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Nonprofit Radio for June 30, 2017: Persuading The Wealthy To Donate & Your Board’s Role In Executive Hiring

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Ashley Whillans: Persuading The Wealthy To Donate

Ashley Whillans’ research reveals the language that stimulates giving from your wealthy potential donors. She’s assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

 

 

 

Gene Takagi: Your Board’s Role In Executive Hiring

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi, our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO), walks us through this important board responsibility: hiring the executive officer. (Originally aired 7/11/14)

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the either ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of pem fi gis if you bullied me with the idea that you missed today’s show persuading the wealthy to donate ashley whillans research reveals the language that stimulates giving from your wealthy potential donors and your boards role in executive hiring. Jing takagi are legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group walks us through this important board responsibility hyre ing the executive officer that originally aired on july eleven twenty fourteen on tony’s take two the charleston principles we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by we be spelling super cool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com my pleasure. Now to welcome ashley whillans to the show, she just turned her phd from the university of british columbia. She conducts research with non-profits companies and government. She was a twenty fifteen rising star of behavioral science. In twenty sixteen, she helped start the behavioral insights group. In the british columbia provincial government next month, ashley begins her faculty career as an assistant professor at the harvard business school in negotiations organizations and markets she’s at ashley whillans and i’m very glad to welcome her to non-profit radio welcome, ashley. Thank you so much for having me this morning. Pleasure. Now, there’s. A lot going on in your life. You just got your ph d just last month, right? You just graduated? Yeah. That’s. Right. Uh, something like two weeks ago. I just got my my doctorate. Congratulations, that’s. Outstanding. Because because when we started, when we started emailing your your email signature said phd candidate and now it says ashley whillans phd. Yeah. That’s right. That was the most exciting email change i made recently. Yes. Right. You got to go into preferences signatures and change. Delete the word candidate that’s. Outstanding. Yeah, great. Yeah. Now i see you are not using period’s. Most people do. Ph, period d period. You’re opting against the periods. Is there some kind of ah, that a brevity fetish you have or something? What? Why’s that no periods. Yes. Efficiency, laziness, something like that. Okay, even those two keystrokes, those two period keystrokes. It’s. Too much with the right hand. Too much. Okay. Okay, on dh now, big, big changes coming up you. So you’re you’re in british columbia that you went to university of british columbia. But now you gotta move to cambridge, right? You’re moving tomorrow? Yeah. Moving tomorrow. Uh, morning. Cambridge, massachusetts that’s. Incredible. Um, good luck in the move. Are you are you a canadian originally? Your canadian citizen? I am a canadian. Okay. All right. Now, aren’t you at all concerned about our muslim ban? I know ashley willens. So that’s a suspicious sounding name to me. Is that a muslim? Ashley whillans is that a muslim name? Sounds sounds muslim. No, i i don’t have to worry about it, but i know it is an issue for some of my my friends. So this’s america shortly? Okay, you’re you’re friends, right? It’s affects a lot of people’s friends and that you know where the where the democracy, where everyone is under suspicion. So i did see your head shot and i did not see ah, hey, job on your head shot. So may i hope you’ll get through scrutiny. I don’t know what we’re looking at canadian citizens, how scrupulous were being. I hope you have no trouble coming in. Let’s, get to the substance of sort of self concept and and giving, let me ask, let me start. A lot of people think the wealthy are selfish. Is that so? So i would definitely hesitate against that general idea related to the research that i did. I think it’s, so i think that that wealthy individuals have a lot of personal control and so it’s not that wealthier individuals, on average or selfish, but rather that they and are used to and enjoy having autonomy or personal control over decisions in their daily life. Yeah, that autonomy then and an agency we’re going, we’re going to get to. There was a really interesting study in twenty fifteen of preschoolers, which is related to the work that you did and we’re going to talk about, can you? Can you summarize that for us? That twenty fifteen preschoolers research? Um so i think broadly, this wasn’t my research was that the preschool fighting is that kids from wealthier families actually give less tokens during an economic game in the lab than been children from less wealthy background, so they decide to keep more tokens for themselves, even when the tokens they’re going to go to other children who who couldn’t be there to participate in the study because they were at sick in half because they’re sick in the hospital, right? This study is just one example of many that are sort of proliferating in the social sciences, suggesting that, um, people from wealthier backgrounds tends to give less when one provided with the opportunity, right? And your research finds the way teo overcome what? What? Maybe? Well, it’s, your research points out that it’s really not something innate, but it’s the messaging coming from the charities that is a variable factor that can influence the giving of the wealthy and the less affluent, too. Yes, that’s right. So, really, what our research fight is that the and this is this isn’t necessarily surprising so fund-raising professional, they’re like, of course, you should table your message to your audience, but i think what’s, really. So what we find is that he’s more agenda messages, messages that focus on personal achievement and control are more effective it encouraging giving among those with the greatest capacity or messages that focus on what we can all do together to help the cause are more effective for those with the less capacity give but across our studies of more than thousand working adults from both chicago in vancouver, we don’t find any inherent differences in our studies between those with most the most money in our samples in those with please okay, samples so we don’t see a main effect where people who are wealthy orc are giving much less, and people have less money or giving maurine the content of the earth studies. But rather we find that depending on how the message is frame’s related to charitable giving, the wealthy give more or the left latto give more. Okay, now that sound very it sounds like you’ve said that those few paragraphs a bunch of times in the past couple months or so nastad sounded very, very polished and finished. Have you repeated those words a few times? No, not too much, not too much, but i have thought about this research a lot over the last three years. Yeah, okay. All right, well, it’s there’s a lot there. We’re gonna unpack it, but, um, yeah, i like the bottom line is that it’s not only about the wealthy and it the tailoring a lot of times fundraisers or anybody and non-profit they talk about tailoring a message? They mean used the person’s first name or, you know, address them personally or address them by ah, bye program that they’re interested in or certainly maybe e-giving level where, you know, but we’re we’re talking about cutting it. A different way. Which would be bye affluence. Do i have that on my perverting? Your researcher of kapin basically absolutely right. Okay, okay. We’re gonna go out for our first break. Thank you for telling me. I did not pervert your research. I don’t want to do that. We’re gonna go out for a first for our break. And when we come back, you and i will continue talking about persuading the wealthy and others to donate using the right messaging. 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 either ninety five percent. Ashley whillans recent phd. We’re talking about her research on messaging and e-giving ah, the different levels of of affluence. Actually, you did this with riel charities. Is that that’s what i gather, right? Yes. That’s, right. So we conducted the research with an organization that focuses on effective plan to be the life you can save on. We’ve also done this with a large private university in the united states. Okay, i guess you’re not at liberty to say the the name of the university is that? Does that part of the agreement? That’s, right? Yeah. Kapin nondisclosure agreement. Okay, now we know that you’re headed to harvard business school, but, you know, that’s just may just be a coincidence. Oh, by the way, what? It wasn’t there, it wasn’t. It wasn’t there. Okay, but where were you going to be? Teaching? I mean, you know, it’s like getting your syllabus together right for your first. Are you going to teaching in the fall? I’m teaching in the second semester, so i’ll be teaching negotiations. I take the class first and then i teach in the second. Semester they make a making a new professor. Sit through the class, see that you understand how the class goes and you get a feel for what the classroom is like. Oh, man, and you get paid for that. You’re on salary while you’re doing that? Yes, falik okay, well, of course you have other responsibilities as well. You’re not just going to one, you know, just taking one class. And they i’ve been sitting on the quad for the they don’t let me off that easy. Okay? Cool. No, it’s. Very good for you. All right. So a charity without a canadian charity, the charity is in the united states. They’re both the both the college and the charity work in the united states. Ok, ok. Was that hard? Is that hard? Teo recruit charities too. Let you mess with their messaging? Yeah, that’s a great question. It definitely took a little bit of collecting initial evidence on the idea first. And i’m also part of the society for philanthropy initiative out of the university of chicago. So it’s run by john list and other economists who are centered at the university of chicago and there’s a conference every year that brings together fund-raising professionals, professionals, leading academics in economics, sociology and psychology. Two begin to think about and talk about using the insights from our fields and put them into practice. So that was a great source of connections for us when we went and tried to find field partners for our research professor john list in chicago, i think he’s been on this show, i’m pretty sure he has i’m i’m gonna go to tony martignetti dot com and search his name, but i’m pretty sure john list has been on. Yeah, that’s great, yeah, he’s a major he’s, one of the leading academic academics in the field of fund-raising so he really started the academic field of philanthropic studies and fund-raising looking at from a behavioral science perspective, his career really took off after he was on non-profit radio. So this is very auspicious for you. I don’t know if you know that this is a watershed, this watershed for you. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. Great, great. Now i have been. But now you are here. Yes, you know, gen shang. Do you know professor gen shang? I don’t know, you know. You’re not well connected, all right? We’ll have to connect you in the university environment. She’s another professor. Now it, uh i think she’s now at cambridge. The other cambridge? Not the not the knockoff. Cambridge. You’re moving to she’s. The original cambridge, i think. Pretty sure. Okay, so all right, so you recruited your charities and then what’s the next step? Yeah. What was next after that? Oh, you got a what we had a discussion about. You know what? Campaigns were upcoming that we might be able to do. Random i control trials. So that’s, where we’ve flip a coin essentially on dh randomly find everyone who’s going to receive a mail out to receive one of the treatments or the other treatment. Andi, that was actually done all by the university alumni office. So they were able to select one set of messages for the group that we randomly assigned in another set of messages for this other group. And then we were able to put these messages into the field and look at donation rates, both participation rates, so likelihood of donating to the campaign. And also the amount that people donated to the campaign. Okay. On dh it took about i think it was in the field for so we were waiting for the results for three or four months on dh. Then we were able to look at whether and how different messages affected different potential donors differently, and the charities had wealth, information or income information about the people who receive these melons right in our field study with the university office we hey, we did a little bit of guessing and well, so we didn’t have individual level wealth data, but we did have a zip code data. We were able to get the average level of well in the neighborhood that individual’s lives. We also knew how much they donated in previous campaigns, which is a pretty good indicator of wealth of someone who gives six, seven, eight thousand dollars to their university alumni office is probably a lot someone who’s wealthier than then another individual who’s giving five, ten, fifty hundred dollars over the last couple of campaigns. So we only that is an index of well, all right. That’s a good that’s. A good proxy. Ah, especially if it’s over over a period. Ah, good period of years or so that’s true. And you used ninety thousand dollars as the cut off between affluent and less affluent, right? So where we got that number is actually so those were from our more tightly controlled experiments in the field where we i went up to adults at different finds museums in vancouver and chicago. And we asked him to participate in a study who provided them with a windfall of money and prevented the opportunity. Donate either in terms of agency or communion is we’ve been kind of talking about and we measure their individual loss. Okay, so that was different. That was different. Fields, scratch that off. Actually, just emerged from our data. So wave randomly assigned everyone in our sample to see either these more achievement focused or these more community focused messages. And then we ran additional analyses looking at you know what? At what point that these messages focused on achievement really seem to be working on. We found that message is focused on achievement. Really seemed to start working at promoting giving around this ninety thousand dollar mark. So that’s, that point actually emerged from the studies that we were conducting. Okay, okay, so that so that was a different set of field research, the the ninety thousand dollar affluent level that was from the university or the or the or the charity mailing? Okay. Okay, well, by the way, what’s, your what’s, your windfall payment to participate in the research at the at the museum’s. What do you what researchers consider a windfall? Yeah. So when paul is money that you didn’t expect to get way, provided all of our participants with a ten dollar when thawed the beginning of the study. But we there’s a couple of things that we do to help people ten dollars that’s a winner money, ten dollars. A windfall. I don’t really like twenty, five hundred or five thousand or something, man. They’re underfunded, you’re badly underfunded payment. You could go for lunch or something or have a coffee. So what we actually do, though, is way. Tell people that’s their payment for participating in our study, and we put it in a foryou envelope on we tell participants to put that payment of money away. So those couple of small, small thing telling them it’s their payment for their effort in our studies and telling them to put it away and just sign for it how people on our studies feel a sense of ownership over the payment because we know that if so, then we can feel a little bit more confident, but the results will generalize to the real world because people are treating that more like their money and left life, you know, something that’s like a payment that belongs to the researchers as opposed to them. You people are pretty tricky like you. You’re really trying to pull the wool over our eyes if we’re if we’re a subject subject, yeah, it helps. It helps us feel more confident in our results if i didn’t and here’s some of our experiments all money, you know, can you make a decision with it? People are going to make a different decision then, if they feel like i’m now asking them tio part with some of the money that they’ve earned in our study, i see very wily ofyou, behavioral scientists. All right. Are you familiar at all with the research of ah, do you know the name’s, sara kiesler and lee sproule? No. Okay, old social scientists from when i went to college. But i thought you might have come across there. They were behavioral social scientists also. But i won’t dwell on there. There, the forefathers, for four founders, foremothers of your of your research, but it’s not important, okay. Okay, so all right, enough of the detail. Now what? Uh, what emerged from the the different messages flush it out for us. So what we found was that messages that focused on achievement encourage generosity among those with the greatest capacity to give so above that ninety thousand threshold that we’re talking about where’s messages focused on community. But we can all do together to help the cause, encourage generosity among those with the least amount of money in our samples. And this was true, as i said before, both when we measured individual level wealth and when participants knew they were in a study. And these findings also emerge when we conducted this research in the field with the university fund-raising office and people didn’t know that they were in a study. So we also thought that these messages focus on achievement promoted e-giving for individuals who were graduates of an elite business school in the united states um, and then that study it increased the amount that that individuals gave in the study. Now what you refer to as the communion message, by the way that’s interesting tries to work communion, huh? Why’d you choose communion instead? Of community. So this is just really a kind of jargon. Ease social. See there’s the trouble right there. Yeah. Jargon. We have jargon jail on a non-profit radio. It was the first problem, right? There’s the problem right there. Okay. Okay. So community is one way you can think about it. That’s totally fine if it’s with a lot of research and our field showing that people from different cultural backgrounds tend to think about their relationship with others in different ways. So in north american cultural context, we tend to be more gentle. We focus on this self as really standing out. Where is in more collectivist culture, such as in east asia? We focus more on fitting in, and our relationships with others are really important. Recently in the social sciences, people have started to draw parallels between these different cultural mindset and the mindset that are so secret with having more or less money. So i used the word agency and communion tow link this broader literature. But really, you can think about this in terms of agency or community that wealthier individuals tend to be more singularly focused and really wanting to stand out. We’re lost wealthy individuals tend, on average to be more focused to their community, so they tend to want to fit in with those around them. You have the gift of of ah, complete explanation and appropriate qualification, which will serve you well as a professor. A ll the professors i’ve interviewed, including john list have those gift detail and qualification were required. I know if you know that, but you’ve. You’ve acquired it through your three year study. Congratulations. All right. So so the message is that you used for the the communion. The message was let’s. Save a life together. That’s one example. Right? And then the for the individual achievement of the agency message he used you equals life saver. Those are those are a couple of examples of messages. Yeah, yes. Okay. And those would have gone out in direct mail is that is that right? There will be mail pieces. So in our initial studies, we had people in our studies read those appeals in the context of an actual experiments. And in the university fund-raising study, those messages went out in direct mail. So those messages were at the very top of what people saw. And at the very bottom, right before they made or messages like that break before they made their donation decision. Okay, okay. So, really, you know, a zeiss ed? The research applies to the affluent as well as the non affluent or less up. However you want to describe it, you want your messaging to be appropriate, and we’re introducing sort of a new variable. I think that or at least one that i have not scene which is messaging by wealth level here. Yes, that’s. Right. So i research really does show that thinking about or knowing something about the socioeconomic status or background of potential donors, i can provide one clue about the types of messages or appeals that might be more effective for for a different different groups. And again, this really fits with what we know in psychology about how well shapes the way we think about ourselves. So we know again, that’s the kind of reiterate we know that lower income individuals on average and we’re always talking about general, is to think about the world in a way that’s, more relational. How can i fit in with my community? How can i make a difference fight by being part of my group where hyre social status hyre hyre more wealthy individuals tend to think about right standing out from the crowd and how they can show their uniqueness or economy in their lives. So i think, knowing just a little bit about how well shapes the way people think about themselves is an important clue as to how we might want to frame charitable giving or messages of round fund-raising to encourage e-giving among both groups, andi, i also think that it’s important, so i think i mean, again, the idea of tailoring messages isn’t new, but i do think that this a gent iq framing this sort of focus on personal achievement or self, you know, control sort of seems teo conflict with the way that we think about charitable giving as something that together we all help an important cause. And so i think it’s important to another kind of important message embedded in this work, but sometimes we need to step beyond encouraging people to do things that have positive outcomes, like give charity or healthy for positive reasons, and instead focus on encouraging people to do positive behavior for reasons. That fit with their pre existing values on goals. I don’t know if it was your new york times op ed with your with your co researchers or was one of the pieces i read, you know, your insight could see you’re concerned about being contrary to the morality of charitable giving and that concept of community, but but i understand your concern, but we can we can help the community by tailoring the message appropriately, the way the way you’re describing, um i wanted to ask where we just have about two minutes left. Ashley so where now is your your research going to be heading? Is there going to be more in the in the fund-raising realm? Lorts yes, so i’m starting a major project now, looking at how we can encourage e-giving early on, so how can we encourage mindsets, associate with generosity and giving for kids? And what and what also our conversations? How did conversations between children and parents shape not on ly the way that kids think about the importance of giving but also shaped parents own behavior, so we want often and still in our children the important values that we care about. And we want to know how conversations about e-giving not only affect the way that children prissy e-giving but also affect care and some behavior, but they’re looking to their kids, they’re trying to instill important values to their families and in that could be reminded about the importance of philanthropy, and this interest really came out of a lot of research we did that didn’t work, trying to change people’s minds about giving or the importance of thinking about contributing back to the community, sort of later on in length that we were serving high net worth donors, individuals with hyre levels of wealth, and we found that some wealthy individuals who are more generous tend to think about their success is being drive from the situation from help from others on dh that that seemed to be powerful component on what afflict e-giving but when we tried to take that insight into the field and leverage it to encourage charitable giving were large and successful, one important question then becomes, how can we encourage this? You know, more communal mind set more community focused way of thinking early on before people become financially successful or go through education. And so have become really interested in my collaborators, and i have become really interested in serious about the rule of conversations, the powerful role of conversations, about e-giving early on, both for kids and for parents. And so those are some of the ideas that i’m going to be blurring of the next several years. Alright, excellent good explained like a true professor on, but i hope you just hope you’re not going to rob our children of their youth. We’re not gonna we’re not gonna do it let’s not go to that extent when as you as you in this children for your research work errantly designing about e-giving game. Okay e fine. And also i’m alright. Parents need not be worried toe have their children participate. All right, we have to leave it there. Actually, whillans congratulations on your new phd. You can. You can follow ashley at ashley whillans. Thank you so much for sharing and being a part of non-profit radio. Actually, thanks so much. And congratulations. Thank you so much for having me. Real pleasure. All right, take care. Your board’s role in executive hiring with jean takagi is coming up first. Pursuant, they’re infographic it is five steps to win at data driven fund-raising this infographic would probably be the on the other end of the spectrum from the type of research that we were just talking about with ashley, because this is going this distill things in, you know, five simple steps, which is not what academic research is, but while still valuable all data driven because, you know, pursuing tell you every week data driven they have, they have this infographic that will help you define your goal and what the most important metrics are and optimizing and tuning fine tuning for best results, learning through infographic, you can learn from academic research you can learn through in infographic because you are a you’re a lifetime lerner, and you’re a flexible learner, so don’t ignore the ends of the spectrum and the infographic and the peer reviewed academic research from the folks at pursuing dot com. You go there and then you click resource is then info graphics. We’ll be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. You need more money for your good work. I know you do throw a spelling bee. Anybody can throw a party generic party well, maybe not. Anybody? I mean, i’ve been to some bad parties, but most anybody could throw a decent party but a spelling bee party that takes it to the next level with live music and dancing that’s a that’s, a true party and fund-raising, of course, for your because your your mission, your good work. Check out the video at we b e spelling dot com, then talk to the ceo it’s that simple. Alex greer now tony steak too. The charleston principles. My video is from charlotte, but the principles are from charleston, and i decided that they share enough common letters. First five teo to do a video inspired by charleston even though i was in charlotte and charlotte, north carolina, nicer town. I’ve been there many overnights and there when i shot the video and i’ve never been to charleston, but i can tell from the pictures charlotte’s nicer, i couldjust north carolina, i can see that i see from the pictures the charleston principles there’s a love that has nothing to do with you should’ve fast forward it best that all right, here’s, what we’re talking about charleston principles right now, it’s all about charity registration the state you know where you got to be properly registered need state where you solicit donations. All that charleston principles have some very good ideas and definitions of solicitation problem is it’s hard to tell which states have adopted them of largely, but i can help you. Check out the video at tony martignetti dot com. And that is tony’s. Take two now. It’s. Time for jean takagi on your boards role in executive hiring jean takagi he’s with us. You know him? He’s, the managing editor, attorney at neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the very popular non-profit law block dot com on twitter he’s at g tak g ta ke jin takagi welcome back, alt-right onen congratulations on one ninety nine. I’m looking forward to two hundred next week. Cool. Yes. I’m glad you’re gonna be calling in for with us. Thank you very much. Thank you, it’s. Very exciting. Really? One hundred ninety nine shows ago. It’s one hundred ninety nine weeks it’s it’s. Remarkable. We’re talking this week about the board’s role in hiring the executive. And i’ve i understand that there are a lot of executives in transition, i think. So tony and it looks like some surveys have confirmed that it’s certainly been an experience with some of my clients and even on boards i’ve sat on over the last couple years, and there’s, a great group called compass point out in san francisco there, nationally known as one of the most respected non-profit support centers and together with blue avocado, a non-profit online publication, they have a national survey on leadership succession in transition going on just right now. The last time they published the results was in two thousand eleven, and they found that sixty seven percent of current executive anticipated leaving within five years and ten percent. We’re currently actively looking to leave right then, and in two thousand eleven, the economic times weren’t so were so great, so sixty seven percent anticipating leaving within five years that’s a pretty staggering number. So now we’re already three years into that survey into that five year projection. Yeah, and sixty seven percent of two thirds. So if we had held this show off until two thousand sixteen, then it would have been moved. But there’s a new one coming out, you said, yeah, well, they’re they’re just starting the survey online now so you can participate on that. I don’t know the website, but if you, you know google non-profit transition survey executive transition survey, thank you, you’ll get that okay, and its compass point it’s a compass point and blew up a goddamn kottler who you’ve. You’ve mentioned blue vaccaro before i know. All right, so, yeah, two thirds of of ceos were expecting to be in transition within five years and where we’re only three years into it now. So the presumably these people are still looking. What? But boards don’t really spend enough time preparing for this kind of succession, do they? Well, you know, in many cases they don’t, and sometimes, you know, they might stay, they don’t get the chance because their executive director comes up to him and give him two weeks notice. And now, you know, the board may be used to meeting every month or every other month or even every third month, and now all of a sudden they’ve gotta ramp up their efforts and find an executive to come in in two weeks. That’s going to be really tough to do on dh, you know, again, if we say at any given time, two thirds of the non-profit executives are looking to leave their job, you know, it’s very likely that within your board term, you know, you may have an executive transition to manage, and sometimes with very little notice. So that’s that’s? Why? I think succession planning is just really a core duty of non-profit board. Well, how do we let them get away with this two week notice? I mean, the ones i typically see are, you know, the person will stay on until a successor. Is found you that’s, not your experience. Well, you know, you’re really lucky if you if you do get that situation, i think most non-profit executives are hired on at will basis. Meaning that there’s, not a contract to stay there for a given number of years. Either party can conception, rate or terminate the employment relationship at any time. And as the average, you know, employee may give two weeks notice to go on to another job there. Many executives who feel the same way that they, you know, they may feel like they own allegiance to an organization. But another opportunity comes up and it’s not going to be held for them forever. And they may want to move on. Um, and they may feel like what they gave the board really advanced notice that they might be looking for something that they might get terminated. So they may keep that information from the board until the last two weeks. Well, because all right, so that i am way in the dark because i would. I just presumed that executive directors, ceos even if small and midsize shops were not at will. But they were but that they were contract i mean, when i was a lonely back in my days of wage slavery, director of planned e-giving i was in at will employees, which means you can end it like you said, you could end at any time and so can they like, if they don’t like the color of your tie one day they can fire you, you’re at will. But but that that’s typical for for ceos and executive directors. Yeah, i think for smaller non-profits it’s very, very common. Oh, i just always assumed that these were contract positions with termination clause is and no, okay, but, i mean, you know, it’s, your practice, i’m not i’m not disagreeing with you, i’m just saying i’m okay, i’m learning something s o that’s that’s incredibly risky. So it is. It put you in that position of saying, well, i need to replace somebody immediately and i don’t you know, as a board we don’t meet very often can we even convene within the two weeks to start the process going? It’s going to be so much better if you had a plan of what happens in case you know, our executive every doesn’t give two weeks notice, and even if the executive says, you know, in your scenario, maybe a longer notice, maybe, you know, in six months, if they do have a contract at the end of my contract, i don’t plan to renew, you know, i think we should go through the process of looking for for a successor and having a plan or thinking about that plan that have just coming up with something on the fly is going to probably result in a much better choice for selection of a leader in the future and that’s going to be critical and how well the organisation operates and how the beneficiaries of your organization are going to do are they going to get the benefits of a strong organization, or are they going to suffer because the organization can’t do it? You can’t advance to commission as well as it should? No, i mean, you’re you’re calling it on the fly. I would say two weeks notice for an executive director, departing is a crisis, even four weeks notice. Yeah, in many cases, you’re absolutely right. Okay, i’m right about something. Thank you. You’ve got something right today. All right. So, um what do we what do we do, teo, to plan for this? Well, you know, i think the first thing the board has to do is start toe think about the contingencies. So what do we do and and actually want one thought that comes to mind that, uh, that you raised tony is should we get our executive director on an employment contract? If they are and that will employee do we want to walk it in? And they’re sort of pros and cons with that? If you’ve got, like, not the best executive director in the world, terminating somebody on a contract becomes much, much more difficult than if they were at will employees. So, you know, you kind of have to weigh the pros and cons, but, you know, revisiting your current executive director and the employment relationship is maybe step one, and suddenly he was thinking about, well, do you have a really strong job description that really reflects what the board wants of the executive director and the basis on which the board is reviewing the executives performance? And maybe the sort of initial question to ask in that area is do you actually review? The executive director and that the board you absolutely should. You and i have talked about that the board’s is not part of their fiduciary duty to evaluate the performance of the the ceo? Yeah, i think so. I think it’s a core part of meeting their fiduciary duties that really, you know, as a board, if you meet once a month or once every couple of months or whatever. What’s more important, you know, then really selecting the individual who’s going to lead the organization in advancing its mission and its values, and implementing your plans and policies and making sure the organization complies with the law. Taking your leader is probably the most important task that the board has, because the board is delegating management to the to that leader. Yeah, absolutely. And i think it’s often forgot naralo overlooked that individual board members inherently have no power and no authority to do anything so it’s only a group when they meet collectively, can they take aboard action? So for individuals to exercise, you know, powers on behalf of the organization that has to be delegated to them and typically the person responsible for everything is that ceo or the executive director. We’re gonna go out for a break, gene. And when we come back, you now keep talking about the process. The what? What goes into this process, including the job offer. So everybody 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 neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets too. 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 guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Time. Dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Got to send live listener love let’s. Start in japan with tokyo kiss or a zoo and nagoya. Konnichiwa, seoul, south korea, seoul, some someone south korea, always checking in love that anya haserot. Moscow, russia, mexico city, mexico, ireland. We can’t see your city ireland’s being masked for some reason, but we know you’re there. Welcome, welcome, ireland, and also taipei, taiwan. Ni hao, nobody from china, that’s, funny, nobody from china today, coming back to the u s we got cummings, georgia, in ashburn, virginia. Live listener love to you in georgia and virginia. Okay, gene. So now we’ve let’s say, we’ve learned that our exec is departing and let’s not make it a crisis situation, though let’s say this person is generous enough to give six months notice. So, you know, let’s, not make it a crisis. Where what’s our what’s, our what’s, our first step as the board. Terrific. And i’ll just add, even if you don’t, if you know your executive is not leaving any time soon and i think you should go ahead and start this process anyway. Oh, yeah, clearly we should be. We should have a succession plan in place. Yes, we’ve talked about it, right? Okay, yes, i think the first thing to do is get a committee together so it might include boardmember some outside experts outside with the board. If you don’t have that internal expertise and just getting different perspectives out there, some of your other stakeholders might be really important in what? You know what you want to look for in an executive in the future. So get that committee together first. Get the buy-in of the current executive director bonem so unless it’s going to be, you know, a succession plan for a termination? Yeah, we’re really unhappy with executive director, right? Let’s not get into that. Yeah, let’s get their buy-in and have them help in the process. Especially with your scenario where they’re giving us six months notice and everything is amicable. Let’s, you know, see she who knows better about the organization than the executive director that’s in place right now. So i’m getting there buy-in and help and contribution. I think it is pivotal. Does this committee have to be comprised of hr experts? Why? I think having a least one or two hr experts is going to be really helpful. But i i think it’s more than that. It’s, you need to program people who understand what the executive you know roll is with respect to advancing the program. You need the fund-raising people to know well, what is the going to do with respect to fund-raising perhaps the seeds, the lead fundraiser and some small organizations as well. So we need thio gather a bunch of different people with different perspectives and expertise to figure this out. And i think that’s a very good point to include a t least a programme expert. Now, could this committee include employees, or does it have to be sure you can i absolutely on dh, you know, you might even have have have different subcommittees in there. So eventually this is going to go up to the board. But as the the committee is doing the legwork for determining what you need an executive director and putting together a job description and, you know, perhaps, but the performance evaluation is going to be based on for the future executive director all those things can get, you know, be be aided by the contribution from several areas. Okay, okay, what are your thoughts on hiring a recruiter vs vs? Not well, you know, i think it depends upon what the organization’s resource is our and the organization should understand the marketplaces in a swell hiring two great executive director is the competitive thing, so, you know, if you’ve got a lot of resources and you’re able to you want to allocate an appropriate amount of resource is tio what i think again is making one of your most important decisions of the board? I don’t think you want to do this on the cheap at all. I’m just the same way i didn’t want you to do it on the fly or or or are in a rush matter-ness think you want to invest in this and you don’t have great expertise inside about things, about like, doing job interviews and doing background checks. On the sex thing, you know how to differentiate between one candidate and another when they all look good on paper and when they’re maybe professional interviewees, but they’re not. There may be not great leaders. How do you figure all those things that if you don’t know that on executive search firm could be a great help and it can just open up the marketplace of potential candidates as well? Especially if they, you know, decide to do a regional or even a national search, it really can ramp up hu hu you’re going see in front of you and the quality of the candidates that this election comedian the board eventually will have to choose from. Okay, does the committee now come up with a couple of candidates to bring to the board? Or is it better for the committee to choose one and bring that person to the board? How does this work? You know, i think the committee should be tasked with bringing several candidates up on sometimes it may be a multi tiered process so they might go through two rounds of screening, for example, and and at least let the board see who’s made. The first cut, and then and then, you know, present to the board, the final, perhaps two or three candidates. If you’ve got, you know, ones that are very close and in quality in terms of what the board want in an executive director, i think that’s pivotal. I wanted to add one thing, though. I’ve seen this done before, tony and i don’t really like it and that’s when. If a search committee or search consultant comes up and says, you know, to the board, tell me what you want in a good executive director, everybody you know, spend five minutes, write it down and send it to me, or you take it home and email it to me and tell me what you want. And then the search consultant collates the the the answers and then that’s, you know, the decision about that’s what’s going to be the qualities you’re going to look for. I think this needs a lot of discussion and deliberation and the value of, you know that that thought process and that really difficult thinking and getting all those generative questions out there is going to produce a much better product in terms of what you’re looking for and who you can get and how you’re going to do it. Yeah, you you send this tio use email and, you know, it’s going to get the typical attention that an e mail gets, like a minute or something, you know, it’s it’s going to get short shrift. And your point is that this is critical. It’s it’s, the leader of your organization you want do you want the contributions of the committee to be done in, like, a minute off the top of their head just so they can get the email out there in box? Yeah, definitely. We could talk about board meetings and another show, but put this at the front of the meeting and spend, you know, seventy five percent of your time talking about this. This is really, really important, okay, you have some thoughts about compensation, and we just have a couple minutes left. So let’s let’s say we’ve the board has well, i can’t jump there yet. Who should make the final call among these candidates? Is it the board? Yeah, i think it should be the board that makes the final approval, but they they’re going to put a lot of weight based on what the executive of the search committee, you know, tell them who they’re you know, the recommendation is okay, and i think that toe add one more thing to it is make sure the organization looks good to clean up your paperwork and your programming and even your facilities. Just make sure you’re going to be attractive to the candidate as well, because if you want to attract the best, you better be looking your best as well. Okay, okay. And the with respect to compensation now, we’ve talked about this before. What? What’s excessive. And there should be calms and things like that, right? So it’s really important to make sure that the board or unauthorized board committee one that composed just board members, approved the compensation before it’s offered to the candidate. Even if you don’t know that they’re going accepted or not, once he offers out there that compensation package, total compensation should have been approved by the board. And you want to do it with using the rebuttable presumption of reasonableness procedures unless you know its far below market value. Okay, if you get payed accessibly or if you pay somebody excessively, there could be penalty taxes for everybody. Including the board. Should be careful of that. We have talked about that rebuttable presumption before. Yeah. All right, jean, we have to leave that there. I look forward to talking to you next week on the two hundredth great. Congratulations again. And i look forward to it as well. Thank you, gene. Gene takagi, managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group, his blog’s non-profit law block dot com, and on twitter. He is at g tak next week. Social change. Anytime, everywhere, part one with our social media contributor, amy sample ward. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We b e spelling dot com creative producer is clear. Myer half family bullets is the line producer durney mcardle is our am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by susan chavez, and this cool music is by scott stein. 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 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 gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe, add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. 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 sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

Nonprofit Radio for April 21, 2017: Donor Story Secrets & Social For Your Events

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Claire Meyerhoff: Donor Story Secrets

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Amy Sample Ward: Social For Your Events

Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward returns! We’ll recap the 2017 Nonprofit Technology Conference, then she’ll share her strategies for integrating social media into your events, before, during and after. Amy is our social media contributor and CEO of NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network.

 


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Okay. 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. We have a listener of the week. Todd palin ac he blogged five websites every n f p c e o should utilize and non-profit radio is number two. Todd, come on, number two. I mean, we were in the top two, but you know and utilize i don’t you let you know how about gush over or visit every week utilized it’s a little a little stiff sounding, but todd, i’m grateful anyway. He blogged this at fist two five dot com fifty fives fist teo fist two fives. Purpose is to help non-profit to be more businesslike and help for-profit sz be more socially responsible. That’s very cool. Congratulations, todd. Paula neck on being our listener of the week, my voice just cracked oh, you know that i’m glad you’re with me because i get slapped with geo trick. Oh, sis, if you tried to milk the idea that you missed today’s show donorsearch story secrets claire meyerhoff returns when it’s time to write another donor profile for your website newsletter or facebook, you’ll be glad. You heard claire’s time saving tips for producing high quality donor-centric content she’s, our creative producer right here in non-profit radio and president of the planned e-giving agency and social for your events. Amy sample ward returns we’ll recap twenty seventeen non-profit technology conference then she’ll share her strategies for integrating social media into your events before, during and after amy’s our social media contributor and ceo of n ten the non-profit technology network on tony take two how to pitch non-profit radio we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We be e spelling dot com. What a pleasure to welcome claire meyerhoff back to the studio. She is a philanthropy communications and marketing specialist and president of the planned e-giving agency she guessed blog’s at non-profit marketing guide dot com and i’m going to say it again and it’s probably not the last time she is non-profit radios, creative producer, you’ll find her at pg agency dot com and at claire says that’s. Easy dankmyer off. Welcome back to the studio. Thanks so much, tony it’s great to be here. It’s a pleasure. Thank you, guys. So glad these shoes these trips work out for us. Yes. I love coming to new york city and coming to the crystal studio and being on talking alternative the crystal studio we are surrounded. We’re surrounded by crystals. Yeah, it’s a good, good, you know, energy, i agree. We got and you bring energy to you. Do you bring that radio expertise? That energy? Okay, we’re talking about donorsearch tory’s. What do you feel like non-profits or not getting quite right about when they write a donor story. Don’t testimony? Well, i’ve i’ve i’ve written many, many, many donorsearch tory’s, but i’ve read even mohr donorsearch tory’s that’s part of my job. So i’ll go on a client’s website or a potential clients website, and i start reading a donor story and typically they fall into several categories. But the worst one is is what we call gushing flackery, where you’re just like gushing over the person and you’re acting almost like their pr flack that you’re trying to promote them. It’s like two promotional and it’s about to many different things and not really about, you know why this donor cares about your cause? If we want to do this correctly, you you advise that we start with recognizing our goal for the for this piece, right? So what’s the goal of your piece? Are you trying to show that that donors are putting your charity? And there will that’s a great reason for doing a donor story? Because it’s social proof it makes it really normalizes plan giving social proof? Yeah, social proof. So you have a lovely donor-centric looting your charity in her will, and now you want to feature her. So your goal really of that is to show her in a really nice light so that she likes the story but also to normalize this concept of putting a charity and your will and encouraging other people to do it. So it’s a very simple goal. The goal isn’t about telling her life story or writing a biography about her or gushing over her to make her feel good, perhaps because my friends and fund-raising they say, well, you know, i want to make sure you know, that she looks good and, you know, make her feel good because they’re all about that, but frankly, that makes for, like, a really kind of boring, weird that’s. A poe story. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you do want them to feel good about the piece. Clearly, but that’s not your primary goal. No. Your primary goal of the donor’s story. Yes. It’s a bit about stewardship like you’re thanking the donor, my featuring them. But your primary goal is really to put a face on your philanthropy and to encourage other people to do a similar thing that this person has done precisely. Okay. I like the idea of social proof a lot more about that. What’s up. Well, social proof is just proving that something is normal. I liketo almost call it more like normalizing ilsen social proof. So if you say, you know, if you see ah, lady and you’re in your annual report and she’s, a retired teacher, and she lives, you know, in greenwich village or whatever, and you work for a big, fancy new york city charity and you feature this lady and she’s, a retired teacher and she’s normal. Then someone reading that will be like, well, gosh, that’s, that’s normal she and she went and put this charity in her will. That’s not like a strange thing, it’s not for rich people, you know, it’s, not just for, you know, big time philantech are everyday people, and you might be doing this for plan to give ah, encouragement or major gift major, it could even be i don’t know how that could be an annual e-giving e-giving unnamed naming a scholarship or something like that. So that’s a great donorsearch ori. So say your your small college and you have a nice person who has given you an outright donation maybe if a few thousand dollars, but also included the college and their will, and you’ve created a scholarship in his name. You get after his father and you write up this little story about why he cares and what he’s doing and then that’s your social proof right there, this normal person did this precisely. I mean, for trying to encourage others. It’s probably better to include someone to do this around someone who’s a modest donorsearch modest means because you’re going to appeal to a much broader spectrum, then the high net worth donor-centric purpose. Well, that’s interesting, too. About the highway high net worth donorsearch event are you? Viewed a lot of very wealthy people and it’s funny because one of the typical things they’ll say to me is they’ll say, so you’re going to write this story. So what is it going to be like? And i tell them a little bit and then they go, they kind of whispered there, go just don’t make me look rich. Yeah, because nobody wants to come across like they’re bragging about their money and the donorsearch story is something that they should feel good about sharing with someone and if it’s this like bragging story or about how these people own all these office buildings and they’re huge philanthropists, they’re not going to want to show that to their friends. Because it’s a little embarrassing for most people, there are some people who are there are some things one articular, but yeah, most people are very modest. That’s true. I agree. I’m not screwing with you, right? I can think of ah one recent ah, recently popular guy. Um all right, i’ll tell you what, why don’t we go out for our break? And when we come back, they’re not going to keep talking about the donorsearch ori and we’ve got to talk about who to select and the donor photo and she’s got tips for interviewing, so stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamental lt’s, 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. I feel like doing live listener love this moment. Andi were bursting, uh, let’s, start abroad. Mexico city, mexico cattle. What what is what? We’re going to start as point a star days, of course, when it started seoul, south korea, always multiple. We’ve got multiple south korea, always, always so grateful for that. Loyalty that’s the word i’m looking for on your haserot comes a ham nida for our listeners in seoul live germany, they got multiple in germany. Guten tag new delhi, india is with us checking in new delhi you’ve been with us before, i can only send you live listen love in english, i’m sorry i’m not not prepared, but don’t but come back, come back and we’ll get it okay, bring it into the u s, tampa, florida, woodbridge, new jersey, multiple new york city love it and over mass boston, mass whoa, do you know each other live listener love to all the live listeners, and they’re bursting first thing today, i got to say podcast pleasantries for the over twelve thousand listening in the time shift, whatever device, whatever time, whenever it fits your schedule, you might be listening a month later. Binge listening pleasantries toe are over twelve thousand podcast listeners so glad you’re with us and the affiliate affections last, but never least on our am and fm stations throughout the country and our new am fm outreach director. Of course, of course, betty mcardle, who will shout out at the end affections to our live two hour am and fm affiliate listeners fremery if you done facebooking now and everything when i see you with your phone, social media is very important said it well, and so is the live listen love in the podcast pleasantries in philly defections i can multi task i’ve got to send this stuff out. Um, how about through, though, to choose? How do we how do we make sure we’re getting the right donor that’s goingto give us the best story and be the most cooperative, et cetera? Well, when you’re writing a donor story typically you want to choose someone typically what fundraisers do is they want to smooth somebody, so they know i wanted i want to feature this donor mary lou she’s, great she’s this she’s got a great story and they go on and on about all this stuff, but then when i find out a little bit later is she might not be the best person, and then i’ll hear a funny thing that the the fundraiser will say, well, she’ll do it, but she just doesn’t want to use her name. What? She may not be the best thing i think we need to move on anonymous and anonymous has been very sweet to us a very thoughtful right. So it’s it’s really important to choose someone? That’s that’s, that’s really game that wants to do it, willing to use their name, they’re willing to use their name. They understand the concept of doing the donor’s story. They understand that they’re photo is going to be used to that it’s going to be connected with an ask of some sort. And in an action of some sort it’s gonna be a little bit like an advertisement, maybe and some people don’t don’t realize that they might think, oh, it’s a donor story it’s going to be a story about my family and where we come from and, you know, the real vikings and no, okay, it’s, not just a story perception. So it’s good to have to choose a donor who is basically number one like a really nice, friendly person, outgoing person or even not outgoing person who just really cares about your cause and gets what gets what you’re doing so that’s number one they should really care about the cause and really understand the whole point of of this. Donorsearch torrey and of course, yes, they wanted you want to use their name and take a photograph and all that, okay, now they’re going to have a role in the process, right? Of course they’re going to be able to review what you write typically typically sometimes they will review what you write so so the best thing for sort of the the approval process, which can things can get hung up with that so let’s say you’re in charge of of writing the story and you’ve selected this donor and asked her if she would like to participate. It’s really great if you can show her an example of a previous donor story and say it’s going to be a lot like this it’s going to be about this many words and the photo is going to be something like this and it’s going to be in this spot in the magazine and it’s going to be a lot like this, so then they understand what’s going on and also you’re going to say to them, it’s going to be very brief because that’s really the best way to kind of keep this thing from going out of control how many words? Roughly you could do a donor shoretz like seventy five words that short? No, sure. Because that’s really what it’s mostly about is a really good photograph and kind of just this little testimonial. It’s basically, the why they care. Like why they did this, why they care so much. And then it’s maybe like, you know, one or two little fact it’s a very short story. And then you need your call to action at the end. Basically. Well, not what do you want people to dio? Do you want people to do what mary did? Mary started a scholarship. Are you interested in doing that, then? You know, call contact through intact durney martignetti you mentioned a photo on your your advice is to focus on the photo. What do you have around that? I really believe it’s it’s photo it’s almost photo first story second, because too often the fur photo is just a complete afterthought and a disaster. So you have this wonderful story. And then at the last minute, thie fundraiser gets a photo from the person and it’s a little like a dime sized photograph from, like a cruise have a digital and they just sort of stick the photo and its terrible or or they just base, maybe snap a photo with their iphone of this older person just like sitting in a chair looking kind of, you know, pathetic and and it’s sad it doesn’t have to be like that. So i really encourage people to hire a professional photographer because this’s also a wonderful way to steward your donor. So maybe for one hundred dollars or one hundred fifty dollars, you can hyre ah, local photographer, and then you can go over to the person’s house or have them come over to your organization if you have something photographic like dogs or kids or something. And and, you know, take some really nice photographs of this person, and then they feel important because you’ve hired this photographer and you’re doing something quality and then after it, of course, you can also, you know, make a copy of one of the nice photos and frame it on dh send us with them and say you might you might like to have this. Thank you so much for helping us out. You know, the photograph is really, really important. And if you can’t have the have the photograph of the donor doing something that’s related to your cause old holding, one of the animals holding an animal or for furat nature organization at the very least have them standing, you know, in their yard near their favorite tree or something, and so it’s it’s you, khun stage that photo just a little bit and do something really nice. So put a lot more thought into the phone absolutely put a lot of thought into the photo, and when you’re choosing a donor, think about someone who would like to be photographed. Perhaps they’ve already been in a local newspaper about something else, and you know that about them, so they already kind of know what’s going on? Cool, not scary to them. When you’re interviewing them, you have some tips for interviews. I do have some some tip, even that we’re gonna do this let’s say, we’re going to keep this to a seventy five word, seventy five to one hundred. I’ll give you an extra twenty five words. Seventy five, two hundred words is what we want is that all the space we have? So how do we fashion our interview around that well, it’s it’s really very simple, and it almost come down to one one question, and if you ask no other questions you could kind of be done at, you know, with the one question, so let’s say, tony, you’ve been donating to this animal shelter for a very long time need a drumroll for them? Yeah, and and you’ve included the animal shelter in the will. The question would be tony, what? Why is this call is so important to you that you’ve done this wonderful thing? You’ve taken this major step of including the charity and, well, why is why is it so important to you? And should we be recording while we’re interviewing? You don’t really need to record just good notes, just good notes, because really, you’re just looking for that money quote, you’re looking for that one quote, and usually you get it right off the bat with that first question of why do you care? And ah, mistake people make is they they say, well, why do you care about the you know, riverdale animal shelter? Well, it’s not why you care about that shelter, it’s, why you care about the cause. So, it’s, why do you care about homeless man’s? Why do you care about illiteracy? Why do you care about feeding? You know, people that need, you know, a hot meal. Why do you care about homeless people? Why do you care about cancer research? Why do you care about this college? So it’s it’s? Not really. Why you care about, you know, the organization per se or your mission. It’s it’s about it’s really about the call cause you want them thinking broader, right? And you go and you’re going to get some kind of good pull, quote, this is what you’re looking for that little money quote you mentioned, right? So for instance, i interviewed a man who we featured for parkinson’s organization. So it’s not the question wasn’t well, why do you care? You know, why do you care so much about the parkinson’s foundation? It’s well, why do you care about you know, parkinson’s? And he told me the story about his mother, who had parkinson’s when he was a little boy and how, you know, her hands shook but then when she would take his hand to cross the street her hand didn’t shake and fell, and he felt safe and that’s the quote i used was something right in there about that he wanted to make sure that everyone, you know felt safe that had someone in their family with parkinson’s and just nice little quote about that. So it’s it’s really about the wide the person cares about your cause, not about the mission. So that’s really all you kind of need to ask them, and now they’ll tell you they’ll say, well, you know, years ago i was a schoolteacher and i had children who came to my class and they hadn’t had breakfast, and i really got interested in, you know, school nutrition programs, and so it goes, it goes from there, so usually they have a little story, and then once you’ve chatted for a little while, a great thing to do is at the end of your conversation is to say, is there anything else you’d like to add? Is there? Is there anything else you’d like to say? And typically the person will say no, but and then after the but you get your best quote, really? They’ll say no, but i really want people. To know that in in this town there’s a big problem with, you know, ah, litter and that’s why i really care so much about this cleanup program like they will, you will have talked to them for five minutes and more and it again. Now at the end, they will consolidate their best. They’re best quote, and i know this from working in radio for many years, being a radio reporter, so you would interview somebody, and then at the end, you’d say, is there anything you’d like to add? And they would very succinctly say everything you’ve ever talked about for the last five minutes and that’s your sound bite, okay? And it’s right at the end and it’s, easy to grab. So that’s that’s how i know that. So that’s your best sound bite, really? And usually you’re best quote comes at the end when you say anything else you’d like to add well, no, but i you know, i really want people to know x y that’s it there. You got it. Cool. Thie like, protect, protect, protect for interviewing. Well, my, you know, my profession was i was a reporter and a news writer. And and basically you’re telling stories and it’s it’s journalism so it’s just another form of journalism, and when you’re a journalist, number one is faxing your friends so it’s about facts and quotes. So when you’re writing your story, if you just stick to facts and quotes, when you go to get it approved by your boss and they want to rewrite the whole thing, you can say, well, no, actually that’s a direct quote, and i’ve had i’ve had clients, is there? Bosco well, can we have her say this instead? I said, well, no that’s what she said, she’s, the donor and that that’s what she said she likes that. So if you stick to just direct quotes from the donor and a couple of little facts like, you know, she’s named the charity in her estate plans that’s a fact, and you’re not sort of screwing that up because thie approval process things can get a little hinky. Okay, and don’t forget the approval have are writing what you have some ideas for our actually writing we talked about we talked about a brief quote. Courts are good. Yeah, what for? Writing there was sitting down and writing these hundred writing for writing, you know it’s it’s keeping it brief and also, you know, i say to write light, bright and tight and typically your readers they khun tune out at any minute so you you should ride in a one on one engaging style so it’s a very personal style it’s not like bunch of flowery language and extra words. Is that the light? That’s the light so you wantto cubine sure what’s like bright tighten your right and tight and sure so it’s it’s, it’s it’s a light story it’s. Not a heavy duty, you know, four hundred word four hundred words. You know what? You’re not writing a book about the person and again it’s. Not about like where they went to college. Unless it’s, you know, there’s a for your college. But it’s not about, you know, all these things that the person does cause i i read this all the time and the funny one that always gets me is at the beginning. It’ll say john smith is a great philanthropist in our community and a very well known, you know, person who sat on many boards and all that that’s like the first thing they tell you is it’s sort of this list of this person’s credentials and that’s not interesting to the reader, and it doesn’t make the donor look that good. They don’t want to share that with people that you’re sort of, you know, boasting about it, segregates the reader from g i’m not on all those boards, right? So i guess i can’t i can’t do what john did because he’s a well known philanthropist. Exactly. I only give a couple hundred dollars a year. So right, this doesn’t apply to me. Turn the page writer that’s for those kind of nickels. That’s for those kind of people who sit on a lot of boys is a lot of boards, right? That’s. Not nice. Okay. Like brighton tight. Yeah, like brighton type. Keep it really short. Basically it’s it’s about the why and it’s about why the person is taking this action. And then at the end, you want to make sure you have a call to action. Which is to say, you know, would you be interested in naming a scholarship here? It smith college when, you know, give us a call. So you want to you want to do that so it’s in your headline should be should be a good little headline and what i like to, i’d like to make the joke that says a donor story is not a headline there’s a lot of times i’ll see that in a in a in an annual report or or a newsletter and says donorsearch torrey, well, no, well, that’s like saying, you know, mcdonald’s is like, you know, a burger store. Thank you. So the dahna story that’s a category that’s, just something we say, like what’s our donorsearch torrey next month, but it’s not it’s, not a headline, so have a good headline and have a nice view could do a nice pull quote that you pull out and make it bigger and then looks good and then you’re called to action and those things should be, you know, bolted because that might be all the reader reads. They see the photograph, they read the headline, they see the pull quote and then they see the call to action and they might not even really read the story. But there’s still getting the message? They’re still getting the idea we’re asking about. The headline should should that focus on the donor or the reader like something like you can do this also? I mean in that category, i’m not saying that’s a headline or it doesn’t really matter how you well, a good line headline is something that grabs the person’s interest in my little i’m not a great headline writer so might cheat for a headline is like a quote from the story because it’s something the person said so it’s it’s hygienist donorsearch ori with a woman in grand rapids, michigan, for the community foundation and it was a great photograph of her, and the headline was, quote, i will oh, i will always love grand rapids because that’s, what it’s about she put grant rapids in her will and then it’s about caring about this whole city and the community that’s why people support community foundations because they really care about their community and the causes in their community. So i that kind of like my little cheat thing is to go to take a quote and make that the headline all right, now you mention the approval process a few times, so i can imagine you’re hankering to get to the approval process. Now we got our thing written. What? We’re going what’s your advice around the approval well, the approval process because this is where things get ruined. This is where things get in the edit in the edit, people, somebody. Now we got a reading by committed and e i would just keep it to few people as possible. And so my tricks for getting things approved is to just give it to, you know, my client and they give it to their boss and and i’ll say something like this is exactly eighty five words, it can’t be any longer, it has to be eighty five words, and then people are less likely to tinker with it because they can’t write it as short as i can, or a short as you can, because you’ve really given a lot of thought to this story, so the boss might try to tinker with it. But well, now it’s one hundred seventy five words and you know, it can’t be that so i had like, a strict word count and tell them that that it has to be that word count. So that’s the number one trick. And the second thing is, if you stick with quotes and facts, there’s less to tinker with, so you don’t want to start writing all this other flowery stuff. You just want to stick to stick to the facts and stick to the quote, stick to what the person said, and then it’s a lot harder to tinker with. Ok, right? And then after you’ve gone through your internal review, hopefully briefly, it goes to the subject to the r to our donor, it goes to the donor first. This is another secret about dahna for goes to the donor first, they’ve already donorsearch already approved it. They loved it. They can’t wait to see it in the newsletter, and then your boss is like, but but all the donor mow mrs smith, she just loves this so much when it be great. When it when it’s printed, we could frame it and give it to her. She loves and she loves it. I don’t think we should mess with it. She loves it. She loves it. It’s, dirty pool. I love it. Well, you have got a job, neo-sage she loves it. Touch it. We love she loves it. It’s close she’s, so proud of it she’s already sent it to her daughter. I imagine that it also rich thieves could be multi purposed, right? We can use this in some other marketsmart ocean ways, you know, once you have a great donorsearch torrey, you should use it over and over again. And when i come into an organization and we need thio ah feature a donor. Ah lot of times i’ll hear well, we already used, you know, mr jones last year, and i’m like no, but that’s a great story. We already have these great quotes from him. We have this beautiful photograph, he’ll, you know, he was cool with it, he loved to use it again. Oh, but we already used him and and i always say, well, you know, maybe people read that a year ago and hung on to every single word of it, and maybe now they’ll see him again in this different way, and they’ll just go, oh, there’s that nice guy so it’s ok, because typically people didn’t even read it the first time they’d even notice it the first time they’re not hanging onto your every word of your non-profit. Newsletters. I got news for you. Filed it. Then they’re comparing each one two that’s up to the old. Exactly. Let’s go march of twenty twelve that you guys five years ago. You believe that because that our quarterly report from five years ago. So if you already have a great donorsearch torrey, you can you can repurpose that. And sometimes it’s just pulling out a quote, taking the picture, cropping that a little bit differently and you can use it many different ways. Now you can put that on facebook or you can use it somewhere else. And a great way to repurpose a donor story is to is to flip it and turn it into a pier letter so let’s say, you know john smith, come ah it’s a long time donorsearch organization. You could craft a letter from him based on what he’s already said. And you write the letter from his voice. Two other donors like him. So let’s say he lives in a certain neighborhood and he, you know, you could craft the letter saying, like, oh, dear bob, you know, i also live in this neighborhood and i recently did a great thing i updated my will and included thie, you know, clean up the river foundation. Is that something you’d consider doing? And so that way, you already have the content. He’s already agreed to be in this newsletter or whatever, and you can show him that and say, hey, look, could we would like to send a letter from you two other people? We don’t even have to bother you again with interviewing you again because people don’t want to bother to be bothered a second time for a second interviewed you have the content you need, we gotta leave it. We’re gonna lose their way. We will reuse it, we’re gonna leave it there tomorrow you’ll find her at pg agency dot com and also at claire says that’s easy. Thank you so much, claire morrow. Thank you, tony. My pleasure. Any sample ward and social for your events coming up first. Pursuant, they’ve got another free webinar it’s. Amazing how much free content they’re producing for you. This is howto win at data driven fund-raising get a handle on your data data for goodness sake. People are overwhelmed by data data data. What do you need to measure? How do? You measure it, what actions do you need to take? Based on your data? You don’t need to be overwhelmed. Webinar will help you pursue it has your back? This is on tuesday, the twenty fifth and if you can’t make it because a lot of people listening later, um, i’ll let you know when the video is up. There’s always an archive for you. If you want to register for the live webinar, go to pursuant dot com quick resource is and then webinars and again it is howto win at data driven fund-raising we’ll be spelling spelling bees for millennial fund-raising it’s a night with live music, stand up comedy, dancing and a spelling bee all for the purpose of raising money for your work. This is not your seventh grade spelling me. You could check out their video at we b e spelling dot com and then get in touch with the ceo alex greer and book a fun night for your organisation. This is organization specific. Not a bunch of org’s doing one night together. No, this is for your work reason money for your organization. We be e spelling dot com now time for tony’s. Take two if you want to pitch non-profit radio, please make it about non-profits small and midsize non-profits that’s who the show is for that’s who i have in mind as i produce it each week i got a pitch like two weeks ago, and first of all, it was long the woman talked for, like, seven or eight minutes, and at the very end of that diatribe came the part about non-profits it had nothing to do with non-profits leading up to that she’s, a food blogger, and it had to do with her eight million instagram impressions and i don’t know one hundred twenty thousand facebook likes whatever, you know, i mean, the numbers were high, i don’t high numbers aren’t all story. I mean, we know true engagement is important too, but all right, so she had a lot of lofty numbers anyway, but it was all about food, and then in the end ah, and i give part of the profits too. This international food charity, which i’m not going to name. Okay, so that was an eight minute story, and i got twenty seconds of a non-profit this is non-profit radio, not food blogger, radio i mean, it’s, not the food network. So off topic, to say the least and it’s not that uncommon that i get these, you know, that this is not a non-profit relationship or shoretz minuscule like, in this case, so if you’re gonna pitch non-profit radio make it about non-profits that’s all i ask, and then we may have something to talk about. Of course, i got a video on the subject and you’ll find that at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two amy step award. You know her she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of intend the non-profit technology network. Her most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement she’s that amy sample, ward dot or ge and at amy r s ward welcome back. Any sample word? Yeah, i am happy to be back. I’m happy to have you. Thank you so much for being with us and my voice just cracked again, much like i’m twelve it’s, unbelievable. And speaking of children with the first thing we got it before we get into anything related teo non-profit technology conference or social media for your own events. The more you just run that was talking about staying on topic. Well, yeah, but you’re going to appreciate this thing because oren louis sample ward has his one year birthday next saturday, the twenty ninth. Isn’t that the case? I know i’m tracking it. Happy birthday, orin. Thanks. What are the what of the festivities around the first birthday? Um, well, i guess we are not, um not in the judgment way. Just in a personal capacity and preference way not people. Teo, create a huge party. We mostly just want to have a day where folks who haven’t met him yet get to meet him or people who have met him. Get teo hangout and friends with kids can have their kids come over and they can all play together. So mostly just having an afternoon at our house with lots of people. That’s. Wonderful on open house. Yeah, wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you. Alright. Happy for orin next saturday. Wonderful. Nasty. Don’t you feel bad about admonishing me for staying on topic? No, i knew what you were going to say. You did? I didn’t tell you. All right. All right. You know i was you know, i’m keeping track of him. We’re going to say what? When i was going to say what? What do you mean? You just said what i was going to say. Oh, okay, then. Let’s, move on. Teo. Seventeen ntcdinosaur was a smashing success with well over two thousand people there. The non-profit oh, my gosh. Yeah. I think our final count, i should go look this up before i say it on the radio. But i think our final count was, like two thousand three hundred and thirty people. Wonderful and that’s, the largest ever. Is that right? Okay, now, there’s more to the story than just how many people come. You could have a crummy conference with twenty, three hundred on everybody next year. You have know it was really, really awesome. Yeah. Tell us tons of tons of people making connection, which is ultimately what we want. You know, we can we can plan well in advance for there to be lots of sessions and, you know, lots of activities. But the reason that we planned all that so that people can find what they need, whether that somebody that they can commiserating with or somebody that they could work with or on expert to help them understand what they’re working on a vendor that has that platform they’ve been looking for, you know, whatever those connections are. So we were really, really happy that so many of those connections were happening just even right from the very beginning. And that was kind of a big theme of people’s evaluation. Feedback this year, too, was just oh, my gosh. You know, this i came thinking that i would go to some sessions and learn some things. And i had no idea that actually i would meet all these people and i would have all these ideas and come. I have all these folks that i wanted, you know, follow-up with our state connected with so that felt really, really great. Fell like a good success. Outstanding. Congratulations. Thank you. Eighteen ntcdinosaur that eighty, ninety is twenty eighteen. Is april eleven through thirteen that’ll be in new orleans. Okay, back in the central uru. Always rotate east, central and west. Right. Okay, central new orleans. Okay. Excellent, april. All right. Um, so let’s, talk about social. This is a perfect segway and a perfect you’re the perfect person to do. This because you’re our social media contributor and you hostess fact, those event every single year as and ten does let’s talk about some social you’ve got some ideas for before the event, what to be doing? Yeah, so figured since we just had the mtc and it is such a big event and as we always remind ourselves here and in ten were a technology organization, so we should be able to figure some of these things out one at a time kind of share the behind the scenes secrets and practises and things that we’ve learned from kind of integrating social media. So just just say that at the beginning, in case listeners are like, gosh, these all of these examples are about the ntc that’s intentional trying, trying to share what we dio putting on that big conference so ahead of the event, you know? And when i say ahead of the event, i mean, about a year ahead of the event, we start the planning around content and that includes social media, but as we’ve talked about before, tony, you and i, you know, social media can’t just exist a little separate thing, you know, you don’t just have your facebook plan over there by itself, you have your community engagement plan and you’re content plans and those include social media where it makes sense. So we start that planning basically as soon as this conference ended that next week, we had our debrief, which included let’s get started on you. No hear things that we learned this didn’t work on twitter or, you know, whatever so that we can start that planning while it’s still fresh on dh it’s going to take that long to plan it out anyway, and so part of what goes into that planning is what what opportunities did we notice for content that we weren’t creating at the conference, that we should think about it and kind of integrate into our plan? So we’re there folks who were tweeting from a session with how much they you know where into the topic and sharing their own examples even beyond what the presenters were sharing? Oh, that’s, awesome let’s kind of tag all those people now make a list of those folks now so that we can start engaging them ahead of time. Clearly, they got a lot out of it. Let’s, let’s engage them once registration opens, for example. So you’ll be finding those those folks who are already kind of engaged from this last conference. Sorry, what were you gonna say? Yes, so you might use them as sort of your back channels before you start or when you start promoting twenty eighteen. Is that what you mean? Well, i mean, two things one that there folks who personally did get a lot out of the conference. So even if they aren’t planning for whatever reason, budget or schedule or whatever to attend the next conference, what we’ve found is that those folks were really engaged and personally gained a lot from the previous year’s conference when registration opens are really, really open and love when we asked them to kind of use the session hashtag or the conference cash rather and kind of put out some testimonials in their own words like, what did you learn love about last year’s conference? Why should people go and people will post, you know, like a five part twitter message about why people should be going to this conference even if they’re not able to go that next year so that’s one piece is kind of making a list well, it’s fresh of who were the folks who really seemed engage, who really got a lot out of the content, they don’t have to be the people who are speakers, their sponsors are, you know, really high profile folks, they’re people that just really, genuinely got a lot out of it because they’re going to be sharing that really genuine kind of testimonial. That’s goingto connect with people who are also not speakers responses, but i just thinking about whether they should attend or not, you go excellent that’s smart, i mean, similar to what you were talking about in the first half of the show, right? Like you don’t need to profile somebody that other folks don’t feel is appear making sure that you’re connecting with those attendees who are just speaking from an attendee perspective. You know, i wasn’t speaking on the session, i haven’t been here ten years in a row, but that was my first year and it was amazing. And i want you two have that same experience and you know, they’re sharers because that’s how you flagged them because you aren’t you steal that they were using the session hashtag or the conference hashtag liberally and you found him so you know they’ll share oh, excellent. Okay, more pro tips love it. Yeah, but then the other part of kind of making that list is figuring out what what was prompting them to be doing that sharing at the conference, you know, was it just somebody who was really into a session and one of the share ideas? Or was there something going on for example? I mean, you’ve been to the conference, maybe you could help me with these examples, but for, you know, at lunchtime we have what we call birds of a feather lunchtime tables just topics on on top of tables for people to help make connections and meet folks, but then sometimes that prompts people to get really engaged on twitter because they don’t have a table, right? Like they never saw that opportunity and they never submitted a table topics, so they’re using the conference hashtag to try and attract other people who want to talk about something, okay, awesome! You know, there was a re a world thing happening in the room and they were on twitter, but so finding those other events or moments at the conference, that kind of prompted that so that we can think ahead, hey, you know, people turned to twitter to try and organize those tables. How can we plan for that ahead of time? Okay, okay, yeah, i guess maybe parochial e, but, you know, i used to pay special attention to the tweets of guests, and i’d be interviewing in the booth for non-profit reiter and and the fund that then then you know, they would treat the photos from the booth and everything like that while i was interviewing them and yeah, that’s, the stuff that i used to, i guess that was our little birds of a feather is what i was paying attention to. Yeah, another piece, um, that we’ve found kind of connecting from one year to the next is that we have at the conference a photo booth and take photos ourselves, you know, of the conference experience, but we also try and watch and kind of if it’s on twitter, for example, favorite that on twitter who confined it again are or just save the link of folks who are taking photos from the conference that a photo there is so much better than words or maybe we’re just not good at words the photos so much better at helping us kind of capture and demonstrate, especially to people who’ve never attended the ntc what it’s like? Because we like to think at least that our event is unique, and i’m sure that spokes listening think that their annual event, whether it’s a gala or a breakfast or whatever is also unique and using photos that attendees took themselves of the event is such a better kind of riel riel world view of what the experiences like. And we have found that even though there’s going to be things that are different, like what the science looks like or you know what, what the photo booth backdrop was, like, there’s going to be some of that? I guess you could call it branding that’s different year to year, but the experience we hope, is not significantly different. And so we’ve found that it doesn’t matter if one year’s photo booth photo had a robot theme and the next year had some other team and whatever but using those photos ahead of time, you know. It’s really, as soon as registration opens has helped people want to share and also has we’ve seen people what kind of share those photos or tweets that have the photo attached and say, oh, yeah, i did that, too, even though they’re not in the photo, right? So someone year the conference had a mechanical shark in our closing reception, and, you know, we posted a photo from that with somebody riding on the shark and said, no, we can’t wait to see next year, but blah registration is open, whatever, and then a bunch of people would share that i wrote on the shark to you have to go to this conference even though the shark had met him to dio really with anything tio help capture how excited they were for this community that’s cool, we’re not. We’re not jumping the shark, but definitely not jumping way to take our one break while you’re with me, so we got more to come because we’re gonna talk about what to do during the event with their social and then or after your event tons of pro tips, gosh sakes, 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 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 for her. 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 guess 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. All right, we’re talking about social media during beef before, during and after your events with any sample work. All right, there’s one more thing i just want to touch on pre event on that’s very just a very small thing. Amy hashtag if you see erroneous hashtags like people doing ntcdinosaur teen instead of seventeen ntc or you know some other variations of what you what is the correct hashtag? What do you what do you do with that? We’ve found that it’s just gonna happen so it’s better to plan for that and assume that people are using the wrong hashtag and the more that we can help kind of redirect people ahead of the conference, the better they are during the conference that using the right hashtag, which is less like we want everybody using our hashtag and more because that really is how people are trying to make connections and chair and post with each other, and so if they’re using the wrong hashtag, they’re not going to feel like they were making a lot of connections. So what we do is we know that just as you said, they’re going to transpose that the number. And the letter order so that’s a big one that we track and then we’re also looking for writing the whole year out. So if you if you have, ah event that uses the hashtag with the year just seventeen also search for it with twenty seventeen all of those kind of little nuances and as people are posting, you know, this b six months ahead of time as they’re posting oh, you know, are you? Hey at tony martignetti are you going? Teo ntcdinosaur teen, we see that and we reply and say, oh, we hope that you’ll both be there. Be sure and use the hashtag eighteen ntc so that other attendees can find you and i just used that phrase all the time hey love that you’re connecting our hey, thanks for promoting the conference or hey, whatever it is you’re doing that’s great! Be sure and use the hashtag and connect with everybody else and it’s just a nice way to correct somebody but also makes it clear hey, we’re only correcting you because we do want you to be able to connect outstanding, very polite and i said, yeah, i know it’s awful it’s start for that’s it you we want you to find everybody else. We want people to find you exactly. Okay, let’s move, teo during event intra intra event, if you will during our event. Now, what are your ideas? What do you got now? This, you know, there, especially for a conference like ours. You know, we’re talking about the ntc, which is twenty, three hundred people all pretty plugged in on one device or another, so the volume can just be intense. Um, and even if you have a smaller event, that doesn’t mean that the volume isn’t still a lot to try and manage. What we’ve found is that we need to have at least one staff person at all times doesn’t mean it’s the same staff person twenty four seven, but one staff person, you know, wow, while it’s normal kind of conference waking hours online to monitor things and that it’s best if that person can be, you know, maybe you have ah, on office at the event, you know, ah, room that’s, not the registration desk or the customer service desk, because otherwise they’re just going to be answering questions in person, right and feeling like i can’t i can’t monitor what’s going on online, so putting somebody in a place where they can concentrate and it’s quiet and they could just monitor what’s going on because you’re going to just have to be listening in order to figure out where there are things that we need to be, you don’t hey there’s confusion around the session room can let’s just make a post about that? Because it’s just going to be too much to try and walk the halls and figure out what to say. You really need to be listening online, okay, that sounds like a traffic control duty zoho totally that’s when it feels dual stressful because you know again, at least with ntc, that person is monitoring twitter and facebook and our conference app and our conference online forum and email, you know, there, there it really is kind of air traffic control, and then if you see something well, you’ve got your walkie and you’re walking out to other staff. Hey, can you go check the sign? People are saying on twitter that the sign is wrong? You know really does feel like you’re kind of in the master control center. How many hours of those shifts? Normally about two at a time was one. It is a lot to try and do you know that you’d definitely need a break? Yeah, yeah, like traffic control now for sure. Okay, totally. Um, you have some ideas about screenshots, screenshots, content? Yeah, we’ve found that it’s one of the easiest ways, because you may remember during your two hour shift oh, they were just so many people talking about this thing, and i said, this is so and so, you know, replied in a gm and said this and, you know, and then later that night, with all staff, when we have our daily debrief, you might say, hey, there was a big issue with this, and i know folks didn’t see it, but it was on twitter and it got results, and then you have watched so many tweets come by during the day, you can’t remember who it was that said that you can’t remember who you promised to follow up with so it’s just easier to take a quick screen shot and save that and you can have a folder on your computer whatever computer you know, you kind of monitoring from that day that is like thieves with people i’m following up or here are examples of horrible things that happened today that we need to fix or, you know, here’s an example of ah, really awesome post from a session. Whatever it is, you can just be taking quick screen shot and save it instead of trying to write down the person’s name or figure out all the details. I just saved you a lot of time and and also lets you feel like you can just stay in that channel, right? You could just keep following twitter. You don’t need to go use some other tools and try and find that spreadsheet that you’re using. You could just stay focused. All right, i got you. All right, we just have about a minute and a half left aim so let’s move to post event on about what’s your what’s, your top tip post event that if i could just say one thing that remember that even though the event is over, all of that content is still there and attendees are still engaging, so don’t just say great conference over, we’re getting on a plane goodbye. And have your your various channels that just were at such a huge high volume go quiet instantly make sure that you’ve scheduled ahead of time. Some tweets or facebook post that say, you know, thanks again for an awesome event, maybe you have a photo that you pulled out already that can go in there. Thanks so much, you know, staffer offline today taking vacation after unconference whatever it is, just make sure that there’s still some content because even though you’re a tte home asleep, your attendings are back in the office and, you know, still looking to engage. Okay? Outstanding, um, i’ll give you thirty seconds for your number to post event tip that’s all that’s all i’m giving you. Yeah, one thing that we’ve found is that right afterwards is a huge opportunity to start building up mo mentum for next year, though some of those kind of tweets they’re post that you might schedule ahead of time are things like reminder, you know? Hey, add to your calendar. This is one registration for next year opens o r be sure that you have you start thinking about your session ideas because we’re going to open. Session submissions on this date was just kind of start ng tow put out, the timeline really helps capitalize on how excited folks are and how they how great they felt so that they want to take it forward to the next year. Amy sample ward she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of the non-profit technology network, you’ll find her at amy rs ward. Thank you so much, amy. Great pain, great pro tips next week, the trump presidency and your work what’s the impact roof mccambridge is with me she’s editor in chief of non-profit quarterly. You probably know her 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, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam leve lorts is a line producer. Betty mcardle is our am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez and our music is by scott stein you with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be green. 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 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. It 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, 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.

Nonprofit Radio for November 11, 2016: How To Appeal To High Net Worth

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Melanie Schnoll Begun: How To Appeal To High Net Worth

What are the wealthy looking for as they check you out on their way to becoming a connector, board member, investor, donor or other supporter of your organization? Melanie Schnoll Begun leads Morgan Stanley’s philanthropy management.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of pyla, rale, gia, if i had the stomach, the idea that you missed today’s show how to appeal to high net worth. What are the wealthy looking for as they check you out on their way to becoming a connector boardmember investor? Melanie schnoll begun leads morgan stanley’s, philanthropy management tony’s take two mohr ntc video interviews responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com no additional begun she’s here in the studio she’s, the managing director of philanthropy management at morgan stanley. She works with the firm’s, wealthiest and most influential clients, including prominent business owners, venture capitalists, social entrepreneurs, professional athletes and entertainers, as well as foundations and non-profits she is the nominating chair and former board president of the juvenile diabetes research foundation, new york city chapter and vice president of the board of metropolitan college of new york. Melanie is also on advisory boards for the naomi berrie diabetes center and quinnipiac university law school. Welcome back, melanie metoo pleasure. It was it was april two thousand twelve. You were here a long time to for, like, for four and a half years ago or so you’re looking great. Good to have you. Well, i like that. Thank you. Absolutely need that every morning for now. You impressive bio. No book. I thought. In these four and a half years, you would have written a book by now. Well, you know what? What i’ve done in four and a half years, i’ve i’ve run eight more marathons. Is that impressive? Okay, that that’s ah, yeah that’s that’s a a run up to that, but i like to see a book that you like to see it, but now you’re doing the marathon this year, right? And getting the marrow, which means yes, we’re a little pre recorded about ten days or so, which means this sunday you’ll be running this sunday on behalf of a cause. So of course, i’d never just run twenty six point two miles for myself. I’m raising money and awareness for juvenile diabetes for jr of europe. Okay, you’re on the advisory board, right? New york city chuck’s correct. I was ah, president, but more important than that, i’m an owner and owner of the disease, so you’ve got to take a stand, right? You can’t just own a disease and allow other people to raise the money or awareness. You have toe roll up your sleeves like i do. Tow. Take insulin. Okay, you gotta go out. There and run and raise awareness and money. Was there a juvenile diabetes research foundation? When you first found out that you had diabetes, there was the organization’s been around for over forty two years, and i’d say that we’ve had our greatest success this year. So far, we have received fda approval for the artificial pancreas, which could be my life cloaking technology outstanding, right? An owner of the organization that feels magnificent feels magnificent, but it’s not a cure, right at the end of the lot of us owe our promise has always been better treatment, prevention and a cure. So you know another device to wear in your bodies, you know, another device to wear in your body. There was just something in the times i think is today that so many of the the health that cause related non-profits are now seeking cures rather than just counseling and support on howto live with the disease. Yeah, i think that was just in today’s times. Yeah, yeah, it was it was the right article. Greater. Alright, so that’s what? Basically we’re here to talk about what a non-profit khun do should be doing to get the types. Of people who are your clients? High net worth ultra high net worth individuals interested in the cause as as interested as you are in jd are okay and that that’s on all different levels that might be a boardmember donor-centric ter, maybe just like introduction, supporter and some other methods, you know, maybe a volunteer, but not a boardmember so we’re going to talk a fair amount about you’re bored, you know, sort of fine tuning your board and making that look appealing, but the conversation’s not limited there, and we may just be talking about very well. Azad said non dahna relationship all right, so you’ve got you got a bunch of tips. Um, let’s, let’s, get into the heads of these men. He says this is an elusive group for a lot of people. They read about them. It’s always arms length. You know, ninety nine percent of us don’t know these people personally, they never will never meet them. But i got to believe that in the end, they really just i want to be connected to a cause no different than the rest of us. Just people just with norvig gets more money, there are people okay. Okay. Let’s. Gratifying, right? Right. So they just want, you know, they want some connection, the personal relationships. All right? No, i fear that in this presidential cycle, people could come away with a negative opinion of the very wealthy, but i hope that most are not like that. I presume they’re not. I’d like to see the good in you. I think i think we have to think that money and ego could be separate, right would be separate, of course, andi, ultimately, the people that we’re talking about today, which i think i think we’re looking at, many, many, many, many, many people, right? Ultimately you don’t see someone who is ultra high net worth right? It’s not, they’re not wearing it on their face. There’s no color. There is no religion, right it’s associated with with the kind of hair that you have. So it’s a it’s a matter of being right, it’s it’s something that you become either because you inherit the wealth, you create the wealth. There might have been a situation which brought wealth to you and the majority of the clients that we work with. Many of them don’t want to be associated with money. They want to be associated with purpose. So when we think about what creates purpose inside of someone versus a person being a wealthy individual and therefore they have purpose, but what creates wealth in itself, i hope it’s not a purpose as not it i’ve heard lots of stories about very wealthy people who are quite unhappy and quite modest people who are quite a brilliant in their lives, exactly, exactly, definitely independent and independent of you go to now let’s reassure people that there could be a place for these, these these people, these folks in small and midsize non-profits and they don’t all necessarily want to be on the metropolitan opera board, stanford university, right? And not necessarily, i think i think it’s a fallacy to think that wealth associates itself with just large, robust organizations. There is an opportunity if you’re a significant wealth holder to be not just a difference in a small organization, but perhaps to be the difference in a small nonprofit organization. But again, it’s really related to what the organization is doing. There are small, independent colleges that do not have wealthy donors that don’t have wealthy. Alum and are seeking amazing volunteers support leadership. There are arts organizations that are not like the amazing one sitting here in new york city for small museums that are small art collections all over the country that require and need attention. So again, it goes back to you know, where does the person feel that incredible connected with the organization you’ve helped some of your clients start? Teo get engaged with small and midsize non-profits i think the best part about our work is that the best part about our work is helping them distinguish between an organization where they could have a long, amazing history with versus one which is, you know, nice to be on procedures, prestigious. They got great people sitting around the table, they all looked look like them. They all have bank accounts that are like theirs, but most of our clients like a balance, right, and that’s what’s also so interesting about the majority of the boards that i work with. There are a few wealthy people sitting among the board members. There are some who are just industry experts who associate with the organization. There are some who just have some incredible skills or time on dh? All of that is what makes the composition of aboard great so wealth is not wealth doesn’t necessarily mean that i’ll be a great boardmember a great volunteers, you’re right. In fact, it could be the other way around. It could be difficult for the organization. That’s okay, we take our first break um, you know, what can i say? This is going to be exciting, we’re going to talk about it is exciting, we’re going to talk about getting your organization in tune for for making these approaches and then also even these are just very good advice, even if you’re not approaching high net worth individuals, just this is good stuff for your board and for your organization generally, so 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. Okay, melanie schnoll begun. Let’s get into ah, some strategies that we got for for looking good and just being solid. And, um, what is the word that we always use? Sustainable? Of course. Ok, so we, uh, we’d be well advised to show that we can help someone we might be trying to appeal to as a volunteer that will be willing to help them raise money. What kinds of help should we be offering to our volunteers? Right? So many ultra high net worth individuals created their own businesses, right? You would think that they know how to raise money and it’s incredible the difference between yeah, that’s different kind of raising it’s a different fund-raising right, a capital raise for business versus raising money for non-profit that you might be so passionate about. For some reason, the psychological obstacles that happen in someone’s head are incredible. And i’m a professional fundraiser, so to me, i can’t understand it. But you have to appreciate that people get really scared about asking friends, colleagues, business associates for money so non-cash profits staff really needs to feel comfortable. In health, being potential board members were volunteers overcome these obstacles, and there were definitely techniques to do it. I’m getting them into a mindset to realize that this is not asking money for themselves. Most people think when they go out, even though they know they’re raising money for an organization, a small organization, they care about the desperately needs the money, they feel that making that ask appears to be making and asked for them personally. It’s personal way we got to get rid of that, right? Like you got to take that idea. You gotta put it on a shelf way, way up on the top of your ceiling and decide you know what? I’m not going into that box because this isn’t about me. This is selfless. I’m spending my time, my energy might interest to create awareness and raise funding that’s either desperately needed or trust is needed to improve the work of the organization, so taking yourself out of that formula is really important. One of the ways that we do it is helping organisations help, they’re bored or volunteers were raising money, helping them create personal and public narratives, and a narrative is a story, right? We all have our own stories. I have a story about who i am now j r and your relationship with jamie our f etcetera, metropolitan college, all these organizations, all of these organizations, are all of those organisations, so finding that story inside of you that you’re really incredibly comfortable with this isn’t an elevator speech, this isn’t, you know, standing in the middle of, you know, a tight little elevator where the door is closed and the person can’t get out of the way. This is something where it’s so authentic genuine, but this is but this is making it sounds like magnum or personal. We’re trying to put personal up on the shelf now, but but personal because you’re comfortable telling the story about your association with the organization that this is not money for. So i don’t want anyone to think that when i’m raising money for tv, raph, i’m raising it so that melanie doesn’t have type one diabetes. I’d love to not have type one diabetes it’s a disgusting auto immune disease, but i’m not raising money for me, and there may never be a cure for type one diabetes in my lifetime, i’m raising money because i don’t want any other little girl to have type one diabetes because i don’t want another woman tohave to wear all of these devices underneath her dress, trying to figure out you know where i hook it on. Can i wear this tight, beautiful blouse? You know, i just i want people to feel comfortable recognizing that they can keep it. Anything is a type one diabetic. They could be a competitive athlete running the new york city marathon. They could run a big business, right? They could have babies. They would have to worry about living with complications that type one diabetes could bring on. So i take myself out of the formula. You’re not giving me the money you’re giving in an organization that’s working in excellence to do the research to find better treatments and cure. But i tell a story about myself, because, tony, i want you to see me in the center of the story, and then i want to drag you into that conversation because i want tony to see that my story about type one diabetes is your story also it’s your story. I help you. See the connection between me and you give you a quick example whenever i’m raising money for type one diabetes and i talk about me being in a car, my blood sugar being low first talk about the possibility of what could happen to me or my kids if they’re in the car with me. I then relate the story to a donor that that that i’m trying to raise money with from and i say to them, you know what? If you were in your car on the road when i was a possibility of negan into an accident, hurry myself is possible, the possibility of me being low and getting into an accident and hitting your car is also likely. Now i’m not saying that type one diabetics get into more accents anyone else? Probably less because we’re so much more aware of our health and our well, is that anybody else? I’m always checking before i get into a car, but that’s how i help other people who are raising money for diabetes make a story that’s personal, but connect themselves to somebody else and it’s, not about statistics. People are nervous about talking about, you know. The efficiencies of the nonprofit organization they’re nervous about talking about the impact of the organization. I could relate it to just a little story about me being in a car and talk about how j d ref is doing such amazing work on better technologies and how that’s helping me live a better life and helping you because i won’t be in a car on the road level. Yeah, outstanding, milly know very i feel it because i’m planning on soliciting cubine shaking you down for a couple of bucks for my city marathon on sunday, we’re already doing a service for j d r f there were going to take them on the promotions for the show, they’re goingto they’re getting there getting an hour of promotion. Okay, one one more idea of a simple way, tio help someone who’s who feels like they’re they’re not a comfortable, they don’t feel comfortable soliciting one more. One more thing, one more thing you’re gonna have three ideas in your head, like just three don’t noel the facts about the organization we get lost, we get lost. In fact, people get lost in numbers when you make a mistake about a number so you’re you’re making a claim that this little school is serving twenty five children living with autism and the results are fifty percent better lives, whatever it might be, we get lost in statistics, and the issue with numbers sometimes is people can prove us wrong with a number it’s harder to prove us wrong with just a story. So i suggest to all of three organizations i work with who are helping their volunteers, their donors raise money, give them three easy facts that we no can’t be disputed right can’t be disputed and that you could really understand again that you could create a story around one of the facts if if we’re talking about autism and let’s assume that we have a play centre for children xero through the age of five rights in a community important to that community, we know that that autism eyes is increasingly on the rise. We still don’t even know why this is happening to our young children, but this center is so important to this community. So three particular stories, right? So i would i would give them one story about one young girl, right? And how? It changed her life by being in a community where she began. Tto be able to associate, have friends right where he began toe learn skills, teo cope with some of her emotions. We’re too began to make eye contact, right? And then i give them another statistic and it’s a step about the way it changed the life of the parent. That the mother now feels confidence and leaving her daughter in this beautiful little community centre, that the mother now can have a part time job. Right? There’s so many ways to give statistics, they’re not versus forty eight percent of our families feel more confident. Yeah, with the with having a two family income just, you know, okay, exactly. Exactly. So those are the three fax are are incredibly important to fund raisers. And one of them should be a fact that that you can that the fundraiser, right? So as a non-profit is working with someone on the board that the fund raiser can associate with themselves, perhaps they have a child who’s living with autism so they could tell a story about, you know, my daughter, uh, when he was four years old was in this school, you know, and what it did for her and just giving specifics about actually how it can capture how it came to that family’s life, what it did for the siblings in that family, so three strong fax can never go wrong and lose the numbers if they if they don’t serve you, you just raise something that there has to be an affinity before we approach any individual way don’t want to go after high net worth people just because they are because they are wealthy, that there’s no, if there isn’t some genuine affinity for the work that you’re doing. There’s no point, right? May i mean, unless you’re a robber, right? Unless you’re looking to, you know, going to someone’s home and you don’t care now, why would you even think of that? I don’t know, i mean, i wouldn’t even think about it, you know what? I don’t know why? Because i think in fund-raising sometimes wait do feel like we’re robbing the person we do if we don’t if we don’t believe in the story of, you know, i’ve heard actually i’ve heard that from grant writers we were asked by sometimes its board members or their ceo go after this hit this foundation and there’s no connection, but they have to try to find one and they know it’s tenuous as their writing the words of their typing. They know it’s disingenuous, and they know it’s going to fail, but they’re executing something that they were asked to do by somebody who presumes themselves to know more about grantwriting than the professional. So and i’ve heard in that in that realm, it’s, that it feels very feel smart. Well, it feels empty, it feels empty and the results are horse, so you have to know that there’s some connection now you know, you’ve you maybe have seen another similar organization that the person supports you mentioned some of your clients are entertainers and are athletes, so maybe they tweet about a cause and they don’t know about your organization. See, according paper, you know, if it’s not somebody with seventeen million twitter followers but you see them quoted relating to a cause, something you’ve got to know that there’s a connection before you tryto given introduction, we call it a common denominator common denominator so my my son is in the sixth. Grade. We deal with all these fractions percentage of fractions, and every time i’m sitting down looking at his mathos work i’m thinking about fund-raising because i’m thinking, what is that common denominator and a common denominator means we have to have some tenuous connection, something that where there’s there’s a correlation between me and the person that i’m raising money from? So we do a lot of work, we help our non-profit clients to a lot of work on the person, the organization, the foundation before they go and make the ass. Okay, maybe we should touch on something. What do you do for your non-profit clients cause i mentioned it in your intro and that you mentioned well, let’s, acquaint people with that side of your practice. Great. Happy tio r work starts with advisory services, so we work with non-profit organizations, small and large helping them in three particular areas. The first is bored development in governance and going into a nonprofit organization looking at their board, seeing where there are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The typical swat analysis, right? And during a swat analysis with a board is amazing. We do it on the way. We do it backwards. I think most people start with their strength, like who doesn’t want to talk about how strong i am? We start with their threats. You call it a tuesday, we calling wools elearning you’re inter combining okay, that’s right metoo we turn it on its head so threats and weaknesses have to be first. You could always go to the opportunities and the strengths of a nonprofit organization. S o going in really analyzing the organization, there will be some tremendous talents thing on the board. Sometimes the board is tired. I mean, we have to realize that some boards where they don’t have bored tenure and this happens a lot, tony and small non-profits like the leadership on the boy that’s been around too long over and it’s because the bylaws say it’s two three year consecutive terms is the max and you look on the board in there, people have been there twelve, fifteen, seven, twenty years, nobody has the the courage or the energy to enforce what’s in writing at night, so you know, you don’t get fresh perspective. I mean it’s terrible it’s terrible, and part of the reason is because they live in a feat they live in fear, you know, starting fresh perspective, people come on the board and they see what is supposed to be six year max, maybe a possibility of a second of a third three year term, and their board members have been here for seventeen years, and i don’t even follow their own by-laws what kind of an organization? By joining that’s, right? So so not only does it have poor governance, right? Not only does have poor governance, but ultimately it’s a new fresh member of the board. When you look at someone who’s been on a board for so many years, you know it, they’re they’re they’re exhausted from raising money for the same organization that’s, that’s one it’s not that they’ve lost the passion for the work they care about the work they want to see the results, but ultimately every three to campaign cycles, a delete four five year campaigns at least, and everything in between those and the preparation of planning and that’s a couple strategic planning cycles with that if you was done right, takes at least a year or so and that, and that means that they’ve even seen strategic plans that have sat on shelves that haven’t even been on there embarrassed the board members embarrassed to leave don’t want to leave the organization flat, but the organization is embarrassed to get the person off he’s another by-laws say they should that’s right, it’s a bad situation. Let me tell you how we help. Let me tell you how we help. Let me tell you how we help, we go into that board and we sit down with, you know, the current officers and really talk about you, let’s, analyze your you’re bored policy, right? This is what your terms are if they’re right. If it was right when we wrote this this language, if we were right about this, then we have to govern this way. Onboarding exactly so we need to make decisions now, how do we get rid of a boardmember who cares about this organization, who we care about, um, letting them resign in honor, right, letting them resigning? I think a lot of times it just takes a face to face conversation at seoul. It takes some degree of courage. Just ask the person to come in and sit with the ceo. And se look, oh, it sit with the board chair, hopefully is not the board chair, but that could be the person, but whoever it is, you know, you gotta go. You gotta grow a pair and and start enforcing the governance that you’ve you’ve put in writing. That’s exactly right that’s exactly what it is that simple and the person is a very good chance that personal thank you. In fact, not only thank you, they want to go, they want they’re embarrassed to leave. They’re embarrassed to tell you that they don’t want to go and you’re embarrassed to ask them to leave. But but i’d never let but it’s an opportunity, right? We never let ah threat or weakness like having someone who’s tired, who’s been on a board too long not turn into an opportunity and into a strength we go back to our twos, and so what’s the opportunity as you are a cz ur graciously in honor it’s celebrating the service of a boardmember who’s. Now retiring, you ask for a gift, we ask for a gift and we do it upon exit. And we allow that retiring boardmember and honor we celebrate that. Boardmember allow his or horse story about leaving this organization all the work that he’s done and in celebration upon departure, leaving a major gift. And by the way, major, at their level right now, talking about small organizations, this person might not have a fourteen to give, given their capacity at their capacity. I never heard that one outstanding, and i’ve heard the transition respectfully, to an advisory board nice, but ask for a gift as forget. I mean, of course we’re going to do all of those other things. But why lose our opportune eddie? Allow someone to retire and give at their highest and best potential and celebrate and celebrate their service and their their their gift? Okay, would you hang out, take it, take sip waters, complicity from aroma while i do a little business, you just keep that. I give a lot to remember. It’s not it’s, not a paid, so we don’t have to disclose it. Um, so much more with melanie coming up first. Pursuant, they’ve got another free webinar. If this one is upgrade your best donors today with pursuant consultants chris taft and christian priest they’re gonna help you identify your donors who have the capacity and interest to do more for you maximize your resources as you engage the right prospects and fine tuning your prospect visits. This webinar is on tuesday, november fifteenth, at twelve central time. If you want to register, go to pursuing dot com and under resource is click webinars yet another free webinar from pursuing we’ll be spelling spelling bees for non-profit fund-raising these air, not your seventh grade spelling bee there’s live music, dancing, standup comedy fund-raising and of course, there is spelling woven in there as well. The’s air ideal for millennial outreach night you’ll love these things because you do them in bars restaurants, not your seventh grade spelling bee. Check out the video at we b e spelling dot com now tony steak, too. I’ve got more video interviews from the non-profit technology conference he’s a rond fund-raising i picked the brains of smart technology guests to help you raise more money. This is what we’ve got in this batch donorsearch vase to boost your revenue growing your sustainers revenue, smart email marketing and increasing donorsearch retention all for those group together my video with the links to each of these four video interviews is that tony martin durney dot com, and that is tony’s take two. Melanie, thank you for hanging in there. I love i just love that gift idea. I know i said it three times already, but i love that gift idea of the departure of a boardmember but, yeah, we can’t have the seventeen years service service members it’s it’s just it’s not right. It’s bad business. Well, you just mentioned millennials and as i think about boards again, some of the work that we do it, morgan stanley is developing these boards. There is not a board around today that’s not looking to bring young leadership onto the board, and some have young monisha advisory boards, even they have if they don’t, they should, and they don’t, they should, and millennials are feeling the pressure. Tony. They’re really feeling the pressure because they realize that these organizations are all looking at them right now, right? Like there is an eye on them to be safe metoo saviors i i go to conferences and there’s a panel of three millennials, and there has to speak for the whole thirty million court record three people supposed to represent the entire group, they’re representing their representing all of us both leadership from the past, and they’re going to be our future. So, you know, we need to be mindful of the pressure that we’re placing on them, but also but again, we need to recognize the opportunity. So as i think about boards and for, you know, the other nonprofit organizations, the organizations that that listened to your show that you serve bringing on young talent is incredibly important. But that common denominator right, you doesn’t necessarily mean that. Wow, that’s a person i want sitting on my board. So as i think about the colleagues on my team, even even craig was on my team was here in the studio with us today, when i think about, you know, how do we bring young talent onto non-profit boards? He gotta do the same personal assessment of them and that’s what i helped non-profits tio, we help them analyze the potential of a young boardmember so e-giving really almost like like a questionnaire and analysis. Who am i? What kind of boardmember could i be? What kind of time could i give? What kind of thoughts can i? Offer would i be intimidated? Sitting among ah board of people so much senior to me coming in and they’ve been there for sixteen years? Am i going to have a permanent gag order? Will i ever feel comfortable offering my opinion, having a voice at that table? So you need to really look at millennials who come on to your board if they’re going to join your big board and make sure that they have the potential to be an equal participating boardmember support the reassurance? Yeah, the coaching one of your ideas is that there be a board buddy system? I love talking about that. I love it! I love it it’s like anything else. When you learned how to swim, no one went into a pool on their own little diesel sensitive hands under me as i was kicking and flailing. I’m still i still i still need that i’m actually not very good even i live on the ocean i flail that the hands have grown but they’re a little different now of it’s the same i do love it well, maybe that’s because you should be using your feet more than your hands that’s a swimmer it’s really? The power comes from the feed from the from the from the legs, but you’re right, it’s that support underneath you until until you’re ready to swim on your own till you’re ready is from on the road. So it’s the same exact like to see a mentor assigned a banner different dahna mentor has a met buddy somebody now i heard friends or friends buddies wait friends of friends, pals, pals, buddies sleep together. Okay? That’s not that’s, not the kind of body. You know what? We’re going to keep this show really clean. Okay, so, so what’s going on? We’re not. We’re not talking about the word sleep that’s killing you, right? So blue. So it was the together part. It was together part, but in the bud washing room she’s really norvig it is mormon studio, but you’re blushing more now than you were ever best falik so the idea of a buddy system it’s not a mentor in it’s, not a sponsor. It’s it’s, not someone who’s going be there give you no guiding you your half and it’s not someone there who’s gonna sponsor you to take on a bigger role in the organization it’s someone who’s going to share with you what they went through when they were joining the board. So would he to know that? Like, when you walk, i’ll give you something. This amazing issue that people have when they first joining aboard, where do i sit? Oh, my god. I’m walking into this boardroom there’s ten board members to someone which we have assigned seats on by sitting in someone’s chair and that’s that’s their there right? How do i prepare for a board meeting? Should i come into notes all over the board book? They’ve dog tag in my book be all highlighted. Do i ask questions? Should i answer questions? I mean, all of these things that go on in someone’s head when they’re first joining aboard because remember, you’re joining a family aboard is a family. These are people who work together, live together, pray together, cry together, sometimes over the issues that they’re working on, and you’re the newcomer and your brand new and your brand new. So a body is someone who gives that kind of support. The first thing a buddy does is they find a seat for their buddy might. They walk in and they go, you know what? You’re going to sit right next to me, you’re going to sit right next to me that reassurance when you just walking for that first meeting, knowing that you got someone right next to you and who like whispers something in your ear, like, you know, by the way, don’t listen to that woman, you know, she doesn’t have a clue what the hell she’s talking about or oh, that guy talks about fund-raising but he hasn’t raised a dollar for this organisation in ten years, you know, that kind of insight on that thing kibitzing really help someone get comfortable and ease into their fiduciary responsibilities, sitting on the board outstanding because i wanted to talk about making explicit the responsibilities of the boardmember clearly the organization has responsibilities to the to the board with the boardmember has responsibilities to the organization, and they go way beyond fund-raising and we need to make these explicit on, i think, going back again to governance many organizations, even small organizations, right, even start up organizations recognized the need tohave policy, and they’ll perhaps even write policy they’ll feel, perhaps copy some other organizations policy and make it their own not knowing what to be in their policy, but at the end of the day, whatever their policy suggests that are the board members responsibilities should be in writing, why’s that so critically important because new board members, especially for small organizations, they need to understand. What am i supposed to be doing here? Like what is my role? The first critical role is to talk about raising money for some reason, we leave it for last we we nominate people to the board, we cultivate them. We’re so excited to bring them on. Sometimes we’re bringing them on because they actually gave a gift to the organization in the past, right? They were a donor to the organization, and then when we bring them onto the board all of a sudden, you know, we don’t talk about fund-raising i start, i lied with with fund-raising in fact, we have not policy usually usually there’s this give and get expectation on the board. I hate that word. I hate that word. Why what they mean by expectation? The reality is, if there is a need, then we should say there is board fund-raising policy and some boards will explicitly say how much the number is that they have to raise. They don’t necessarily have to say how they get the money. But, you know, every board needs to realize if there are ten, people sitting around this table and if there’s an expectation for us to each raise ten thousand dollars or five thousand or one thousand, you know, i don’t know how much some of the organizations who are listening might expect of their things are in the range so in the range, but let’s just say it’s ten let’s, say it’s ten because it’s easier for me to do that kind of mathos on dh there, sir. Ten people sitting around the table rights of ten thousand times ten. You could even do that math. Tony what’s. That number would be a hundred thousand. Well now, imagine formal difference. Wolber lorts right for michael. But both were former lawyers. Exactly. Imagine the difference in a non profit organization. If it every single year before it even had toe open its doors, it knew it had a commitment because the board understood that each of them had the responsibility and on dh. Not a goal, not an expectation, but the responsibility to get ten thousand dollars in that organization knew we have one hundred thousand dollars toward with that. Do you prefer to see those expectations as a dollar amount or something? You see the phrase personally significant gift each year? I like clarity. Ok? I mean, i’m all about being clear and concise. What i hope is that ten thousand is the floor, not the ceiling. Yeah. See, that’s the problem. If you if you say there’s a certain there is a responsibility to do that, that becomes the person ceiling. Exactly. I got ten thousand dollars. I’m done. So i’ve got ten thousand dollars in january and i could fall asleep for the next eleven months. Now, what do you do though if you have a diverse board in terms of assets and ability to give? Yes. And for some people with ten thousand dollars is a stretch. And for some people, it’s, you know, a remainder at the checking account at the end of the week. That’s, right. So so that’s. So now let’s, let’s. Go back to this ultra high net, worth enough people that we were talking. About the beginning of the hour right on policy in that regard doesn’t necessarily have to be the same for everybody, right? And when you’re recruiting a member to report when you’re recruiting someone and you know that they have the potential to give hyre than other board members, you’re i’m i’m very clear with that new board potential boardmember i will explain the composition, the board i want you understand who you’re gonna be sitting with, you’re going to be sitting with some people who are academics who don’t have the opportunity to give them selves significant, but man, they gave intellectual capital to this organization. We have some board members who can give, ah, small amount of money, but give their time and then and then you, tony, you know, you have a lot of time, you’re running a big business, you live in north carolina, you’re on the radio, you got a lot of people want your attention, right? Right, right. Sounds good. Sounds good with you was reality story. I’m creating a good narrative for drama you add to it is eyes intense it’s all about creating the factual was all factual but bring thrown creating the public narrative here creating the public narrative so around that story, i know you have the potential to give mohr, but you don’t have much time. You don’t live in new york, so you can’t always be here for board meetings. You can’t always be here for the volunteer events, so you know, you’re in north carolina, but you have the potential to give more. I would be very explicit with you, tony, i want you to understand something the required give for this board is ten thousand dollars, but one of the reasons that we want you on the sport is because we know you have some tremendous networks. We know that you’re very affluent, we know that you run a great business, we know that you don’t have a lot of time, so we want you to realize that we’re not going to ask is much time of us. We might be asking of other board members, but we do hope that you can give at a higher potential. And what do we embarrass about what it was like, seriously, what we embarrassed about asking, but we know it, right? We’re thinking it, but for some reason. Somewhere between our brain and our mouth, there’s there’s this disconnect, we can’t get those words out, and we know the person we’re talking to his thinking it because as i’m describing the diversity of the board, i know that the academics don’t have the capacity to give the hypothetical tony level that’s exactly right qualified with hypothetical that’s, right? So you’re allowing i know it, you know it let’s talk about the elephant in the room, it’s the elephant in the room, and instead we’re going to be professionals. We’re gonna be genuine, we’re going to be authentic and we’re going to be transparent, and if i’m going to allow you to serve in excellence, what i don’t want to happen is i don’t want tony in north carolina running a big business who says, wow, i feel totally guilty because there was, you know, a volunteer events today. We were going out and clean the park because we’re over the garden because we’re garden organs, unicorns i feel totally guilty. I wasn’t able to be there, and i wasn’t able to be there for the last three, you know, vegetable growing things and the flower cutting thing, but you know what i know i could dio i care about this organization. It was in my neighborhood when i was growing up. I want to be a big part of it. I could give more than other people can give, okay? Honesty, explicitness, professionalism. We’re adults here, all right, let’s, go out for our last break a little early, and then we’ll wrap it up. We’ll still have another, like, nine, ten minutes or so you hang in there. 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Welcome back, big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Melanie, i love these ideas. E-giving really excellent. Um, by the way, you didn’t mention beach either on the beach in north carolina? Yes, i got it going. Address mamatoto the hypothetical means well, at that additional layer of fact and the view outside of your window. And now now you’re able to sleep with that with the shutters open because it’s getting a little bit cooler for indoor sliding doors, we could definitely do a fundraiser at your beautiful beach house in north carolina. Thank you so much for offering europe. Thank you for offering. I appreciate that. We’ll take that. We’ll take that done. Done. Let’s, not get aggressive. We’ll not only martignetti non-profit here not only taking we’re going where you already admonished me. Aboutthe sex joke that’s, right? We’re not gonna take it, but but at a gala we’re gonna raffle your home ofthe to somebody with a beautiful beach. Um, let’s show that our organization measures its own results, shows its impact assesses it’s assess its its effectiveness to the new potential investor etcetera that we might be trying to entice yes, so effectiveness. And measurement, right? So many conversations about this, i’m sure that you’ve had conversations like this on your range a lot we have, but it bears repeating buy-in impact reporting and measurements. Ok, so so we might have a slightly different opinion than many of the companies that are in the measurements reporting business. Go ahead and i’m gonna give you the opinion from the ultra high net worth jonah, right? So that’s, where we spend much of my time, our staff spends much of our time at morgan stanley. I’m you would think that the wealthy or someone is the more be the big bank accounts that they have the brokerage statements that they get. They always want all these reports. The reality is they don’t read them, they don’t read them, and i’m not saying everyone that no one reads them right. So their trust advisors, i might be reading them on behalf of the donor, but the ultra high net worth donor-centric ng all of your energy on it goes on red. So most of ultra high net worth donors want to know that you’re being effective, right? They want to know that if they have a connection to this organization. You’re not doing anything fraudulent, right? Just not doing anything. Fraud, that’s, that’s a that’s a floor that is the floor, right? That’s the floor. They want to know that their money is going to be making a difference, right? That there’s something that their gift is going to be accomplishing of the organization, that if you did not have their gift, you couldn’t do it right, like there’s. Just something else that was that might not have been able to have been happening. But the most important, the most important again is the relationship that they have with the person who’s making me ask or the relation that they have with someone on the board. So they look at these relationships and time and time again, they go back to, even if we might be doing a deep analysis on the impact of the organization and ah, qualitative and quantitative analysis of their work. If an ultra high net worth client has a relationship to the organization, if they have relations in person who’s asking him for the money or they have relation with a boardmember or they’ve had a relationship with the cause, the cause is done something for them personally for their family, all of the statistics there, not as relevant. And i’ll tell you why because we think about how doe i compared to another organization doing similar work. So if i went to will go back to the example of autism, if there was ah, community center in my neighborhood that was working with a small group of children ages zero to five and on and i had a friend whose daughter went to that school and i saw the impact it made on my friend’s life doesn’t matter if there’s another bigger organization working on autism, finding the research, doing the working towards the cure? No, because it’s so it’s, so easy for me t sting you wish between why this organization first another not because i don’t want to know that there’s going to be a cure, but i have that connection to this organization where my friend’s daughter excels, so it goes back to what we’ve been speaking about. Beginning results matter metrics absolutely matter when you’re looking for very large gifts, he need to make sure that you could back, huh? What you’ve accomplished with someone’s donation. But the end of the day working on that relationship nine times out of ten is what an ultra high net worth persons looking for just like a high net worth person or a low networth person. They’re looking for the relationship, the connection. We want to reassure our volunteers that their time is going to be used wisely, efficiently that we we support our volunteers, are meetings or efficient let’s talk a little about a little about overcoming some of the objections that people might have to volunteer like like thie perception is that all the volunteers are retired and they have lots of time um, the job’s right there, or or there where their home with their kids so so during the breaks with their kids, like they’re trying to find meaning in their lives and those of the people you should be asking for a volunteer, not me so much right away over how do we isn’t non-profit overcome that objection. So so i don’t want to assume that that mom’s at home who have tremendous potential to volunteer, really, who have no time because it’s the busiest, it’s it’s the hardest job on the face of the universe to be at home with your children that’s why i never stayed home with my children. Ah, much easier for me to go into morgan stanley, but ultimately, volunteers is going be an issue if your children listening to this is going to cause any but it could be something the family you know what? That when it was so so ryder and talk, i just want you to know later in life when when you’re lying on the couch just say it was because my mom just it was because of my mom don’t spend all the money saving himself gave all the money out of time and money save all the money and going back to the volunteers we confined volunteers anywhere, right? And the problem that that i see non-profits have is they don’t have an established volunteer program, right? They don’t know how to maximize the effort and the energy of their volunteermatch base. So if we are going after established individuals who have very, very busy lives and you want them to volunteer for a particular purpose, then outline what is the project, the program, the day, the hour than you want them. To spend maybe it’s doing a radio show like this, right? Like maybe it’s coming into your studio and spending one hour with you talking about the work of their organization man is that away toe volunteer and to volunteer in excellence, but many organizations who have who bring in a lot of volunteers, they become their staff to some extent, they’re not spend the time giving their volunteers thie the preparation to be really good volunteers, so even small organizations that are run by predominately of volunteer base volunteers could get lost. They don’t understand, you know, how am i going to be useful to this organization? So if they go into a small school or if they go into a library, let’s make it into a library, so i’m going to volunteer for a library in my neighborhood and, you know, i’m not a librarian, right? And i don’t know how to use the dewey decimal system anymore, right? To even use the library library. I don’t rememberthat night except duitz one through nine, right? That’s because we’re old on the card, the card catalogue. I’d love to go to court catalogue sametz just glide out so nice. There, all wood with the satiny brass fixture on if you pull the handle out, a lot of little tag inside the little it’s little frame. And if someone was eating like an oreo cookie, there was like that love thumbprint, right? Greystone think dahna car in the little time we well, i i don’t know what they use that anymore in our libraries. So when you’re going into a library, you know what? How you could be volunteering in a library and making sure that the volunteers that come in there, that there’s real potential for them tio feel to feel effective. The one opportunity teo do that is tripoint someone who is going to be the leader of their volunteers, right? Who is responsible for this incredible, incredible group of people who are going to be our staff for free, right? So someone needs to be assigned to be responsible for those volunteers they could check in with them. They give them their work orders. They evaluate them. They let them know what they’re being good. Volunteers, bad volunteers. How they could improve their volunteerism. So there’s accountability and and and support absolute. Okay, we have just like a minute and a half left and i want to how do how does that non-profit get the attention of the kinds of people were talking about? And we just have, like, a minute or so let let them realize that if they’re working in the space of on dh educating kids, health care, the feeding, the poor, those are issues that ultra high net worth individuals care about, right? We have to stop thinking that small non-profits need to be in the shadow of the large, established organizations ultrahigh networks care about the issues. How do we get their attention for our small roger’s warnings and make sure that we have stories there are powerful, so if you’re going to use social media, if you’re going to use volunteers to get the message out and advocate, if you’re going to use a letter writing campaign, be concise, be clear creating a public narrative that lets them understand why they are different than other bigger organizations, and make sure that you’re getting that message out to people not just mass but, you know, make it very pointed, so clarity, concise transparency and advocate for your organization because small organization’s matter. As much as the large ones, the ninety five percent matter. What is your twitter id? Melanie espy got melanie s begun. Mm. For morgan stanley at melanie s begun. Bj u n m s thank you very much, craig. Melanie, thank you so much. Great to have you back. Good luck this weekend. Thank you. And i appreciate your not coming on my hair. By the way, i’m dying. I have a second. So i have to just tell our listeners when i first met tony when we first became friends short cropped hair. Now it’s beach fundez mario. Probably like a lion like a lion next week. Eight areas of non-profit excellence. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers ideal for millennia. Ls we b e spelling dot com our creative producers clam hyre off. Sam liebowitz is the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. And this music is by scott stein of brooklyn. Be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Yeah. 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 right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo 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 November 4, 2016: Increasing Your Donor Retention & Social Media For Year End

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Rachel Clemens & Sean Doles: Increasing Your Donor Retention

Keeping the donors you have saves money and increases efficiency over acquiring new ones to replace them. Retention tactics come from Rachel Clemens, president of Creative Suitcase, and Sean Doles, vice president of mission advancement at YMCA of Austin. We talked at the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week, marcus t coleman jr he tweeted, if you work for work with or support non-profits you should give twenty martignetti is podcast i listen insightful and practical interviews, marcus, thank you so much for that insightful, impractical that’s. Um, but that’s that that says it, i mean wonderful and magnificent would be would be called keeping cubine tra in context with the superlative culture that we have but insightful, impractical. I do appreciate that. Thank you very much. Non-profit radio is in the white house with marcus because he works for the white house office of faith based and neighborhood partnerships. So cool he’s at mt coleman jr marcus, thank you so much for loving non-profit radio very appreciative. Congratulations on being our listener of the week oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with book arai assis if you wormed in with the idea that you missed today’s, show increasing your donor retention, keeping the donors you have saves money and increases efficiency over acquiring new ones to replace them. We all know that retention tactics coming from rachel clemens, president of creative suitcase, and sean dole’s, vice president of mission advancement at y m c a of austin. We talked at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference and social media for year end amy sample ward returns from maternity leave with social strategies that close out your twenty sixteen and align with your critical fourth quarter fund-raising she’s, our social media contributor and ceo of inten, the non-profit technology network on tony’s take two new non-profit technology conference fund-raising videos responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers wee bey e spelling dot com from the non-profit technology conference. Here are rachel clemens and sean dole’s talking about donor welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc the non-profit technology conference this interview is also part of ntc conversations. We’re in san jose, california, at the convention center. My guests now are rachel clemens and sean dole’s that’s very nice wave wave to sean metoo dignified coming from austin you’re supposed to do who you are. Right, it’s. All right. Rachel is president at creative success non-profit communications firm. Creative suitcase. What did i say? Creative success also. Creative success. Very successful case right there. All right, let’s. Try it again. President. Creative suitcase non-profit communications firm and sean dole’s is vice president of mission advancement at the y m c a of austin. Welcome, rachel. Welcome, sean. Thanks, feminist. You’re very welcome. We’re going to get to your topic on dahna retained shortly very shortly. But i have to shout out the swag item for this interview, which is from phone to action and a cardholder for the back of your iphone. Of course. Peel off the adhesive and stick it. Stick it to your phone, and then you put your phone toe action business card in it or your subway metro card or your whatever other drivers license, et cetera. Very practical. Goes in the swag pile for today. That’s our ntcdinosaur pile it’s pretty good. It was bigger, but it got stolen overnight. You believe that? I had an auntie. I’ll score through the scarf. Got scarf. You can’t trust these non-profit folks know who’s after hours i was here, so i was. There till six. Thirty oppcoll okay, come back and see us increasing your donor retention, rachel, when we not getting quite right, some i’m not imputing all non-profits and all practices, but what are some non-profits not getting quite right about some of their donorsearch practices that are leading to too much attrition. So the reason we want to talk about this today was we work a lot with our clients to dio urine strategies or giving campaign strategies, and what happens is a lot of the times were doing the strategy we’re doing the design, and then we asked, what you going to do to cultivate these donors after the fact and there’s not a good plan for that. So what’s happening is they’re working a lot to get new donors in the door, but not necessarily working to keep the donors that they’re getting right, which is a problem. We have very high attrition rate right? Right? I’ve heard as high as seventy percent. You have you have a different number? Yeah, we have it. The number from bloomerang that forty three percent comeback for three percent fifty. Fifty seven percent. Lost right still over. Has still high. Yeah. That’s. Terrible. After all that work, i feel like it should be, like two or five percent, right? Yeah. Only because you know how much, shawn? Because we know how much it costs, of course. Toe replace a donor than to retain one. Right? It’s it’s. Infinitely more efficient to retain that donor. Keep them happy. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, let’s. Jump into some strategies. My voice just cracked again. Like thursday today. Jump. Okay. Reverse puberty. Twelve years old. Yeah. One of your wanted someone a reading from the recession description to expressing gratitude. Stewardship? What can we do better around stewardship? Let’s, start with you, sean. Well, i think first and foremost, you have to have an organized plan, and then you have to execute on that plan. You have tio be judicious. It has to be realistic in terms of its sustainability. Dahna it has to fit with your level of resource is whether it’s cost or staff time. It’s gotta be realistic. So you got you gotta. You gotta create the plan. Then you gotta execute on it. And you know if you can do that. You will see a tangible result from it, and and you have to be flexible along the way. Sometimes you you have the best intentions with a plan. And then reality gets in the way. You have to adjust your not going toe get to everything on your plan. Maybe. Or maybe you try something that you intended to do and it’s not working the way you had envisioned. You got to adjust, but donors will recognized the effort made to thank them, too. Communicate the impact of their gifts. They recognize that in it. And it is that that appreciation is manifested with recurring donation. What what types of things? Rachel belong in our are our stewardship plan strategy, right? So i think the first place is what are you going to do? What? The tastic tactics you’re going to put in place? So is sean mention thanking them so cumulative. Thank you’s, both online and off. So you might look a email strategies, impact videos, any sort of mfa graphics that might be appropriate to show impact. You also want to think about, huh? Okay, basically, the reason you want to do a lot of those things is that you want to remind them why they give in the first place. So thinking about why they might have given segmentation is also something to think about. So when they give the first donation, why are they giving you might ask them what particular focus area they have so that you can do many campaigns to them around those focus areas moving forward, so there’s air some tactics, and i think another key point is is personalization. To the extent that it is possible your organization’s may have thousands of donors, but to the extent that you can cut through and have a one to one communication to them that says, tony, thank you for your gift. Here is how you have made an impact on someone’s life, including if if we know if they’ve if they’ve given it to a certain campaign, right? We’re certain program recognizing that and and and i realize we’re at a non-profit technology conference, but in this day and age, something as traditional as a hand written note or a personal phone call such kari carries considerable currency and can be some of the most effective forms of stewardship that we could do. I’m a big fan of handwritten notes there, so they’re more effective now, then they then they were twenty years ago on the y has the benefit of having children as part of their after school campaign, so they’ll use kids will create bookmarks as part of can’t arts and crafts project. Hey, we got another arts and crafts project for you were making book bark, so we’re making placemats and we get a thousand kids making place mats and then we turn and we share them with our donors and anecdotally, those air, some of the most effective stewardship pieces that we create, people say our love, this bookmark it puts a smile on my face every time i you know, i’m flipping through the pages of my favorite novel, retouching of course it’s sweet it’s, handmade child made made in the usa what’s not to, like made in austin, texas. That’s. Right? All right, all right. What else? Stewardship meet such a broad topic? How else should we be thanking our donors and in the process? You know, as you point out, rachel were cultivating them suddenly for their next gift. So what else can we say about stuart, i think another thing to consider our reactivation campaigns or win back campaign, so for example, if if you’ve got a large database, but you’re not getting a lot of engagement from that database, segmenting those those donors in the database that you would consider an active so you would define what makes an active donorsearch o r there’s someone who’s given in the last year, they opened our emails, click right? You take the enact of bunch and you take them through reactivation campaign. So basically, you say, hey, we haven’t heard, you know, we haven’t. We’ve missed you. Um, we’d like to re a connect with you or this is the last time you’ll hear from us, and at that point you’re asking them toe op back in you’re not asking them to opt out, you’re asking them to say, i still want to get information from you on, but once you do that, you can take him through sort of a re welcome siri’s or something like that that would basically re engage them, get them interacting, opening things again before you go and ask for money can go it’s, not an effort, teo ask for money right out the gate. Okay, so it’s more just trying to get some engagement. Yeah, show that they’re still interested. Okay, okay, education. Re connect them to the cause. 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 t i g e 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. And, you know, from the outset, i think they’re several different ways you can approach this categorically one is kind of short, medium and long range, you know, the immediate recognize mission, the immediate thank you letter or communication, it goes out then what’s going on what’s going to be going out on a monthly or quarterly basis. Other other ways to conceptualize it are the online versus offline, you know, there’s a handful of things that, you know, like i mentioned the note, the phone call, you know, in in our organization, we recognize major donors by hanging banners in our wine say facilities might walk into a gymnasium or a swimming pool area, and you see a big banner on the wall many, you know, museums or schools have different sign inch opportunities so there’s there’s, you know, and then they’re they’re all the online tools now that are available. There’s obviously, emails where you can communicate impact stories, whether it’s us, short form digital videos, your email, communications, social, social media where you’re recognizing a donor through your social media channels. Dahna you’re doing much with the video in this in this category there’s a stewardship and cultivation we we do it in a way we do a lot, and it about two years ago it became ah, strategic focus for us. When we saw that, you know, we could send out an email that would have lines of lines and lines of text, and it would have a certain sort of open raid or click through rate, or we put a video there and the, you know, the open rates or the quick through rates were astronomically hyre so would much rather quick on the video watch it even if they only sit there for thirty seconds or a minute. So we put a big emphasis on video. And so we we created dahna a program that we called project fifty to which was essentially a goal of creating ah video and sending it out once a week, fifty two weeks a year that would communicate some ass aspect of impact and who was the scent, too? This would be sent to two donors or specific segmented groups within our within our donor or within our stakeholder based people that might have expressed a specific interest in water safety or childhood obesity or family that we don’t you know, we like most non-profits we don’t have tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy advertising, teo, tell these stories to the community, so we had to figure out cost efficient, cost effective ways to get these stories out. And so that’s one way that we’ve done that another way, you know where i was trying to regional it sounds like you had yeah, look like you want to say something e o i was actually going toe have him speak about how they’re doing thank you videos for their donorsearch i was the other piece of it that in addition to that, we’ve done some very, very simple. What were we no budget videos using a phone smartphone? Yeah. Ah, where we take a group of kids that summer camp we give him ah poster that says, you know, thank you, mr jones, for making our summer, you know, remarkable and, you know, it’s a one minute video that you then personally email to this major donor doing the video just for that person just for that person. Yeah. And that on social it took a minute to do that video and we were we would do twenty of those videos right to made me obviously, if you’ve got thousands of donors, you can’t do it wrong, but your major donors and it can make a huge difference. They share that with their friends, their family, and then they’re going to love that, and the production value doesn’t matter if it’s in this day and age it’s accepted, i have i have a lot of guests who say low production values find its sincerity right, hart, authentic genuineness, authentic that’s what that’s, what really grabs people not you know you don’t need to make a makeup lights. Yeah, they’re used to cat videos. I mean, we’re fine this’s that moves us, it doesn’t have to be high production value, too, to be enormously moving and a great, great choice, okay, anything else around the thank you’s? The gratitude i would just add one thing coming from a visual communications background is to make whatever you’re producing to make it his visual or as compelling as you can. So there’s a lot of especially in austin, we have over six thousand non-profits there’s, a lot of noise in our space sustaining out can be tricky e-giving people, things they can engage with or that looks like something they’d want to share goes a long way just that visual communication is really important. I think sometimes it doesn’t get the web is visual. Yeah, people stand, they don’t read you kidding this thing’s going to click video? Yeah, i think the other thing too back-up actually one of the things that’s most crucial and dahna retention is actually making that first give really simple and really easy. So making the give process online like if they’re going to come through your donation page making sure that donation page the user experience on that page is optimized for your user where they don’t have to think too hard. They have to do too much work, making it super simple no again making it visually interesting. Maybe you add delight factor. There’s organization called saturday place has a great little donation feature. You hit their donation page and is very visual. You have a sliding scale of dollar amounts so you can play with it and see how the impact changes. Oh, so you slide the scale and what happens is little pictures. Yeah, there’s little icons. The change. And so it might be like apples, so you’re you’re providing lunches for saturday place or along the other side. They have they have different categories so you can provide basics, which is the lower dollar amounts or at the very high end, you can provide futures so that i mean, wow, right, that’s pretty cool. So and so, as your slideshare seeing different icons? Yeah, you’re seeing them change based on what you’re giving her. What the impact is wonderful, it’s really good, you know, the other piece of that is at the entry point designing your systems so that you can collect information that will help you. You segment to your donor’s mohr, effectively, whether you are using an offline old fashioned pledge card that maybe has a section where people can indicate what areas of focus our of of key concern to them or in your online donation page, maybe pull down menu where they have the option of selecting, you know, identifying that, you know, out of school time or or educational enrichment is of your concern to them then subsequently, when you were we’re going through your stewardship plan, you can maybe segment that group and share some some impact stories with them that are particularly that air going toe particularly speak to that to that audience so segmentation personalization, but designed that into the process from the very beginning. Okay, surveys could be valuable there, too, if you have maybe you haven’t built into the to the process where you have some donors for whom maybe they didn’t answer the question or you weren’t doing it then. But, you know, simple, like five six question surveys i’ve heard this a couple of times from a few different guests easy, you know? But you have to keep up. You have to keep your promise if they say this is the programs i’m interested in or i only want to hear from you at holiday time, you know, don’t get them in february when they talked about, you know, december, their preferred month. I think people can also use their thank you pages after a donation as a way to get some of that demographic information. So for example, they’ve just given to you, they just engaged with you. Maybe you don’t want to do it on the front end in the donation page section because you’re worried about having more fields or whatever the case may be. So putting those making that thank you, paige, work for you. You could try testing. You know, some of the segmentation questions after the fact after the way they don’t have to open a separate email survey. You know, maybe just put it right there. Could test how many d’oh. Okay? Because the reality is, the more questions you ask up front, the more boxes you require them to check the mohr attrition. You’re going ritual saying make a donation process simple. Yes. And after now, i’ve given my gift now that was thoughtful enough to ask you, how many times a year to our do they want? Do i want to hear from them? What times of yes, the moment they feel best. Right? Right? Yeah. They’re feeling great. And they’re giving moment. Yeah. That’s. What? It could be a valuable test. Excellent. Let’s. Move. Teo yeah. I had a plan for an implement. Sustainer sustainers campaigns. We talkabout reactivation kapin about your sustainers program. What do you we know how valuable those are, right. Month after month. Just giving five dollars, twenty dollars? You know, whatever. I think the keating house, any plan is to have a plan. I mean, truly that’s where a lot of it breaks down. You know, you might have a goal to make. Increase your sustainers but it all comes down to the processes that are underlying, you know, foundation for making those things happen. So making sure you have ah, you know, a marketing template that you can work off of that you’re building a plan every time you’re getting stakeholder input into that plan, you could probably speak more to the actual implementation. Well, like, you know, in one instance, y m c a. We have facility members. We have what is essentially a sustaining member ship, that we will mark it several times. You really emphasize that toe where somebody would be paying, say, an additional ten dollars a month on top of there, traditional y m c a membership dues, right? And so in in, in order to recognize them, they get a special membership card that they swipe every time they come in, they get a special shirt there’s several other ways that we recognize them had become sort of ah, conversation piece for them and in a continual reminder of their support for the why i will run several very finite, you know, tightly plans many campaigns throughout the year like one around water safety coming up on this time of year one is we approach summer camp one is we approach after school care one at the very end of the year and will utilize the segmentation there so so that we’re only hitting those audiences that indicated we cared about water safety we cared about, you know, you know, the summer in richmond, right? And so we’re not creating donorsearch a t hg where, you know, a single donor feels like us you’ve you’ve asked me twelve times this year to give you money, you know? Wait, ideally, maybe we’ve asked them twice on specifically for the program save right expressed interest in yeah, again segmentation, yeah, for the sustainers thing i think one thing that’s interesting if you look at the younger audiences, you know, they grew up paying for things monthly, and they’re used to streaming video and paying eight dollars a month for netflix, so i think thinking about maybe how you khun specifically target that age demographic for sustainers might be an interesting test, you know, like and in it there they’re used to self where is a service? You know, it’s sort of the same model, but in non-profit world? Yeah, just excellent. Yeah. You’re right there in the habit of yeah, of being just routinely build. Okay, we just have a couple minutes left. Something about anything more around. Oh, you have some ideas about digital automation deciding which tools are best for you. So, yeah, i think the thing about data and if you’re gonna have a plan, you’re gonna be able to track and measure that plan, right? So sean always says garbage in garbage out if you don’t have a good database that’s pulling in accurate and good data, then you’re not going to get very far. Eso we you know, we talked in the session about before you look at features for databases, really looking at what your needs are, what your goals are, and you need to make sure that if you’re in development, that you’re talking to the communications department as well, you’re dahna programs anybody that’s going to touch that data needs to have some upfront say about, well, how they’ll use it why they want it. What it’s going to do for them? S o before you look at features really looking at needs and goals, what are the paint points? What the problem is you’re trying to solve with this new data base, you know? And then the other key point there is, once you have the database in place and you’re able to extract data creating reports that are meaningful that you can use in actionable way. So in other words, we create report cards, so to speak, for each of our facilities for the campaigns they run as well as for our association, where we’re tracking dahna retention, we’re tracking, you know, major major gifts, number of major gifts, number of gifts under a thousand dollars. We have all these different metrics that then we can we can analyze and see what kind of patterns emerge and then use that information. That’s really it’s not anecdotal, it’s, not a gut your level hunch, it’s riel. And then we use that to formulate strategies that will improve our performance in the next campaign. So then we owe our major donor, you know, level percentage, major give percentage. Was down. We want to formulate some strategies that are going to address that little things like that will help us create riel pathways for improvement in the future. We got some templates were goingto have up on our where slides live ones, a marketing campaign temple and then someone in the session as sean to share templates for the report card. How can we share these there at creative suitcase dot com slash sixteen and tc? Okay, they’re also in our collaborative notes, okay, people here here for people who are here subscribed to ntc conversations, but otherwise creative suitcase dot com slash sixteen and t c you okay and what’s their marketing template. Yeah, one is, ah, word template is a marketing campaign template, so it’s, like, what are we trying to achieve, who our audiences is, what our risk. So it basically ask all the questions that are hard to get to on your own sometimes seem just fill those in. It talks about tactics, you start running with that, and then shawn, is it excel docks? E think it’s actually a word i have to look and see, but well, it’ll be a template for for establishing a report card for your campaign performance that’ll be in the same place. Okay, that’s a great resource. We’re gonna leave it there. All right? Sounds. Thank you. Alright. Rachel clemens. Sean dole’s. Rachel again is the president of creative suitcase non-profit communications and sean dole’s, vice president of mission advancement at the y m c a in boston. They’re both from austin. Sounds that’s rachel too. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us over sharing. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc the non-profit technology conference. Thank you for being with us. Social media for year end with amy. Sample ward is coming up first. Pursuant, they’ve got another free webinar for you. Upgrade your best donors today, it’s with pursuant consultants chris taft and christian priest and they will help you identify your donors who have capacity and interest in doing more for you. Maximize your resource is to engage the right prospects and fine tune your prospect visits it’s on tuesday, november fifteenth at twelve central and to register you go to pursuant, dot com under resource is click webinars and that when again is upgrade your best donors. Today we’ll be spelling spelling bees for non-profit fund-raising spelling bees with live music and dancing and stand up comedy and spelling monisha lt’s raising money for ugh, these air ideal for that because fund-raising is but this is all about is great fun, but it’s fund-raising as well. Check out their video we b e spelling dot com now it’s tony’s, take two, i’ve got more non-profit technology conference video interviews for you these are all on fund-raising donorsearch vase growing your sustainers revenue byway non-profit times just had a recent story from blackbaud sbi pecan unconference something like triple digit revenue hikes from sustainers, and they’re quoting chuck longfield who’s, the chief scientist at blackbaud, also a non-profit radio guest, all the smart people around non-profit radio s o sustainers revenue very, very timely and smart email marketing and dahna retention, which is today’s interview, but you could watch the video. They’re all from the twenty sixteen conference hosted by the non-profit technology network. Of course, my video on the beach introduces thes four videos and has links below it’s at tony martignetti dot com. And that is tony’s take two. The phone just rang and i know it was amy sample ward, maybe step award. How you doing? I’m doing well. How are you? I’m wonderfully thank you. Let me give you a proper introduction. Our social media contributor and ceo of inten, the non-profit technology network. Her most recent co authored book is social change any time everywhere about online multi-channel engagement she’s that amy sample ward, dot or ge and at amy r s board are for renee. Of course. Welcome back. Of course. Thank you. I’m glad to be back. Yes, that we did chat, you know, briefly on the three hundredth show, but now you’re officially back from maternity leave. Congratulations again. It’s. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. And and on that show, which was july twenty ninth, little lauren lewis was three months. That was his three month birthday s. So now, he’s. Just a little over six months, right? Yeah, exactly. Outstanding. Eso excited. So exciting for you and max. Wonderful. Yeah, it is exciting. And it is crazy that he’s six goes fast. I heared from all my friends who have children. I don’t know, personally, but my niece and nephew it does go fast. Yes. You have a little ah, little baby anecdote, little baby, orin louis anecdote. You want to tell her anything? Ah, that his peculiarities or anything? You sure? You know, i think every baby is different and he’s got he is certainly a product up his parents. When we meet up with other people that have babies, he is the only one who is constantly trying to talk, try to like, touch and engage all of the other big its crew. They’re all just lying there looking at him. Multi-channel he’s trying to talk to boys multi-channel engagement strategy has seen a lot of ourselves in him already. Cool. All right. That’s. Great. Multi-channel engagement. Listen. Seventeen ntc registration seventeen to twenty seventeen. Non-profit technology conference registration just opened. I note way want encourage people to go to that it’s an outstanding conference registration just opened three years ago on the first, and we’re already at record response. So we know this is going to be a really big ear. Excellent. All right. Just, uh, just he’s. Just this, like, weak or not? Even what? Today’s the fourth, right? So just in three days, you’re already ahead from this time last year, three days in last year o ahead from any year, yeah, standing, congratulations. Okay, so people goto and ten dot or ge and then i don’t even know do you have to click on the events tab? But now it just opens it and take you right there on the stage and ten dot org’s okay, go to the conference for pizza, but this one is in washington d c right? Yeah. It’s in washington, d c march twenty third through the twenty fifth and you know, dc is always our largest year whenever we go to d c because so many organizations air there or have partners there and feel like, you know, they’re they’re used to travelling there, so we know we always plan for the years that were in dc to be the biggest we’ve had, but it’s always like the biggest we’ve had until that year, so we know this year will be kind of the record that we’ve ever had until sometime in the future we go back, but yeah, it’ll be it’ll be fun. We’re planning all kinds of fun things. For this next-gen outstanding, always lots of hundreds of smart people speaking and it’s a very smart conference. So go and learn how to use technology wisely wiser in your social change work. That’s cool, i said, we want to talk about some some strategies that you have for year end social media um, and before we before we jump into, like, different strategies, i would like to start with how to evaluate whether we’re doing the right thing or not through our social engagement strategies. And you like google analytics for that? Yes, i mean, i think the biggest thing both kind of tio, this piece that you’ve brought up and more broadly to the idea of social media around you’re in campaigns it’s so frustrating and dishearten name to me when i see organizations or talked to organizations who are, whether it’s a you’re in campaign or any other time of the year and social media is like a compartment of itself it’s over, you know, on one side, and then you have, like, all these other people and and channels that you’re working on the campaign, and i feel like that’s, just setting yourself up to seo. Social media is invaluable toe, right? Because it’s not even a part of your plan and it wasn’t part of how you thought of the strategy, and it was only later that you were like, oh, gosh, we have this campaign going on let’s tweet a bunch about it, but that’s not that’s, not integrating right disintegrating social media into your campaign, you know, that still an after thought, and i think, um, just recognizing that you wouldn’t say, okay, we’re going to launch this fund-raising appeal for the end of the year, and we’re not going to tell anyone who’s going to work on the e mails related to it until, like, the day of, well, you would never do that. So why’re you doing that with all the social channels, you know, here don’t make social a step child? Thanks. Well, just don’t make it a separate no don’t help integrate. Integrate. Yeah, yeah, right. So so in our planning way want to build in analytics? Yeah. Okay. What? What? What advice do you have around specific? You are l’s? Or how would you like us to do this? Yeah. There is a lot with with google analytics. That you can do i mean, first, i always think you should go into planning campaigns with some sort of information already. So looking at your google analytics before you start planning your campaign to say, okay, gosh, what parts of the site are people using? I’m sure many organizations have a donate page that’s up year round, you know, our people even going to it to the rest of the year if they’re not then putting your year and campaign information on that donate paige is probably not going to get a lot of eyes right because no one’s going that way. So do some of your homework before you start planning using google analytics looking how people are using your site, but then also, you know, google analytics separates out traffic, evaluate what kind of social traffic you have for us, say direct links, which a direct link is often you know, that you sent him emails and someone had a direct link into your sight. We have to search or anything, so figure out what that incoming traffic flow is like now, because otherwise you’re going to spend planning your campaign, you’re going to want you and be like, oh gosh, we have all these people visiting our website. Well, maybe you already had that be visiting your website. You know you’re not gonna have anything to really inform your evaluations think doing some homework first on how people are using this i and also how people are getting to the site if they’re coming from social channels, they’re coming from email so that when you plan, you plan with those pieces in mind and then once you’re running the campaign it’s really not difficult, and there are plenty of resource is if if you want some step by step guides on using google analytics to set up what are called campaign girls so that you can instead of just always writing, for example, and tend that order, you can have a longer you are all that is still just sending people same page, but that girl has some important code, innit for google analytics, so it knows this is a link that you’re only using on social media for this specific pain, you know, here’s a different version of that code in that girl that you’re going to put in your email and that way you can say okay, we’re all obviously sending people as much as we can to the donate page or two, you know, to the ntc page. Um, but we’re able to look in guru bilich cincy, okay, a lot of the people that are coming are coming from social media, and those are the ones who are, you know, staying and going to the register page, etcetera, and then these folks coming from email, you know, they’re not coming as much or or whatever the situation is, but using the campaign you or else we’ll help give you so much more information about who’s responding, who’s coming to that page and how they’re taking action, okay? And it xero so it sorry, yeah, you’re you’re monitoring where they’re coming from and where they’re going to all in that bowling, that girl because of where you because we were in place because where you place it? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Brilliant. Okay. And there’s, of course. There’s tons to be said about google analytics. I think i think i’ve got an interview from one of the ntc on google analytics. I know we have one on google adwords, but separate. I know there’s. We could i know we could do ours on google analytics. Oh, totally. And like i said, there are resources to help give you some step by step if you’re new to using it. But it’s google analytics is free. You should be using that, and it does not take on incredible amount of technical knowledge to get it set up. You just have one little line of code you need to add to your website, and then your account is activated and you and you could do all this tracking. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Any you mentioned resource is do you know any off the top of your head that you can recommend? Yeah. I’m happy tio tweet a few and sent him to you to post up with the the archive. But with the takeaways, i could put him on the facebook page. Okay, you know, if you’re okay that you could do that? Sure. Um, okay, is there any other point you want to make about the analytics before we get into actually doing the campaign work? Well, i guess the last point that i’ll make kind of to wrap it back up to where we started is that if you don’t do that homework at the beginning to create some sort of benchmarks when you launch the campaign and you’re trying to kind of report out to staff or even your board about how well it’s going it’s going to feel really arbitrary to say, one hundred people from social media donated, right? Well, great. What is that compared to before the camera? That, yeah, so do that homework so that you could be informed in your planning, but also so that you can kind of report against that benchmark, you know? So so you’re reporting makes sense and has some context. Okay, very good. If we’re going to do this as part of a campaign, then we need to have consistency across all our all our channels, right? Yeah. I mean, one thing i always think about just in our own planning it and ten is that regardless of the age, demographic and regardless of the channel, that the donation comes in. So even if somebody is going to write you a physical check, the majority of people still go to your website before they make that donation. So even if they are following you on social media and that’s where they saw the ask and they’re going to do it online donation people are still kind of following up on your ask and and what it is that you’re potentially working on before they donate. And so the the huge opportunity there is to recognize that you’re not necessarily always going to know where they saw that ask and what is it? What other piece of your work they’re evaluating? So creating some consistent experience around that is huge, and it doesn’t take a ton of work. Most organizations are already going to create some sort of collateral or brandy material for their campaign, so making sure that you have those same images in the right dimensions, right cause, of course, every platform wants to have its own particular dimensions, but so that your facebook banner, you know, has an image that reflects your campaign. Maybe you are, you know, to use a pretty standard example for your ad campaign there’s, a family that you serve and you’re telling their story in your appeal letter, right? So making sure that maybe a quote from that story that’s really compelling as a standalone quote is in your facebook, the inner and your twitter banner has a reference of the same campaign. So wherever folks are kind of touching into the campaign and then moving around to evaluate if they do want to donate their there, seen the same, uh, appeal. Not that it’s, like exactly the same image over and over, and they’re just getting sick of it. But you’re within that same world of the campaign instead of heading over to your twitter page and having it be about your last event, hate and it is completely unrelated and doesn’t speak to the same thing. Okay, very good. Tomorrow, let’s, go out for our break, and when we come back, i’ve got live listener love. Of course, the live love has to go out and me, and i’ll keep talking, including integrating offline, you’re offline support for your social support for your year end campaign. 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 neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech 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. Lively conversation, tap trends, sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. I’m melanie schnoll begun managing director morgan stanley philantech management. Melanie schnoll begun is next week’s guest for the hour all right, the live listener love it’s gotta go out it’s all over the world. It’s amazing. May where we’re starting, we’re going to start a broad protest it i don’t know if i’m saying it right. Testy romania love it kayman jin germany guten tag the live listener love goes out also to norway. We can see the city but i really don’t want to mispronounce it g et u p h e norway live listen, her love to you philippines we got craze on city. Istanbul, turkey. Milano, italy, seoul, south korea, on io haserot, of course, comes a ham nida also ottawa nation’s capital canada. Checking in ottawa live listener love to you, iran. I’m sorry. We cannot see your city. But we know that you are with us. Coming into the u s st louis, missouri, rosedale, new york, binghamton, new york, new york, new york. Unbelievable. New york. Thank you for that new york love it’s going out to you. Thank you for bringing it in. It’s going out, including new york, new york. Love that. Thank you. College station, texas with us live love. Eugene, oregon not oregon. I heard i was on a bus yesterday, and somebody said she was taking jetblue to oregon and i wanted tap on the shoulder corrector no it’s, oregon, eugene, oregon live listen, love going to you okay? And, of course, on the heels of the live listen, love comes the podcast pleasantries because how could we not say thank you to its really its more than ten thousand now? The numbers are going up it’s more like twelve thirteen thousand i make it official, but i want to see if it sticks before i start boasting, but we certainly have had shows where they’ve been twelve close to thirteen thousand listeners. Yes, is that consistent? Not quite, but were spiking. So podcast pleasantries to the many tens of thousands one point three, ten thousands listening. Thank you so much. Whatever activity you’re doing whenever you listen in your time shift. Thanks for being with us and the affiliate affections to our many am and fm station listeners throughout the country, including in oregon, i mentioned yugi eugene, oregon live. Listen, love, we’re on a station in salem, oregon, so if you were listening on one of the am and fm affiliates affections to you. Thank you so much, kayman sample ward. Um, here we are and, uh, let’s move along to ah what’s your next you threw out another strategy. Go ahead. What else? You want to talk about social media wise for our year end campaign? Sure. Well, i think one thing that we’ve seen organizations kind of struggle with or unnecessarily struggle with that kind of stumble with is how to balance their own kind of full year and campaign with these e-giving days that are now more prominent so e-giving tuesday often is happening kind of in the middle of people ar e having their own urine campaign, and then sometimes towards the end of the year, sometimes at other times of the year, you know, different states or regions have their own kind of local giving day. And so how do you balance all the effort that goes into, you know, even just a single giving day and having visibility and donors on that with what we’re already running for six weeks? Kind of an end of your campaign, and i think that that is tricky. I think it it requires planning. For that day, when you’re doing your full end of your campaign, if you’re going tohave, you know, six weeks is your end of your campaign knowing okay in week three e-giving tuesday is happening, so is there may be a version of our campaign ass that we want to reserve, as are kind of giving tuesday version of the ask so that it feels like, you know, an opportunity to make an additional asked during the campaign that otherwise maybe would have felt like too many asked, right? Because you’re kind of taking advantage of that day versus feeling like, you know, okay, we’re going to create a whole separate giving tuesday campaign. I think organization should try to be really realistic about their capacity, because e-giving days in and of themselves take a lot of effort, and your primary effort is probably going to be your own and of your campaign, but not necessarily completely avoid it. If it is something that’s going to give you a little bit more attraction, or like i said before, an opportunity to maybe make a different version of the ass that gives you one more touchpoint during the campaign, so planning is important and also being realistic about what your team can do, you know, you maybe, you know, maybe you need to pass on giving tuesday or something else in your in your year and strategy, you know, be realistic. I mean, you know, it’s the same thing we’ve talked about so many times, like shiny object syndrome, you know, in in the social channels, no, you can’t do everything in your year end campaign that you might like, so plan and be realistic and, you know, obviously get the get those the input of the people who are going to be doing the work one i think the other part about being realistic there is that for, you know, the vast majority of organizations that bulk of donations for your end of your campaign aren’t coming the first week of december, they’re coming the last week of december. So the timing of giving tuesday as the tuesday right after thanksgiving may not be the most high traffic time or your donor’s anyway. So thinking about that, too, do not have unrealistic expectation that, you know, that’s going to become your your bigot e-giving day now, and if it isn’t you know what? What do you want on giving days that made on giving tuesday? Is that a day like you said, you know, to skip because for your community it’s not worth it? Is it for your community an opportunity to maybe make a really small, ask and get people that otherwise wouldn’t give to give just ten dollars, and then you can ask them again before the end of the year? You know, i think there’s different ways to kind of use giving tuesday as a test for your community, but for most organizations who are running a full end of your campaign that’s just going to be one little blip in the longer campaign, it could also be for something smaller and non non non financial, maybe it’s, maybe it’s a signing of a petition or maybe it’s volunteering, maybe maybe use giving tuesday is a volunteer recruitment day. Totally, i think that’s a great idea because it led people deal like they’re still participating in that day and they’re still contributing to the organization, but maybe those are the folks who wouldn’t give for soon, and they’re not going to otherwise respond to ask, yeah, and so leading up to giving tuesday and and that day, you’re taking a little break from from from the money asks, and then you get back to it. Okay, um, okay, anything else you got in that? In that respect? Um, i mean, no, we could we could talk. I mean, i want to be conscious of time and talk a little bit about offline, too, because i think a few great pieces from the interview earlier in the show today, okay, let’s do that. Okay? Like, let’s, go there, the piece about cards, you know, and thinking about those riel physical touches that make make it so much more meaningful. Um, i’m such a i’m such a big such a big proponent of the hand written note on dh and the small card that you can do, you know, you know, you don’t starita blanket and a half by eleven inch page on your on your screen and feel like i have to fill it with words for the next forty forty minutes. Yeah, it’s one or two sentences on a on a little note size card and then a matching envelope i mean, hand written envelope it’s it’s enormously touching me. Sean dole’s, sean and shauna. Rachel both said it, but yeah, i’ve been a fan of that for a long time. It’s quick, it’s, genuine and sincere and it’s uh, extraordinary. It just doesn’t happen anymore, so you’re standing on when that we’ve tried is specifically when it comes to kind of year end things, of course we love at and then we love sending cards and stickers and things all year round, but when it comes to the end of your things picking a threshold like fifty dollars or five hundred dollars, whatever is your makes sense as a line for your organization and saying, ok, anybody at that number above is going to get a handwritten card and then because that takes slightly more capacity, but then we’ll also pick a day, usually before people go off line for the holidays so, like, you know, maybe the seventeenth or the eighteenth of december and anyone who was donated by then we divide up among staff so that every staff person only has, you know, eight or twelve people, and everybody just called to say thank you for donating doesn’t ask for another gift, doesn’t the purpose of the call is just to say thank you and, you know, as you can imagine, eight times out of ten, you’re getting a voicemail anyway, because people are at work or whatever, but we get such incredible response. From people saying, oh, my gosh, you actually called to thank me for it just donating because otherwise donating is pretty human list, right? You just goto you got an email, you went to a website, you, you know, putting your credit card like you didn’t interact with anybody. So being able to have a card or a phone call to say thankyou makes it feel like we saw that you gave that gift right? And that i think, is a really powerful thing is that people have people recognize that someone’s paying attention, right? They know that i made this gift and i am seen by this organization. I think that for a year on campaign, when there’s so many messages out there and, you know, so many different competing asks it can make people really remember you that’s where we have to leave it outstanding. I agree the offline on, and it is fun. It could be a lot of fun. She’s amy sample ward, ceo of inten at amy sample ward, dot or ge, and at amy rs ward. You still got it. You haven’t lost it since the spring loved having you love having you back. She’s gone already you believe that you hung up on us? I think you’re cutting all the way cutting out so i don’t know if i could say anything ever having. Very welcome and i was saying you didn’t you haven’t lost it since the spring next week. Next week, as i said, melanie schnoll begun how to appeal to high net worth people also next week please vote whoever for it’s important. Get out, please vote. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com the beseech got lost the past couple weeks. I don’t know what happened to beseech but it’s back if you’re not responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez and this cool music is by scott stein. Thank you for that scottie 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 to 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 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 expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five.

Nonprofit Radio for September 30, 2016: Boost Revenue With Donor Surveys & Discovery Visits

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with santa chromium if you joined us me with the mere notion that you missed today’s show boost revenue with donorsearch vase john hayden and rachel muir reveal how to smartly and effectively survey your donors to increase revenue and grow your major gift pipeline. John is the ceo of inbound zombie, and rachel is vice president of training at pursuant that was recorded at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference and discovery visits thes one on one meetings are critical to your prospect research maria simple, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder make sure you’re getting the most out of them that originally aired on july tenth twenty fifteen tony take two twitter responsive by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers for non-profits we be spelling dot com? Here are john hayden and rachel muir on boosting revenue with donorsearch vase welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Coverage of sixteen ntc it’s the non-profit technology conference with the convention center in san jose, california with me now are john hayden on rachel bure. John hayden is yeah dahna ceo founder. Easy everything of inbound zombie. And rachel bure is vice president of training at pursuing before we begin with john and rachel, you have to do our a swag item of the of the interview, which you may have noticed a big, big green glass from wind streams. And inside is a charging charging box so you can charge your charge your usb device using and then at the same time, have your drink from win streak. Preacher, would you have that swag pile? Please take the charger out before you drink. It worked in the foreground, foreground of our swag pile, if you please. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. All right. Rachel. John, your topic is how did boost revenue with donorsearch vase. I don’t think people think of boosting revenue with older surveys, but so that’s spell that misconception. John, how is it that donorsearch vase can be used to boost revenue? Well, thie idea is that the more you understand your donors the more they’re going to feel heard, right? And then the more that they’re understood and they feel heard and they’re connected to the organization them or they’re going to support the organization, so don’t donorsearch is a really about understanding people that support your organization. So it’s part of ah multi-channel engagement strategy. Yes, you could say that it’s fair to say, rachel, this is one of our channels in our multi-channel strategy absolutely and it’s a really great tool for understanding what your donor’s interests are. So then you could target your appeals based on this interest, and you can talk to your donors about the one program that they care about and not the nine programs they don’t care about you okay? I don’t think i don’t think many people are thinking about surveys as a channel. I think they’re thinking about twitter and facebook and instagram as their channels, not a servant, all right? Yeah, i wouldn’t i wouldn’t say this survey zahra channel, i would say that surveys are almost like an approach, you know, too sir, because you could survey people on twitter you could survey people on facebook you could survey people with a surveymonkey app you khun survey people in a number of ways so it’s more like, you know, get feedback from donors, you know, approach to a channel. Yeah, exactly approach to a channel to a strategy for an engagement purpose. Exactly. Yes, i couldn’t have said it better. I couldn’t have said it worse. Okay, so let’s dive into this, you have some i can t example, i don’t feel like starting with the examples because then you have some do’s and don’ts, which we’ll get to. But you have some examples to share of good donorsearch practices. Rachel sure, yeah, we shared a example in oven online donorsearch ve in our session and it was a short six question survey that really focused on identifying number one. What donors communication preferences are how we doing on communicating with they are communicating to little just write too much. What? What air? The beneficiary preferences the donor has who does it don’t care about of all the target populations that the non-profit serves which one interest the donor the most some questions about you know what? What programs do they care about the most? Is that just some great basic? Questions that you can use to ask your donors and these were important because that was six question, yeah, six question, okay, you only important because these are all really important questions because donors give for their reasons, not ours, and the more and one of the points that john and i made in our session is, the more you find out you’re you’ve gotto ask when you ask these questions, you’ve got to be prepared to use them to use what you learned and then honor your donor’s preferences that they tell you i want to hear from you more, or i want to hear from you less or i want hear about this book, i’ve got to be prepared to be able to deliver on that so that you’re honoring their preferences. You’ve taken the time to find out, and you’re going toe near next up, it’s going to deliver on it. Okay, so we’ve got a preserve these responses not just use the to analyse survey, and then we get it not before. Yeah, we’ve got to make good on it and that’s what we want to because we want to be talking about what they care. About the more we talk to them about what i care about, where they’re going to give, the longer they’re going to stay with us, jon, otherwise, people are gonna feel unheard, yeah, totems of serving me, if you’re not going toe honor what i asked you to do. Exactly, yeah, okay, you got another, i can’t example for us, john, i can’t example, i’m only quoting from your text here, so is this text fortified? I persisted, it’s, somebody else wrote it. I don’t know what i doubt that, you know, you have no, it turns to blame too exuberant. Okay, you got some other examples. I can’t hear otherwise. Good serve, good serve a example. No. You know, we should see we shared another video example of using video. Yeah. Video. Yes. Sorry. I thought we were in this session. I was definitely the sessions that work you did? I did provoc way. So we shared a great example of using video using video to really take the donor right into the action. Take them right there in the field, allow them to release, give them an immersive experience where they can experience the donor’s work and then use that to open up a conversation with, um, wade love to talk to you. We want to learn more about what inspired you to give. We’d love to talk about what we’re doing. We want to do so respectfully if you’d like to hear from us, just click this button and we’ll set up a visit. So it’s a great way to have your donor raise their hand on their own and find out who wants to have a deeper relationship with you. Yes. Okay. It’s a little more about what was the content of that video? The video example that we shared was a great video for operation smile and it really took the viewer. First hand into the operating room, seeing these surgeries and seeing how marchenese cleft palate surgery’s how, how they impacted these families and these communities, and they heard stories from the program officers they heard stories from donors, doctors from doctors from the founder of the organization and the founder of the organization has a very respectful called action at the end where he says we’d love to hear from you. We want to do so respectfully, we’d love to hear your hopes would love to hear your wishes. Wait, if you’d like for us to call you and set up a visit, just click this button so it’s a really nice way using the emails since the donorsearch to a landing page with personalized you were all so they could track how the if the donor watches the video, how long they watch it for, and then invite the donor to respond and raise their hand if they’d like to have a visit. So it’s another tool to learn more about a donor’s interest and hopefully set up a visit. Okay, okay, 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. Dahna john, i’ll give you a chance to rehabilitate. Duitz. I was just there for my looks and that’s it. You could say what not to ask, no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you, rachel. Yeah, i was gonna get do’s don’ts. Thank you, teo. Grayce you think? Well, i’m talking, john, you want to scrap something? Yeah, there you go, that would help them if they want to sign. You know, i don’t know, i okay, let’s, move. Yes, duitz a note. Don’t you ask them how much they recently gave? Don’t ask them what they gave and these air no nose, because you should know this information, right? So if you ask them that right away out of the gate, they say, wow, what? What if it’s an anonymous server or we’re not, we’re not we don’t like anonymous service. No, we can’t, because we’re supposed to be a hundred preferences. They were not so from the kate we’re not talking about no, no, no, no. Yeah, and s so were were, you know, again the purpose of the surveys to understand the donor. So we’re collecting this information putting into the donor database so that we can follow up with appropriate communication. So if someone says, hey, i like cats versus dogs for an animal shelter. They’re going to get communication that’s about dogs, here’s, harold, the dogs that were saving and here’s what you can do to help change the life in a dog. So that’s, really, the purpose is to try and taylor the communication and connect the have basically have the donor have a voice in the in the cause. Okay, i understand. Rachel’s getting the pen out of swag out chili that’s. Okay. I mean, john is squeezing the clients, just ball. I’m a little nervous. Yeah. That’s. Okay, rachel got tomato, but i know you’re nervous because you’re doing so badly. I know he’s doing our angel holding its made of which is not squeezing she’s selling. Yeah, i would say. Okay, here’s, some morning lol i was going to give you some dues. Don’t don’t use complicated phd level language don’t use complicated language keep it short keep it simple sixth grade reading level literally experience meeting you wanted to be don’t use have it be all text used highly visualized examples that fit in with the organization’s mission think. Think of a buzzfeed stall quiz that you might take on facebook. Like what? Eighties band and my duran duran psychedelic furs, thie cures you know you you just see the images and you know how you’re going to vote. You barely even have to read the text. You wanna make it as easy for them to read is easy for them to do is possible. Okay. Okay. Really? Sixth grade level. All right. Any other don’t you don’t don’t use don’t send people to a website that looks horrible on a mobile device where they have to zoom in and look at the survey in order to fill it out. Don’t ask people twenty questions be very careful what you’re asking and the number of questions you know, twenty years too long twenties way too long is there arrange five or six? If you’re doing a survey to your whole group, just keep it short and simple. Five or six? Yeah, and i would say, don’t skimp on this subject line put as much thought into this subject line as you do your survey questions so that you get people to open it. We’ll talk about the subject line of the invitation email. Exactly. Put a lot of thought into maybe a test. Your subject line. Okay, so easy to do now we all should be tested. That’s. True. Yeah, i say be testing is like it’s. Like letting your donor’s vote on subject line that they like the best and then using that to send out to all the other people. It’s, basically, you know, having them help you write the email. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That was a good one. Good response. Join arms. I don’t mean the beginning of this catching ourselves ability, working bilich. Like getting out of prison. You were. Seriously, you’re not serious, man. Like a parole officer. You’re like the worst parole officer. You’re much better one. I’m much better on twitter, facebook way we’ve never met trump. I invite you you all this time, i’ve been holding you at bay. Yeah, exactly welcoming, but probably yeah. Okay hyre be horse that’s. Great, man. You’re a good sport. Yeah, i’m a good sport. Absolutely. You beat the crap out of you later on before you go. I am in a police state. Okay. Kruckel with affiliate. I will not oppcoll hyre all right. All right. We’ve exhausted. Don’t let’s. Look let’s. Focus on the positive. Yes. Do. Alright. Well, rachel, you hit some of that. You make it simple. Very visual, right? Visual, other deuce, other good practices. I would say. Try to integrate, serving your donors in multiple avenues. You know, you can send them a donorsearch juche. Khun, ask them questions after they you know, we talked about having just a comment box. What inspired you to make this gift on your donation form after they get your newsletter after an event after the gala, you know? There, there. Are multiple touchpoint where you can solicit feedback from your donor’s there’s a reason why you can’t go to old navy that buy something for my twins without me getting a survey about the experience and satisfactions and number one driver dahna loyalty. So think of other ways that you console is thatyou’re dahna speed back way also talked about donorsearch coll’s, which is kind of interesting. So when you think surveys right, you think, oh, the internet, we gotta use the website and all that stuff, but donorsearch coll’s kind of old school. You get five or six donors in a room, you know, very kind of, i guess, you know, committed long term donors. Maybe, you know, from different, maybe maybe a volunteer. Maybe a donor could just be a virtual room. It could be, you know, a real impersonal world. Yes. You meet them in person and you ask them questions. You know what made you decide it? Initially support the organization. You know what? You know what? What kind of stories really get you amped up? You know why? Why do you continue to support the organization and just have that open dialogue in the small? Group and i think often that khun b, that dialogue can be the kind of source to create the online survey, because then we know well what you know, when you start with an online survey, you might be asking, well, what do we even start with? But maybe the donorsearch kel is a good place to start, find out what are the key kind of issues or what the key preferences and then sussed that out throughout the throughout the database. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yep, okay, are there certain groups of donors that air better to try to engage in a survey than others like sustainers vs strictly annual donors or hyre plant e-giving donors vs others durney any distinctions across types of donors that we’re talking with or dealing with? That’s a great question, i would say surveys air really great for all your donors and it’s an opportunity for you to be able to identify who you’re sustainers prospects are and who playing, giving prospects are and really move those people from the annual fund up because you cared enough tto learn about what they care about, and you’re going to deliver on it so you’ve got you’ve increased your chances of deepening that relationship and deepening their involvement with the organization by asking them the survey because donors give for their reasons, not ours and it’s up to us to figure out what they are. I see a lot of fundraisers really trying to read their donors minds and wasting a lot of time and, you know, i like to say ask more questions, read les minds there’s someone it’s, it’s totally appropriate to say how do you like to be invited to make a gift? That’s a very respectful way to find out more about how someone does like to be invited to make a gift, and these are all you don’t have to try to read their minds. You can ask them these questions and learn a lot build a relationship in the process i can think of to gary with one music suggested. How do you like to be asked? How often? How often should we be approaching? Use is two or three times per year appropriate five times one time that’s a great example. We actually talked about that, you know you’re giving donors choice when you do that and that. That’s giving them control and that’s a really big part of them deepening their engagement with you. They want to have that control. We’ve got one study where an organization raised fifty percent more fifty percent more at their year and appeal because they gave those donors those choices win, do you? When do you want to hear from us? When do you want us to ask? How often do you want us to ask? They first proved the value of their communications and that’s something i would caution anyone to first do you know if if the first time you make a gift? If i ask you how much how often you won’t hear from me, you might say, not very much because you don’t know me yet, but once i proven the value of the communications and you do know and the donor doesn’t know the organization it’s really great to ask those questions. That’s a really great point. Thank you. Like i scored warning sixteen minutes and forty seconds. All right, john, you want a chance? A chance of what? Score a point? Okay asked me a question we’re talking about. Good, good. Good news. No, mistress. Yeah, eso so keep the language simple, very simple and use their words right don’t use any jargon that you might throw around in the, you know, internal meetings, use their words on dh focus a lot on visuals, actually, visuals drop people in the video is a great example. And actually, that video is very powerful because and the organization was alt-right smile training, you know, is it was operation smile operation, smile. Yeah, it was great. I mean, when the video was playing during our first session, i was kind of had tears in my eyes, you know? So that emotion drives the person take action, right? So at the end, you know, hey, tell us what we can do or contact us. We want to take the next step with you, that person probably more likely to take that action because that emotion, right? So i think that’s that’s really key is to try two focus on drawing people in emotionally and and appeal to that because that’s going to drive the action and there’s something like logic will logic drives a conclusion. So a logical solicitation koegler appeal, logical appeal drives a conclusion. An emotional appeal. Drives a response. Action? Exactly. Exactly. That’s crazy. You weren’t ten points to that. I love it. That was brilliant. No one gave you the authority to assess points. There’s a hostess that just here. You see the signs? Yes. Okay. Tony martignetti okay, he’s putting you in this company. I’m being put in my space and i think i’m being hard. I think john hayden may never come back co-branded before so yeah, people will google me at least. Who is this guy? John hayden he’s having a total failure on this video? Shit. You don’t even mention it. A credential here that you’re exactly facebook marketing for dummies proof that i am a dummy proof facebook marketing for demolition take himself too seriously and not at all. Okay. Secrets your favorite for-profit brands used to build loyalty let’s, start revealing some of some of these for-profit secrets. Well, they ask, i mean you you can hardly buy anything or do anything without being asked about your experience, right? I mentioned like the survey over the dressing rooms. I was the lighting and and they, you know, the best time to build on a great experience or fix a negative one is in the moment that it happened. And that’s why? Surveys are so great if you ask people honestly, you get a chance to interact in that experience before that donor becomes a lapsed owner and that’s. Why it’s great to be soliciting feedback often, often often and immediate. Yeah, depending on the engagement, right, depending on what that engagement was. Okay, okay. That’s a good one. Yeah, and actually, someone has a bad experience, you know, they might wait. One the question we asked to us. Have you ever had a bad haircut? You know? So you’re not going to tell your hair and i don’t. I don’t know if i’d have been here cut or not. Probably not right now, but, you know, if you have a bad haircut apparently, according to people i know if you have a bad haircut, you’re going to tell your friends, you know, whatever you do, don’t go to the hairdresser, but you’re not gonna tell the hairdresser, right? So it’s important to listen on follow-up and but but just being heard can often turn things around, and i think that way refer to the recovery paradox. Yeah, this is known in the for-profit sector. Is this service recovery paradox? Yep, service recovery so it says it says that if you do something really awful and it’s, someone has an awful customer experience if they feel heard, they are more likely. Teo, you know, support, you are loyal, but they’re going to be more loyal then if they never had a complaint in the first place and you don’t even have to fix the problem. That’s the good thing you don’t have to listen to it. Yeah, really? That’s the that’s? Why it’s a paradox like you would think if someone has negatives, something negative to say about your you know, organization or your business, you know, you you have to fix it. We gotta change this, but not necessarily you have to listen, something’s, you obviously can’t change, right? But just giving that person the opportunity to say how they feel and be heard. Then they say, wow, of all the brands of all the retailers of all the non-profits i sport, i feel hurt by these guys. Now they’re not doing everything i like, but i really liked them so that loyalty increases universes. The defensive, you know. Blaming the victim response? Yeah. Service. Yeah, exactly. And again, the bad haircut. Right? So if you don’t listen to them that person’s out there on the street telling their friends, hey, you know, whatever you do, don’t support these guys because they’re kind of, you know, not only did they do it wrong, but they don’t want to hear what i have to say. Also, you don’t want that on the street. Your customer donorsearch taking the time to share their opening up to you. If they didn’t care about you, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t bother wait. They’re in their mind. They would waste a time sharing this bad if you are. Yeah, this person cares enough to tell. And eventually we all heard that that will increase their loyalty. That’s the parent? Okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a couple more minutes together. What else? What else can we do? You have to depart. Rachel it’s. Okay, just you don’t have to do it silently. I’m going to turn off your mike so you don’t make a lot of noise. You’ll wake latto by rachel buy-in right now you’re gonna leave me with the, uh, heimans lackluster way. Go. Alright, let’s, finish this up. Tony that’s. So that’s. Rachel, you’re vice president of training at pursuing thank you, rachel. Thanks, rachel. Okay, john. All right. Great. So i hope that i just said we have a couple of minutes left, so don’t disappoint. Good. Okay. What? What else? What else is gonna be covered in this topic, or or what else was covered in? Well, i think, you know, i think i talked about the thing that we’ve tried to impress people with. The donor survey is not just a survey that you do once a year, once a quarter, but it’s almost like a mindset of creating upper every opportunity to follow up with the donor and listen to them. So, for example, we talked about when someone makes a first time donation, right? That’s a big deal. That’s. A pretty big deal. Hey! Wow, you you gave us money. Don’t! Why did you know what was what made you decide to do that? Someone gives a second time, right? If they give once that’s that’s great. But if they give a second time, it’s almost a miracle. So wow! What did we what are we doing? That drove you back to us twice reinforced the catch of a miracle. That is because we have a seventy percent donor attrition problem across non-profits in the u s absolute we’re losing seventy percent of our donors each year yet so it’s quite a big deal when somebody gives you that second? Absolutely. And then and then, of course, monthly, right? If someone says, hey, i gave once or twice here and there, but now i want to commit to a monthly program, right? I want to commit to that. Wow, you did that other yeah. So obviously these follow-up these donor-centric questions going different for each of the situations right on then also, you know, even on a donation form, having, like rachel said an open box that said, if you wanted, you know, if you have anything to tell us anything you want to share with us about why you’re supporting us, just type it in right here, just having this attitude of kind of b, you know, having an ear and being open there, listening to people and giving people opportunities to share how they feel, you know, even on, you know, i wrote facebook marketing for dummies and i’m always telling people yes, there’s facebook insights, you can look at all the data but read the comments on the posts, right? That’s, where you get all this really incredible personal stories, people sharing personal stories, what they think about certain issues, how they and you and also you learn their language, right? How are they talking about the cause we think we talked about has a, you know, communications person at a non-profit, you know, sometimes they get into jargon or talking about a cause in a certain way of thinking, they have to educate donors, but, you know, by reading comments really listen to donorsearch kind of understand their language, how they’re talking about it using their words, you know, okay, yeah, cool john all right, was that i think that’s a great rap, all right? Because i was so harsh to you. Yeah, i’ll give you a shout out. You should be following john hayden on twitter he’s at john hey, because he is very good who does have a lot of good content and it’s not only about facebook, email anything put candy, you know, five tips five think you sort of known for five of these seven of these quick tips very tactical there’s that value yet. But you also go deeper to oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, and i’ve weekly webinars i do free webinars called the hump day coffee break and it’s just, you know, people show up, look at wednesday’s eleven and, you know, have a cup coffee, learned something and leave and that’s it, you know? So yeah. So i feel like i told you that. Great. We’ll let you have it. Thank you. Well, thank you for the opportunity. Really do appreciate it. And it was fun. I have very thick skin, so i had a great time. Honestly, tell your friends about not probably. I do. Do i tweet about it? I know you tweet about it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. John hayden, he’s he’s. Everything around inbound zombie. They do. Marketing consultant. Exactly. Thank you. Took it. And you are listening and viewing tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference wrapping day one with john hayden and rachel muir. Or we’ll be back on day two. Of course, on the day three stay with us. Discovery visits. We have maria. Simple coming up first pursuant you know them, they have fund-raising management tools that are ideal for small and midsize shops perfect for our listeners. They fill your potential donor pipeline that keep your fund-raising on task, time against goal and all the individual fund-raising task day after day, week after week that you need to track, they’ll keep you managing those making sure that your time is is probably focused. So you’re meeting goal pursuant dot com we’d be spelling spelling bees for non-profit fund-raising this is not your mother’s spelling bee, not even the ones from seventh grade there’s too much fun, they’re enormously interactive, including dancing and there’s also stand up comedy and the comics i’ve seen are quite funny live music too. Facilitate that dancing note there’s no deejay thing here is live music so you got a concert you get stand up comedy there’s dancing fund-raising, of course, and they squeeze the spelling bee in there too. I love what they’re all about it’s really very cool, it’s. Very different. They have a video that shows it all at we b e spelling dot com now tony steak too. Meet me on twitter i love i have a lot of fun on twitter. Even people cite that hundred forty character limitation, but that’s nonsense because if if the conversation is getting detailed, you go into direct messages. And if you if you want to keep it public, then you just do multiple one hundred forty character messages. So, uh, seems kinda old to be hope you not put off by one hundred forty characters. It’s fun, you know, it’s it’s immediate. Um, i get a lot of guests that way. I get a lot of listeners of the weak that way. Twitter’s very cool. So if you’re not following, you could check me out at tony martignetti be grateful as i always am. If you re tweet about the show talking about the show, let your followers let your network know that you’re into non-profit radio and, uh, yeah, check me out. Sabelo please say hello on twitter that’s tony’s take two it’s just that simple live listener love it’s got to go out you know, it’s coming gratitude, gratitude and love to all our live listeners whatever city, state country you are in your listening now and i appreciate it live love to you i will spare you the diatribe about then versus now, when we’re pre recorded this week podcast pleasantries, they go out right after the live love they go pleasantries to our many, many podcast listeners are lots of different platforms for podcast listeners. There’s still that one in germany hanging in there we get like thirty or forty hits ah month from his podcast dot d i think, but itunes the vast, vast majority stitcher number two platform and then there’s like player dot fm and pod bay and podcast and smaller ones. But whatever platform you’re getting, the the the show from pleasantries to you and our affiliate affections right on the heels of the podcast pleasantries i know where platforms you’re getting it from our am and fm affiliate stations throughout the country and i am grateful to you affections to the many affiliate listeners on stations all around the country. Here’s maria simple originally from the july tenth show last year on discovery visits you also know maria simple she’s, the prospect finder, a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com. Her book is panning for gold. Find your best. Donor prospects now she’s on a diet of dirt cheap and free. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple welcome back, maria maria so i gave the screen here. How are you? Where you been? What’s going on there? What do you think? That’s? Too much that’s too much. I had myself on mute while you were doing on minute announcements there. Sorry about that. Um, i’m glad you’re with me. Welcome back. Absolutely. Thank you. Pleasure. We’re talking about discovery visits today. These, uh, he’s let’s define a discovery visit. And then once you explain why you think they’re so critical to prospect research, well, you know, as prospect researchers, unfortunately, we don’t have access to every little piece of information that would be useful for you. As you’re thinking about cultivating or soliciting someone so actually sitting down face to face with a donor is going to yield so much insight about what motivates them, why they love your organization and potentially yield larger gifts for you down the road. I blogged this a while ago, and it may be one of the first times that you and i met online because you commented on it. But i don’t think you were on this show at this point, but i blogged the value of face-to-face meetings, and i was not diminishing prospect research online and all through all the resource is that you and i have talked about from chambers of commerce and libraries toe online resource is wasn’t diminishing those, but yeah, the value that you get from having lunch with someone i happen to like doing it over meals, but whether it’s over meals or a meeting in their office or a site visit to your place there’s going be great. Um, you just pick up so much just by talking to somebody for for an hour? Yeah, yeah, and and definitely even in the body language alone. So if you start steering that conversation in a certain direction and you see people getting uncomfortable or fidgety or ah, in the opposite way, if maybe they start leaning in and leaning forward and looking like they’re really engaged with with what you’re talking about, perhaps a new program that you’re looking toe launch and get funded, all of that can yield so much great information for you. Sometimes it could be a little awkward. You hear things that you, you’re not sure how to document, and we’ll talk about the importance of doing that, like, you know, they don’t really like the ceo or your boss, you know, are there glad that you’re at the lunch with them and not this other gift officer? Yeah, and you do have to be careful about that. How you document that? Because, you know, a donor does have the ability to walk into your organisation at any time and say, let me see what donorsearch crowds you have on me. So you think you would want to document it in as a subject in an objective manner i should say objectively think of yourself as a a nen vested gate of reporter, right? When you’re trying to write down what the comments are so you might, you know, just right. You know, they did not seem particularly interested in the new x y z program and period end of story. Now we’re talking about the documentation it’s critical to save this in your hopefully you have a c r m database, right? A donor database cr m someplace. This has tio this information, you know, it’s what? We call, i guess, institutional memory, right? And you’re not going to put me in jargon jail for that? Are, you know, that’s a pretty straightforward one, okay, i’m enjoying for well, if if you as a development officer or is an executive director, sit down and have a conversation with someone and then you decide to leave the organization a year later. Ah, and then the new person takes over and goes in and has a visit with this long time donor sort of starts asking that same set of questions that donor’s going to kind of look at him like, don’t you already know this? Because i’ve already talked to your predecessor about what my interests were, etcetera. So you really do need to make sure that you are taking, you know, the time and it’s time well worth, you know, spent just documenting what happened during the conversation. What were the critical point? What were the things that need to be followed up on? You know, maybe it’s a timing issue. Maybe they say, well, you know what? This is a really bad time for my family right now, but in two years we feel that our finances will be in a different situation, you’ve got to get that documented and that’s an ideal example of one of the many, many things that you’ll find out from talking to somebody that you’ll never find online or any other resource is i don’t lose its talking, you gotta you gotta drop people out and and they love your work, otherwise they wouldn’t be meeting with you, so they’re happy to talk about what it is they love how, how their situation can impact your organization. I mean, positively or negatively, you know, like you’re saying, this is not a good time for us, you know, we just had a downturn in my business or from death in the family or, you know, whatever i mean stuff you’re not going to find out anywhere else than talking to people, you’re absolutely right. And, you know, one of the interesting things too, is you sometimes when i’m having conversations with with a non-profit maybe it a networking event or at a conference or something, and i’ll last generally how is your fund-raising going and then steer the conversation towards you know well, you know, when was the last time you had a chance to meet with who you would consider to be your top ten donors, and they kind of look at you like, uh, am i supposed to be regularly meeting with on donors? Oh, boy, yeah. That’s ah that’s yeah, that’s where the person in charge of development needs to be stewarding and managing up the, you know, the sea level people and that maybe that’s only one person may be the ceo is executive director is all there is but that, you know, yeah, yeah, you’ve got to be managing up and making sure that these relationships are nurtured with your your most important donors. You’re most important volunteers as well. Yeah, and if you don’t have the time to do it as a staff member, get your board involved. This is a perfect role for a board to get involved in. Even your board members who say, i hate to ask for money. I’ll do anything for this organization just don’t make me ask for money and it’s so simple for them to just go in and have it really a conversation you know you can provide them with, you know, prompt them with a list. Of questions that they might consider asking this individual, but it really is a conversation all about discovering what is this donor-centric about why are they giving any money to you at all when you know, when did they start? And, you know, where do they see themselves going with your organization? As a consultant, i do hardly and, you know, i don’t i don’t meet with donors and potential donors alone ever and very few of the visits that i am on our discovery visits, you know, where we don’t know the person all that well, but when i was a director of planned giving at a couple of colleges, i should do these all the time, and i remember my head’s spinning with oh, i don’t remember that, but i’m trying to stay in the conversation, too, but you can’t take notes while you’re having lunch, but i remember my head swimming over my gosh, i can’t remember that and that. Oh, and this news about his sister and that relationship, you know? Oh, you know, but there’s so much too, and you get back to the office and you just have to spill it all out and i agree with you, i usedto have ah, client, who said never write anything about someone potential donor or donor at anybody boardmember that you wouldn’t want them to read basically the same standard you had when you said someone could come in the office any time and ask what you have on them. That’s fine, you know, today with with technology having advanced right, i’m hoping that people who were in those positions that you were holding at that time in the plan giving departments and and so forth are using their smartphones and the recording feature not to record the conversation, but afterward, once the meeting has ended and you’re getting back into your car or getting to a quiet place, you know, in, you know, a different space or something like that, just data dump it right in by voice because you can speak a lot faster. Most people can speak much faster than they can write or type, so why not just get it in that way? And then if if you needed to, you know, use a transcription service of some sort to then get it into a print format and then edited from there. I think you know, that could be a particularly great way to use technology. Yeah, great. Cool tip. I like that. You’re right. You can dump into a voice memo. Excellent. I also like your idea of using board members for this purpose idea. We’ve we’ve talked about it, but good many times, but good to mention that also, this is ideal for board members for organizations that have a prospect research person. Do you think that these contact well, i’m going to call them contact report? Because as we used to call them at the colleges, should they flow through the prospect researcher? Or should they go right into the c r, m database and then it’s a prospect researchers job follow-up and read them how does? Because the prospect researcher is the the focal point of a lot of this, the prospect activity? How should this info get to the to that person? Well, you know, it really again depends on the size of the department and the type of cr m that you’re using and who has access to it because some will allow you no board members to have access and others won’t. So then clearly if it’s your boardmember that needs to be providing the information in many cases, they’re not going to have access two, uh, to that database, so don’t need to get it to that prospect. Researcher some other way. If it is ah development officer who does have access to the database. And i do recommend that they inserted directly themselves. If it’s a small organization, if it’s a larger organization with multi level, then you know you would want to make sure that there are certain procedures in place for me. No, but certainly the prospect researcher in some way, shape or form should be alerted that there’s been an update to that record in case there’s, you know any additional updated information that they need to provide? Yeah, right. It could be a simple is ah, niu ah, new email address or you are. Whatever new relationship. Ah, i know. In the in the colleges where i worked which bigger organizations, they the prospect researcher was the like. I said the focal point, and they would pull out something from a prospect research report that would say, oh, you know i should. This is consistent with this other contact report that i read for this other person done by a different gift officer. And these two need to be talking to each other for whatever reason, that was always that was always the done through. The prospect researcher i don’t know is that it makes sense to you. Yeah, yeah, it does. Absolutely. And i can tell you that, you know, having attended various conferences in the past that are, you know, attended by prospect researchers. They would love to be on every one of these donordigital covering visits, making sure that the right questions get asked and so forth. Okay, so this should be from training there, maybe maybe training the gift officers by the prospect researcher. When again, when it’s an organization that has prospect research. I understand a lot of listeners organizations problem may not. But if you do, should there be some training that the prospect researcher was doing for the gift officers? Yeah, absolutely. There should be some sort of training and in terms of not only what they confined online, if they needed to find some information quickly. What are some of the go to resource is when they’re out on the road? Etcetera. But also, you know what air the typical questions you should be sitting down and asking of every single donor and prospect and, you know, ah, good development officer, this should really be intuitive and second nature for them. Um, but if there’s somebody fairly new in the role, or if it’s an executive director who is, you know, that that’s it that’s the only person there is no development officer on, perhaps they’ve been so very used to running an organization and and the day to day management of the organization that they really haven’t gone down the road of of getting trained on, you know how to ask the right questions to elicit the responses we need to move this prospect forward. We’re gonna go out for a break. Marie and i will keep talking about this a little bit. And then she also has, um, unconference dates coming up this summer. That would be valuable for your prospects, research or 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 guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Got more live listeners in san francisco, california live love going out to there now podcast listeners and affiliate listeners. Did you think i forgot? How how could you live? Listener love always is accompanied by podcast pleasantries and affiliate affections very grateful to all the podcast listeners wherever, whatever device, whatever you’re doing, i love having you with us and all those affiliate listeners in the many stations across the country affections out too. Our am and fm affiliate listeners perish the thought that i would forget podcast pleasantries and affiliate affections. Maria, any last thoughts you want to leave us with on discovery visits and before we move teo unconference ideas? Well, you know, really, just to figure out what what is a donor’s? Why, right? That that’s, what you’re looking to get to understanding there, why to the heart of why they’re investing in your organization and, you know, try and use that language when you’re speaking with them, you know, why are you investing in us? What? What motivates you to continue supporting us? What do you like best about our non-profit? And you know what? Can we actually improve? So try and really elicit some good conversation from them and, you know, you’ve probably heard that old adage tony asked them for money and they’ll they’ll offer you advice and asked him for advice, and they’ll offer you some money. So, you know, it’s a great way to get people engaged in your organization, so don’t be afraid to start those conversations, even if somebody proposes something or says something a little bit on the negative side, take it as constructive criticism and look for areas of improvement. Yeah, you’ve got to hear the negative and a lot of what you’re what you’re suggesting comes out organically, you know? I mean, the person knows that you’re there to talk about the organization, you know, they’re talking about politics or hopefully you keep politics off the table. I always think that’s a bad idea for these kinds of visits, but yeah, they’re talking about the organization that’s, what the two of you have in common, so, you know, a lot of that stuff just gets elicited. I love this program, or i didn’t understand this or i didn’t know you’re doing this thing, but i just read about it in the newsletter, and you know that. Stuff. I mean, you’re right. Ask if it’s not coming out, but a lot of times, it just happens organically because right that’s what you have in common. That’s what? You share, right? Right. All right. So ah, you gots unconference ideas for us. Prospect. Researchers like to meet during the summer. Yeah, absolutely. So the biggie for prospect researchers is the international conference that happens every summer for apra, which is the association of professional researchers for advancement. And this year the conference takes place in new orleans, metoo and it’s going to be july twenty second to the twenty fifth, and they actually also have ah, a new researchers symposium as part of that, uh, they have a full day symposium just for new researchers. So this is a great way to get i think, you know, a full day in, um ah, dedicated to a newbie. And, you know, if you’re just getting your feet wet in this whole thing about prospect research, that might be something well worth while attending. Are you going to the international conference? I will not be going this year. I’m actually attending other conferences, but, you know, this one is definitely if you’re thinking about prospect researchers, this really is the one to consider. Um, you know, there are fall conferences that, you know, we just missed a few conferences that are more regional. So, like in new england, there’s, an organization called nedra, the new england development research association, they they had a conference in april, it was not researchers let’s not look okay, let’s not look backwards, let’s go forwards, but but the good thing about it is that some of those organizations will still put the presentation’s in powerpoint on the website so still perhaps worth just checking into even if you book market for next year. If you’re in those regions, certainly something to think about seeing what what have they shared from the past conference? Cause you might be able to just do a little, you know, your own online learning are these all apra chapters that we’re talking about? Yeah, yeah, they really are there. They’re more regionalized chapters of research association years ago, i spoke a couple of apra chapters, i think in new york and new jersey years ago, back when i know i’m not even sure i was consulting at the time. Maybe more than twelve years ago, but glad they’re still around. Okay, what else? What else you got besides the international? Also coming up in arizona? There’s going to be a false symposium on the topic of campaigns and that’s going to be held november fifth through the sixth in tempe, arizona. So that might be one to consider. And also in california, they have several events going on. The california advancement researchers association have several things on their website, so i’d be glad to share some of these links on your facebook page, if you like and then people can check them out, and if they’re in those regions and see if they want to attend. I love it. Why did you do that? As a comment to the takeaways that’ll be posted around four o’clock eastern today? Sure. Okay. That’s outstanding. We still have another minute or so left. What’s uh, what’s going on in. Oh, i’m sorry. There are the conferences or that you got it. That’s covers it. You know, i think because several have already passed. Those were the ones that i really found that i thought you know, were sprinkled throughout in different places. That you might consider going tio okay, sounds good. Tell me, uh, yeah, now we just have about a minute or so, right, sam? So what what’s going on in your world, what you’re seeing among your clients in our last minute, you know, well, i’m definitely seeing a tick up in activity, capital campaigns and so forth. So, you know, it’s great to see that good news came out with e-giving yusa numbers, and i think that that generally just kind of buoys people a little bit and their spirits. So i am seeing more activity and more research requests because of these larger campaigns and the need to research some of these high net worth individuals before visiting them. So in general, i think it’s it’s all good news. Okay, glad you’re optimistic looks so a beat. Andi, you’re going to be back with me in two shows on july twenty fourth for the two hundred fifty of show. Yes, you’re going to here in the studio? Cool, i will. All right, looking forward to it will be nice to have you institute a sze yu wei would say in latin i’m fluent in latin is a worthless skill, but thank you very much. Good to see you. Good to talk to you. Thank you. You’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com and on twitter at maria simple next week. Have i ever let you down? Well, maybe there was that one show on fermenting, possibly. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers, we be spelling dot com our creative producers claire meyerhoff sam lied. Wits is the line producer gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by susan chavez on 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 green. Yeah. 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 eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful posts here’s aria finger, ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s, why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s, not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.