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Nonprofit Radio for November 10, 2017: Relationship Fundraising
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My Guest:
Adrian Sargeant: Relationship Fundraising
There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian Sargeant is a professor at Plymouth University and directs its Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy. (Originally aired March 18, 2016)
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into larrin, jim frak, sis, if you obstructed me with the idea that you missed today’s show relationship fund-raising there’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor-centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donor’s expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian sergeant is a professor at plymouth university and directs its center for sustainable philanthropy. This originally aired march eighteenth. Twenty sixteen on tony’s steak, too, promote the rollover, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant and by wagner cpas guiding you beyond the numbers regular sepa is dot com you’re not a business, you’re non-profit stoploss accounting software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com tell us they’re turning payment processing into passive revenue streams. Tony dot, m a slash tony tell us here is adrian, sergeant with relationship fund-raising it’s. My pleasure to welcome professor adrian, sergeant to the show he’s. Professor of fund-raising at plymouth university and director of the center for sustainable philanthropy. There. He used to hold the hartsook chair in fund-raising at the lily family school of philanthropy at indiana university. Fact he’s calling today from bloomington he’s, a prolific author, researcher and presenter. If you go to the center for sustainable philanthropy website, you will get bored scrolling down his list of books, papers, articles and presentations. Center, by the way, is c e n t r e we have ah so snooty english university there. Plymouth he’s at adrian sergeant and his last name is spelled like the military rank. Welcome, doctor. Professor. Agent sergeant. Well, thanks. Pleasure. Welcome from from bloomington, indiana. How is it there? It’s worth a lovely spring day here. And i’m looking at into blue skies in some time which and it’s not not always the case in the u k either. No, certainly not. In my part of the uk, everything you hear about british rain and british weather is pretty much true of my region. I see. What reason? Where is plymouth? Thomas is right down in the southwest tip of the country on dit came to say my pose for your audience is that it’s where the pilgrim fathers set sail from years ago? The mayflower left from the steps of the barbeque in the area in the city of plymouth. Oh, excellent. Okay. That’s. Interesting. No, and then plymouth. Then we have plymouth rock on the us side, so yeah. So that was a very symmetric trip. I never knew that total symmetry ever visit. You could actually see the steps that the pilgrim fathers used teo to board the mayflower before they set bail on that. Well, that point. Very epic journey. Yeah, of course. I i guess they called it plymouth rock teo to make it symmetric. So it’s. Not like it was named. It wasn’t named plymouth rock when they landed on it. I don’t want people to think that that’s what? I was assuming that it was named plymouth rock when they landed. I don’t believe it was okay. Very cool. Interesting. Thank you. Um all right. Relationship fund-raising adrian it’s. Okay, if i call you adrian, right? Yeah. Okay. I don’t get doctor. You know, you’re not calling on me for questions or anything. So doctor, a professor. Okay. Adrian what’s. The current state of this, i gather it’s not what it ought to be. No, sadly, the quality of relationship fund-raising what not ugly in the states but around the world is not in a particularly happy space right now onda reason i say that is because you’ve now got quite a lot of data on, um, the pattern that dahna retention and loyalty that we’re able to generate, and obviously the whole, the whole thrust of relationship fund-raising is that you want to build a longer term, mutually satisfying relationships and supported yes, and all the evidence that the moment is that it’s going in entirely opposite direction we lose. Typically in the states, we lose around seventy percent of our supporters between the first and the second donation and then probably around two, thirty percent of them year on year thereafter. Well, you try running a business with that. Yeah, i’ve had other guests on, quote, that exact same statistic, and i don’t understand how this khun b because there is so much talk about donor-centric donor-centric ism, and we have to listen to our donors and pay attention to their needs and put them in the center. Why? Why, why? Why is this not working there’s so much talk about it, why are we not doing it? I think they’re pulling two two reasons for that one is that often when i talk about dahna lorts him attention in the sense that kind of preaching to acquire a lot of fundraisers know what they should be doing or could be doing, but they don’t always necessarily get the stain level of investment from the board that they’re looking for on it could be oftentimes quite able to push that level of change through the second reason i think is on. We might talk more about this, but i think one of the problems we have in fund-raising is that it’s, one of the few professions it’s probably the only profession you’ve been join without actually meeting to know anything. Good luck, you know you’re going to see adventures to have studied or doctor that had studied or even employing a plumber who hasn’t studied it’s important? I think that fund-raising they’re exposed when they come into the profession to a body of knowledge. Then it’s agreed that this is what you need to know if you’re going to be a successful, competent fund-raising on that, then organizations would employ people who had demonstrably, you know, got that body of knowledge because we don’t have that right now because we don’t value it. Oftentimes people end up in fund-raising roles where they’re really having to discover things that we already know for the first time. Yeah. Now, are we getting better? I mean, there are programs. There are degree programs and including at plymouth university and the ones i can think of in the us at new york university and columbia. I think fordham and those are only new york’s. You know, those ones? The ads that i get new york city, those only new york city. So there are more programs, are we? Are we starting to recognize the value of a professional pressure? Especially trained fund-raising force? I think for now that you know we’re not some of the some of the programs are burying quality. I mean, there are some good ones. Always see that there’s one come on by you and there’s, one of seminaries in minnesota. And, you know, i could go on. But the sweet spot for fund-raising education is what you got a blend of delivery by practitioners and academics so that you get some of the emerging science of dona behavior that impacts on what people know as well. Sadly, i think some programs are run entirely by practitioners, so you only get one half of the equation there on what you’ll get, obviously their, you know, their background in their experience, which obviously has a place but that’s not the same as being exposed to the modern research findings that, for example, on social psychology we’ll talk about that could be informing what they do. Yeah, yeah, you know, you end up with more of the conventional wisdom. Yeah, we’ve got a you know, i’ve mentioned we’ve got a problem with attention right now what i didn’t say is there’s actually getting worse? I’ve just completed a very large scale study in england of six million dahna records on, we’ve looked at people recruited way back in two thousand and compared them with people recruited in two thousand ten on their substantially less loyal now, so no only we’ve got very leaky bucket, but that bucket is getting weaker by the day. Okay, uh, that’s ah, that’s pretty positive. Motivation and enthusiastic motivation let’s, let’s, go out for a break. Adrian and i are going to continue talking. Of course we’ve got what? What drives donorsearch multi and how do you measure it? And the stages of the fund-raising relationship? Stay with us, it’s time for a break pursuant, they’ll help you bring new donors to your work. They’ve got a new content paper on donor acquisition it’s the art and science of acquisition i hope you watched their webinar on finding the hidden gems looking among your existing donors, so you covered that now, it’s getting new donors this paper covers strategies that work from successful acquisition campaigns, and really, this is a campaign you want to think about acquisition as a campaign for new donors, plus the numbers pursuing his data driven, you know that. So what metrics should you be paying attention to? How do you know whether your campaign is succeeding? If you need to pivot pursuing has a landing page exclusively for non-profit radio listeners, you know this and that’s where you’ll find this content paper, it is the art and science of acquisition and that landing pages at tony dot m a slash pursuant capital p now back to adrian, sergeant talking relationship fund-raising adrian let’s jump in and explore what what it is that we know we’ll drive the donor loyalty that we’re trying to reverse the trend of, well, the fact of ah, really quite similar to any relationship that somebody might have with an organization so there’s a lot of learning that we can take from the commercial world that we find it equally relevant the non-profit space, andi, my guess is that many of your listeners will have had the car service recently, or they stayed in a hotel or they used the service online that probably they’ve been asked at some point tell us what you think of the service has satisfied were you with the quality of that experience on these kind of satisfaction that is, in a sense, kind of quite ubiquitous? I think the’s day on re homeless ubiquitous is because there’s a huge link between her status side somebody with the court in service they receive on their level of loyalty on people who are very status by are six times more likely to come back and purchase again on average than people who just satisfied so there’s um, active behavioral, different on the extreme of the scale, right? So the goal needs to be for our organizations to get people to the point where they’re very satisfied, actually with the way that they’re treated as a donor. Now the last one i make here is that the multiple in our world isn’t as big as it is in the trading context. Duitz and trading world, very satisfied equates to six times more likely to come back again in our world don’t say they’re very satisfied, but the cause your service provided by the fund-raising to you are twice as likely to be giving a year, then thin people who say they’re just satisfied. So it’s been a massive factor, but the multiple isn’t quite as big as it might be in other contexts. Okay, um, any any thoughts? Why? That is why i don’t? How come we only get one third of the the likelihood of returning that compared to the corporate world? Well, i think there’s a range of other factors that player in our space that also have an impact on loyalty and retention satisfactions an important one on one of the things i like to do is focus unconference isn’t easy, and then right in the satisfaction is this is a major driver of dahna loyalty, which in terms of which in turn, is a major driver of the value of fund-raising database. So how many people actually measure it then on, if you’re lucky in a room of two hundred people, you might get one hand god, and then you are people well out of those folks, you know, who’s actually remunerated how good they make their donuts real. Andi, you won’t find any hands that go with that point, so we don’t take that factor seriously enough. But then there are other things that creeping in our world, the trust in the organization some of your listeners might be thinking got agents talking about satisfaction with across your service provided by the fund-raising team. But what about all that really great stuff we do with beneficiaries? You know, surely that’s gotta count for something incense of retention and loyalty writhe difference that we make it on dh that’s, true, but for most donors, unless they’re major donors, the mechanism for that it’s trust if i’m a major donor and i’ve given you five million to put up a building in a sense, i don’t need to trust you because i can see the building up, right? But if i’ve given you fifty dollars to help starving child that i really have to trust that you say that you do exactly what you’ve told me you’re going to do with that resource. S o trust for the vast majority of our donors is a big driving factor in terms of lorts potential. Okay, okay. Um, and, you know, these sound very much like not only, you know, relationship factors in a commercial sense, but also in a personal sense, they are our friends and our parents, no loved ones. Yeah, a lot of these relationship variables are just as relevant toe all human relationships. I mean, originally this study of things like satisfaction, trust and commitment all came out in something called relationship marketing. What that was trying to do is to take ideas from human relationships on apply in that case, teo relationships, that businesses have customers. And at the core of all the relationships that we have of these notions of satisfaction, commitment and trust, no anything. You want to tease out about commitment? We spent little time with satisfaction. Trust anything more you want to say about commitment? Yeah, it is that one of the really big tribal loyalty on beauty that comes out stronger than thin. The others i’ve mentioned on what that is is a really burning passion to see the mission of the organization achieved. And you can imagine that, you know, people who are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer, you know, tend to support charities that do that on dh for extended periods of time. But that really passion to see the mission achieved eyes one of the really big drivers of lorts in retention, andi. So the question, i suppose then, is well, i had you build commitment then and again, we know from research quite a few things help build commitment that one is at risk. So if you’re running a shelter for homeless folk and i’m a donut, the organization and i believe that by canceling my gift today, somebody somewhere is going to be without bed tonight. I am a bunch more likely to continue to support that shelter. S o that element that i see, a risk in canceling will help drive commitment. So too will a personal connection. You know, if my life has been touched by breast cancer because i had lost a loved one to it, you can imagine that i’d be pretty fired-up about finding a cure for that being committed to those sorts of organizations andan also it worthy of note, is some thing i called multiple engagements and there’s a micro on a macro level. To that, the macro level is that people who are donors and campaigners and service users and volunteers, and and wait till we get there and you get a whopping more loyalty. And then the micro level is every time you have a two way interaction where there’s a little bit of cognition that takes place, maybe the organizations asking your question, what would you like to receive? What do you think about this? How many times do you want to hear from us here? Do you want to get news? Whatever it might be. Every time you have to weigh interaction with a quarter, you get a little teeny tiny bit more loyalty. And, of course, in the digital space it’s now by easy toe have those little, many interactions with people and it’s really worthwhile because it drives behave excellent now there’s research supporting all this, right? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve bean doing work in the non-profit space for the best part of twenty years now on dh we’ve done in a large scale survey work with probably a couple hundred thousand donors here in the states now getting on for two million donors in europe, tracking the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, trust and then behaviors of interest like like who e-giving next year with assembly of upgrade on even actually leaving a bequest to the organization? What about that that’s a significant how is that a significant factor? Well, one of the big drivers off, in fact, the single biggest driver i’d say really the likelihood that somebody will leave a big quest for nonprofit organization is how long they’ve been supporting it. Yes, on and typically, if i’m working with clients, i’ll say, you know, we’re gonna have a request program that is you forget all the complicated plan giving vehicles, but just right asking somebody to remember a charity with a gift in their will or a state document. Then the single beget indicators of willingness to do that is how long people have been giving onda anytime we were three years actually is a pretty good indicator that that person cares about you is committed to the cause and therefore will at least give some consideration to that request. So surprise, surprise, you know, commitment is a pretty big indication of the likelihood of doing that, okay? Yeah, i don’t know if you know that, but i know this, but i do plan to giving fund-raising consulting, um and that’s, where we’re always looking for the best potential bequest donors is who are the most committed, loyal donors, and i didn’t know that a ce feu is three years can be can be a positive factor, but i’m always looking for some organizations are easily, you know, decades older sometimes sometimes even one hundred years old couple of the university’s i’ve worked, so you know, if people have been giving twenty, thirty years or twenty five of the past thirty years, they’re enormously good potential donor for ah for bequest or some of the other plan gives to know, yeah, i i’d agree wholeheartedly with at it and it’s amazing how very few organizations even bothered to ask for a request on if they do, how many organizations think that somehow people will be inspired by the mechanics of death and dying? Some of the communications we generate trying it’s just how you make a will and you may change your will. And then the mechanics of the plan giving vehicles well, actually, you want somebody to give you you want to inspire them with a vision of what the future could look like, that people are inherently more positive about the future on so good, positive messages about what the world might look like that evoke a little bit of emotion are actually a lot more useful in that quest. Space non-technical brochures about you know how you die. I mean that’s. Just miserable. Okay, thank you for that little digression. But it’s it’s what? I spend my time doing when i’m not when i’m not done non-profit radio. Very interesting to going back to the little micro engagements you get. You get a little uptick you said of of ah commitment when with just these small engagement. Yeah, if you if you would follow my knife. On dh, you would’ve measure let’s, say, satisfaction and commitment, and you sent out a little survey to a sample of your darkness, our guarantee. If you tracked that sample of people over time, you’ll find that they’re a little teeny tiny bit more loyal than the balance of the database on that administration of this little bit of cognition, you’ve got a communication from the red cross, let’s say, and you think, oh, yeah, that’s right? I got a relationship with the red cross. I’ll go back to them and all. Well, that’s kind of a relationship with the american cancer society all that’s, right? Every time you get that little bit of interaction, you get a little bit more loyalty questionnaire getting people to take other actions on your behalf that aren’t related to fund-raising getting them to participate in an event that you’re doing online are tuning in to a podcast or tell us what you think. You know, all of those things are really smart in terms of loyalty because every time we have that interaction punch up just a little bit how loyal these individuals are outstanding love this. Okay, um, we need to be able to measure dahna loyalty how, how? What are what are the metrics? Uh, well, one of the one of the big issues we’ve got in our sector right now is the metrics are, well, frankly wrong aunt to be even more blunt about it. I think a lot of our non-profit boards need to be taken out in space eyes that a bare bottom spanking or they keep the pants, they keep their pants up. Isn’t this america bare bottoms bank with a paddle? Or is this a bare handed? Yeah, i think it probably depends on the degree of a degree of redness you want to achieve. Okay, yeah, i mean, why did i say that? Well, because oftentimes people who serve on non-profit boards are actually quite bright. Oftentimes they had very successful business careers and that’s one of the reasons that they’re there because they’re plugging in their advice as well. Andi it’s, almost as if they part their brains outside the boardroom before they go through and into the meeting. Because in the commercial space, they know very well the measure customer, lifetime value and they understand what that is, and i understand why it’s important, they understand to the merits of measuring the things that dry customer lifetime value so that’s, why you get the satisfaction so that even people measuring commitment and so on we’ll walk through into the non-profit boardroom and suddenly somehow all of that knowledge and understanding they had get forgot on the only metrics we’re interested in is how much raised with part year or month having you don’t do it attracts andi, you know, don’t start the metric that short term thinking it doesn’t help you think about the lifetime value of your database and you, and that was fund-raising suboptimal what you end up with this fund-raising that its content to recruiting donors on then lose seventy percent of them between that first and the second donation, but that complete kind of focus on short term measures get people to the point where all they do is chase their short term asian. So we’re going to continue trying to find you don’t no, you don’t we’re gonna continue to try and maximize damage money we get out of the spokes. Actually, what we need to do is to take a step back and say, you know, affection. Maybe we should be measuring the things with dr longer term or lifetime. Dahlia and beginning to reward our fund-raising with the quality of the relationships that they build. Ron avam, you know, the dollars and cents that they raised today, okay? And immediately you do that. You get a huge changing culture because suddenly what people are interested in doing is building relationships. No, um, just having that sort of burn and turn, waseem, have another to write. Now. Now, all right, you must have a lot of examples of what we should specifically be measuring in our fundraisers. Uh, well, i would if it were me, i would be using some of the same things that the commercial world have been using for twenty years. So i would measure satisfaction. Commitment on trust on dh. You know, there are measurements girl to doing that. It’s a little survey. You track how how people feel on dh if you do that, it’s the it’s, the margin of those measures that makes the difference. Remember, i talked earlier about the percentage of people who were very satisfied, very satisfied business. That’s the important thing latto it’s the extremes of those scales and changes in that that make the difference on the good news. Is that even small improvements in loyalty in the here and now translate a whopping improvements in the lifetime value with fund-raising database? So if i can improve the level of retention by little, ten percent in the here and now, i can increase the last time value of fund-raising database by over fifty percent. Why? Because they affect compounds overtime. So if you’ve got more donors left at the end of this year, you’re gonna have even more the following year and even more than you know, the year after that, you know, for many organizations that’s not the end of the story either because most organisations lose money on bonem acquisition it’s tio keep finding lots of donors to replace the one we lost. Of course, that he knew a lot of money on if you cracked that into my equation, my little improvement in loyalty in the here and now of ten percent would improve the lifetime value but fund-raising database for anything up to one hundred percent. You can make a huge just by having little improvements and loyalty and hearing that. All right, um, i wonder if weaken drill down to ah, amore micro level. In terms of the the measurement of the performance of our our fund-raising staff. Are there? Are there individual metrics? I mean, in terms of how, how they have moved donors from one stage to the other or, you know, in terms of the the actual performance of the fund raisers themselves or their metrics there? I think i think the answer to that question depends on the form of fund-raising that you’re looking at, okay, um, and so the metrics will be different depending on what it was dark, dark now dot response or someone that made you get andi, you make you give officers a remunerated too, for the amount of money that they raised, but they’re also remunerated for the amount of time they spend in front of clients remember proposals they made the number of recognition events there, kendall, all of those good things, but one of the things i think you know, it can be shared a causal the forms of fund-raising is good. Do we make our donors feel today on dh measuring that that quality of the relationship and that does come back again? The satisfaction, commitment on trust in the darkness of space? I would also be saying, you know, we should be taking decisions about investments on the basis ofthe donor lifetime value, andi what that means in your complaining that issues that if we’re going to invest in an acquisition campaign, we’re no goingto assess that campaign is a success simply because we bought in two hundred, donors are not one hundred donorsearch because it may be that most people were recruited won’t come back and give again, right? We’ve gone with the other alternative campaign we could have run, you know, we only recruited in one hundred donors, but actually most of those people stayed giving for the next five years, so taking longer term decisions based on that lifetime value, i think, is really smart and even in small organizations that made behind a little difficult to do some of that math, maybe because they’re working on even like a simple excel database or something, they could still be looking at things like retention lee on beginning to shift the focus of the way in which the team is remunerated to the level of loyalty that in general now, if you can also measure the things that drive loyalty that’s great, but if you can’t, then the starting point for me is at least to get a sense of the health of that program and the health of relationships that just by, you know, the numbers of people who were still actively engaged. Portal no, agent, i love the idea of measuring how donors feel of, um alright were going to come back. I need you to hang out for a couple minutes while i do a little business. Don’t go anywhere he drink just just dahna just keep listening. Um mohr with adrian, sergeant coming up first. Wagner, c p a’s they really do go way beyond the numbers. All these resource is that they have the webinars. They’re all archived so you can watch ah blawg seminars. If you happen to be near milwaukee, where wagner is based, you go the life seminars, but of course they’re outstanding wherever you are in the country, on the guides, the guides? Yes, the guides that’s where all the templates and the sample policies are there’s a couple of dozen of them, each one specifically for non-profits they’ve got basic accounting procedures manual. Now again, basics is not going to get you through the c p a exam. But if you want to know some basics of what you should be doing around accounting you can check that ethical conduct for your board members. Jean takagi is often talking about boardmember responsibilities, you know, that they need to act ethically, ethically toward your organization, what they’re doing in their private lives. We don’t even don’t want to think about it, it doesn’t matter, but in their dealings with you, you want to lay out what ethical conduct means and define it for them in writing, so they’re wagner has a sample policy statement on that for you, they go way beyond the numbers. The epa is very generous. You can browse the collection at wagner cps dot com just click resource is apolo software? You’re a non-profit you’ve heard rumors to this effect, but you’re using accounting software made for a business. I never really did think about this until hapless became a sponsor was never in my ken. Now it is. You need accounting software made for non-profits because you are one, so don’t waste your time using business accounting software. It’s not designed for you in managing your books your non-profit appaloosa counting is designed for non-profits easy, affordable non-profit wizard. Dot com and you know why i’m not sending you to apple owes because they’re checking their tracking the clicks at non-profit wizard dot com so go there, please check it out now. Tony steak too. My latest video is promote the ira rollover this’s, an outstanding gift for end of year. It only applies for people who are seventeen and a half and over. The marketing is easy, though, because it’s it’s becoming popular because it’s been around for over a year. Now, the charitable ira roll over, it helps donors because it counts toward their required minimum distribution, and a lot of people who are older over seventy and a half have ah hyre required minimum distribution than they want, but they have to take it. Otherwise you get penalized if they don’t take it, they get penalized. Think it’s fifty percent uh, maybe ten percent, but anyway, there’s a penalty. So this counts toward their required minimum distribution this gift to you, but they don’t get taxed on it for federal income tax purposes. So instead of it coming to them and them being taxed and accounting toward the distribution, it goes to you, it’s not taxed. For federal income tax, and it counts toward their minimum distribution. Okay, the video is at tony martignetti dot com. Check out this. This this really can’t help you the ira roll over for end of year. And that is tony. Take two. And here is adrian, sergeant continuing with relationship fund-raising i gotta send live listener love. I want to shout you out by city and state, but sam here is having board back end problems, something more talk about spanking or in the back end again. Um, we can’t see you by city and state, so i know that you’re out there. New york, new york st louis, missouri, boston, massachusetts, new bern, north carolina, california. I know there’s, somebody in california listening, probably san francisco. But i know there’s a california listener. Those are the live lister love people, the loyal, live look that loyal, live listener loved that i know are out there. Love, of course toe all the current live listeners and going abroad. I know there are listeners right now in tokyo monisha while i know we have listeners in china and taiwan because we always do ni hao and i know that south korea is checking in because it does week after week, anya haserot now, in case we are ah, in in mexico, we’ve had listeners in mexico with no star days. The czech republic occasionally does check in dobre den, germany, we can’t get germany guten tag, okay, i think that covers the most frequent live listeners. Sorry, we can’t do you no city and state as usual, we will get this back end problem slapped and slapped ah and fixed by next week. I gotta send podcast pleasantries never forget the podcast listeners, whatever it is you’re doing painting your house, washing your dishes at whatever time you’re listening. Whatever activity whatever device over ten thousand of you so grateful pleasantries to the many podcast listeners and affiliate affections to our multiple multiple am and fm stations throughout the country. Listeners from the finger lakes in new york. Two salome, oregon and lots of states in between affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners. Ok, adrian, sergeant, thank you so much for for holding on. I have tio have to acknowledge all of all our listeners of whatever ilk in variety they come, they all get a special shout out. So thank you for your for your patients. Um, we have ah, i love these measures, but we gotta move on. Let’s, let’s talk about the different stages. You’ve identified stages of the donor relationship, and there were different strategies appropriate for each first. Just please just lay out the but what the the stages are, and then we’ll come back and revisit. Well, there’s a unawareness say’s where people become aware of the organization for the first time on exploration plays people begin to kind of extraordinary. That relationship might might mean for them on then you’re kind of deeper into the relationship where there begins to be an element of commitment. And then eventually, over time, you know, some relationships will come to an end. Of course not. Everybody’s going to continue giving for forever. But what we do know is how you treat those different points in that journey can make a very big difference. Unsurprisingly, how loyal folks turn yes. And especially knowing that these micro engagements make a difference in loyalty. I going back to that because i admire it so much. I love it. Okay, we have a few minutes. We can spend you. Know, on each of the stages, we’ll help us with awareness what’s going on and what should we be doing to give our donors what they’re seeking at that stage? Well, at this point, i suppose we’re talking about people who haven’t given to the organization before, so we’re talking about individuals that you’re trying to solicit, too get them to make a contribution for the first time on dh one of things i care about fund-raising in general is that some of what we generate is is really bland. Um, on dh if you want to get people to give and you want them to give reasonable sums of money has to make you feel something. Logic, leap to conclusions, emotion leads the action on dh fund-raising don’t want conclusions provoc greatest buy-in large one people take action, yes, and you’ve gotta get latto feel something if you’re going to stimulate them to give to your organization on dh, too many particular kind of somebody’s letters in this country, you know, a bland three or four paragraphs in-kind all of my fire, somebody was on the cusp of making again could you know, that’s not gonna happen? You’ve gotta generate materials that tellem emotional story and telling a lie like that. All important first. Okay. Okay. Emotion. It’s. Very intuitive. But we still see a lot of bad practice out there. Yeah, way. Still see a lot of those sort of very bland one page letters signed by the chief executive. Maybe even the picture of the chief executive. When actually there’s a lot to say around the nature of the cause. That could be compelling. I give you one example of a pact. That’s doing the reins again has been around for years, but amnesty international, they sense that a flat pain, um, catch a piece of card with a picture of somebody whose eyes have been gouged. Eight on the strap line effectively says what you hold in your hand is an instrument of torture when you read to your horror that actually why this person’s eyes against that is because some somebody somewhere in the world used the pen on this youngster. Teo, get guy just either and it’s horrible. And you knew when you read it and you’re outraged. And of course, the pen can also be a mechanism for doing something about it on immediately, i get youto feel the anger or feel the compassion for that child. I talked you into the cause. You understand why what i do is important at that point. And are you more likely to respond and make a gift? Of course you are on. You know, there are lots of other examples we could talk about that solution if absolutely critical to getting people to get for the first time. That’s a brilliant one. Well, well done. The amnesty, brother. I give you one other from kidney research in the uk. Um, there was a senator pack that told the story of a little girl who has kidney disease on very likely won’t won’t live for many years on the letter that was contained with the picture of this little girl was actually a letter from her kidney. Two little katie apologizing for the fact that, uh, you know, the kidney is not able to do its job and rending little story, but, you know, when you read it, you have given a really strong connection to that little girl, and you feel the heartbreak that her parents must be going through, and immediately you do that. If you’ve got kids yourself, you know, you get that lump in your throat when you think, well, goodness, you know, i have to do something about that because that’s horrible. I don’t want little girls like katie to not be heard. I will be able to have the operation the care they need. My okay, uh, look, very touching. Let’s. Go to aa exploration what’s happening there? Well, at that point in the relationship that they’re kind of getting to know you stage that was taking place. Andi, i notice now that there are a number of chances playing very creatively with three d communications. So you see people less in the us, but in other parts of the world, out on shopping malls and high streets with three d headset so that people can experience what it’s like to be in a school in botswana. What it’s like to be in a hospital in northern nigeria or wherever it might be in the world. So you can sort of transport people away for a few moments to be able to see the work that’s being done on the ground. And i think those things are quite powerful. I’m here in st pete’s, one international aid organization that does that very powerfully with trailers and it’ll take a trailer to a community, then you can go inside that trailer and you can walk around a school in the developing world, and you can see the kind of experiences of those kids for having so thinking in a very creative way back, taking people inside the cause. I think it is really important don’t necessarily need to involve the latest technology. They certainly video pictures that take you into that world, i think, very important on the other thing i would say at this point is that you might begin to creep some choice in to the kind of relationship that you’re having with individuals i i used to when i was teaching this twenty years ago, i’d say, well, it’s, awful people choice from day one so you you allow people to choose whether they want a hardcopy newsletter. Oh, our digital newsletter or no newsletter, but just appeals or whatever since realized that it’s smarter to wait just a little bit until people get into the relationship so that they could take smarter decisions about actually what they want? Because if you ask me from day one, adrian, do you want a newsletter, then? Adrian is almost certainly going to say no, right? Because newsletters sound boring, and i’m probably not gonna want that, but if you wait, you know, for five months into the relationship, i’ve read your newsletter and actually i realized that this is really quite moving or, you know, the information that there is compelling and i’m interested, then i’m all like it say, no, actually, i’ll continue to receive that. So giving people a little bit of choice of the communications is a smart thing to do in relationship fund-raising but i would begin to create that image. The relationship begins to develop over time, and i don’t like people toe, you know, identify the times of things they want in the frequency, okay, we’re going to go out for a break. I have to mention then that so the people who attended your early programs, i did not get the they got screwed. It better be better to come to a later adrian sergeant presentation or webinar if you were doing webinars back then probably not know. Twenty years ago there was no, there was no web, but but you get checked the guy out now because he’s learned from his own his own research. All right, probably, but probably by the time i know exactly what i’m talking. Yes, that’ll be brilliant. Okay, there’s going to be oh, it’s gonna be a nursing home. It’s going to get great. Great probono advice from you. Ok, let’s, go out for a break. Adri and i will talk about the next stage commitment. And then we also going to talk about next steps for you and for adrian’s research. Stay with us. You got to take a break. Tell us credit card and payment processing. How about a passive residual revenue stream that pays you each month? For that? You need to check out, tell us payment processing, because as one of their partner non-profits, you get fifty percent of every dollar that tello’s gets, so half of what they earn from the businesses you refer goes back to you and they’re doing you and more than that, just for non-profit radio listeners this is only for listeners. If you refer a business and tell us looks over their processing fees and cannot save them any money, tell us we’ll pay you two hundred fifty dollars so you can’t lose on dh, presumably if tellers can save them processing dollars in their fees, then the person the company would sign up with tello’s and you’ll be getting fifty percent of every dollar tell us earns from them. So really either way, you’re going to win and odds are tell us can bring those fees down for them and these people going to sign up. So what kind of businesses are we talking about? You want? Think about boardmember owned businesses? Local merchants could be large or small doesn’t matter if they’re supporting your work. They love your work. Restaurants, dealerships, storefronts of any kind, independent artist, your family members check this all out. Think about all those businesses. Go to tony dot m a slash tony tell us the residual income is yours now. Back to adrian, sergeant. Too close relationship fund-raising i won’t let you know that you can get this research at pursuant. Dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing is one of the funders of this research, and thankfully, through their sponsorship, i met adrian. And we’re getting this enormously wonderful value on today’s show, so thank you pursuing thank you, adrian. Uh, welcome pleasure. All right, let’s go to aa now, we just have, like, five or six minutes left, so we need to be a little efficient without time. The next stage commitment what’s what’s happening there? Well, in commitment you’re really beginning then, teo buildup, that strong relationship bond with supporter one of the things i would be doing much earlier on at the point of acquisition, actually, to gather information about the sorts of things that the individual is interested in if you’ve got a non-profit that has four or five different kinds of program or things that are going on, i’d be asking them early on in the relationship which of those things they’re particularly interested in because if i do nothing else, but i’m going to make sure that when i’ve got something going on in one of those spaces that they’re interested in, that they know about it and have the opportunity to report it, they’re being respectful of people’s interests, i think, is a particularly kind of key thing in building that commitment, okay? And that on bat comes back to some of what you were saying about giving people a choice. Yeah, if you understand why people are supporting the organization that you know that that’s, that’s, a powerful thing, you can then use to shake the communication going. Okay, by the way, i created a false sense of urgency, but not deliberately. When i said five or six minutes, i was alone. We have more like nine minutes left, so don’t yeah, extra three minutes. So take a nap, and, uh, and then we’ll pick up after a three minute nap. No. What else we got? You can laugh openly, so i should hope you would please way need somebody to be laughing thinking that my students would probably appreciate that. Thank you. Pass that on to them, but do it at the end of the class doing it’s a very end of the class, okay? I mean, any more, you’re not good if i pick up on on the notion of commitment, i think one of the other things that the people possibly don’t realize and that came through from from our report is the the value that don’t get from the relationship shifts. A bit of the relationship deepens. So initially, when you’ve got that really powerful, emotional, packed communication that you’re not going to use, people are really interested in the impact on the beneficiary write all about did you do what you said you were going to do and have the impact on that child’s life? Well, as the relationship deepens, the donor becomes at least as much concerned about water impact on the child. I mean, from my sense of who i am on, and i think you know what we’re talking about them is something psychologists. Call identity and i think that’s going to be the next big thing in fund-raising because it’s a little different from understanding the motives that people have for supporting you, you know, the motives for supporting little katie and her kidney operation, for example, identity is a bit different instead of what motivated used to support the organization that stays you’re asking, what are people saying about themselves when they give? So what kind of person are they saying they are when they support my non-profit adrian, new york let me understand that we can begin to shape our communication to make them feel good about that being that kind of person. Gen shang, your colleague at the center for sustainable philanthropy cnt ari was on was on non-profit radio talking about something that this makes me think of she had research from public radio when people would call in to public radio to make a gift, they were greeted with something along the lines of thank you for being a kind supporter or a loyal supporter or a generous supporter, and she had different adjectives and tested different adjectives against outcomes and eyes, particularly among women. The right adjectives. Would increase the the women’s giving through the through these phone calls. Does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, absolutely. And what you’re talking about there, of course, is one kind of identity you’re talking about moral identity. Okay, so, you know, a lot of giving might be because i’m saying adrian is a moral person. I might also be saying i’m a father, i’m a parent, i’m a cancer survivor, i’m a patriot, i’m a liberal i’ma environmentalist, i’ma, i’ma, i’ma and when you understand the identity that’s being articulated, then you make people feel good about that, right? Because if they’re going to give one that that kind of person let’s, tell him it’s, good to be that kind of person and give him the kind of content that really reinforces that i don’t see it makes them feel good. Remember we said earlier in this conversation, i think you know, one of the things we need to do moving forward if latto worry about hitting the meat of our beneficiary, so sure, but we could be at least this concerned with how good we made our donors feel today on one of the keys to unlocking that. Is to understand what they’re saying about themselves when they give to our organization and what that report of us ruling means to the sense of who they are. And i was saying that the relationship deepens people away, so what that really means for them and who they are on dh, we start to be looking for relationships over time to meet some of our hyre orr durney and by that i mean, connectedness personal growth fulfillment, yes, but what is my support? My five years support your non-profit organization say about my personal growth and how connected i am with people that are important to me and where i am, incomes of myself fulfill it, andi, if we start to think about right that there are longer term supporters are maybe we can help them make some of those reflection on feeling better about their support of our organization because actually, when we communicate across more than any other sex er we should really be concerned with maximizing how good we can make our supporters feel ok, adrian, i i have to stop our our substance because we’ve got to move to next steps, and we just have a couple of minutes left, and i want to get to both parts of this. So what can a non-profit do with this wealth of information? Well, if you visit if they visit the pursuing website, there we are, download a copy ofthe there really two key volumes to the research? One is lessons from relationship marketing. One is less in some social psychology, andi, they could trial some of those ideas for themselves and their fund-raising so that’s the most obvious thing that might be able to do it the end of the call go to the website, haven’t reports and see if there’s anything there that they’re interested. Okay? And again, that it’s pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising that’s where you’ll find the four volumes. But, adrian, you’re recommending the first two as being most valuable. Sounds like that they’ve suddenly covered most of material we talked about today, okay? And there’s a lot of other ideas from social psychology on the other thing that’s so might like to do if they’re in an organization of of a reasonable size. We’re planning on doing a serious of field experiments over the next two years. Yes, well worked. With a number of non-profit partners, andi blitz there don’t know find it too. One half would continue to get the communications that they get now the other half would get communications that being tweaked in some way to help build up foster that sense dahna relations okay, very quickly. What type of organization are you looking for? We’re looking for organizations that have, um, groups have donors that are above six hundred people, so we’re not looking for organizations that are necessarily massive, but we’re looking for organizations that have a reasonable number of donors in each of the segments they want to study. I will be willing to work with us bearing the cost of doing those experiments. Okay, we’ll get the impact of that relationship approach on money raised, but also on how good people feel, okay? Oh, excellent. Getting to the feelings what’s your email address if people would like to submit their organization or talk to you more about being on you in the research. It’s adrian dot, sergeant a d r i n dot es a rg e a n t at plymouth a y m o u t h dahna a si dot. Uk. Excellent, adrien, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much, so much valuable information. Thank you, thank you. Cheers next week, your little brand that can and the future of email. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant wagner, cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps dot com stoploss accounting software, designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com and tell us credit card and payment processors. Passive revenue streams for non-profits tony dahna, slash tony tello’s, our creative producers, claire meyerhoff family boots is the line producer show social media is by susan chavez, and this very cool music is by scots diner 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 do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
Nonprofit Radio for July 15, 2016: Bring Joy To Your Donors
Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Duitz hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with hemochromatosis if you hit me with the irony that you missed today’s show bring joy to your donors marcie, i’m has over thirty years thinking about and perfecting major donor relationships. Marci is the artful askar, and we examine the intersection between fund-raising and professional coaching. This was originally broadcast on march thirteenth, twenty fifteen on tony’s take two thank you. We’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuing dot com here is marcy heim and bringing joy to your donors. I’m very pleased to welcome marcie hime to the show. She’s, a life and development coach, author and speaker with over twenty years of frontline major gift fund-raising experience, she’s won awards for her speaking and training, and she hosts marcie’s major gift success club. She promotes both positive mindset and best practice fund-raising she’s at marcy, i’m dot com and on twitter she’s at marcy hime. Marcy, welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Delighted to be here, i’m glad you are pleased to have you my voice just broke. Look, please, like i’m a fourteen year old again. It happens once in a while. I love going back to fourteen that well, with my voice, nothing else that i was an awkward fourteen year old. Ah that’s, right? I’m an awkward fifty three year old. I’ve never never fit in. Um, let’s say you you work in fund-raising and professional coaching, so we wantto we want to look at the intersection. What? What’s it, that intersection where those two circles overlap? Well, i think tony, it it leads back to my experience when you talk about more than twenty years that’s not really unique there, folks out there that have twenty years of fund-raising experience what’s unique about my experience is that i spent those twenty three years at the same institution. So i had the opportunity to be the first person in a position and grow a program over those twenty three years and spend more than two decades with these same donors, watching them grow and change and increase their giving and change their giving and go from from annual fund to major gift. To to life legacy planning. So it was just a really unique experience to sit back and say, ok, what makes me successful? I had a tremendous run, uh, with the university of wisconsin foundation and had the privilege and opportunity to raise millions of dollars. And as i look back, i realize it’s not just the methods i use, but it’s a mind set that i brought to the business that’s, the mindset that i brought to my work. So i focused my coaching and consulting on a twofold process. One is not just what is the donor thinking? We talk about that? No, no, no, no, no. I’m saying, what are you thinking what’s going on in your head? What do you asking yourself? And that just is important and i think more, tony, then how do we write a good letter? And how what? How many visits should we make in a month and some of those kind of best practices? And how is this mindset that we bring? And i’m glad we have a full hour to talk about it going to bring joy to our donors. What’s the connection? Sure. Excellent question already, it’s only. My second one already has blown. Now. The rest are all going to be lackluster questions. But all right, we have the pinnacle. Now. We’re trailing off already bad questions to come hyre tony that’s, something that really touched my heart because when you’re with somebody was not authentic, you feel it right away when you’re with somebody who’s saying, okay, man, if i asked this question or talk to them about their passions or get into their head about, maybe i’ll get the money, and i’m not saying where scheming is that. But when you think about some of the words we use, right, well, whether you’re a suspect, because i’m not sure if you have enough money or interest yet to be a prospect hyre how does that really make somebody feel? So this whole idea of what goes on in our heads, the words we use, earl nightingale said in a program called the strangest secret in nineteen fifty seven, which was, by the way, the first vulcan recording to sell a million copies, he said, our success is determined by what we think we become, what we think about so when we are thinking sincerely in authentically about how can we provide an opportunity for this person sitting across from us two and back in a cause that gives them excitement and joy? It totally shift the relationship building experience, and it gives that donor a completely different outcome not on ly the direct impact they’re giving has but this sense of joy. You know that when you actually write a check to tony charity charity tony, it releases and yeah, it’s ah, writes that you’re the pleasure writes, the pleasure centers in the brain are activated when you do a charitable act. Yeah, i have ah, i do a keynote called, show your love and raise more money. And i in there i make the point that i want us to avoid the construction metaphors, like building relationships and starting a foundation. Ah, foundation, you know, a foundation for the relationship, and i also avoid as much as i can, sometimes i lapse into it, but and prospekt, you know, i like potential donor. I suspect i i’ve gotten away from that that that i’m pretty good about not using, but occasionally lapse in tow prospect instead of potential donor or, you know, it’s sort of thes air and the construction metaphors, they’re dehumanizing terms they are yeah, i love that. Yes, they’re dehumanizing terms, you know, and just even some of the things in all of my years, i’ve never hit anyone up for money. You know, i’ve never hit anybody. And things like let’s get into their packets? No, they’re loaded. And even some of the things that are maybe more subtle that they’ve so benefitted from organization they should give, they oughta give they always. And who are we to tell somebody else what they should or ought to do with their dollars with their money? So your concern is that the way we think about it, potential donors and donors and the way we talk about them, hopefully behind the scenes in our office, in our conferences, um, is going to transcend those situations and and into our relationships with the people that were were dehumanizing. You bet on let’s get real let’s. Get real direct about it. You just said, well, how we talk about them behind their, you know, basically behind their back. Yeah. Yeah, well, it well, yeah. That’s, that’s the nature of our business. I’m getting a real echo in my head. But i would stake my team that i would never want to talk about a donor behind their back differently than i would talk to them. Yeah, well, that’s a that’s, a that’s. A policy to for written written notes. And you? Know, preserving, preserving things in our cr m you should never write something that you wouldn’t want the person to treat. Yeah. Okay. Um, and i have that really happened to me once. Tony, i had a a woman that was working on a very major investment with the university. And and we had a brand new students on board of the foundation that helped with little mailings. And these kinds of things in her gift have qualified her to be part of one of our honorary organization. So there was a certificate, and i know that you’re not wild about all these things in nor nor am i. But this is kind of what we did. And there’s a certificate that got mailed out. Well, this new students not knowing any better, took her entire record and stuck that was attached to the certificate simply to give her the proper mailing address. Well, she kept the whole thing in the inn with a certificate, mailed it to the donor. Oh, my god. I know well, and how i found out was i got this phone call and this and this girl said to me hi, marcy, you know, i got and i went hello, let’s call er, gladys, i said him oh, gladys, how are you today? And she said, fine and i said, did you get your you know, your certificate? And she said, yes, i did it’s lovely, but i also got another sheet of paper with it, and i said, what was that, gladys? And she said, well, it says, matt with gladys, talk to her about tony, can you imagine? Yeah, oh, my god, you’re yeah, i mean, i almost died back there on the spot gotomeeting her contact, yes, it’s a good thing that wasn’t gladys, gladys kravitz from bewitched should be like, i never remember gladys kravitz, you good thing that wasn’t wait to take a break for a moment or two, everybody else stay with us more on morsi, more with morsi hime bring joy to your donors. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Marcie. I’m you’re still there right now. Here you come back, okay? We have better connection this time. Thank you very much. Um, so what we think is what we become. Can you say a little more about that? We become what we think about so it’s not something. You know, tony, i think people roll their eyes a little bit and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but but truly, what do we plant in our heads? And we planned in our heads the words that we use, the things that we watch the shows, we watch, the conversations we have, the people we surround ourselves with, and we’re influenced by what people say to us were influenced by our own history by what we were brought up with. You know, for example, if i said to you, tony finished these sentences, money doesn’t grow on trees, blank, rick. Very filthy rich is what most people that’s gross. I didn’t think of that well, i did now, but no very kayman things that those are things that are in our in our heads and some of our feelings about money, some of our some of the things that we have been exposed too far, and i’m not saying our parents weren’t wonderful people or that they did something wrong or right, i’m just saying we’ve got these thoughts, we’ve got these things in our heads, and we need to deal with them, especially when it comes to raising dollars, especially when it comes to the kind of self talk we give ourselves. How many times do we ask ourselves questions? Like, why am i so bad at this? Or why can’t i get how to do this thing on the computer? Or, you know why those air all the negative? Those are all negative questions. Why am i so crummy at this? Why am i so? But why don’t i have more money? Why don’t i have a bigger house? Why don’t i have a nicer car? I mean that that’s all negative self talk, right? And and it’s a lot of times it’s in the form of a question and there’s some wonderful new research that’s happening here at the university, wisconsin and other places that talks about our minds. Tony being kind of like one great big google, you know, when we ask ourself one of those questions like, why am i always late? Our mind will quickly say up you’re late here and you’re late here in your late here, and it’ll google all of those times and throw it right to us. Well, that’s because yeah, but that’s because that’s, the way you frame the question there’s ah there’s, somebody is interesting. Ah, this i don’t know. I don’t know if this person listens to this show regularly, but she he or she tweets very actively on twitter he or she is at the-whiny-donor andi and we have some back and forth because sometimes the person will post things they’re whining about and then i don’t necessarily agree are as bad as you, she thinks, but you know, you’re making me think of the-whiny-donor so that person is always looking for oh, and i should give a little explosion they there there? Ah, twitter profile. Says that there on i think they’re onto boards and at least one of those is a development committee board position but could be both but you know, they’re they’re in fund-raising on on a volunteer level and that’s, why and there’s other at the-whiny-donor and you’re making me think of that person because they’re always there always looking for things to whine about. It’s it’s, how we frame the question that google is goingto answer right? Our google mind is goingto answer based on how how we weren’t it, okay, exactly, and i think that that’s something we need to consciously manage. So in my more major gift workshops and in a lot of my teaching and in a lot of my consultancy, i work with kind of the coaching for the mindset as well as are we using best press practice method? So let me give you a couple of examples about way to reframe these and, you know, i’m sure tony, you’ve heard of affirmations where you make this statement, as if it’s already happened. The problem with that is a lot of times we don’t buy the statement our own hat is saying, like like, the easiest way to think about it is is i don’t, but i would like to weigh one hundred and thirty eight pounds, right? So i stand in front of the mirror and i say i weigh one hundred and thirty eight pounds. Well, i looked back at that. I don’t know, you don’t yeah, right. So part of what the power of asking these questions is, is it becomes something where what we’re really doing is empowering our wonderful mind to pull a pull forward those times when we’ve been successful, to pull and to build on those. So for example, why am i always late becomes, why am i such a non time kind of gal? And i have times that come to mind when when that happens, why? Why does my work take me away from my family boy and development? I hear i’m working all the time. I don’t have enough time for my family. Why am i in this business is so hard. Well, why do i do such a great job of prioritizing what’s? Most important in my work and life, marcie, how, before we start to make these mindset changes, how did we just become aware and conscious of what we’re doing, you know, it’s it’s so ubiquitous, where i mentioned conferences and and the office meetings, you know, these things, they’re reinforced the mindset that you’re trying to move us away from is so reinforced. How can we raise our own consciousness? That’s a really good question, another one. I got two in two in twenty minutes, sometimes people will say, you know, i’m not sure i talk to myself. I talk to myself what i want if i talk to myself, you are talking to yourself, um, there’s some statistic out there, and i’m sorry, tony, i can’t quota, but that we we give ourselves, like sixty thousand messages a day or something like that or we hear him. But it’s, some astronomical number and i think you have to step back and try to be more present. Try to be more aware how does what you’re hearing impact, how you’re feeling and the reason that’s important is what we hear, how we feel impacts what action we take. How does what feel impact what action we take, right? Okay. So so you say you here, boy. It’s really hard to get those first appointment that’s just really hard to do, you know it. And then we say, yeah, you know, and people don’t really want to hear from us there asked, you know, they ask about money all the time, and you’re just another one of those pesky phone calls. Well, that how is that going to empower you and put you in the right frame of mind to make phone calls to set up appointments with your donors? You know, again it’s that negative it’s the it’s, the negative perspective versus the, you know, sort of. Why am i how come i do so well? What is it that makes me do so well at getting the calls, getting the meetings that i do get? Marcie, let me just give me a moment because i have to shout out someone on twitter. Margo o’malley, she’s she’s, new to non-profit radio just discovered her recently and she’s live tweeting the show she’s using the hashtag non-profit radio and on twitter she is at margo underscore om and margo is m a r g a u x then underscore om we’ll go. Welcome to non-profit radio. Thank you so much for live tweeting today very much appreciate it live listen love to you margo i’m sorry, marcie. I’m hope you don’t mind me shouting out live listeners i love it! Thank you, it’s fun that’s. Why i do the show live even though you know there’s ten thousand people listen everywhere else any time other than one to two eastern on friday. But for the people who do know it’s a rush even when there’s sometimes there’s a tiny number but it’s always fun. Okay? We’re helping your helping me raise my consciousness raised, helping us raise our consciousness about this money. Let me tell you why this is so important in a nutshell, because the things that we say to ourselves impact how we feel about ourselves. So take that into the realm of development work. You know the words we use the way we feel about ourselves, our vocabulary project onto others. How we feel about this business that we do this what i call an honorable and noble profession. I agree with that. Yeah, yeah. Marcie, let me saying to ourselves, well, i’m i’m going to see if you’re a suspect and they turn you into a prospect by having a qualifying session on you at which i’m going to move you and then i’ll pitch you and i’ll close you how how can we how can we feel joy about what we’re doing and let’s look at why do people get into non-profit work? Ninety percent of them will say they got involved in it not because they came out of the womb saying, gee, i want to be a fundraiser. No, they were passionate about the cause they got involved in, they believed they were making a difference on planet earth, so we take that passion and turn it into well, i’m gonna hit you up and i’m going to move you, then i’ll pitch you, then i’ll close you to give money to this cause and there’s a really, really what’s the word i’m trying you smacking you smacking your head there was that with that, you’re gonna knock yourself out. We got marty, you got to show for that half hour don’t no, i can’t call nine hundred eleven where i don’t know what city you’re calling from madison, wisconsin, i think, but i can’t get nine eleven there, so keep your self conscious please. Snap your fingers if you stop snapping its back in your head. You know, let me let me get a little personal with this for me. Um, i feel like i don’t do enough speaking. I would like mohr speaking engagements and there are people who think i speak a lot and i guess i hold my own, but i would like to do more. And you know what i am and you know how i always approach it. How come i don’t do how come i don’t get more speaking gigs, right? So, yeah, yeah, i should be asking, why are people on the phone right now? Ready to call me about a speaking engagement? Why are people so eager to book me to speak at their next event? Cool. Yeah. The phone is ringing, sam. Just marcy. The phone just rang for sam. Just picked up the phone in the studio. Somebody somebody’s calling so what’s going on, sam, get them get their number. Okay. No, i’m seriously, buddy. I have a witness just when you said that the phone rang and sam picked it up. He’s multitasking, he’s pretty producing the show he’s watching the hashtag non-profit radio picking up the phone he’s booking my speaking gigs. Example give you twenty per cent. Okay, now i’m sorry, marcy. Go ahead. Sorry, i cannot tell you, and i know that there are people that think it’s kind of cool, but if you ask people, do they ever have parking karma? Well, what is parking karma, parking karma when you’re driving up to a place and you’re saying, why is somebody pulling out right now so that i have a place to park? Yeah, yeah. Worked like a charm. All right? You took it away from my speaking and you went to the mundane act of parking spaces. But i’ll forgive you. I’ll still keep you on the other. The remaining forty minutes. Right, tony? I’ll give you something active todo. This is what i want todo for me. Yeah, i will. This is like this, like, live coaching. I’m getting oh, my gosh. Yeah, i were two things that i want you to do. The first thing i want you to do is ask yourself twice a day, morning and night. Why are speaking gig coming to me in such great abundance? Did you write that down? I am i’m only on the words, i’m only onward gigs why are speaking gigs coming to me in such great abundance? Okay, i got it, and then the second thing i want you to do is, however you keep your files. Now you’re probably more elektronik, but i want you to put in speaking gig one speaking, get to speaking, get three and actually place them in your filing system, waiting to be filled with your next three speaking opportunities. So you’re prepared, you’ve made a place for your next three speaking opportunities, okay, i’m gonna put that, so i put them into my filing system on and my hard drive, ok, okay, i will tell you that i used to put in open file folders where i kept my back back in the day when i have and i still believe in paper files for some things i don’t ever i don’t know that i’ll ever be a time. I’ll be comfortable being all electronic but that’s a different conversation, and i would brandon lee put these empty file folders that said that said major giver one major, give her two major geever three and people would actually come. Into my perspective giver universe in the exact alphabet, where i plopped those files. Oh, you’re really, yeah, i was to say you’re kidding, but i know you’re not getting really you could you could. You could tell what letter, their last name, because it was a start, didn’t i just randomly put him in there, but that is the power of positive thinking, it’s, just incredible, it’s. Amazing how it can change your life, and this is going to convert to better relationships and happier, happier, joyful donors, exactly and let’s. Right? And how it converts to your joyful donors is is your donors? I don’t want a relationship with you based on their money. They want a real relationship with you. And if you are coming at them strictly with how do i get them to give me money? That’s exactly the kind of relationship you’re going to form now. Will you raise dollars? Sure you will. Will you be wildly successful? Successful? No, you won’t. Yeah, and you’re going to encourage people to have twitter ideas like at the-whiny-donor. All right, marcy. Marcy, indulge me for a couple minutes. Because there’s a lot more with you coming up first. Pursuant, they help you raise more money. It’s that simple. You need to help you can’t you can’t make it any simpler. Their online tools are perfect for small and midsize non-profits because they are ala carte. Choose what you need like velocity to keep you on task and goal oriented. It was developed for pursuing two fund-raising consultants. They saw so much value in it helping so many non-profits raise money that they rolled it out directly to non-profits so you can use it without the consultant. Use it. Yourself get the value you need without that consultant relationship that you don’t need if you’re managing your own’s fund-raising small shop, mid size shop, take a look at velocity and it’s at pursuing dot com now for tony’s take two thank you. I am so grateful that so many of you support this show however it is, you do it, you know most of you by listening, but if you’re just getting the emails each week that i send, by the way i sent an email every thursday tells you the guests are that weak. I don’t know if those people who get that email or listening each week or they’re just looking for guests that they find are going to be valuable for them. But if you’re just getting the email each week so grateful to you, thank you, and if you want to get the email and you’re not goto tony martignetti dot com and in the upper right click the email icon consign up there, but i’m not tryingto promote i’m trying to say thank you if you’re letting me in your inbox each week, thank you very much. I’m grateful, of course, twitter is great. Way to get me ah number of people with me on twitter at tony martignetti and i’m grateful for the retweets of the show content and the guests that promote the show through twitter and people you know, using twitter toe share valuable content. That’s what i try to do not just about the show, but anything that i find on our social media manager finds susan, that is going to be valuable for small and midsize shops, so thank you if you’re with me on twitter, facebook, lots of fans. They’re the page post two takeaways there every friday post listener of weak pictures there, um and there’s content every every day in between there’s a it’s, a it’s, a very active page. So if you’re with me on facebook, thank you for doing that. And of course, you know, if you’re listening lots of subscribers i hadn’t even checked the subscriber number lately, but overall the listener numbers increase, you know, it’s just over ten thousand, you know, like the ten thousand to three hundred number roughly andi, i’m always grateful for that you’re you’re getting value from the show, which makes me feel good, i mean that’s. Why i’m here to give you value and the numbers increase steadily or, you know, they stay steady and then increase so you know what i don’t see is lots of declines. So that’s a very good sign you’re getting value from it, and i thank you very much for appreciating the chauffeur, listening to the show our affiliate stations, you know, you’re not listening podcast oh, our itunes or stitcher or some, you know, online platform your your station is carrying non-profit radio and i am very grateful if you can feed back to the station, let them know that you listen, that would be wonderful because that’s really the only way they’re going to know how many listeners they have at your station, so that would be terrific, but just the fact that you’re listening throughout the country on our affiliate stations. Thank you so, so much. However it is you’re thinking of supporting and loving non-profit radio. I’m grateful. Thanks so much. That’s. Tony’s, take two here is marcy. Hi. I’m continuing with bring joy to your donor’s. Marcie, i’m welcome back. You’re one of them. Thank you. You’re going right. Why friday? The thirteenth, the best. Day for me to be with tony that’s how i started my day. Really? No, you didn’t you don’t start today that way. I did it all right. Only in practice. What i preach, i get up the first thing i say when i get out of bed in the morning my feet hit the floor is i say, i love my life the second thing i do is, i repeat, anywhere from five to ten empowering questions that i ask myself, i do what i encourage others to do because it has made such a tremendous difference in my life and my work and my success and my happiness and my joy let’s talk about some questions that fund-raising that comes back to this whole idea. Fund-raising well, we’re okay, wait, wait, wait. You’re you’re a bit of an anarchist you’re taking over the show. It’s tony martignetti non-profit radio not marcie, i’m non-profit radio. Watch it. I put you off way excited to get to these. We’ll have sam cut you off and i’ll tap dance for half an hour. Don’t worry about it, okay? No, wait, wait. Before we get to the questions we were, i don’t think we spent enough time on changing your mind? Set you as the fundraiser, changing your mind set so that you can empower yourself to have these create relationships that create joyful donors. Could spend some more time with that. Changing your own mindset. No, you don’t want to. Well, tony, that i think that that’s what i was trying to say. So let me start with a little bit older, and that is that first up, you have to first off it’s some level you have to take on that this is balance. So you’re not to say, oh, my gosh, that woman why did he have her on? And i will tell you that when i look out in my speaking audiences, i couldjust pick him out. I can pick out the people that are going okay, put the pan away. This is going to be one of those sessions. And then what fun is that? If they hang in there with me, they will get to the point where they come around saying, gosh, i really would like to be able to raise dollars like this. I think i might just wanna listen to this or instead of shutting down with those feelings like oh, i’ve heard this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, i know all about that now. We got one of those positive people in our office drives me nuts. So if they will step back and be sincere about looking at it, one of the ways that most quickly you can change this mindset is to simply try saying what disempowering questions do i ask myself? So you have to be a little self aware and then to say, how can i change that into ah, into an empowering question into a positive questions? Okay? And you have given us ah, good number of examples, including for me. Thank you. I’m going to be working on why are speaking gigs coming to me with such great abundance? All right, all right. I’m gonna work on that each day. But now you gave us other examples to all right? You know, this is, uh, it’s really? You know, it requires introspection, right? Okay. Okay. Months and come back down to again that that, you know, what’s what’s in ourselves. What’s inside of us comes out of our mouth what’s in your head comes out of your mouth within your head comes out of your mouth. You know, if you’ve ever tried if you’re ever really annoyed with somebody and you think i’m just gonna let this go i am not going toe. This is not going to eat away at me, i’m gonna and you don’t deal with it somehow. You don’t either consciously forgive it or you write it down on something and rip it up or throw it away. You know? They’ll come that day when you’re tired or that person comes in front of you and you say, uh, you’re doing this and i hate it when you do this and i hated one of you better data and it comes out, you what’s inside with inside will will matriculated out if we don’t if we don’t challenge it or deal with it a lot of times, it’s fear based its anger based, um and those are things that we have to we have to look at in our world of may i talk about they i talked only about our world of raising major dollars. And now these questions class over from our personal side to our more professional side. Yeah. Ok, there’s. Some other places i want to go to. So go ahead, take a minute. Yeah, but i think about you know what kinds of questions do it. Why is it so hard to raise money? So many lack mindsets that aaron arm you. Know there’s not enough out there. Uh, why would people give to this organization when therefore others that do the same thing? Or why would they give here? They think the government should fund this, um, or it’s just so hard about, you know, why is it so hard to talk about asking for money? And i like you instead. Really? Look at some of those questions and say, why does money come to me and so easily? Why are people so eager to meet with me about my mission? Why is this project attracting so many supporters? Why are people so eager to support my organization? Why do people, tony? Why do people have more than enough money to invest in my organisation in this cause? All right, why do i take just the right step to match perspective givers with my mission. Okay. All right. All all positive. Excellent. And what i love about podcast is people could go back and slide the slider back two minutes or so and hear all those again and again. I hope they do. Marshall what’s your you have the relationship action plan. What is that? Well, i’m sure that many of your listeners are familiar with kind of a cycle development or a cycle of fund-raising and and i had to redo that because it didn’t work for me. That’s the moves you’re referring to moves management? Yeah, kind of in the fact that we have cultivation, solicitation and stewardship and, you know, we cultivate allowed in wisconsin, but it’s for corn cheese cheese, too? Well, yeah, you know, actually, i’m in new york and why i just eat it or whatever, just you just keep producing it and shipping it over here, and we’ll eat it in new york. I don’t have to i don’t know the back story it’s a deal, but instead there’s a fella and his name is doug loss and he’s in texas, and he has been a consultant in our universe for years and years and years, and i still respect and admire him. And he said, philanthropy, this is how we defined philanthropy. Philanthropy is the mystical mingling so it’s, not an exact science. I’m a biochemist by training, by the way, so i get exact science. But philanthropy is the mystical mingling of a joyous giver, an artful askar and a grateful recipient. No that’s cool. Say that one more time. So say one more time philanthropy is the mystical mingling of a joyous giver, an artful askar and a grateful recipient. Yeah, all right. And that’s, the whole premise of my book, tony, and and what we’ve done is we put that on a cycle my colleague don grey and i where were instead of cultivation, we create a joyful giver where, instead of solicitation, we make an artful act where, instead of stewardship, we demonstrate how were the grateful recipient, we demonstrate that appreciation and that’s the cycle that we want to go around. And so you ask me about a relationship action plan. What a relationship action plan. Is there a rap? Is that kind of our thoughtful, considered no siri’s of touches that we do with our major donors? Or i’ll tell you, tony, my students are telling me that it’s not just limited to major donors, that it can be used in the annual fund, that it can be used to recruit a boardmember that it it really is appropriate for almost every aspect of my life. My sixteen year old uses it to talk about why he shouldn’t have to make his bed so it can be applied a lot of different ways. But that rap, of course, is the rap is our a p not woronkowicz correct, there’ll be a warped. You don’t want a work relationship action plan that will be a rap also, but no, no, i don’t want the red line through that. We don’t want the world to plan we want just are you okay? But it’s our thoughtful plan for what we’re doing it’s not justice, you know i’m gonna wing it. Um especially are major donors they’re way too important. I respect them. I’m i’m concerned and vested in them having the best experience they can have with my organization. I want them. And one of the things that we tend to forget about it is we we make that our phil ask and they say yes and then we say great. Now, where’s the next one, i’m going to go out and ask for money for no, no, no, no, no that’s when we really have to say how can i really be that grateful recipient? What things can i do with them? What experiences can they have that? Really go beyond demonstrating the impact of their giving, but really make them recognize and feel that i appreciate what they’ve done for this organization, that we are grateful for their investment with us. You know, so often we say that it’s important to do stewardship because it leads to the next gift to me it does, but to me that’s the wrong reason to do artful and thoughtful stewardship because the donor, the giver, has the right to deserve e-giving that the donor needs to, you know it, how’d it? How should we be treating each other here on planet earth that giving the priority to saying thank you to show that sincere appreciation? One of my favorite questions for donors is to say, okay, help me understand what can i do? What what experiences, what people, what activities, what would help you best know how sincerely grateful i am that you chose to invest in this organization? Yeah, all right, i want to know that what’s the role of ah, your service, suggesting it visualizations in fund-raising. Um for me, it’s not i think that people who convince jewel eyes like i look at one of my i am a badger fans through and through and russell wilson is, of course, somebody who played with the badgers now is with the seattle seahawks and he talking about sports now, i don’t know anything about sports is best is basketball, the one with home runs, no basketball one that’s going on right now for the badgers, tony, that i’m sacrificing being with badgers, okay, that’s, obviously a wisconsin team. Okay, good. I hope the badgers do well, i don’t know them, but go ahead, but try not to do too deep into sports because you’ll lose me, okay? I think that a lot of time in that arena, though, we talk about the fact that people see something happening before it happens. That to me is visual ization on, and i guess i used visualization in the world of major gift fund-raising in that, um, and that i do see donors that i’m working with, happy with their giving outcomes. I do take time to see people down the road, delighted with what they’ve done and i try to spend some time seeing that. But i’m not as good at that as i am actually asking my questions. That’s. Why i come back to the questions, because the questions draw my thoughts to the positive side. All right, marcie, i want you to work on something. I want you to work on something each day. I want you to ask, why am i such a good visual izer? We’re going to we’re going to beef up here. We’re going to beef up your visualization skills. All right? Why am i such a good visual, isar? Because these air interesting, you know, i visualize sometimes when i’m sending e mail, i try, i don’t i’ve never pulled the recipients, so i don’t know whether this has any validity whatsoever, so it could just be me spewing nonsense, but sometimes i try to convey emotion in an email when i don’t have a choice. I don’t have time for the call or i know the person’s not available or whatever the situation, because i try not to use email for serious conversations, but when i have to, for some reason i try to visualize the way the person is receiving it, and and i think about the emotion that i’m sending it with. I don’t know if it does any good, but like i said, i have no nothing to back that up, but it’s ah it’s a form of visualization, i think tony and i think that one, because if there’s anything, and in fact, i’m going to embrace your question just with that way, because if i could have back the time that i’ve heard other people through email when the way they interpret it. What i said totally is a surprise to me. Really still no that’s, not at all what i meant by those words. I got this an email i think can be so misunderstood. Oh, gosh. And sometimes and a lot of time, folks will say to me that they spend, you know, they spend a half an hour writing a three sentence email because it’s so important to them that the words are not misunderstood. So i think that’s an excellent, excellent strategy. Why am i such a good visual, isar? And as i send that email, i’m gonna match in the other person, opening that email up and reading it withy intense, the intentions spirit with which i sent it. We have to take braking again, marcie, for a couple moments hanging there with us. I know you will. You not go anywhere. We’ll talk a little about attracting what you want for your donors and some mindfulness, which were all touching around, but we’ll get to it specifically stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that or neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m jonah helper, author of date your donors. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oppcoll dahna helper has a new book coming out. We’re gonna get him on when when that book is released, more live listen, love it’s incredible, the abundance i’m not even visualizing, and the abundance is coming. Somerville, new jersey live listener live out the somerville, new jersey and flushing, new york live listener lived to you going abroad. Masato job japan! Konnichiwa and islamabad, pakistan live listener lived to you as well. Okay, marcy, i’m ah, so you will. You will take time to be in your office and you will visualize your donors being a specific donorsearch being joyful about their gift don’t have that right. I think tony it’s more that everything i do. I approach the whole idea of raising money from the place of i want to do i want to be the conduit between between but the mission and what will bring my donor the most joy in investing in and my Job is to partner those 2 things together. And when i come to it from that perspective instead of gee, how can i get him to give? How can i get the money? You know, you know, do i need to talk to him this what if i do this? What if i do that? That kind of manipulative approach it just makes for a different relationship? And the reason that it’s so exciting for me to have been at the same place for so long is i really experienced what we talk about, where a donor may start with the annual fund. Not everybody does this path the same way i realize that, but then they start making they start making larger gift, and eventually, when you work with them on that ultimate gift, that the transformational gift when you’ve had of the opportunity, the privilege, tow, walk side by side with that donor over a lifetime of e-giving if it’s just really inspiring, just really a great thing to experience and see that the joy that donors have in investing and if we talk to them from a lack perspective, if we say to them are are we don’t have enough money scarcity costs are going up and pour us, and we’re victims means tony, how many successful victims you know? You’re talking about the scarcity mindset versus the versus abundance? Okay, you know, i saw something on your site a tte marcie, i’m dot com nothing, nothing changes if you don’t change hi. So that’s basically you’re saying, if you keep doing the same things, you’re going to get the same outcomes, right? All right, right. And and that’s where? That’s where tony i am, i am really bringing some difference from different skills than i ever thought i would dio into my work with people in the nonprofit world because i found that they see so many how to you know how to write a letter, you know how to make a major gift call how to do this out of you know how, how to when what they really have to stop and spend time on is what’s going on in my head, that’s getting in the way of me, really working with the donors i’m trying to work with, uh and a lot of times there’s, some there’s, some lack mindsets, there’s, some insecurities, there’s, some real fears. There’s some really mindsets about money. Money is the root of all evil. You know that there’s junk going on. And that, i believe, gets in the way of our success more than some of our skill set. But yet we keep gravitating towards that. Skillsets you know, i’ve got it. I’ve just got to know more about planned giving vehicles. Boy, it’s really prevalent and in your area, tony, you know, oh, if i just knew more about it, no stock and the fact that you can deduct it for thirty percent of our adjusted gross income here, the gifts. And five years after, i just knew more of the hat. When really it’s it’s, about what are once too accomplish in having our organization, something they’re so passionate about, be able to do their good work and into perpetuity. No, marcy want to share a story about a joyful donor? Oh, boy, there’s nobody that come to mind. I don’t think i will learn what to do with the cranberry grower. I’m from wisconsin, okay? And his name is guy and please, he was somebody who was involved only as an annual donor until his father got to be older and he was going to take over the crime. Very marsh. And he came to me and he said he wanted to do something something. You know, i didn’t know you wanted to do something for his father and and his father’s health was a little bit challenged. So we talked about what that might look like, and we talked about, you know, and i we talked about what would make him forever feel excited and delighted every time he i thought about what he had done in honor of his father started out in honor of his father, and we looked at what that be connected is being a student. Now his dad really wasn’t a student, he waas. But his dad wasn’t what that be know what that be? Some research because certainly the research had help them be successful. Not went really be he do a lot. Of the researchers. Well, well, actually, that’s. Where it is it’s, about no it’s about the relationship he had with some of the faculty who came out and helped him when he had troubles with the cranberries. And whether that was in off paston, insect, past whatever it was. And so we ended up looking at. In tao ing of researcher two be ableto focus solely on cranberry issues at the university, and eventually the gift that he made through a variety of of different investment was to endow a chair in cranberry research, and his father lived for the first chair to be awarded, and i’ll never forget the day. I mean, i will never forget the day where his dad beamed and he beamed and there was nothing manipulative about it. There was nothing it was it was a marvelous journey towards that outcome, and to this day guy is is pleased and honored and delighted to share that story of what he did in honor of his dad with anybody who would like to hear it most wasn’t important about it is i’ve long since left the university and he’s gone, but we still exchange holiday greetings and we’re still friends, and i understand that you can’t get too close to your donors, and yes, we’re professionals and all of that. But you know what? There? They’re sharing with you some things that are very personal way. We have to leave it there. Marcie. I’m sorry to cut you off. Martin. Marcy, we have to leave it there. I’m sorry, the why do i not have more time with to spend with marcie? I’m but i don’t you’ll find her at marcy, i’m dot com and on twitter at marcy hime thank you very, very much for sharing. Thank you. Tony was delightful to be here next week. I just don’t know have i ever let you down? Sue me if you have to, but you know it’s going to be a good show just don’t know what it’s going to be if you missed any part of today’s show, i castigate you find it on tony martignetti dot com i was just i just don’t know aboutthe singing this year does not sure responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com, our creative producer is claire meyerhoff sam lever, which is the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by dina russell on our music is by scott stein thank you for that information. Scott be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Kayman what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, 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 and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
Nonprofit Radio for March 18, 2016: Relationship Fundraising
Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Adrian Sargeant: Relationship Fundraising
There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian Sargeant is a professor at Plymouth University and directs its Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy.
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into pulmonary history. Oh, sight. Oh, cece, if i breathed in the idea that you missed today’s show relationship fund-raising there’s a lot of conventional wisdom about howto be donor-centric and build strong relationships. But what the social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donor’s expect from you at each of the relationships stages. Adrian sergeant is a professor at plymouth university on tony’s. Take two and dc is next week and i have a referral for you. Sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com it’s my pleasure to welcome professor adrian sergeant to the show he’s, professor of fund-raising at plymouth university and director of the center for sustainable philanthropy. There he used to hold the hartsook chair in fund-raising at the lily family school of philanthropy at indiana university. Fact he’s calling today. From bloomington he’s, a prolific author, researcher and presenter. If you go to the center for sustainable philanthropy website, you will get bored scrolling down his list of books, papers, articles and presentations. Center, by the way, is c e n t r e we have ah so snooty english university there. Plymouth he’s at adrian sergeant and his last name is spelled like the military rank. Welcome, doctor. Professor. Agent sergeant. Well, thanks. Pleasure. Welcome from from bloomington, indiana. How is it there? It’s worth a lovely spring day here. And i’m looking at into blue skies in sometime. Which and it’s? Not not always the case in the u k either. No, certainly not. In my part of the uk, everything you hear about british rain and british weather is pretty much true of my region. I see. What reason? Where is plymouth? Ah, thomas is right down in the southwest tip of the country. On its claim to fame, i pose for your audience. Is that it’s where the pilgrim fathers set sail from years ago? The mayflower left from the steps of the barbeque in the area in the diplomas. Oh, excellent. Okay. That’s. Interesting. No. And then plymouth. Then we have plymouth rock on the us side, so yeah. So that was a very symmetric trip. I never knew that total symmetry ever visit. You could actually see the steps that the pilgrim fathers used teo to board the mayflower before they set bail on that. Well, that point. Very epic journey. Yeah, of course. I i guess they they called it plymouth rock teo to make it symmetric. So it’s. Not like it was named. It wasn’t named plymouth rock when they landed on it. I don’t want people to think that that’s what? I was assuming that it was named plymouth rock when they landed. I don’t believe it was ok. Very cool. Interesting. Thank you. All right. Relationship fund-raising adrian it’s. Okay, if i call you adrian, right? Yeah. Okay. I don’t get doctor. You know, you’re not calling on me for questions or anything. So doctor, a professor. Okay, adrian what’s, the current state of this i gather it’s not what it ought to be. No. Sadly, the quality of relationship fund-raising but not ugly in the states. But around the world is not in a particularly happy space right now. And the reason i say that is because now about quite a lot of data on the patent of dahna retention and loyalty that we’re able to generate and obviously the whole, the whole thrust of relationship fund-raising is that you want to build a longer term, mutually satisfying relationships and supported yes on all the evidence that the moment is that it’s going in entirely the opposite direction we lose, typically in the states, we lose around seventy percent of our supporters between the first and the second donation and then probably around two, thirty percent of them year on year thereafter. Well, you try running a business. Yeah, i’ve had other guests on, quote, that exact same statistic, and i don’t understand how this khun b because there is so much talk about donor-centric donor-centric ism, and we have to listen to our donors and pay attention to their needs and put them in the center. What? Why? Why is this not working there’s so much talk about it, why we’re not doing it? I think they’re pulling two two reasons for that one is that often when i talk about dahna lorts him attention in the sense. That kind of preaching to acquire a lot of fundraisers know what they should be doing or could be doing, but they don’t always necessarily get the stain level of investment from the board that they’re looking for on it could be oftentimes quite able to push that level of change through the second reason, i think buy-in wait might talk more about this, but i think one of the problems we have in fund-raising is that it’s one of the few professions, in fact, probably the only profession you’ve been join without actually meeting to know anything. Come on, good luck, you know, you’re going to see a dentist too haven’t studied or doctor that has studied or even employing a plumber who hasn’t studied it’s important, i think that fund-raising they’re exposed when they come into the profession to a body of knowledge. Then it’s agreed that this is what you need to know if you’re going to be a successful, competent fund-raising on that, then organizations would employ people who had demonstrably, you know, got that body of knowledge because we don’t have that right now because we don’t value it. Oftentimes people end up in fund-raising rolls where they’re really having to discover things that we already know for the first time yeah. Now, are we getting better? I mean, there are programs. There are degree programs and including at plymouth university and the ones i can think of in the us at new york university and columbia. I think fordham and those are only new york’s. You know, those ones? The ads that i get new york city, those only new york city. So there are more programs, are we? Are we starting to recognize the value of a professional pressure, professionally trained fund-raising force? I think for now that no, no, we’re not. Some of the some of the programs are burying quality. I mean, there are some good ones. Always see that there’s one come on by you and there’s, one of seminaries in minnesota. And, you know, i could go on, but the sweet spot for fund-raising education is where you gotta blend of delivery by practitioners and academics so that you get some of the emerging science of dona behavior that impacts on what people? Noah’s well, sadly, i think some programs are run entirely by practitioners. So you only get one half of the equation there on what you’ll get, obviously their, you know, their background in their experience, which obviously has a place but that’s not the same as being exposed to the modern research findings that example, on social psychology, we’re gonna talk about that. Could the incoming what they yeah, yeah, you know, you end up with more of the conventional wisdom. Yeah, we’ve got a you know, i’ve mentioned we’ve got a problem with attention right now. What i didn’t say is that actually getting worse. I’ve just completed a very large scale study in england of six million dahna records we’ve looked at people recruited way back in two thousand and compared them with people recruited in two thousand ten on their substantially less loyal now so no only we’ve got very leaky bucket, but that bucket is getting weaker by the day. Okay, uh that’s ah that’s pretty positive motivation and enthusiastic motivation. Let’s ah, let’s, go out for a break. Adrian and i are going to continue talking. Of course we’ve got what? What drives donorsearch multi. And how do you measure it? And the stages of the fund-raising relationship? Stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, adrian let’s jump in and explore what what it is that we know we’ll drive the donor loyalty that we’re trying to reverse the trend of, well, the fact of ah, really quite similar to any relationship that somebody might have with an organization so there’s a lot of learning that we can take from the commercial world that we find it equally relevant. The non-profits place andi, my guess is that many of your listeners will have had the car service recently or they’ve stayed in a hotel or they used the service online that probably they’ve been asked at some point tell us what you think of the service has satisfied were you with the quality of that experience on these kind of satisfaction, that is, in a sense, kind of quite ubiquitous? I think the’s day on the re homeless ubiquitous is because there’s a huge link between her status side somebody with the court in service they receive on their level of loyalty on people who are very status by are six times more likely to come back and purchase again, on average than people who just satisfied so there’s um active behavioral, different on the extreme of the scale, right? So the goal needs to be for our organizations to get people to the point where they’re very satisfied, actually with the way that they’re treated as a donor. That’s the last one i make here is that the multiple in our world isn’t as big as it is in the trading context. Duitz and trading world, very satisfied equates to six times more likely to come back again in our world don’t say they’re very satisfied, but the cause your service provided by the fund-raising to you are twice as likely to be giving in years, and i think people who say they’re just satisfied. So it’s been a massive factor, but the multiple isn’t quite as big as it might be in other contexts, okay? Any any thoughts? Why? That is why i don’t how come we only get one third of the the likelihood of returning that compared to the corporate world? Well, i think there’s a range of other factors that player in our space that also have an impact on loyalty and retention satisfactions an important one on one of the things i like to do is focus unconference isn’t the season, then write in the satisfaction is this is a major driver of dahna loyalty, which in terms of which in turn, is a major driver of the value of fund-raising database. So how many people actually measure it then on, if you’re lucky in a room of two hundred people, you might get one hand god, and then you are people well out of those folks, you know, who’s actually remunerated how good they make their donors feel on dh you won’t find any hands that go with that point, so we don’t take that factor seriously enough. But then there are other things that creeping in our world, the trust in the organization of your listeners might be thinking got agents talking about satisfaction with a coarse service provided by the fund-raising team. Well, what about all that really great stuff we do with beneficiaries? You know, surely that’s gotta count for something incense of retention and loyalty writhe difference that we make it on dh that’s true, but for most donors, unless they’re major donors, the mechanism for that it’s trust if i’m a major donor and i’ve given you five million to put up a building in a sense, i don’t need to trust you because i can see the building up, right? But if i’ve given you fifty dollars to help starving child that i really have to trust that you say you do exactly what you’ve told me you’re going to do with that resource s o trust for the vast majority of our donors is a big driving factor in terms of lorts potential. Okay, okay. Um, and, you know, these sound very much like not only, you know, relationship factors in a commercial sense, but also in a personal sense, they are our friends and our parents, no loved ones. Yeah, a lot of these relationship variables are just as relevant toe all human relationships. I mean, originally this study of things like satisfaction, trust and commitment all came out of something called relationship marketing, and what that was trying to do is to take ideas from human relationships on apply in that case, teo relationships, that businesses have customers, and at the core of all the relationships that we have of these notions of satisfaction, commitment and trust. No. Anything you want to tease out about commitment. We spent little time with satisfaction. Trust anything more you want to say about commitment? Yeah. Commitment is one of the really big drivers of loyalty on beauty that comes out stronger than thin. The others i’ve mentioned on what that is is a really burning passion to see the mission of the organization achieved. And you can imagine that, you know, people who are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer, you know, tend to support charities that do that on dh for extended periods of time. But that really passion to see the mission achieved eyes one of the really big drivers of lorts in retention, andi. So the question, i suppose then, is well, i had you build commitment then and again, we know from research quite a few things help build commitment that one is at risk. So if you’re running a shelter for homeless folk and i’m a donut, your organization and i believe that by canceling my gift today, somebody somewhere is going to be without a bed tonight. I am a bunch more likely to continue to support that shelter. S o that element that i see a risk in canceling will help drive commitment. So too will a personal connection. You know, if my life had been touched by breast cancer because i had lost a loved one to it, you can imagine that i’d be pretty fired-up about finding a cure for that being committed to those sorts of organizations andan also it worthy of note, is some thing i called multiple engagements and there’s a micro on a macro level to that, the macro level is that people who are donors and campaigners and service users and volunteers, and and wait till you get and you get a whopping more loyalty. And in the micro level is every time you have a two way interaction where there’s a little bit of cognition that takes place, maybe the organization asking your question, what would you like to receive? What do you think about this? How many times do you want to hear from us here? Do you want to get news? Whatever it might be. Every time you have to weigh interaction with water, you get a little teeny tiny bit more loyalty. And, of course, in the digital space, it’s now by easy toe have those little, many interactions with people and it’s really worthwhile, because ultimately it drives behave excellent. Now, there’s research supporting all this, right? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve bean doing work in the non-profit space for the best part of twenty years now, andi, we’ve done in a large scale survey work with probably a couple hundred thousand donors here in the states now getting on for two million donors in europe, um, tracking the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, trust and then behaviors of interest like like who e-giving next year with assembly upgrade on even actually leaving a bequest to the organization? What about that that’s a significant how is that a significant factor? Well, one of the big drivers off, in fact, the single biggest driver i’d say really the likelihood that somebody will leave a big quest for nonprofit organization is how long they’ve been supporting it. Yes, on and typically find working with clients, i’ll say, you know, we’re gonna have a request program that is you forget all the complicated plan giving vehicles, but just right asking somebody to remember a charity with a gift in their will or a state document. Then the single to get indicators of willingness to do that is how long people have been giving onda anytime we were three years actually is a pretty good indicator that that person cares about you is committed to the cause and therefore will at least give some consideration to that request. So surprise, surprise, you know, commitment is a pretty big indication the likelihood of doing that, okay, yeah, i don’t know if you know that, but i know this, but i do plan to giving fund-raising consulting ah, and that’s where we’re always looking for the best potential bequest donors is who are the most committed, loyal donors, and i didn’t know that a ce feu is three years can be can be a positive factor, but i’m always looking for some organizations are easily, you know, decades older sometimes sometimes even one hundred years old couple of the university’s i’ve worked, so you know, if people have been giving twenty, thirty years or twenty five of the past thirty years, they’re ah, enormously good potential donor for ah for bequest or some of the other plan gives to yeah, yeah, i’d agree wholeheartedly with it and it’s. Amazing how very few organizations even bothered to ask for a request on if they do, how many organizations think that somehow people will be inspired by the mechanics of death and dying? Some of the communications we generate just thank you. Make a will and you may change your will. And then the mechanics of the plan giving vehicles well, actually, you want the company to give you you want to inspire them with a vision of what the future could look like, that people are inherently more positive about the future on so good, positive messages about what the world might look like that evoke a little bit of emotion are actually a lot more useful in that quest. Space non-technical brochures about you know how you die. I mean that’s. Just miserable. Okay, thank you for that little digression. But it’s it’s what? I spend my time doing when i’m not when i’m not done non-profit radio. Very interesting to going back to the little micro engagements you get. You get a little uptick you said of of ah commitment when with just these small engagement. Yeah. If you heywood follow my knife on dh, you would’ve. Measure let’s say satisfaction and commitment, and you sent out a little survey to a sample of your darkness, our guarantee. If you can’t that sample of people over time, you’ll find that they’re a little teeny tiny bit more loyal than the balance of the database on that administration of this little bit of cognition, you’ve got a communication from the red cross, let’s say, and you think, oh, yeah, that’s right? I got a relationship with the red cross. I’ll go back to them and all. Well, that’s kind of a relationship with the american cancer society all that’s, right? Every time you get that little bit of interaction, you get a little bit more loyalty questionnaire getting people to take other actions on your behalf that aren’t related to fund-raising getting them to participate in an event that you’re doing online are tuning in to a podcast or tell us what you think. All of those things are really smart in terms of loyalty, because every time we have that interaction punch up just a little bit how loyal these individuals are outstanding love this. Okay, um, we need to be able to measure dahna loyalty how how, ah, what are what are the metrics? Uh, well, one of the one of the big issues we’ve got in our sector right now is the metrics are, well, frankly wrong aunt to be even more blunt about it. I think a lot of our non-profit boards need to be taken out, inspector eyes that a bare bottom spanking or they keep their pants, they keep their pants up. Isn’t this america bare bottoms bank with a paddle? Or is this a bare handed? Yeah, i think it really depends on the degree of a degree of redness you want to achieve. Okay, yeah, i mean, why did i say that? Well, because oftentimes people who serve on non-profit boards are actually quite bright. Oftentimes they had very successful business careers and that’s one of the reasons that they’re there because they’re plugging in their advice as well. Andi it’s, almost as if they part their brain that side the boardroom before they go through and into the meeting. Because in the commercial space, they know very well the measure customer, lifetime value and they understand what that is, and i understand why it’s important, they understand to the merits of measuring the things that drive customer lifetime about so that’s, why you get satisfaction survey reason people measuring commitment and so on you walk her into the non-profit boardroom and suddenly somehow all of that knowledge and understanding they had get forgotten on the only metrics we’re interested in is how much raised with part year or month having me don’t do it attracts andi, you know, don’t start the metric that short term thinking doesn’t help you think about the lifetime value of your database and you, and that was fund-raising suboptimal what you end up with this fund-raising that its content to recruiting donors on then lose seventy percent of them between that first and the second donation, but that complete kind of focus on short term measures get people to the point where all they do is chase their short term measure. So we’re going to continue trying to find you don’t no, you don’t we’re going continually trying next to my spanish money, we get out of the spokes, actually, what we need to do is to take a step back and say, you know, affection, maybe we should be measuring the things that drive longer term or lifetime dahlia and beginning. To reward our fund-raising it’s with the quality of the relationships that they build. Ron avam, you know, the dollars and cents that they raised get today. Okay? And immediately you do that. You get a huge changing culture because suddenly what people are interested in doing is building relationships, not just having that sort of burning churning. Wait. You must have a lot of examples of what we should specifically be measuring in our fundraisers. Uh, well, i would. If it were me, i would be using some of the same things that the commercial world have been using for twenty years. So i would measure satisfaction, commitment on trust on dh. You know, there are measurements girl to doing that. It’s a little survey. You track how how people feel on dh if you do that, it’s. The margin of those measures that makes the difference. Remember, i talked earlier about the percentage of people who were very satisfied, very satisfied business, that’s the important thing latto it’s the extremes of those scales and changes in that that make the difference on the good news is that even small improvements in loyalty in the here and now translate. A whopping improvements in the lifetime value with fund-raising database. So if i can improve the level of retention by little can percent in the here and now, i can increase the last time value fund-raising database by over fifty percent. Why? Because they affect compounds overtime. So if you’ve got more donors left at the end of this year, you’re gonna have even more the following year and even more than you know, the year after that, you know, for many organizations that’s not the end of the story either because most organisations lose money on going to requisition just to go out and keep finding lots of donors to replace the ones we’ve lost. Of course, that he knew a lot of money on if you factor that into my equation, my little improvement in loyalty in the here and now of ten percent and improve the lifetime deliver fund-raising database for anything up to one hundred percent. You can make a huge just by having little improvements and lucy and hearing that all right, i wonder if weaken, drill down to ah mohr, micro level in terms of the measurement of the performance of our our fund-raising staff are there? Are there individual metrics? I mean, in terms of how, how they have moved donors from one stage to the other or, you know, in terms of the the actual performance of the fund raisers themselves or their metrics there? I think i think the answer to that question depends on the form of fund-raising that you’re looking at, okay, um, and so the metrics will be different depending on what it was dark, dark now dot response or someone that made you get andi, you make you give officers a remunerated too, for the amount of money that they raised, but they’re also remunerated for the amount of time they spend in front of clients remember proposals they made the number of recognition events there, kendall, all of those good things, but one of the things i think you know it can be shared a causal the forms of fund-raising is good. Do we make our donors feel today on dh measuring that that quality of the relationship and that does come back again? The satisfaction, commitment on trust in the dark spots space? I would also be saying, you know, we should be taking decisions about investment on the basis ofthe donor lifetime value, andi what that means in your complaining that issues that if we’re going to invest in an acquisition campaign, we’re no goingto assess that campaign is a success simply because we bought in two hundred, donors on one hundred donors because it may be that most people were recruited won’t come back and give again. We’ve gone with the other alternative campaign we could have run, you know, we only recruited in one hundred donors, but actually most of those people stayed giving for the next five years, so taking longer term decisions based on that lifetime value, i think, is really smart and even in small organizations that made behind a little difficult to do some of that math, maybe because they’re working on even like a simple excel database or something, they could still be looking at things like retention lee on beginning to shift the focus of the way in which the team is remunerated to the level of loyalty that engendered. Now, if you can also measure the things that drive multi that’s great, but if you can’t, then the starting point for me is at least to get a sense of the health of that program and the health of relationships that just by, you know, the numbers of people who were still actively engaged. The portal agent, i love the idea of measuring how donors feel of, um alright were going to come back. I need you to hang out for a couple minutes while i do a little business don’t go anywhere he drink just just dahna just keep listening. Um, i have to talk about pursuant. They are a midsize. Well, they had a mid size social service agency using their tool velocity and therefore gift officers in that organization not meeting their close rate goals. The director of development challenged them to close proposals in the velocity pending repose. Als pending proposals report within two weeks. So he took this report. You have a two week challenge issued by there. There. Ah, there, boss. The foreclosed twenty gifts from the report and raised over sixty six thousand dollars, which had been their average monthly preach challenge production. But they did it in two weeks. And s so. Not only did raise the same amount of money and half the time. One hundred percent. Rate of increase, but they also increased longer term performance using that that same report. So this is all a tool at pursuing dot com the tools called velocity and, you know, along with what adrian is talking about, measuring there don’t have to be these measures as well of, you know, how much did you actually raise? And, you know, how are we doing against all of our goals? And the velocity tool helps you measure that time against goal pursuing dot com crowdster they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners get thirty percent thirty days for free or fifty percent off, that means you try crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising have them put together one of those sites for you, which are very easy to do, actually, and you try it completely free for a month or get fifty percent off, and that would mean pay for months. Get a month free pay for two months get two months added on for free. You can claim your deal, make your choice at crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and which deal you want or if you are like me and you like to talk and not chat on ah, chat window call joe he’s the ceo. Joe ferraro. He wants you to have his number. It’s two a one, three one six forty six. Double xero two oh one, three one, six, forty six double xero you can meet joe at ntcdinosaur provoc technology conference. The crowdster booth is number five forty four. Tell joe you’re from non-profit radio. I can’t make it any simpler now. Time for tony’s take two. Yes, that non-profit technology conference and tc is next week in san jose, california. Buy-in booths one thirty four and one thirty sixth, right at the main entrance to the exhibit hall. You cannot miss me, i’m there. I’ve got twenty nine interviews scheduled as of this morning, and i’m sure we’re gonna get more than thirty. There are about thirty five slots available so filled up, but not entirely my video and interview schedule for ntc is at tony martignetti dot com is my my that’s, a plural video and interview schedule are at tony martignetti dot com who writes this crappy copy? I don’t know this is why i need an intern, so i have someone to blame for this for this, i have an easy e newsletter to recommend for you it is by jonathan lewis it’s called making social entrepreneurship happened. It’s social change stuff from the book that he’s in the process of writing, he has been a non-profit radio guest. He runs the opportunity collaboration conference that i’ve been to in mexico, and he teaches social entrepreneurship at new york university. He’s, one of the adjunct professors that adrian was just saying i can add value to a program but not standing alone. He’s a very good, very good, smart guy with good ideas you can sign up for jonathan’s newsletter at cafe impact dot com and that is tony’s take two i gotta send live listener love i want to shout you out by city and state, but sam here is having board back end problems, something more talk about spanking or in the back end again. Um, we can’t see you by city and state, so i know that you’re out there. New york, new york st louis, missouri, boston, massachusetts, new bern, north carolina, california. I know there’s somebody in california listening, probably san francisco, but i know there’s, a california listener. Those are the live lister love people, the loyal, live look that loyal, live listener loved that i know are out there love, of course, toe all the current live listeners and going abroad. I know there are listeners right now in tokyo monisha while i know we have listeners in china and taiwan because we always do ni hao and i know that south korea is checking in because it does week after week. Anya haserot now, in case we are in in mexico, we’ve had listeners in mexico with no star days, the czech republic occasionally does check in dobre den, germany, we can’t get germany guten tag, okay, i think that covers the most frequent live listeners. Sorry, we can’t do you no city and state as usual, we will get this back end problem slapped and slapped ah and fixed by next week. I gotta send podcast pleasantries never forget the podcast listeners, whatever it is you’re doing painting your house, washing your dishes at whatever time you’re listening. Whatever activity whatever device over ten thousand of you, so grateful pleasantries to the many podcast listeners and affiliate affections to our multiple multiple am and fm. Stations throughout the country. Listeners from the finger lakes in new york. Two salome, oregon and lots of states in between affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners. Ok, adrian sergeant, thank you so much for for holding on. I have tio after acknowledge all of all our listeners of whatever ilk in variety they come, they all get a special shout out. So thank you for your for your patients. Um, we have ah, i love these measures, but we gotta move on. Let’s, let’s talk about the different stages you’ve identified stages of the donor relationship and there were different strategies appropriate for each first. Just please just lay out the but what the the stages are, and then we’ll come back and revisit. Well, there’s a unawareness say’s where people become aware of the organization for the first time on exploration plays people begin to kind of extraordinary that relationship might might mean for them on then you’re kind of deeper into the relationship where there begins to be an element of commitment. And then eventually, over time, you know, some relationships will come to an end. Of course not. Everybody’s going to continue giving for forever. But what we do know is how you treat donorsearch different points in that journey can make a very big difference. Unsurprisingly, how loyal durney yes, and especially knowing that these micro engagements make a difference in loyalty, i going back to that because i admire it so much, i love it. Um, okay, we have a few minutes we can spend, you know, on each of the stages, we’ll help us with awareness what’s going on and what should we be doing to give our donors what they’re seeking at that stage? Well, at this point, i suppose we’re talking about people who haven’t given to the organization before, so we’re talking about individuals that you’re trying to solicit, too get them to make a contribution for the first time on dh one of things i care about fund-raising in general is that some of what we generate is is really plan, and if you want to get people to give and you want them to give reasonable sums of money, has to make you feel something logic, leap to conclusions, emotion leads the action on dh fund-raising don’t want conclusions provoc greatest buy-in large one, people take action. Yes. And you’ve gotta get latto feel something if you’re going to stimulate them to give to your organization on dh. Too many particular kind of somebody’s letters in this country, you know, a bland three or four paragraphs in-kind all of my fire. Somebody was on the cusp of making a gift. I could, you know, that’s not gonna happen. You’ve gotta generate materials, the talon emotional story and telling to stimulate that all important first. Okay. Okay. Emotion. It’s. Very intuitive. But we still see a lot of bad practice out there. Yeah, way. Still see a lot of those sort of very bland one page letters signed by the chief executive. Maybe even the picture of the chief executive. When actually there’s a lot to say around the nature of the cause. That could be compelling. I give you one example of a pact. That’s doing the reins again has been around for years, but amnesty international, they sense that a flat pain catch a piece of card with a picture of somebody whose eyes have been gouged. Eight on the strap line effectively says what you hold in your hand is an instrument of torture when you read to your horror that actually why this person’s eyes against that is because some somebody somewhere in the world used the pen on this youngster teo teo, get guy just either and it’s horrible and you knew when you read it and you’re outraged. And of course the pen can also be a mechanism for doing something about it on immediately i get youto feel the anger or feel the compassion for that child i talked you into the corps was you understand why what i do is important at that point. And are you more likely to respond and make a gift? Of course on you know, there are lots of other examples we could talk about that solution is absolutely critical to getting people to get for the first time. That’s a brilliant one. Well, well done. The amnesty, brother, i give you one other from kidney research in the uk there was a cent a pack. I told the story of a little girl. Uh, who has kidney disease on very likely won’t won’t live for many years on the letter that was contained with the picture of this little girl was actually a letter. From her kidney, two little katie apologizing for the fact that, uh, you know, the kidney is not able to do its job and rending little story, but, you know, when you read it, you have given a really strong connection to that little girl, and you feel the heartbreak that her parents must be going through, and immediately you do that if you’ve got kids yourself, you know, you get that lump in your throat when you think, well, goodness, you know, i have to do something about that because that horrible i don’t want the little girls like katie not be hurt. I may be able to have the operation the care they need. My okay. Ah, very touching. Let’s go to aa exploration what’s happening there? Well, at that point in the relationship that they’re kind of getting to know you stage that was taking place. Andi, i know now that there are a number of chances playing very creatively with three d communications. S o you see people less in the us, but in other parts of the world out on shopping malls and high streets with three d headset so that people can experience what? It’s like to be in a school in botswana what it’s like to be in a hospital in northern nigeria or wherever it might be in the world. So you can sort of transport people away for a few moments to be able to see the work that’s being done on the ground. And i think those things are quite powerful here in st pete’s one international aid organization that does that very powerful lee was trains, and it’ll take a trailer to a community, then you can go inside that trailer and you can walk around a school in the developing world, and you can see the kind of experiences that those kids for having so thinking in a very creative way about taking people inside the cause i think is really important, you don’t necessarily need to involve the latest technology. They certainly video pictures that take you into that world, i think, is very important on the other thing i would say at this point is that you might begin to creep some choice in to the kind of relationship that you’re having with individuals i used to when i was teaching this twenty years ago, i’d say, well, it’s, awful people choice from day one. So you you allow people to choose whether they want a hardcopy newsletter. Oh, our digital newsletter or no newsletter, but just appeals or whatever since realized that it’s smarter to wait just a little bit until people get into the relationship so that they could take smarter decisions about actually what they want. Because if you ask me from day one, adrian, do you want a newsletter, then? Adrian is almost certainly going to say no, right? Because newsletters sound boring, and i’m probably not gonna want that, but if you wait, you know, for five months into the relationship, i’ve read your newsletter and actually i realized that this is really quite moving or, you know, the information that there is compelling, and i’m interested, then i’m all like, so no, actually, i’ll continue to receive that. So giving people a little bit of choice of the communications is a smart thing to do in relationship fund-raising logo, but i would begin to creep that in as the relationship begins to develop over time and i’d allow people toe, you know, identify the times of things they want in the frequency. Okay, we’re going to go out for a break. I have to mention then that so the people who attended your early programs, i did not get the they got screwed. It better be better to come to a later adrian sergeant presentation or webinar. If you were doing webinars back then probably not know. Twenty years ago, there was no, there was no web, but but you get checked the guy out now because he’s learned from his own his own research. All right, probably by the time you are exactly what i’m talking, yes, that’ll be brilliant, okay, there’s going to be, oh, it’s gonna be a nursing home. It’s going to get great, great probono advice from you, okay, let’s, go out for a break. Adri and i will talk about the next stage commitment, and then we also got to talk about next steps for you and for adrian’s research. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy, tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m chuck longfield of blackbaud. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oppcoll chuck longfield of blackbaud will be on the show next week, a little more about that coming up later on um, i won’t let you know that you can get this research at pursuant dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing is one of the funders of this research, and thankfully through their sponsorship, i met adrian, and we’re getting this enormously wonderful value on today’s show, so thank you pursuing thank you, adrian. Uh, welcome pleasure, all right, let’s go to aa now, we just have, like, five or six minutes left, so we need to be a little efficient without time. The next stage commitment what’s what’s happening there? Well, in commitment you’re really beginning then, teo buildup, that strong relationship bond with a supporter of one of the things i would be doing much earlier on at the point of acquisition, actually to gather information about the sorts of things that the individual is interested in if you’ve got a non-profit that has four or five different kinds of program or things that are going on, i’d be asking them early on in the relationship which of those things they’re particularly interested. In because if i do nothing else. But i’m going to make sure that when i’ve got something going on in one of those spaces that they’re interested in, that they know about it and have the opportunity to report it, they’re being respectful of people’s interests. I think is a particularly kind of key thing in building that commitment, okay? And that on but comes back to some of what you were saying about giving people a choice. Yeah, if you understand why people are supporting the organization that you know that that’s a powerful thing, you can then use to shake the communication going. Okay, by the way, i created a false sense of urgency, but not deliberately. When i said five or six minutes, i was alone. We have more like nine minutes left, so don’t you got an extra three minutes, so take a nap, and, uh, and then we’ll pick up after a three minute nap. No. What else we got? You can laugh openly, so i should hope you please way need somebody to be laughing thinking that my students would probably appreciate that. Thank you. Pass that on to them, but do it at the end of the class. Duvette the very end of the class. Um, yeah, okay, um, i mean, any more, you’re not good if i pick up on on the notion of commitment, i think one of the other things that the people possibly don’t realize and then came through from from our report is the the value that don’t get from the relationship shifts. A bit of the relationship deepens. So initially, when you’ve got that really powerful, emotional, packed communication that you’re not going to use, people are really interested in the impact on the beneficiary write all about did you do what you said you were going to do and have the impact on that child’s life? Well, as the relationship deepens, the donor becomes at least as much concerned about water impact on the child. I mean, from my sense of who i am, ana, i think you know what we’re talking about them is something psychologists. Call identity and i think that’s going to be the next big thing in fund-raising because it’s a little different from understanding the motives that people have for supporting you, you know, the motives for supporting little katie and her kidney operation, for example, identity is a bit different instead of what motivated used to support the organization that stays you’re asking, what are people saying about themselves when they give? So what kind of person are they saying they are when they support my non-profit adrian york, let me understand that we can begin to shape our communication to make them feel good about being that kind of person. Gen shang, your colleague at the center for sustainable philanthropy, cnt ari was on was on non-profit radio talking about something that this makes me think of she had research from public radio when people would call in to public radio to make a gift, they were greeted with something along the lines of thank you for being a kind supporter or a loyal supporter or a generous supporter, and she had different adjectives and tested different adjectives against outcomes and eyes, particularly among women. The right adjectives would increase. The the women’s giving through the through these phone calls does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, absolutely on what you’re talking about there, of course, is one kind of identity you’re talking about moral identity. Okay, so, you know, a lot of giving might be because i’m saying adrian is a moral person. I might also be saying, i’m a father, i’m a parent, i’m a cancer survivor, i’m a patriot, i’m a liberal i’ma environmentalist, i’ma, i’ma, i’ma on dh when you understand the identity that’s being articulated durney you make people feel good about that, right? Because if they’re going to give when they’re that kind of person lets lets tell him it’s good to be that kind of person and give him the kind of content that really reinforces that i don’t see it makes him feel good remember we said earlier in this conversation, i think you know, one of the things we need to do moving forward if toe worry about hitting the need of our beneficiary, so sure, but we could be at least this concerned with how good we made our donors feel today on one of the keys to unlocking that. Is to understand what they’re saying about themselves when they give tow organization and what that report of us ruling means to the sense of who they are. And i was saying that the relationship deepens people away, so what that really means for them and who they are on dh, we start to be looking for relationships over time to meet some of our hyre orr durney and by that i mean, the connectedness, personal growth, self fulfillment, yes, but what is my support my five years support of your non-profit organization say about my personal growth and how connected i am with people that are important to me and where i am in terms of myself fulfill it, andi, if we start to think about right that there are longer term supporters are maybe we could help them. I can make some of those reflections on feeling better about their support of our organization because actually, when we communicate across more than any other sex er we should really be concerned with maximizing how good we can make our supporters feel ok, adrian, i i have to stop our our substance because we’ve got to move to next. Steps, and we just have a couple of minutes left, and i want to get to both parts of this. So what can a non-profit do with this wealth of information? Well, if you visit, if they visit the pursuant website, there’ll be other download a copy ofthe there really two key volumes to the research? One is lessons from relationship marketing one is less in some social psychology, andi, they could trial some of those ideas for themselves and their fund-raising so that’s the most obvious thing that might be able to do at the end of the call go to the website, haven’t reports and see if there’s anything there that piques their interest try okay. And again, that it’s pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising that’s where you’ll find the four volumes. But adrian, you’re recommending the first two as being most valuable sounds like that, but they’ve suddenly covered most of material we talked about today, okay? And there’s a lot of other ideas from social psychology on the other thing that’s so might like to do if they’re in an organization of of a reasonable size, we’re planning on doing a serious of field experiments. Over the next two years. Yes, well worked with a number of non-profit partners, andi blitz there don’t know. Find it too. One half would continue to get the communications that they get. Now the other half would get communications. That being tweaked in some way to help build up foster. That dahna relations. Okay, very quickly. What type of organization are you looking for? We’re looking for organizations that has, um, groups have done those that are above six hundred people. So we’re not looking for organizations that are necessarily massive, but we’re looking for organizations that have a reasonable number of donors in each of the segments they want to study. Time will be willing to work with us bearing the cost of doing those experiments. Okay, we’ll get the impact of that relationship approach on money raised, but also on how good people feel. Okay? Oh, excellent. Getting to the feelings what’s your email address. If people would like to submit their organization or talk to you more about being on in the research. It’s adrian dot, sergeant a d r i n dot es a rg e a n t at plymouth a y m o u t h dahna a si dot uk. Excellent. Adrien, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much, so much valuable information. Thank you. Cheers next week. Lead and matching gif ts with another professor, john list from the university of chicago and corporate. Imagine gifts that’s with chuck longfield, chief scientist at blackbaud. If you missed any part of today’s show, i implore you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? I just don’t know about that. Responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com, our creative producer is clara miree off sam lever, which is the line producer. Gavin doll is our am and fm outreach director. Shows social media is by susan chavez, and our music is by scott stein. Thank you for that, scotty. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.