Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Tony’s Guests:
From last week’s Fund Raising Day conference, Jennifer Herring has advice on motivating, working with and supporting your board to help them step-up to fundraising duties. She is president and CEO of The Martime Aquarium at Norwalk, in Connecticut.
Maria Semple, our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder, does a mid-year check-in of her New Year’s ideas on your 2012 prospect plan from our January 6th show. Have you hosted cultivation events and used them as prospect research tools? Do you have your free Google alerts set up?
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Here is the link to the audio podcast: 096: Motivate Your Board For Major Giving & Revisiting Your 2012 Prospect Plan.
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Zoho hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio for friday, june fifteenth twenty twelve we’re talking about big ideas, big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent of your aptly named host it’s good to be back in the studio have been away for a couple of weeks. Last week i was at fund-raising day got about ten interviews for the show, one of which we’re goingto listen to very shortly today, but great fun meeting everybody on the exhibit floor got some sponsorship enquiries good to see everybody there about fifteen hundred people at the conference and good busy booth we had on the exhibit floor this week it is motivate your board for major e-giving and revisiting your twenty twelve prospect plan from last week’s fund-raising day conference. Jennifer herring has advice on motivating, working with and supporting your board to help them step up to their fund-raising duties she’s president and ceo of the maritime aquarium at norwalk in connecticut and also revisiting your twenty twelve prospect plan. Maria simple, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder those a midyear checkin of her new year’s ideas on your twenty twelve prospect plan that was back. On our january sixth show have you hosted those cultivation events that she recommended and used them as prospect research tools? Do you have your free google lorts set up? We’ll recap a few of those ideas from january and between the guests. Antony’s take two nearly one thousand new york city charities lose their tax exemption. I’ll explain what happened to their exempt status and that’s not limited to new york. You can use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation on twitter. Andi i very much hope that you were with me last week when it was got women donors from last year’s fund-raising conference and also maria semple was on last week sharing strategies for using linked in. Right now we take a break, and when we return, i’ll have the first of my interviews from fund-raising day this year. Stay with me. They couldn’t do anything, including getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get you thinking. E-giving cubine money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment to create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back, it’s time to motivate your board for major giving. This is the first of my interviews from the fund-raising day conference hosted by association friendraising professionals new york city chapter just last friday. So this is the first of the ten that i got years. Motivate your board for major e-giving with jennifer herring, welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve, we’re in the heart of new york city in times square at the marriott marquis. My guest right now is jennifer herring. Jennifer is president and ceo of the maritime aquarium at norwalk, and her topic is major gifts two point oh, straight talk for your board, jennifer. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much, tony. I’m glad to have you on dh. Thank you for taking time in a busy conference day. A pleasure. Why don’t you acquaint listeners with the work of the maritime? Aquarius. Ah, the maritime aquarium is a regional aquarium located in fairfield county, connecticut, that serves primarily connecticut in westchester. But the whole tri state region it’s focused on long island sound. In fact, it’s, the only aquarium focused on long island sound our mission is to inspire people of all ages to appreciate long island sound and protect it for future generations. We have a wonderful collection of long island sound animals and a lot of ability to touch and directly experience animals. It’s a very intimate aquarium. Okay, we also have a very large education program that reaches out primarily to underserved students around the tri state area. And how long have you been there? I’ve been there for going on eight years now as the ceo. Okay, let’s, get into your seminar topic. Major gifts two point oh, straight talk for your board. You’re encouraging gift officers to be change agents around board fund-raising way. We’ll have plenty of time for detail, but generally what’s what’s the problem that you see, i think that the challenge with boards is to keep them engaged. Getting them on the board is on ly step one all fund-raising especially major gifts. Fund-raising is about personal relationships. And just like any friendship, personal relationship needs to be cultivated and maintained on a continuous basis so you can get getting people on the board is the first challenge and talk a little bit. We want we want talk? A little about recruitment will get sacked, right? But once they’re on the board keeping them engaged, challenging them with meaningful ways to be connected with your organization, it’s an ongoing challenge and the strategy behind that is something that the development officers can and should play a significant role in. Okay, let’s, let’s talk a little about the recruitment of board members. How do we make plane? What the fund-raising expectations are at the recruitment stage? I’ve done that for many, many years, no there’s always a conversation, you know, once you’ve i met, the person cultivated the person enough so that your at a position to have a conversation about whether they want to join your board. And of course, that person has to be somebody who’s passionate about your mission and somebody who is going to bring something either some expertise or capacity or preferably or a network of contacts are preferably all three two the nexus of issues that the organization feeling you have ensured that the person you’re recruiting is bringing something, what one one to a little three of those? Absolutely because, of course, the ideal boardmember brings wealth, wisdom and work. And we want to engage all three. So you’re having the conversation and it’s almost always conversation, at least in my current job between me, sometimes with another trustee and the perspective person and i just lay the expectations out on the table. Now we have kind of a sliding scale of expectations, depending on the capacity of the person the board has voted. This is a small organization, it’s, about a ten and a half million dollar budget and how many trustees are there there at the moment? Thirty one that’s large could be that’s a lot that’s. A lot of trustees, partly because in a cultural institution, being on the board or on a committee of the board is the only way you have a connection there. No grateful patients. There are no alumni. You have to create a connection and keep it going. Okay, and the board is a very important way to do that. So getting back to the recruitment conversation, i always put a specific number on the table. Um, and it can be as little as the minimum annual gift that the board has voted. Should be the minimum, which is twenty, five hundred. Dollars uh huh. Often i will say site a larger annual gift if i know the person has more capacity plus either giving ah, e-giving or selling a table to the gala. And then we’ve been in a campaign mullet for the last five years. I usually say, you know, once you’ve gotten involved in and been a member and really gotten connected, we will be coming to talk to you about a major giff ok? And the first number that’s an annual number that’s an annual number. Okay, so you’re very clear about the expectations, do you? Do you do this in writing and let the person take it home to take it to the office and considerate or this is really all verbal well, what we give them in writing, we don’t give them the expectation and writing, okay, we give them the role of the board. You know what? What our expectations of them are in terms of their responsibilities and what they can expect of us in terms of response. Civilities, we give them a lot of background material about the organization would let them see who they’re colleagues on the board would baby give them. Aboard list, but we don’t have, you know, a pledge form that they have to sign beforehand. We figured that the verbal conversation is enough, and then we solicit them ah, at the at year end or calendar, you’re a fiscal year, and we have a june thirtieth fiscal year for what we’ve talked about. All right, now you have a new boardmember they’ve they’ve accepted based on the expectations, what is ah, board training look like for brand new board members around? Fund-raising well, we don’t have a really formal training for us it’s on the job, maybe they go on other calls, outgoing calls with others or what we mostly do. We have a pretty elaborate committee structure, one of which is this is a campaign committee, but a marketing committee of finance committee, education committee and exhibits committee, so we use those committees to get them connected with the meat and the program of the organization we use the gala committee very actively to engage people in soliciting tables for the gala. That’s in some ways, the easiest kind of fund-raising to do because it’s very transactional, then there’s a a certain small kadre of leadership volunteers. Who have made major gif ts and who are in powerful positions in the board that i work with personally to develop specific ask strategies that they participate in to go on called fund-raising calls with terrorism that’s sort of on the job it’s on me. Okay, so it’s on the job training because i’ve i’ve found i’ve worked it now for non-profits and i in none of them has there ever been, you know, you get the whole board together and you have a little fund-raising training thing. We tried to do that, actually on a retreat in two thousand eight, the week that the stock market was falling apart when we were about to launch our campaign and had a little role playing about how you ask, but that contrived, right? So everybody knew everybody knew was staged its quite trust, and i found that it’s much better to work directly with the person who’s agreed to go on a call with you, and what i do is write a script for that person, and i do it for myself too about you know what the objective is, how much we’re going to ask for what the background. Is the, you know, the background, research, the relationship with the person to the organization, and then what each of us is going to say, e-giving lending, e-giving e-giving, ding, ding, ding, ding! You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get him. Cubine money, time, happiness, success, where’s your breakthrough join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment to create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. 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. Oppcoll you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Treyz i’m ken berger of charity navigator. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Yeah, so you actually rehearse since you have a school to do, you practise the meeting in advance? Well, i practice myself. I mean, i sit in my office and speak the script, and i often will have a telephone call with the person who’s going with nato to go over it, and they used these scripts. They work really well to shape the the conversation and, you know, it’s sort of various whose mouth, the actual ask is going to come out of it most often comes out of my mouth even if we’re going with a peer, but it doesn’t matter, really, because the presence of the pier there makes all the difference. And why don’t you say a word about that? For people who may not recognise what what’s the value of having is someone someone alongside with you, who’s a a peer of the of the person you’re soliciting. So having somebody who’s involved who’s already made a major her gift who’s giving their time and and treasure to the organization validates the organization for the person that you’re asking the money for and sets a bar down four for what they’re doing, especially if it’s a trustee because the trustees are supposed to be the ones who care the most were the most invested and therefore need to be the biggest investors in the organization. That somebody on the outside of the organization is always looking. Two how much trustees were doing and how much in particular that trustee who’s asking has done to help scale their level of gift thinking. So so here’s an example. Actually, this isn’t a trustee is somebody whose son is a trustee. And who i’ve tried to get a trust to be a trustee for years has taken on the project of raising money for a new research vessel, which is a two and a half million dollar project. He’s in the shipping industry. He’s. Very passionate about it. He cochairs the committee he brought in the person who’s. Um, project managing the project. Who’s built many boats. He helped move us to the decision away from retrofitting an old boat to building a new boat from scratch. He agreed to raise the money. He gave a half million dollars lead gift. And i took him to see ah, prospect that’s been in our family at about the ten. Thousand dollar level for a number of years. Who we honored it, our gala, who we’ve cultivated pretty thoroughly and whose connection to the aquarium was around our existing research vessel. So we went and sat with him right before christmas in their kitchen. Sam uh, the gentleman who’s leading this project talked about it very passionately talked about what he’s done, and that is instance, the actual ask came out of my mouth. We left them with materials. But then the leader that the head of this effort played golf with the prospect in florida continue to cultivate him on his own separately from anything that the institution was doing. And this gentleman stepped up with a half million dollar gift, matching the lead gift for matching the lead gift. So it was a long cultivation effort, probably going on for five years before we got to the critical moment where we found the right project that connected to this person’s passion. And i’m sure that the fact that he was being solicited by somebody else who had made a gift at that level was one of the things that determined no, his i mean, this is somebody with a lot of capacity. Who’s named things all over town. This also speaks to the value of the long term relationships that you mentioned now that may not have been a long term relationship, but it was the beginning of it was the beginning of a relationship between those between those two between those two. Absolutely and and there is the long term relationship with the institution. Find this gentleman the person who made the five hundred thousand dollar gift had been involved with the institution for at least five years. But between these two people, right, a developing relationship, correct? See each other’s piers on dh makes it tougher for the person solicited to refuse. The other thing usually is that when you’re going to have a solicitation call, the person that you’re soliciting knows why you’re coming to see that it’s not a surprise way don’t want toby blindsiding people you want them to know, right? I mean, you basically set up the meeting in a way that says, i want to come and talk to about this project for this campaign or so that they know what it is and if they don’t want to be solicited. They won’t take the meeting mostly right? Let’s talk about the role of the professional fundraiser in supporting lord fund-raising what do you see as the the role? Well acquaint people with the structure at the aquarium? Do you have? Ah, vice president, director development? Yes, there are some gift officers or we have it, but we have a very small development, as we have in highly experienced director development who’s been doing university development, heading university development departments for thirty years. We have a person who does foundations and ah latto the patron program and various other many aspects of fund-raising is sort of the director of the annual fund, but he’s also doing major gift so it’s not very good at everything that it is typical of a small shop. We have a person who does the gallas and corporate fund-raising we have a person who does membership and the acknowledgment of gif ts and some fulfillment of patron level gift, which is a thousand dollars for us, we don’t have very many patrons and and that person has an assistant so it’s basically five, five people in there, other things that are being done out of this. Opponent who eyes the liaison to the board for fund-raising assume it’s, the it’s, the director of development and to some degree that the person who manages the gala because the board is so involved in the gala so and and also the personal i would say that there are three of our gift officers that that have relationships, not with every boardmember but with some board members, and then since you’re giving your your topic is major gift, right, what’s, the what’s, the support that the director development probably is the one providing to the to the board around around major, gifted director, director of development it’s mostly providing support to me around major gift activities and that’s possibly because i have such a strong fund-raising background was the ceo. I mean, that’s what i’ve been my career has been for thirty years, so we talk about strategy. He identifies prospects, does the research. He does a lot of personal cultivation with these people, too. So he makes friends with them. He talks about his travels there, travels. He fixed us up with theater tickets. He does things that just brings them closer to the organization. He’s very active. In working with the board on small, intimate cultivation dinners, that’s something you ask board members to do? We asked members events and not in the way host them right in front of our biggest exhibit, which is a shark tank. So you’re you’re having dinner with the sharks swimming around in this elegant table. There’s, you know, a maximum of twenty of you there’s, some interesting intellectual guest, either professor from yale or the principle of our partner school that’s closing the achievement gap or somebody like that, you’re there with a bunch of peers that the board members bring to the table and that’s part of the cultivation effort that’s proven very successful and really important in moving people into major gift relationships with us. What do we do with or four board members who have a reluctance to do fund-raising now, even at the so even going back to the er, teo bringing them on, bring them on the board, the recruitment if they express our reluctance, they have skills that you need and they’re willing to do their own giving maybe a maybe a much higher level than the twenty five dollar minimum, but they have a reluctance to do to be asking people for money, what can they be doing around fund-raising we just don’t bother with them because we don’t have time, frankly, so you wouldn’t accept that kind of a boardmember no, no, we just leave them alone to what they’re doing, okay? And don’t try to make them do something they can’t d’oh. But even if they can’t ask there not comfortable asking, they could, for instance, host the hosting events so that’s were constantly, uh, trying to get people to bring their friends to our events to our friends of his are exhibit openings introduced people to us, and every year when we have aboard retreat, they all the people there pledged that they will do that and every year on ly a few of them do it word definitely working very hard to get boardmember sze to agree to host or co host thies, small dinners are shark tank dinners and bring with its great they’re called struck thank dinner. Yes. Oh, isn’t that great? I just read something online that if there was one drop of blood in one million drops of blood or something like that, sort of sense that consensus was that on npr’s website or something it could be but that’s something that that one of our education programs that demonstrates two kids very interesting how they do it with a little drop of tomato juice, being deluded and deluded and deluded, and and they figure out when they can taste it and okay, yeah, so your shark tank dinners so we’re constantly trying to get boardmember is to bring their peers to shark tank dinners, which is very difficult to do, and only a few of them are really able tto leverage those kinds of relationships. It’s, you know, we have in some ways a naive for this is not new york city, and this is not new york city fund-raising with the kind of power boards that i’ve worked with at the new york public library and the wildlife conservation society it’s a very different kind of bored, maybe many of these people are being our board members for the first time, some of them are, you know, business people may be in the upper middle management of the bank, and there they don’t have that kind of reach into rich people community that um, that is common in new york. On the other hand, fairfield county has a huge amount of hedge fund wealth and a huge amount of maritime wealth, although in this economy, that’s less than it, wass. And we’re getting more and more of those kinds of people on our board who do have a network and are able to to bring us at least to get this us in a room with them. Okay, then the challenge becomes how two convince the sector. That is more and more about venture philanthropy that has measurable impact. That there’s something for them at the maritime aquarium? Yeah, on dh. Well, we want to stick to the board fund-raising topic, but i know that impact and outcome assessment is very here for lots of charities. And yes, it is a struggle for cultural institutions to do that. Although it sounds like maybe around your education in this job we do. We are able to do that around our education on shifts and initiatives in some very interesting ways about closing the achievement gap, and one of our trustees made a very strategic a gift to us that allowed us to do a case study about a partner school that we’re working with and what impact our partnership has had in their achievement there. Rising achievement of school that’s almost all inner city kids. Jennifer way have just about a minute left. And i want to talk a little about the case for support on dh analyzing that case for support again in just a minute. So what’s your advice around scrutinising that you need a strong case for support. You need your board to be able to deliver it in an elevator speech s so that they can be great ambassadors for you. The case for support is what’s going to make people give? They have to understand that you have to teach them through your case for support that you are an institution that can help them change the world, that they can change the world through your institution, and get the joy and satisfaction of doing that through their philanthropy. The the elevator speech for board members, do you help them write it? First? Talk about what we have definitely done that, and we’ve done it in various ways. The elevator speech should have a certain set of statistics, and i’ve actually gone so far as to take a business card and write him out that they can keep in their pocket this citizen. But the elevator speech also has to connect to the passions of the boardmember so that they can talk about the institution in a way that that communicates the passion that they bring to it. So every boardmember doesn’t have the same elevators, no every boardmember doesn’t and shouldn’t have the same elevator speech. Excellent advice. Ok, it goes to what? What? What moves them the most. What moves down, right? We have to leave it there, but thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. Jennifer herring is president and ceo of the maritime aquarium at norwalk in norwalk, connecticut. Pleasure. Thank you very much for joining me, jennifer. My pleasure. Thank you, toni. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve marriott marquis, hosted by association of fund-raising professionals, new york city chapter. My thanks again to the folks at fund-raising day and jennifer herring. Right now, we take a break, and when we returned, tony’s take two, and then it’ll be maria semple revisiting your two thousand twelve prospect plan. So hang around. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com 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. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back, it’s. Time for tony’s, take two on tony martignetti non-profit radio my block this week is nearly one thousand new york city charities lose tax exemption the new york city department of finance ah revoked the property tax exemption from nine hundred twenty five city based charities because they failed to demonstrate a legitimate charitable purpose. They lost their property exemption for what? For property that they owned. And, as i say in the blogged, something similar to that was reported in the new york times last year and and the block post has a link to that coverage, i think the lessons for charities are you need to stay true to the charitable mission that got you. The irs is designation of tax exempt however, many years ago that was and in the case of one of the charity’s sighted, but you’ll see in the blogged from new york city, that was nineteen, thirty four and but now, obviously, new york city is challenging that. So you need to stay true to that charitable mission that got you that original tax exempt designation and i think, also need to stay in compliance with state and local regulations. And laws because i could see compliance being linked to keeping your tax advantage at the state and local level. And that’s all we’re talking about. We’re not talking about federal tax exemption. These were ah, this is all state and local tax advantages also want to remind you well, that’s on the block and my blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com and that’s, this week’s post. I also want you to remember that we have a linked in group and on the linked in group. You can tell me what you ah, i have as ideas for future shows. Or give me feedback on previous guests. When if you’d like to say, please check us out on linkedin. And that is tony’s. Take two for friday, june fifteenth the twenty fourth show of the year. The year is almost half over. How is that possible, maria? Simple. I know your air right in here. Hello, maria. Simple. How are you? I’m doing well. Maria is the prospect finder she’s, an experienced trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com. Her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now and most importantly, she’s, our regular prospect research contributor, and this month we’re revisiting the twenty twelve prospect plan maria from the january sixth show. You had some ideas back then, i did absolutely so i came up with kind of a list of things that people could do, and i thought i’d be a good idea to revisit it now that we are hard to believe midpoint in the year of twenty twelve already, i know, um, so not to revisit the entire show, but some of the tips that we had, we brought to the table at that point we were talking about, you know, prospecting from within your database in-kind of mining that database and tips for how you can keep up with some of your top prospects. But we also talked about proactively identifying people outside the database and bringing them into your organization to learn more about your missions and by hosting by hosting some cultivation events, right? Right. So we did, you know, talk about cultivation events. My suggestion had been to in the first three months of the year, really trying to identify people from within the database and proactively identified people outside your database that you might invite some cultivation events and then try and hold those events in second quarter. So let let’s assume that people may have taken our advice hosted one or two cultivation events, but if not, we have some lessons or we have some ideas to get started. The year’s not over and it’s only half. So you can still, you know, implement all of these and just think about shifting the tips into the second half of the year. That’s even we have even more than half. This is only the twenty fourth. So twenty four, twenty four, fifty seconds have passed. So what is that? Twelve. Twenty six and then it goes down even further. Teo six, six, eighth goes from all right. Well, you have more than half the year left. Yeah, just a little over half the year. So all is not lost. But anyway, let’s, let’s talk about some of those. Those tips that we talked about, we mentioned identifying maybe the within your database. Who were those top ten to twenty gifts that you’d received in the past year. And also your top ten prospects in terms of lifetime giving to your organization and, you know, inviting those people to attend a cultivation event. Now, you know, sometimes people refer to these parlor event. You know, whatever terminology want to use, the event can be held at your facility. If you have a facility you want to showcase or outside in somebody’s home. So in particular, if you have somebody you’re affiliated with with your board or another volunteer who’s willing to open up their home, particularly if they have a lovely home. And really, the setting would work very nicely for us. A small, intimate gathering. The key to remember here, there’s no. Ask at that. You know, that could also be on site. You might have. You might have a very interesting place for people to gather on site i in the interview that everybody heard earlier in the show. Jennifer herring is president of the maritime aquarium at norwalk in connecticut. And they like to host things in front of the shark tank. Right? So it could be a small gathering. If you have a small shark or maybe have a gecko or, you know a hamster, you could host a small group in front of a little aquarium. With, you know, eight or twelve people watching the hamster go around in a wheel, i mean, that could be compelling. Yeah, certainly if you have a facility that lend itself well to that type of gathering that’s great. I attended something recently at the liberty science center here in jersey city in new jersey, and it was a fabulous event, and so, you know, just get creative and think about what would draw people in. Is it the space? Is that this person’s home on dh? The key is to really be able teo stick to the time frame that you tell people it will be, particularly if you’re going to do it around some sort of a breakfast event, people need to get on with their day, be a little bit more lax if it’s an end of the day event, but from a prospecting or prospect research point of view you want to think about while you’re attending that event, listening for, you know, some of the general interests now, you know, i’m assuming that a lot of the people that are listening to this show may be from a smaller to midsize non-profit so the person taking on the role of prospect researcher is either the executive director is the development director, maybe a communications director. Whoever that person is that also does some prospect research at the organization should be in attendance at this event with the so purpose, really, to do a little bit of intelligence gathering. Yeah, you want to be you want to be making sure that people are that staff, if you do have multiple staff, you don’t want them huddled together over in the sort of the room, even if it’s just two or three of you, you know, huddled in a corner, chatting or all seated at the same table if there are multiple tables, that’s, a that’s, a big mistake, you’re not you’re not going to be out talking to people as much as you could be, right? So this is an opportunity for you to showcase your non-profit but also to elicit a lot of wonderful information that, quite frankly, a lot of instances you may just not be able to find this information online. So so what type of information might that be that you’d want to elicit as wearing your prospect? Just general interest just engaged the person in conversation on and be a good listener that is just so very keys just to really put your listening ears on. And we’ve talked about we have talked about that in the past. Thie radical listening, which came from a previous guest. Melanie schnoll begun. And then you picked up on radical listening and recommended it as prospect research vehicle. Right? Total cultivation event is a great place for you to become a radical listener. So gent general interests that they have any family information that you khun gather sometimes there might be information about children, ages of children just to get kind of get an idea of where they are, what point in their lives that they’re at. Um, are they you know, more of a plan giving prospect for you? Are they really just starting out in their lives, their careers, and have very young children? Just you want to be genuinely interested in in their lives? S and and what? What it is about your work that appeals to them, right? And one way to find out about that is, well, obviously to directly ask them. But it’s also interesting to try and gather where else? They’re volunteering their time. You know what other charities air they particularly interested in so that you can try and figure out? Well, gee, just, you know, the programming and then services that we offer does it a line at all with what this family has in terms of their general charitable interest. So in the case of the maritime museum, they might be thinking about, you know, china, find out what you nowhere else these people are are spending their time. Are they interested in other maybe water conservation efforts, other charities that really address water quality in the long island sound? You know, things of that nature, and so for sure, you’ll know that you’re on the right track and engaging this person in additional conversation. So, you know, that might be a great way to find out where they and their spouse volunteered their time also vacationing. You know, this is a great opportunity for you to say so, you know, do you have any exciting vacation plans for this summer? Uh, so, you know, be listening for responses like, yeah, we’ll be spending, you know, the entire month of august in our home. In the hamptons, you know, they say that nature good to know just just generally find out what type if they say no, we’re doing this stay cation thing this year, you know, pick up on that cue, um, and then really, really important the circles back to something we talked about in the january show is to be able to really create some sort of contact reports on capturing critical information that you’ve been able to glean from the, uh, from the cultivation events. Right now, we have a great dahna database right now, back in january, we talked about we encouraged i think it was the eleven percent that didn’t have a computer database to look at the clouds packages that available, and you went into detail and on that in the january six show, so hopefully some of those people have converted teo computer databases, right? And if they’re still in there, sort of in the shopping phase, i’ll just remind them real quickly that the two websites that that might be something for them to check out that might give them some additional info on what’s available out there. Idealware dot or ge talked had a kn article about how to select a database and tech soup dot or ge is a good place to find some low cost and free tech advice. So, you know, check those out if you’re still in shopping mode. Andi, i you know, i truly believe that cloud based is the way to go it’s just going to give your staff and your board the most flexibility on dh then your point about saving that valuable information that you that you learn at a cultivation event in that computer database or if you’re not computerized yet, i guess you know, you you print up a contact report and put it in a person’s folder, right? Exactly and, you know, it’s really important, like, just just like you don’t want that staff to be all congregating together in the corner, it’s going to be very important after the event post event very quickly thereafter within a day or two to have a debriefing if it’s not a meeting, get a conference call going, you know, there’s free conference services out there there’s no reason why you can’t just say, you know, knowing in advance the date of the event, let’s say it’s a thursday evening by by friday midday, you could be having a conference call in have that scheduled way in advance that you’re going to have a debriefing call, you know what were the important point? Somebody found out from speaking with some of the people, and you may want to actually pre-tax fine people, right? So if we know in advance that mr big bucks is going to be there, why not do a little pre advanced research on him and find out a little bit of information? And so that a boardmember can be assigned to perhaps be the person to you know, just have a discussion and you can even try and figure out who the best four person would be, that you’d want to make sure cultivating that individual during the way we’re going to take a break. I want to emphasize before we do one thing that you said, which is in terms of inviting people, look a tte donors who have give been giving for the lifetime large donors over their lifetime, so individual gifts may not be so large, but they’re giving history over the life over their lifetime with your organization. Is quite large. Those air also good people to invite. We’re going take a break, and maria simple will still be with me after that break. And i hope you will, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic readings. Learn how to tune into your intuition, to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. This is tony martignetti, aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Technology fund-raising compliance. Social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Talking. Hi there and welcome back we’re revisiting your twenty twelve prospect plan with maria simple maria just teo wrap up that topic on cultivation events. Was there anything more you wanted to say about that before we get to one of the other topics from from january? I would say in terms of pre imposed cultivation event, there are a couple of websites that you might want a bookmark to be able to do some of that general research on an individual that might be attending or might have attended anay event. I outlined some of these in the going beyond google article that i have on my website, and maybe what i ll do, tony is at after the show go ahead into your lincoln page as well as your lincoln group as well as your facebook group on dh post there about what where they confine that exactly, but it’s a suspect finder, dot com and it’s on the resource is paige, so some of those things that you can do is obviously run the person’s name through google. Now the big tip with google is that you want to put quotation marks around a person’s name, so that you’re finding their name as a phrase in google if is so, certainly you could do that. You can set up a google alerts again on the top ten donors we had recommended back in january that you look at the top donors that you have in your database and set up an alert on their name that’s free google will push the information to you so you could find out if something new is happening, especially in somebody’s business career. Now, last time we talked about alerts, i think you had set one on me or we talk about something and you used me as an example. I was lousy results was a wealth indicator. Was that that wealth indicator? What? What, you know, what’s interesting about setting up. Stop using me as an example, right? Google and google alerts is if you google plus now is actually influencing, and we talked about that on one of your shows it’s influencing your search results. So if you are on google plus and you are logged into google, the results are actually going to be skewed more toward social results. So if you’re doing this purely as a prospect researcher. You may want to actually log out of google. Um, your google plus account before commencing your prospect research. Just a tip. I think you might get a little bit more of objective results, if you will. It’s not gonna be so much skewed toward just social sector social media here. And you had you had examples on of other alerts that that people could set beyond the free google lorts, which are which are outstanding. I use them a lot for for my work, right? But you had some examples of others specific newspaper alerts. A lot of the newspapers out there permit used to set up alerts on specific phrases. If you and also the news sources in your state here i track in new jersey, i track and jay is, uh, they send me daily alert just generally what’s going on in the business community. I get those alerts twice a day here in new jersey. So that’s, something you want to consider looking into. What is that publication that covers your state? It might present from interesting opportunities for you because they tend to not only highlight, you know, negative news that’s going on, but also some real positive news and then one of the fee based services that some of your listeners maybe currently scribed, too, for doing foundation research is called foundation search dot com and as paid subscriber, one of the things that you have access to is a new foundation alert service. So if you are subscribed to that service, definitely set up the alert for yourself. They’ll let you know anytime a new foundation is formed on registered with the irs in your state or whatever states you decide to set up, as you know, the alert service and you will be pushed the information through email, then you can check it out a little bit further waken set these alerts up not only for individuals but companies and foundations. That’s, right? Yeah, you can definitely do that as well. Cos and foundations, you want to set up those alert so, you know, whatever it is that you’re looking to track for certain, you want to set up the alert there? Um, lincoln is a great place to research. Somebody pretty opposed an event. Also, they have free alerts that you can set up within lincoln. So let’s say you’re always, you know, prospecting for somebody who holds specific in a certain industry. Let’s say the accounting industry or something like that. Ah, and you want to always be notified anytime somebody new joins lincoln who’s in the accounting field and also happens to be within a certain radius of your zip code, you can set those types of alerts up up to three of them, actually under a free lengthen account to take advantage of that. And have lincoln pushed the information to you, maria, is that using the advanced search? Yeah, yeah. You can do with the advanced search page just to do the search initially and then? Ah, once you set those, you see the search results, you can actually save that search and you’re allowed to save up to three searches. Particularly useful. Okay. Okay, so the cultivation events, the alerts i’ve calculated now the year is six thirteen ths of the way through. So you have you have seven thirteenth remaining to take advantage of these ideas that maria originally recommended back in january. But don’t feel bad, maria. We have just about thirty seconds left. What do you want to leave people with in? This mid year checking this revisiting of the prospect plan i think it’s really just the idea of getting proactive on dh getting their delve into your database proactively trying mine it proactively look for people who are outside of the database that you need to bring in and learn about your organization and really help them stored them along said that they will feed knew names into your organization and be willing to host their own cultivation event. Maria simple you’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com our regular contributor, maria pleasure talking to you, thank you very much. We’ll catch you next month and my thanks again, of course, to jennifer herring and the folks at a f p for ah, letting me be on the exhibit floor last week at fund-raising day in new york city next week, what happened in two thousand eleven? Well recap the years fund-raising with bob evans of giving yusa and returning rob mitchell, the ceo of atlas, of giving we’ll compare and contrast they’re two methods and what their findings are for last year’s fund-raising also scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news, returns with going mobile he and i will talk about mobile aps and your mobile website a few weeks ago on tony’s take two i talked about my core beliefs that charity’s need to do better and that they deserve the help that they need. Lynette singleton, from singleton consulting group, is a good friend to the show and she’s, a frequent re tweeter of the show on twitter and she’s offering to help the charity’s need she’s hosting a ninety minute webinar on marketing on thursday, june twenty first, you’ll learn what marketing really is and how it can help your non-profit had a position you’re non-profit conduct a marketing and communications audit and develop a marketing plan to achieve your goals. I have talked to lynette and she’s, a smart lady, and you’ll learn a lot from this webinar non-profit radio listeners get twenty five dollars off registration used discount code non-profit radio that’s two words it’s on thursday, june twenty first at two thirty eastern and you register at s c g the number four non-profits dot net cg four non-profits dot net to register for lynette singleton’s marketing webinar you can keep up with us on the facebook page like us. On that page, you know where to find us live. An archive non-profit radio dot net is for the archive. That’s. Our apple page are apple, itunes, paige. The show’s hashtag is non-profit radio on twitter. Use it often. Our creative producer is clear, meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday went to two p m eastern at talking alternative dot com. You couldn’t do anything to get good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, get anything. Thank you, cubine how’s your game. Want to improve your performance, focus and motivation than you need. 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