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Yolanda F. Johnson: From Opera Singer To Fundraiser Yolanda Johnson’s classical opera training informs her fundraising practice. She’s the founder and president of YFJ Consulting and the first African-American president of Women in Development, NY. She’s with us for the hour.
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Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95% on your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with Hemi Diocese Eah, if you blindsided me with the idea that you missed. Today’s show from upper Singer to fundraiser Yolanda F. Johnson’s classical opera training, informs her fund-raising practice. She’s the founder and president of Y F J Consulting and the first African American president of Women in Development, New York. She’s with us for the hour. Tony. Stick to Hello from Boise were sponsored by PURSUANT full service, fund-raising Data driven and technology enabled. Tony dot m a slash Pursuant by Wagner CPS Guiding YOU beyond the numbers regular cps dot com and by text to give mobile donations. Made easy text. NPR to 444999 I’m very glad to welcome Yolanda F. Johnson to the studio. She has nearly two decades of experience as a fund-raising expert and professional musician. She is founder and president of Y F J Consulting and the first African American president elect in the 40 year history of women in Development, New York. Her company is Why? F j consulting dot com Women in development is at wid And why dot or GE? And she’s at Yolanda F. Johnson. Welcome to latto Johnson. Thank you. My pleasure. Come a little closer to the mic. Okay. Classically trained opera singer. I’m surprised your your voice. I’m singing. You’ll hear everything. I’m speaking way. Make it to that. No, I wouldn’t put you. Okay. Um So Congratulations, President. Elective women in development with New York. You begin your term on July 1st run day. Yes, that’s awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. So timely. See, everything in your career has led you to this day on non-profit radio. Indeed. Everything that we’re gonna talk about and coming up culminates here. You’re at the pinnacle. It’s all downhill from here. It means it’s all downhill from here. I’m sorry. Uh, okay. So, uh, your Nebraska girl I am. How did you find your way from Nebraska? Thio Professional upper singing. That’s Ah, that’s not a typical trip for Ah, Nebraskan. Well, not necessarily so, but, Ah, we all have our own paths. I began with music probably four years old and that was piano first. And then I started to sing in church, Actually, Ah went to get a music degree of performance degree and undergrad in Oklahoma. Went to get a graduate degree of that, how to focus and fund-raising Arts Administration and fund-raising and then sold all my worldly goods and moved to New York. Because this is where you can do everything for singing for singing principally originally or fund-raising or something else. Interestingly, I never did. Fund-raising. Some people always have day jobs or you see performers and they have other jobs or surgeries or something like that. Hospitality. I’ve always loved both. I’ve always loved music and have always loved fund-raising. And I’ve always had them in my life simultaneously. Okay. What does it mean to be a classically trained opera singer? What? What is that what it means? I worked really hard with lots of teachers. Toe learn proper technique to sing opera and classical music. Uh, opera and recitals, Art song specializing spirituals as well with the underground railroad. Um, well, say a little more about that. What about spirituals in the underground realm? It I mean, you’re performing those now? Yeah. You have an album called Feel the Spirit. If you’ll feel the spirit. Yeah, and I have a concert lecture called a spirituals. Experience like that. Spirituals experience, spirituals experience, a concert lecture. So that’s talking. Singing? Yes. I teach people about the hidden messages behind some of the music, the spirituals, some of the things they meant with the underground railroad. Okay, Okay. I haven’t seen a lot of opera. Um, my, the pinnacle of my opera attendance was probably I saw Aida in Italy at the battle out at the Baths of Caracalla. Okay, which is an outdoor. It used to be a bathhouse in ancient days. Now it’s ah, it’s a performance space. And I was traveling in Italy. I just stumbled on these tickets from a booth on the street. You stumbled on this, too? Yeah, they were. Well, I had to pay for them, but I stumbled on the booth That was selling the tickets. Just said I eat a counter. Colin, Let’s go. I know what kind of call is. Um, so I mean, this was a lavish mean I eat It takes place in Egypt. I know you know that, but for the neophytes out there, uh, you know, thanks, marchenese. And there were there were all kinds of animals. There were camels. I think there were tigers on stage, like 100 and 50 people. I mean, this was a lavish. There were live animals and lots of people. It was amazing. It was amazing. It was a beautiful night. Um, anyway, so, um, have you performed in our you know, I have not performed. It’s the only one I know. Okay. I remember this was years ago. I don’t know, but I know it involves a queen and love and a mistress, and each of the plot of a lot of just like 90% of opera. Okay, Um, now you’re still currently you’re still performing? Yes. Yeah, you have some. You have a show coming up? I do. I have a show in August of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Consul, and we actually put it in contemporary times. So it sparks dialogue about the immigration debate. Okay, um and we’ll say it now and then. We’ll remind listeners at the end, Where can they see the council? They can see the consul. I’ll be Magda, Magda, Cyril in that production at the amphitheater at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers. It is not upstate. It’s just the suburb Yonkers. Yeah, well, right. For New Yorkers, that’s upstate. Yeah, but it’s not upstate eerie and buffalo Where? Upstate. Okay, but for geo centric New Yorkers who think this is the center of the universe, that’s you need a passport to get to Yonkers. OK, so if I don’t If I forget, you remind me that little pitching for that at the end to um So now you’re, um before we get to win. So opera and singing informs your consulting It does Y f J consulting very much. What’s the, uh, what’s the influence their of singing over fund-raising? Well, since you know, as I mentioned, I’ve always had a love for both. I found this intersection that makes me so excited. And it’s using performance practice in Philanthropy in and fund-raising. I realized I was at somewhat of an advantage, right, because, uh, I knew how to get into character. I knew how to breathe. I knew how to get through things that make may make other people nervous. Um, by using the things I had learned as a performer and all the world is a stage, I have a workshop that I just launched a month or so ago called All the World’s a Stage and it deals with that. It helps people. It coaches them through, um, being on that fund-raising stage and using performance, practice, toe succeed and excel. So we’re talking about overcoming the anxiety of face to face meetings, uh, training sessions, taking in-kind of public speaking, making me ask, making the pitch, knowing howto pivot if I’m talking to you and it’s not going quite right knowing what to say next, that’s improv improv. Yeah, uh, interesting. Because I was trained. I was. I was coached. I guess years ago when I was getting started, Public speaking, I don’t feel like I was very strong and my coach was a jazz singer and she brought in some elements of jazz, which is largely improv on. And then we thought this was incredible. She and I worked together for a couple of years, on and off, and then she felt like she had done everything she could to help me, and she recommended I take improv classes, and I loved improv so much instead, taking one class, I took four classes, like in a year. There were three month classes. I think I could come back to back improv at UCB, the Upright Citizens Brigade here in New York City, and that really she She did take me to another level. But then improv. Just the confidence of walking on stage with a scene partner with knowing only one word like knowing your first word of your first sentence and relying on your scene partner or team. And even if you’re not confident faking it until you make it getting into character, taking that breath, walking out there and just doing it, giving that performance done whatever it is that the stage is the board room, if it’s on the stage, you’re always on stage, right? Pretty much in life. You want to live an authentic life, but you also want to be prepared and be able to navigate. All right. So let’s, um, let’s take our first break and then we’re gonna talk a little more detail about, uh, some of the things you just ticked off some of the some of the, uh, singing lesson performance lessons that specifically that inform your informed fund-raising and speaking etcetera. OK, little detail pursuing you could check out their new podcast go beyond It’s hosted by their vice president, Taylor Shanklin. You know heart because she’s a friend of non-profit radio. They’ve been sponsors for a long time and, uh, tell has been a guest on the show. Ah, a couple of recent episodes of Go beyond our Optimize your fund-raising events. That’s where uh, you want to start in events and you used to do events and I still do a lot of even okay on also self care for leaders. You’ll find that at pursuant dot com slash resource is And, uh, let’s go back to upper singer to fundraiser. OK, OK, so it’s a little more detail about I mean s o I riffed on improv. But what are some of the specific, uh, skills that you can bring from performance toe help fundraisers? While one thing in particular, I think, whoever your audience is, if it’s 205 100 people in an auditorium, if it’s your board of directors, if it’s some major donor prospects, um, you know, always being prepared, nothing will save the day like being prepared proposed. So you have two from the version. You nothing’s gonna get you by if you don’t prepare. Um, but once you have that, there’s a certain peace of mind that comes. And then so you understand your audience and you want to make sure that there’s a level of comfort between you and them with, especially with American audiences. Um, we don’t breathe a lot as native speakers of English. You ever notice? Well, have you ever noticed that you’re talking and you’re just having this conversation with somebody? Maybe not you, because you’ve done improv, but a lot of us other people were just talking and then suddenly take a really deep breath. Yeah, sometimes on the show, I think everybody’s here is my breath of, like, some kind of Godzilla something? Yeah. You take a huge breath because you haven’t been breathing. Okay, you don’t want to walk around breathing too much, But you want to relax, right? Because your audience, actually on the subconscious level, consents when you’re not breathing, and it makes them very uncomfortable singing or speaking. If you’re going to long, they’re like, Oh my God, she hasn’t burghdoff. I’ve also done stand up comedy along with improv, and the audience can definitely sense fear. Maybe it comes from breath. I don’t know, but they can tell when you’re nervous, and that makes them nervous. And your material could be fabulous. But they’re scared for you. So they’re not laughing the way you want them to. Yes, it’s like nervous. They can smell your right. I mean, audiences consent. So you got okay. So be prepared. Gives you confidence. You’re not fearful. People don’t sense your fear. Right? And then you just know what you’re doing, right? I’m having a conversation with you. Have done the research. You do. You’re prospecting as a fundraiser. You read your lines, you learn your music as a performer. Be prepared, whatever it is that you’re doing. And then that gives you that peace of mind. So I’m having a conversation with you where I don’t necessarily just have bullet points in my mind that I want to cover. I have them. There’s back-up. But I can have a real authentic conversation with you. Right? And and from that comes hopefully dollars and cultivation of relationships and augmenting of audiences. Um, anything else we can touch on Besides, Okay. So preparation, preparation without breathing are there breathing out. Do you go through breathing exercises with clients. Yes. What’s a breathing exercise? We do one. Sure. I’m trainable. Do I need to stand up for it Way? Pretend I’m standing cause then we gotta just a mic and everything. Okay, But I’m standing. So whenever you take a breath, the proper breath is not a shallow one that just goes straight out front. Right? It’s a breath that’s barrel shaped. We have these muscles between our ribs. Wireframe. Everybody talks about the dye from, but think of your not necessarily untrue. But think about your intercostal muscles, right? That’s the one that connect the ribs to the spine. So your breath should be barrel shaped, not shallow. There you go. And into the shoulders, like up, up, up. It doesn’t have to be effective just because deep and then you control it out. Whether or not I’m sitting there and I’m about to perform or if I’m about to ask you for $10,000,000 Tony, you take that breath. Then I can look you in the eye and we can have an authentic conversation. Okay. Did that help? Did you notice the difference between the shallow and the also the pacing of your the way you were talking to? Yeah. Together. Yes. Okay. Like you change, you can change the mood in a conversation through pace. Exactly. So And pace is very closely related to breath. You can get people’s attention with silence, like you built in a little silence. Not awkward, but there’s some pauses. You could get people’s attention that way. Yeah, I did that. I stand up trying to get do that some time to stand up, take a pause like every second. Doesn’t have to be filled with syllables, Right, Because in the audience starts getting stressed out. Okay. Okay. What? Thank you. You’re welcome. Um, this is very good. All right, So this is the intersection of performance and on dhe fund-raising, and of course, you’re right. We are sort of constantly performing and fundraisers, all the mauler, whether you’re in a board meeting, whether in a 1 to 1 meeting, and I may not even necessarily be a solicitation. Just trying to get to know someone, make them comfortable so that a couple of meetings from now you’re gonna ask them to be a step up for the campaign or for the dinner or to be a major volunteer or be a boardmember. You know, whatever it is not only about dollars. Whatever ask it is we’re going to because you can’t just ask people unnecessarily immediately for money. You want to cultivate that relationship, and you want to be asked again, or you want to have your invitation accepted the next time so you can continue that process. And if it’s awkward, uncomfortable, you’re lowering the chances of going to get any mail. Yeah. You get an email after a call, right? You get a voice, you leave a voicemail, get an email. That’s about that usually bad sign. Um, okay. Um, let’s all right, let’s talk some about weed. 40th anniversary of the first black feet up. Well, they’re all females. First black president of weed. Congratulations on that mountain. Um, what’s ah, what’s coming up for? Weird? This is a big anniversary year for we do. It’s a huge anniversary year. I happen toe. Just love this organization. I don’t just say that, um it’s been ah, really big factor in my fund-raising career and in my life. And it has some amazing women that are really running this town as faras fund-raising is concerned in the tri state area. Really? And for our 40th anniversary, we have lots of wonderful things planned new programming. We have a really robust programming schedule. We’re gonna delve deeper into some issues that we haven’t necessarily touched upon before about the experience of being a woman in the field. Like what? What are some of those issues? Uh, well, we’re actually gonna have a conversation about the role of men. Okay. You know, uh, and we’re gonna look holistically at the Wood woman. And who women are in the development field and embrace the role of men. I mean, like, I could snap size that I can summarize it in a sentence. White men have all the power. Well, we’re gonna talk about that. Okay? Maybe you should come to that session. That’s very interesting that you say that I wasn’t gonna bring this up. Um, but I will. Eso Years ago, I tried to be a speaker at Wood, and they had some kind of policy. I know it was written. You are just Ah, er de facto. But they weren’t. They weren’t bring in mail speakers. Well, I’ll put it this way. Would is open. Wit is really smart. Okay, I will. I will say that not just because I’m a better organization, but we’re dealing with some really highly intelligent people who make on really good decisions for the organization where it’s at whatever period. But what is it with this one when they wouldn’t? Well, I don’t know that they blew it. They just made a decision that was best for the patient. But that being said, um, we our mission is to empower women in the field, whatever that means in whatever way, um, is appropriate at that time. And so, in this particular season, we’ve been around for four decades and, ah, we find the value in having that conversation about empowering women. And what does that mean? You know, how can this whole village of people in philanthropy and power women in the development field And so, um, at that particular session, it would make a lot of sense, possibly for you to join us. Us. My committee’s list way have witnesses. Okay, I would love to. We’re gonna send out live Mr In Love with your money or in Manhattan right now. But I also want to make clear that they don’t know they’re not to be men in the room to talk about dealing with male power. No, not not. Not at all. But we, as women, have talked about it for a long time. And now we need we want to look at it from a different perspective. And not only that, but again empowering women. So we have programs around professional development skills based, um, wellness. You know, we’re gonna be introducing that this year. We’re going through a rebranding, so we’re gonna launch that. Ah, remember meeting in September? Eso just lots of really wonderful, exciting things. We also talk about leadership, of course. You know, in the trajectory of a women and development members career, uh, how to assess that. And then we have this amazing network of women that are so supportive. There’s a sense of camaraderie with wood that’s just unique is with national. And this is the New York chapter we’re talking about. Or is with New York unique with geever imminent development. There are other chapters, but there’s not a national body that oversees us. Okay, but there’s a chapter and others would Greater Boston. Um, there’s one in New Jersey. There’s one upstate and actual upstate. Not unless you think there’s running around Westchester to, um and, you know, we’re actually doing some research to really discover. So if, um, your audience is brought right over the country all over the country, So if there are wood chapters that we may not know of, we want to talk to you, actually, because we like toe toe, have a conversation with you about getting together and working together. Um does would you mentioned the network does does with encourage mentor ship. You must we do we have an organic mentor ship that happens? I’ve had several really, really pivotal mentors that have come through with that have taught me so much. Um, and I think that we all find those relationships. It’s why going to our networking events going to our programs. You end up developing this circle of colleagues and really friends, Um, that it lasts for years. Yeah, it’s crucial. I’ve had lots of guests talk about it, and I’ve experienced it myself. Um, mentor ship. It’s very important, and that’s one of the beautiful things about many in leadership with with our board of directors phenomenal women. Uh, and I don’t say that I don’t give free compliments. Um, I mean it when I say that, and they are so open too, you know, spending time with young professionals with other people if they have questions really championing. And again, we all go back to empowerment of women in the fund-raising field. Is there a coronation on Monday? Monday, July 1st is our coronation event that we should be attending at the Cipriani or Oh, uh, you know, But we just had our woman of achieve that lunch. Johnny, did you okay a week or so ago. Um, you know there isn’t it? It’s a quiet transition, but, uh, but nonetheless enthusiastic. What is your first official act as president? My first official act. I already have a task list for Monday of some things that just need to get done. I’ve been working for a while, actually. Our outgoing president. I’ll give her a shout out here. Brooke Bryant, um, wonderful person and leader and, uh, Brian of the Kaufman music. She’s a doctor development there. And so I’ll just be looking forward to a lot of the things that I’ve started implementing. Really as early as January. She was very supportive. We started a system that hopefully I’ll be able to continue of allowing the person coming next to begin the planning process so that they can be ahead of the game before that January July 1st period. Sounds like you had that advantage. I did. And how long is your term? Two years. Two years? Okay. And 2020 is the 40th year of which is that right? Through this is our 40th anniversary year. But we’re gonna have ah ah, birthday anniversary bash in January to celebrate that we’re entering that no one will sit at the Pierre Hotel. Cipriani, would you like to sponsor about sponsoring? But I might come. Where is it? What were you doing it? Those details will be available later. We have a lot that we’re launching at the meeting in September. Okay, so January General January. Miguel in general. Not big gala, but big celebration celebration. Okay, um, as an events person, I’m very careful about that word. That g word piela means that it means a certain certain expectations. 1000 human-centered anabolic at the world over story, Right? Right. So, events, um, do you Do you still enjoy events I love even still. Do you still like putting them together? I mean, I know it’s not your practice, but you still like being the organizer of events On a personal level, I think I planned my first even when I was six years old. Okay, two years after you started music so late bloomerang events. All right, Um, and I personally, I love to love people through that they’re being bringing them together through, ah, common bond. A mission Just, you know, an affinity for something with delicious food and for what was right for you mentioned food? Yes. Food enjoin. I think our great lubricate er’s for a room. Yeah, you know, just it’s that sensory thing. Yeah, it’s a sensor thinking a sharing Its A shares were coming together with a table not necessarily sitting around it but the buffet table. Or if we are sitting down together, it’s sharing a space. That’s why exactly, And for a non-profit, it should have that same sentiment. I think you know, we’re all what makes it special. Is that your coming together to celebrate? It’s a culmination of them, you know, belief in the organization’s mission. Um, it’s not just the party, but it is a celebration. You know, Um, yeah, events. I have a hard time doing it. I just the details. Like, Does the bunting match the flowers? You know, things like that, Um, I don’t have a lot of patients for So I’m grateful that there are people who enjoy doing it. And I love campaigns. You know, Those are my focus areas with my practices, events and campaigns. And I happen to specialize in anniversary campaigns that culminate in an event. So, you know that marries those two things at the anniversary of the anniversary, as you’re doing with wood should be celebrated over a long over over a long period, right? Plan these things in advance? Yes, I mean, one night, like a one night thing. 40th 40th anniversary night. And then it should be multiple activities right through a year. Exactly. Ah, And so it is the 40th anniversary year. That’s why we’re starting in 2019. It’s the year and then it’ll culminate next year, and there are lots of things planned. So we have. We’ll have our woman of achievement luncheon again next May and ah, then we’ll have the celebration in January. But everything this year, You know, we have thematic concepts across a year. A lot of the time this past year was women in philanthropy, and this coming year is gonna be focused upon being around for four decades and what would has meant to the fund-raising field. And, Ah, and where it goes from here, what has meant a lot to women in the field. We have some real pioneers, um, many of whom are still around and still supportive of the organization, and we’re really appreciative of them. Got shot. A couple of them. Oh, see? And I’m like, I know I will, but, you know, I’m not really somebody out. Right? And then you’ll feel better me do that disclaimer. But I am that type of person that loves to give people individual attention. And then I’m like, Oh, wait. Next week on your show, you mention these names. You’re about the best in-kind. I put her on the spot. So she did not come prepared, but name some pioneers who were members of wood. Uh, Linda Hartley. Okay. I know her. She’s been on the show. Yeah. When she came out with her book When this amazing, Um, Shirley Jenks, who you also know surely very well done. Some work with our Shirley Jenks in J e n ks dahna in here in the city? Yes, argast. Holman has a past president. More group. She says she has a relationship with Nebraska to OK, she’s on the board of the university and rescue. Um, we have a current boardmember who just co chaired, uh, the woman of achievement luncheon this past year. Jane. Carlinhos, A beautiful person. Uh, and then Oh, my God. See, now, I don’t know Susan Yulin. You know Susan Ulan Koshi. I know my favorite people on the planet. I think I know her name. They recognized? Yes. Um, but just generally for non-profits, too. Planning in advance of your upcoming anniversary. You know, if it’s your 50th year or some organizations you know, 125th year, you want to start planning that a couple of years in advance, whether there’s gonna be what’s it gonna be is gonna be a fundraising campaign or it doesn’t have to be, But it’s a good hook. Well, for whatever it’s gonna be, you should start planning out of major anniversaries, I think two years in advance or so That’s a good time line. Yeah. Gives you timeto think ahead and be creative. Maximum advantage of eggs out of a big news hook. I’m a piecemeal er by nature. You won’t really see me dive into something and complete it all at once. I like to be ableto work on it and take a step back. Go back to it. Have the daily experience of your life in form some of the decisions that you make. You know, you keep living life and things happening. You’re like, you know, I’ll go back to this and maybe I’ll try it this way. So, um, so what is definitely We’ve been planning ahead and we’re excited. It’s a life practice. It is piecemeal. You say piecemeal. I would say life, it’s a life practice. Come back to things. Um okay, Um let’s, uh let’s take our break. And when we come back, I want to talk a little about your experience as a black woman and fund-raising and ah, survey that we have, um so hang on there. Okay, great. All right. Thank you. Don’t walk out. Um Where are we now? It’s Tony’s steak. You know we need to take a break. Were Wagner CPS because they’ve got a webinar coming up, it’s on July 11th. Engaged and effective, not for-profit governance. All right, so this firm is auditors, so they know all about governance. How is yours? Doesn’t measure up. Are you getting the most out of the expertise and the creativity of your board members? You sign up at wagner cps dot com. Click Resource is That’s on July 11th. Now time for Tony’s Take Two Hello from Boise, Idaho. I was just there for a long weekend, visiting dear friends. Um, and I recommend Boise on. By the way, it’s Boise, Boise. I mean, you don’t know this boy, See, but it’s not Boise for you East Coasters. It’s Boise, Boise, Idaho. I learned just like it’s Oregon. Not Oregon. No ive the Oregon at the end of Oregon. Um, that little bit of a digression. So, Boise. What about it? It’s got mountains, beautiful mountain range, snowcapped mountains in the winter and the spring, even when the temperature is is more modest. Down below that beautiful, snow capped mountains, they take their beers very seriously. 16 brew houses in Boise. Now, I did not get to sample all the monument to a couple. I can shout out Powder powerhouse, a jus powerhouse. Very nice place. Um, 10 barrel, which happens to be downtown. Those air to that we went to there was 1/3 1 I can’t remember. They also take their food very seriously. If you go downtown around where Around where? 10 barrel is 8th 8th Street and Main Street. Lots of restaurants and other brewpubs and and, um, breweries not serving food. Right along eighth and main. Lots of serious restaurants there. And now I don’t mean serious, upscale. Just very good food. Reminds me of Portland a lot. In that respect, they take this food very seriously. Um, what else about Boise? Oh, just drive 10 minutes. 15 minutes. You’re out. You’re way out of the city. We visited a winery. So, um, I’m recommending Boise has ah travel destination, and there’s more in my video. Um, and you will find that at tony martignetti dot com. And that is Tony. Take two. Now, let’s Ah, let’s continue a little more with Yolanda F. Johnson and, uh, opera singer the fundraiser. Whoa! Look at the bursting. Oh, man. When we get the live lister love, we’re bursting. But we’re not doing that now, okay? Bursting. That means there’s a lot of bursting with life listeners. And we’re on Facebook live too. Oh, I guess I should do is I’ll shout out All right. Aunt Mary and Mary Bob Largent. Hello, Rose mary-jo video. Love to see you. Thank you for being with us on Facebook. Give us give us a little give us a little love on Facebook and I’ll be happy to shut you out. All right, So, um, s O The power in non-profits is maintained by white men. They’re they’re overwhelmingly the board chairs, the board leadership, the CEOs, the C suite, uh, senior fundraisers. What’s been your your experience as a black woman doing fund-raising in that culture? Well, coming from Nebraska, how’s it going? And, uh, it’s interesting that it is a national issue, is it not? You know, no matter where you are, even in a place as diverse as New York City, that’s still our reality. And, uh, it’s obvious that, uh, philanthropy would do well from continuing diversity in my experience as an African American woman in the field. You know, You know, this year we did a diversity. Brooke and I did a diversity and inclusion task force for wood because we were looking at the room and amazing women. Um, but the room could be a bit more diverse, you know? And so we wanted to You think about that. And one of the first questions was, you know, is the field already diverse? Does it exist that way? It’s just that people may not, um, come out and aren’t. It is necessarily feeling is welcome for whatever reason, or, um, are they just not there? And so, because of some of these studies that have come out recently, I was I spoke a case conference on diverse diversity and fund-raising in Indianapolis in April. And that was one of the things we talked about Is diversifying that pipeline for fundraisers because you don’t necessarily see yourself. Did you have you come to any conclusions whether it’s there, there are there is greater representation in fund-raising, But people are not coming out or there just isn’t the representation that we’d like to see. Both. Okay. Yeah. I think there was more the ladder that just not just not reply. It’s about your It’s both because we have to make those efforts toward diversifying the pipeline. We have to look to the future. We have to look to see what’s happening now. We have to stay self aware and just aware in the profession. Um, and that’s the thing. You know, inclusion is the exact opposite of tokenism. So sure inclusion means that you’re naturally, organically there. You’re appreciated for what you’re bringing to the table, and when you don’t see diversity, sometimes that doesn’t come to mind. So one of the things wit is gonna dio is really focus on that this coming year. And, ah, just make sure it’s on our mind, You know, if you have an opportunity to invite a speaker or toe work with different people in partners, Um, is there someone who’s just disqualified who may be a little more diverse? Um, thinking fairly, you know, they’re just disqualified again. Like I say, it’s not tokenism, but just making sure that’s on your mind, because when something’s not on your mind, it’s, um it doesn’t exist. Okay, right. So, consciousness awareness consciousness, Yes, Critical first step, but necessary, but not sufficient. You know, they need to be action. They need to be conscious. Action? Yes, not just policies, not just tokenism. Yes, I’m outcome oriented person. So I believe in the process. But I’m not interested in staying stuck there. So we have some definite recommendations that our task force is made to the board of directors that we’re gonna be implementing in the in the coming year. And so just tow elaborate a bit on my answer to your question. So, yes, there are fundraisers of color in the field, but as the cause effective study shows, you know, Yeah, um, mentor ship professional development, because you know that we’re still underrepresented. There’s more work to be done to get those, you know, professionals of color, all of the support that they need to survive into thrive and at the same time, work to be done to develop that pipeline so that we continue that into the future with great consciousness and in being intentional about it. I know that I personally have been paying more attention to this just within the past two years or so, so but I don’t know if that’s s Oh, I see. So I see more conversations about this, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m participating. Maura. Maura, I’m thinking about it more. All right. Walk. I won’t, um, Or if the conversations really are happening more frequently and there is greater awareness than there was three years ago. Do you? What’s your sense of you? Do you think? Do you think there’s, uh, not not saying sufficient awareness or or action? But you feel like there’s more activity around diversity equity and inclusion now than there was just like three years ago? I do, yes, and strategically. So you know, I’m a strategic thinker. Meaning what? Uh, there’s been a lot that’s been going on for the past few years, but now people are really buckling down their understanding, those exact facts and figures and metrics that they want to capture. And then we’re talking to each other more about how to move that forward. There was a great event, um, a week or so ago on June 18th and was held at the end of the CP and we there’s a committee, a host committee. Ah, I was on it, um, one of the lead researchers for the study was on it, Um, the A f p person who’s involved with their idea programming, Um, people from case. It was a pretty good host committee of us. And I’m sorry if I’m forgetting anyone and then on a barber barber as well who’s ah, noted phenomenal fundraiser. We all got together to get the fundraisers of color together in New York City. And, you know, it was interesting because honest it to me. We’ve been doing this in D. C forever. I can’t believe, you know, like, it’s interesting that New York hadn’t done it yet. And so we did. We got it done. We got together, um, divided. We fall united, we stand, and so we’re aware of each other more aware of each other. Now, instead of being siloed and in a vacuum of ourselves, for whatever reason, we can come together and work together and push everything forward, move the needle. Yeah, well, that moves that leads to empowerment, thinks that we’re working together. Okay, Um so now your your personal experience as ah, as a fundraiser, you feel like that’s ah anomalous for an African American woman? Um, somewhat I you know, I’ll give the greatest shot out of all to a woman named Lori Cronan from would be remiss if I didn’t mention her name. Ah jokingly call her my would mom. Sometimes she really brought me in to the organization and and introduced me to so many different things and people that have to do with fund-raising. But it takes a village, no matter what the color that transcends color lines. It takes a village of people sometimes to pull you up to support you, to help you get that professional development and to help you move forward and to encourage you. Um, it’s something that’s on my mind for young women of color, of course, in the field, something that personally is important to me because I think it does make a difference when you see someone who looks like you, just like, um, not on Lee within the field. But even within your organizations, you know, um, that kind of had gone over my head at first, and then I had a boardmember. Mentioned that to me where I used to work and they said, You know, a lot of these kids are seeing you and it makes a difference because they think that the executive offices are like the big bosses in the office is up there in the executive director and all that and the fund raisers and philanthropy. That’s a whole other issue within it, you know? Do they really understand that this is a viable profession for them? You know, first, the profession had to get the respected deserved. Yeah, And then because, you know, we work hard and we’re educated in this, and a lot of us have degrees that air focused upon this. We’ve studied the science of fund-raising, and it should be fully respected. It used to be thinking that this is the first event planners, right? They’re just out. There have been so many slapping backs holding her hand out, and it just comes It’s like, No, no, no, no. We work very hard. Um, and so you have to have that first. And now we have to diversify. And we have to really consider all of the different issues within the field. Um, the woman who you, uh, said you’d be remiss Lauria, who gave you a guidance coach mentor? Is that a white woman? It is okay. Happens to be yes, but I had, um, some really wonderful African American women obviously, uh, who have been integral to my life. I had, you know, a good balance, but, um, it’s sharing the power sharing the power of Orden. It’s important to have role models and mentors of whatever ethnicity, nationality? Yeah, we all have to work together because if you’re there and if things are imbalanced in the first place than if white males are really, you know, at the pinnacle of power, then you know. And what role do white females have? Our females of whatever color. But you have to reach back, and you have to help people. Yeah, That’s why I say I share the power. Yeah. Um okay. Um, so you’ve had a, uh you’ve been fortunate, and you’re and you’re very blasting. Obviously grateful. And I want to do everything I can for all of the president of Wood. Now you can lift up others. Yeah, um, and they’ll see ah, black woman in power at will. Yeah, that’s me. And I think that makes yeah, it makes a difference. Let’s talk a little about the this cause effective study Okay. This is, uh, money, power and race. The lived experience of fundraisers of color. Um, are you familiar with what they did? I mean, there’s speak to what they did, what the process was. Just interviews, et cetera. They did, Ah, lot of indepth work. Judy and Cynthia, if you’re listening, this is the shout out to you that the executive director of cause Effective and Cynthia bradrick, who did a lot of work on that, and she actually engaged me. I was interviewed for this. They worked very hard at getting a diverse array of professionals of color to answer and to participate in the survey. I was, ah, reader at the end as well. Um, another wonderful person soon. Ill omen. Um, I know he was a swell with They have p and, ah, I’m very happy for them. I’m very proud of them. Of the work that they’ve done. This is a very important study, and I think it’s gonna be helpful. Helpful tool if we don’t set it away, You know, you have to keep these things out and keep remembering. Like the strategic plan that goes on cause effective is a terrific organization. We’ve had guests on. Um, Greg Cohen comes to mind. He’s been on a couple times. And then someone who, Uh oh, now I feel bad. Someone who retired out of cause effective. She’s Greg Coin’s neighbor in Brooklyn because I was out there. I was at their summer party line last year, and they shared. There was a back shared backyard thing. Um, it’s not. It wasn’t Judy, though. I feel terrible now. She’s retired, so she probably doesn’t listen. Well, nobody listens to this show. E thought you 30,000 with Yeah, well, you just told me we’re interesting. We’ll fake it to make it figured to make it that way. Um, okay, let’s take our let’s take our very last break, okay? And then we’ll talk more about the more about the survey. Okay, study text to give. They’re five part email. Many course dispels myths around mobile giving. These do not have to be small. Gif ts. They can easily be gift in the hundreds. The donations do not have to go through the donor’s phone company. That’s a that’s a common practice that need not be because the phone companies typically put a cap on the gifts. You don’t have to go through phone companies. You want to get the email? Many course over five days. You text NPR November Papa Romeo. I didn’t say that. Quite right. My Air Force days November Papa Romeo, not Papa Thio Text NPR to 444994499 All right, now we got to do the live listener love Steve Cook give you a shout out on Facebook Steve Cook joined us on Facebook And, um, let’s start abroad. There’s just so many I’m not even gonna use. The language is like annual haserot Comes comes a ham, Nida, etcetera. We’re just gonna go through where everybody is. Seoul, South Korea, Denmark, Jakarta, Indonesia. Tashkent, Uzbekistan Who you’ve been with us before? His Pakistan is not the first time. Not every week. Try to make it a little more regular. There was Becker. Stan, would you please try to be? You should be with us every single week, but no live. Listen. Love to Tashkent. Hoochie Minh City in Vietnam. Um, Porto Alegre, Brazil Whoa! Tehran, Iran. Tehran has been with us before. Yes, not the first time. Glad to have you back Live love to Tehran. on to Toronto, Canada. And now we made it to North America. So let it’s bring in, uh, New York, New York. Three people. We got multiple listeners. Looks like three while ago. Right here in the city of New York. Gillette, New Jersey. We’ve got Brooklyn, New York, in We’ve got Clifton New Jersey Wallkill New York. Woodhaven, New York. Bellmore, New York. All right, Staten Island. Staten Island is in Yes. Welcome Staten Island. Live love to Staten Island. So who’s not with us? Bronx and Queens Chicken. Maybe they’re maybe they’re masked. You know what? They could be masked. I’m sure that I’m sure Bronx and Queens are with us. So live listener, love, live love to you. Thank you so much for being with us. And for those of us on fate those of us those of you with us on Facebook live love to you as well. And the podcast pleasantries to the to the over 13,000 that I keep saying it’s nowhere near that, but, uh, no, we have 13th out over that thing. 1000 podcast listeners. Um, listening in the time shift. Wherever you squeeze us in on the weekends, you binge Listen, you spend Sunday listening to hours of podcasts on end Thank you. Pleasantries to you. I’m glad that we’re in your podcast library. Pleasantries to the podcast listeners. That’s one of my It’s almost like a therapy. Oh, it’s almost like the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, the pleasant pleasantries to the podcast Listeners podcast pleasantries and lively sabelo I’m a big fan of ah, big fan of Ah, liberation Liberation, What did you what was the little phrase you just said? But but But the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue Yes. Is that a little exercise right before you go on stage, isn’t just tow annunciated like a said native speakers of English. Sometimes when you’re, uh, enunciating on stage, it could be difficult to decipher what they’re saying. And so, ah, lot of dip bungs going on and what we think is overdoing it. But that’s what it takes for the audience to actually hear what we’re saying. It does the lips, the teeth, the tip of dung. Okay, what do you do right before you go on performance? Right the minute before your first appearance on stage. What do you doing As a singer? As a singer, I meant as a as a Well, I guess there’s any kind of performer. What are you doing in that last minute? Um, I’m saying a little prayer, okay? And I’m getting excited because I’m ready to share this with the audience. Your blood pressure’s a little high, right? Sometimes, but not really. Yeah, I’m pretty Chill. I’m I’m ready to go do it If I’m prepared that I said I will never be that person backstage like, Oh, my gosh. I know I didn’t read any of this stuff, but I sure hope it goes okay, that’s bad. Terrible. Um, and so I just It is what it is at that moment, right? And so I just get excited and go out and share it. All right. Well, thank you for sure. Well, prayer to yes. Definitely prayer before. Um, Okay, So the cost effective study was was it was interviews. They were surveys. Lots of personal interviews. Yes. Yeah. People of color. Remember to stay close to Yeah, there we go. Okay. We won’t hear everything that you say. Um, so they learned some things. Um, why d I is important. This is interesting that you’ve mentioned earlier. We’d said we’d had a diversity and inclusion task force Didn’t include, uh um quit equity. Uh, it’s the i d. I Doesn’t matter. I mean, we’re shortchanging people cause you didn’t include the e’s. No, not at all. I guess it could have been a debt if, but it’s a d t i f. Um, the equity is inferred in that. It’s just that it’s not called a d. I think, and people have different thoughts and opinions on what each word means. You know, some people don’t like diversity as much anymore, and they rather focus on equity. Yeah, I’ve heard. Yeah. Alright. It’s like LGBT Q plus. Now we put the plus until right? It’s all inclusive. Yeah, If you’re not LGBT or cute, you’ll have to just be in the plus. Okay. What did you say before? D t d t f d I t f diversity and inclusion Task force. Okay, we have jargon jail on non-profit radio. I hate to sound imprisoned even for a short in for a short term. Um, so we know, I think we know why it matters. Um, you know, interesting Make making explicit that money is power. And for fundraisers of color, you know, they’re they’re seeking money from the people who have it, which are largely white and male. So that’s a that creates a dynamic for fundraisers of color that, um, white fundraisers don’t have toe. Sort of we’ll deal with overcome, depending on the opinions of the people trying to get the money from well, and I want to add to that whole diversity discussion Donors of color, you know, they’re out there donorsearch and tapping into them, you know, just like we have toe ah, work on the pipeline. We have to support people who are already in the field, and we have to think outside of the box. And remember everyone who’s been blessed with, um, the ability to be a philanthropist. And what does that even mean? Now, you know, when you I think that it’s so pie in the sky, but it’s not. It’s right in front of you to be a philanthropist in many ways. You know, the Indiana University Women’s Philanthropy Institute. We had a partnership event with them in May, where they revealed Some of the women give study and, you know, adult into, you know, how do you define being a philanthropist? So we have philanthropists of color that need to be tapped into as well that are, um, Kim be called ignored. Sometimes I think you find that you feel like we’re not reach The community is not reaching out donors of color wealth, wealthy folks of color. I think it’s a complex issue, but I think I could say yes to that in some ways. Um, but remember that a donor of color, um, we’ll also have probably had advert in life experiences as well. So, you know, it’s We’ll all have. Yes. Okay. I feel like we’re not We’re not We’re not getting it. So I’m surprised that that you find that, uh, because if we’re if we’re trying to get support for our organization, I mean it auto come from anybody who has the means. Exactly the means to support us. Yes. Money is color blind. Amen to that. Um, okay, that’s an interesting insight. I never I have to think more about that. Pay more attention that I’ve never I’ve never thought about that. All right, um you’re full of good ideas. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Ah. Okay. Um, So I think we understand why the d ay matters like we’ve flush that out. So? So some of what they they say something interesting. Fund-raising reflects and magnifies the racial hierarchies of our culture. That’s sort of what was scratching out, right? You know, um, it’s a you know, fund-raising is there’s just inherent, irrespective of people’s color. Uh, there’s It’s a fundamental power subservient relationship. You have money, and I’m asking for it, right? I mean, I do fund-raising, I do plan e-giving fund-raising. People of wealth have money and number. I’m pursuing it. So there’s your definitely pursuing people that have a certain amount of Yeah. Yeah. Well, now, modest people of modest means could do plan. Gift to That’s true. Let’s not forget, Okay? Actually, west, like anybody could put will request for 1000 or $5000 in there, will probably And that goes to the same point of What does it mean to be a philanthropist? You know, if you’re giving $500 whatever you have to give, you’re still helping a cause. It matters a lot of people don’t think of themselves as philanthropists, but they’ve indeed they are. It doesn’t really matter. I mean, they’re supporting organizations. But people who write $20 checks, $50 checks, they don’t they don’t think of themselves as philanthropists. And I think that’s what I used trying to get people to think differently, especially with women. Donors toe value yourself and to understand that contribution that you’re making to society through whatever the size well, they understand they’re contributing. What what’s the importance of? You could educate me again. So I’m trainable. Just any ideas? What? What? What’s the importance then of them recognizing themselves as philanthropists? Because it empowers you in a different way. When I see myself a certain way, um, it allows me toe think differently. And when I’m making those decisions, ah, it might allow me toe to get involved with an organization on a deeper level. Ah, and bring in my network. You know, we could talk about give and get so it can. It can open lots of different doors and just change the way that people think about themselves and about the ways that they give, so we should be encouraging our donors to think of themselves as philanthropists. Yeah, including the 20 and $50 donors. Yes, you’re a philanthropist. And we appreciate your gift and that. Well, there’s always that. Yeah, I’m just trying to distinguish the philantech. Think of yourself as a philanthropy. Yes. And then, you know, it’s that strategic thinking. So And, you know, it’s that same story of the whoever it is the janitor or somebody who passes away and leaves $5,000,000. A very modest life. There’s a 40 year old car they were driving or whatever, and then they have millions of dollars to leave him. You never know you can you never. You can’t judge a book by its cover. And so you never know what’s going on. You treat everybody with dignity and respect and appreciate their gift. And you never know what network they might bring in our, um, people they can introduce you to. Yeah, that’s all true. Yeah, it’s just a philanthropist thing. Getting getting your modest donors small dollar donors to think of themselves as philanthropists. Interesting. Ok, um all right, so this is the, uh, kruckel about the magnifying, the racial hierarchies, and we just have a couple minutes left. All right, so let’s leave the survey. That’s enough of that survey. It was a great service. So again, it’s money, power and race. The lived it experience of fundraisers of color. It’s published by cause effective, which is, I believe it’s called effective dot or GE. And now that you have the name of the survey study, you should have no trouble. Obviously finding it on dhe. Check it out. Okay, Um, a couple minutes left as, ah, professional woman in fund-raising your own practice. What would you like to, uh, would you like to leave our listeners with? Well, um, I just like to reiterate how honored I am to be leading within this 40th anniversary year. I’m excited about continuing the work of my practice. We already talked a bit about events, and I also specialize in campaigns and in going in and assessing what’s happening with small and medium sized development departments and helping them to get to the next level. So I look forward to continuing all of that work. Um, and I also look forward to continuing singing have a vocal workshop coming up in a couple of weeks And then, of course, the consul again. Yes, I mentioned right argast. 10. Where is that? In Yonkers, at the amphitheater at the Hudson River Museum. And it’s gonna be It’s deep, you know, using music, using art as that medium to spark the dialogue, the conversation, the thought about these current issues you cannot make the You can’t make this up, though The libretto has not been changed its 70 years old, and it could have been on the news last week. Really, it’s fascinating. Where when does it wins the opening? It’s a one night only thing. It’s August 10th 8 p.m. August 10 2019. Yes, if you’re in the New York City area, check yolanda johnson dot com. All right, that’s who she is. She’s Yolanda Johnson. Her company is Y F J Eyes Cos. At Y f. J hyphen consulting dot com. Women in development you’ll find at W I d n Y dot or GE. And she is at Yolanda F. Johnson and thank you so much. Thank you. This is a pleasure. My privilege. Next week, there’s no show. I hope you enjoy your holiday time off whichever day or days it is somewhat, officers seem to be having trouble like, do we give them the Thursday off and then make them come in Friday and then Saturday, Sunday off. Do we give them Thursday and then make them coming Saturday? Whatever Hope you have some time off, you certainly have the Thursday off anyway. Enjoy will catch up with you on Uh oh, that was a good breath. We’ll catch up with you again on July 12th. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits, data driven and technology enabled. Tony dot m a slash pursuant Capital P by Wagner c. P A. Is guiding you beyond the numbers. Regular cps dot com and by text to give mobile donations. Made Easy text. NPR to 444999 Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. Sam Liebowitz is the line producer. Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Steiner, Brooklyn, New York, With me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. You’re listening to the Talking Alternative Network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, I’m nor in Sumpter potentially ater. 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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host last week was a tough one for me. My my mom died last thursday, october fifth today’s show is dedicated to my mom, jacqueline, and you know, i’m not sure she totally understood what podcasting is and what the show is about. She certainly had a general idea that it was for the good of non-profits and what she would want is for me to keep going and, you know, do a great show in her in her memory. So that’s where we are, andi also related to that. I want to welcome two new listeners henry and soo in old japan. Neighbors of my mom welcome henry and sue. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into paris, ca vivica, try a phobia. If you scared me with the idea that you missed today’s show development assessments, what are they when you need one? What’s included? How do you use the info that you get going? Kaufhold of g collaborative walks us through it all on tony’s. Take two e-giving tuesday. We’re sponsored by pursuant. Full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dot m a slash pursuant also by wagner, cpas guiding you beyond the numbers wittner cps dot com you’re not a business you’re non-profit appaloosa accounting software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com and tell us credit and debit card processors you’re passive revenue stream tony dot, m a slash tony tell us it’s a pleasure to welcome to studio first time guest glenn kaufhold he has been a successful non-profit leader for thirty years, he created gkollaborative spelled with a k in two thousand ten to provide strategic advising to organizations, particularly those in transition or start up phase. He’s, also co founder and co author of the blogger at fund-raising wonks dot com his business is at gi collaborative, dot com and he’s at fund-raising wonk and i’m very pleased to welcome glenn kaufhold to the studio. Thanks so much durney great to be a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. She shout out your mom for eightieth birthday. I’m here in town to celebrate my mom’s eightieth birthday this weekend. You want what’s her name? Peg kaufhold peg. Happy birthday pay happy eighty. Well, we have a wonderful, wonderful night out with your with your family. Everybody gathered for the big celebration. Kool all right, development assessments. I feel like we should just start with what is it? Well, i’ll give you an analogy, it’s, like, imagine if you haven’t gone to the doctor for ten years and somebody in your family dies early and that kind of shakes you up. So you go to the doctor and they ask you a ton of questions, they do it lots of blood work, lots of scans, all sorts of tests to really give you a baseline of how you are. You know how your health is so fund-raising assessments are very much the same thing. It’s it’s looking at, you know how you’ve been fund-raising i usually go back about five years. What are you doing? How successful is it? What’s it costing all sorts of metrics we interviewed tons of people on we look at not just fund-raising but things in the organization that effect fund-raising were impacted by fund-raising it could be your board and how your boards engaged in it. Your other volunteers that could be staffing it could be technology could be policies and procedures, governance issues of the board we often get into a lot of different things, okay, if you’re ah, now i get a lot of request for help getting to the next level. How do we get to the next level? And a lot of times those organizations that are very event driven have a gala, maybe they have something else, but they’re like one or two main events and then just, you know, sort of not well organized around individual fund-raising that that sounds like a case for, you know, on assessment to the sea where you where you could go and and also teo calculate your r o i on those couple of events events could be enormously enormous time sucks, and not for for so much money sometimes, yeah, absolutely and that’s one of the one of the things that we look at and it’s it’s an area in an assessment that i am really hard on my client about because i am the anti event fundez i’m never happier, you know, when i’m killing a gala on dh, you know so many and, you know, when i go into these organizations and the development director hates the gala, the executive director hates the gala, but you’ve got boardmember is, you have volunteers that love these things and the assessment, you know, honestly looks at them and looks at the data time that goes into that goes on at most, we have to make sure the flowers match the bunting. I mean, it’s crazy, exactly, because into the exactly and, you know, many of my clients don’t even calculate the staff time that goes into a gala. Oh, that’s a that’s a big over some it’s, a big oversight and, you know, enormous time, hundreds of yeah, i’m excited when i work with an organization that’s accurate actually calculated it. And when you put all this together and you present data like this, two boards especially, you know, they’re like oh, okay, andi, you know what i’ve had i’ve worked with organizations that have, you know, killed off their gallows because they saw that it really wasn’t working, but part of the assessment is not just a recommendation to stop a gala or a golf tournament, i hope not, but here’s what you can do instead here’s, you know, hairs how you could raise more money, great. You know, kate, how about before you go ok? Case in point i love cases l of stories, but about how to transition out of i mean, we can’t just, you know, i mean, you share advice had a transition away because we can’t just tell a body no more gala. I mean, maybe we gotta scale it down a little bit or short, make a public case. I mean, advice on moving away, transitioning away from the gala. Oh, absolutely. We you know, we work with our clients on that. You know, so case in point, i didn’t assessment years ago for a community college system out in california, and they had to gallows one broke even. And they were basically entertaining faculty and staff. So you know nothing. And then the other one, you know, maybe made thirty or forty thousand dollars. And when we announced to the board that this needed to go away, this gala just needed to go away. We created a middle donorsearch program. We created a program to attract donors between in that case twelve hundred and ten thousand dollars a year, you know, with with emphasis on our monthly giving to help. It be successful? Um and you know, a design and launched that program for them now they’re last gallon netted forty thousand dollars before they factored in. Staff time. We launched this new program before factoring for factories. And i’m losing. Quite quite likely. We created this new program in five months. They brought in fifty nine donors. Some of them were knew some of them were gala sponsors, so it was part of the strategy to move those donors over. And we raised over one hundred thousand dollars from the fifty nine from the fifty nine people, and it cost me the design and printing of a brochure. Yeah, that was it. So they raised a lot of money. New donors sustainable. Don’t write let’s. Exactly. Let’s focus on the sustainability because the gala has to be recreated every single year. Absolutely feels. I mean, you’re not literally starting from zero. You do have sponsors that air maybe have been with you for a while, and but you’re iran reaser news, it’s a whole new working with vendors of honorees. And how e-giving or not the iran aries. Maybe around that there’s a lot of start up time, even. If it’s a well established, so let’s talk about that versus the sustainability of an individual giving program, which is what you’re talking about, the genesis of so i mean, you’re absolutely right events have to be recreated every year, even though you have an infrastructure, but you you create a program like, like a middle donorsearch program or you create a monthly sustaining donor-centric you know, this study that i was to tell you about, we’re out in california, and we did a lot of house parties, we’re parlor party, some people call them, so i had boardmember zay had volunteers who were opening their home and, you know, bringing in their networks of people, bringing in existing donors in a much more intimate way in a in a way where the staff could really make connections to those donors and build relationships with those donors and with the right stewardship, you have the ability to continue to renew those donors without having to go through the whole expensive, creating a gala just to get return guests and so much more satisfying to i said it’s, instead of working with the caterer and the band and the deejay on the videographer and et cetera, the florist you’re working with, you’re working directly with your donors to sustain them, to build those relationships so that they are going to be with you indefinitely and there’s, so much more satisfying than whether the bunting matches the flowers and and working with board members to host these house parties. I mean, you know how many people out there have had boardmember sze who said, oh, i can’t ask my friends for money, i’m afraid to ask, but, you know, it’s easier and more comfortable to do a house party, so they are board members, you’re volunteers feel good about what they’ve done, thie organizations building those relationships and getting the revenue for a lot less cost. All right, hold your thought. We’ve got to take a take a break. I’m mixing up now, the the sponsor and answers we have so many of them. So we’re going to go out just briefly on going talk about pursuant because they will help you find your existing donors. I mean, glenn is helping you get new existing new donors now, once they’re in your database, your existing donors, some of them are hiding their prime for upgrade once they’ve been with you for a while, how do you identify those ready for upgrade deep in those relationships? Their next free webinar is finding hidden gems looking in your file aptly named it’s on october seventeenth at one o’clock eastern, but that doesn’t matter because you couldn’t follow the archive. You could watch you archive so if you could make it on october seventeenth at one eastern, great, but if you can’t like the vast majority of us, sign up anyway and you’ll get an email about when the archive is ready. You register at the non-profit radio listener landing page, which is tony dot m a slash pursuant also pursuing has a new content paper for you. Twenty seventeen digital year end fund-raising field guide ok, that’s a bit of a mouthful. What? What are the channels in the advertising strategies give you the highest our ally. Gonna we’re talking about our ally for events. Check this out. The field guide to help you tweak your year end campaign based on donor expectations. Get insider tips on digital fund-raising there’s. A whole lot more in this content paper. You go to the non-profit radio. Listener landing page tony dot, m a slash pursuant with a capital p okay, glenn, thank you very much for your indulgence. We could do this a couple times a new format for for me, but i think hopefully is going to work if you’re if you’re willing ready and you’re not walking out now, okay? Okay. All right. So now, it’s my, uh my a challenge to remember exactly where we were. Ok? We’re talking about dark parlor meetings. Yeah, these intimate gatherings that will be so much more satisfying and you’re going to have much more time with more meaningful connections, more meaningful donors than a room full of people that you have to sift through to get through to the ones that are the half a dozen on your list that you need to talk to that night. Exactly. You know, and at parlor events or house parties, you have people who are coming because they know why they’re coming and they want to be there. You know, how many gallons? Alright, i’m going to the gala because my friend bought a table and i need to help phil. We don’t even know why you’re there, i’d rather is a development director. I’d rather have a house party once a month than have to do a gal always focus on the five or six couples, exactly one hundred percent of whom are viable. It’s interested? They know why they’re there. Yeah. Okay. All right. I hope we’ve made that point. I think they think they have the right gal. Is that i mean, it doesn’t only apply to golf. Golf outings. Could be another another time. Suck with small roo. I when you really analyse it. Okay, so that’s, an important part of development assessment. So all right, some of you give me some of what you’re going to get in a development assessment. Like some of the well, well, i guess we’ll yeah. Well, let’s do it this way. What do you get in one of these? So we ask you for lots of data. My people who are pulling the data for my clients all cursed me out. But we often end up his friends. Eso are asking for a lot of information. A lot of data. We do a lot of interviews, and then you get a report back that ah, has a lot. Of has that that data interpreted for you. So, you know, a section we might have a section of the report on annual giving, and we’ll be okay. Here’s, the data here’s what we found here are the trends, and i find that many executive directors, board members, they don’t see the data at this level, maybe the development director’s looking at it, but in a lot of small shops, they don’t even have time to to really do that, so so you’ll get that that data we’ll give you our analysis. All right? Here’s, what we see is going on, you know it for example, this was happened with one of my clients, their annual giving went down for two years, and i went back to her. Why the dip? Well, it turned out they had changed their name after a merger with another organization oneaccord donor base. They didn’t know when they do. They’re weird branding problem serious. So so we look at the analysis, and then we’ll give the recommendations. So you know you’re i have a client now. That’s got a direct mail program and they’re they’re sending the same letter to their donors. They’re lapsed. Owners and acquisition names so well saying, you know what? Look at look at this guy here are some here are some, you know, different ways to approach this, to increase your your success with that. So every, you know, the plan is not just here’s. The data here is ours. Now our analysis here’s some actionable things hear things that you can do going forward, and we try to break those down into short term and long term best bets. Ok, for the client, you mentioned interviews. Who who gets interviewed so we typically i mean, if these always start with the ceo, i actually won’t take on an assessment project if the ceo is not my client because i want the top leadership doing so it’s the ceo could be the c o o could be the chief marketing person of the chief financial officer, the development director, everybody on the development team, no matter what their position is and then usually the board chair, the chair of the development committee, if they have wants some other board members if they’re engaged in fund-raising so we try to we try to get perspectives from from all different sides. Any donors putting aside the boardmember, let’s, let’s, hope that one hundred percent boardmember zoho xero that’s often provoc part of your assessment, but let’s assume they are putting aside boardmember donors, andi, just straight major donors, or i’m bleeding into more like a campaign. Yeah, campaign assessments. Moore is like a campaign feasibility, bilich she’s, bilich thank you, idle. I’m trying to think back of the assessments that we’ve done. I don’t think we’ve interviewed any outside donors who were not boardmember because they’re they’re typically not involved in the day today fund-raising operation of a of an organization. All right, all right, um, when, when is a good time? Tio, do an assessment? Assessment’s happened. I mean, i mean, any time’s, a good time. If you’re going to take a look, if you gonna hyre gie collaborative, sometimes i tease idealware today’s taking calls it. They typically happen. Because something has happened in the organization so it can be a new ceo who’s coming in who wants to get a handle on what’s going on in fund-raising i didn’t assessment last year where a longtime ceo is getting ready to retire, and she wanted to make sure she was leaving the organization in a good place for the next person. Oh, that’s really cool. Yeah. That’s, i really re something, you know? Yeah, if you don’t more than one of those where the person is leaving and two i’ve done, teo, i think they’d be rare. That’s thinking eso it’s, you know, it’s a change in leadership or there’s a new vp of development of director of development and the ceo wants to really kind of give that person ah, foundation to start to build from it could be an organization that has gone through a murder. I did one of those last year to organizations that had recently emerged the ceo. That sounds like you had another case. You told me where the branding was. Not very good after the merger. That was not the same. That was not the same thing. This was this was a client that, you know, two organizations merged to development shops, and the ceo said, hey, come in, take a look at what both of these development operations were doing and tell me how i should organize this going forward on dh so that was a fun project to work on because we, you know, it’s, really too assessments in one on gave her a plan going forward of what needs to remain local, what, neat, what? Khun b, centralized and had he leveraged the resource is you have and make sure you’re, you know, really operating it peak efficiency. So a merger happens on organization’s getting ready for a campaign on dh because it very often in the campaign you want to start with an assessment of your current program or a situation i have now, as a client is going into a strategic planning process, and i’ve never seen a strategic plan that didn’t include increase our resource is so they’ve said, we want to do an assessment of our development program concurrent with a strategic plan, because we know there’s things that we want to do, we’re going to have to up our game with fund-raising now, if you are going into a campaign, you don’t see this as being subsumed in a campaign feasibility study. They’re really two different things develop development assessment often happens before a campaign feasibility studies, so you’re with that you’re assessing the organization’s ability, too, do a campaign and on ability, the ability to be able to sustain their annual fund-raising while they’re in a campaign. So so you really want to make sure your house is in order before you go into a campaign? Where, as a campaign feasibility study, you know, we’re working internally, of course, on case for support and give pyramids and all those tools, but that study is very external with, with potential donors, lots of interviews, focus groups, really getting a sense of the donors perception of the organization of the leadership, their reaction to the case for support, where they might fit in in the campaign, you know, where they could see themselves. You know what issues are important to them? You can see this organism is a good explanation. One is more internally focused internal and the other is outward looking at perceptions exactly of the organization. Okay, cool. Thank you. All right, so you gather, you gather a lot of data, you do a lot of interviews, then i guess you go home and assimilate all the info you got. And what what what’s the next step. So i hide in my office and i you know, as you say, i said, assimilate the date, i do the analysis, we write the report on dh, then, you know, along the way along that process, i generally have a lot of conversations with the development director, you know, i’ll do a chart on, you know, major gift e-giving over the last five years, and i might send that to the development director and say, hey, is this right? Did i get this right on? And i had the situation recently where it wasn’t right? And, you know, there were reasons why wasn’t right, you know, we they fix the data that they gave me and, you know, we went on s oh, there’s, a lot of back and forth, a lot of questions that happen. I’ll circle back with people i interviewed say, hey, you think you said this? But, you know, explain better. Then we create a draft report it is sent to. The ceo for his or her review on dh that’s important because we want to make sure that there’s nothing in the report that the ceo thinks will be inflammatory or, you know, sometimes i say i agree with you, but let’s present it a different way, or there may be issues around staffing. I won’t, for example, in a report, criticize staff that’s there, but if i see something, i’ll write a separate memo or have a phone conversation with the with the exec director s o we go through that process, there’s also a verbal interim report before they get the draft. So when we’re in the middle of the writing, you know, i’ll schedule a call with a client, eric, just thes air some of the key themes that that we’re seeing, and this is what’s likely to come up s o we send and then we said in the draft, get the feedback, finish the final report and then present to the organization it’s, usually to the board of directors. It might be to the senior leadership team, it could be to the development staff, we will do a a power point presentation that doesn’t go. Through every single page of the report, because some of these reports going to lengthy, but we’ll give it, will give a presentation with the highlights in person to the client right now. So anything first of one, mind listeners, we’re talking, teo, i’m talking to what we all are. I’m i’m channeling all of you, so i don’t know if that means i wre we, but i’ll use eye, but you’re all here glenn kaufhold, principal founder of g collaborative. We’re talking about development assessments, how he does them and what they are generally, um, you said anything negative, that you see staff wise. It goes in a separate sort of executive memo. Does the board is the board privy to that, or you leave that to the ceo to deal with? You wouldn’t expose let’s, say, you know you found a really weak. Vice vice president, you know, keep keys, leadership position. You think he or she is particularly weak? You would only share that with the ceo? Yeah, exactly. You’d be more diplomatic. What would you say? What would you say to the board as you’re in your in your presentation share i i wouldn’t say anything to the board unless the ceo wanted me to a zay said before this, i consider the ceo my client on dh here she knows best how to communicate with the board on, and i don’t want to say anything to aboard that is going to cause problems for the ceo the next morning. S o if there’s if there’s a situation and i had one a couple of years ago, somebody had been promoted into the vp position who just wasn’t right? You know, this this person was excellent at donorsearch relationships was heading stewardship previously, and we said to the ceo, you know what put this person back into stewardship because that’s where they’re happy that’s, where they’re good that’s, where their effect of this person isn’t right to be the v p but i say that i say that to the ceo. Because then i let him her, you know, decided the ceo was the one who decides on hiring and firing and deploying staff it’s not shouldn’t be the board’s responsibility, so i feel that then the ceo khun khun, deal with that whatever way it makes sense. What if we alluded to this earlier board? Fund-raising is lackluster it’s not where it should be it’s not one hundred percent how do you convey that to the board first, what they should be doing and then how they how they can improve themselves. So the report always includes a section on board giving. So we will look at, you know, the percentage of participation and giving the average gift, you know, were they giving to annual giving? Are they giving to a campaign or what are they giving too? We don’t present the data name by name, although we do it name by name, but we don’t present it that way, so it’ll it’ll give them that snapshot, but we have a dog is a dog in the hallway way can’t hide it remains. We’ll shout it out so don’t not in the studio on the other side of the door. It sounded small enough, but i still want to be outside of the door, so we, you know, we will in the report gives suggestions on ways boardmember sze can can get involved, and then i will often have conversations with the v p of development on here’s what i found and i’ll ask the question, how are you engaging the board? Bored, bored involvement and fund-raising is not a one one size fits all you know, i’ve seen people say, oh, okay, next board meeting, bring five names, you know, that doesn’t work if you if you have to work with board members, one on some people, some people may want to do a lot more than bring a list of five names, exactly somewhere, not comfortable doing that, but there might be comfortable hosting a party with those five couples exact. So, you know, you gotta get meat, everybody where they are fund-raising is more than e-giving i mean, they all should be given in some respect of you were outlining. But beyond that, beyond their own personal gif ts on dh that’s, not one size fits all either no, no. Beyond that, you have to meet them. Where they are, where there were, there were their comfort level is, yeah, and you know it, bored, engaged, but also comes another up and other parts of the assessment. So, you know, in in the context of annual giving, we were talking before about the house parties and middle donorsearch programs and things like that. Most of my clients don’t have those kinds of programs, or if they do, they’re really not activating them, so i will talk in the report. I’ll make recommendations. Your board members can can do this and some of the value behind doing middle donorsearch programs, and i talk about board involvement, ah ha, in dahna relations and stewardship, because we look at that in the report, i’ll make recommendations for how to involve board members in thanking donors and participating and ongoing donor engagement programs. Okay, okay. What what’s your sense of how successful non-profit dorian in having robust board fund-raising programs are having the kind of participation that they ought to have. You’ve done a lot of assessments. Do you still do you still feel like this is? Ah, weak area for a lot of organizations, it is a week. It is a weak area. But i question our expectations around that. So here’s here, this is this is what got me going on this. A couple of years ago i presented at aa f p conference in fort lauderdale and the closing session was a panel discussion. I don’t even remember what the topic was. But there was a lot of q and a, and somebody in the audience asked the question of how can we get our board members to raise more money? And one of the palate panelists up there’s a woman named terry temkin whose purse it’s become a friend and she, you know, she said that she said, you know, we just have to get over ourselves. Fund-raising is staff driven? If you get one or two or three board members who will help you? Great. But are you know i think our expectations on board involvement have to change. This is pretty radical, it’s very radical ninety nine percent of the guests and you’re the other present have had for seven years of said, you know, it needs to be it needs to be where nufer fund-raising initiatives begin, it needs to be one hundred percent support board members need to do their part whatever again, whatever they’re part of comfort is what their comfort level is in fund-raising you know, the expectations generally very, very high, and yet we’re all frustrated because people aren’t living up to their weight reduced expectations were still trying to get to keep trying to get boardmember is to step up to i think we need to think about our expectations of what is really likely and then going back to what i said a moment ago about personalizing board engagement don’t tell them bring five names don’t ask five people, okay, work with us to come up with a plan that’s comfortable for you and makes you feel good, okay, let’s remind me that we’re talking about this in case i forget about the response unanswered, but okay, this subject of thie expectations. Versus the reality i want, i want to come back to and we got a lot more with glen and development assessments coming up right now tell us credit card and payment processing. Does your organization need a passive residual revenue stream that pays you every month? All right, tell us is a new sponsor telling in a couple weeks and we have a long time with them. So we gotta work into this. But here’s, what we’re talking about credit and debit card processing. That’s what that’s? What that’s, what they do as a partner non-profit you okay? So they’re going to be asking you for referrals within your community will get to that and you, as one of their partners, get fifty percent of every dollar that tell of skits, so every dollar revenue non-profit every dollar of revenue fifty percent of that from your your referrals goes to you all right. And they have an incredible offer that is on ly for non-profit radio listeners, you refer a business in your network think businesses owned by board members think local companies that support you and your community could be an independent artist, family members, if you’re if you’re smaller organization, any body or organization entity that accepts credit cards? That’s it we’re talking about okay, tell us is going to evaluate their their current arrangement with their payment processor? If tello’s cannot save you, i could not save that person money. They’re going to give you two hundred fifty dollars. You the organization that referred them if tell us can’t save them money, you get two hundred fifty dollars. Alright, you’re only going to find this at tony dot m a slash tony. Tell us tony dahna em a slash tony tell us, it’s all described. They’re in a very sexist, extinct paragraph the offer for non-profit radio listeners think about the companies that you can refer and check that out their landing page. Tony dahna may slash tony tello’s. Um, i think that okay, i’m gonna go. We’re gonna go back to glenn that? Yes, tony’s take two. Of course, where’s because i’m on the wrong page. That’s the problem. Okay, my latest video is is giving tuesday and if you don’t have giving tuesday totally sewn up. That’s ok it’s not too late, although too late is approaching. Check out the video. You know, we just and we just devoted a show to this two weeks ago. So, you know, we have the advice of jessica schneider from ninety second street. Why? Amy sample ward, our social media contributor. They had ideas and assurances that you still can do something. You know, you start small, of course. First year, if that’s, what if it’s the first year, but we do recommend, you know, getting on giving tuesday at some level. And so you can check out that show from two weeks ago. And plus, my video has lots of links. It’s basically e-giving tuesday roundup. So you find the video where else you know where you don’t even need me to say it e-giving tuesday video it’s at twenty martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take too. And i feel like we should do live listener love, s cetera. The etcetera, of course, is very important. So live listeners are in tampa, florida. Woodbridge, new jersey, woodbridge very consistent woodbridge been over over several weeks, maybe even more even longer. Woodbridge, thank you so much for being with us. Live. Listen, love out to you, oakland, california. Wonderful newburgh, indiana wonderful live listener left to you um, let’s do some live love on facebook jackie, jackie, pvc maria simple john campy rick chamness live love to you on facebook! Thank you so much, facebook can you like, can you share? Can you send ah, what do you sense stars or something? No that’s on that’s on periscope somehow you khun, you can like this like the facebook live video and little things stream into the video i forget on on periscope their hearts i don’t know what they are you can’t even put a hard on i figure out what they like you or they look like like and low give him lots of love and share and share here sharing is critical so facebook live love and let’s go abroad for some live listen, love, we’ve got took over ozawa, japan commit you are got munich, germany gooden dog on we’ve got okay also, tokyo, japan konnichi wa for tokyo and someone in the dominican republic o dominican republic thinking about you so glad you’re with us. Thank you. Thank you. Live love to all the live listeners and, of course, the podcast pleasantries come very quickly, soon after love listener loved over twelve thousand of you listening on your devices in your time whenever it’s convenient for you pleasantries to the podcast listeners. Thank you for being with us and the affiliate affections to our am and fm station listeners throughout the country affections to you, however, or whenever your station fits you into their schedule, i’m so glad you’re with us. Let your studio no, let your station no affections to ur am and fm listeners. Okay, glenn, i know what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the expectations this is going to be a challenge for me, but the expectations versus now in this new format, i don’t get a break the expectations versus the reality of board e-giving so you’re feeling like a mike my hearing you correctly, you think we should reduce the expectations? Well, i want to clarify one thing. I don’t think we should reduce expectations about boardmember is giving themselves to the organization, you know, if you’re on a board hundred percent, you have to you have a one hundred percent and whether an organization sets, give or get number or some organizations say it’s, you know, one. Of your top three charity gift for you. You know that one hundred percent there is there are no excuses for that. All right? Where i’m saying we have to be more realistic is bored expectations for fund-raising and not not to necessarily to diminish our our expectations that they participate but toe look inward for so this is where the assessment can come in is, how are we engaging with our boardmember is one of their wee asking them to do? Are we doing it individually in this size? Yes, in ways and where they are we need and where their comfort level, it might just be something very small. Yeah. Ok, yeah. And, you know, you also have part as i see this with, you know, what’s on my clients, you have board’s thinking of couple organizations that are umbrella organizations in an industry, and they have executive directors of other non-profits populating their boards. Well, it’s unrealistic to expect that those other executive vectors air going to fundraise because they’ve got that responsibility for their own organization. So you have to look at board, you know, board composition. You have to look at how people were recruited. I had a client recently said by board members were not when they were included, they weren’t asked to give money. Hey, we need to change that. So so, you know, if you have that kind of situation, maybe you have to say, you know, i don’t know what we can expect them to do it at this point, but i think we have to be realistic about exploitation and again, one size definitely does i guess i’m playing devil’s advocate zoho like challenging a little bit, but so do you feel that every boardmember should do something again? This is beyond their own personal gift do something to support the fund-raising even if it’s just ask a friend or, you know, if it’s something very small, do you feel everybody should be doing something? Or do you feel that there is some board members that we just make your personal gift and ended there? Is that appropriate? No, i think i think that every boardmember can do something and should do something it could be you were just talking about giving tuesday, you know, there’s, no reason why every boardmember even if they’ve got competition, you know, when their own jobs, they can’t fund-raising that much for you, there’s no reason why they can’t promote your giving tuesday campaign on their own social media personal social media pages there’s no reason why boardmember sze can’t pick up the phone an hour before a board meeting and just call ten donors to thank them for their gifts because that’s important to thank you’s a great one, thank you. So there are there are lots of ways that board members can participate in the fund-raising process that isn’t sitting down and asking somebody for twenty five thousand dollars for sure on the phone calls to donors are really important. Sometimes you have used boardmember sze tio to come with me on solicitations, just having a boardmember there brings credibility, even if they don’t need to ask or they you know, they don’t, they’re not comfortable asking just a company in you just like going? Well, i think we’re saying the same thing that i mean it’s, basically, but it has to be personalized, has it has to be on dh that should really be done at the point where they join the board. Really? I mean, isn’t that what you’re going? To be, you know, we do have, aside from your personal gift, we expect that you’re our key volunteers, you’re our key stakeholders in this organization, we need you, and we expect you to do something to help our fund-raising let’s talk about what the different opportunities are and pair you with a mentor on the board, who’s an established boardmember you khun tag along him or her? You know, i think that’s the way i think there’s a lot of value and doing it at the intake stage. Yeah, yeah, and you know what? I also i’ve seen this happen to you. No board members come on boards because of their other because of other expertise they have, you know, subject matter, expertise or they bring financial acumen or whatever something law, what hr hr, you know so but again finding a comfortable way for them to be involved on dh not expecting them to bring five names, they’re not expecting them to raze x amount of money in given you, they may just not be able to do that, but they could make phone calls to think donors they can come to donorsearch events and, you know, say hello to people. I mean, there’s things that everyone could d’oh. You talk about being, i guess. There’s mid term and long term recommendations. Eyes, there’s something short term, like within the next month. That’s, that’s unrealistic on not so much. You know, i think i think there are things that you could do in donor relations and stewardship, that you could turn around that quickly. For example, you know, bringing names to a board meeting and getting asking what everyone to come a half hour early and make phone calls. So those are the kinds of things that you can do pretty quickly. Okay? Others take a little more time. All you know, and it also depends on the staff availability. You know, i work with a lot of clients that just, you know, they’re staffer maxed out, so it takes them ah, little time to to, you know, change course on dh it’s also up, sometimes up to the board and then aboard engagement. I remember an assessment we did a couple of years ago, and one of the recommendations was to create a middle donorsearch program. And i showed them data. And in all that one boardmember sat there in the meeting said, this is brilliant. We have to do this now, she’s like, okay, you know, who’s going to join me, who know how we’re going to get this done and get it done now. And so sometimes that that happens also feels good, very gratifying to have your assessment considered brilliant. Oh, i love it. Yeah. Boardmember william was going to do that. Okay, um all right? Yeah. I’m trying todo what listeners have a sense of what the action items are that come out of dahna an average assessment. So okay, so outside a middle donors help the transition off the event driven fund-raising that you’ve been that that cycle you’ve been stuck in, you know, for years or what? What else can we expect? Sort of action item wise. So a lot of action items again and donor relations and stewardship you can implement immediately action items buy-in annual giving. So that’s case i mentioned before, where a client was putting their their acquisition there live bugs inside buns in the same mailing, you know, they can change that immediately, or as soon as the next time the male egos out or if it’s right? I hold, i thought now listeners were going to say, well, how come how come tony, let him get away with live one side bun? We have jargon jail on non-profit radio and i think i’m sorry. I think lai brunton sideburns is a common so i’m the arbiter of what’s jargon jail in what’s not it’s last year, but not this year and some year meaning somewhere in the past, but not this year and further than further further in the past. On last year that’s what like bonsai bonem but i think if you were, if you were wondering why i think this is basic terms, i think i think i’m having a lot of people s so i’m not easing up on george in jail, so if you’re not going so lots of interruptions here, you have to do it so it’s hard for you, you have to hold your thoughts. Ah, so you know, things like that, it could be and i’ve i’ve done assessments where they’re not doing enough teo retain their donors, you know, they’re focusing on acquisition, but they’re not doing enough to retain the argast recommendations for the tension critical way. Have something. What is seventy percent? Donorsearch lost dahna nutrition every year. It’s crazy way all know it costs toward a choir a donor than it does to retake guest number one hundred said way. We’re drilling it in, but but none but nonetheless still important that’s still important it’s not cliche. It’s critical. Yeah, yes, it does cost a lot more. And don’t a retention save your donors. Don’t go out and get having to replace seventy percent of your donors every you know, business works like that. Not at all. So there could be recommendations on. Are all those people that came to your gala? Ah, what can you do to try to convert them from being a transactional donor to what i call an intentional donor. Okay, go ahead. To find that, please, jorgen. Just so a transactional donor is. I paid a ticket to go to the golf tournament or paying a ticket to go to your gala. It’s a transaction, an intentional gift would be ok. Somebody’s, come to the the the gala and then here’s something they like. They go to your website and say, you know what? I’m going to become a monthly donor that’s an intentional gift. Okay, this comes up a lot of my work. I’ve been doing a lot of work recently in the hospice non-profit hospice world. And so in those kinds of experiences around my moms who spent just her last day in the hospital, i’m honored to work in that space. My god. But and, you know, the end of life care. Yeah, so critical. So better to go out a lot of the money that that the gifts that come in tow non-profit hospices their memorial gifts. So your mom died and were incoming way people might make gifts. That’s a transactional kind of abila marie claire in saddle brook if you want to do anything on the memory of jacqueline martignetti villa marie claire saddlebrook. So that’s a transactional gift. So where? You know, this is where the art of fund-raising comes. And how does that hospice organization take those donors? How did they communicate with them? How do they help them understand that’s purely a transactional donor. Otherwise? Yeah. Initially. What? What? Their money’s for one. What hot non-profit hospice as its i’m finding it’s it’s a little understood part of our health. Care system are non-profit healthcare. Until until you’re in a crisis. Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, what can a new organization like that due to educate on the importance of for the patient, the importance and value for the family. And so they can make at something that becomes your you call an intentional donor-centric treyz actually donor-centric with me. We got a lot more on development assessments coming up with glen. Of course, wittner. Cps. They do go way beyond the numbers. Major gifts, best practices and common mistakes could be something that glen and his clients would be interested in. It’s, one of the archive webinars. That weapon regular creates, um it’s not done by a c p a, of course they bring in outside. Experts tell you about major e-giving. It covers five of each of these best practices and common mistakes. And then it was the single most important thing you can do to have a more successful major gift program. So they got this one key that there, there, there. Is that the hook? It gets you in the webinar, but it’s worth it. You need to beef up your major gift program. Maybe benchmark. Yours. I want to talk to glenn about benchmarking. Make a note of that benchmark against others in assessments. Could we talk about that? Sure. Okay. Um, yeah, benchmark. Your gift, your major give program against others. Good to get some outside perspective. I think so. You don’t have to register. This one is already archived. You can watch it right now. Wuebben wittner, you know, just going way beyond. Just see piela and you’ll find it at wagner cps dot com click resource is then webinars if you want to browse everything they offer, click resource is and you’ll see the full the full collection abila abila software let’s. Figure this out. Okay, you’re non-profit but you use accounting software made for a business now, i had never thought about this until apolo see became a sponsor of non-profit radio. But it makes some sense to me you need something is made for you. This is twenty seventeen software there’s so much niche software you’re non-profit you shouldn’t be using business accounting software like sage and quickbooks. Those things were not made for you. Abalos is its accounting software designed for non-profits from the ground up. Okay, easy, affordable non-profit. Accounting software there at non-profit wizard dot com. Now, have you wondered why it’s non-profit we said, dot com that i’m asking you to go to instead of apples. Dot com. Well, very simple accountability. Apple o’s is checking to see how many non-profit radio listeners go to check out their site, and they’re doing it through this vanity. You are l non-profit wizard dot com for simply, if we’re not getting the click throughs and the referrals, they’re not going to be a sponsor anymore. It’s that simple. So if you have questions about accounting software, if you’re not so thrilled with your accounting software, if you’re willing to look at alternatives and alternative that is made for non-profits, then i need you to go to non-profit wizard dot com, see the value there and go further if, if you think it makes some sense for you. Non-profit weather dot com for apple owes accounting software okay. Thank you. Going my pleasure. Let’s. See, let’s. Ah, i’m going to do. Ah, where were we? I know what i want to talk about benchmarking. But where were we before that? Do you remember? Okay, i don’t even market. Ok, see, listeners to go back and say, oh, tony, what moron? Moron? Oh, that no, no, i am not john kelly on. I’m not talking about the president, but tony. Like what a moron you can’t remember. But, you know, it’s. Not so easy. You try it sometime. Let’s, talk about benchmarking. Is that appropriate for is that appropriate for a development assessment? Teo, look outside the world on dh show where you stand in relation to it. Ah, i haven’t done it in the turn in the context of my assessment work because there are so many variables, you know that that come into play, you know, i’m trying to do a benchmark, and that takes a lot of time. Yeah, and so i try to keep the fee on the assessments, you know, reasonable enough, but, yeah, there is benchmark. And i’ve done some of it. I one of my very first clients was a performing arts center and they hired us to do an assessment which we did and, you know, have kept us on. I’m still working with them, you know, seven, eight years later on dh, they wanted to boost their membership at a tte, the thousand dollar level and up, and they asked me to do some benchmarking, which i did, which was really very useful to see where they were in comparison, going back to the hospice feel that i was talking about before we went to break, you know, i would love to do some benchmarking on non-profit non-profit hospice conversion rates of those memorial donorsearch transactional donors to intentional dentures and really see not just to help you see, i mean, you’re non-profit where you’re at with that, but to understand what organizations air doing toe bump that up, andi, you know, why are some people having ah hyre conversion rate, then than others, but in the assessment itself, it hasn’t come up. I don’t say it could look a right. Somebody might request it, but also your arm or internally focused more internally, and you have thirty years of experience or you know what? What the possibilities are. How a shop can run smoothly and how to get a rough running shop would be more smooth. That’s, that’s basically the value that people finding your assessments essentially. Okay, what do you like to see staff doing with this after it’s done? You got these midterm recommendation, long term recommendations a ll the data analysis, it’s all been presented. What? What ideally should staff be doing with this? Well, staff, your shaft will get onboarding yeah, well and lorts i mean, should really, really internalize it and think about their systems think about what they’re doing have assessment. I just finished the data collection was very arduous for this particular client really difficult on dh they said to me, you know, after we were done cursing you out, we actually learned a lot from this because we learned there there are better ways of tracking data. S o so i you know, i hope that staff will take the recommendations and they may not accept all of them and some of them they can’t implement because there just isn’t enough staff, and our assessments often will not only look at the staff they have but help you with recommendations. Of how you should be staffed s o sometimes they just can’t do these things, but they can start to make changes by eliminating gallows and golf tournaments. Tto help them move in that direction is but there are changes that they can make around stewardship around donorsearch actions. So if if your organization is for example, taking two weeks to acknowledge a gift their immediate things you can do to look at your system, you look at your processes and tighten them up so you could bring two weeks down to two days. S o i want i want staff to be internalizing these things on dh teo implementing what makes sense for their their organization, all right? And then how about the board, the more the same thing? If if there are fund-raising initiatives that we recommend, like a middle donor-centric activities to start moving your annual fund, donors, your middle middle donors up to major gifts, you know? So there are things that they can start to do in that area. They, as i said before, can have a role in ongoing donor relation and also support for this and support for this maybe this is an impetus for, um, greater fund-raising so that there could be more resources to bring on more staff to get to the next level. Exactly. There’s, there’s, budget allocation, shins, there’s. You know, i’ve seen these assessments change, development committee’s and what they’re focused. And so instead of the development committee, just sitting there listening to the development rector give a report, they’re engaging mohr and they’re participating in the process. So these air these air, very these assessments really help healthy for board members, and i love doing board presentation because eyes go wide open their hearing things they had no idea about on its getting them toe beginning them to think, yeah, all right, what? You shared a bunch of stories you have? Ah, yes, maybe a longer term story where buy-in organization did an assessment then you heard back from them, or maybe you kept working with them and they grew as a result of this arduous assessment process. Great question. And no, i’ll tell. I’ll tell listeners this this was not planned. I didn’t know he was going to ask this, but this just came up this week, so my my very first client was a community. College system in california did an assessment, and i worked with him for a couple of years to start. We had emerged to foundations and then ran it for a couple of years for them until they could hire somebody. And i just it’s been five years since i stopped working with him, and i called the chancellor just this week because i’m writing up our experience. There is a case study for another client. They asked me to do a little benchmarking i’m going back to that topic on i and i called her with some some questions and how it was going, you know, kind of her own perspective on things. And so this was this was a a situation where they were raising a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, they’ve increased that and now, seven years after we did the assessment, they’re starting a fifteen million dollar campaign and there are poised to close their first three one million dollar gifts. They’ve never had gifts at that size, they’re engaging alumni, they’re engaging their retirees. She really pointed all of the things that they’ve been able to do since that assessment on what’s great for me. Is she’s actually? She has invited me to come back. She wants to reassess their operation and excellent. See, you know, see where is that? Where it’s grown over the last the last seven years. Very gratifying. It is that’s really gonna listen to you? All right, we’re gonna leave it there, ok? Glenn kaufhold g collaborative is his company. You’ll find them a tgi collaborative with k dot com. And if you go to g collaborative dot com slash assessments claim has a lot more information about this. He did it for the show. It’s like a landing page for the show. And you can fill out a basic assessment. Yeah, so there’s a little bit. A little quick. There’s a little quiz that you can fill out and then you submit that and we will send you are g calera tive guide to development assessments. He’s also at fund-raising wonk. Glenn. Thank you again so much. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Pleasure next week. Oh, yeah, you’ll like it. Whatever. It turns out being, it’ll be good if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported. By pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits, data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com wagner cpas, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps, dot com apple is accounting software designed for non-profits. Apple owes accounting non-profit wizard dot com and tell us credit and debit card processors. You’re passive revenue stream. Tony dot, slash tony tello’s, our creative producers, claire meyerhoff. Sam lewis is the line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez, and this very cool music is by scott stein of brooklyn. You 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 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 dio 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 card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
Here’s an excerpt from Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio on Planned Giving marketing. These quick tips and strategies mean you can add Planned Giving to your fundraising program without a big time commitment.
It was the last full month of official summer and you might have been off on a much-needed and well-deserved vacation. At least, that’s what you told yourself. I’ll indulge you.
You may have missed August’s Fundraising Fundamentals podcast for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. I talked about development plans with my guests Amy Eisenstein, author of “50 Asks in 50 Weeks,” and Sue Dunning, executive director at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer County New Jersey.
What is a development plan and when should you have one? What ought to be in yours? Who should have input into it and how does it get approved? What team leads the execution? What did Big Brothers Big Sisters learn that might help you? All that in under 10 minutes. Listen here.
As my grandfather used to say, it’s better than a kick in the head. Thanks grandpa.