Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Abby Falik, Charles Best, and Wali Collins: Three NextGen:Charity Interviews
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio for friday, january sixth, two thousand eleven i’m your aptly named host. We’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I hope you had a terrific new year’s celebration last week. Were you with me? You could not have been. There wasn’t a show last week, so don’t say yes because you were not here last week. There was no show last week, but two weeks ago on december twenty third certainly you were here. But to refresh your recollection since it’s been so long on december twenty third, i had two interviews from national philanthropy day at the westchester county chapter of the association of fund-raising professionals. First, it was linked in lovers jerry stengel, principle of venture near mark halpert, principle of your best interest and maria simple, who we all know and beyond later today showed their love of linked in for research, branding donorsearch volunteermatch judgment, recruiting board members and more. The second interview was your board can fundraise dennis miller. Principle of dennis c miller associates helped you motivate your board for fund-raising with training, proper expectations, meaningful experiences, leadership and mohr. This week, i have three next-gen charity interviews for you all pre recorded at that conference, abby falik is the ceo of global citizen year, and she has thoughts about innovation and leadership. Charles best is the ceo of donors choose dot org’s where teachers post their classroom needs and donors support those needs, and he and i talk about connecting donors to the causes that they support. And wally collins is an author and a stand up comic who wants you to live a regret list life second half of the show will be with maria simple, the prospect finder, our regular prospect research contributor on your twenty twelve prospect plan. She’ll help you devise a sensible and execute herbal plan for your prospect research for the new year on tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. My block this week is share my optimism for twenty twelve i’m always optimistic at the beginning of a new year i can’t help it, and i’ll talk a little about that we’re live tweeting the show today. Use hashtag non-profit radio to join that conversation on twitter. This show is supported by g grace corporate real estate. Services, and i’m grateful to them for their support. Right now, we’ll take a break, and we’ll come back with these three next-gen charity interviews. The first will be abby falik. So stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help yu wei take the nasco, stay out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Bilich dahna 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. Metoo welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven we’re at the tribeca performing arts center in downtown new york city with me now is abby falik, founder of global citizen year she’s been an invited speaker at the clinton go global initiative and also the aspen ideas festival and, ah, we’re going to share have her share some of her thoughts about innovation, as she did here at the at the conference. Abby falik welcome to the show, thanks so much. Tony it’s, great to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you thank you for sitting down for an interview on a very busy day. Um, so our audience is small and midsize. Non-profits but they and i think sometimes they don’t think innovatively i think sometimes there’s sort of stuck in the trees. What? What was your start with your your general message on innovation and creating social change? So i think if we’re all paying attention, there are opportunities beyond what’s, immediately apparent, and sometimes it requires us, as i shared my talk this morning, to step out of our daily routine sometimes to immerse ourselves and foreign cultures or contexts to see things he’s from a different vantage, but that innovation doesn’t need to mean necessarily starting your own business from scratch or starting a new enterprise or being an entrepreneur. Innovation can happen within organizations innovation can be a simple as changing the way you talk about your organization publicly, the way you do your fund-raising the way you’ve structured your online platforms, so the innovation really has to be inspired by the leader. So how does a leader inspire themselves and everybody working with them? Teo to think innovatively and creatively, i think the role of a leader is to envision something that doesn’t yet exist to see the future in a way that is compelling and clarifying on inspired to others. And when you can see that and paint that picture, as i’ve been able to do now with global citizen here, others begin to fall into step, and they and they follow along because they believe in what you’re all working toward. And how do you translate that to your own hiring so that you’re hiring people who are going to be open minded to this and and bright thinkers on their own? How do? You make sure that you’re getting the right people working for you, which is absolutely a challenge because otherwise you’ll be up there thinking great thoughts and no one’s, no one’s following, particularly in the early stage, you need other people who think creatively andare wired as entrepreneurs as well, because to get from xero to anything requires that every body is an engine, everybody can see something that doesn’t yet exist and instinctively reach out to find the resource is needed to apply them toward bringing something toe life. S so so i have found that it is often young people who see themselves as less constrained. Millennials tend to have a knack for believing they can run through walls and make things happen. And so surrounding myself with a creative young team of people who say, see the bigger vision and then are comfortable building the plane well, flying it all right now global citizen year is a non-profit so there’s a that right that’s five oh one c three were five oh one c three. I’d like to say that non-profit is our tax status and not our management style. Okay, excellent. All right, so you’re what’s. The status means is that you do have a board and what do you do for around bored with croup, mint teo, bring people who will be equally inspired? I would say similarly, on a founding board or particular, not so young, no people who are more seasoned business savvy who can help guide me because they have the muscle memory themselves of having built new organizations or are currently leading other organizations. So looking for people on the board who are older and wiser on dh can, you know, essentially be my my personal adviser’s mentors on dh allies in being able to be credible on strategic in in how we grow, alright on dh, how about for yourself? How do you make sure that you’re not bogged down in day to day management? Have it’s very seductive to deal with administration rather than, you know, broader thinking the way you described. What do you do with your recommendation for that ceo? That executive director who is in the trench trenches every day? Yeah, absolutely. I think i am fortunate that i’m wired in a way that inclines me toward the xx external parts of the role, so i love more than anything, sharing my vision and giving other people an opportunity to get involved, whether it’s funders, supporters, allies in in reimagining how young people learn about themselves in the world. And starting with that as the basic premise, i have tried to build a team of others who compliment my skills and who are equally passionate about the set of things that i am not a skilled at on dh shouldn’t be the one to be doing so have recently hired a phenomenal vp of operations who takes the other side of the house, and she takes it as seriously and as strategically as i do with the work i do externally, ok, but that requires terrific insight into your own shortcomings. That’s very cool, right? You have to know where your shortcomings lives. You hyre so a lot of introspection, right? Indeed. And early on, somebody i know and respect very, very dearly suggested that i keep a journal about the things i do everyday that give me energy and the things i do that actually deplete my energy. And that from that list, i could describe a job description that would, over time. Move me. Toward the things that really do get me revved, and from which i derived more and more energy and enthusiasm. And so my pa primary objective is leveraging myself into the role where i am at my best, playing my right roll and surrounding myself by people who are much smarter and more talented than i am in a certain set of other things. Innovation in leadership. Is there anything, anything you want to leave people with? Um i think in the not-for-profits sector, we can often constrain ourselves by thinking too small and even in a you know, particularly in a down economy, there could be a sense of thinking within constraints, and i would just encourage everybody out there to continue dreaming because we’re the ones who need to drive social impact missions forward. Abby falik thank you very much. It’s been a real pleasure. Abby falik is the founder of global citizen year and these kinds of thoughts or we’ll get we’ll get you invited to the clinton global initiative, aspen ideas festival and other places where thought leaders are this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven would be falik thank you again very much. Thank you, tony, my interview with that be falik i think she had some outstanding thoughts insights into leadership for social change we’re gonna take a break now, and when we return, we’ll have my interview from the same nextgencharity conference with charles best president, ceo actually of donors choose dot or ge and then wally collins, author and stand up comics, so stay with me. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz no. Durney are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three five zero two way mate. People happy. Bilich hyre 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. Dahna welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the nextgencharity conference, where in lower manhattan at the tribeca performing arts center and my guest now is charles best charles leeds donors choose dot or ge, where public school teachers post classroom project requests and donors comm pic the projects that they want to support the site has been selected most likely to make the world a better place by the techcrunch community. And in two thousand nine and two thousand ten, fortune magazine named charles in as one of their forty under forty list of businesses. Hottest rising stars. Charles best welcome to the show. Thanks, tony. Clyde, to be a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Um, so using a site you’re connecting donors with projects that they never witness live, how do you help make that connection? How do you get out of the donors feel connected to the work that they’re supporting? Well, we really feel that hardworking teachers out on the front lines have almost a tent up expertise and imagination that’s just waiting to be unleashed. And donors to dot org’s endeavors to unleash that frontline expertise and to generate classroom project requests that may often be better targeted and more innovative than big top down solutions designed by someone who’s ah, hyre up ok, so you want the so the teachers themselves are describing the project and what the impact will be for their for their students. That’s, exactly right there, about twenty five thousand classroom project requests seeking funding at any point in time on donors choose dot organ those projects all submitted by what we call frontline educators, mostly classroom teachers, but could also be a guidance counselor coach library in those projects really are ah, window into both the unmet needs of students and the innovative potential of dedicated teachers. And how do you manage the donor relationship so that donors feel a connection again with the project there most likely never going to see live? They’re not going to meet the students who who benefits from it, who get that impact. How do you manage that? That donor relationship with the projects? Well, even a donor who gives one dollar to a classroom project on donors tuesday dog will get photographs of the project in action. Thank you. Note from the teacher and impact report from the teacher. A couple. Months into the project talking aboutthe student learning that’s taking place, they’ll be able to see a cost report showing how every dollar on the project was spent. And if the donor gave fifty dollars, a more, they would also get physical. Student thank you letters from the classroom. It’s, it’s really rich feedback. It has a lot of our donors feeling like they got more out of the experience out of the exchange than the recipient and it’s it’s kind of our secret sauce and say a little more about the impact report. What what do you encourage teachers to include in that as their writing that for their donors? Because there is so much in the charitable community about impact? Absolutely well, the impact report, the impact letter that we asked the teacher to write to their donors is not filled with jargon. In fact, it might not even pass muster with a foundation program officer, but it is plain spoken from the heart, uh, description of the student learning that’s taken place as a result of their project being funded. And so it sounds like you’re working very hard. Teo have that relationship, even though this is all web based with base e-giving have of relationship between that the donor, a teacher in the classroom where the project is, and the students, because you said that they get pictures from the students as well. Our thank you notes for a fifty dollar arm or gift. That’s exactly right? Yeah, we see a donation to a class a project on our site, not as an end unto itself, but as a first step on a path that will be toward fulfill edged engagement with public school classrooms and low income communities. And key to that is the ability of the donor to write a message to the classroom, telling them why they picked their project, and the teacher khun message right back, even outside of the photos and teacher. Thank you note and teacher impact report and student thank you letters which are ah, part of the process. So now this is significant because the donor’s air having contact directly with the people who are the children that are that are enjoying the outcomes, the impact of their of their gift, and that’s quite unusual, and most charitable work. I mean, there aren’t a lot of donors meeting the people who are enjoying the benefits of that of the agencies or the organizations work that’s absolutely right, it’s not a face to face interaction, but i think it it feels almost just about as as vivid and rewarding and meaningful as a face to face interaction. Tell me a little about the donor reactions that you get after after the the process is completed, and i’m sure you’ve got multiple lots of people who come back, make repeat gift tell me, share some of the feedback that you’ve gotten from donors when they’ve had that close connection with with the classroom. Well, we often hear from donors when they get especially funny or especially emotional letters from students, which which could be a student making a funny reference to recess and how they yearn for it all day long. Or it could be a student talking about the fact that this is the first time anyone’s given them a book. Bonem and and that’s, what? What prompts a good number of our donors toe say that they feel like they got as much out of the exchange as the classroom they were looking to help and what’s the percentage of donors who make a repeat repeat gift you know, the percent of donors who make a repeat gift is excellent if you look at year to year three year for going from year of acquisition the first year that they give to year too, are they giving one year later? It’s actually only one in five of donors who acquired in a given year who then will give again in year two, but if they’re giving in year two there’s a ninety percent chance they’ll be giving in year three, four, five, six and you i’m gonna guess you. Ah, you see this as something that other non-profits should take on is the relationship between the people who are enjoying the benefits of the work and the people who have enabled that work to take place. Don’t you say a little about that for the audience? Absolutely well, you said it well, but we do see the interactions on our site as the basis for yeah, riel correspondents, if not actual relationships between the donors and the classrooms that they’re looking to help and and we hope that this means that donorsearch e donors to settle argast is a lot more than a web site where they’re gonna transact a contribution. Are there many donors that have seen the the classroom’s face-to-face we know it happens, it doesn’t happen is part of our process, but but we hear all the time from teachers who, whether it’s, the teacher or the donorsearch how they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts that’s fabulous. They just needed that much more they needed teo for probably for ninety nine and a half percent of the donors, the correspondents, the way you described it is sufficient that’s, right? But for that, uh, half a percent or whatever, i would just say nice. Yeah, but that half a per cent they just needed that closer connection. Totally, yeah, totally, but for the other ninety nine and a half, you’ve got it worked out, and i think the message is is clear for for our audience that that connection is crucial between the donor and the and the and the i don’t like to call them service for the people who are benefiting, uh, and i don’t see much. Of it, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Thank you, tony. My pleasure, charles best is leader of donors choose dot or ge and this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity two thousand eleven conference. We’re at the tribeca performing arts center in new york city. And my guest right now is wally collins. Hey, while he was the opener, welcome. Well, thank you for welcoming me. He was the opener and he’s also going to speaking later. Here it next-gen was a comedian and author. His stand up comedy credits include being on nbc, cbs, abc, lots of other acronyms and cc comedy central. But he’s, also an author, not only stand up comic but also an author, and this is his book. I know you can see it and i’m going to let wally pronounce it as you’re looking at it. How do you pronounce the title? This book it’s called the you never know book of encouragement that’s right? The word is you never know and the subtitle underneath the door is living a regret lous life, right, love that so? We’re talking to small and mid sized charities. Um, how does your work overlapped with charitable work? Well, actually, the whole idea behind you never know. It’s. Not charitable, but it’s motivating. Okay. And charities need motivation. There’s donor’s need motivation. Exactly. Big overlap. Exactly. And the the producers here has asked me to speak to help motivate people to help live their dreams, call for the their goals and desires. And exactly what i did. I was an architect before i got into comedy, and my mom asked me if you could be anything. What would it be? A sin not to be an actor. Now, she’s confused why you’re not going to be an actor. So i told all from springfield, massachusetts. No one famous ever came from springfield, massachusetts. And she says, well, you never know. So it kind of, like, spark mean like, oh, wow. So i pursued comedy and i just kept that mantra in my head. You never know. You never know. And with that, i was one original holst on comedy central show. In fact, i was the black first black holes on comedy central. And when your when it was that nine hundred ninety one and so i kept that mantra in my head, i said, you know, i can go for anything because i don’t want any regrets, and the whole point of you never know is that i don’t want to be that person on my death but saying, i always wondered what it was like, i always want to know i’m always curious about what if what if i had, i regret not having exactly, and sometimes we would do it, like end of the day, like, you know, going to hello to that girl to that guy or how combine to make that phone call, how come i can’t get to that charity, you know? So how come i didn’t donate? I should have donated, you know? So i want people to live in regret this life, because that is the key to happiness, it’s not about, you know, the result or succeeding our failings, the fact of trying and i realized that that once you try and then you’re in the trying that’s, what happiness is like, the example i give is that when you go on a journey, it’s a long journey and when you get to the place, you need to get to see a friend of family. The first thing to say to you is how was your trip? You know, it’s about the journey is about to try. So i realize that. And so i wrote this book there’s fifty two encouragements. And the each encouragement is to inspire you to go through any kind of door. Any kind of problem in-kind obstacles. All right, so there are fifty two of them. One a week is that they’re with your own mended. Oh, yeah, coincident that was no, no, i actually i want to do one a week and let let that be your mantra. Let that be a motivator for the week and people who read him all the way through some people read about random, you know, and it’s it’s, it’s really cool. Because it’s getting great reviews and people are gay. Give his gifts now to friends and family. Can we talk about a few of the way? We want people to live a regret lis like exactly. We want them to be motivated not only in their work, right? I mean, what does for work and all. Aspects of life. Exactly. Personal life. Your work. Exactly. Relationships, you know, losing weight, anything into your health. The book talks about, you know, it’s good inspires you about but your health, we’re gonna go. So can i, uh, not a challenge. I’m no. Now go ahead and pick out the ones that i think a little interesting. Maybe you will find something provocative. I don’t know, but okay, i don’t know. Well, let’s. See? Listen and learn. Well, that’s. What? Your lesson around. Listen and learn. Listen and learn. You can learn a lot about a person if you just shut. See that the person talk and i don’t. I can learn so much about your guy would just keep quiet if i would just ask you some decent, open ended questions that i would learn so much more than is in this bio or something. Because people know comedian and author and that’s what i understood. But it’s, just if i would shut that trap, i could learn so much more about you much, much deeper than the book or any bio would reveal or anything like that right now. That’s. True. Exactly. I was quiet and listen. To what i learned about you, that’s, the whole point of listening learning is that you do learn a lot about a person, just let them talk and not necessarily agree disagree what they say, but just not your head from time to time to say i am listening to you and you really learn about their values, their views there, big city personality so that’s part was one of the encouragements just just listen and learn about someone, just listen, and i’m going to drive that directly to the the non-profits that were talking to in terms of listening and learning from your donors, they’ll tell you so much about why they give to your charity what it is that is special in there lives about your work, right? And when you can key on those things that you know, move them to give, then you’ve got a sweet spot and you you’ve got a method of justin simple helping them to give just that simple. Excellent well, alright, way, no there’s intersection we’re exploring, finding, picking out, then go ahead and shuffle through the a fish life with a fish life about well, it’s basically like a metaphor. You look at fish in an aquarium and their content. But they’re in an aquarium and the way we think a lot of people think is that, you know, they’re content where they are. And so i’m going to live the rest your life, living as a fish in an aquarium. Or do you really want to go through that door? Because the logo for you never know is a door it’s, a partly open door, that’s, possibilities, opportunities. So are you going? Allow yourself, just basically get into the united state of mind and brought and brought in your your world to a beautiful sea of possibilities and opportunities. No commentary e very well said, right? And i think it’s a terrific metaphor also dahna arika head it’s no, this is a great one. This is an uplifting let’s. Celebrate good times right now. That’s pretty much it for today. Everyone, we have a habit of holding onto champagne. We have a habit of you know, now i’m not gonna wear tuxedos with something special happens, you know? But i realized that and it’s kind of fun. I do. From time to time i put in my tuxedo, my wife, we we put it on and you know, we’ll just celebrate that day. We’ll celebrate tuesday, all right? At home, where you go out on your talk, we go on your evening attire, we go out and and we go out and celebrate and people looking like what you celebrate, like celebrating tuesday like and they can’t say that something like oh, yeah, you know, celebrated don’t wait, celebrate today and take the time to recognize what in your life merits celebration and there’s so much and one of the encouragements called take inventory and in order for you to basically receive things in your life that you want appreciate the things that you have already, and we take him for granted, you know, the simple things like the breath in our lungs, in the fact that we can, you know, we can listen, we can hear those simple things we take for granted as we have them all day we have every day. So if you take inventory of all the things that you have, then the other things that you want to receive or things that you want to think you want to achieve a lot easier don’t stereotype standup comics bourelly has some terrific thoughts that i think apply t the charitable sector, and certainly well beyond his book is the you never no book of encouragements, there’s, the door opportunity and below that live a regret list life, right? And while he collins is a comedian and author, and again, he stand up comic credits, all kinds of nbc, cbs, abc, etcetera and well, here, i want to thank you very much for being my first guest at next-gen thank you for having really appreciated my pleasure. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity two thousand eleven conference where the tribeca performing arts center in new york city while he thank you again, you’re welcome my interview with while the collins and i want to let you know how you spell his name is w ay l ay while the and his book that you never know, book of encouragements, that first word is spelled, why apostrophe and e v a n o, you never know, and you can always find him. Of course, by just googling his name. We’ll take a break when we return. Tony’s, take two and then maria simple on your prospect plan for two thousand twelve. So stay with me. You didn’t even think that shooting, getting, thinking things, you’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get anything. E-giving you could 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. 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. 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 talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. No. Durney welcome back to the show. Time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. My block this week is share my optimism for twenty twelve i can’t help it a tte the beginning of every year. I am optimistic about what’s coming even in january of last year, two thousand ten, early deep in our recession, i was still looking forward to what was coming in two thousand ten i always feel that way, and i’ve hardly ever been disappointed about that. Um, that was last year. Well, in two thousand ten, deep in our recession. Oh, two thousand eleven was our recession. We’re deep in our recession. Even the year before that. Sam is prompting me. It doesn’t matter what year was we’re talking about, sam. I was i was still optimistic. Um, so this year, what i’m looking forward to is among many other things that you see on the block is expanding the reach of the show on itunes. If you’re listening on itunes, you’re one of roughly a thousand a little more than a thousand people listening each week to the podcast on itunes hope to expand that and also due maybe. One or two more conferences than i did last year where were on the exhibit floor like the nextgencharity conference that you heard three interviews from today on there’s other stuff coming up, so i hope you’ll take a look at that. And also, i hope even more important, in that you’ll share with me what you’re optimistic about their only already. Some comments on the block. Please add yours. You’ll find my blogging mpg a dv dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, january sixth, the first year first show of the new year maria semple is with me maria, how are you doing? Hello, tony! Happy new year! Thank you very much. Happy new year. 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 donorsearch prospects now again welcome maria. We’re talking about your prospect plan in two thousand twelve that’s right? I thought it would be a great way to kick off our first show together of twenty twelve so i’ve got some great tips to share and i know that you had done a a bit of a survey prior to this show is, well, do we have any results on that? Sure, we do. Look at the she leads right into the survey. That’s. Cool. Um, we’re going to be talking a little about donordigital bases, so the i’ll share one of the questions, which was, do you have a computer based fund-raising and donor management database, and about eighty nine percent of respondents do have a computer based, and then roughly eleven percent do not. So what is your advice around a. A computer based okay, great. Well, actually, i’m delighted to hear that the statistics were as high as they were in terms of organizations that are using one. Um, i hope that those that are using one or are thinking about selecting one, um, do a little bit of homework in advance, and there are some great websites to be able to help them do that. Um, as a prospect researcher, right? Or a fundraiser? Oh, our executive director of a nonprofit organization it’s really important that all those meetings that you have with prospect, all of those touchpoint whether they be through email marketing through, uh, letters that are sent out, annual appeal, etcetera, that all of that is somehow captured and recorded into some sort of a system, and there are wonderful systems out there now to do some advanced research on what to use what to look for. A couple of websites. I want to point your listeners toward, uh, idealware idea l w a r e idealware dot or ge is actually a web site that is, uh, themselves a non-profit that they helped non-profits makes smart software decisions. Um, and they actually have a page on their site. Talking about how to choose software. Uh, they have one that i noticed that was published june twenty eleven. A consumer’s guide to low cost. We have a live seminar coming up january twenty sixth of this month on choosing a low cost, so definitely anybody thinking about this for this coming year might want to check out idealware dot or ge? Um, another great site is tech soup, and this probably won you maybe even touched upon in the past on some of your shows. Tony uh, tech soup dot or ge t ch soup dot org’s great site to help non-profits so forth and you can actually get, uh, low cost and sometimes free technology through them. So both those sites would be great for doing some research and trying to figure out which system would be better. And we’ve also had scott koegler our regular tech contributor, i’m talking about don’t management software several shows ago, but it was it was on a cloud based discussion that we were having, you know, and maria, i think a lot of people just think of the one big player they think of blackbaud and razor’s edge, which is many tens of thousands of dollars to get into, and and i think a lot of non-profits don’t realize that there are enormous numbers of alternatives. Teo razor’s edge. Yeah. There are actually an interesting that you mentioned blackbaud because one of their divisions is e tapestry, tapestry, dot com. They used to be a standalone company and were absorbed a few years back. However, they are one of those cloud based type systems that you just happen to refer to, um, and also very low of low cost entry point, etcetera. So that might be something to think about. I am a stand of using something that is cloud based. I like the fact that the system is, uh, all of your donor information is not actually housed in your office. In terms of in case there’s a fire or a break in or a flood, you know, there’s so many things that could disrupt your ability to just pick up and proceed your fund-raising program. Sam wants whatever the tragedy is, you know, has has passed. Maria, let me let me interject there from the prospect research perspective. What else do you want to see in a donor management system? I want to see something that is very easy to use from a staff standpoint as well as a board standpoint. So the simpler the system, i think the better if they can’t. If a boardmember can have a a meeting with a donor or a donor prospect, let’s say they have a dinner meeting, and then they’re able to go home right afterwards, log into the system. Uh, password protected system, obviously, and record the contents of the high points of the conversation. That’s going to be extremely useful to get with, you know, like a contact report. Dahna filed right away while it’s still fresh in their mind. So i think that’s something that’s easy enough for both staff and board. Teo use obviously password protected and it’s my understanding that you can even have, you know, certain levels of information accessible as well to various people. So something that’s easy to use, easy to produce reports if you can have something that will integrate with sending out email marketing, uh, obviously something that’s going to integrate with the mail merge system of some sort that so that you can do all of your mailings right from that system and capture the information. I love that you mentioned the contact report because that is such a wealth of information when and critical. Information so that when volunteers like boardmember turnover and ceos and fund-raising director’s turnover, the institutional knowledge isn’t lost, its preserved it’s it’s critical because the donor and the volunteers, they remember those conversations, but as staff in the non-profit turns over the non-profit could lose that valuable information if it’s not preserved, right? Absolutely. It’s it is it’s very important, tony. And i know even in your work that you do with plan giving. I mean, imagine, you know, you walk into an organ is ization that has had some what of a decent say, major gift program in place? Um and then they want to introduce ah, more integrated plan getting component and then staff changes. And suddenly you have no idea what conversations have potentially taken place in the past about plan giving. You had captured somewhere it becomes embarrassing to the organization. Yeah, absolutely. You know, because the donor is going to expect that that his wishes, his concerns, his or her concerns were captured somewhere. And it doesn’t matter who he’s talking to with the organization. If it’s a new face, that new face should be well aware what that donor’s intent is for the future and you have some advice around from prospecting within, which is sort of what you’re leading to. It doesn’t have to be leading to a planned gift, but mining that database in your two thousand twelve plan, right? Something that they may want to focus on for this first month or two the year why not take a look at who your top ten gift were in the past year? Okay, whatever that that gives level is for your organization and then taken also take a separate look at what the top ten prospects have been for your organization in terms of lifetime giving. So here we’re talking about individuals ok, way we’ll get the institutions shortly, right? So what? What i’m hoping is that by being able to identify those those people, there may be some cross over there you may want extended even to top twenty, depending on the size of your organisation, but then you’ll have perhaps a nice pool of people that you can begin to think about a great cultivation plan on start putting something on the calendar, maybe a nice cultivation event coming up in the next safe um, it’s beginning of the next quarter, right? So come up with the names what the plan is gonna look like for cultivating these individuals. What the event will look like whether it should be it. You’re home someone’s home at your organization, you know? And you know, morning evening, whatever seems to be the right fit for your organization. Or maybe try both. And, uh, think about a way to cultivate those donors and elevate their gift further. So that’s a bit of reactive and proactive prospecting really combined. Let me define that. I know you don’t like jargon, ok, i was she cussed me out. You’ve been on the show enough times. I could tell exactly as she had the spurs raj and the jailers keys jingling in the background. So reactive research. You have names of individuals, you need to know more information about them. So you have no names and you need to know more about those individuals. Ok, proactive is when you’re proactively trying to come up with a completely new individuals. Ok, so the great thing about a cultivation event is even though you have individuals who are giving to you, why not encourage them to bring a friend? Bring a new person to the table who would also benefit from knowing about your organization? Maria. One of the poll questions was. How would you describe your prospect, research, proactive research, proactive, reactive or a combination? About twenty two percent said proactive, about twenty two percent said reactive, and about fifty six percent said some combination of proactive and reactive, which is what we were just talking about. We’re going to take a break right now and maria simple, of course, the prospect finding will stay with me, and we’ll continue talking about your prospect research plan for two thousand twelve. So i hope you’ll stay with us. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing time? Duitz a deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i 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. Dahna 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. Yeah, zoho. Maria simple and i are talking about your prospect plan for two thousand twelve and i learned that we have a listener in dhaka, bangladesh. I think i know who that is. Hello. Hello, daka. Good, good. Tio, have you with us as well as there are a couple listeners in the u s also, but we should recognize our bangladesh listener. Um, maria. So we’ve talk about proactive versus reactive. What about doing some more proactive research outside of your own database? Okay, so one thing i want to make sure i set aside some time to talk about is setting up alerts. Tohave information pushed to you. Let’s. Get some of this put on autopilot for twenty twelve. Uh, let me talk about some ways to do this. If you, uh, go to google, set up a free google account, you can set up an alert, a google alert on whatever you want. That means that every day google is going to go out on the web and scour it for information related to that word or that phrase, uh, that you’re going to want to have them look for on a daily basis and they will push that information out to you so let’s google do that legwork put push the information to you and you can take a look at the search results as appropriate. Maria, how do you set those? How do you set up alerts in google? You go into google and then there is a spot where it’s one of the options going across the top. It’s not if it’s not there, they’ve moved it. Look under the more tab, and then you’ll be able to find how to set up alert. What i would suggest is, again maybe sticking with your top ten donors set up an alert on their name. Okay. Ah, and this would be a good way to find new information that might that might come up on those donors. Uh, we’re proactively if there are potential donor prospects that you would proactively like to find out more information about, um, somebody that you’re thinking about incorporating into your fund-raising plan at some point in the near future, why not start having google gathered some information and push it over to you? Also, your organisation’s name? Just a great way to keep tabs on how your organization maybe mentioned. Out on the web. Uh, newspapers have alerts that you can set up and, well, okay on, we’re still in the free category, right? We’re talking about free resource is yeah, this is all free. In fact, one of the newspapers that i like to have information pushed from happens to be my statewide business publication, and gabe is, and they actually push news headlines to me. So this is a great way for non-profits to proactively stay on top of what’s going on in their business community in their state, okay? And then have an opportunity to take a look at some of those business headlines and i’ll bet you they’re going to be some gems of information in there on some companies and business owners that they had no idea we were right in their own backyards that are actually very successful while we’re talking about alerts, how do you get the alerts? They you actually set it up so that you indicate what pieces? Well, on the business publication, they just send you business alerts related news going on in your buy-in email you mean that’s a particular email it to you right on google they e mail you the search results on whatever the phrase is that you’re interested in in researching. And i think a lot of these alerts to you can set the frequency whether you want your alerts daily or weekly or something like that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. On google, i happen to have alert set up to be sent to me daily on certain phrases that i’m interested in keeping tabs on prospect research, high net worth things of that nature, another source that actually is foundation related. So this will help us to segway into what we want to look at in the foundation world as well for our twenty twelve prospecting plan. Ah there’s a source called foundation search dot com that is one of the foundation research sites, right? But one of the things that you could do with them is set up a free email alert. When new foundations are registered in your state, you will be emailed and alert indicating that a new foundation’s been registered. So this is a great way again. This is a pro active measure on your part. Stay on top of new foundations. New family, foundation’s being registered thiss would potentially give you an opportunity to get in the door a little bit sooner than maybe one of the other non-profits state and that you are elegant was foundation search dot or ge dot com dot com foundation search dot com excellent. All these free resource is, you know, one of the whole class went out, that one is actually a fee based. I didn’t want to leave out only because they do have that alert service within the foundation community, which sometimes non-profits are really looking for that extra edge. One of the poll questions was do you know that there are lots of free resource is for prospect research, and only twenty two percent of people said yes, and the other seventy eight percent said no, i better listen to the show. So i hope that they are doing that because we’re just maria has just given you three or so free resource is that looks like about another free prospect research tool site for your twenty twelve plan and just about a minute and a half, we have left. Okay, well, i have a bunch of them aggregated actually in a free down. Tell us where where do we get the dunlop found my website and it is a free resource called going beyond google to research your prospects so that one has a number of resource is in it. But one that i thought i would highlight. Let me before you go before you go further, let me just remind people that your site is the prospect finder dot com. Right. Okay, go ahead, plea. And what you can do is one of the resource is that i was thinking about the great toe highlight because it’ll help point you in the direction of both businesses on business. Bonem maria, we just have about a minute left. Okay? It’s reference yusa you can get it free through your local libraries. Could do it search based on your criteria, the types of businesses you’re looking for on again, this is a great way something for you to do proactively first quarter of this year and figure out a way to implement and integrate these new businesses that you find a small, medium, successful businesses in your communities. I hope that seventy eight percent that didn’t know about the free resource is are listening. Maria simple is the prospect finder. Her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now and she’s our regular prospect research contributor maria, thanks so much for being on again. Thank you so much. Happy new year, everyone. Thank you. We’ll talk to you in february. I want to thank maria simple and also abby falik charles best. And while he collins for sitting down with me in a very busy day at the next-gen charity conference and my thanks also to the leaders of the next-gen charity conference next week, podcasting primer john federico, principle of the new rules and our remote producer for this show will be with me if if you’re not listening to this show on friday, january sixth, which those of you who are now with me are doing, but for the thousand or so people after today, you already know what podcasting is because you’re listening to one, but john is gonna have is going to explain how to do podcasting as outreach for your non-profit how to get started with budget and gear and content and format and strategies. Maybe you will start your own internet radio show, but don’t call it twenty martignetti non-profit radio. That name’s taken scott koegler will also be with me next week, he’s, our regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, and we’ll be talking about twitter organization pages what are they? Should you jump in? And if so, how should you get started? Keep up with what’s coming up on the show. Sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page. If you like the show like us on facebook, click that button you know you can listen live our archive archive go to non-profit radio dot net non-profit radio dot net that will take you to our itunes. Paige subscribed there and listen anytime on twitter. You can follow me! Use the show’s hashtag use it with impunity that hashtag is non-profit radio we’re gonna have a guest tweeter next week guest live twitter next week is going to be dan blakemore. This show is sponsored by g grace and company. If you’re worried about the rising costs of rents for your organization or need to capitalize on real estate, you’re non-profit owns gee grayson company provides you and you’re bored with analysis, so real estate decisions are made with transparency and thoroughness. George grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate decisions for over twenty five years. G grace dot com, or eight eight eight seven four seven two two three, seven. Creative producer for tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is our line producer shows social media is by regina walton, of organic social media and the remote producer, and my guest next week of the show is john federico of the new rules. I help people with me next friday, one, two, two p, m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting, where you’ll always find us at talking alternative dot com. Oppcoll i didn’t think that shooting the ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. 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