matter. Uh, that’s. Very interesting, very interesting. And contrary to all that conventional wisdom that we were talking about. Okay, so the one to one match poles well has has the same effect as the three to one match. Okay, sure. Okay. What about the one, two two or one two three, where a dollar gets fifty cents. Or something like that or those types of matches. Exactly that’s very good questions. So we have now extended that original experiment all the way down on the other side. So we’ve looked at one to two and we have looked at one, two, three and again one, two, three and one, two, two are the same as one to one. So at least over the range that we’ve experimented with. Oneto one all the way down to one, two, three and all the way up to three, two, one we find the same result that people give the same amount of money. No, i think we need to take care here, because if we would go all the way, say, for example, to one to one hundred, if you give one hundred dollars, we will match with one dollars, i’m pretty sure that would not work very well, although that’s a gut feeling, so i i i i don’t want to break my own rules, right? Because that’s, just my intuition that suggests if you go that far, you can actually hurt your capital campaign, but i don’t have any empirical evidence for that, okay? John list is the homer jay livingston, professor of economics and chair of the department at the university of chicago, and we’re talking mostly about his work through the science of philanthropy initiative at the university spy, which you’ll find at s p i hub dot or ge, and we’re going to talk about working with it’s by very shortly. All right, john. So now we don’t know one, two one, two a one hundred match that would i guess you would expect that be different than a one to one match, but we don’t have any evidence of that, right? That’s correct. Okay. Do you plan to test a match that that that’s that largest to see if there where? Where the boundary is that the one to one effect breaks down? You know, i would love to. And just exactly as you mentioned of always looking for partners to try ideas such as that one. And i think that’s exactly. The next step that the research will take is is where does the match the effectiveness of the match actually break down? I think it’s a great research question and one in which i do wish to explore. Okay. Okay. Interesting now. You have some evidence of how this works on ah ah, warm list versus a cold list. Why don’t you describe those and what that what those outcomes are exactly exactly so when we think about warm list, what the way that we differentiate people in data sets is a warm list is a person who has given to our cause within the last three years. So if you’ve given ten dollars or ten million dollars within the last three years, we label you is a warm list person. Ah, cold list person is a person who has not given to our cause in the last three years, so that just gives you some definitions of the way that we think about cold lest versus warm list. Now you’re exactly right to pinpoint that feature in our data. What we find is that the cold list people are more influenced by the match, then the warm list people it’s not that the warm list people are not influenced by the match because indeed, warm, less people are influenced by the match. They’re just not as influenced as much is the coldness people? Okay, okay, and they’re influenced. In what way? The proportion of giving is greater, right? Because we’re talking about more people giving not people giving mohr money exactly it’s exactly proportion all about the number ofthe coldness people who give above and beyond the number of coldness people who give in the control group. Okay, okay. Interesting. All right, let’s, move to. Well, let’s, let’s spend a little time talking about the partnership. We have more to talk about your research in terms of leadership gifts. We’ve just been talking about matching gifts, but you’re you’re actively looking for charity partners to work with, right? Absolutely. So, you know, we’ve just we’ve just begun. We’ve just started spy hub dot org’s is you mentioned earlier, and even though my own research, i’ve been doing work in philanthropy now since nineteen ninety eight, we have just received a very generous grant from the john templeton foundation that allows us more opportunities and more time toe work with those charities out there who are interested in partnering with us remember, you’re going to have to put up with our craziness because we’re academics, we have crazy ideas. Yeah, you should see our listeners. If you go to my block, you’ll see, you’ll see john’s, head shot and there’s all kinds of mathematical equations behind him on a blot on a blackboard is not even a white board. I was surprised that i would have thought for sure university chicago would be using whiteboard technology, but not in your classroom anyway. Unless it’s an old photo it’s it’s chalk on a blackboard and you have the end use lambda in your and some of your equations that would know lambda always scared me as i was as i was doing economics, studying econometrics and regression analysis. I don’t know why just lambda lambda just seems intimidating to me. Lambda i don’t know a couple of land is behind you, so yeah, i looked at your picture way. Linda brings up everybody still old school here. I’m sitting in my office right now and i actually have a blackboard in my office which has lambda written on it. You do see that’s. Why i’m getting a bad vibe. I’m goingto have to bring out the love crystal here. Couple of a couple of shows ago someone held the crystal court’s love krystal i’m getting a bad vibe tau lambda it’s a lambda thing for me? I don’t know why i just since my econometrics days, lam does giving me trouble. All right, we have just a couple minutes before break. So let’s, keep talking about eso charities. Should charities that are interested in putting up with you go to s p i hub dot or gq? Or how do they get information? That’s, right? I think that’s a good spot to go to or, you know, you can actually google me if you google john list. You know, i promise you i’m not the mass murder. That guy will come up first. I’ll probably come up second. Zoho is there one of those? Okay, yeah. You know, john list is a very unfortunate name, but, you know, my email address you can email me here at the university of chicago, it’s j list at u chicago daddy to you. And, you know, we can begin discussions about forming a partnership. Our bottom line is this we don’t charge for what we do, but what we expect is that we can use the data that is generated from the cause you know, from the telephone or the direct mailer or the or the banquet that we could actually use those data when we write academic papers or we do radio interviews or television interviews or what have you that that’s really the only cost is that you allow wass to work with the data and pushed the knowledge frontier in this particular sector because that’s really what we’re in it for, we’re not in it to make money ourselves way really want the sector to undergo a scientific revolution because we believe so strongly in this sector. Okay, on dh, this can be done anonymously, right? The charity named doesn’t have to happen in your research. Okay. Okay. Professor list. Wait. Told charities how they can get involved with you. Let’s, move to your research on leadership. Gif ts. What was that about? So? So what the leadership gives essentially are about is that if you receive upfront money, there are many different ways to use that up front money. You can simply announce it is we did at the university of central florida. You can use it as a matching gift is we just talked about, or you can use it, for example, for small gifts, you know, small donor, jess teo. To give to people who actually give to your cause or you can actually use it for lottery prizes if you wanted teo link people’s contributions to a possibility tto win a large prize. Those are other ways in which you could use up front money as well. Okay, interesting. Yeah, go ahead. What we’ve been finding is that if you actually link the donation to ah probability of winning a prize that you khun considerably increase e-giving rates, in fact, is much is one hundred percent, and most of that result is actually on again the extensive margin more people are giving when they have a chance to win a prize. Okay, and how does how does this type of e-giving compare with the one to one match? You know, this type of giving is in the range of a one to one match, so if you are ah, if you’re thinking about going out and using up front money, what we’ve been finding is that a one to one match works about as well is ah lottery, where you where you give away a large prize, say a thousand dollars to one of the donors it works about. Equally as well as a one to one match. Okay. Okay. These are too different types of inducements. This is interesting. Is that the, uh one to one match is conditional on the person giving and the the other is not it’s it’s? Definitely what? Why that? What is that difference mean, exactly. So what we’ve been finding you pinpointed a very important fact in our data is that on the one case one to one match, those dollars essentially are conditional in the sense that you have to give one hundred dollars to have the anonymous donor give one hundred dollars. We’re a leadership gift is essentially the lead daughter giving money that’s unconditional. So what we’ve been finding is that that unconditional gift tends to be slightly stronger, a slightly stronger signal to donors. Then the match gift is, and we think that’s because the signaling value off that gift and what i mean by signaling value is this anonymous donor probably knows mohr information about the charitable cause than i do. So if i see her giving a large amount of money for the cause, that sends a signal to me that charitable dr is a good one it’s. A good signal of charitable quality. That’s. What our data points to time in and time again, that the leadership gift is a very important signal of the quality of the charitable dr. Okay, okay. Let’s, i want to talk a little about what you’re what you’re doing next. You have some interesting research that you’re working on your next project, the one one and done right? Yeah, right, yeah, that’s good that you bring that up because this is a project that right now has a lot of my attention, and this is a project that we’ve worked in partnership with smile train so smile train is a wonderful organization that takes care of cleft palates of of the youth overseas, so they send doctors overseas to take care of this very dreaded birth defect. And with them, we’ve developed a program which we call once and done and essentially it’s a direct mail solicitation. But within that direct mail solicitation, it says, give now and we will never bother you again if you check this box. John, we have just a minute left. Give, tell us briefly what? What? The impact of that is sure what we’ve been finding we’ve sent to about eight hundred thousand people in what we’ve been fighting is that if you use once and done, you can raise about three times more money, then you can with the control group, only thirty four percent of the people will actually check the box. And when you look into the future, you don’t actually lose donors. You raised just as much money in the future. Is you raised from the control group in the once and done group. So, in essence, you raised about three times more money in the initial mailer, and it does not compromise future fundez from those people. Okay, we have to sort of leave it there. I think you should call it one and done, though not once and done. You’re missing the good alliteration opportunity wanted done. No one gift and you’re done. Remember how many economists not an english professor? Would you go for the goal for the liberation? I don’t have more punch one and done. I think you should rename it one and done. But obviously, the impact in the outcome is what’s. More important, dahna one. Thank you very much for being a guest. Thank you very much. Look forward to talking to you soon, tony. My pleasure. John list, chair of the department of economics at the university of chicago. You confined him at s p i hub dot. Org’s spy hub dot or gq, and he and i will be in touch to schedule the date for my honorary ph d ceremony. Corporate matching gifts with chuck longfield is coming up first. Pursuant, they help you raise more money that’s your objective, you need to raise more money, they help you do it, they’re online tools or ala carte you choose what you need like velocity to keep you on task and goal oriented. Now, some people would say goal orientated, but it’s oriented let’s not get into language pet peeves i just i’ll keep you appraised, and prospector is another pursuing tool that helps you find your highest priority potential donors. So you know who to focus your scarce time on all at pursuant dot com crowdster they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners, you get thirty days free or fifty percent off. This means you can try a crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising sight completely free for a month or get the fifty percent off offer. That means you pay for a month and get a second month free or sign up for two months and get two more months free for a total of four, which deal do you want? Let them know what crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and choose the deal now. It’s time for tony’s take two. I’m at non-profit technology conference and tc this month lots of very smart people helping you use technology in all the different ways that i hope you are using it throughout your organization day to day, you know, way beyond just fund-raising but marketing, communications and volunteermatch judgment and program management, you know, outreach, all the social media topics, all this stuff at ntc, i’m doing probably thirty, maybe even a little more than thirty interviews in the three day conference, some of them that i’ve got coming. Our digital disruption seven habits of highly risky non-profits communications, mythbusters be a google adwords superhero and a ton more interviews all four non-profit radio video and the list of all the interviews is at tony martignetti dot com and that’s tony’s take two got to send live listener love. I am pre recorded this week, but the live listeners do you know who you are? Because you’re listening live right now so the latto live listener love is going to you, even though i can’t shout you out by city and state, but i love is going to make no question about that love goes, i just don’t know exactly which city it’s going to, but you know, because it’s where you’re sitting podcast pleasantries are over ten thousand podcast listeners, whatever activity, whatever device, whatever time, whenever it fits into your schedule. Thank you, thank you for being with non-profit radio, most likely on itunes, but there are lots of other platforms. Stitcher ah pod bay pod pod player on even one in delaware, delaware it’s not d not told where. Germany in germany there’s a there’s, a podcast site that it’s podcast dot d and they’re listening and i saw one in aa in, uh, in spain. I can’t remember the name of that one, but we’ve got listeners in spain listening via podcast so podcast pleasantries to each of the podcast listeners and, of course, the affiliate affections. Where would we be without our am and fm stations throughout the country? Deep, deep affections to our affiliate listeners. Thank you so much. Here is chuck longfield. We have corporate matching gift. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit. Radio coverage of b become twenty twelve blackbaud conference where outside washington dc gaylord convention center with me now is chuck longfield. Chuck is chief scientist for blackbaud chuck, welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. It’s a pleasure to have things very much. Your session topic yesterday was don’t leave money on the table. Ten proven practices for success with magic gift let’s start with a very basic why should a charity spent time with matching gift is your forms there’s compliance there’s going to be back and forth with companies? Why is this worth it? I’m currently about a little over a billion dollars a year is given by corporations to matching gifts, but one point four billion dollars it’s about twenty thousand companies in america that will match their gifts, about half of the fortune five hundred have matching gifts, they’ll match donations, and a number of them will also match volunteer hours. So, for example, if you volunteer at a non-profit you work for microsoft, they’ll actually pay you fourteen dollars for every hour that you don’t pay the non-profit fourteen dollars for every hour they volunteer and some companies if you give them a thousand. Dollar donation or one hundred dollar donation, they’ll match it. One, two one two to one, three to one. So it’s in a sense, it’s kind of newfound money caused fundrasing isn’t all that high. There are some compliance issues and paper forms and such but that’s getting easier. So in general there’s there’s a big opportunity and i’ve done a lot of research that has shown that most companies are not doing nearly enough in this area and they could be substantially increasing their revenue several percent if they pursued some of these practices. How recent is the reimbursement of volunteer time? It’s been a it’s? Been in place for a while now. It’s a relatively new thing but it’s it’s been in place for a while. Okay, so it’s worth the small administrative time that’s right in the past. The way the process worked was the employee was encouraged to go to the hr department. More recently go to the internet at their company. Get a form. Fill out the forms sent it into the non-profit. The non-profit indicates that they indeed got the donation. They send it on to the company. The company over time has been outsourcing this to other companies to do the paperwork. So it’s actually been someone burned some authority, but the internet and a lot of links now have made this easier. So most employees now just encouraged to go to a a site. They can indicate that they made this donation and the paperwork is all done. So, for example, there’s, a company in new jersey that jake group that worked with many of the fortune five hundred companies, and they have a website called easy match. And if you use easy match the processing for the nonprofit for the employees, for the corporations made much easier. Okay, give listen is the name of that company one more time? The company actually is kind of in the background, but their website is called easy match. Zizi match dot com. No, i’m sorry. E a s y m a c h dot. Okay, hyre so what was what was the first piece of advice that you shared on building this magic gift? Well, so well, one of the pieces of advice, which actually wasn’t the first, but i’ll start with it is to benchmark with against your peers. So in different organizations i have different resources. There are organizations that have probably like yours that that dahna realize a greater percentage of matching gift dollars, and so when you’re actually looking at the opportunity. So for example, if your university there are many universities now that a matching five, six, seven percent of the total revenue with matching gifts. So if you’re doing one percent in your university, you’d say, well, how are they getting five percent family getting one percent? If you are a public broadcasting station, good public broadcasting stations air getting three or four percent, but most public broadcasting stations are getting well under one percent, so they can look at their numbers and they can say, well, why am i not getting three or four percent? So it’s a good way by benchmarking first, to quantify the game that you might realise it really it does vary considerably. Sounds like across different charitable vision. Well, it doesn’t infect the public broadcasting stations could probably achieve five, six, seven percent that they would need to actually start doing some of the things that comes more easily to a university, like knowing where their people work so university can collect that more easily where’s, the public broadcasting station, might have more trouble finding out that you work for ibm. But but still, the real issue is that if you know how well some of your better peers are performing, you can actually estimate what how much money is at stake for you. And then the actual practices are relatively easy. I joked in my presentation that there’s, a surgeon, a tool go on who wrote a great book called checklist manifesto, and he pointed out in the book that if doctors washed their hands, they would get ten thousand fewer patients a year, would die of infections. And doctors don’t always wash their hands in fact, of the substantial numbers don’t even match and gives. The analogy is that if you want substantially more matching gift dollars, all you have to do is remember who matched last year and remind them when they give this year to match again. So it’s, not rocket science. But if you do it, you actually would boost your matching gift there’s. A few practices like that that are relatively straight forward, okay. 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 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 guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. My share another yes, sure. Lovely, simple, fun latto i consider this fun exit simple and fun that’s, right? So another one is is that a lot of people now moving, too websites to make donations it’s relatively easy to put on your website another line which says that if you work for a matching gift company, please match and you can actually hyper link it to the list of matching cos the twenty thousand companies so somebody, if they do work, they can click, they can look up apple computer, they click on apple computer indicate that they work for apple and the process can begin. And in fact, with somebody like apple, the next thing you’ll be directed to do is click on easy match and the process basically would be finished. Type in your employee i d number indicate that you made the gift and be off. Is that a list of twenty thousand proprietary? You have to be working with a company piela hyperlink. Yeah, super vis yes, it’s actually it’s a very low cost and smith it’s made available by two companies, blackbaud is one kapin isn’t now the gp is another and it cost. About a thousand dollars to license the soft with the list of companies and an awful lot of companies already licensed, it put it on their website, but yes, a small and midsize non-profit that’s not doing that should do it because it’s relatively easy, and then the donor is self serving, servicing themselves, they’re indicating it moving on. Your mother would like he’s fun. Well, another one is, is that if you’re a regional non-profit so say europe non-profit in the houston market, houston, texas market and exxon mobil is a big employer in your market, or if you’re a bank of america and urine that their market, you can actually get their blank form. And if you know some of your employees work for exxon mobil, when you thank them, you can actually just send them the form or send them an email hyper linked directly to the exxon mobil website so they could go on make a donation and it’s relatively easy to determine that some of these people work for exxon because they might already have volunteered their email address and their email address might be chuck it exxon dot com really pretty simple research making. It so much easier for the donor that’s correct that’s, right? And in fact, if you look at the university’s universities that are getting this five, six, seven percent more money aren’t doing anything more than these basics, plus making sure they find out where you work. Okay, what our strategy for finding out where you work mention public radio probably doesn’t know that how can i help the small net size shop get that information? So probably the best way is, is that if you doing phone of bronze or any type of telemarketing speaking with your donors, so for example, in public broadcasting, they have pledge drives when the person calls it in pledges, you simply ask one more question, where do you work, whether your company matches and you’re off and running if you do telemarketing you, khun called sometimes organizations calling thank their donors and you think you could ask him if they work for matching company? You can buy this data from sung third party vendors. That source isn’t so great yet that that there isn’t really an easy way to give them a list of your donors and for a third party to actually tell you where they worked, but those companies are trying to get better at that. Linked in, obviously, is a source, and so sometimes you can simply go online. And what a small and midsize non-profit could be encouraged to do is just go online and look up your major donors. You’re bigger donorsearch sabat e-giving five hundred thousand dollars. Type them into lincoln’s, see if you can find out where they work it it’s, a matching company pursuit for a matching gift. So i made you die aggressive, too easy and easy to find. Back-up are there other strategies? Wanna share that geever topic you’re talking about? Dahna no, you know, actually, i think the ironic thing about many of these things is that they’re actually relatively straightforward, you know, one of the things that is more complex and could actually make it easier, but easy matches is kind of doing away with it is some organizations can actually take the form, fill it out, file you, send it to you and all you have to do it, sign it and send it back in on dh if you’re a national non-profit that’s hard because there’s so many matching gift forms, but it turns out in most cities in america, major cities three or four five companies represent eighty percent of the matching gifts in that area. So in many cases, you don’t have to work that hard for it. One other thing you could do, which is probably true of a small local organization. That’s, right? That’s, right, it’s just, you know, most of the money is coming from the big employers in town. Now, one of the other things you could do which is kind of a clever thing is, is that say, you know, you have a lot of people who work for a company. And it doesn’t match gifts. But you may have twenty or thirty employees that worked for that company. What some people have found success in is actually just making a list of who those thirty people are, and going and visiting the company in their corporate relations and talking to them about what would you make a donation to us, either, because you’ll match your employees gifts, or you’ll just make a donation, advertise it, and you’ll know thirty, of your employees is gonna be thrilled because they support the organization as well. And so it’s, another way to engage companies and promoted and again universities have gotten very good at that. Practice is well and end up pursuing people. You have just about two more minutes, okay, just gonna throw it out. What else would like to share around? Pretty simple teo to build a scale that you give? Well, the one thing thiss isn’t the technique, but just to show the opportunity when i said that there’s one point four billion dollars donated that’s about ten percent of corporate philanthropy, so corporations make many other donations to non-profits, but about ten percent of it is matching gift contributions one point four billion that is less than and in most cases fairly well, less than one percent krauz when i said that there’s a five to seven percent opportunity and so there’s tremendous room toe actually raise total corporate philanthropy, matching of france will be by a billion or two billion dollars. I had a question this morning about what that actually lied, um, corporations to cut back on their match and give program if all of a sudden what people were doing it and i’ve talked to people both work in the company’s as well as other knowledgeable people, and they joked that it’s still such a small toe, a percentage of total corporate philanthropy that we could easily double it and the corporations really wouldn’t balk at it. So why definitely encourage non-profits to go after this money? And i think it’ll be there, take that rationalization. Off the table, you’ll end up cutting us back if we do more often. Hm. Chuck longfield is heimans, chief scientist, scientist for blackbaud. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for spending time with pleasure. Thankyou. Tony pleasure. Thank you. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage pecan twenty twelve next week, rob mitchell, ceo of the atlas of giving he checks in about how first quarter fund-raising has gone and how the forecast for twenty sixteen may have changed in the first quarter. If you missed any part of today’s show, i urge you find it on tony martignetti dot com, where in the world still still ambivalent about this, we’re sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com our creative producers clam meyerhoff sam liebowitz is on the board as the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by dina russell on our music is by scott stein be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you 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 two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
