Tag Archives: Caryn Stein

Fundraising Fundamentals Round-Up

This is the podcast I produce for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. It’s a monthly, 10-minute burst of savvy fundraising tips from expert guests. This first round-up includes strategies on donor cultivation; tricks for #GivingTuesday; Planned Giving; and corporate foundation giving.

Nonprofit Radio for March 27, 2015: Peer-To-Peer 30 Report & Successful Giving Days

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David HessekielPeer-To-Peer 30 Report

The Peer-to-Peer 30 Fundraising Report reveals quick growth outside traditional events, but lots of longstanding, high-profile programs are continuing to decline. David Hessekiel, president of the Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum, has the takeaways for your peer-to-peer fundraiser.

 

 

Caryn SteinSuccessful Giving Days

What are the key components to make your giving day successful? How do you activate your community to make them super fundraisers? Which technologies are critical? Caryn Stein is vice president of communications and content at Network For Good. (Recorded at the Nonprofit Technology Conference, NTC, earlier this month.)

 

 


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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with sclerosing carrot itis if i saw that you missed today’s show peer-to-peer thirty report the peer-to-peer thirty fund-raising report reveals quick growth outside traditional events, but lots of long standing high profile programs are continuing to decline. David hessekiel, president of the peer-to-peer professional forum, has the takeaways for your peer-to-peer fundraiser and successful giving days. What are the key components to make your giving day successful? How do you activate your community to make them super fundraisers? Which technologies are critical? Karen stein is vice president of communications and content at network for good that was recorded at the non-profit technology conference and t c just earlier this month on tony’s take two planned e-giving levels the playing field. Also, i got a ticket giveaway for rks see our affiliate listeners. We’re sponsored by opportunity, collaboration, the working meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for every other conference. I’m very glad that david hessekiel is here with me in the studio. He has twelve years. Working at the intersection of commerce and cause the co author of good works he owns and leads caused marketing forum, part of c m f is the peer-to-peer professional forum, serving leaders of athletic event fund-raising programs. Since two thousand seven, its annual ranking of america’s top thirty thon fund-raising programs has become an industry benchmark. They’re at peer-to-peer forum, dot com and he’s at dave cause on twitter, dave cause welcome hey, great to be here. It’s. A pleasure to have you from upstate westchester county. From rai. You come down. Thank you what’s this what’s this thirty roses peer-to-peer thirty report about i started looking at this field about a decade ago and was amazed that there were all of these major programs out there and nobody knew what was up, what was down, what were the biggest. So we decided we’d jump into the void and we would create an annual benchmarking program looking at all of the peer-to-peer fund-raising programs in america that we’re raising millions of dollars on dh and then rank them. And each year we’ve got people looking who’s up, who’s down, what’s going on. And what are the trends? What can? We learn from from those numbers. And what does the peer-to-peer professional forum? This is the group that we’ve developed that brings together people in peer-to-peer fund-raising peer-to-peer fund-raising being the activation of your supporters to activate their networks to give we originally called this group the run walk ride fund-raising because of that one is, um now, yeah, exactly what there’s a tremendous amount of money that’s still being raised that way. But the path forward is that people in this day and age want to do their own thing, and they want to be able to do it on their time, and they now have the technology that in ten minutes you can set up a fund-raising sight whether you want to give up your birthday, have a party or or do you run own run. So we’re advising folks in this field that they have to do the best job on their existing programs and start planning for the future but giving people right tools, okay, and your definition revolves around activating others, right? Activating this, activating the networks of your supporters. Ok, ok, eso lett’s jump into the report non-cash inal is doing best well, there’s. You know, we have a whole bunch of eight hundred pound gorillas in this field when you look at the biggest programs, even though there are a number of them that are in decline, you can’t just say, well, they’re not relevant any more. We’ve got there still raising hundred there’s. Exactly. Name a couple of the top three. Well, the top three would be relay for life of the american cancer society, the american heart walk from the american heart association and the march of dimes march for babies. Okay, two of those three were down last year. Heart walk was actually up. Relay for life is is truly the eight hundred pound gorilla in this field. The top thirty collectively raised one point six. Two billion dollars of that off that really for life raised three hundred thirty five million. In fact, it’s bigger than the next three combined. So it’s huge and the are Numbers show that the top 30 was down about two and a half percent, right, very much influenced by depressions in a few of these programs, especially relay for life, which was down forty five million dollars. Relay for life is who’s american. Cancer society okay, tremendous program involving millions of people. So a couple of huge programs down skews the excuse the the average overall and that’s. Why you’ve got a two and a half percent decline from twenty thirteen. Exactly. Okay, um, but then non-cash inal s o the reason that you’re no longer called run walk ride is because is this an amazing variety of programs that are out there, whether it’s, movember don’t see do you have a moustache? You’re going to grow on? And no, i’m not. But movember is state. Baldrick is the notebook. Movember is actually an organization called movember started in australia, right? Of course, that politics is shape they want so yeah, i want one ad. Once the outline, when ads, facial hair, the other one takes it off the head. Exactly. So november raises money for men’s health related causes, primarily prostate cancer and men’s mental health. And then st baldrick’s foundation, which is incredibly grassroots, raises money for children’s cancer research. And in that particular event, people get together and shave their heads. Yes, i’ve been invited to do some of those not to shave my head, but to give toe couple of strangers, you know, it’s amazing, we’ve got programs that air doing that we’ve got programs where folks are repelling off of buildings, we’ve got programs like charity water, where people are giving up their birthdays instead of giving, getting gifts, asking their network of friends to give and there creating wells throughout throughout africa, funded in large part by those types of programs. So it’s all over and it’s very, very exciting and people are looking for something different, and they can certainly find it in peer-to-peer fund-raising okay, and the numbers show that these nontraditional ones are are increasing, yeah, yeah there’s definitely increasing in number and they’re increasing in in in in dollars raised many of them from a much smaller base. But that’s that’s, the name of the game now is we’re probably never going to see another three hundred million dollar programme. We’re going to see hundreds of multi million dollar programs that that are tapping into the really ardent support off supporters of various causes now. So what does it take to inaugurate one of these? And we’re going to we’re going to have some time to talk about the the other three hundred. Pound gorilla that was organic, the ice bucket challenge we’ll get to that. But but if you want to start one consciously what? What are some things it takes? Well, i think that it’s let’s say that you wanted to create your own proprietary programming as opposed to the other door. We’ll talk about those two, those two doors. One is you create your own proprietary program. Best thing to do. I’m a big believer in crawl, walk, run, even though we may not be talking about those events and i’ve yet to see across all of it. Um, you want a pilot, these programs and see whether they resonate in a market, see whether they’re going to appeal to a demographic ah, that that you may not be capturing or go to your very core. A great example of this is the m s society. Emma society has a number of the biggest programs out there. Walk m s bike, m s but they created a few years ago, something called muck fest and muck fest is a takeoff on many of the obstacle runs. The mud runs that are out there, okay, created their own branded opportunity, and it’s muchmore going to a younger and millennial crowd than the folks who normally go to there to there events you want to identify where you could have an impact and not just be another metoo event because walks themselves tough to start now. Yeah, okay, andi, another have another tip for aside from the test market starts small pilot program. Well, the second thing it would be and this is really the low hanging food, especially for a many of your listeners that aren’t working at the biggest. Now a small and midsize. Exactly. You want to have a place on your site that gives permission and aid to groups that want that two people who want to raise money for you, but they may not want to go to your walk on the third saturday in september. They may want to do it right now. And so you want to have a page that says we want to support you in your efforts. If you want to dedicate your birthday, do this. If you want to have a party do that, if you want to create an athletic event, do this. If you want to go run a marathon, do that and it’s. Very easy. Easy for me to say, but relatively easy for you to set those up. Okay, so lots of options. Lots up right now there is another door that you suggested we just have a minute before break, so just explain that one briefly will come. But that’s really? What? I i just kind of let the cat out of the bag, but one door is you create something and you marketed that people will come to you to participate in shaving your head growing a mustache, doing a run. Cycling, which we should talk about in the second half is actually another big growth area that’s one and the traditional model. And the second model is to give people permission and aid in doing whatever it is that they want to do to raise money for you. Okay, all right, great tease, but what more needs to be said? Stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent were pre recorded today, so live listener love it’s going out? I mean, i live the live listeners, i just can’t identify you by state and city and country today, affiliate affections always always lots of love out to all our affiliate listeners and kfc. Our listeners have a ticket giveaway for you very shortly in tony’s, take two and, of course, for our over ten thousand podcast listeners podcast pleasantries to each of you wherever you’re listening, whatever device at whatever time, we give a lot of options on non-profit radio they love the way you show the love, just like you’re suggesting lots of options. You don’t have to listen. Fridays, one to two eastern if you prefer not to, um, but we love the people who do. Okay? Yeah, we’re gonna get the cycling, but lots of lots of promise below the top thirty and these you were suggesting it already. You have said it. The smaller events. He’s, you know, a million are your three hundred thousand thirty thousand events. We’re goingto have lower levels, lots of promise below the ranked top thirty, tremendous. Amount, especially technology, has enabled even small non-profits to be able to offer their supporters an easy way to ask their friends for money on behalf of cause that their passion about through online fund-raising plush platforms, simple ones like crowd rise more complex ones that tie into your customer relationship management systems like blackbaud there is a whole spectrum of these of these programs out there, and they allow you to give your people options, and that is whether in what, whether it’s what they eat, what they raise money for, people want options now, and they want the ability to do things in their own time. Let’s, talk about cycling, big growth area it’s amazing, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, testosterone driven in this in a sense, not on ly guys doing this, but there is a culture of somewhere, i guess somewhere forty something guys who were spending a lot of money on bikes and are looking for ways to ride and to get together with their pack and go out there and do one hundred miles and that is driving tremendous fund-raising in especially the regional programs back about nineteen eighty in massachusetts, billy stars started something called the pan mass challenge because his mom had died of cancer, he decided to raise money for the date. Dana farber, center up there started off with a couple of dozen folks they ran, did a ride across massachusetts. Now they have thousands of people who do this once a year event a tte, various lengths. But the biggest participation is the longer events. Last year they raised forty nine million dollars. That success using a regional charity as the platform using cycling as thie activity is one that is being copied in markets across america. In columbus, ohio, snusz six years ago they started something called piela tonia ah, exact same model getting people. They take over the columbus area. Last year they were up eleven percent to twenty one million dollars. A program that was on ly started in two thousand and nine they’re in the pacific northwest. Is the obliterated these air going on all over the place? Really, really big and then related to that. Ah, here in new york, memorial sloan kettering cancer center took a different approach. Ah, supporter of there some years ago created something called cycle for survival and actual. Indoor cycling off season of that, they do it endorse on it. Do it enjoy. Yeah, they do actually have a great partnership with equal knox. They have locations all across the country. Last nap now they were up over forty two percent. Last year. They raised twenty million dollars in a program that just runs a couple of weekends. That’s like genius. So you don’t worry about licensing and coordination with police departments? Know exactly, but well, it’s just that everything’s long is that the key is that you have to have a lot of bikes on their very fortunate that they’ve got a great partnership with equal knock. So they got all of these locations and they can market to the people who belonged to those clubs as well as other people from the community. Equinoxes a fitness center. I don’t know if they’re so yeah, i don’t know if they’re nationwide, but that zaveri high end, beautiful set of clubs. Now, i remember when these things when i was young, things have evolved a bit since then. Used to sponsor people say, sponsor me, you know you you played me like a dollar a mile for every mile i walk or something, you know, and you give him five or ten books, andi, usually the collection came at the end, you know, i walked the seven and a half miles, so you only seven dollars and fifty cents with these. We’ve come a long way since yes, there still are many probably hundreds of thousands of envelopes across america in which change and checks is being collected, but when you look at the penetration of online fund-raising overall in america, probably you’re a digital guy, so you probably use it a lot. There’s a lot of people who are not in in traditional, i’m going to write a check for twenty five bucks or fifty bucks. A lot of that is still checks, but when you look at this field, about eighty percent of the money being raised is online. It is absolutely the leader in terms of online integration now sort of sort of in the in the contrast, there’s a quote in the report that great granddaddy events are fading. Yeah, and we talked a little about that even though there’s still some promise of the numbers. It’s interesting to see that some of these more traditional events are not are declining, and there is there a variety of it is a trend, it is hard to maintain the those events that were started in a few decades ago, where it was much more common for people to say, yeah, i’m going to go with my company team, i’m going to go on a walk on a saturday, people are busy there, everybody’s got seems to have two, two people working in the family if their traditional couple ah, they don’t aren’t aren’t as willing to do that, so it takes even a lot more work to keep and maintain programs that are raising one hundred million dollars. And now that people have other options, that makes it all the tougher but a lot of the those programs, i’ve also suffered for very specifically komen, for instance, that we don’t mention co-branding they have a home in had exactly have two of the top program race for the cure, okay? And the three day walks and their challenge has really nothing to do with anything we’ve discussed today. Ah, few years ago, they got wrapped up in a controversy about their relationship with planned parenthood. Has twenty twelve and they were able in a you know, they really messed up. They were they got people on both sides of the abortion issue angry at them, which is, i think, unprecedented and that led to you. I mean, we’ve never seen a drop in revenue like we’ve seen over the last three years at komen ah, they i think are starting to stabilize, but so that’s really a very specific case relay for life, you know, challenging to keep program as big as that, and they also did a massive reorganization a couple of years, american cancer of the american cancer society and that sorry that really messed mess things up yet, on the other hand, some other programs that are in that mold ah, alzheimer’s, the alzheimer’s walk, thie, american heart association and the hard walk they’ve actually shown some increases, and there that’s another trend, something that’s really important? If you’re going to get into this field or if you’re in this field, you know it just don’t put up a sign say we’re having a walk, you really need to concentrate on the techniques that had got to turn people who show up. Into people who raise money, there’s a lot of organizations where you have wonderful volunteers who are staffing your event, who are helping to organize your event and their their goal in their own mind is we want to have a lot of people show up, and they really don’t like to push people on fund-raising you need to instill a culture that says this is a fundraising event, we’re doing this to fight the disease or the issue that we all feel so passionately about, and unless you fund-raising you’re, you’re not fully buying it to what we’re about. That kind of cultural change, for example, which has been taking place at alzheimer’s, for example, has led to tremendous growth. Also, not all fundraiser are created equal. Every event should be analyzing who their best fundraisers are and should be giving them some extra love just like you do your shout outs. Yeah, they’re big time there’s one which one is that that has special jerseys for the top fifty? Brandraise yes, the american american die a bit toward a cure has all sorts of different shirts, whether you’ve raised over a certain amount, whether you’re actually with your patient whose all sorts of different forms of incentives and recognition means so much to those people who are passionate about your issue. Okay? And that could be longevity too. You’ve participated in the past five without exception. Unbelievable example. And if folks want to see ah, write up of this whole report at peer-to-peer forum dot com we did a white paper on this. We give this case example of st baldrick’s. They have something called the knights of the bald table. Oh, yes. And if you have participated for seven years and in each of those years hit a fairly high bar fund-raising goal, then they induct you. They have a sword. Yeah, the local the local organization gets a package right with a script on induction script and and a sword to get a plastic sword. I’d never had the privilege to be at one of these. It sounds funny. They say the average induct e who probably has been doing this this long because they’ve had been touched in some way by childhood cancer and their family or somebody they know most of them are in tears by the end of it. It’s very, very touching. And it’s. The kind of thing that keeps people going and people they want. They will do a seventh year because they want to be a part of that. Absolutely. Knights of the bald table, nice to the ball tables. Outstanding. I’m goingto let st baldrick’s know that we’re talking about them a lot today. Shut out the same baldrick. Ice bucket challenge not in you’re not in your top thirty will explain why that is. So we try to be an aide to all the people who make a career out of doing peer-to-peer fund-raising and in order to to benchmark who’s doing what and how they’re moving up, we require that all the programs we measure are actually organized by a non profit organization and on our tended to be multiyear events to be ongoing. Okay, so the ice bucket challenge was started at the grass roots and then got assistance from and people from the press association and a less tv i got involved and helped propitiate it and move it forward, but it doesn’t fit into our rubric if it had. We only let me look at money raised the u s that program is true is raised about one hundred and fifteen million dollars. It would have been the number two program on our list. Yeah, tremendous, amazing phenomenon i had barbara newhouse, the ceo of l s on the show and if anyone wants to check back and if you miss that, it was the october third twenty fourteen show spent the hour with barber and there’s also a video of that we did it was a video as a google plus hangout. So this video of that on my youtube channel which israel r e a l tony martignetti some other swine had taken tony martignetti from youtube before i got there. I’ve since eliminated him, but i kept the everybody knows the channel. So i had a cousin no that’s that perpetuate a stereotype. I don’t know why i’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. Tony that’s, your your valley wick. I know i did it badly too, but i’m in the tribe, so i you know you can do. You could do it. Um all right. So that was it was it was purely organic. Came from an a l s patient? Yes. And beyond the hundred fifteen million. That was for the less that was for the national organization. But did they do something to two hundred twenty million globally? It is all the affiliates. And did you do it, tony? Did you dunk yourself? I did not idea. I did. My wife did. It was being done all around the all around the world. And of course. A huge number of celebrities, etcetera. So, yeah, it was it was amazing, and it is again an example off how you can yeah, gotta make leave the doors open for people to do their own thing we may never see in our lives see another one on the scale of the ice bucket challenge, but we’re going to see ah lot of programs that raise significant amounts of money that weren’t created in the offices of one of our non-profit organizations. They were started by a passionate and creative supporter. Yeah, what other? We got another got another takeaway. We still have a couple minutes together. Sure, something we haven’t talked about, you know? Absolutely. It sort of goes with without saying, especially since where many people are listening to this on a podcast. And i know you use social media so well that you have to be thinking about using social e-giving your supporters, the tools to do that, i use that a personal example. I remember back to few years ago, i turned fifty, and i decided that i would do one of the climbs. M s society does a climb up one of the rockefeller plaza. Building sixty six story really? I didn’t know that very thing climb up the compass side of yeah, sixty rock, not the side inside, i’m not on the stairs, but i was still having a puppet and it was passing some thirty year olds felt very, very good, but i put it up on facebook and howard sutton burghdoff e-giving a shout out to you. This is a fellow i grew up with went to elementary school with we both share the ignominious distinction of having been bored on ground hog’s day anyway, i didn’t realize that howard’s mother had m s and the very graciously out of the blue gave fifty dollars, to this if i hadn’t put it on facebook, i never in a million years would have thought to send him an email or a note or call him up and say, would you support so that’s a great example, the next generation? I mean that’s almost talking about social media almost feels old school because now it’s all about mobile. I mean, you were all walking around with smartphones, we’re accessing all sorts of information that way and the tools are getting their where that’s going. To be the entry point and the contact point we just have about thirty seconds left, you have an annual conference who’s who what’s the value who should go absolutely great place for folks who are leading substantial programs in peer-to-peer for fund-raising if you are not raising a million dollars or more let’s say you there’s tons of free resource is webinars on insights that you can gather at peer-to-peer forum dot com and we’d love to see you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, david. My pleasure he’s at dave cause on twitter twelve years working at the intersection of commerce and cause got tony’s take two and successful giving day’s coming up and you’re gonna hear some something consistent too, and my next guest do around the use of technology for those giving days. First opportunity collaboration it is the single most productive week i’ve spent all year that is from gretchen wallace, founder and president of global glass roots grass roots global grassroots in darfur hi haiti, rwanda, uganda and the us opportunity collaboration is a week long conference in hey stop in mexico, devoted to poverty reduction in all its different forms, lots of people working at the problem in different ways throughout the world i was there last year, i’m going again this year in october if your work is related to poverty anywhere in the world, check it out. Opportunity collaboration, dot net my video this week again from my laundry room, i’ll get out of the laundry room for next week, but back there this week explains how planned e-giving levels the playing field across all your donor’s. It is the great equalizer that empowers small and mid level donors, and that video is that tony martignetti dot com ksc our affiliate listeners in california i’ve got two tickets for you to the ksc our music video festival. It is at the vista theatre in los angeles on a mme april fourth and if you would like those two tickets, be the first one to tweet me. I listened to hashtag non-profit radio on chaos see our radio tweet that to me if you’re the first one to do it and i know you let you and casey are you listen to the show on tuesdays so there’s still time if you want to go to the ah music video festival. Hosted by chaos, tweet me be the first one. I was at and t c the non-profit technology conference earlier this month, and one of the very smart people that i spoke to was karen stein and here’s. My interview with her on successful giving days. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen. Our hosts are intend the non-profit technology network. We’re in austin, texas, at the convention center. I guess now is karen stein. Karen is vice president for communications and content at network for good. And her workshop topic is the secret formula for successful giving days. Karen stein, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, tony it’s. Great to be here. It’s. A pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for taking time on a busy conference day. Yeah. It’s definitely exciting to be here at at the anti cia and see lots of old friends and make lots of new ones. So it’s zoho always in one of our favorite events. Excellent. This is my second year here doing interviews on dh believe this is your second my second year here. And, of course, network for good has been here for many, many years. So since around two thousand seven i think right for yeah, i believe so first ntcdinosaur long before amy sample ward was ceo, definitely definitely and i think it’s it’s growing into i think one of the premier non-profit events teo, be at it? I think so. I mean, that’s always what? You know, there are many conferences to go, teo if for both attendees and exhibitors, but this is when we definitely make a point to always, always be all right. I’ll see you again next year. Definitely make a date. All right, all right. We’ll set you up with an interview for twenty sixteen successful giving days. So now i think the biggest probably most popular, is giving tuesday what are some examples of other ones? Yeah, so different types of giving days, they could be based around the time of year they could be based around a region or an affinity group. So there are things like giving tuesday, of course, which is really the kickoff now for your in giving. And then you have things like give local america, which is focused more on regional giving and other kayman community foundation states have their own giving days. We actually helped maryland. Do e-giving day for their state and it wasn’t a maryland, yes, for their non profit organizations to the maryland non-profit association did e-giving day on dh then you have ah, non-profits who want to come together and do giving days around affinity groups so things like give out day, which was really kind of focused around issues affecting gay, lesbian, transgendered folks, and have those organizations come together not just to raise funds, but also to think about how to raise awareness and use those social networks as a zit means to get their message out. I had henry teams as a guest about a month ago or so roughly talking about the success of e-giving generally and how what a huge spike there was for twenty fourteen he certainly emphasizes the decentralisation of it and all the sharing tools that are available is that common across the successful e-giving days? Definitely, i think that the reason why e-giving days have become so popular is because online fund-raising has become so popular, and it really has decentralized and and decouple the idea of fund-raising and advocacy from just not just the organizations, but it’s really something that everyone khun d’oh! And to think about how you can couple that technology with the idea that we have these large social networks it’s really allowed that to take off in a very viral way, and we often talk about things going viral. This definitely has for sure, and i think it’s great on dh. So what are some other, you know, sort of common traits, important components of a successful e-giving yeah, well, the thing is that that makes giving dae so unique, and i guess so effective is that it’s really using that sense of urgency? And we know that a sense of urgency, especially in fund-raising campaigns can really motivate people to act when they otherwise would not. And so having that limited window of time really gets people excited and it’s very focused, you have a lot of energy kind of compressed in tow one day, twenty four hours, and it really gets people excited, and so i think, that’s one piece of it, right? I think it’s that urgency and to take that and then really empower people with a message and some fun sharing tools. So i think you hit the nail on the head there. Were thinking about how do you not just use social media as a promotion promotional tool, but to use it in creative ways with images, with videos with, you know, some kind of contests that could really encourage that excitement, right? Because that’s one thing that you definitely need forgiving day, you need something had to be fun, and you needed to be interesting, and you needed to be exciting because that’s really what is going to get people to pay attention to you and be motivated to share that with their friends and their family? And so we think that that’s really one of the things that’s, that’s really important, so it’s, that sense of urgency, the idea that you’re having fun but it’s also this idea of specificity, how do you become very specific about what you’re going to be raising funds for in that day? And we find that the most successful e-giving goal goal, it can’t really just be about general giving it needs to have something else to it. It needs to have something specific, so maybe that’s a specific program that you’re working on, maybe that’s ah specific goal that you’re working tour, but it needs to be something, you know, maybe you’re trying to open a new soup kitchen and that’s the particular thing that you’re built, you’re raising funds for its not just about your your cause it’s about that one particular thing, because having that tangible thing again helps you be more creative on and be very specific, and i think it gives people something to really grab onto you and share and understand exactly where their money is going. Okay, interesting the specificity. So do you find that organizations that are just more general say on giving tuesday? You help us out today, it’s giving tuesday, they’re not being a successful is the other right? I think that there is if you’re not specific, you’re not going to be as successful. And i think that it’s not enough to say it’s giving tuesday. So give it’s the same thing as if you were saying now, it’s time for our annual campaign so you should give to us that’s not compelling for a donor. And so i think that, you know, if you can get very specific about the cause that you’re raising funds for, maybe it’s a special, specific project. We see that that’s really makes a big difference because it also helps the non-profit get really clear about what their marketing materials are and what that message is, and it could help you stand out, especially on e-giving day we’re in so many people are actually putting out those fund-raising appeals having something unique can help you stand out above the rest. And so it’s really important for you to be specific about that ass because we know that that’s what donors are looking for, and that really does play into that idea of a e-giving day of really coming together to fund one particular thing that people care about, what should you be thinking about if you’re trying to decide whether e-giving day makes sense for your affinity group? Not let’s let’s put aside participating in something national, like give local o r e-giving tuesday, you’re trying to think about it for your own, like university, for instance, you know, how would you what do you need to think through? Yeah, i think that what you really need to think about a couple different things. I think you need this the internal staff to be able to do it it doesn’t have to be a large debt, but you do have to have someone dedicated to being the champion of that giving day for your organization, because it’s really just like any other campaign, you need to have a plan you need to have. Ah, you know, one who’s going to man those marketing channels, so you need to have somebody dedicated to that you need to really be able, teo leverage social media. I mean, you could do e-giving day without social media, but i think it’s a lot more difficult, so you need to have we’re already started thinking about how do you build that up for your organization to use that as a lever. So you need to have some type of social media presence and you need tohave ah, fairly decent following, and that could mean different things for different organizations. A larger organization is going have probably many more followers. A smaller organization may not have as many, but the followers they do have maybe just his passionate. So you need those people to amplify your message, and then you need a really easy way for people to activate, right? You’re sending out? Those messages through social media, how do you actually get those people to take action and make it very easy for them to do so in terms of donating online or with your call to action could be signing a petition most giving days are about giving funds and making a donation, but some organ it doesn’t have to be, but it doesn’t have to be at a lot of people use that as an opportunity to raise funds, but also to get people on their email lists he really expand their social network. So some of those different asks that you could give to your supporters are yes, we would love for you to support the mission with a mani very gift, but you can also support the mission by sharing this this message with your followers and help us expand that network, and that could be really powerful, especially as we see millennials take hold that’s one way where they really feel like they can make a big difference is being an advocate for that cause and that in some cases, especially for smaller organizations, can be a big win because they don’t necessarily have that built in. Base to communicate, tio way assumed that most people know what e-giving tuesday is, but give local america when i wanted to explain what that one is about because i don’t, i don’t think a cz widely known but it’s still very, very interesting. Yeah, it’s it’s it is, and i think it taps into this idea where so give local america is actually done through a lot of the local community foundations and it’s really all about giving local to your own local charity. So if you are living in austin and i think the us who actually austin is having an event this week called amplify austin and it’s all about giving back teo to those charities and those organizations in the austin community. So it’s really focused on making sure that your charitable donations are staying within the community and really getting people excited about what good is happening in their own backyard. So that’s really the premise of give local america’s toe leverage the networks and then the non-profits through the local community foundations and created giving dae that way. So it is a national day devoted to giving, but it’s, the action is actually happening. At the local level, can we talk some about technologies that you should be employing in your you’re now that you’ve decided to to embark on a given day? Definitely. So the great thing is that technology is really democratizing fund-raising and it allows that toe happen at many different levels by really anyone, and so what we would would recommend is that you have a really strong online giving presents it should also allow your donors to make a donation online very quickly, but it’s also about mobile because we know that a great majority of people are now reading messages on mobile email messages as well as the primary use of many social networks is actually coming through mobile. And so that experience needs to be very mobile friendly so people could quickly take action, get that done and feel good about giving that gift rather than it being a long drawn out process. So that’s really critical. The other thing that you need to think about with your online giving platform is, is there an option for people to raise funds on your behalf? So is there an option for someone to come in and not just make a donation, but actually amplify your fund-raising by becoming a fundraiser for you, so appear fund-raising functionality is also very important for that and then having cement a grated social sharing tools. So we talked a lot about this idea of social media and leveraging networks has really allowed these giving days to take off so that’s one things that non-profits really need to think about us, how are they going to then enable and empower those donors and those fundraisers to share their message with tools right on that page, right on their their facebook page on their web site, just making sure that they’re making it as easy as possible to find those ways to share that message? And so i think those were really the things that are critically important, there are many other things that you could do. I mean, having a great email marketing tool, of course, is one and all these things are typically what you would find for any successful campaign, but particularly the mobile in the social and the pier fund-raising are extremely critical, forgiving days because you need to be able to activate as many people as possible within a very limited amount of time. 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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. Oppcoll now i imagine there’s there’s lead time to this and, well, there’s obviously lead time that’s silly, but in terms of getting some early adopters, maybe, you know, you got some key people lined up way in advance so e-giving day about some of the ground working, yeah, so u need t be planning ahead, so we would say if you’re if you’re thinking about giving tuesday a new it’s only march, but you need to be thinking about that now we would say that ideally, you would have about three to six months lead time if you are thinking of of give local america, which is just in may so that’s not too far away, you still have time to plan that, but those far ahead as you can get you is going to be more you’re gonna have a more successful campaign and one of the things that you need to be thinking about when you’re planning that is being able to identify who are your most passionate supporters, whether those air people within your staff or your volunteer group, or maybe donorsearch one outside your organization, you need to be able to get those people on board. Orderly, get their input, make sure they’re aware of what’s happening and then equip them with the right messages in the right tools to be able teo really amplify that message for you. So that’s really important to think about what more are we looking for when we’re in these people that we’re going to recruit early on long before the early the early adopter? Yeah, i think what you need to think about our, you know, our what is their story? Why do they support you? And i think that’s a really compelling question to start asking those people because that story you can use yourself, tio really inspire other donors, but you need to understand what motivates them. Why do they give to the organization? Why do they care about your cause? I really understand that. I think what you’re also looking for frankly, are people that have large networks, you know, and influence. Yeah, i think i think he want at least two to three people on your, you know, group of supporters that can reach out to the media. Maybe they have connections. You know, your board members are actually great people to get involved in this process, because they are typically people that do have influence in your community or have connections, and that could be a great way to use them t get involved, get excited about what you’re doing and really, you know, kind of make give them something to feel proud about when they’re reaching out to their friends, family and colleagues about why your cause is so important. So those are some groups that you could look to you, but i think volunteers, board members, people that are recurring, geever, you know, we’re really talking a lot about recurring giving it networked for good, because we know that those people are the most loyal in the most passionate people. They’re committed to your organization, and often times they will want to do more for your organization. So that’s, another group that you can look teo excellent. You have excellent way of explaining this very concisely. Thank you, really. So it, sze voluble. Let’s think about trying to make the case in our organization if we believe it’s, right? And we’ve got the tools in place and we have staff that can support it wear confident we’ve got some people in our networks who will take it on right? But, uh, maybe the board is reluctant or the orjust my immediate boss is reluctant with ceo, how do we start to make they bring these people? Yeah, i think there’s a couple of things that you can do, i think you can point to the larger success of these giving days there’s a ton of examples out they’re both from the hyre ed space, but also from from non-profits in general, that are raising a lot of money this way, and so i think you can use that as a springboard for having this conversation at your organization. I think you have to be realistic. You have to think about what is the investment that you’re making in this giving day because you do need teo planning to have some marketing dollars to put behind it. What we would typically say is that you should plan to spend about ten percent of what you hope to raise and so i think it’s important to be really clear on what that goal is for your organization. But it could be a way for you to expand your audience and raise more funds. And so i think it’s ah, this investment that’s well spent. I think the other thing to think about is a network for good. We’ve seen that this type of fund-raising so far has been additive for organizations. A lot of people are concerned. Well, zishe is cannibalizing other giving it actually is very additive, and it could be another way to not only grow your day donations, but it could be a way to grow that donor base, which is a critically important for so many non-profits especially those small to midsize folks that are really looking to build their lists. And so i think, that’s another way, it’s a it’s an opportunity, really, for those people to meet several goals at once and i think that’s a great investment of dollars. How do you assuage the people who do say it’s just gonna cannibalize our annual giving? We’re just going to shift shift time of year that they give, yeah. I mean, what we’ve seen in the data is that that’s not actually the case. And so you know, we we do a lot of analysis on your in giving. And what we typically find is that we see about ten percent of our animal volume for the entire year. Come in at the last three days of the year and that’s been pretty constant. And so this year, we really interested to see what? How did this really big giving tuesday, if influence that. And so we saw that on giving tuesday. I think we are. Volume was about one hundred and forty eight percent. An increase over twenty thirteen on giving tuesday. I was like, okay, that’s that’s nice. But what happened later? Right? Because that’s really where more people are giving what we actually saw is that this past year in twenty fourteen, those last three days accounted for twelve percent of our annual bowling, and that volume actually went up those days got larger. So it’s really interesting. Now we can’t necessarily attribute that cause, but it was just interesting for us to see that happen because there was, you know, we were thinking like, well maybe that is shifting. I think what it is is starting to just accelerate the way that people are giving at the end of the year, but what we saw is that people are giving both in both cases, right? They may not big be giving large amounts on giving tuesday as they will on december thirty first, but what we do see is that the largest average donation comes in on december thirty first and the second largest comes in on giving tuesday on dso and and that’s a bigger gift than what happened at any other time of the year outside of december first. All right, uh, can we still have a few minutes left together? What? What more do you want share that i haven’t asked you about? Wow, that’s a great question. Well, i think that the thing that we would really encourage people to think about is just start thinking about it. I think it’s a great way for you to think about how to message organization in a new way if you haven’t tried it yet. It’s a great way to activate younger supporters if you’re kind of looking for a way to get new people in the door get younger donors involved it’s a good way to activate them, right? Because they really take to this because it incorporates a lot of the behaviours and the technology that they’re so comfortable with using. And so i think, that’s another thing to think about if you’re looking to tap into a new demographic, i think that giving days are way to do that, and there are so many great examples out there that you can kind of look, teo, to see how people are doing this and it’s really, you know about being creative and about, you know, thinking about maybe a new way to spend your cause to people that haven’t heard about it before. Are there other national ones besides e-giving tuesday give local america others that we could participated in before we start thinking about creating our own? Yeah, i mean, i think that the big too, you mentioned i think i believe there are there are other giving days, i don’t have it for some reason i’m drawn, drawing a blank on that, but i think, you know, the interesting thing is that we would really recommend that you participate. In one that has maybe a bigger following. First, because a lot of those organizations, especially the folks, that giving tuesday, have a set of resource, is for you to take advantage of. And that could be really powerful for folks that are just getting started. And not quite sure now. Or forget also provides a toolkit for folks that outlines exactly what you need to do and when. And so i think, it’s really important if you’re just starting out to try to go in on e-giving day, that’s already in existence, like one of these national days, or even a regional event before you think about maybe creating your own event, because i think you’ll learn a lot by doing that, you know, sharing tools or critical on dh there already set up. Exactly, you know. Want to reinvent the wheel your first time out. Don’t leave us with one one tip that you haven’t mentioned yet he’s going to think of something that just in the last minute, but yeah, definitely i wouldn’t say that on giving days, you know, just like any other day of the year, any other campaign it’s all about being very compelling and drawing in that emotion from the donor, so don’t leave that behind like we said, it’s not just about the giving day it’s, about what you’re empowering that donor to make possible. And so you really need to be able to think about tapping into emotion when your thing thinking about that fund raiser and thinking about that appeal letter or that social media post that you’re doing really leverage the powerful work that you’re doing and, you know, send that message out and draw all those emotions because that’s, what really is going to get people in the door? Thank you very much. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. Karen stein, vice president for communications and content at network for good. And you’re with tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen. Thanks so much for being with us. Thanks. To everyone at ntc and and ten, the non-profit technology network, i felt very welcomed at ntc this year. If you like more detail on giving tuesday, i had the founder henry tim’s on this show, and that was the january sixteenth show from of this year just a couple months ago next week damn piela he’s, the guy in the ted viral video, which is the way we think about charity is dead wrong. Have you seen it? If you haven’t, then you certainly should. He’s, also founder and president of the charity defense counsel. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go for info? Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and this music is by scott stein of brooklyn’s yeah, see that that’s, right, scott? Yeah, 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. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe. Add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony 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 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.