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Nonprofit Radio for March 8, 2019: What Does The Data Divulge?

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Steve MacLaughlin: What Does The Data Divulge? 
Predictors for planned gifts. The state of online giving. And what to expect for 2019 fundraising. Steve MacLaughlin from Blackbaud shares the data on these topics and explains what it means.






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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 suffer the effects of pseudo graphia. If you wrote to me that you missed today’s show, what does the data divulge predictors for planned GIF ts the state of online giving and what to expect for twenty nineteen fund-raising. Steve MacLachlan from Blackbaud shares the data on these topics and explains what it means on Tony’s take to Act Blue and nineteen NTC. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled Tony dahna slash pursuant by Wagner. CPS Guiding you Beyond the numbers regular cps dot com by Tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash Tony Tell us and by text to give mobile donations made. Easy text. NPR two four for four nine nine nine Real Pleasure to Welcome Back Steve McLachlan to Non-profit Radio He’s the vice president of Data and Analytics at Blackbaud and best selling author of Data Driven Non-profits. He spent twenty plus years with a broad range of companies, government institutions and non-profits. He’s been featured as a fund-raising non-profit sector and data expert in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe. Blah, blah, blah The Chronicle. Philanthropy. Yes, yes! Blob blob. I’ve been I’ve been in some of these. I’ve been I was in The Chronicle. I was in The New York Times. I wasn’t I wasn’t in The Washington Post. I have not been in the Times. I’ve not been in the Boston Globe non-profit times. Yes, I was there. Stanford Social innovation with you. Yes, yes. Bloomberg Now I’ve been there on He’s appeared on National Public Radio. And of course, now it’s time for you, Stephen Hawking, to update your bio to say that you’ve appeared on Non-profit Radio. He’s at S MacLachlan, and the company is at blackbaud dot com. Welcome back, Steve MacLachlan. Thanks for having me back, Tony. Pleasure. Oh, you’re loud and clear. You use. I’m going to give a little shout out. You’re still loud and clear. I’m going to give a shout out to the mike that you and I both use. The yeti blew us B. Yes. Way both, like, the same high quality podcasting equipment. Absolutely. That And I I first heard that there were other people who, like I was on their shows and they sounded so clear. It happened twice. I was interviewed by other people, and I asked them both what they were using. And they said the yeti blew us B And, you know, one of them sent me a link to Amazon. And for a hundred bucks, it’s a very good mike. So there you go. Absolutely. Uh, And you’ve had yours. I think you told me you had yours a couple of years. A few years. Love it. Yeah. Shake it with me wherever I do. This kind of thing. You travel, you travel with it. I have travelled with it. Okay? It’s not travel friend. That’s kind of big. And yeah. Okay. Interesting. I never thought about doing that, but that’s how much you love it. So there you go. Shout out for Yeti Blue. Um, all right. So, uh, let’s see. Steam O’Clock in what’s been on your mind lately? You, uh, you here’s here’s what happened? You you tweeted something about a mysterious plan to gift, and you said it shouldn’t have been so mysterious. That was that was because of the because of the story on Alan Nayman in December eighteen. Or was there some other impetus to that tweet? I think it was probably that one. I think it was around there where you train with an eye. Reinardy. Yeah, I responded. Yeah, yeah, that was for years. You know, I every time these surprise gift stories come up, I always have the same reaction. Which is what? It really a surprise. I shouldn’t have tried. Should it have been you? And in this case, I think, yeah, you’re referring to the Alan Ayman story that was in, you know, all over the media towards end of year. And I was on the twitter, tweeting and sort of a pine that again. But this is a great story. A very generous individual. These are great organizations who are benefiting from this in a series of bequests. But should it have been a surprise? And even to a certain extent, does treating these gifts like surprises, undermined fundraisers and put them in a difficult position? Interesting. Alright, let CZ fill in a little bit. So he was a social worker in Washington state. His is final annual salary was something like sixty three thousand dollars a year. But he had earned a lot of money in banking and inherited a lot of money. Millions. But he had like a thirty year career in social work. He had left banking long before he died. Died young sixty to sixty three. Something like that. Live three sixty three live very frugally. They one of the one of the articles, said that he wore shoes that were held together with duct tape warrant drove a gel A peak are, uh, shopped in thrift shops. You get the idea. And then when he died, he had eleven million dollars to distribute and he gave it to, I don’t know, five charities or so something like that gave it all away. Never had children, never married. And you felt that those enormous planned gif ts shouldn’t have been a surprise. Ah, no, I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure I agreed with you, but let’s see why now we’re going now, now we’re off the twitter. We get a chance to get her off. The Twitter were talking and realize. Andi, you nailed the overarching story, and this is typically the overarching story and a lot of these. The stories you see in the news right? Frugal, individual, relatively low annual income, but makes a significant gift, and it surprises people. But I started to dig into the details because the details matter. And as you noted, you know, he was He worked it er in the state of Washington, Department of Social and Health Services for a number of years, and you win come around sixty three k. He You know, it was noted to be a very frugal individual, but there’s a some other details that come up to, for example, yes, go ahead. I left off the GIF ts. Yeah, yeah, well, he had inherited, you know, several million dollars previously from his parents when they were two seams. Um, and then if you start to look through the types of organizations that he made gifts, too, it makes sense. There’s a lot of affinity there, right? At least nine to ten organizations that he made terrible gifts to do. Almost all of them are related. Thio children’s charities or charities help benefit either low income families or children. Children with disabilities. His brother was disabled, so that was another thing that influenced his giving. You put those those things together and the picture starts to emerge. That’s a little bit a little bit clear. I think the other thing that’s worth noting is, um, for at least two of the organizations that he made a significant bequest to he made previously made a pretty large donation. So one organization in Washington pediatric Interim Care Center, he had made a ten thousand dollars online gift to that organization prior to a two and a half million dollars a request. And another organization, Tree House, which is a foster care group. We know from his background that he was involved in Mr Care programs. He made a five thousand dollars one time get to the organization before a nine hundred thousand dollar bequest. So again, not exactly out of thin air. Not a complete surprise. And a lot of the things that noted here, in terms of the income range and other things, actually do match up to what we see and other types of plan giving. Okay, we got We got to take our first break. Steve, Hold that. Of course, we’ll get right back. Teo. Mr. Nayman story Pursuant their newest free E book, The Art of First Impressions. It’s donor acquisition. To attract new donors, you make a smashing first impression. How do you do that? The book has the six guiding principles of ineffective acquisition strategy, including how to identify your your unique value. It’s got creative tips as well. You’ll find it at Tony dahna slash pursuant. You need that capital P for, please. All right, now, let’s go back to what is the day to divulge Steve, all right, And and one of those GIF TS was so large that the organs to the ten thousand dollar gift online was so large that the organization called to make sure that he had putting the right number of zeroes, that he didn’t intend at one hundred or thousand dollar gift. And he confirmed for them before they process the transactions, whatever that that it was indeed, a ten thousand dollar gift. So so that gift was a huge outlier for them, as were the other gifts that he made. But all right, so so now to those organizations, though. So were you saying that those organizations that got those huge gifts out of the blue and they came just a couple of months before he died. Were you saying that those organizations should have known? No. You couldn’t be saying that that there was a large that there would be a bequest for them, but or or just that. They should have paid more attention to him and possibly found out about his other intent engines. I think it’s the ladder, right? Obviously, if you have a gift of that amount and and a typical fund-raising programs, I think you would make certain assumptions about the type of stewardship and cultivation that would result from a gift of that level, even if it was an outlier. Or maybe especially because it’s an outlier and a a typical, Um, I think the other part two is, and you know this because you’ve got a lot of history and background plan giving that there’s a lot of myths about plan giving. You know the reality is a significant amount of plan. Gifts du come from individuals with lower income. You know, I think one of the study’s it’s reported, is the median annual income for the Quest. Commitment is only sixty thousand dollars a year. That totally falls in the rains we’re talking about here. I think there’s, you know, there’s the other myth that young people don’t make the quest. Uh, it’s on ly older donors will again data shows that that’s not true. If we look at it, donors who make decisions about their bequests commitment between the ages of forty and fifty four, there’s sixty percent of your best prospects. Maria, if you wait until people are sixty and seventy and older, um, that’s actually a much smaller pool of your best prospects. Your best prospects for plan giving and, in particular bequest krauz. Um, that’s where ninety percent of playing gifts come from, not from terrible gift annuities or crux and crack right overwhelm our request. Overwhelming because there are people who are forty to fifty four on. I think people may just not realise that that’s what the data shows. Okay, that’s interesting. My my concern about soliciting the bequests at younger ages on DH Interesting. And a lot of times I started fifty five. So we’re gonna have an interesting, robust conversation here. My concern about younger folks and I’ve even seen marketing or, um, articles. That’s a hard word from articles Yes, I’ve read read so infrequently that the word articles is difficult for me. I’ve read that, you know, there are There are some companies that are recommending promoting plan gives to people in their thirties even. But let’s stick with what you said forty to fifty four. My concern is that, you know, and and and we know that the last will is done like two, two and a half to three years before death, on average, on average. That’s what my concern is that that organization that puts you that you put in there will or that you that it gets put in the will at forty or forty five or fifty isn’t going to last until until death at in the eighties and nineties. And of course, longevity is getting getting hyre because life, circumstances change and the organizations that were important important enough to put in the will. And I’m I’m sure we agree that that’s a big step when you put an organization alongside your your husband, your wife, your children. That’s a huge step to put in organization in your will. But but even the organizations that are love that much in the forties and early fifties. I’m questioning whether those organizations are still going to be loved enough when that last will on average, gets done two years, but two and a half to three years before death. When the people are in their eighties and nineties, what do you think? So let’s let’s pretend that’s true. Boo. Then who’s the burden on? And I would say in that scenario the burden that is on the non-profit organization to continue Tio Stuart and move along that relationship so that you when that commitment you made of that decision you made when you were in your forties in your fifties when you’re in your seventies or eighties? Obviously, yes, people, people change their minds. People change decisions about there planning, but all of those decisions are influenced by something. And is it possible that in your forties and fifties you’d plan tto leave a portion of your estate to charity A And later on, you decide to charity B? Sure, I would say that’s just the same. Is it what you would see happen in principle or major E-giving or even other e-giving? Certainly, we know that donors change their minds about where they give and and how they give. Um plan giving isn’t isn’t immune to that. It doesn’t suspend those laws. Sure. Fund-raising and dahna behavior we already know. Yeah. All right. Well, um, stewardship. That’s a that’s a long time to Steward. Um All right. You make you make a good point. It is, right. I mean, I think we all recognize that zoho talk about a plan gift. A plan gift is usually a major gift. It’s just deferred, right. The difference is about the timing. You know? Am I making that gift today? Because I have liquidity, and I can make that significant gift today. Or is it differed because I want to make this gift, But But, you know, uh, until I passed away or something happens, I’m not able to make that gift, you know, timing different. So we’re, you know, we’re disagreeing about We’re just agreeing about roughly fifteen years because you you said forty to fifty four is the sweet spot, right? Did you have When where your best prospects are? Best way our people start subject. These types of initial decisions, you say forty, forty to fifty for that. That right? Forty to fifty for about six? Yeah. About sixty percent of all your best prospects are in that age range. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Because then it goes down from there. All right, All right. Because I typically start marketing around age fifty five for charities that have age a lot a lot. Don’t. Um yeah. All right. That’s all right. So we’re talking about fifteen years, Mohr, you know, ten, fifteen years Mohr of stewardship. Um, all right. I’ll I’ll take it in to take it under advisement. I I still am concerned that the lives are going to change in the and and the importance of the charities. You know, other things are gonna happen in life that are going toe elevate other charities. Now, you would say, Well, they might get at it, but that doesn’t mean that the initial one’s going to be subtracted. Granted. Okay, No, uh, take it under advisement. You’re Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the lesson for for these Washington say charities that had these windfalls was had they started the Mr name. And after he made his lifetime gif ts that we’re way off the charts for the for these charities, the one even questioning the amount it was so large online they might have learned about his intentions by Will is that is that Is that where you’re you’re going with that? I think so. I think also, it’s there’s a cautionary tale here that if we believe that these significant types of gifts are just going to appear out of nowhere that, in fact, there’s nothing as a fundraiser or is an executive director Seo over Non-profit Aiken dio. I’m almost it’s almost down to pure lock on, and I would reject that. It’s pure luck, I agree. But it is. You can start to plan for this. You can identify people with a higher likelihood. Ah, hyre inclination to make these types of gifts. And in fact, I think, you know, we’ve talked about this on Twitter and other places. Playing giving is a huge untapped opportunity. Yeah, and so so don’t think of it is magical or luck. Think of it as a huge untapped opportunity that you can build into your PA programs and be successful. But you gotta put the time and effort into it as well. Absolutely agree. Reject that notion of its just a windfall. They just happen magically. You can look at data you can look. Att Yeah, your data data you have on giving history and identify your best plan giving prospects irrespective of age. They they might even end up being in their forties, and you don’t know it because you don’t have A, um you’ll have a gin, your file on DH? Yeah, absolutely ages Only one part of it. I think when we look ATT plan giving likelihood things in the data that make that bubble up the top are certainly, you know, things like wealth and assets, but things like church attendance, loyalty to a cause. Another thing that we found in the past with predictive modeling is if those individuals are more civically involved, they they donate to a political campaign so they donate to things in their state local area. Another big factor is lack of living children. And that certainly played out Alan Damon’s case. He had no, wasn’t married, had no children. We see that all the time and plan giving, and it could be, you know, those children are older or they had no children. Those are all factors. It certainly isn’t just all down to age, and that’s a great point. And and for smaller organizations, because our our audience is small and midsize. However you define that I don’t. I never put any definitions or boundaries around that. A lot of what you’re getting at is going to be findable by meeting people and talking to them in terms of civic engagement. Ah, marital status, children, ages of children if they have them. So they volunteered your organization, factors like that. You, Khun, quickly get Teo. Well, that one. You’ll have that when you’ll know I’m I’m suggesting that a lot of what you were describing you wouldn’t be a smaller midsize shop, wouldn’t be able to find unless they were meeting unless they were talking to people. Or is that an out of date? Am I by a dinosaur? And that’s anachronistic opinion. I mean, I think that world is changing, and I think, you know, in the next couple of years, let’s just say for the next decade I think that’s going to change a lot, or, in fact, needs to change a lot way. Topic comes up all the time. We talk about organizations in their use of data. There’s a tendency to think of a smaller How does this data benefit of smaller organization and and a lot of cases, you know, if your ah if you’re a two million dollar or one million dollar non-profit organization, if you miss out on a big opportunity, there’s a significant impact there. If you raised sixty million dollars a year and you miss out on one or two opportunities, it has less impact so that the data actually becomes, you know, very valuable for mid size, smaller organizations to so, But I wantto get to some of the data points that you mentioned, Um, that that I was suggesting you you’d only learn if you talk to somebody. Like like, civic engagement, number of children not volunteering because you would know. You know, your volunteers are on DH. You rattled off a couple of others? I don’t remember, But it was occurring to me that you’d only find those out through conversations. But are you saying that databases are evolving? That would help us find this out without having to meet somebody? Yeah. I mean, a lot of these, a lot of these data elements or even models you would do our things that that non-profit organization’s been doing for, you know, probably twenty years. It’s just becoming Mohr wide spread and common as the cost of doing that continues to get lower and the value that people are realizing from it. Okay, okay. And, you know, you could also Yeah, the true enough. I mean, you can yeah, mining, no mining the social networks. They’re there cos that will do that for you. For your file. Blackbaud is probably one of them. I mean, you can do. Do you have that capability? Yes. Certainly. One of the things that we do with our customers as we have the ability to upend these types of data elements to a file. But actually, what’s more common is organizations ask us tow, screen their donors and identify people who have a major gift likelihood or a plain gift likelihood or an annual gift likelihood because you’re you also start to quickly drift into. I want to understand all the donors or potential supporters I have, and some are a better fit for different types. Of programs and others. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, the Well, that’s the data accessibility that a lot a lot of people fear, but it exists on DH. If it’s there and you can use it for the benefit of your fund-raising, you might as well. All right. Um, absolutely. You want to talk about a little about digital? What? What? What’s on your mind about digital online? Fund-raising I have a lot on my mind about digital way. Just have an hour. Yeah. Sorry. I think the big thing is I recently wrote something about the fact that online giving it’s been around for twenty years. Now, that’s a long time. And yet a lot of the current perception or continued perception the sector is online. Is this new thing? No, it’s not. I mean, it’s a twenty year old. It’s moved out of the house. It’s grown up, uh, you know, and I think that’s going to call call into question. How long do we persist? Thinking about online is a totally separate animal from the rest of Fund-raising. When the reality is, it’s just a channel, right? It’s like direct mail. It’s like phone. It’s like street canvassing. It’s like events. It’s you know, it’s like, you know, we used to have basic cable and then we got all the advanced, you know, channels on cable. That’s what digital has brought us. But there’s still a lot of thinking about it. It’s a separate thing. We should think about it separately. I think now that we’re twenty years into this, we probably need Teo evolve our thinking and think about, you know, if we thought the last twenty years brought a lot of change. The next twenty is going to bring a really transformative change in a lot of ways. So the the online giving is still under ten percent. You’re the charitable giving reports puts it at eight and a half percent is that I have the eight and a half percent but growing heimans madox people. It’s growing. That study has been steadily growing. Yeah, that shocks people. But it’s interesting. The U. S. Department of Commerce publishes the percentage of all retail sales that happened on the Internet, and that’s only nine point eight percent. So again, I don’t know. Everyone may think you buy everything from Amazon and you buy everything online. The reality is less than ten percent of retail is online and less than ten percent of Fund-raising is online and they’re actually tracking pretty close. That just tells us consumer donorsearch Hey, viewer had a lot of cross over. OK, absolutely true about the retail I would, I would have guessed, I don’t know, forty or something less than ten. Just under ten. Nine point eight percent of all retail sales in the point eight percent are online. Dang Alright, alright. I knew I was going to learn from This is a part of this too. And it brings up another interesting question. Which is how how you fund-raising is not the same as what you fund-raising so to me. The how you fund-raising what channels to use your running a direct mail program. Do you do events? Do you send email? But then there is what gets fund-raising taste. And there’s a crossover, right? So are you Are you raising money through a monthly giving program? Are you being an annual giving program? Do you have mid level giving Major e-giving plan giving on? And these things really blurred the lines right? You know we’re talking about the the exact example previously that individual made to online gifts, you know, in excess of several thousand dollars. That’s very common these days. So to me, that’s less about the fact that they made the gift online and has more to do with Where do they fit into your fund-raising program? Because in a lot of cases online, it is. It’s just convenient. Right is less friction. There’s less steps, but it doesn’t. And this is another point. I think that’s come up on social media in a lot of debates is, well, is. There’s also a tendency to think, um, we need to put all of our money into digital and stop putting money into the traditional Let’s just call it analog stuff, and I love digital. But that’s crazy. Like that’s a bad idea. I think what we find is you need to have a mix. You gotta virality You’ve got to be a multi challenge. It’s gotta be, Yeah, yeah, that’s on. That’s consistent with what so many guests have said about communications. You have to be multi-channel. Your fund-raising needs to be as well. What are the right? So what are the larger sources of If if online is just only eight and a half percent where The biggest too. So what’s the biggest two sources of of channel? Yeah, of individual Give? Yes. Channels. Yeah. I mean, it’s going to be, you know, direct mail. Still direct phone. Yeah. Face-to-face canvassing and then digital and within digital, you’re going tohave email. You’re going have online ads. You’re going tohave social media. I mean, there’s probably, you know, a two dozen channels that we could look at you and, you know, digital. Just one of them. Sure, sure, alright, but but so direct mail is still the number one. The greatest source of individual giving is still from direct mail. No, I would say you really looked at the numbers. You would find that it is the face-to-face, not canvassing face-to-face, but face-to-face, I’m gonna go sit Tony in your living room this afternoon, and we’re going to discuss that three million dollars gift, okay? Because the reality is, um if you look at a ball, all of fund-raising eighty two percent of all the revenue comes from twenty percent of donors and those air come from significant gifts. So if he really got down to ah, what channel or what type of interaction raises the most money, it’s going to Major, give fund-raising and those air face-to-face conversations. Okay? We’re not having a conversation about just what raises the most money. I think what we want to understand is what is the mix of channels, right? Oh, yeah. Wait, no. You gotta that first gift might because you saw an advertisement on NPR. Or you got something in the mail or you saw something on social media, and you develop that relationship over time, and it takes a lot of channels to get there, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I just, uh it seemed like a natural question. What is the largest. Steve. We’ve got to take a take a take another break. Okay, where you see Piela. They have an archive Webinar for you. Their accounting update. What has changed this year that Wagner knows categorically and you need to know just a skosh. New requirements for financial statements. For instance, that’s what the webinars about what’s new this year. You goto wagner cps dot com Click Resource is then Webinars. Now it’s time for Tony’s. Take two is next week. Act Blue and Non-profit Radio at the Non-profit Technology Conference in Portland, Oregon. ActBlue is our premiere sponsor at nineteen and TC. I hope you will come by booths five o eight and five ten where we are together in. In. If there is no five o nine in between us, that’s on five nines on the other side of the aisle. So we’re in a large booth together. Non-profit radio in ActBlue. Just just look for the booth with the bright studio lights, because I’m gonna be shooting video a cz. Well, as I’m capturing interviews for the coming months on the show, Act Blue is they’re talking about the power of small dollar donations. While I’m capturing interviews for now. I just said right this crap while I’m capturing you. Yeah. No shit. I just said that I need an intern. I am soliciting ob soliciting resumes for interns. So I have somebody to blame for this. Poor copy. Eso submit your resume Tonia tonia martignetti dot com And the next time there’s a mistaken my copy. You know that I will blame you so send your resume quickly. Alright, in the meantime? Um actblue Yes. You know them for their wildly popular on DH successful political grassroots fund-raising platform raised over three billion dollars. You can go to AC Blue and you can see the sea the counter. But now they want you to check out their platform and small dollar donation value for your organ. It’s no longer just for grassroots and political. So you do that a tony dot m a slash ActBlue. Come to the booth. Sabelo. Ah, the interview schedule. It’s completely booked. I’ve got thirty seven interviews in the two and a half days of NTC. Unbelievable. Non-profit radio, wildly popular. Last year. We had about eight or so empty slots this year. Not a single empty slot. I mean, we’re, you know, we’re taking bathroom breaks and lunch breaks, but thirty seven interviews come by. Come by. Say hello, Teo. Me and ActBlue. All right. That is Tony’s. Take two. Now, let’s get back to Steve McLaughlin. And what does the data divulge? You probably got a little more. Yes. You were just admonishing me for asking the question. About what? What What is the highest? What is the largest source of individual gifts? And I understand we’re not. We’re not. We’re not categorizing. One, two, three, four. The point is, you do need to be multi-channel, um, and and not not not focus on any anyone area. All right, so you got a little more you want to say in digital, I’m sure or on this on this subject, I mean, I think you’re spot on, you know, it’s got to be the multi-channel. I think the other thing that we’re learning is non-profits air starting to understand that it’s also the sequencing and those channels. I think if we look back ten or fifteen years from now, I think this is an area where artificial intelligence machine learning can really help. In some ways, which is understanding. What is the sequence of messaging? Is it? There’s a direct mail piece, followed by an email followed by an SMS message, followed by this followed by that followed by something that hasn’t been invented yet. That is the right sequence that drives donors to give or renew our whatever happens to be. And certainly I think another part worth noting is his mobile is part of this digital landscape. For a number of years, we’ve looked at the percentage of online donations that happen on a mobile device. Yes, in twenty eighteen, it was twenty four percent, right? So we’re done debating if mobile is a really important thing because it’s almost a quarter of all the online donations are happening on a mobile device, and that was only, like, nine percent a few years ago. So it’s that continues to grow. I think if you look put down the time Horizon Mobile has the potential to be one of the most transformative, um, elements of e-giving experience. Um, you know, there’s seven billion people on Planet Earth, and five billion of them have a mobile phone. There’s only like two and a half billion PCs. So mobile has a lot of potential. And you’ll see over time, e-giving will move the mobile. Um, a lot of these other type of non-profit interaction things will move to a mobile device. And I think a lot of ways that will help us get over our online versus offline hang up because a mobile devices, all those things in one, right? We don’t think about Oh, I’m online on my phone. No, You know, we just don’t think of it that way. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. So your point one, the points you made were past the debate whether you need to make sure that every page that you’re giving our all of that is mobile optimized that videos that your your videos you maybe sharing play, play properly on on, ah, a phone or a phone or a tablet. But you’re talking specifically about phones, so we’re we’re past all that you need to be one hundred percent mobile optimized, and so let’s so let’s talk some about sametz giving. What do we do? We know that specifically in terms of Is that the you don’t know? I’m asking a six different questions at one time. You’re stuck with me as a host. I’m sorry. There is. There is no other hosts non-profit radio, it’s me or dead air. So you’re stuck with me. Okay. The report says mobile donations, twenty four percent. Is that all SMS or no, That’s people going to a website and filling out an online form Ah, form on their phone. What is what’s in that? Twenty percent. Twenty four percent. We’re looking at donation to happen on a mobile device. We’re not looking at SMS SMS is interesting. Um, you know, there was a point in time several years ago where we saw SMS was going to be the new big thing and that turned out to not happen. I think it was the right medium, but the wrong method. So you know, two thousand ten was probably the big moment for text to give in the US there was the Haiti earthquake. There were tens of millions of dollars raised through SMS text to give. There was a lot of hype. Everyone said it’s all going to be text to give Ah and you fast forward to today And essentially that’s not what happened. What happened? Wass, Um we we were right about the medium that people would want to do something on a mobile device. But we were wrong about the method. Text to give was not going to be the method that people prefer to use for a lot of reasons. But really, what’s become sort of the most effective approaches when you optimize your website, your donation forms your email messages, your digital experience for mobile. Um people will give through that and and a significant portion, um, text to give. I don’t think it’s really, um, sort of panned out the way people thought. Now that’s not to say that SMS is a communication and an engagement tool hasn’t been successful. I think there’s a lot of examples of SMS being a good way to engage supporters, volunteers, activists. Um it’s just text to give, at least for the U. S. Um, I think it’s had its day and you’ll see the most of that just shifted people doing on a mobile device. Okay, interesting way. Have a sponsor text to give that well, not be happy to hear you’re and I’m sure they have a different take on this although they do mobile engagement also on DH there is that there is a lot I think is is do something. Are they the premier example of mobile text text, engagement? Do something dot or do something? There’s a lot there. Crisis text line right after them. The Lublin in the folks that crisis tech find right amazing stories of what? Sms from an engagement perspective and a programmatic perspective, they have some amazing work. They’ve done their, um, part of it. Just as would text to give one of the challenges. Is it’s? It’s a regulated industry. You got to deal with the telcos. Ah, the amount you Khun give is limited. Ah, all the rules around it are highly constrained. So would I rather get a one time, ten dollars text gift or what? I rather send them to my website? That’s optimized, and I get a twenty five dollars per month recurring gift or a thousand dollar gift. Um, you know, just some different things happening in that space, for sure. Okay, we got to take another break. Tell us. Can use more money needed to revenue sources. Stephen, I talkingabout multi-channel You get a long stream of passive revenue. This is passive revenue. When companies that you refer process their credit card transactions through, tell us, watch the video, then send these potential companies to watch the video. Could be trusty, local, local company that’s been supporting you. If they take credit cards, their their their prospects for this and you will get fifty percent of the fee of each transaction. That’s the long revenue stream. The video is that Tony dahna slash Tony Tello’s. Now let’s go back to Steve McLachlan. Um, all right, so you know, we’ve got another twenty minutes or so. Roughly. Um, let’s talk a little about what you see. What your what your thoughts are around overall giving it’s up up a percent. A half in twenty. Eighteen. Um, And let’s talk about what you what you think is coming for twenty. Nineteen. That’s a wide open heart. Open topic. Yeah, well, first, I think we should note that despite the reports of the demise of Fund-raising Oh, yes, Yes. The reports were greatly exaggerated, right? You know, you You seen this over the past eighteen months? Eighteen months as much as anybody, right? Oh, the fund-raising. Is going to go down the tubes. The bottom is gonna fall out. Mass hysteria. Turns out in twenty eighteen. That didn’t happen. Way looked at about thirty two billion and fund-raising revenue across a wide range of organizations. And what we found with E-giving was up about one and a half percent on a year over year basis. And we actually took a step back and looked at a three year trend because a lot of stuff has happened in the past three years. And if you look at the three year trend, so twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen and you look at the same exact organizations and how they performed overall giving is up nine percent. Um, so I think that’s A positive one of things also tells us is that twenty seventeen was a much better year in terms of giving than what we may be thought a year ago, um and twenty eighteen was probably a return to more normal levels. Um, but I think most organizations would take nine percent over three years. And from a girl’s perspective now, help me understand this, Um, what’s the difference between the one and a half percent growth in overall and the and the nine percent? Sure. So, one half percent growth if we take the exact same non-profit organizations in twenty seventeen and we see how they performed in twenty, eighteen through one and a half percent here apples, apples, comparison. Um, but when you look at it over three years, you actually see it. It’s a nine percent growth rate. I think if anything that tells us, you know, twenty seventeen probably had a spike in giving caused by a multitude of factors the economy, uh, politics, lots of stuff. And maybe that got overlooked in a lot of the hysteria about what may or may not happen in giving in twenty eighteen. But overall, you know, growth is good. And certainly as we head into twenty nineteen. Um, we’re looking for some good news there, too. Okay. All right. See, So over three years, the growth was was nine percent. Um, so you’re you mentioned your charitable giving report Looks at about thirty two billion dollars in giving. Yeah, but total total individual giving is like, four hundred billion. So how total giving is about four hundred ten billion Total individual giving is what is it? Seventy percent of that. Okay, right. It’s a three quarter. It’s It’s usually three quarters of so, So so about three hundred billion. Um, so s So how do you answer the question? You’re looking at roughly ten percent of individual giving. Ifyou’re looking at thirty two billion and it’s three hundred billion total, How do you How do you respond if that za small percentage of total individual giving? So how do we know it’s representative of the whole? Well, you know, all data is only representative of itself not to get a topical right. Says that’s very esoteric. We’re looking at David and two billion dollars. That’s what happened for these organizations, I think one of the challenges. Um, no, one has all the data for the four hundred something billion dollars. Um, so if you’re looking to find the absolute number and all the data that doesn’t exist in one place, certainly what we tried to do with e-giving report on some of our researches, let’s try and have a very large, significant sample size. I’m not aware of anyone sample sizes larger and try and provide some insight and analysis there. That’s a interesting way I’ve touched on this from time to time through the years. Um, it’s related to the fact that we have to wait until June of each year when the giving us a report comes out to find out what the what the charitable giving was for the previous year. It just seems to me that in twenty nineteen, we shouldn’t have to wait six months on. I’m not, I guess. Well, I am implicitly imputing giving us a You know, there used to be the atlas of giving and Rob Mitchell was on the show a number of times. They had an algorithm that that they said was nineteen, ninety nine or ninety eight or ninety nine percent predictive. When you look back based on all kinds of econometric variables that they said they could predict. And then they change it every month. They could look, he didn’t call them predictions that could forecast he didn’t like the word predictions. It could forecast the future with these with these econometric variables, but that the, uh, the the atlas of giving no longer exists that it didn’t didn’t prevail. I don’t know. It’s just we don’t have a good measure. No one does have all the data. Why? Why do we have to wait six months? Made this twenty nineteen and we were just with all the with all the technology we have access to data. Why do we have to wait six months to know what happened in the previous year? You’re that your data scientist? Help me understand. Why is this so hard? Why can’t someone? Why can’t someone tackle this so that within a couple of weeks we know what happened in the previous year? Boy, do I want to get into this one way? Got about ten minutes left, so go ahead. Uh, well, I think a couple of things. One, Certainly. You know, my perspective is that what giving USA produces and what they’ve done for fifty plus years is is really valuable to the sector because it’s a lot of deep research in tow into the data and what’s happening and trends. But like anything, any benchmark, any report, I think we’ve got a really focus on How does it help? You know, what’s the point of it is that we wantto count how many billions were raised. I don’t think it’s necessarily that that makes for interesting headlines, but I think really, it’s about how do we make? How do we make that information actionable and in so many ways? I think what I continue to see is it’s really valuable for an organization, whether you’re one million dollars a year budget, human services organization or a fifty million dollar healthcare charity. You want this information, these insights because you want to be able to compare your performance to what else is happening in the sector, but probably more importantly, you want to be able to compare your performance to similar pierre organization, right? That’s how am I doing compared to others. And, you know, what is it that some of those organizations might be doing differently? That’s driving growth? Or am I outperforming them? And that’s useful to know? Yeah, I agree with all that, of course, that there is value. But why do we have to wait six months? That’s a long time. Six months is a long time to know what’s actionable from the previous year. Were you? Do you Do you remember the atlas of giving you? Are you familiar with what that was? I’m familiar with it. Yeah. Okay. Um, what did you think of Atlas of giving you can You’re free to disagree, Rob Mitchell Will doesn’t. Nobody listens to this show, so don’t worry about it. I’m starting to think that they had built some sort of black box. Proprietary forecast, right models, right? What was happening with e-giving? Um, that changed, uh, with a lot of frequency. Well, they don’t know. They updated the therefore decided it wasn’t That wasn’t a valuable, useful thing to have. Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know if it was the market or the marketing. You know, I was a small, a small company. Um, I have a background in economics, and I I, uh I mean, I wasn’t privy to their to their algorithm, but okay, s so I I used to lean toward that, basically, but it didn’t. It didn’t succeed. For whatever reason again, I think a lot of that is there was a small business and they were up against e-giving Yusa, which does have Ah, long history, like you said, fifty years. Okay, I don’t I’m not cutting off the topic. Steve Matlock, and we’ll go right back to it. You could respond to exactly right back to what I just said, but I got to take care of our sponsors. Last break is the last break. Text to give can use more, uh, more money, more engagement. You need a new revenue source. This is another way we’re talking multi-channel mobile giving. I know we just talked about it with Steve, but, uh, text to give is more than just mobile giving. It’s also mobile engagement. Um, but with their emphasising, is there five part email? Many course tto learn more about what they’re doing. It’s five e mails and the weight to get into the email. Many course is you text NPR to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine. Now, we’ve got several more minutes for what does the day to divulge? Um, okay, Um all right. Anything? What do you want to say? Anything. Response to what I was just saying you know again? I mean, I think any of these reports, anything analysis stuff we should always go back to. How can an non-profit apply it to what they’re doing? I think in the case of giving you say, they’re tryingto bring together a lot of data. Some of it is economic data, you know is, you know, when you’re tryingto forecast or predict what happened, it’s partially based on there’s IRS data. There’s economic data. There’s a number of factors there. I would say, You know, we sort of on the blackbaud side, we differed e-giving Yusa to say how much was given and toe which type of organizations was given, too, because that is a complex undertaking of which durney you know, that’s not our not our focus. We’re sort of Mohr interested in trying to understand things that a at a different level on more about what the trends are than the actual dollars. But then giving us a doesn’t even give us a forecast. I mean, they they say some generalities like the political environment and climate change, and so societal factors and the metoo movement, you know, will impact e-giving. But but they don’t, They don’t They don’t have any numbers along with their forecast. Uh, I mean, they don’t have any. Numerical forecast is what I mean. It sounds like you’ve got some topics and potential guests for your next show. Them. Well, you could be one of them, but yeah, but But nobody’s got the Why does it take? Why does it take six months? This’s twenty nineteen, for God’s sake. I just don’t understand why it takes six months to get the previous. All right, It seems to me we should be able to have it in, like, two weeks. Your data scientist, To prove me wrong, I I would defer to them. Uh, probably blackbaud should do it. You should take it on. You could do it in six weeks. You could beat them all right, Until I just I uninformed opinion, but I think it’s I think it’s doable. Maybe uninformed, but it’s still valid. It’s complete contradiction. All right, um all right. What do you What do you want to say about about About the future. I’ll get off the, uh, donor advised funds. Okay? And we talk about that once We got a couple, you just have a couple minutes left. Sure. What about them? They’re growing well. You know. They’re growing, I think. The Chronicle Plan B is noted that five of the top ten charities in the US or now don’t advise funds. You’re seeing a lot of growth there. I know there’s been a lot of talk about tax law changes, but it’s worth noting none of that tax law changes impacts dahna advice funds. So, you know, I think you’re going to continue to see them grow. I think you’re going to see the thresholds on those donorsearch vice fund start to move down. You know, it’s not going to be that I have to make a five or a ten thousand dollar gift to start one. You’re going to see those things lower. Um, I think it’s going to be part of a bigger part of giving, which is is different, right? You know, it’s not going to be, you know, certainly we track giving two foundations, but we don’t look at that in terms of the growth of giving, because it’s a bit of an intermediary in some cases. But I think you’re going to see dahna advice. One’s continued to grow uh, continue to be a bigger share of ware. Charitable giving goes on, and nonprofit organizations are gonna have to get better it both engaging with donors and educating them about, Hey, hey, it’s okay if you choose to use a donor advised fund, but but here’s how you can use that to help continue to give their organization and do things. And I think that’s that’s sort of the new reality. Like we talked about Mobile, the new normal dahna advice funds are here. They’re not going anywhere. They will only continue to get bigger. And that’s a part that fundraisers and and non-profit leaders need to pay attention to. That’s a great topic. I hosted a panel on the foundations at the foundation center, and we aired it here. Dahna advice. Funds are you know they’re a source of frustration for not for charities, starting with the fact that sometimes they don’t know who the gift is from the Schwab or the or the Fidelity. You know, I won’t tell them Yeah. I mean, I think it’s certainly create some frustration on the part of non-profits, but I think it’s not going away. Yeah. So how does he adapt to it? Um, you know, there’s probably a whole set of best practices that certain organizations have learned to embrace that, um, you know, that type of approach and again from a tax law perspective or some other other types of things, uh, they don’t really impact recover What donorsearch vice funds or doing? It’ll also be interesting to see what donorsearch vice funds due to, um, private foundations. What does it mean for local community foundations? Who who in some cases, do run their own donor advised funds as well? That’s a whole interesting ecosystem. Well, yeah, I mean, you could Well, I think of dahna advice funds, as the modest income persons foundation mean, I got it, you know, And and I I hear your point. The thresholds will will come down. You believe that? Sounds very very likely. So let’s say, you know, But for a thousand five thousand dollars, I can have a private foundation through a donor advice. I’m going to put the money in, and I and my kids, if I had kids could decide where, where, where, where and when to make those. And I don’t have the five percent spend requirement that private foundations have. All right. I guess I didn’t mean Teo. I’ll give you the last word. You’re the guest, but we do have to wrap up. So So give up. Give us a thirty second rap thirty second rap again. I think there’s a lot of positive trends in terms of e-giving what we’re seeing with digital, but ultimately it still comes back to How are we engaging with donors? How we steward that starting them. Um, how are we showing the impact that they have, Like all those, uh, basic bread and butter blocking and tackling. Insert your analogy here. Those are replaced by technology or anything else. You still have to do those things and the organizations that do those things well, the ones that will continue to grow and do more amazing work in the world. Steve McLachlan, He’s vice president of Data and Analytics at Blackbaud. You should follow the guy’s. Very smart. Very smart. Uh, at S McLachlan. It’s m a C Lachlan. Okay, at S McLaughlin on the companies that blackbaud dot com. Steve, thank you so much. Thanks for coming back. Great. Thanks, Tony. Real pleasure. Next week it is Jason Lewis and the War for Fund-raising talent. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, Find it on tony martignetti dot com. Responsive by pursuant online tools. Here’s where the music cue the music. Chris Care is responsive by pursuing. Oh, no, that’s my mistake. Now you don’t okay, turn the music down. That was Tony martignetti mistakes. You’re stuck with this host up there, but I’m the only one. Chris is doing the show perfectly, and I just screwed him up. 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Nonprofit Radio for March 25, 2016: Lead and Matching Gifts & Corporate Matching Gifts

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.

Nonprofit Radio for May 29, 2015: Emerging Tech Trends & Now Get Buy-In

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Steve MacLaughlinEmerging Tech Trends

Steve MacLaughlin is director of analytics at Blackbaud. He sees trends in full mobile friendliness; diversification; smarter big data; sustaining donors; and a lot more. We talked at NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.

 

 

Norman Reiss: Now Get Buy-In

Knowing what the trends are, you want to stay ahead of them. Norman Reiss reveals how to get the buy-in and acceptance you need for your new technology decisions, from your board, leadership and end users. He’s project manager for technology at the Center for Court Innovation. This is also from NTC.

 

 


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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. Welcome kyi, rs eighty eight point one in ninety two point three fm medical lake, spokane, washington we’re in there saturday morning lineup, and i am really excited to have them as our newest affiliate. Welcome, k y our s so glad you’re with us this and this is not even the new california affiliate that i said last week over week before is coming that’s not this one it’s california, this is washington. Washington is not california, so we got that one coming up. But this week k y r s medical lake, spokane, washington welcome our newest affiliate. So glad you’re with us. Thanks. I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with lycanthropy if you howled about missing today’s show emerging tech trends steve mclaughlin is director of analytics at blackbaud he sees trends in full mobile friendliness, diversification, smarter, big data sustaining daughters and a lot more. We talked at ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference, hosted by n ten, the non-profit technology network, and now get buy-in knowing what the trends are you want to stay? Ahead of them, norman reese reveals how to get the buy-in and acceptance you need for your new technology decisions from your board leadership and and users he’s, project manager for technology at the center for court innovation and that’s also from on tony’s take to your career and third sector today, responsive by opportunity collaboration that working, meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for area every other conference. Here is my interview with steve mclaughlin on emerging tech trends welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fifteen the non-profit technology conference it’s day two, we’re in austin, texas, and the austin convention center. My guest is steve mclaughlin. Steve is director of analytics at blackbaud his workshop topic at ntc is emerging tech trends where np tech is going steve mclaughlin, welcome to the show. Great to be here, tony it’s a pleasure. I’ve known you for years, just virtually mostly through twitter and bb con con times, but never had you on the show. No, just virtually and yes, on the interwebs on the webs. All right, now we’re going to spend some real time together. See the webs do work? Yeah, brought us to this. Yeah, true engagement most is lana log, but yet digital that’s true, it is both that is on dh. The multi-channel engagement has brought us to this. Yes, to this hybrid. We had a few more buzzwords in here, and we’re also hybrid experience before jargon, ok? Emerging tech trends so you’re willing tto look, ten years ahead. Yeah, so have a time machine and have seen the future and are back to report on what the world looks like in ten years. Pretty exciting. Yeah. Ah lot of drones in the future, drones. I understand. Drove. Okay, can we categorize your your forecast for the future? They fit within some category a couple of things. So one that we’ll start with the this is probably obvious mobile, but mobile and probably some different way. So let’s just do an overview first. Sure. So mobile is a good category. Amglobal okay, that the way that non-profits have diversified where giving is coming from is different in ten years in ten years, the orig chart as we know it today of a non-profit is different. So it’s, you know, diversification organization on then a little bit about big data, but specifically hyre organizations work, you know, smarter with data as opposed to throw more people at it. More resource is at it. Those types of things, i think there’s a lot of what, what we’ll see in the future. Okay, i’m not going to take them in that. Sequence is okay. Is that all right? Let’s? Go wherever you want. Okay. Thank you. I’ve been saying that the people of old conference where do you want to go next? I’m interested in the diversity diversification of funding if i’m able to say the word yeah, in ten years. Twenty, twenty five what? What what’s going to look like. So good news, bad news today we know that about seventy percent. Seventy two percent of all giving in the us comes from individuals. And seventy five percent of that seventy two percent comes some thirty percent of high net worth individuals, right? So that’s problem number one right e-giving is concentrated in a small relative group in their individual, seventy five percent in thirty. Yeah, from thirty percent. Yeah, and then when you look at who gets the giving, so if you take faith based education, human services and giving two foundations, that seventy percent e-giving so if you’re an animal rights organization, you’re into arts and cultural, you’re all fighting over thirty percent of what’s left over, but it’s not really thirty percent it’s you know it’s also back to which individuals give teo that care about it. And so i think we’re approached, you know, in ten years we will have approached this point in time where if you’ve not diversified where the giving is coming from. So a couple examples if i was a non-profit today and in ten years from now, i want to i have a lot more success. I’m all in on sustainers i am, i am betting the future on sustainers for most of my annual giving program and other types of things, and i’m willing to take the short term hit on revenue because sustainers retained better, they feed my plan giving program there’s all these great things happen about monthly donors of sustaining donors except for you take the short term hit on revenue, and i think the smart organization today who would be looking back ten years are now saying we’re so glad we did this, i would say we bet on sustainers because all the metrics about them, our great it just takes that organisational intestinal fortitude to go all in and drive it, andi, take the short term hit and take the short term an absolutely anything else on diversification, i think the other thing, you know you’re going to see and we already seen the data today is there is this myth about end of your e-giving and as more people moved to digital channels, there’s this mad rush of everyone asking at the same period of time, but the smart organizations are diversifying throughout the year, right? They’re not all in for end of you’re giving the running spring time programs they’re running peer-to-peer events throughout the rest of the year, so it organizations and ten years from now that are really successful have mohr of ah and even flow of giving happening through the entire calendar year and not these peaks and valleys. And if we don’t do really good job in december, we’re not going to hit our number. You know, there are organizations were some someone i think said today, you know, some organizations more than more than forty, thirty, thirty or forty percent of their funding comes from november in december. Yeah, so in december alone, about seventeen point four percent of all giving happens in december, but it’s different for different org’s some more, some less, but yeah, but i think what you’re saying is there’s a diversification of when that happens, interestingly enough, and i think this ties back to the sustainers piece, if you look at environmental organizations and animal welfare organizations, they have this the straightest line with the least spikes and peaks throughout the entire year. And i believe that’s because those organizations ten years ago made the bet on sustainers and they have a much more predictable flow in revenue when things were happening. So it’s sort of like, you know, predicting the future is a little bit looking at the past and seeing what was successful before doom or of that way, do we see those types of org’s those two categories have large, larger than average sustainers program much larger than average weekly? Yeah, and in some cases we’re talking hundreds of thousands of sustainers but at some point they had xero or very few, but they’ve invested in that is a way of driving, giving on dh, you know, now it’s about the future for them, i think they set a good example of look other other organizations, khun do it there’s no secret sauce, right? You’re an art museum. You could do that to your own education. You could do that. Too, there’s. Nothing in the common denominator is we’re talking about humans. Are the donors, right? That is that’s the common denominator. And they behave in very particular, predictable ways. You know, there’s a way to leverage that for sure. All right. Cool way. Beating up the divers thinking yeah. That’s a dead horse. Move away. All right. That’s prediction. One forecast. Okay, the organization. I’m interesting. The organizational structure, the charts going to look different. So one of the observations have had over the past couple of years. You know, whenever i go work with non-profit groups, usually within a few minutes, i can figure out where their problems are located. When they show me a picture of the orig charter, someone draws it on the board. So for example, boy, were really struggling in growing are our digital revenue. And then what you find out is oh, well, not surprisingly, it’s a silo in the organization who’s responsible for that revenue reports up to somebody else. Maybe it was an i t maybe was in communications. Is it in the fund-raising office? You know, so the orange chart started starts to show that historical command and control stuff. Doesn’t work in the world of the the future, and i think what you’ll start to see over the next five to ten years is that you’ll have more non-profits rethink how they’re structured the reporting lines. You know, if you think about direct mail, for example, you know, direct mail is originally intended was for acquisition, and once you acquired those donors, you would then pass those people off to another group who grows and sustains them, and they turn into mid level donors, plan gift donors and major gift donors, but the organizational silo that created them wants to keep them because they have an annual budget, right? So it’s a self fulfilling prophecy of yeah, they’re my direct male donors, you can’t have them playing, giving department go away even though i know seven, eight years in the future, they’re going to be great prospects for you. I only want to send them mail or do certain things. I think smart organizations will sort of rethink the orange chart as it exists today. 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 what you expected to look more like, or or how will it be different looking? So i think what you’ll have in the future is more of a scenario where you’ll have either chief development officer, chief marketing officer and both the fund-raising part of the organization and the communications part of the organization both report to the same individual and it’s not going to be an i t t technical seo the technology is going to be less and less over time, but it’s going to be more of that chief development officer, chief marketing officer and both fund-raising and communications share. You know, they’re under the same umbrella, they’re not in separate silos, they’re not separate disciplines, they don’t report to different masters, and you’re seeing some work start to make that do that do that pivot. But i also i also thinking of one where those functions were just recently divided. Ah ah ah, across two different, i guess. Vice president? Yeah, it had been one, and then they separated it. I believe that was a mistake. Maybe i should be sitting in your seat. All right. Now i have one piece of one thing, but yeah. No, i absolutely agree. Those two marketing communications fund-raising in in in hyre ed argast education. Generally, i think it should be fund-raising an alumni relations. Yeah, i think they should be together. And what you saw when i read right now in the same place the alumni association that does its events in its own things in its own silo, they call himself the friend raiser. Yes. And then the fundraisers are a different part of the order, but eventually they come together. I think the other thing you’ll see in your chart and this is as more use of the cloud and distributed technology is what’s the ceo of the future. Because today, or maybe in the past ten years, it was a lot about hardware and routers and computers, and they do the software updates and, like in the world, the future like who’s updating software, i came in and last night the cloud, wherever the cloud thing is, um, did that for me. So i think the role of what’s the ceo, i think it’s it’s more about the information part is what they’re doing and less about the technical, you know, business, hardware of stuff. You know the analytics piece, okay, move away from the organization. Sure. And we okay mobile what’s it mobile mobile. So we’ve seen a huge emergence of mobile. If you think ten years ago we didn’t have the iphone and now how do you live without that or android or whatever whatever yours you’re using? And we now know that almost ten percent of all online donations were made on a mobile device so it’s gone from zero to ten percent in a very short period of time. We know that on email, open on a mobile device and a person who then donates on a mobile friendly website that the conversion rate is like thirty six percent higher than if it’s not mobile friendly. So there’s very few things right now where you’re going to get a thirty six percent lift and conversion rate, right? You can play with the color of the button and the texts and you get two or three percent but like huge jump in conversion rate by being mobile optimized by being mobile optimized end to end, i send the email. It is mobile optimized which directs someone to a website that his mobile friendly and the donation form is mobile friendly because hello, i didn’t put my phone down, i’m still on the same thing. We’re at the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of that, but it’s ten percent of donations it’s going to increase dramatically, and so the non-profits have to prepare for that. I think on the flip side, ten years from now, if i’m working in a non-profit whether i’m a major gift officer, prospect, researcher out in the field, doing programs, my mobile device, whatever i have with me at that point in time, the iphone twelve or, you know, whatever samsung is bill that i am, i am using mobile technology to do my job, and it is impossible for me to be effective as a fundraiser or non-profit staffer without the things my mobile device does, if you think about, um, the emergence of agent technology so siri, you know, syria, where is the austin convention center or cortana or google or any this type of stuff, you know, in ten years there’s going to be a fund-raising agent on your mobile device that says, tony, these five plan giving prospects, you really want to make sure you reach out to them this week, you’re due to do a check in call with them or, you know, tony, we just noticed that we’re thirty five percent to our fund raising goal and we’re ahead of schedule, right? There’s no reason why that type of technology is not going to become pervasive in the non profit sector and be sort of one of those things where i don’t know what i did without my fund-raising agent that helped me do stuff because i’ve got a lot of stuff going on there’s only things i can keep track of and that little reminder of, you know, did you make that? Thank you phone call? Have you made that appointment where we have versus a goal that technology could make that stuff easier? So i think that’ll be great that’s when the drones and the robots take over and you know, so what? What is the smart organization doing to prepare for? Twenty, twenty five aside from full mobile, not engagement optimization, what else? What else they’re doing? Technology wise, i think the biggest thing. So for years, there’s been this concept of agile development in the software. World so intuitive you fail fast, you learn things, you’re constantly building software, building code and shipping it. And what is going to end up happening is organizations need to start being more agile. So rather than these, we have a five year strategic plan who knows what’s gonna happen five years in the future, like really what’s your five year strategic plan. You know, if you asked jeff bezos and amazon what the five year plan is, they don’t know, ok, but you’re here you’re here predicting ten years i am, but i’m i’m i’m saying there’s, general directional trends, i’m not saying in five years, this is you know, we’re going tow eclipse for hundred billion raise i don’t know that they’re things that could get us there, but i think what you’re going to have to have happen is non-profits gonna have to embrace agile, not from a software development perspective, but a za culture is a dna of how they think about doing things which is let’s do things experimentally let’s, find out. Does this work on a small scale and then iterating, iterating, iterating trying to it on a larger scale as opposed to we need a three year plan? I need my arli in twelve months or there’s no way this thing is making it off the powerpoint slide, i think. And you see examples of this it’s, you know, people point toe examples like a charity water or a room to read or others where they’re younger organizations, they’re agile, they have i don’t like using the phrase they have sort of fail fast because ultimately you want to succeed fast to you know, you could fail fast all the wayto failure. But you’ve got it is the idea of things or it’ll tive, you know? And there is i believe there is this sort of dna in the nonprofit sector, especially if you come from the direct marketing world you test, you tested mailings for decades, you know that you have to test this stuff. It’s, just more of applying that mindset to we want to try a new event. You know, we’ve been doing walkathon ds and marathons let’s. Try a different type of event. A mud run. What? I go out and put together, you know, an eighty thousand dollar budget for a mud run? No, i would see can we do one in the next thirty days in our backyard to find out. Does it actually work? If it does, like let’s, do more of that? Or can we get, you know, online donors to feed into r d r tv or plan giving prospect pool? You don’t need to do it for everything, just like, try it with one thing. Find out if it works that idea of experiment make a small bet here and there and i think that’s the big cultural change to get to the future is going to have to be a desire and a willingness to experiment with stuff on a small scale you know, you got you got some stuff’s going to work some stuff isn’t on and then, you know, rinse repeat, try again over and over again the analog in in the start up world is m v p minimum viable product yeah, getting out minimum bare bones, but test test and learn and iterated. Yeah. And speaking of someone who’s dealt firsthand with developing things for m v p the keyword and minimum viable product is viable. No one wants minimum products. I know if you if you know it’s it’s. Okay, if you have your goal eventually has to get to the automobile it’s okay to start out with a skateboard because at least there’s movement involved and you could get somewhere the problem a lot of times with minimum viol or product is we gave you two wheels. Well, i can’t go anywhere on two wheels because it’s not connected anything. You learn something if you give people a skateboard and i think it’s the same thing in the nonprofit sector, you pick one pick part of the problem you’re trying to solve doing on a small scale and scale from there. And the great thing from a technology perspective is, you know, you could do this stuff. You know, amazon web services is here and t c and you know, you can spin something up in the cloud fight, rent it, figure out if it works. If it works great, maybe you choose to buy it or you just need more need to rent mohr or didn’t work terrible idea let’s never talk about this again and turn it off and in a way you go and you couldn’t do that ten years ago like experimentation. Was really expensive, or you really had to make sure something was going to work, and that just leads to people taking less risks. Bond that z in general that’s not good, you know, you need be taking more risks if you wantto you want to change the world. What about big data? Your final category? The big data cites a buzzword. You know, lots of people talking about it, you know, the luxury we have, you know, blackbaud is we have a tremendous amount of data, and for a number of years we’d be able to do things like the blackbaud index and take sixteen billion dollars in giving and report out hey, which way is the wind blowing up? Is it down and what’s happening? I think, um, what you’re going to see in the nonprofit sector over the next ten years is the realization that a lot of this, these fundamental questions we asked like, is this person going to give the organization or what’s the most this person could give door organization? Or are they a better fit for annual fund gift or major gift or plan gift? Or who else do they give to you? Know those types of things, those air actually questions could be answered. It’s, not mysterious. You know how we get to that answer, maybe it’s a lot of statistics and variables, but but that’s sort of like, you know, if my car gets me from point a to point b at a sort of don’t care how the engine works anymore, i think what you’re going to see happen with big data is the the the non-profit sector realizing there’s a lot of things that could be done with predictive analytics that point you in the right direction and that it’s less about how did you get to that answer of and start asking better, smarter questions, right? You know how much how much money are we leaving on the table is an organization because we don’t really have the right askanase outs when we’re going to meet with someone or in a direct mail message, or even what you’re sending on you’re sending people to your website that that that really is the potential big data for the nonprofit sector is to be much more prescriptive and predictive, with the analytics and point people in the right directions and get better answers for the things, but they want to do. And i think that’s really exciting as opposed to guessing or, you know, the art side of what we do is fundraisers today. Then should we be collecting data, paying attention to our own our own collection of it, preservation of it. The first thing is collected. The second thing is, make sure that it’s cleans its garbage in garbage out riling data. And then from there, i think it’s it’s moving. And then the next thing people do is reporting. Write my report, my report, my report, it’s moving beyond reporting, which is just a view of what happened in the past tomb or what’s gonna happen next. And because you have that data, you know, there’s the ability to predict that thing, or at least do some modeling that would give you a sense of, you know, we have organ, you know? And if you look at your file, you have people who you’ve been able to retain his donors for multiple years and those you haven’t. What is it about those people who are multiyear retained donors? What can we do? You know who else in our file looks like that individual or if you if you trace it down the line, you say we’ve had people who’ve given to the annual fund for seven years, and now they suddenly given us a midlevel gift. Predictive analytics would allow you to look at the data and say, there’s, someone who just gave you the first gift that looks a lot like the person who just gave you a midlevel gift. This is who you should pay attention to, and also sometimes this is someone who you might not want to spend as much time and effort on is all the data says this isn’t this isn’t the winner is another good example of looking back to looking to look forward. You’re using your historical data, it’s all value to be prescriptive and addictive. You need the historical data have a perspective. I think the difference is don’t try driving down the road using the rear view mirror that’s the tendency that happens a lot of ties, the historical data, the launch toodle data is very valuable for this stuff, and the great thing is non-profits have it it’s, it’s, just under leveraged and i think just sometimes they don’t know what’s possible, like, wow, you could tell me how much money i’m leaving on the table because of incorrect ask amounts. Yes, absolutely can tell you the answer, that question, or you could tell me, is there a better segment to use? Yes, you know, that’s what that’s, what data scientists love they love, you know, answering that question of, you know, what’s possible, or at least what what’s the day to tell from all the things we could derive from the data, which is interesting, okay, we could spend another couple minutes, anything you want to wrap up with, um trying to think spent ninety minutes on this should read your session radio description to you let’s say, well, i’m not gonna read it to you, but try to think of what else we’re going to cover. I just, you know, i think, oh, it’s about some example organizations organisation’s doing it well, have any of those case studies? Yeah, i mean, i think, you know, for example on, you know, the organizational change side in a humane side of the united states is a great example of they’ve made changes over the years in terms of that balance between fund-raising and communications, and even they would say they’re not there yet, but they they’ve realized hard to get the most effective results from the staff and it’s, not from having separate, separate silos, that’s, robin dancer and jeff handy, who runs a lot of the so the donor care part, they’re really been focused on what can they do from a from a norvig perspective to change things? I think the other thing that they’ve learned as well is fund-raising, an advocacy for an advocacy type organization are highly linked together, a supposed to there’s an advocacy department, they don’t talk to the fund-raising people and you see this everywhere, like you go into a health care organization and you have a grateful patient program. But nobody talks to people who were doing other types of, you know, prospect research works like, why are you not talking to each other? Leave this stuff is linked together in in some way, and i think a lot of it just people let the orc chart get in the way and the smarter eggs in the future, i think, will be more streamlined around some of that. Okay, wrap it up. All right. Awesome. Steve mclachlan he is director blackboard. Ah, at blackbaud director of analytics. And this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen. We have concluded our coverage with steve mclaughlin saving the best for last, although everyone before him would disagree. Thank you very, very much for being with us. Thank you very much, steve. Thanks, tony. Thank you for your for listening. Tony martignetti non-profit radio time for live listener love i can’t shout you out by city and state. I’m sorry because we’re pre recorded this week non-profit radio is on. The road this week and next week i’m traveling in, uh, i’m in arizona and colorado and california and oregon. But of course the love goes out nonetheless toe all our live listeners. Podcast pleasantries. You know who you are, those ten thousand listening wherever. Whatever. However you listen. Thank you so much for being with us. Podcast pleasantries for those listeners and of course, never forgetting our very, very valuable loved affiliate. Affiliate affections to you, k y r s our newest but throughout the country thank you for listening on your am and fm stations. Affiliate affections to you durney steak too. And now get buy-in coming up. First opportunity collaboration. I usually connect to people in conferences, but not at such a personal level. I usually go to conferences in nice places, but definitely not this nice. I usually learning conferences, but not this much, especially about myself. I usually collaborate with other people at conferences, but never with such intent. I usually have funding conferences, but never close to this that’s leonardo le tellier, founder and ceo of satara in brazil. He’s talking about opportunity collaboration that weeklong unconference i have to disagree with you. A little bit there. Leonardo, it is an unconference in x top of mexico around poverty alleviation, it’s for non-profits impact investors, social entrepreneurs grantmaker is researchers, academics and corporations. If you’re any one of those, you should be with us in october. I was there last year and i’m going to be there this year if you work in poverty alleviation, check it out. Opportunity collaboration, dot net, i’ve got a new non-profit radio knowledge base, this one is for your career. So instead of the organization, we’re going to look at the individual. Are you considering consulting and how to have a great interview? This knowledge base joins all the others, which are shows that i put together by by topic, some of the others are storytelling boardmember ation ships board fund-raising online engagement, the links and videos are at tony martignetti dot com, including this newest one on your career and on youtube, my channel israel r e a l tony martignetti some clown up in boston stole tony martignetti so i have to be really tony martignetti but i am the real tony martignetti he’s an impostor, uh, anyway, durney martignetti dot com and youtube or where? You’ll find the videos and the links for all the non-profit radio knowledge bases. Third sector today, third sector today dot com they block tips, insights, best practices for the non-profit community. They have a podcast. They have lots of contributors and i recommend them. They are a valuable, informative resource. Ah written and they curate a lot of content from other people and it’s all done by smart folks at third sector today dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday twenty ninth of may twenty second show of the year here is norman reese from ntcdinosaur getting buy-in welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference and tc fifteen day too. We’re austin, texas in the convention center. My guest is norman reese he’s project manager technology at the center for court innovation. Norman welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Good to have your first time. Um, your topic is winning one hundred percent buy-in from staff and board for your next non-profit technology adoption that’s a that’s, a real narrow niche, but critical if we’ve gotten, we’ve decided that we need new software and we’ve gone through. The due diligence and the process of identifying the right new software for us, whether it’s, cr, m or accounting or combined now we need everybody agree with us. Where do we start? I think sometimes when you you pick out a new system, there’s somehow this assumption that the board and the management are all behind it. And in reality, that’s not always the case. So even if it is the case, things khun change once the project is planned, or once a project that started so it really has to be something that’s a continuing effort that even even if you take the time and you get people on board at the beginning and they fully support, you know, and they’ve been with you through the process, yeah, to really check in with them while the processes going on and make sure that they haven’t been diverted by other things. Or that as new people come in two management or to the board that they don’t suddenly have a change of heart. So it’s really kind of crucial to make sure that a system actually is goingto have the result that you’re hoping for when you when you first selected. Yeah. All right. So we can have sometimes turncoats. They’ve been with us through the process, and now they’re abandoning. They get nervous or they what they feel we made the wrong decision. We made a mistake somewhere in the process. There’s. So many things that could get in a way. I mean, even people with the best intentions, something just comes in that distracts them. Or they have a friend that tells them about a different solution. Or different. So it’s really? Well intentioned friend. Yeah, i mean, it’s really a zoo? A technology. Is it’s really critical to build those relationships with management and with the board all the time, even before the project is even envisioned? And if you haven’t done that, if you’re operating and kind of a silo, then soon related that’s goingto that’s going to hurt you because you need to work. You need to partner with these people when you especially when you’re bringing in a new a new software platform on a new system. They have veto power? Absolutely. And they can do that any time. Yeah, yeah. I love that. You know, the friend my friend was just telling me about, you know, something we didn’t look at all right. So the importance of relationships, even when you don’t need their buy-in the people’s buy-in but but always working together collaboratively just day to day. Absolutely. Okay. All right, all right. But that’s ah, let’s speed ahead to the process now. Like i said it there, as i set it up, we’ve chosen something and they’ve been part of the process. We’re talking about staff heimans senior staff and bored getting did really from both it’s really about working with staff that are going to be using the system as well as management as well. It’s really across the board. Because if you get the management and the board to buy-in but the staff don’t feel like they’re included, they’re not going to cooperate. And then they may not use the system once it’s rolled out. If you get the staff but you don’t get the management and the board, then you won’t have the support. You need to have a successful implementation. Get the rolling. So you have to go both ways. Okay? All right. Good. Thank you for for straightening me out. All right. How are we? Going toe? How do we start this? Ah, well, assuming we’ve had this these good relationships all along, but now there’s some some defectors or where it was the best way to start the that the topic together, i think probably just the initial stages when your first envisioning that you need something new, whether it’s a replacement for something you already have or something entirely new that you’re imagining for your organization, you really need to being you need to be in communication with everyone about why you’re doing this, because what’s obvious to you is probably not obvious to other people, even though it may seem logical and a natural evolution, it really needs to be talked through, and different people have different ways of absorbing information. You can’t just send out an email to the staff and say, this is what we’re doing. You have to really take the time to to seek out people, sometimes one on one, and explain why not only is this good for the organization, but how is how is this new system going to make their lives easier? Why should they bother? I mean nobody. I mean, i shouldn’t say nobody. But most people have problems with change, and everybody kind of gets used even bad systems because they know, you know, they know what it’s like, they know the howto work around things that don’t work, and even though you’re introducing something that is, seems to be a clear win for the organization, not everybody has that why to focus some people are just focused on their own responsibilities and their own position, and some people may see this as a threat because a new system may mean that some people’s jobs changed their what they need to do during the day, their routine, their routines air going, teo and and some people would see that as an opportunity. Other people will see that it’s a threat, and you will have people that will will try to take it down. And if you don’t try to deal with that, earl, as early as you can, it’s just going to a back fire down the road, okay? All right, so we’re explaining why and certainly including them in the process, right? Should they should should? Should people from all levels? I mean, maybe this is obvious, but be part of the the committee that is making the decision and hearing the hearing the different, getting the different presentations from all the different potential vendors for their b stakeholders from although, i mean, i mean, the reality is that it’s, hard to invite have everyone at every meeting because people don’t have time, large meetings can get a little unruly, but you have to give people the opportunity to be involved, all right? And some people will take it, and some people will say they’re too busy or they’ll send a representative, but you have to find a way to make people feel like they’re part of the process if they feel like this system is being imposed upon them, well, that it’s being chosen by someone else who doesn’t fully understand their needs, then they’re not going to be supportive. So it’s really it’s kind of a fine balance between not having too many, but, you know, really seeking out beyond the obvious people that are going to be directly using the application. But anyone who might want to get data from the application who might want to get a report from it, it’s, usually and as a project manager, i still don’t know you have to really seek out stakeholders foreign beyond what you initially think, because people outside the organization they’re going to be affected by this too, and they need to have a say in this as well. Ok, so at a minimum, you’re keeping all the stakeholders apprised of maybe milestones in the process, okay, okay. And, you know, especially reliance on email on lee, which seems to be what a lot of people do now, i mean, that’s kind of shallow, you have tio, especially people who are different locations, you may have to go out there and actually sit down with them. We just invite him out for lunch and talk about what’s going on because the humane, i mean, i’ve seen the email reliance in my office, where people said one hundred feet away from each other and they hardly ever talk to each other and that’s, you know, that’s not a good practice when you’re trying to win people’s support for a new project, yes on dh needing them to feel a part of the process and, you know, it was kind of shallow and you’re not getting any of you know, you don’t see the facial expression. You don’t hear the tone of voice, you know? You don’t really know. I mean, they may be saying one thing and actually feeling something entirely different. All right? What else? What other advice do you have strategies do you have for forgetting this? This critical buy-in anything specific to the board that might not apply for staff? Anything special there? Well, every non-profit is a little different as far as how the board works, some sometimes the board will work only with only with the d and sometimes the board has more relations with staff, but i think you just need to be aware that the board is operating in, you know, in azaz an age of management, and sometimes they will want to be actively involved. Sometimes they will have a more surface involvement. But it’s just, i guess, just a kn awareness that that they do have a role in this and that if you ignore them suddenly, at one point a boardmember will come in and maybe drive the project in another direction because you haven’t taken the time to apprise them of what’s going on, so i think just just an awareness that they may not be in your field of vision because you don’t work with them at your office or you don’t work with them on the day to day basis, but they have to be part of part of the team. Yeah, it could be easy derailment from from a boardmember the way it happens all the time. Yeah, you know, you have some bad stories about that personal experiences. Well, i mean, i’ve worked in organizations where the board dealt mainly with the and the staff really weren’t even aware of, you know, things that were happening, and it didn’t seem to make sense, and until we actually found out what was going on with the board and with the and sometimes you win an organization that’s more transparent than others, where you know you’re edie will will communicate well about what’s actually happening in other cases, things will be happening that you just have no awareness of, and suddenly things are going in a new direction, and you have no idea what so it’s, just a matter of just taking the time especially, you know, in a technology role, which is what i do in my organization, you really need tto go beyond the tech group and make sure that you’re talking with other organisations. The other thing, i also just as a precaution, is that something that happened to me in the last year. You have to be really aware of your boss’s position in this whole scheme of things, because you can’t be viewed as somebody who’s going around your boys. Or you’re trying to have a relationship with a boardmember and he’s. Not all. She is not aware of it, so you have to be respectful of who you’re working for. But on the other hand, you also have to make sure that you have relationships with people other than your boss, because your boys could leave tomorrow. And then your future with the organization will depend on those other relationships you’ve built or not. 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 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. Lively conversation. Top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m lawrence paige, no knee author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. Oppcoll you’re doing another ah workshop at ntc on getting people to actually use the technology that that is adopted. Yes, that’s it flows perfectly from this. So let’s let’s spend the next well the rest of it we’re about ten minutes or so together. It’s about half our time. It’s perfect talking about getting people to use it once it so now we’re past the decision stage and it’s implemented. Is that where we are now? And yeah, i know and this i’m really going by my own experience. I’ve been in my car enroll for almost four years now, and i’ve had a couple of situations where we rolled out systems that we thought rolled, you know, when everything went, you know, as expected, and we checked in with the users later on, and we found out that they had gone back to their old system, that they were going back to excel and that’s really it’s really it’s a point it’s really? I mean, i found that you can have the best technical solution which you know, which seems to make perfect sense, and it’s a good future path for the organisation, but because people don’t feel like it’s there’s nothing in it for them that they just and the other thing is that if you don’t take the time to actually beyond sight with people and again, this goes back to what i was saying before about over reliance on email if you if you have different sites that are going to use the system, as most organizations do now, you have to actually go over there and talk to people, and sometimes people will say different things in one on one than what they’ll say in the group, so you just can’t, you know, just hold a meeting and just invite everybody and say, ok, what do you think you’re gonna have to go over and actually sit with people and watch and talk to them at their deaths? You may need to get them out of the office where they feel safer to talk without people overhearing a conversation saying, well, what’s really going on here because it’s really a shame to go through the process of vendor selection and months of milton latto organization, money and time has been devoted a and then cross and then three, six months, three to six months later. In the same position again, you’re back using the old system. So if again, i mean, this sort of goes back to what we were talking about before if people haven’t bought into the whole idea of why they doing this and not only that is that people need you need to get training on our ongoing basis, you can’t just go in the day after you roll out of systems, okay? We’re going to train you for the next week and then disappear. You need to be on site on a regular basis because people move around, they leave new people come in or people forget and you could say, oh, i gave them documentation, but, you know, we know nobody’s going to really read that stuff, so you need to really probably plan a good chunk of time after the rollout to be on site, working through problems, because no matter how much you plan, always things come up that need to be need to be work, work through and if you take the time to plan for that and you don’t just immediately say, okay, i’m wolf on another project now and good luck to you and you need to take some responsibility for that. I mean, it doesn’t happen by itself. All right, all right. What? We still have plenty of time together. What else in the in the use of the technology, other other strategy’s tips you have for ensuring it’s going to be used? What else can we say about that? Ah, well, just in the conversations i’ve had with some other people since i got here this week here in austin, you need to take the time to really go through the business processes that you’re trying to deal with in this system early earlier in the in the in the selection and understanding back-up back-up that at the time that you’re really thinking about let’s, say you, you be the picked the system or you’re you’re at the final stages, you need to really understand what you’re trying to achieve and what the workflow looks like in the organization and it’s very hard to know that and the other tips that does that mean? Well, before we get to another table that you got your brimming with tips, but wait, let’s dive into this one because that means spending time with them. Watching them in their process is, well, sitting side by side, maybe you made you probably want to do that because what i found is that some situations where i would talk to the manager of a group on dh, she or he would tell me that, you know, they need certain things, you know? And then i find out later that the actual people who were sitting at the computer is doing the data entry. They really don’t do things the way that the manager things they so then i get involved in in between the staff and the manager, and that can be a tricky situation as well. But it’s better work to find that out early and to get the trying to get your staff on the same page, then to roll out a system based on what a manager tells you only to find out that the staff that work for that manager actually have a whole different view of what they’d like to really have it in a system. Yeah, so the end user the actual yeah, hands on keyboards. Those are the people you want to be talking to and and maybe even observing. Yeah, i mean, ideally, if you could spend some time just shattering them as they do as they go through their day, then i don’t kind of really tell you what’s really happening because it’s one thing to talk through it, it’s another thing to actually spend a week or spend a couple of days out of sight and see what people are dealing with and see how one of the other things that i found out is that ah, there’s sometimes other systems in the mix that people are dealing with. I ruled out a system about a year ago that people weren’t using, and i found out later that there was a hole of the system that they were required to use because of a grant that we had. The grant required them to put data in this other place, and you have no idea i had no idea, i mean, that nobody nobody mentioned it, and it didn’t occur to me to ask that question. But now i, you know, when i’m doing a new project, i was make sure to ask, what other systems do you maintain and sometimes those other systems, maybe paper to mean? Surprisingly enough, not, you know, there are a lot of people who don’t want to give up the traditional tools and sometimes that’s what work’s fun with a small system will not work fine as it grows, and that’s just a growing pain, sometimes of an organization that wants toe really centralized data. And, again, what’s obvious too to, ah, tech team that, you know, that’s looking at all the sexy things that are available now, a lot of people don’t feel that way back on the ground, the ground, so you really need to respect their where they are. You have another tip that you were goingto you’re going to throw out, and i made us dive into the the one about the end users probing the end users more what else we’re going to say with this one? I actually think i included in my block i have a blogged that i thought for several years now what non-profit bridge, where i talk about technology and communications and fund-raising and something i blogged about recently was that we were working with a vendor that wasn’t quite getting what we needed, so we literally just took we took screens. And we annotated them and we we showed them, is that this is exactly what we want, and sometimes you actually need to use graphics and visuals to to show on. It also helps you kind of work through the process of how the workflow is so really giving that kind of documentation to a consultant or a vendor or anybody who’s helping you implement a new system can really help them understand, because you can’t expect someone who comes into and works with you for two or three months on ana implementation to fully get what your organization is about. So it’s, really your responsibility to educate them on this is what we need, and this is how we need to do it. And, you know, some of the same way that you need to over communicate with staff to make sure that you deal with people who like to absorb information in different ways. You need to you need to make sure that your vendor or consultant really understands your business needs and how your business works and and whatever that method is, whether it’s, extensive conversation or you need a diagram it but it’s really not the vendors responsibility to get it. It’s it’s your responsibility to know your business well enough that you can explain it to someone and have them really, really understand it. Okay? We have just like a minute or so men and a half left anything. Well, i’m sure there is so throughout some or whether it’s ah it’s getting the buy-in or getting the users to use the new technology sheriff there’s a more. Well, one thing i would definitely advise people if you’re not already part of this and ten community, this is the place to be, because very often, when you get wrapped up in a project and you only see things and the vision of your own organization, you need to talk to other people from other places that it doing similar things that you are and just being here for three days and just having conversations with people on how are they dealing with similar situations approaches that you may not have thought of on your own? You need to really being in the community. And the great thing about being here at ntc is that you actually can see people and have the conversation i mean you can’t do everything on social media and on email, and you need to sometimes just pick up the phone and talk to someone, and this is a great environment, and if anyone who’s out there who’s not taking advantage of this community, especially small on non-profit they don’t have a lot of resource is important to know it’s, not only for technologists and absolutely no intent is not only in fact, one of the reasons i like and ten is that it’s, not it and it’s sort of like the way my block covers communications and fund-raising if you look at the session is that we haven’t, they cover a wide gamut for people who do different. Roseanna non-profit so there’s something here for everyone, and i would really recommend that if even if if you’re not here at ntcdinosaur year there’s, a lot of other ways to be involved in the in ten were very active and it’s very rare, and i’ve been a member for years. It’s very rewarding. Excellent, good shot latto anton, our hosts and ten and they’re at inten dot org’s, auntie em and yeah, as well as the online, they have a lot. Of there, there are meet ups throughout the country. Small, small groups meeting lots of places. Absolutely. School. Thanks, norm. We’re gonna leave it there. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Good to have you. Norman riese, project manager in technology for the center for court innovation. And this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of intends and tc the non-profit technology conference. Twenty fifteen. Thank you so much for being with us next week. Your video strategy and how to get found. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com opportunity. Collaboration with world convenes for poverty reduction it’s, an outstanding unconference that will ruin you for every other conference opportunity collaboration dot net, i’ll be there. Our creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein duitz thank you, scotty. You’re with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Buy-in 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 am 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 gotta 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 idealised 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 on dh 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 i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, 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 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 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 August 8, 2014: Grow Your Sustainer Program & Friends With Benefits

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Nicola Bach & Chas Offutt: Grow Your Sustainer Program

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I met Nicola Bach and Chas Offutt at Blackbaud’s bbcon conference last year. They have strategies to build your recurring donors and convert web donors to sustainers. Nicola is senior fundraising analyst at Blackbaud and Chas is lead consultant for their donor engagement team.

 

 

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Gene Takagi: Friends With Benefits

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Gene Takagi continues our chat (from the 200th show) on partnerships, joint ventures and other friendly arrangements that can be enormously beneficial to your nonprofit until they’re not. What can you get into and how do you protect yourself? Gene is our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group. 

 

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Dahna hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host. It feels great to be back in the studio. Oh, and i’m glad you’re with me. I develop a bees or if i came to learn that you had missed today’s show, grow your sustainers program i met nichola bach and chazz office at blackbaud bb con conference last year. They have strategies to build your recurring donors and convert web donors to sustainers nikola is senior fund-raising analyst at blackbaud, and chazz is lead consultant for their donor engagement team. Also friends with benefits. Jean takagi continues our chat from the two hundredth show, which was terrific show on partnerships, joint ventures and other friendly arrangements that can be enormously beneficial to your non-profit until they’re not, what can you get into and how do you protect yourself? Jean is our legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group on tony’s take two non-profit radio on exit coach radio we’re sponsored by generosity siri’s they host multi charity five k runs and walks. I’m very pleased to give you this interview from bb con last year on your sustainers program welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of bb khan twenty thirteen we’re outside washington dc and national harbor, maryland at the gaylord convention center. My guests are nikola bach on chazz office, they’re both with blackbaud nikola is senior fund-raising analyst and chazz is lead consultant for the donor engagement team. Nicholas says welcome. Thank you be here, it’s a pleasure to have you you’re seminar topic is keys to success for growing a sustainer program jazz why is this sustainers program import? Well, tony, i think the growth in sustainers campaign ignored. I think we’re seeing year every year fund-raising growth large part of online revenue has been attributed to sustainers growth, in fact, two thousand twelve or two thousand eleven sustainers growth contributed twenty seven percent compared to previous year, which is low twenties. Okay, so what what what is the message that you think for non-profits i think largely there’s ah, an investment being made by non-profits to really grow and extend their program, investing into the monthly donors as faras dedicated communication treatment, cultivation tactics actually engage those individuals and the non-profit beyond sort of one time. Donation so there’s a real engagement opportunity for non-profits to have donorsearch vest in the program invest in an organization successive organization, and we’re talking about recruiting these donors either online or more traditional channels, right? Absolutely across the board. Okay, nikola, how would you like to introduce this? Well, i think it’s, the biggest growth area for non-profits presently, in the face of declining overall file counts and declining new donors, kant’s the pace of growth of revenue from sustaining donors has increased something like forty three percent over the last four years, and that growth has been ableto upset and compensate for the lack of growth in new single donors. Eso it’s an incredibly important portion of the active donor file what do we know about the loyalty? How likely or unlikely it is that someone is going to drop out of there there. Ah, sustaining e-giving well, for new donors, what we’ve seen on the median is for single gift owners who were new in eleven, twenty nine percent came back and gave a single gift in two thousand twelve, compared to about forty five percent of new sustainers returning so that thirteen we look at the thirteenth month retention rate do they give beyond that first year and stick into the next year? S o that’s for new donors and it gets even more exponentially better from multiyear donors who have given loyally for two consecutive years three, two, four and five plus additional years of giving are very strong indicators for continued yes, because e-giving exact especially their sustainers okay, yeah, the new donors that’s do we know whether that varies by charitable mission or or fund-raising revenue? Yes, it does very can very about organization and mission, and it also varies very much which has alluded to it. Bye bye. Source. So male versus online versus direct response. Television versus street versus radio in certain ads, all those air opportunities to recruit sustaining givers. And they those channels all generate different kinds of sustainers okay, what are some of the better times and better methods? Yeah, face-to-face can be problematic. You have that opportunity. Please sign up in the street and it’s hard to replicate that experience later on. However, if you’re able to keep them beyond the first four months, they’ll tend to stay with you. Dear tv can be very strong radio unfortunately, you said d r tv sorry, direct response to yeah, yeah drug in jail on tony martin and non-profit radio now in your eyes, a probation coming fairly easily, parole roll comes fairly easily. Go ahead. My apologies direct response, yes also tends to generate pretty sticky donors over the long term. What we’ve seen with radio and this is the global trends radio cast, a wide net and unfortunate doesn’t have the stickiest net as direct response television or even online. Okay, jazz, can you talk to some of the cuts across charitable missions? Absolutely. I think we see growth across all all verticals are all anti verticals, but i think they, as nikola pointed out that the growth is attributed or can be attributed multiple channels was which is a indicator of program maturity. I think, for organizations that are really just starting, i mean, what the highest return the first places look your own website, how are you converting people online? What’s the benefit set that’s being associated with? He asked, and how are you maximizing that channel, which is more or less free or cheaper? A lot cheaper. So the converting website donors to monthly being sort of a hyre retention rate now, as a program matures and grows, i think that’s where the opportunity is nikola mentioned is really identifying what those with the acquisition sources in the r o i within this acquisition be so important to the paid and organic approach, too sustainers acquisition, you mentioned the benefits set, how do we know what types of benefits we ought to be offering? Well, i think the first of all, i’m independent organisation, i guess that’s the easy way, easy way out, but, you know, what’s unique to that particular program, you know, i think that we see it is a lot of opportunities where a lot of organization see it is an opportunity from a designated giving standpoint. So for example, i think of pita pita, very it’s, very strong advocacy program. So they have a dozen e-giving program around investigations and rescue and it’s purely driven toward their advocates, too, with a stronger messaging, which is mohr action oriented. Oh, and two associate wth e-giving value to the particular action or impact within the program itself. So it’s a real diversification able to diversify spread e-giving opportunity for an organisation within core audience subsets okay? And nikola, we’re talking about sustainers e-giving at all different kinds of levels to so what jazz is referring to the benefits that i mean that’s obviously got a vary by the by the level at which the person is is giving. Yeah, i think that also varies by organization some organizations to run into other giving clubs at certain levels. So whether you’re giving cumulatively, for example, five hundred dollars, whether that’s in monthly instalments or one ofthe gift that may make you eligible for a leadership circle type thing, it’s organizations have to evaluate what is the best placement of a given donor donors interest, you know, many donors like the kind of engagement that month e-giving affords them. Some organizations are very good about reporting back about what what’s happening in the field, for example, lots of relief organizations that are working in syria right now, i’ll have the opportunity to report back on their work in a really, really life, real time kind of way and as a sustainers you can really see and feel the impact your monthly gift actually has there’s a lot of back end infrastructure, chazz, that has to be built in to have sustainers program, whether it’s, whether the channel you acquired them through his traditional or online, you need to have back office processes for thinking and handling. I just changes credit card changes, credit card explorations, talk about the how you set those up. What was your advice about that? The back office? Sure, i think that’s a great question, because infrastructure being a big part of sustainers, of course, and how are you enabling a program and setting up for success? You know, many organizations lease here today and, of course, have a database of record andan online and online offering, and so setting up those programs in which that they are promoting a sustainers metoo together, meaning a program that is integrated across all channels being sort of the key, of course, but ensuring that the management of the sustainers audience ahead of time is very is planned out. I think that’s a big thing is planning out in advance. You know how we’ll be treated? How will it be communicated? Tio, how are they in most cases, be separated from the main stream within the organization? I’m like nikola mentioned, i think. Major donors being a big a big indicator because major dahna programs are separate a large part sustainers were seeing a greater emphasis around separating sustainers from your everyday donors because there’s a higher level engagement, they’re advocates their volunteers there, major donors potentially and so planning in advance, having that strategy in place, having that road map, you know, to create sustainers program that is acknowledging sustainers grown sustainers and then allowing that maturity teo to to develop around payed acquisition, organic acquisition, whatever the growth in tactics may be at the same time there is integration the way nikola was describing bringing sustaining donors into the e-giving circles. So so there’s there’s some segregation, treating them especially the way you’re describing, you know, benign segregation, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing hurtful, but seeing them special, but then also bring them into the organization in terms of his nickel was saying that the recognition. Okay, so, you know, i think it just add to that everything sustainers ahs. Ah whole. I mean it’s it’s. The great payment plan means a layaway plan. So, it’s, you know, if you have a donor that gives twice a year. Twenty five dollars. You know, what we see is generally ten dollars, per month is a very logical next step. Ten dollars, per month in which is one hundred twenty dollars, per year. Of course, that is a greater value to the organization. So what can you identify? So your various levels and grow grow, the donor based e-giving ending. Doing good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz waiting to get into thinking. Cubine this’s, the cook, said, wear hosting part of my french new york city, or guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back. French is coming language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it common desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them, shed their story. Join us. Pardon my french new york city every monday from one to two p, m. 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 you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Okay, let’s, start to jazz let’s stay with you and stuff to get into some details about what what are our first steps to building sustainers program? We don’t we don’t, we don’t currently have, you know, i think the first step is courses defining what this is data program is the mission objective of sustainers program how will complement and support your organization? So defining the benefits set could very well include not only the tangible but intangibles where benefits associate with sustainers program for donorsearch could be, you know, financial stability that i’m providing my monthly donation to allow for the organisation respond to catastrophes around the world. Or nikola mentioned the syria example that’s very topical in the sense that my dollars air helping support that organization then and they’re so defining it being very important. And then also, i think branding isn’t a essential component that as well so is their name for your program, you know, champions, you know, legacy similar attack, this we see from a major donor development, but really creating the uniqueness within the program being a kind of core place to start. How do we identify let’s? Go to your nicholas. The right prospects for our sustainers giving program we’ll hopefully you’re acquiring them directly already that’s the fastest pace of growth in terms of growing the volume of sustainers you have so your first initial contact with the prospect, in my opinion, should be a sustaining asked this come complementary with that converting existing donorsearch yeah, fifty dollars a year under twenty how do you know identify who? The blood? Yeah, great loyalty in your file heidtke if frequencies coupled with that and also this is always kind of a scary one, but the people who respond to your first renewal a great prospects for sustainers giving oh, interesting. We know that we know that through analytics, i’m sure exactly what you think is going on. What’s the brother. They’re excited to be a part of the organization in a monetary aspect and want to continue that kind of committed giving. You do have to re budget the rest of your renewals accordingly that you’ve you know, siphon them off and else where’s the budget cut budget with caution, but they are raising their hand proactively early. They’re being asked on that the early nous, the recency of that makes a difference and just a chazz this point, i think the other thing we emphasize is education. You can’t just dive headlong into sustainers program and expect it to be a sensation overnight, so it really takes educating everyone from the interns, helping you answer the phones. Why is month e-giving an important part of your e-giving conversation to the director of the board? Everyone needs to be on the same page with regard to what does it mean? This kind of ongoing, sustained, committed e-giving we’re asking of our donors. And what does it mean for organization wise it important? Especially when it’s brand new exactly. I’ve never heard of this sustainers program this this legacy e-giving what is it and okay? And what’s my r a y? Is it going to be this campaign? Well, it’s not really a campaign view. It’s not talking about the spring appeal december a year and appeal it’s smaller monthly gifts typically in ten, fifteen, twenty dollars and if you’re just looking at it every quarter, every two quarters, that doesn’t look like a very sensible investment. So you look at the annual giving and beyond, okay, and then just as i turned, i think, a ce faras looking at the file of being a true indicator of performance and sort of prospects for sustaining program, but also looking at sort of already existing engagement and thinking about who was already involved in the organization. Volunteers advocates, as i mentioned, you know, those are individuals, major donors, there’s air, all individuals that are already invested in organization, and so the benefits set helps compliment and upgrade those potential individuals too deep in the royalty or deep in the engagement organization. How long should it be before we ask someone toe upgrade their sustainers e-giving we just had a session with international justice mission michelle at i j m had their sustainers upgrade programs eighteen months, so after twelve months on file, they’ll then go through a very well coordinated a great campaign toe upgrade those twelve months sustainers and then try again were work again eighteen months for those that upgraded okay on do we know analytically whether that’s, whether that’s, that’s the right time frame well, we have data that compare it’s been a very successful model for them. They are more than four percent of their sustainers an upgrade with a average gift amount about thirty two dollars on top of the sustainers monthly gift. Okay, so a four percent upgrade annually is considered successful. Consider it. We’re going i don’t have a very successful but the most important thing there too is also their active communication with the sustainers i think that open dialogue, that treatment as well as we mentioned and talked about the very port part of the process. So it’s not just a one upgrade campaign in september. It’s it’s, the program that’s in place throughout the year to cultivate those donors to identify you know who are how are they engaged? How do they want to be communicated, tio? And then using a a coordinated effort throughout our recording effort at a cz certain pierre to time certain peer-to-peer day year to really upgrade and make a substantial impact in the sustainers program? Do we know chazz how what the impact is on outcomes sustainability of the program when people are thanked at different intervals? No, should they get a monthly thank you every time? There’s a monthly gift? Should i get a semi annual annual way? Have any data that compares different the frequencies? Of thanks. Well, i think that the state of best practices always ended your receipt. And in a common tact, i think many organizations will use it at your end since we’re talking about your it’s it’s urine time a year at least, is that thirteen gift and so thinking about that from sustainers sustainers segment at your inn to invite. Not only think them with a donor receipt, but i have a special appeal to the sustainers make a thirteenth gift in december. Okay, so that’s about that’s the best practices is the year end. Well, there’s a urine, but you’re in receipt. Yes, to your question. Okay, okay. So unwise to be sending a thank you. I mean, i’ve heard this question among non-profits that either i don’t know if they’re doing sustainers programs are contemplating, but how often should we think it is a gift once a month. So i sent a letter every month and there’s the fear that if you do that, you remind them that they’re giving every month and you worried that they’re going to cancel. And this question came up in our session as well, and i think to chazz is point. Most organizations are doing the text receipt thank you, and then keeping their sustaining donors abreast of activities with the organization and giving them other opportunities throughout the year to make additional donations beyond the year end appeals. And to that, i think you mean the mentality or that the thinking has been, you know, setting forget i think we’re moving away from that a little bit instead of not to be afraid of communicating to sustainers not to be afraid that if you remind them they’re giving you, they’re going to cancel its really the other way is what are you doing to engage them in the mission in the program throughout the year, remind them of their impact and actually engage them and to become mohr involved in the work that you do? So they’re our responders, i think, to the receipt in the aspect of it, their monthly all responding sleeps with an online transaction, but the end of year receipt we see generally beings were the core focus from the benefits set that is a benefit for a donor wrap up all the year, giving in one email, one letter, whatever it may be for tax. Purposes, okay? And that also has implications for upgrades. If you’re not keeping someone engaged, then the twelve month ask for the upgrade is going to be out of the blue right? Absolutely seems nonsensical, and i actually think that sustained giving the e-giving behavior of giving every month is the perfect engagement tool for millennials that is, millennials, i think, are already engaging in a charitable way, whether it’s through kickstarter, volunteering and they want to have that community immediacy feel toe what their actions are, and i think sustaining giving with the appropriate feedback loop to the sustainer is a perfect way to get those younger donors the millennials a thirty year olds the ones were all vying for. They’re going to replace that very generous world war two generation that we’re so desperate, tio supplement i think that lots of organizations could benefit from having that sustainers conversation with millennials generation, we still have some time left. What else? Nickel if you want to say about those sustainers program, i think if you’re going to do it, go all in, commit to it one hundred percent and look at it in the long term it’s not going. To stay overnight to see yeah it’s, not an overnight sensation. It’s a sustainable way of giving it’s a sustained way of giving and your entire organisation from the reception is to a man who makes the decisions or the woman needs to be bought in that this is the way to give. And i think that’s the most important thing when you approach a sustainers program because it can seem like small numbers and you’re not really making a dent where you got that big appeal with single one off gifts feels fabulous, but it’s not that’s, not a sustainable way of raising money. In my opinion. Okay, jazz, what else? What else did not that we still have some time? What else didn’t i asked? One of the biggest things we’re seeing emerging trend right now is organizations going to default sustainers ask mean instead of a one time sustainers asked meaning tony, great to meet you. Consider making one time donation. It’s tony, we consider being a monthly donor to this programme and so default ass is put in the front for first foot forward is sustainers now that is emergency numbers and organizations really investing in. That practice, but we looked at us compared to australia, uk, canada where sustaining giving is, you know, thirty, thirty five percent of philanthropy that’s the first ask that those countries in the countries outside the u s i already have a very interesting so we’ve got a long way to go. We’re seeing significant growth, but it’s going it requires investment organizations, requires commitment and planning in advance, but there’s, good signs, good trends and good growth to date. All right, now the the commitment for this has got to start at the top clearly, i mean, i don’t think this could start with the chief development officer think there needs to be sort of a cultural mindset that sustainable sustainers e-giving is sustainable and important for our future and that’s gotta come from those ceo it’s gonna be adopted. I mean, across the organization there’s, no doubt about that, i think, adopted and then put forth as faras priority and how on organizations going to do that and define it to find the benefits to find the program and support of the mission zoho okay, everyone replies, chances point the rest of the world really is this is the way of giving this is very interesting. So yeah, it’s the europeans, they’re doing this a cz their their initial ask their default over a long time, and the banking structure has a large parts or play in that because all those of us where europeans that’s, how you pay everything is bialik trump, elektronik funds transfer you to be a little gyro, but most bills, most anything you interact with used have to go to the post office to make those payments and everything’s on lines it’s a real mindset that’s just how you give it’s a cultural mindset in many european and latin american countries as well, and i think that, you know, culture and banking infrastructure have a big role to play, and we’re moving that way, but fund-raising practices also have a big role to play, so we’ve been taught that the one ofthe gift is king and that’s the way to to solicit donors, and i think we as fundraisers need to make that mental shift as well. Really it’s sustained giving because the benefits to the organization that you’re trying to help our so much greater yeah, it’s a it’s a hundred degrees from where we are absolute and there’s evidence that the sustainer donors will become, or can can, can become the major one off one ofthe donorsearch absolute when there may be a cause for a campaign where the the monthly is not goingto be sufficient well, and that and that’s a great point, because i think the overall and some of the data nodes and nikolai presented sustainers value is far greater than organizations extends beyond the monthly contribution. I mean, as we mentioned, that the volunteerism but just think that an advocacy, but just the financial impact on this one off campaigns throughout the year, it becomes sort of a trademark of sort of ah donorsearch port, but then those opportunities of further support i’m should not be neglected because that value increases tremendously for unfortunately catastrophes that happened or certain special projects throughout the year. Our year end there’s air all opportunities to talk to your sustainers as sustainers with that impact potential, you know, it’s very interesting. I do plan e-giving consulting and i have for about sixteen years, and there are parallels between what we say about people who include the organization in their will or have a charitable gift annuity where they’re getting regular income typically is quarterly from the organization, and those can lead to larger hyre individual gif ts increased annual giving so there’s a parallel because of this ongoing, sustaining relationships mean somebody in somebody who has the organization in their will they’re they’re committed for life. If you want to continue that arrangement and the engagement levels like volunteerism, like you’re saying, jack, do increase pretty frequently write interesting, interesting parallel between two very different types of giving state vs absolute sustainers through different participation, very different, but the outcomes on the relationships are really interesting parallels. Exactly. Thanks so much. Thanks for sharing. You’re interesting for me. Thank you very much. Nikola bok is senior fund-raising analyst for blackbaud chazz office is lead consultant for the donor engagement team at blackbaud i thank you both very much. Thank you durney been a real pleasure. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of bb khan twenty thirteen and i thank you very much for listening. Time for live listener love. Hello, new bern, north carolina. Beverly mass. Absecon, new jersey. I know i said that, right? A lot of people think it’s abscond. But i know it’s, absecon, new jersey on the jersey shore love it! Atlanta, georgia and cummings, georgia live listener love out to everyone there and brooklyn, new york. Thank you, brooklyn. Nice to have you nice and close. I appreciate that we could go abroad a little bit federal argentina, federal, argentina welcome tokyo and sendai, japan. Konnichiwa, jeddah, saudi arabia love to have you hope you come back. General, we haven’t seen you before. I don’t think ukraine, you’re in our thoughts ukraine, you’ve been with us before. Glad you’re with us again live listener love out there and also seoul, south korea, on your haserot always appreciate the koreans checking in thank you very much. Generosity siri’s, they host multi charity peer-to-peer five k runs and walks multi charity means that you can have an event with a small number of runners and walkers because together with the other charities that are in the same event, there’s hundreds of runners and walkers. If you happen to be using this summer time to plan your fall fund-raising or beyond, then ah, why don’t you speak to generosity? Siri’s they’ve got runs walks coming up in new jersey, miami atlanta, new york city, philadelphia and toronto. It might make sense for you. Talk to dave lynn he’s the ceo. Please tell him that you’re from non-profit radio and you can reach dave lynn at seven one eight five o six. Nine triple seven or on the web generosity siri’s dot com very grateful for their sponsorship. Please check them out. The table’s got turned a couple weeks ago and i was interviewed on another show was bill blacks exit coach, radio it was fun to sit back and just answer questions and just yammer along and i don’t have to worry about watching the clock or anything like that was quite a pleasure. I see how easy the guests have it. Andi no, jean takagi is listening. So i thank you very much. Bill black for having me on your show. I talked about the takeaways that i’ve learned from over two hundred non-profit radio shows and the audio and video that i have are on my site at tony martignetti dot com, you’ll find a listening length to the exit coach radio interview i did with him, and that is tony’s take two for friday eighth of august. Thirty first show of the year. Jim takagi hello. Hi, tony. How are you? I’m doing very well. Gina’s are managing attorney at neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg dot com and on twitter he’s at ji tech. Jean, i’m doing very well glad to have you back. It’s a pleasure to be back, tony. Thank you. We’re going to continue our conversation from a couple weeks ago, the two hundredth show when we were talking about partnerships, i call them friendships, you know, friend, i said friends with benefits, but partnerships and things like that, and, uh and how we’re going to protect ourselves. You and i talked a little about who we might partner with. Maybe we can say a little more about that. Sure, you know, i think we teased out a little bit the idea of non-profits collaborating with one another and how we’re pushed by different agencies and thunders and maybe the public in our stakeholders teo, engage in more collaborations, teo further our missions and how we choose those partners i think is very important and making sure that we understand who we’re working with what their skills on dh strengths are and what their weaknesses are and how we might engage together. Synergistically, i think all of those things you want to bet a little before you develop some sort of legal relationship with them. Yeah, and i would think the board has a role in this because if there is going to be illegal agreement between them and we’ll talk about whether that’s appropriate or not. But if if if we’re going to go to that level than the board needs to be involved in this process, too, i think when, when, particularly when the relationship is going to be a substantial one that’s true. Now, if it’s going to just be a one off, you know, one event, you provide the drinks and we’ll provide the food. Okay, then? Yeah, we don’t worry about the board there, but for if we’re goingto have this joint fundraiser that’s going to take three months to prepare ah, and had been involved in a big place that we have to rent out and insurance and making sure that we get adequate participation and funding and we rely on other people to show up. Those are the types of things where the board may want to get involved, especially in the first time relationship, and after we’ve found a partner or partners that that maybe working with us, we want to know whether we should, how we should document our relationship. And and we talked a little about the mou, the memo of understanding versus the contract, right? And, you know, i’m not the biggest fan of the m o you, joe, you know, i think i miss you. Okay? Okay, well, how is that? Well, i think and, you know, speaking as a lawyer and you roll their eyes a little bit that’s okay? The mou really is intended to be an unenforceable documents so it’s like yes, you do this and we’ll do that. If it’s a joint fund raiser, you go ahead and rent the revenue will go ahead and get the entertainment on dh will provide the educational materials now in an mou that’s not maybe always specified, but we don’t say well, what happens if you don’t, you know, rent the venue if you didn’t get adequate insurance for it or if we didn’t market right? And where we didn’t get the educational materials out, so we can’t really deliver our message the way we wanted to. And now it may be one party spot more than the others and what happens in that case if it’s an mou that’s not intended to be enforceable? Well, then, i guess it’s just a broken trust and you know, everybody’s on their own after that. But if you intend fur, some of it to be enforceable, you know, sometimes you want to get that language in there and make sure that it’s understood that it’s an agreement. A lot of times i see people who hedge on this and they and they have this enforceable agreement, but they call it an mou, and even government agencies do that that’s a little pet peeve of mine it just to make sure that both parties are on the same page. Is it enforceable? What happens if the other party doesn’t live up to their agreements? And are we clear about what you’re supposed to do? This is what we’re supposed to do now. We should have an attorney draft this it’s going to be an enforceable contract, which is what your preferences i mean, that needs to be drafted by an attorney? Well, i think the at least the initial draft, if you enter into the same type of relationships multiple occasions, you may not need the attorney to bet every single time, particularly if it’s smaller deal, but yes, generally speaking, i think you’re right, you do want an attorney to at least review ah, the written agreement, whatever you call it, whether you call it an mou or not, you want an attorney toe review that and maybe question you on challenge you on some of those points to make sure that everybody is clear about what their respective obligations and responsibilities are and what they can expect reasonably from the other party, because there are elements of a contract that are based in state law that make a writing into a contract and make it enforceable or not. And so if those elements aren’t there, you might think you have a contract, but it wasn’t prepared, or at least reviewed by an attorney probably should be prepared, i think. And you may think you have a contract, but you don’t. Yeah, or or you may be just missing a whole. Bunch of things like, when does the contract? And there are a lot of times that they’re just open ended contracts and you don’t want the other party coming up to you, like two years after you last talked with each other and saying, hey, you didn’t live up to this end of your bargain last week, right? All right, okay. All right. So, it’s, a lot of implications around the contract mean, its’s it’s an art drafting these and making sure that they are, in fact, enforceable under the state law where they’re going to be where they’re going to be judged. Yeah, and i think it also is an opportunity for you for you to just get mutually gets a mutual understanding of what your respective roles are, because sometimes there’s a lot of gray areas that, you know, we didn’t discuss verbally, you know, who was supposed to be responsible for this thing, but it’s critical to what we’re doing together, and we kind of both just let it slip by having a written agreement and really challenging yourself to make sure that it’s gonna work in multiple situations and with different contingencies think that’s really important. Okay, i think i’m glad you said it. I can tell you feel strongly about it. Excellent. I should plug there’s another non-profit attorney out there. Her name is alice carter she’s a friend. And she writes the charity lawyer block. I got an excellent article on mou or written agreement. And if anybody wants to look into that further, i highly recommend that article. I know ellis she’s in phoenix, arizona, isn’t she? Yeah. Yeah. Ok. That’s, charity law blawg dot com verity, lawyer block charlie lawyer blogged, right? That’s because she calls herself charity lawyer. Yes. Okay. Ellis if she’s listening. Hello, alice. Um, now, all right, so what happens if there is a disappointment and somebody doesn’t follow through and, of course, that somebody could be you now that we have an enforceable contract, you know, it’s enforceable always and including against you. So suppose somebody doesn’t follow through and do what they’re supposed to do, and we touched on that on the last show as well. And, generally speaking, we probably don’t put a lot of specific remedies in there. We just say, well, if one party doesn’t live through and the other party got harmed by it you know, the party that didn’t follow through should compensate and make up for any harm that their partner i’ll say partner, loosely speaking, lost out on just to make them back make him whole again. But there’s sometimes maybe specific things that that that you want from them. So if they were expecting you were expecting them to deliver something and they didn’t do it on time. You may say, well, we still want delivery of of that. Plus, we want some sort of compensation or or additional services because you missed out so you can be very specific in the agreement, or you could just let the agreement be enforceable by the amount of damages or harm that you suffered, and this will be part of the negotiations of the agreement. That’s, right? You might think your damages should be something, and the other side may think now, you know, shouldn’t be that large, and that will be all part of the discussions in the negotiations. Yeah, and the more you know, involved in the bigger the the agreement and the, you know, potential joint venture that you’re engaging in that the more lawyerly it should look, with more provisions. If it’s really again, a very simple thing. You may not have to worry so much about technical provisions, unless you really think you’re gonna be harmed in a specific way, right? If it’s something smaller and like you said, ah, one off that’s ah, small, a small venture together. Yeah, and you’ve got to be reasonable. Obviously, you don’t want to spend five thousand dollars in legal fees for an event that’s going to only generate ten thousand dollars. Now we can we have this thing called partnerships, which is a legal term. When would a partnership between non-profits be appropriate? Well, a partnership, legally speaking means that both entities, they’re both partners, are going to be completely libel, responsible for whatever they’re doing together and that’s a really important point to know, because that means if you’re one partner and you’re the other partners screws up and some people get hurt, they consume both of you. And if your partner says, well, i’m sorry i don’t have any money to pay off the lawsuit, you’re completely responsible for the whole thing, not just half of it, you’re responsible for the whole thing. So really important part to understand if you’re really in a partnership as we use that term legally, that means you’re going to be completely responsible for anything that goes wrong with the partnership. You’re you’re working hard to stay in the jargon jail because you don’t want to say you don’t want to say joint and several liability, right? You said it, not me, ok, i was in my mind, right? So that means that everybody’s responsible for everything, irrespective of what their role in the problem might have been do i say that? Right? So you could be completely innocent and completely not responsible for the harm caused to a third party. But at least when they’re trying to collect some money for for whatever harm they suffered, they can get it all from you if your partner doesn’t have any money. Right. Okay, now, partnership could be more than just two non-profits. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay, just making that shirt okay. Making clear. Okay, so, that’s a pretty serious thing to take on partnership versace not declaring it as a partnership. And how would you make that clear? That would be in the agreement or partnerships require certain special agreements. It’s a really great question because you could enter into a partnership without a written agreement. If you just act in a way that says, hey, you’re jointly responsible for putting on an event or putting on a program or delivering services together, and you show that you’re you know, just by your actions that you’re jointly responsible for it. And perhaps you’re sharing the revenue stream that’s being generated if there is some revenue coming out of that joint venture well, you could form a partnership for which you’re liable for your other partners, mistakes without a partnership agreement or without any writing at all so it could be imputed by philip business based on all the facts like you just described them, yeah, hey can can be, uh sometimes people enter into agreements and they say in the agreement, this is very common to say we’re not engaged in a partnership and they feel like, well, that’s an out and that’s helpful language, but that’s not the whole story, because if you’re still sharing responsibilities and obligations and your conduct is that of a partner and you’re still sharing the revenues let’s, say with two partners fifty fifty yeah, no matter what you’re contributing, you still may be on the hook of a partner to a partnership, even though the agreement that you entered into said we’re not partners see, this makes me want to just live in a cocoon and never talked to anybody because i may i may have a conversation with somebody on the subway, and now now i’m in a partnership, it just means you want to talk, talk about it a little bit with a lawyer. Just to get an understanding of how to form these collaborations and one talk with the lawyer may go a long way in multiple relationships. So get that initial conversation, or maybe attend illegal seminar, where they talk about these things. Okay, very good advice, let’s, let’s, take our our break. When we come back, jean and i’ll keep talking about friends with benefits, and we’ll talk about maybe some. Well, not maybe talk about some measures of success, and howto decide about sharing the results of your collaboration together. Notice. I didn’t call it a partnership, because it may not necessarily be one. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. 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, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. If you have big dreams in a small budget tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio, i d’oh. I’m adam braun, founder of pencils of promise. Oppcoll welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We’re joined by some new listeners. Ah, third, listen, another listener in georgia. Decatur. We’ve got decatur, atlanta and coming. Uh, cummings, georgia, do you know each other? I wonder san francisco, california gene, i don’t think that’s you there’s somebody else listening in san francisco, brooklyn, new york, still with us love it and none. Jing china china joined us. Ni hao jean let’s see about what would cover in continuing this let’s see about defining success, how we should should should measures of success be part of our agreement? Yeah, i think it depends upon the level of collaboration that we’re talking about. They’re different levels that we can go to. For example, two non-profits could decide they want to share a photocopier. Okay. That’s a collaborative effort on the very, very low end of the scale. Or maybe they want to share a chief financial officer that gets a little bit more complex. That’s. Interesting. Right? Sharing staff. Yeah, yeah, right. Or maybe they just want to share space so that, you know, depending upon the level we get to it. Maybe you know, pursuant to a resource sharing agreement or cost sharing structure. Or we may have to do, you know, create mutual service agreements or independent contractor agreements, maybe it’s one way, maybe it’s two way going both ways and how we figure all that out. Uh, it means that we we have to understand what the goals are. So going back to your question at the outset of any negotiations or discussions between the different non-profits that want to collaborate, they have to figure out their mutual goals, and then individually they have to set apart well, what do they each want? You know, from from this relationship, and how will they define it to be a success? Because that varies just completely amongst every collaboration you mentioned, the sharing of space, and that doesn’t have to certainly be between non-profits a lot of times someone who’s close to an organisation on a lot of times, that’s a boardmember not necessarily ah, has extra space, and they will give the space to the to the non-profit um and i don’t know that those air always papered or even paper correctly, but i bet they’re not even a lot of times just paper. But there should be some kind of an agreement in writing between that the company that the boardmember let’s say represents and the non-profit right, especially if that boardmember is going to be paid there’s some conflict of interest issues involved their private foundations can’t do that at all for money. Public charities can as long as it’s reasonable compensation. But there are some rules, both ous five a onesie, three entities and there’s some state non-profit rules that may apply so good conflict of interest policy is going to be important to make sure that it protects the non-profit from getting into on ly a reasonable deal to the non-profit not one that provides some sort of private benefit to the director. But, you know, the vast majority of these cases are where boardmember czar offering space for free right to the non-profit andi it’s their own place that that’s absolutely fine. If the boardmember is actually leasing that out and sublease may be necessary or else they may be breaching their own lease with the landlord. Okay, a lot of implications to that mean, just, you know, we have to we have to be protecting ourselves. I mean he’s non-profits on non-profit is a company that’s it’s a corporation it’s a business. It just happens to be a non-profit business, so it needs to be run like a business. Absolutely. We gotta protect ourselves. Our employees are the people we’re serving and those lives were saving the donors who have invested, you know, we all ah, they all we all need to be protected. And so that’s that’s, you know, that’s why we’re talking about this stuff? I mean, you know, just do these things lightly and, you know, sort of on a handshake. Yeah, and, you know, but you know, non-profits don’t have owners that’s a big difference and that’s why the board it’s got to be reminded there’s, not an owner overseeing to make sure that the non-profit really gets a fair deal, and maybe you were lucky enough to have an executive who’s willing to take on that task, but it’s really up to the board to make sure that they’re looking after that. Non-profit and making sure that the non-profit is not giving sweetheart deals to anybody else outside of the organization, regardless of whether they’re a boardmember or an officer or anybody the non-profit has got to protect its own charitable assets. That would be the role of shareholders in a profit making corporation, and they have their own personal motivation to do that. But non-profit boardmember here, mostly volunteers. They may not have that, and they may sort of not be exercising that type of diligence at an owner would over their own assets. But they kind of have to, because they’re they’re the ones that are providing that stewardship over the non-profits asset. So, really, that they need to be paying as much attention to the non-profits work as they do their own businesses work. Ideally, yeah, okay. So i suppose we have some delivery bols involved in all this, and this is, you know, sort of subsumed in what we’ve been talking about already just want to make it explicit. If there’s money that’s going to be shared or some other delivery ble that’s goingto result maybe it’s, even ah, a grant proposal that’s going to be joint and that’s the delivery ble that that should be specified. Yeah, that should all be specified. And, you know, i sort of wanted to jump it back in on that partnership thing. It’s not always bad toe have a partnership. Maybe you do want engage in a partnership with another non-profit and do it through a legal entity like a limited liability company and that’s almost like having a kid together. So if you’ve decided to partner with another non-profit tohave child or this joint venture together, you better know who that person is. And you better know how you want to raise your child and what each of you are going to contribute to the child’s growth and what happens when you have a disagreement over how to raise that child. If i just take that analogy further. And you know how comfortable you’ll be with liabilities caused solely by your co venture? Because if you don’t want to be partners, limited liability company means that you’re only liable to to the extent of your investment in the llc, the partnership liabilities don’t come up if you do this right, they don’t come up and hit the non-profit partners, they’re just limited to whatever that contributed to the llc. Still, i’m glad i called this friends with benefits because basically you’re saying you gotta hold hands before you sleep together. Yeah, kind of and taking it one step further if a joint ventures like having a kid together. Ah, merger on you mentioned that at the last of the last show that’s kind of the ultimate collaboration and that’s, you know, if i could take take bad analogy further let’s, let’s say that that’s really like marriage on marriage with almost no possibility of divorce, are very, very difficult. Um, it might be true in the analogy and analogous version, but no, no it’s much easier in the end, i have personal experience on that take a metaphor further, but yeah, no merger is you’re you’re now want you’ve, you’ve formed a union, you’re you’re now one, right? Okay. And all sorts of considerations to make sure, you know, you understand that not only are you gonna acquire all the assets of your marriage partner, but you’re goingto acquire all of their debts and liabilities and obligations as well. So you really got to know what the other partner is bringing to the table. Hold hands before you before you sleep together and make sure you use protection. Very good that’s what comes from our friends from friends with benefits segment? And now, i mean, you know, we got to protect ourselves. That’s, that’s what you’re saying, do you have to we have to leave it there. Thank you very, very much. Thanks, tony. You’ll find jeanette non-profit law blogged dot com and on twitter he’s at ji tech next week, a non-profit technology conference panel on female technologists that the panel is not all men that’s good, because men don’t know anything about women’s struggles competing in technology. So it’s, an all female panel talking about females in technology. Also any sample ward returns she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of non-profit technology network, where i did that interview? If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com small and midsize shops. Remember generosity siri’s for multi charity five k runs and walks seven one eight, five o six. Nine, triple seven or generosity siri’s, dot com. Our creative producers, claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz is on the board. Our line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is, as always, john federico of the new rules. This music is by scott stein of brooklyn. You with me next week for non-profit radio. I hope you will be big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Yeah. They didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Nothing. Cubine 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 hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan. Wainwright were the hosts of the new thursday morning show, the music power hour, eleven a m we’re gonna have fun shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com, you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. 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. Talking.

Nonprofit Radio Knowledge Base: Board Fundraising

 

It’s critical. And I know it’s a big, big problem for a lot of nonprofits.

Major Gifts 2.0: Straight Talk For Your Board [video]. Get a CEO’s perspective on board fundraising! My guest is Jennifer Herring, CEO of The Maritime Aquarium.

With Deborah Stanley from Blackbaud, A Board That Brings In The Bucks. She wants you to lose the fear of asking!

Your Board Can Fundraise with Dennis Miller, consultant.

From a few weeks ago, Your Board On Grants, with regular contributor Cindy Gibson. Our discussion applies to all fundraising, really.

Here’s the first Knowledge Base article, on Branding.