Brenna Holmes & Alyssa Ackerman: Engagement And Stewardship For Increased Giving
As our #23NTC coverage continues, Brenna Holmes and Alyssa Ackerman deliver systems and ideas that treat your donors right. They help you understand the value of multichannel touches that move the needle on donor retention and value. They’re from Mission Wired.
Joanne Jan: Data Maturity
Also from #23NTC, how data strategy and practices impact your ability to meet your mission. Plus a free resource to gauge your data maturity. Joanne Jan is from data.org.
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Transcript for 640_tonymartignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230515.mp3
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage. Of 23 N T C 2023 nonprofit technology conference [00:01:57.42] spk_0:
where we are sponsored by Heller [00:02:12.89] spk_1:
consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. It’s my pleasure to welcome back Brenna Homes and to welcome Alyssa Ackerman to nonprofit radio. Brenna is principal and senior vice president of Mission Wired and Alyssa is senior account director also at Mission Wired Brenna. Welcome back. [00:02:25.08] spk_2:
Welcome. [00:02:48.80] spk_1:
Thank you very much. Your topic this year, engagement and stewardship tactics that drive increased giving, writing the fundraising track. I’m sure part of fundraising track. Correct, Brennan, why don’t you kick us off? Just kind of give us a 30,000 ft view of wide. You believe that we need this session 23 [00:03:21.36] spk_2:
N D C. Um I mean, fundraising is harder and harder nowadays, right? It’s a very competitive market. There’s a lot of organizations out there vying for donor dollars. Um And while new generations of donors are coming up, the way they respond and the way they give is different from previous generations and then no matter who you are, nobody wants to be treated like an A T M. So building an engagement and stewardship opportunities is we found the best way to you get a donor from a one time giver to a lifetime brand, evangelist, [00:03:28.30] spk_1:
evangelism, the evangelist for [00:03:34.22] spk_2:
keeping them engaged, right? All the way through [00:03:39.95] spk_1:
time. Have you done your session [00:03:42.88] spk_2:
yesterday [00:03:50.55] spk_1:
about how that went and what questions arose from that? Let’s see, I mean, I have your three learning objectives that were stated in the official document for your, for your session. Where would you like to start the topic? Where, where did you begin [00:04:16.63] spk_3:
the session? Yeah, I think that it’s important to give an overview of why engagement is important as well as how it fits into the overall fundraising strategy. So yeah, I think a lot of organizations often time struggle with the balance and for us to be able to share the value of engagement. [00:04:27.31] spk_1:
I want you to talk about it like you [00:04:42.72] spk_3:
talked about it. So there is a strong value behind engagement and stewardship tactics. So you’re really building that relationship with your donor and potential donor. And by doing that, you’re building a case for support and they’re able to make their own decisions to give and quicker. So when you’re asking them to make that gift after an engagement, there’s little decision to be made because you’ve already helped prime and pave that path for them to make the easy choice to give, talking [00:04:59.68] spk_1:
about giving, not just first time but [00:05:08.81] spk_3:
any time. And we want to always try to lessen the time between the 1st and 2nd gift, get people to be giving at different levels. Um And so it’s not just about that first time donor and moving them down the marketing funnel, but also retaining those donors and moving them in their donor journey. Okay. [00:05:24.86] spk_1:
So why don’t we stick with you kick us off with the first, we’re going to do engagement before we’re going to get the stewardship of the first engagement strategy. [00:06:02.78] spk_3:
Yeah. So um engagement is really important in the beginning of a donor, potential donors journey. So thinking about um different ways to welcome an onboard. So someone who might have signed up for email, let’s get them into a automated welcome series. That’s explaining what the organization does, how they can make an impact, stay connected. And then when they get out of that series, get that first Baskin. So they’ve already taken the action of becoming a subscriber, but let’s get them to take that next step quickly, but also set expectations of how we’re going to be communicating, why we’re communicating. So really that onboarding is important to set the stage for how they are going to be included in the organization. [00:06:23.07] spk_1:
How long does this welcome series last? [00:06:57.78] spk_3:
So typically, um welcome series last could last 10 to 3 weeks having multiple touch points. It’s important, it’s important that when they are in a welcome series though, that you’re being mindful of other communication that’s going out. And so oftentimes, my recommendation is to suppress from other correspondents going out. So it’s very clear, concise and they’re on this track, they’ve been primed, they understand the organization and the communication stream and then get them into your normal cadence of communication. Um And it’s really about your organization. So you should test there’s not one prescribed timeline for a welcome series. And so based on your content and your audience, it might be shorter or longer, but it’s really important to test that [00:07:45.73] spk_1:
out. You suggested that a part of that is informing them how you’re going to be communicating. Is that, is that really asking how do you want to be communicated or, or saying you’ll hear from us every three days for the next three weeks? I understand it would be, I understand this is not a template that everybody applies. You’re in the next 48 hours, there will be no communications after that. So, but how do you say to what degree are you informing them? How you’ll be communicating? [00:08:44.86] spk_3:
Yeah. Again, I think it’s dependent upon your organization. I am a big believer in, in uh asking that question of what are you interested in? How do you want to hear from us? But sometimes if your system isn’t set up to actually do that or set those um standards of if you only want a newsletter, but we don’t have our system set up to only send you a news. Let’s not ask that. But we can be general to say you’ll be hearing from us and you’ll get newsletters, important updates. If you’ve given your cell phone number, you’ll be getting SMS messages from us. So you can be vague. But the big thing is you need to follow through on that. So if you’re asking how they want to be communicated to [00:08:51.31] spk_1:
tell you. Okay. All right. How about you? What else about engagement before we get to stewardship? Yeah, [00:09:39.62] spk_2:
definitely. So, I mean, engagement can mean many things to many people, right? And it really is in the digital space which is a lot of what we were talking about, um getting them to engage with content. So take an action, click something that is measurable in some way. Um Alyssa talked about onboarding, but we can take that even further throughout, you know, quizzes and surveys, getting their own preferences, even, you know, obviously action alerts for advocacy organizations, getting people to take action in a, in a more impactful way um and giving them feedback on what that impact is, is really critical. So depending on the organization, it’s a beautiful consultant answer, right? It depends, um you’re asking them to volunteer, asking them that they’re interested in these other opportunities to further bond them with the organization because whether it is engagement or stewardship or, you know, thinking of them as synonyms. It is about how they engage to stay bonded to the organization or become bonded in the first place. [00:10:06.31] spk_1:
And there’s value in all these individual steps. [00:10:07.38] spk_2:
There is definitely and some organizations can actually put a monetary value to them, right? Like they need this number of many signatures for this petition to take this to Congress or, you know, that sort of thing and some of it is a little bit more. Just feel good to calculate how folks are responding to the brand, whether it’s recognition and sentiment kind of things, [00:11:13.73] spk_1:
any other strategies or tactics around engagement even beyond. So we, we’ve talked about the welcome series right? So now we’ve gone beyond the welcome series. Anything more. I mean, I guess we’re leading toward Alyssa. You had suggested a first gift or maybe, maybe, maybe the welcome series came after the after the first gift. So now we’re looking for a second gift. But the welcome series just to be clear, I mean, it could have come after some other action, right? A signature on a petition. I don’t know if you’re sophisticated enough, maybe a comment on a on a comment on a social post if you’ve got that kind of connection. But okay, so it doesn’t have [00:11:14.76] spk_3:
to be so it could be, you know, an email subscriber, a new donor [00:11:21.20] spk_1:
list, [00:11:34.18] spk_3:
a new sustainer perhaps. Um or if you have like mid level giving or major giving, if someone’s made a mid level gift, they should have a unique onboarding experience as well. Um But beyond welcome series, as Brennan mentioned, having surveys and petitions to really bond and then that’s really focused in digital. But there are many opportunities in direct mail that can complement these as well. [00:12:32.45] spk_2:
Surveys and petitions are a mainstay in direct mail, right? So those engage devices again, that’s the term that’s used in direct response for eras and eras is to get people to feel their impact beyond writing the check or making the gift. Um And you should be doing that. One of the things we focused on in the session was doing that on a recurring basis. So working, having the fundraising team either build them themselves as part of a comprehensive communications calendar or work collaboratively with a marketing communications team that may be already producing this type of more educational or quote unquote programmatic content so that it’s not just month 13 fundraising appeals and nothing else, we really want to make sure that the donor or prospective donor is having the opportunity to learn and engage with the organization in various ways. Okay. [00:12:52.84] spk_1:
Okay. So anything else on engagement before we moved to? No, don’t hold out on non profit radio. I mean, what else did you share in your session? [00:13:09.85] spk_2:
I feel like we touched on a lot of it. I mean, Alyssa talked about tactical opportunities to with whether it’s S M S or even like auto calls, voice recordings, things like that. Um And engagement and stewardship. Can [00:13:13.80] spk_1:
people still people still react positively to [00:14:19.92] spk_2:
the auto call? They do. I mean, we forget that our smartphones are actually phones oftentimes, right? Not just supercomputers in our pocket and getting a recorded message that is a human, sometimes even a volunteer or another donor from an organization that is thanking somebody, for instance, for their gift or giving them an opportunity to come to an event um or just saying, go online and check out this latest case that we just wrote this expose on again, depending on the organization is a really fantastic way to break through the clutter of somebody’s inbox, somebody’s direct mail, you know, actual mailbox. Um and technology now allows us to go straight to voicemail. So you don’t even necessary. Yes, ringlets, voicemail. Um and you don’t even have to, you know, have somebody answer the phone and it makes it feels very authentic for a recipient to just see. Oh, I have a missed call. Listen to the voicemail. It’s not a robo call, write personal [00:14:35.80] spk_3:
messages. You don’t have to listen to the voicemail. You can see it written out in your transcript. And so, you know, that even is great. I like that is, you can see it there. It’s all written out, it’s emphasized. And if I want to listen to it, I can and I hear that real voice. But if I’m on the move and I don’t want to listen, it’s all written. How [00:14:47.87] spk_1:
do we access ringlets voicemail as you’re calling the number. How do you do it? So, [00:15:05.07] spk_2:
yeah, there’s third party partners um that work that offer these services um much like a telemarketing firm, but instead of the live callers, you are accessing a dashboard where your staff or volunteers can log in record a voice message. Um sometimes you can even record it just right on your iphone or whatever and then email the file over to the vendor um and then upload a list of phone numbers and the auto dialer spins amount. The vendor knows [00:15:50.25] spk_1:
how to not make the phone ring. Exactly. Damn. Alright. Ringlets, voicemail. Okay. Very interesting. Okay. But again, I like the emphasis that these are personal calls. It’s not a, it’s not a, it’s not a robocall, it’s personal, you know, Brenna Alyssa, thanks so much. You sign that last petition a couple weeks ago and maybe the person says, um, and, and, and we’re so grateful. [00:15:54.77] spk_2:
It is if you don’t have the time to do an old fashioned. Thank a Thon, right? This is a way that you can still give that personal touch and a very cost effective way. [00:16:09.01] spk_1:
Um Okay, engagement. Have we exhausted? [00:16:12.28] spk_2:
I mean, I guess that’s kind of stewardship to, right? So saying thank you. So kind of going back and forth. [00:16:30.58] spk_1:
That’s true because we did say thank you. Right. Okay. Um But yeah, we want to keep folks engaged in your point early on. We don’t want to treat them like a T M. All right. All right. Um Anything else? So let’s move more formally to stewardship. Okay. What are your recommendations so we can increase, giving anybody? [00:16:58.90] spk_3:
Yeah, I think that, um, one you need to make sure you have an auto responder set up for any action to say thank you. It’s very simple and it goes a long way and you need to be specific about what you’re saying. Thank you for. And so is it thank you for taking action. Is it? Thank you for making a gift. These things are important to take that kind of mass communication. And again, bring it to more of a personalized level and so digitally can have those auto responders for direct mail. I don’t think the written note is dead. It still makes an impact. [00:17:27.55] spk_1:
It’s handwritten huge. I can’t emphasize enough uh fan of handwritten notes. They’re short, it’s not an 8.5 by 11 inch page that you feel you have to full, you have to fill their and nobody does them and they’re personalized and it’s somebody’s somebody’s hand handwriting. There [00:18:02.83] spk_2:
are few organizations doing them but they stand out that hardly anybody, literally nobody. So that’s what we want. We want folks to kind of, it feels like going back to basics, but it really is just thinking about how would you as a donor, how would you want to be treated? How would you want to be recognized by an organization? Um And then thinking about what are the little things that you can do before? [00:18:32.17] spk_1:
I want to emphasize the handwritten note. And then if you’re writing the folks, I’d say roughly maybe 60 65 over, don’t be surprised if you get a handwritten note back. Thanking you for your hand for thanking the time I’ve gotten scores of these giving everybody. I work with all the donors pretty much 55 over thanking you for taking the time to send a handwritten note. Thanking you for that. Thanks for your thank you. And they’re doing it another handwritten note back, especially folks in their seventies and eighties and nineties. Some of the donors I work with, that’s what they grew up with handwriting and postage note. So, absolutely. I mean, and also your mail is not junk mail to the folks that are giving to you, you know, an acquisition campaign that’s different. But we’re not talking about that for your, for your donors. Your mail is not your U S mail is not junk [00:19:38.95] spk_2:
mail. Yes, people are touched and the generational giving studies that are coming out now too is saying it’s not just our elders in the United States that are feeling that way. Millennials respond to direct mail as well. They may not have checkbooks in the house. So you have to give them other ways to respond. Um But it stands out, we don’t get a lot of mail. Um And you know, it’s so having something, we talked a lot yesterday about the having a Q R code that is now ubiquitous, right? Silver lining of the global pandemic. But everybody knows how to use them. Do you remember Q [00:19:46.98] spk_1:
R codes? They, I don’t know, eight or 10 years ago you’d see them on like a bus. And I thought, oh, these are brilliant and they didn’t take off them. What do we know what happened? 10 years? And if my timing is off, [00:20:05.88] spk_2:
it was even older than that, actually, I remember them coming out really? In 2003. How come they didn’t take off then? Because each phone it wasn’t native in the operating system. And so if you recall, you had to download a specific app per code. So every company that was pushing these products or trying to get you to use their QR code platform to separate proprietary app reader that then had to be downloaded. So that’s a bridge too far for most of us. [00:20:32.98] spk_1:
So every code could be a different, a different provider. I there was competition among them [00:20:36.95] spk_2:
so we have to have the technology catch up. And thankfully now any operating system on any phone, has it native within the camera app. So you’re not asking the user to navigate their [00:20:51.30] spk_1:
way proprietary app for our, for the company that provided our code. Alright. Yeah, I know it’s now native but I didn’t know why I thank you for explaining why they, why they died so many years ago. I thought this is a brilliant, okay, cool. Thank you for feeling that I’ve always had. Yeah. Now they’re right now they’re ubiquitous. [00:21:53.24] spk_0:
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Okay, millennials. Gen Z, no checkbooks in the house most likely, but give him a code, the [00:22:49.47] spk_2:
donation page and like integrating that whether it’s donation page or you know, connecting from against stewardship pieces, newsletters. Um Calendar, people still really love having excuse me, um A wall calendar with beautiful photos to hang up year round and having Q R code there with various calls to actions to learn more about the very programs. You know that Q R code can of course take you to the website and specific pages designed, but it can also take you directly to youtube where you can watch videos. It can take you to a lot of other native apps on your phone that supporters already have and use and engage with on their own that then further your impact story. [00:22:50.45] spk_1:
People react well to calendars December calendar for the next [00:23:00.75] spk_2:
year, 100%. I mean, sometimes they’re even more than 12 months, right? So you’re sending them out uh summertime planning for the next year. Yeah, [00:23:06.16] spk_3:
and all sizes. [00:23:08.25] spk_1:
So like refrigerator magnets, calendars [00:23:14.91] spk_2:
are magnetized nowadays. So that makes it harder. [00:23:26.07] spk_1:
Stainless steel ones. I don’t even know. I don’t have a, I have a stainless steel stove, dishwasher but, but I never had magnets anyway. So I wouldn’t because I think that looks like clutter, clutter in my kitchen. Stainless steel magnetized. [00:23:35.14] spk_2:
Obviously, I don’t know all of them, but on mine at home it’s just the sides that are magnetized. Interesting. [00:23:41.49] spk_1:
Alright. Alright. So maybe maybe not the refrigerator anymore but people do like like [00:23:46.06] spk_2:
wall calendar [00:23:51.39] spk_3:
even with people moving, working from home and not necessarily working in an office where you’re hanging it up. Still want it interesting. [00:23:56.54] spk_1:
Okay, cool. All right. So some of the some of the old school stuff is not dead. We’re talking about male, we’re talking about phone calls, we’re talking about handwritten notes, [00:24:05.58] spk_3:
calendars. You can’t assume you can’t assume that these things aren’t going to work. And so you really need to know what your constituents right now. We go [00:24:16.72] spk_1:
back to testing trying try a 12 month calendar, maybe there’s a is there a code on every month or something? And then we know right. We know how many of those, which months and how often we know we send 5000 calendars and if we get 1200 hits on a cure, is that, is that [00:24:36.63] spk_2:
good? Well, [00:24:42.85] spk_1:
alright, 5000 calendars times 12 month, 60,000 codes, but we only get 1200 I don’t know, but it depends what they lead to. It [00:24:54.01] spk_2:
does tell you a lot about what your supporters are interested in. Um So if September, [00:25:00.51] spk_1:
September, what the hell did we, what did we link to in September that everybody loved to volunteer opportunity was something related to the month of September month. [00:25:11.39] spk_2:
It’s what was happening the world. Yeah, media. Yeah. All the things. So, and I mean, that’s what we have to think about from an engagement and stewardship and lifetime retention standpoint is it’s not just necessarily the bottom line L T V per donor, but it is how these supporters are engaging with the brand, the organization more broadly so that they stay engaged for the long term. Otherwise you don’t have planned giving prospects, [00:25:56.91] spk_1:
right? My friend is so smooth. Didn’t even, I didn’t have, I didn’t have to give, I didn’t have to have to lay that out. All right. Thank you very much. Um These are awesome uh ideas you can implement for your program. So we’ve talked about a ton of ideas. Anything else that old school, new school stewardship, [00:26:17.55] spk_3:
I think to part of engagement and stewardship is information sharing. So if something is happening in your organization, making sure that that’s shared and that can be seen as stewardship also because they’re in the know and they feel important and connected. And so thinking about content your organization already has or is planning to disseminate in other ways package it up as stewardship or engagement. So everything doesn’t have to be brand new just for this. [00:26:35.76] spk_1:
What makes me think of is if you have insider communications, maybe it’s from donors at a certain level. Can you expand that circle? And you’re not diluting the content? You’re not, you’re not diminishing what you’re $10,000 donors get. If you start giving it to your $2500 donors, your $10,000 donors are still getting it. It’s not like a zero sum, right? So [00:26:58.81] spk_3:
can you [00:27:02.04] spk_1:
expand the circle so that so that more folks are considered insiders? It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt the existing insiders to bring more folks in. Repurpose the content, expand the content. I always think about that around and giving donors insider communications or events for your major donors. Why not invite your giving [00:27:22.90] spk_2:
folks as well? I mean, we think about that similarly with sustain Ear’s. Um can I [00:27:28.31] spk_1:
until they drop off? Yeah, [00:29:10.69] spk_2:
I think, I hope we’re well past the like set it and forget it, don’t wake the bear mentality and you know, some things like the proposed Microsoft regulations from last year to will kind of shocked the industry in to having to be better stewards of these really important donors. Um and on the Microsoft. Sure. So I mean, we got a little bit of a reprieve. So, but it’s basically surrounding data privacy rules and allowing the donor themselves or from Microsoft’s point of view, the consumer to, to have a right to adjust their own information, have a right to change um what they want to change without having to jump through a lot of hoops. So Microsoft was not Microsoft, I keep saying Microsoft Mastercard, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. That’s not good. Radio, Mastercard, the credit card processing is was going is requiring for for profit e commerce, things like that, that there’s a lot more of the automation and receding that happens for subscription services, right? It’s kind of the Netflix vacation of our lives where we all have so many different monthly subscription services um that we sometimes forget which ones were actually actively subscribed to, but our cards are being charged regularly out and consumer debt is skyrocketing. Mastercard was trying to also extend that out to subscription giving for nonprofits. So sustainer programs. I did sign up for a second sustaining gift to one organization because I had forgotten which one [00:29:33.92] spk_3:
it didn’t make organizations think about what our process is that [00:29:39.48] spk_2:
it was a really long time getting there. But [00:29:43.67] spk_1:
because an explanation, that’s something I never called it Microsoft in the beginning, I would have known exactly what you’re referring to. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know that. That’s [00:30:18.81] spk_2:
okay. So, uh the T N P A which is a wonderful nonprofit advocacy focused organization, the nonprofit nonprofit alliance. Yes, that’s all it is. Um fought and lobbied on behalf of the industry to have nonprofits be forgiven for these rules or not, not have to be held to the same standards that commercial companies like Netflix and others are because sustained charitable giving is different. People are signing up for it like you said, for a reason and they don’t forget about it quite as often as [00:30:37.12] spk_1:
they would. [00:30:40.10] spk_2:
Like I said, I am, I am an example. The [00:30:44.89] spk_3:
whole selling point is you don’t have to think about it. You’re giving to an organization you care about and don’t worry about it. We got it. [00:33:08.53] spk_2:
There is some benefit to the efficiency, certainly, but I think we do have to move past that. Um And, and not be scared to empower our sustain ear’s um with some D I Y functionality online if they want to change the amount or the date that their gift is processed. A lot of systems nowadays are allowing for it, but the nonprofits still have to go in and activate those modules and customize that ui that user interface so that donors understand where to go, what to do and also where the humans are when they need extra help to do whatever. So we got a reprieve temporarily or potentially temporarily. But I think what hopefully what this does and how we’ve been working with our clients is a little bit of a wake up call that it shouldn’t be seen as a reprimand. It should be seen as a stewardship opportunity because you’re sustain ear’s are generally 100 plus dollar annual donors. And if they gave that gift at a one time gift level, you’d be treating them differently. They would be part of a pipeline strategy. Um And, and so we need to not only, like I said, empower them to take some ownership over their own giving, but integrate them into, you know, the rest of the communication and stewardship programs that you already have in place for donors of, of that value and higher potential value. We were just looking at an organization’s um stats just recently that a one time donor online acquired donor, which most sustainer zar is online acquired um had an average 24 month LTV of $86 which is pretty good. 24 months, 24 months, $86 sustain urz 2 87 right? So huge difference um that you theoretically don’t have to do much for, right? Um But if they’re, if they’re falling off, um and not, not being stewarded up that pipeline of giving, it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to the potential that may [00:33:13.25] spk_1:
hold just going back to the mastercard rules. Was it just wasn’t that charities have to start informing the monthly sustain that there’s a dashboard or something that they can go to. [00:34:09.47] spk_2:
So, not necessarily, you have to make it available. There was a few different, was a four or five different bullet lists that you had to do or bullet items to do. One was having easy accessible like links and all your emails to a place where they could cancel or change their, their gift and or be in contact with within a very short period of time, which was subjective with a human who could then help them through that. Another was uh email notification before the gift was charged on a monthly basis, which actually felt quite was probably the most arduous thing that Mastercard was asking for because most systems are set up to set the auto responder after the charge, not pre charge. So there would have to be some configuration and new content developed to have that year [00:34:38.20] spk_1:
after one said, thank you, you will be charged in another 30 days that had to be within a certain time of the charge might have been like 24 or 48 hours. But yeah, thank you very much. And you will be charged in another 29 days, right? I [00:34:40.37] spk_2:
like that. All [00:34:49.99] spk_1:
right. All right. Um Okay. But yeah, I just wanted to get that little little detail about what the requirement was. Your bigger point was that there’s value in these folks see this as a stewardship opportunity, not a, not a reprimand. [00:35:19.89] spk_2:
Exactly. And I mean, I think a lot of stuff you’re hearing at the conference to around data privacy. Um and donor choice is going to kind of follow suit here where we, we have to build systems that empower the donors to take ownership over their own giving trajectory. Um And sometimes it is our corporate partners and regulations that nudge us and sometimes we can stand up and do it ourselves [00:35:23.81] spk_1:
and don’t be afraid to talk to your sustaining donors. Never. Don’t. Let’s not, hopefully, you know, we’re not only over the set it and forget it, but we’re also over the, if I talk to them, they might, they might change their mind, [00:35:38.42] spk_2:
scarcity [00:35:39.17] spk_1:
mindset, they’re gonna take that gift away if I remind them that they’re doing it every month. No, no, no. So see, there’s an opportunity [00:35:45.54] spk_3:
afraid [00:35:46.11] spk_1:
of, you’re afraid to talk to [00:35:49.79] spk_3:
these folks if you’re engaging in store them, if they do make the decision that they can’t continue being a recurring donor, hopefully, they still will make that one time gift or they’ll sign up for advocacy or volunteer or planned giving is that they’re still fully engaged with your mission and organization. So you’re not losing them completely. They’re just shifting how they can support. [00:36:35.11] spk_2:
Situational changes, certainly will affect that, right? And especially some sustainer Czar only giving three or $5 a month. Um and things like inflation and a tightening economy might affect if they can temporary, you know, if they need to temporarily pause that sustaining gift, um If the system allows them to do that themselves, amazing, if not making sure they, you know, who to contact. So that how they can do it and keeping that open line of communication so that they know they can also come back is really important to, again, building that brand affinity and bonding them to the organization so that they say good things about you out in the world. [00:37:13.18] spk_1:
Oh, this is awesome. Um Great ideas coming, I’ll be very interested in if that Mastercard rule takes effect in the sort of the data, the outcomes, you know, do we see, do we see a lot of sustain ear’s dropping off? My optimistic self thinks that we won’t see that happen. A lot that a lot of people are going to abandon it just because their remote, that they could, but I’ll be interested in the data, but maybe the rule will never. So where does it stand now? With the Master card? It’s not, it doesn’t apply to non profits now and we don’t know if or when it will [00:37:26.70] spk_2:
change their mind. And they [00:37:29.09] spk_1:
didn’t say like December 31st is it [00:37:31.21] spk_2:
is a temporary but no deadline waiver? [00:37:36.26] spk_1:
Okay, perfect. Okay. Um I’m looking at your learning objectives that were stated in the official and 10 document for this session. Um Ideas with dozens. If you have, I think listeners, you have to go back and replay this. We play this episode to capture all the ideas we talked about. Um understand the value of multi channel touches that increase retention and value what we’ve talked about multi, we’ve talked about all kinds of channels. Uh What else can we talk about that you talked [00:39:59.74] spk_2:
about yesterday. So we touched on it with the welcome series, right? In the automation. One of the things that I said yesterday and I firmly believe is that we should be leveraging automation more than we do in the digital space. Uh There is so much still like manual labor happening in email, launches SMS, launches advertising and things like that building audiences that is unnecessary. If we take a step back and take a little bit of time to kind of assess the lay of the land first and build out campaign goals, priorities and tactics and strategies. You can pretty much pre schedule almost everything online. Uh So you don’t need to be manually sending out three emails a week or, you know, whatever it is your systems, your technology can really do so much work for you. Um And it’s hard for some folks to put their trust in the machines. Um Yeah, to let go and not review every single audience Celtic and every single, you know, test life, want to see a live seed for every single email, you know, those kind of things. Um But there’s so much more opportunity to do that and you can build trigger based behavior based triggered actions, um emails, engagements, things like that, that keep stewarding people on their own timeline. So you don’t have to pull a list of your, you know, almost lapsing donors manually every time if it’s based on the data that lives in the CRM. Um, and you can build these chronic non responder, trigger based behavior based re engagement series. That’s all about when I last engaged. And it’s different from when Alyssa last engaged. Uh, and it is a little set it and forget it though. Of course, you want to check in periodically to make sure nothing’s gone sideways and the content is still relevant and doesn’t feel dated. Um But that would free up fundraisers, marketers, whoever at the nonprofit to think bigger, think newer, think how we can do something differently or what are the things that we wanted to do for so long. But we never feel like we had the bandwidth at the time if we truly allow ourselves to fully leverage the software that we are investing in regularly, um We’ll have so much more time. [00:40:27.85] spk_1:
Okay. Leverage automation. [00:41:43.14] spk_3:
Yes, I think another thing yesterday and often times this is a big question of how can I come back to my organization and have them see the value, you know, they’re looking for the up front giving and want fundraising at the forefront to ask donate now, give now. And so with engagement, you can have after actions, but that’s behind the engagement, that’s not at the forefront. So really being able to share with people, the value is important to go back to their organization and say, you know, there needs to be a balance. You need to look at your communication calendar, where is there the give and take that you can have and sharing that while you might not get the gift today. When you make to ask, there’s a stronger case to give their. And so really looking at your unique file and what they actually respond to because there’s some organizations where you can send a fundraising appeal and you get tons of gifts right off the bat and then there’s somewhere you need to sell it a little more and have those touch points before you can make the ask. And so it’s def for everyone, but it’s important to evaluate that before just saying no, we can only give fundraising emails and direct mail appeals. [00:41:54.24] spk_1:
All right, I’m gonna let you, that was semi inspirational, but it was very tactical too. So I’m gonna let you leave us with an inspirational message about engagement and stewardship and how that leads to increased giving. [00:42:08.48] spk_3:
Oh, that wasn’t inspirational enough. Okay. Um [00:42:15.35] spk_1:
Okay, [00:42:35.52] spk_3:
this is pressure. I think that you, you just have to take that leap of faith with engagement and stewardship and no one is going to say you thanked me too many times. You sent me too much information. Um You shouldn’t be afraid to provide what your organization does and share your mission. That’s what we’re here to do. And so, um, yeah, engage steward and you’ll see, you’ll see the value come back [00:42:50.32] spk_2:
around, convey that impact and they’ll, they’ll keep giving. Thank you very [00:42:59.93] spk_1:
much, Brent Holmes, principal and senior Vice President at Mission Wired and Alissa Ackerman, senior account director at Mission Wired. Thanks very much for sharing, energetic and brilliant. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T. See where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with us. [00:44:38.14] spk_0:
It’s time for tony steak too. Hi there. Who can you share non profit radio with? I would be grateful if you could identify one or two folks that would benefit from the smart guests that I’m picking the brains of each week for all our listeners in small and midsize nonprofits. Maybe it’s someone you work with, someone you used to work with. Maybe it’s a board member. Who do you know that you could share non profit radio with? Let them know it’s your favorite abdominal podcast. So I would be grateful if you could share non profit radio. Love to have more folks learning from all our smart savvy guests. That’s what the show is all about. Passing on expertise and wisdom. Thanks very much. Thanks for thinking about that. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got Boo Koo, but loads more time here is data maturity. [00:44:47.31] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. It’s day two at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver [00:44:57.48] spk_0:
where we are sponsored [00:44:59.15] spk_1:
by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me now is Joanne Jan. She is project manager of strategic [00:45:11.35] spk_0:
partnerships at data dot org. [00:45:14.61] spk_1:
Welcome to nonprofit radio, Joanne. Thank you, [00:45:16.56] spk_4:
tony. Happy to be here. [00:45:17.58] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure to have you. [00:45:18.51] spk_0:
Thank you. And your [00:45:28.69] spk_1:
session topic is, is data maturity, the key to meeting your mission. It’s question mark. All right, give us the 30,000 ft view of why this is important. [00:47:14.45] spk_4:
Absolutely. So when data dot org is thinking about data maturity, we think about it in um three different ways, a specific framework we call the three PS purpose practice in people. And what we have designed based on this framework is a data maturity assessment, which is a way to understand where you think your organization is in terms of its data maturity. And we hope that you use the assessment as a communication tool to understand with other colleagues, perhaps your leadership, perhaps born members to think about what do you want to do next in terms of improving the way you use data more effectively? And um how do you use it better to meet your mission? What is data maturity? Yeah. And so there are a lot of different terms out there that um can encompass data maturity. But the way we think about it is again, in the three piece So when we think about purpose, we think about why are you collecting data? What are you intending it to do? Are you intending it to help you inform future decisions? Are you helping it? Are you intending to collect it to help you inform past um past programming or are you informing it or collecting it to inform um uh what you think could be right now, informing decision making right now in terms of the second P which is practice, this is what, how are you going to actually use the data? How are you gonna use it to achieve what you’re looking for? Um So this is thinking about data analysis, data visualization, um the way you’re using and working with that data. And then the third piece we think is probably one of the most important ones is the people. So thinking about who is actually doing this data collection, the analysis, the visualization, who at the leadership level is promoting and prioritizing data. And then there are the culture. So what is your culture around data as a team? Are you constantly collecting and analyzing data together using it to inform decisions um that type of uh culture? [00:47:38.72] spk_1:
Okay. And the question is, is this the key to meeting, meeting your mission? So ah how does how does data maturity contribute to mission accomplishment? [00:48:24.27] spk_4:
Yeah. So I think the way we think about it is it’s a way to be more effective, be more efficient and be more impactful in the way that you are carrying out your programmatic objectives. So um when we think about our data maturity journey, you can be at a different part of the journey depending on where your organization is. And perhaps if you’re earlier on in the journey, data collection might not be of primary focus. But as you’re moving along, as you’re developing more um understanding and knowledge and that talent and data, you might want to use it a little more and drive your specific decision making or practices in that way. Um And so the reason it’s a question that said students really thinking about where your organization is and thinking about what can I do now to um maximize the use of data that I as an organization and probably already collecting. So what am I doing now with the, with the data that I have on hand and thinking about in the future? Do I want to shift my practice is in any way, shift my people in any way or my purpose to make it a little more efficient, a little more effective? Um a little more impactful. [00:48:53.98] spk_1:
Um You have some tools and resources. You mentioned the data, you mentioned data assessment. Yes. Is that, is that at data [00:49:17.04] spk_4:
dot org? It is um data dot org is an organization that is a platform for partnerships to build the field of data, for social impact and we do it in the three CS. So the first one is the three CS, easy to remember. [00:49:18.65] spk_1:
Three. [00:49:40.85] spk_4:
No, I think that’s it. So the three C’s Cases Capacities, comments Cases, you’re really thinking about lifting up practitioners, nonprofits, social impact organizations that are already doing great work with data or data science. And we post those stories, we share their stories on our digital platform. The second one is Cases Capacity. So thinking about how do [00:49:47.52] spk_1:
you do, [00:50:44.61] spk_4:
you can only go from the capacity. So thinking about um how do you increase the capacities of individual practitioners and also organizations? And we do this in a few different ways. One of them being perhaps if an organization needs some technical assistance, we can match, make them with um different consultants or other organizations that do this type of work. Uh Thinking about upscaling organizations. So helping them become more um literate in data or developing a new skill. Um And then our third seat is commons, which is where the data maturity assessment falls in and comments is thinking about different digital public goods that you can offer for free for anyone to access. Um that is open source. Uh And that it um can help you improve your practice in some way. So we have an initiative called reverse at data dot org, which is what’s the name of [00:50:45.62] spk_1:
the initiative divers? [00:51:24.29] spk_4:
Okay. So that initiative was thinking about creating open source tools for epidemiology. And so if you have coders if you have public health professionals, everyone’s coming together from different roles and aspects and creating tools that would be helpful for um other people. So maybe a local government in a different country might want to look at these open source tools and helps them predict uh the way a pandemic might spread, predict a number of hospital beds you might need based on um different elements of their, of what has already happened. So putting things together and creating those tools and different packages that you can take and apply to different scenarios and context. So there is just one [00:51:33.22] spk_1:
example of, [00:51:34.32] spk_4:
of a comment of [00:51:35.31] spk_1:
a of a commons, [00:51:47.41] spk_4:
but the one I focus on is the data maturity assessment. And in addition to that, it’s connected to what we call the resource library. So there are a lot of different resources on our library that can help you figure out what you want to do next. So the way our assessment works is it gives you an overall score and a score for the three PS as well as subcategories. And with that, you get resources matched up to how you’re responding. And so say you’re scoring really high [00:52:10.29] spk_1:
before we go to that, before we go to the outcome of the assessment, where where do folks find the assessment at data dot org? [00:52:11.38] spk_4:
So data dot org slash DM A [00:52:28.08] spk_1:
data management assessment assessment, maturity assessment, data dot org slash D M A. OK. Very well named, easily named. So then the outcome is we get, we get resources allied with our outcomes around the three PS. [00:52:55.04] spk_4:
Yeah. So if you’re scoring a little lower and strategy, which is subcategory in purpose, you might want to check out our, our strategy guide, which is a step by step process that you, you might want to take your team through and think about okay, what is the data were already collecting? What do we want the data to help us inform in terms of decisions or in terms of team makeup or whatever? And then thinking about okay, what’s our over arching strategy and how do we communicate that with our team? So we’re all moving in the same direction. What do we need [00:53:03.40] spk_1:
to know entering the assessment? Like is this something I can do in 15 minutes? Yes. So do I can I ceo do it or do I need my I T vendor with me or what? [00:53:57.65] spk_4:
That’s a great question. And so the assessment you can do in about 10 to 12 minutes, it does not matter what role you’re in. Anyone in your organization can take it an important caveat. Is this is your perspective on your organization’s use of data. So this is not gonna be the objective assessment of how your organization is using data. It’s your perspective on it. And the way we encourage users to use the tool is to use it as a communication tool. So say I take it and then tony, you take it, but our scores are different. That’s okay. The whole point of it is to help you understand and have a conversation about why did you score maybe five in this category? But I scored eight, is it because of the role I’m in? Is it because we interpreted the question perhaps a little differently? And then once we’re aligned, then we can think about okay, we’re aligned on where each subcategory falls. And it seems like we both understand that maybe security is something we want to work more closely on because we agree that that is something that we don’t have the proper protocols and practices in place or that’s something we want to improve. So let’s work together on that and think about how do we improve that a little more? [00:54:31.10] spk_1:
Um without our listeners having the advantage of having taken their uh data maturity assessment, how can we help folks? I mean, are there maybe there are some of the resources or tools that are commonly needed and helpful? How can how can we help listeners with their data maturity before they take their assessment because they’re just listening [00:55:20.56] spk_4:
now? Yes. Well, so if you’re interested in exploring the resource library, we have a lot of different tools on it. But what I would recommend and what we recommend for those who are just starting their day to maturity journey is to think about strategy. So, data dot org has a specific guide for strategy in the resource library and you can think about, okay, where is my organization now? And how do I enact and write up a strategy with my team in order to use data more effectively, to better understand how data is coming in and what you could uh think about in the long term and future, what you want to do with the data. [00:55:23.52] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. What else was in your session that we haven’t talked about [00:55:36.09] spk_4:
yet? So unfortunately, my co presenter couldn’t be here. But another part of our session was thinking about um you’re using data but how you’re using it in equitable ways. So equitable, cultivating Ecuador practices for data for social impact. Um and the organization that was part of this presentation was the Data for Social Impact Initiative at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in ST Louis, [00:55:58.24] spk_1:
took four layers to get there. [00:56:26.87] spk_4:
All right, I have to make sure I take a lot of pauses during that. And so what they’ve done is they created a course module. So it’s free and open to anyone to use and it’s thinking about data for social impact. So if you as an individual or thinking, you know, I want to learn a little bit more about data, I want to learn, you know, perhaps in my role, how you can use it better, just some foundational knowledge, this free and open courses, something you can access um at the Data for Social Impact Initiative at the Social Policy Institute website. [00:56:44.36] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um How about questions that came from your, from your session? Uh What kind of questions did you get or anything that’s stuck with you? Maybe a provocative question around [00:58:42.39] spk_4:
data. Yeah, I think um a question, one of the first questions we got was thinking about the word assessment and how that lands with people. So R D M A is called the data maturity assessment. And thinking about maybe assessment is not the right um word because it does have a certain connotation that you’re being evaluated. And the real purpose of the D M A is to help you set a um an understanding of what you think your organization is. So it’s not necessarily a value to it evaluative, it’s more of a um a snapshot of where you are. And so a suggestion was perhaps benchmarking is a little more um is a little more friendly or a little more descriptive of what it actually is. Um So that was really interesting question and useful feedback. Um I’m trying to think of others. I think an interesting piece about the data maturity assessment is that we um are global organizations. So we encourage wherever you are in the in the world to take it. And we’ve had um a lot of different countries represented in our dataset, which is over 1000 submissions at this point. So it helps us understand the field of data for social impact a little better. Um It’s a relatively emerging field. We’re still learning about it and the fact that we can have a larger pool data sets, we can better understand perhaps where there needs to be more support in the fields, um where there needs to be more funding in the field. Um Something that data dot org releases every year is, is a report on thought leadership. And our first report was work first wanted and thinking about what is the current talent landscape of this sector right now? And how do we train more purpose driven data professionals uh and bring some people over from the private sector, encourage new talent to get into data for social impact because we believe that data is going to be a huge um indicator whether or not your organization is going to be successful. What’s, [00:58:47.62] spk_1:
what’s I guess I I really have kind of a neophyte question. So, but you’ve been your your data professional scientist and I’ve been studying this for about 16 minutes. So, [00:58:58.10] spk_4:
well, I’m not a data scientist. I am. Yeah. Well, [00:59:16.15] spk_1:
your title, your title is Project Manager, Strategic Partnerships. I’m sorry, you sound like a data scientist but you’re not. No, I’m not. Okay. Um Well, you have been working with this for a long time. Um What’s the value of knowing where we are in our data journey as an organization? Why, why, why is this important? [01:00:54.28] spk_4:
Yeah. So I think, well, we hear a lot from organizations is everyone is collecting and consuming data regardless of whether or not you have a strategy in place. And so when you want to make a decision, perhaps you’re having a challenge at your organization and you think maybe buying software technology is going to solve everything. Um What we often hear is that making that big financial investment didn’t actually solve everything. It created more problems. And our hypothesis is that because there was no strategy in the first place, there was no overarching reason why um the decision to make an investment in some technology or software would help you achieve your overarching goals, which was, which is usually in some sort of programmatic objectives, your outcomes that you want your organization to achieve. And so it’s understanding what data are we collecting, what is our infrastructure, what tools do we already used and how do we make them all work in the same direction? How do we make it all work? So we’re going towards and working towards our programmatic objectives and something that we’re learning more and more is that data can help you be more efficient. It can help you understand the different trends in perhaps the different constituents you’re serving or the trends in um whatever your mission, maybe it can help you get more information and oftentimes you have this information, but it’s thinking about how do you um look at it. How do you analyze it in a way that can drive maybe financial decisions you’re making, maybe cultural decisions, you’re making leadership decisions. Um and this is just one data point. So thinking about the different types of data you’re collecting uh and helping you make as informed a decision as possible. [01:01:21.88] spk_1:
Okay. Alright. So helping with strategic direction, obviously meeting mission um strategic [01:01:24.96] spk_4:
planning. Yeah, talent decisions. If you want to hire who you want to hire, what skill sets you need, etcetera. Okay. [01:01:32.28] spk_1:
How do we leave it there? All right. All right. So a big part of this is encouraging folks to do the data management assessment. [01:01:41.57] spk_4:
Majority, maturity, [01:02:01.46] spk_1:
maturity, dammit, I’m sorry, data maturity assessment, which you will find at data dot org slash D M A. She is Joanne Jan project manager of strategic partnerships at data dot org. Joanne, thank you very much and thanks for carrying the, the uh the other part of the other part of your session to for your co presenter who couldn’t be here. Thank you for representing that as well. And thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C 2023 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits [01:03:07.70] spk_0:
next week, multigenerational technology teaching and goals aligned with technology. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
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[00:01:43.26] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of dextrose inclination if I saw that you missed this week’s show engagement and stewardship for increased giving. As our 23 NTC coverage continues, Brenna Homes and Alyssa Ackerman deliver systems and ideas that treat your donors right? They help you understand the value of multi channel touches that move the needle on donor retention and value. They’re both from mission wired and data maturity. Also from 23 NTC. How data strategy and practices impact your ability to meet your mission? Plus a free resource to gauge your data maturity. Joanne Jan is from data dot org. Antonis take to it is what it is is what I made it. No, no, we’re done with that. We’re sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is engagement and stewardship for increased giving.
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage. Of 23 N T C 2023 nonprofit technology conference [00:01:57.42] spk_0:
where we are sponsored by Heller [00:02:12.89] spk_1:
consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. It’s my pleasure to welcome back Brenna Homes and to welcome Alyssa Ackerman to nonprofit radio. Brenna is principal and senior vice president of Mission Wired and Alyssa is senior account director also at Mission Wired Brenna. Welcome back. [00:02:25.08] spk_2:
Welcome. [00:02:48.80] spk_1:
Thank you very much. Your topic this year, engagement and stewardship tactics that drive increased giving, writing the fundraising track. I’m sure part of fundraising track. Correct, Brennan, why don’t you kick us off? Just kind of give us a 30,000 ft view of wide. You believe that we need this session 23 [00:03:21.36] spk_2:
N D C. Um I mean, fundraising is harder and harder nowadays, right? It’s a very competitive market. There’s a lot of organizations out there vying for donor dollars. Um And while new generations of donors are coming up, the way they respond and the way they give is different from previous generations and then no matter who you are, nobody wants to be treated like an A T M. So building an engagement and stewardship opportunities is we found the best way to you get a donor from a one time giver to a lifetime brand, evangelist, [00:03:28.30] spk_1:
evangelism, the evangelist for [00:03:34.22] spk_2:
keeping them engaged, right? All the way through [00:03:39.95] spk_1:
time. Have you done your session [00:03:42.88] spk_2:
yesterday [00:03:50.55] spk_1:
about how that went and what questions arose from that? Let’s see, I mean, I have your three learning objectives that were stated in the official document for your, for your session. Where would you like to start the topic? Where, where did you begin [00:04:16.63] spk_3:
the session? Yeah, I think that it’s important to give an overview of why engagement is important as well as how it fits into the overall fundraising strategy. So yeah, I think a lot of organizations often time struggle with the balance and for us to be able to share the value of engagement. [00:04:27.31] spk_1:
I want you to talk about it like you [00:04:42.72] spk_3:
talked about it. So there is a strong value behind engagement and stewardship tactics. So you’re really building that relationship with your donor and potential donor. And by doing that, you’re building a case for support and they’re able to make their own decisions to give and quicker. So when you’re asking them to make that gift after an engagement, there’s little decision to be made because you’ve already helped prime and pave that path for them to make the easy choice to give, talking [00:04:59.68] spk_1:
about giving, not just first time but [00:05:08.81] spk_3:
any time. And we want to always try to lessen the time between the 1st and 2nd gift, get people to be giving at different levels. Um And so it’s not just about that first time donor and moving them down the marketing funnel, but also retaining those donors and moving them in their donor journey. Okay. [00:05:24.86] spk_1:
So why don’t we stick with you kick us off with the first, we’re going to do engagement before we’re going to get the stewardship of the first engagement strategy. [00:06:02.78] spk_3:
Yeah. So um engagement is really important in the beginning of a donor, potential donors journey. So thinking about um different ways to welcome an onboard. So someone who might have signed up for email, let’s get them into a automated welcome series. That’s explaining what the organization does, how they can make an impact, stay connected. And then when they get out of that series, get that first Baskin. So they’ve already taken the action of becoming a subscriber, but let’s get them to take that next step quickly, but also set expectations of how we’re going to be communicating, why we’re communicating. So really that onboarding is important to set the stage for how they are going to be included in the organization. [00:06:23.07] spk_1:
How long does this welcome series last? [00:06:57.78] spk_3:
So typically, um welcome series last could last 10 to 3 weeks having multiple touch points. It’s important, it’s important that when they are in a welcome series though, that you’re being mindful of other communication that’s going out. And so oftentimes, my recommendation is to suppress from other correspondents going out. So it’s very clear, concise and they’re on this track, they’ve been primed, they understand the organization and the communication stream and then get them into your normal cadence of communication. Um And it’s really about your organization. So you should test there’s not one prescribed timeline for a welcome series. And so based on your content and your audience, it might be shorter or longer, but it’s really important to test that [00:07:45.73] spk_1:
out. You suggested that a part of that is informing them how you’re going to be communicating. Is that, is that really asking how do you want to be communicated or, or saying you’ll hear from us every three days for the next three weeks? I understand it would be, I understand this is not a template that everybody applies. You’re in the next 48 hours, there will be no communications after that. So, but how do you say to what degree are you informing them? How you’ll be communicating? [00:08:44.86] spk_3:
Yeah. Again, I think it’s dependent upon your organization. I am a big believer in, in uh asking that question of what are you interested in? How do you want to hear from us? But sometimes if your system isn’t set up to actually do that or set those um standards of if you only want a newsletter, but we don’t have our system set up to only send you a news. Let’s not ask that. But we can be general to say you’ll be hearing from us and you’ll get newsletters, important updates. If you’ve given your cell phone number, you’ll be getting SMS messages from us. So you can be vague. But the big thing is you need to follow through on that. So if you’re asking how they want to be communicated to [00:08:51.31] spk_1:
tell you. Okay. All right. How about you? What else about engagement before we get to stewardship? Yeah, [00:09:39.62] spk_2:
definitely. So, I mean, engagement can mean many things to many people, right? And it really is in the digital space which is a lot of what we were talking about, um getting them to engage with content. So take an action, click something that is measurable in some way. Um Alyssa talked about onboarding, but we can take that even further throughout, you know, quizzes and surveys, getting their own preferences, even, you know, obviously action alerts for advocacy organizations, getting people to take action in a, in a more impactful way um and giving them feedback on what that impact is, is really critical. So depending on the organization, it’s a beautiful consultant answer, right? It depends, um you’re asking them to volunteer, asking them that they’re interested in these other opportunities to further bond them with the organization because whether it is engagement or stewardship or, you know, thinking of them as synonyms. It is about how they engage to stay bonded to the organization or become bonded in the first place. [00:10:06.31] spk_1:
And there’s value in all these individual steps. [00:10:07.38] spk_2:
There is definitely and some organizations can actually put a monetary value to them, right? Like they need this number of many signatures for this petition to take this to Congress or, you know, that sort of thing and some of it is a little bit more. Just feel good to calculate how folks are responding to the brand, whether it’s recognition and sentiment kind of things, [00:11:13.73] spk_1:
any other strategies or tactics around engagement even beyond. So we, we’ve talked about the welcome series right? So now we’ve gone beyond the welcome series. Anything more. I mean, I guess we’re leading toward Alyssa. You had suggested a first gift or maybe, maybe, maybe the welcome series came after the after the first gift. So now we’re looking for a second gift. But the welcome series just to be clear, I mean, it could have come after some other action, right? A signature on a petition. I don’t know if you’re sophisticated enough, maybe a comment on a on a comment on a social post if you’ve got that kind of connection. But okay, so it doesn’t have [00:11:14.76] spk_3:
to be so it could be, you know, an email subscriber, a new donor [00:11:21.20] spk_1:
list, [00:11:34.18] spk_3:
a new sustainer perhaps. Um or if you have like mid level giving or major giving, if someone’s made a mid level gift, they should have a unique onboarding experience as well. Um But beyond welcome series, as Brennan mentioned, having surveys and petitions to really bond and then that’s really focused in digital. But there are many opportunities in direct mail that can complement these as well. [00:12:32.45] spk_2:
Surveys and petitions are a mainstay in direct mail, right? So those engage devices again, that’s the term that’s used in direct response for eras and eras is to get people to feel their impact beyond writing the check or making the gift. Um And you should be doing that. One of the things we focused on in the session was doing that on a recurring basis. So working, having the fundraising team either build them themselves as part of a comprehensive communications calendar or work collaboratively with a marketing communications team that may be already producing this type of more educational or quote unquote programmatic content so that it’s not just month 13 fundraising appeals and nothing else, we really want to make sure that the donor or prospective donor is having the opportunity to learn and engage with the organization in various ways. Okay. [00:12:52.84] spk_1:
Okay. So anything else on engagement before we moved to? No, don’t hold out on non profit radio. I mean, what else did you share in your session? [00:13:09.85] spk_2:
I feel like we touched on a lot of it. I mean, Alyssa talked about tactical opportunities to with whether it’s S M S or even like auto calls, voice recordings, things like that. Um And engagement and stewardship. Can [00:13:13.80] spk_1:
people still people still react positively to [00:14:19.92] spk_2:
the auto call? They do. I mean, we forget that our smartphones are actually phones oftentimes, right? Not just supercomputers in our pocket and getting a recorded message that is a human, sometimes even a volunteer or another donor from an organization that is thanking somebody, for instance, for their gift or giving them an opportunity to come to an event um or just saying, go online and check out this latest case that we just wrote this expose on again, depending on the organization is a really fantastic way to break through the clutter of somebody’s inbox, somebody’s direct mail, you know, actual mailbox. Um and technology now allows us to go straight to voicemail. So you don’t even necessary. Yes, ringlets, voicemail. Um and you don’t even have to, you know, have somebody answer the phone and it makes it feels very authentic for a recipient to just see. Oh, I have a missed call. Listen to the voicemail. It’s not a robo call, write personal [00:14:35.80] spk_3:
messages. You don’t have to listen to the voicemail. You can see it written out in your transcript. And so, you know, that even is great. I like that is, you can see it there. It’s all written out, it’s emphasized. And if I want to listen to it, I can and I hear that real voice. But if I’m on the move and I don’t want to listen, it’s all written. How [00:14:47.87] spk_1:
do we access ringlets voicemail as you’re calling the number. How do you do it? So, [00:15:05.07] spk_2:
yeah, there’s third party partners um that work that offer these services um much like a telemarketing firm, but instead of the live callers, you are accessing a dashboard where your staff or volunteers can log in record a voice message. Um sometimes you can even record it just right on your iphone or whatever and then email the file over to the vendor um and then upload a list of phone numbers and the auto dialer spins amount. The vendor knows [00:15:50.25] spk_1:
how to not make the phone ring. Exactly. Damn. Alright. Ringlets, voicemail. Okay. Very interesting. Okay. But again, I like the emphasis that these are personal calls. It’s not a, it’s not a, it’s not a robocall, it’s personal, you know, Brenna Alyssa, thanks so much. You sign that last petition a couple weeks ago and maybe the person says, um, and, and, and we’re so grateful. [00:15:54.77] spk_2:
It is if you don’t have the time to do an old fashioned. Thank a Thon, right? This is a way that you can still give that personal touch and a very cost effective way. [00:16:09.01] spk_1:
Um Okay, engagement. Have we exhausted? [00:16:12.28] spk_2:
I mean, I guess that’s kind of stewardship to, right? So saying thank you. So kind of going back and forth. [00:16:30.58] spk_1:
That’s true because we did say thank you. Right. Okay. Um But yeah, we want to keep folks engaged in your point early on. We don’t want to treat them like a T M. All right. All right. Um Anything else? So let’s move more formally to stewardship. Okay. What are your recommendations so we can increase, giving anybody? [00:16:58.90] spk_3:
Yeah, I think that, um, one you need to make sure you have an auto responder set up for any action to say thank you. It’s very simple and it goes a long way and you need to be specific about what you’re saying. Thank you for. And so is it thank you for taking action. Is it? Thank you for making a gift. These things are important to take that kind of mass communication. And again, bring it to more of a personalized level and so digitally can have those auto responders for direct mail. I don’t think the written note is dead. It still makes an impact. [00:17:27.55] spk_1:
It’s handwritten huge. I can’t emphasize enough uh fan of handwritten notes. They’re short, it’s not an 8.5 by 11 inch page that you feel you have to full, you have to fill their and nobody does them and they’re personalized and it’s somebody’s somebody’s hand handwriting. There [00:18:02.83] spk_2:
are few organizations doing them but they stand out that hardly anybody, literally nobody. So that’s what we want. We want folks to kind of, it feels like going back to basics, but it really is just thinking about how would you as a donor, how would you want to be treated? How would you want to be recognized by an organization? Um And then thinking about what are the little things that you can do before? [00:18:32.17] spk_1:
I want to emphasize the handwritten note. And then if you’re writing the folks, I’d say roughly maybe 60 65 over, don’t be surprised if you get a handwritten note back. Thanking you for your hand for thanking the time I’ve gotten scores of these giving everybody. I work with all the donors pretty much 55 over thanking you for taking the time to send a handwritten note. Thanking you for that. Thanks for your thank you. And they’re doing it another handwritten note back, especially folks in their seventies and eighties and nineties. Some of the donors I work with, that’s what they grew up with handwriting and postage note. So, absolutely. I mean, and also your mail is not junk mail to the folks that are giving to you, you know, an acquisition campaign that’s different. But we’re not talking about that for your, for your donors. Your mail is not your U S mail is not junk [00:19:38.95] spk_2:
mail. Yes, people are touched and the generational giving studies that are coming out now too is saying it’s not just our elders in the United States that are feeling that way. Millennials respond to direct mail as well. They may not have checkbooks in the house. So you have to give them other ways to respond. Um But it stands out, we don’t get a lot of mail. Um And you know, it’s so having something, we talked a lot yesterday about the having a Q R code that is now ubiquitous, right? Silver lining of the global pandemic. But everybody knows how to use them. Do you remember Q [00:19:46.98] spk_1:
R codes? They, I don’t know, eight or 10 years ago you’d see them on like a bus. And I thought, oh, these are brilliant and they didn’t take off them. What do we know what happened? 10 years? And if my timing is off, [00:20:05.88] spk_2:
it was even older than that, actually, I remember them coming out really? In 2003. How come they didn’t take off then? Because each phone it wasn’t native in the operating system. And so if you recall, you had to download a specific app per code. So every company that was pushing these products or trying to get you to use their QR code platform to separate proprietary app reader that then had to be downloaded. So that’s a bridge too far for most of us. [00:20:32.98] spk_1:
So every code could be a different, a different provider. I there was competition among them [00:20:36.95] spk_2:
so we have to have the technology catch up. And thankfully now any operating system on any phone, has it native within the camera app. So you’re not asking the user to navigate their [00:20:51.30] spk_1:
way proprietary app for our, for the company that provided our code. Alright. Yeah, I know it’s now native but I didn’t know why I thank you for explaining why they, why they died so many years ago. I thought this is a brilliant, okay, cool. Thank you for feeling that I’ve always had. Yeah. Now they’re right now they’re ubiquitous. [00:21:53.24] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box. It’s the online donation platform used by 40,000 nonprofits in the U S, 50,000 worldwide. It’s no wonder it’s four times faster, checkout easier payment processing, no setup fees, no monthly fees, no contract. How many of your potential donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop the drop donor box, helping you help others donor box dot org. Now back to engagement and stewardship for increased giving. [00:21:58.73] spk_1:
Okay, millennials. Gen Z, no checkbooks in the house most likely, but give him a code, the [00:22:49.47] spk_2:
donation page and like integrating that whether it’s donation page or you know, connecting from against stewardship pieces, newsletters. Um Calendar, people still really love having excuse me, um A wall calendar with beautiful photos to hang up year round and having Q R code there with various calls to actions to learn more about the very programs. You know that Q R code can of course take you to the website and specific pages designed, but it can also take you directly to youtube where you can watch videos. It can take you to a lot of other native apps on your phone that supporters already have and use and engage with on their own that then further your impact story. [00:22:50.45] spk_1:
People react well to calendars December calendar for the next [00:23:00.75] spk_2:
year, 100%. I mean, sometimes they’re even more than 12 months, right? So you’re sending them out uh summertime planning for the next year. Yeah, [00:23:06.16] spk_3:
and all sizes. [00:23:08.25] spk_1:
So like refrigerator magnets, calendars [00:23:14.91] spk_2:
are magnetized nowadays. So that makes it harder. [00:23:26.07] spk_1:
Stainless steel ones. I don’t even know. I don’t have a, I have a stainless steel stove, dishwasher but, but I never had magnets anyway. So I wouldn’t because I think that looks like clutter, clutter in my kitchen. Stainless steel magnetized. [00:23:35.14] spk_2:
Obviously, I don’t know all of them, but on mine at home it’s just the sides that are magnetized. Interesting. [00:23:41.49] spk_1:
Alright. Alright. So maybe maybe not the refrigerator anymore but people do like like [00:23:46.06] spk_2:
wall calendar [00:23:51.39] spk_3:
even with people moving, working from home and not necessarily working in an office where you’re hanging it up. Still want it interesting. [00:23:56.54] spk_1:
Okay, cool. All right. So some of the some of the old school stuff is not dead. We’re talking about male, we’re talking about phone calls, we’re talking about handwritten notes, [00:24:05.58] spk_3:
calendars. You can’t assume you can’t assume that these things aren’t going to work. And so you really need to know what your constituents right now. We go [00:24:16.72] spk_1:
back to testing trying try a 12 month calendar, maybe there’s a is there a code on every month or something? And then we know right. We know how many of those, which months and how often we know we send 5000 calendars and if we get 1200 hits on a cure, is that, is that [00:24:36.63] spk_2:
good? Well, [00:24:42.85] spk_1:
alright, 5000 calendars times 12 month, 60,000 codes, but we only get 1200 I don’t know, but it depends what they lead to. It [00:24:54.01] spk_2:
does tell you a lot about what your supporters are interested in. Um So if September, [00:25:00.51] spk_1:
September, what the hell did we, what did we link to in September that everybody loved to volunteer opportunity was something related to the month of September month. [00:25:11.39] spk_2:
It’s what was happening the world. Yeah, media. Yeah. All the things. So, and I mean, that’s what we have to think about from an engagement and stewardship and lifetime retention standpoint is it’s not just necessarily the bottom line L T V per donor, but it is how these supporters are engaging with the brand, the organization more broadly so that they stay engaged for the long term. Otherwise you don’t have planned giving prospects, [00:25:56.91] spk_1:
right? My friend is so smooth. Didn’t even, I didn’t have, I didn’t have to give, I didn’t have to have to lay that out. All right. Thank you very much. Um These are awesome uh ideas you can implement for your program. So we’ve talked about a ton of ideas. Anything else that old school, new school stewardship, [00:26:17.55] spk_3:
I think to part of engagement and stewardship is information sharing. So if something is happening in your organization, making sure that that’s shared and that can be seen as stewardship also because they’re in the know and they feel important and connected. And so thinking about content your organization already has or is planning to disseminate in other ways package it up as stewardship or engagement. So everything doesn’t have to be brand new just for this. [00:26:35.76] spk_1:
What makes me think of is if you have insider communications, maybe it’s from donors at a certain level. Can you expand that circle? And you’re not diluting the content? You’re not, you’re not diminishing what you’re $10,000 donors get. If you start giving it to your $2500 donors, your $10,000 donors are still getting it. It’s not like a zero sum, right? So [00:26:58.81] spk_3:
can you [00:27:02.04] spk_1:
expand the circle so that so that more folks are considered insiders? It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt the existing insiders to bring more folks in. Repurpose the content, expand the content. I always think about that around and giving donors insider communications or events for your major donors. Why not invite your giving [00:27:22.90] spk_2:
folks as well? I mean, we think about that similarly with sustain Ear’s. Um can I [00:27:28.31] spk_1:
until they drop off? Yeah, [00:29:10.69] spk_2:
I think, I hope we’re well past the like set it and forget it, don’t wake the bear mentality and you know, some things like the proposed Microsoft regulations from last year to will kind of shocked the industry in to having to be better stewards of these really important donors. Um and on the Microsoft. Sure. So I mean, we got a little bit of a reprieve. So, but it’s basically surrounding data privacy rules and allowing the donor themselves or from Microsoft’s point of view, the consumer to, to have a right to adjust their own information, have a right to change um what they want to change without having to jump through a lot of hoops. So Microsoft was not Microsoft, I keep saying Microsoft Mastercard, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. That’s not good. Radio, Mastercard, the credit card processing is was going is requiring for for profit e commerce, things like that, that there’s a lot more of the automation and receding that happens for subscription services, right? It’s kind of the Netflix vacation of our lives where we all have so many different monthly subscription services um that we sometimes forget which ones were actually actively subscribed to, but our cards are being charged regularly out and consumer debt is skyrocketing. Mastercard was trying to also extend that out to subscription giving for nonprofits. So sustainer programs. I did sign up for a second sustaining gift to one organization because I had forgotten which one [00:29:33.92] spk_3:
it didn’t make organizations think about what our process is that [00:29:39.48] spk_2:
it was a really long time getting there. But [00:29:43.67] spk_1:
because an explanation, that’s something I never called it Microsoft in the beginning, I would have known exactly what you’re referring to. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know that. That’s [00:30:18.81] spk_2:
okay. So, uh the T N P A which is a wonderful nonprofit advocacy focused organization, the nonprofit nonprofit alliance. Yes, that’s all it is. Um fought and lobbied on behalf of the industry to have nonprofits be forgiven for these rules or not, not have to be held to the same standards that commercial companies like Netflix and others are because sustained charitable giving is different. People are signing up for it like you said, for a reason and they don’t forget about it quite as often as [00:30:37.12] spk_1:
they would. [00:30:40.10] spk_2:
Like I said, I am, I am an example. The [00:30:44.89] spk_3:
whole selling point is you don’t have to think about it. You’re giving to an organization you care about and don’t worry about it. We got it. [00:33:08.53] spk_2:
There is some benefit to the efficiency, certainly, but I think we do have to move past that. Um And, and not be scared to empower our sustain ear’s um with some D I Y functionality online if they want to change the amount or the date that their gift is processed. A lot of systems nowadays are allowing for it, but the nonprofits still have to go in and activate those modules and customize that ui that user interface so that donors understand where to go, what to do and also where the humans are when they need extra help to do whatever. So we got a reprieve temporarily or potentially temporarily. But I think what hopefully what this does and how we’ve been working with our clients is a little bit of a wake up call that it shouldn’t be seen as a reprimand. It should be seen as a stewardship opportunity because you’re sustain ear’s are generally 100 plus dollar annual donors. And if they gave that gift at a one time gift level, you’d be treating them differently. They would be part of a pipeline strategy. Um And, and so we need to not only, like I said, empower them to take some ownership over their own giving, but integrate them into, you know, the rest of the communication and stewardship programs that you already have in place for donors of, of that value and higher potential value. We were just looking at an organization’s um stats just recently that a one time donor online acquired donor, which most sustainer zar is online acquired um had an average 24 month LTV of $86 which is pretty good. 24 months, 24 months, $86 sustain urz 2 87 right? So huge difference um that you theoretically don’t have to do much for, right? Um But if they’re, if they’re falling off, um and not, not being stewarded up that pipeline of giving, it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to the potential that may [00:33:13.25] spk_1:
hold just going back to the mastercard rules. Was it just wasn’t that charities have to start informing the monthly sustain that there’s a dashboard or something that they can go to. [00:34:09.47] spk_2:
So, not necessarily, you have to make it available. There was a few different, was a four or five different bullet lists that you had to do or bullet items to do. One was having easy accessible like links and all your emails to a place where they could cancel or change their, their gift and or be in contact with within a very short period of time, which was subjective with a human who could then help them through that. Another was uh email notification before the gift was charged on a monthly basis, which actually felt quite was probably the most arduous thing that Mastercard was asking for because most systems are set up to set the auto responder after the charge, not pre charge. So there would have to be some configuration and new content developed to have that year [00:34:38.20] spk_1:
after one said, thank you, you will be charged in another 30 days that had to be within a certain time of the charge might have been like 24 or 48 hours. But yeah, thank you very much. And you will be charged in another 29 days, right? I [00:34:40.37] spk_2:
like that. All [00:34:49.99] spk_1:
right. All right. Um Okay. But yeah, I just wanted to get that little little detail about what the requirement was. Your bigger point was that there’s value in these folks see this as a stewardship opportunity, not a, not a reprimand. [00:35:19.89] spk_2:
Exactly. And I mean, I think a lot of stuff you’re hearing at the conference to around data privacy. Um and donor choice is going to kind of follow suit here where we, we have to build systems that empower the donors to take ownership over their own giving trajectory. Um And sometimes it is our corporate partners and regulations that nudge us and sometimes we can stand up and do it ourselves [00:35:23.81] spk_1:
and don’t be afraid to talk to your sustaining donors. Never. Don’t. Let’s not, hopefully, you know, we’re not only over the set it and forget it, but we’re also over the, if I talk to them, they might, they might change their mind, [00:35:38.42] spk_2:
scarcity [00:35:39.17] spk_1:
mindset, they’re gonna take that gift away if I remind them that they’re doing it every month. No, no, no. So see, there’s an opportunity [00:35:45.54] spk_3:
afraid [00:35:46.11] spk_1:
of, you’re afraid to talk to [00:35:49.79] spk_3:
these folks if you’re engaging in store them, if they do make the decision that they can’t continue being a recurring donor, hopefully, they still will make that one time gift or they’ll sign up for advocacy or volunteer or planned giving is that they’re still fully engaged with your mission and organization. So you’re not losing them completely. They’re just shifting how they can support. [00:36:35.11] spk_2:
Situational changes, certainly will affect that, right? And especially some sustainer Czar only giving three or $5 a month. Um and things like inflation and a tightening economy might affect if they can temporary, you know, if they need to temporarily pause that sustaining gift, um If the system allows them to do that themselves, amazing, if not making sure they, you know, who to contact. So that how they can do it and keeping that open line of communication so that they know they can also come back is really important to, again, building that brand affinity and bonding them to the organization so that they say good things about you out in the world. [00:37:13.18] spk_1:
Oh, this is awesome. Um Great ideas coming, I’ll be very interested in if that Mastercard rule takes effect in the sort of the data, the outcomes, you know, do we see, do we see a lot of sustain ear’s dropping off? My optimistic self thinks that we won’t see that happen. A lot that a lot of people are going to abandon it just because their remote, that they could, but I’ll be interested in the data, but maybe the rule will never. So where does it stand now? With the Master card? It’s not, it doesn’t apply to non profits now and we don’t know if or when it will [00:37:26.70] spk_2:
change their mind. And they [00:37:29.09] spk_1:
didn’t say like December 31st is it [00:37:31.21] spk_2:
is a temporary but no deadline waiver? [00:37:36.26] spk_1:
Okay, perfect. Okay. Um I’m looking at your learning objectives that were stated in the official and 10 document for this session. Um Ideas with dozens. If you have, I think listeners, you have to go back and replay this. We play this episode to capture all the ideas we talked about. Um understand the value of multi channel touches that increase retention and value what we’ve talked about multi, we’ve talked about all kinds of channels. Uh What else can we talk about that you talked [00:39:59.74] spk_2:
about yesterday. So we touched on it with the welcome series, right? In the automation. One of the things that I said yesterday and I firmly believe is that we should be leveraging automation more than we do in the digital space. Uh There is so much still like manual labor happening in email, launches SMS, launches advertising and things like that building audiences that is unnecessary. If we take a step back and take a little bit of time to kind of assess the lay of the land first and build out campaign goals, priorities and tactics and strategies. You can pretty much pre schedule almost everything online. Uh So you don’t need to be manually sending out three emails a week or, you know, whatever it is your systems, your technology can really do so much work for you. Um And it’s hard for some folks to put their trust in the machines. Um Yeah, to let go and not review every single audience Celtic and every single, you know, test life, want to see a live seed for every single email, you know, those kind of things. Um But there’s so much more opportunity to do that and you can build trigger based behavior based triggered actions, um emails, engagements, things like that, that keep stewarding people on their own timeline. So you don’t have to pull a list of your, you know, almost lapsing donors manually every time if it’s based on the data that lives in the CRM. Um, and you can build these chronic non responder, trigger based behavior based re engagement series. That’s all about when I last engaged. And it’s different from when Alyssa last engaged. Uh, and it is a little set it and forget it though. Of course, you want to check in periodically to make sure nothing’s gone sideways and the content is still relevant and doesn’t feel dated. Um But that would free up fundraisers, marketers, whoever at the nonprofit to think bigger, think newer, think how we can do something differently or what are the things that we wanted to do for so long. But we never feel like we had the bandwidth at the time if we truly allow ourselves to fully leverage the software that we are investing in regularly, um We’ll have so much more time. [00:40:27.85] spk_1:
Okay. Leverage automation. [00:41:43.14] spk_3:
Yes, I think another thing yesterday and often times this is a big question of how can I come back to my organization and have them see the value, you know, they’re looking for the up front giving and want fundraising at the forefront to ask donate now, give now. And so with engagement, you can have after actions, but that’s behind the engagement, that’s not at the forefront. So really being able to share with people, the value is important to go back to their organization and say, you know, there needs to be a balance. You need to look at your communication calendar, where is there the give and take that you can have and sharing that while you might not get the gift today. When you make to ask, there’s a stronger case to give their. And so really looking at your unique file and what they actually respond to because there’s some organizations where you can send a fundraising appeal and you get tons of gifts right off the bat and then there’s somewhere you need to sell it a little more and have those touch points before you can make the ask. And so it’s def for everyone, but it’s important to evaluate that before just saying no, we can only give fundraising emails and direct mail appeals. [00:41:54.24] spk_1:
All right, I’m gonna let you, that was semi inspirational, but it was very tactical too. So I’m gonna let you leave us with an inspirational message about engagement and stewardship and how that leads to increased giving. [00:42:08.48] spk_3:
Oh, that wasn’t inspirational enough. Okay. Um [00:42:15.35] spk_1:
Okay, [00:42:35.52] spk_3:
this is pressure. I think that you, you just have to take that leap of faith with engagement and stewardship and no one is going to say you thanked me too many times. You sent me too much information. Um You shouldn’t be afraid to provide what your organization does and share your mission. That’s what we’re here to do. And so, um, yeah, engage steward and you’ll see, you’ll see the value come back [00:42:50.32] spk_2:
around, convey that impact and they’ll, they’ll keep giving. Thank you very [00:42:59.93] spk_1:
much, Brent Holmes, principal and senior Vice President at Mission Wired and Alissa Ackerman, senior account director at Mission Wired. Thanks very much for sharing, energetic and brilliant. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T. See where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with us. [00:44:38.14] spk_0:
It’s time for tony steak too. Hi there. Who can you share non profit radio with? I would be grateful if you could identify one or two folks that would benefit from the smart guests that I’m picking the brains of each week for all our listeners in small and midsize nonprofits. Maybe it’s someone you work with, someone you used to work with. Maybe it’s a board member. Who do you know that you could share non profit radio with? Let them know it’s your favorite abdominal podcast. So I would be grateful if you could share non profit radio. Love to have more folks learning from all our smart savvy guests. That’s what the show is all about. Passing on expertise and wisdom. Thanks very much. Thanks for thinking about that. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got Boo Koo, but loads more time here is data maturity. [00:44:47.31] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. It’s day two at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver [00:44:57.48] spk_0:
where we are sponsored [00:44:59.15] spk_1:
by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me now is Joanne Jan. She is project manager of strategic [00:45:11.35] spk_0:
partnerships at data dot org. [00:45:14.61] spk_1:
Welcome to nonprofit radio, Joanne. Thank you, [00:45:16.56] spk_4:
tony. Happy to be here. [00:45:17.58] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure to have you. [00:45:18.51] spk_0:
Thank you. And your [00:45:28.69] spk_1:
session topic is, is data maturity, the key to meeting your mission. It’s question mark. All right, give us the 30,000 ft view of why this is important. [00:47:14.45] spk_4:
Absolutely. So when data dot org is thinking about data maturity, we think about it in um three different ways, a specific framework we call the three PS purpose practice in people. And what we have designed based on this framework is a data maturity assessment, which is a way to understand where you think your organization is in terms of its data maturity. And we hope that you use the assessment as a communication tool to understand with other colleagues, perhaps your leadership, perhaps born members to think about what do you want to do next in terms of improving the way you use data more effectively? And um how do you use it better to meet your mission? What is data maturity? Yeah. And so there are a lot of different terms out there that um can encompass data maturity. But the way we think about it is again, in the three piece So when we think about purpose, we think about why are you collecting data? What are you intending it to do? Are you intending it to help you inform future decisions? Are you helping it? Are you intending to collect it to help you inform past um past programming or are you informing it or collecting it to inform um uh what you think could be right now, informing decision making right now in terms of the second P which is practice, this is what, how are you going to actually use the data? How are you gonna use it to achieve what you’re looking for? Um So this is thinking about data analysis, data visualization, um the way you’re using and working with that data. And then the third piece we think is probably one of the most important ones is the people. So thinking about who is actually doing this data collection, the analysis, the visualization, who at the leadership level is promoting and prioritizing data. And then there are the culture. So what is your culture around data as a team? Are you constantly collecting and analyzing data together using it to inform decisions um that type of uh culture? [00:47:38.72] spk_1:
Okay. And the question is, is this the key to meeting, meeting your mission? So ah how does how does data maturity contribute to mission accomplishment? [00:48:24.27] spk_4:
Yeah. So I think the way we think about it is it’s a way to be more effective, be more efficient and be more impactful in the way that you are carrying out your programmatic objectives. So um when we think about our data maturity journey, you can be at a different part of the journey depending on where your organization is. And perhaps if you’re earlier on in the journey, data collection might not be of primary focus. But as you’re moving along, as you’re developing more um understanding and knowledge and that talent and data, you might want to use it a little more and drive your specific decision making or practices in that way. Um And so the reason it’s a question that said students really thinking about where your organization is and thinking about what can I do now to um maximize the use of data that I as an organization and probably already collecting. So what am I doing now with the, with the data that I have on hand and thinking about in the future? Do I want to shift my practice is in any way, shift my people in any way or my purpose to make it a little more efficient, a little more effective? Um a little more impactful. [00:48:53.98] spk_1:
Um You have some tools and resources. You mentioned the data, you mentioned data assessment. Yes. Is that, is that at data [00:49:17.04] spk_4:
dot org? It is um data dot org is an organization that is a platform for partnerships to build the field of data, for social impact and we do it in the three CS. So the first one is the three CS, easy to remember. [00:49:18.65] spk_1:
Three. [00:49:40.85] spk_4:
No, I think that’s it. So the three C’s Cases Capacities, comments Cases, you’re really thinking about lifting up practitioners, nonprofits, social impact organizations that are already doing great work with data or data science. And we post those stories, we share their stories on our digital platform. The second one is Cases Capacity. So thinking about how do [00:49:47.52] spk_1:
you do, [00:50:44.61] spk_4:
you can only go from the capacity. So thinking about um how do you increase the capacities of individual practitioners and also organizations? And we do this in a few different ways. One of them being perhaps if an organization needs some technical assistance, we can match, make them with um different consultants or other organizations that do this type of work. Uh Thinking about upscaling organizations. So helping them become more um literate in data or developing a new skill. Um And then our third seat is commons, which is where the data maturity assessment falls in and comments is thinking about different digital public goods that you can offer for free for anyone to access. Um that is open source. Uh And that it um can help you improve your practice in some way. So we have an initiative called reverse at data dot org, which is what’s the name of [00:50:45.62] spk_1:
the initiative divers? [00:51:24.29] spk_4:
Okay. So that initiative was thinking about creating open source tools for epidemiology. And so if you have coders if you have public health professionals, everyone’s coming together from different roles and aspects and creating tools that would be helpful for um other people. So maybe a local government in a different country might want to look at these open source tools and helps them predict uh the way a pandemic might spread, predict a number of hospital beds you might need based on um different elements of their, of what has already happened. So putting things together and creating those tools and different packages that you can take and apply to different scenarios and context. So there is just one [00:51:33.22] spk_1:
example of, [00:51:34.32] spk_4:
of a comment of [00:51:35.31] spk_1:
a of a commons, [00:51:47.41] spk_4:
but the one I focus on is the data maturity assessment. And in addition to that, it’s connected to what we call the resource library. So there are a lot of different resources on our library that can help you figure out what you want to do next. So the way our assessment works is it gives you an overall score and a score for the three PS as well as subcategories. And with that, you get resources matched up to how you’re responding. And so say you’re scoring really high [00:52:10.29] spk_1:
before we go to that, before we go to the outcome of the assessment, where where do folks find the assessment at data dot org? [00:52:11.38] spk_4:
So data dot org slash DM A [00:52:28.08] spk_1:
data management assessment assessment, maturity assessment, data dot org slash D M A. OK. Very well named, easily named. So then the outcome is we get, we get resources allied with our outcomes around the three PS. [00:52:55.04] spk_4:
Yeah. So if you’re scoring a little lower and strategy, which is subcategory in purpose, you might want to check out our, our strategy guide, which is a step by step process that you, you might want to take your team through and think about okay, what is the data were already collecting? What do we want the data to help us inform in terms of decisions or in terms of team makeup or whatever? And then thinking about okay, what’s our over arching strategy and how do we communicate that with our team? So we’re all moving in the same direction. What do we need [00:53:03.40] spk_1:
to know entering the assessment? Like is this something I can do in 15 minutes? Yes. So do I can I ceo do it or do I need my I T vendor with me or what? [00:53:57.65] spk_4:
That’s a great question. And so the assessment you can do in about 10 to 12 minutes, it does not matter what role you’re in. Anyone in your organization can take it an important caveat. Is this is your perspective on your organization’s use of data. So this is not gonna be the objective assessment of how your organization is using data. It’s your perspective on it. And the way we encourage users to use the tool is to use it as a communication tool. So say I take it and then tony, you take it, but our scores are different. That’s okay. The whole point of it is to help you understand and have a conversation about why did you score maybe five in this category? But I scored eight, is it because of the role I’m in? Is it because we interpreted the question perhaps a little differently? And then once we’re aligned, then we can think about okay, we’re aligned on where each subcategory falls. And it seems like we both understand that maybe security is something we want to work more closely on because we agree that that is something that we don’t have the proper protocols and practices in place or that’s something we want to improve. So let’s work together on that and think about how do we improve that a little more? [00:54:31.10] spk_1:
Um without our listeners having the advantage of having taken their uh data maturity assessment, how can we help folks? I mean, are there maybe there are some of the resources or tools that are commonly needed and helpful? How can how can we help listeners with their data maturity before they take their assessment because they’re just listening [00:55:20.56] spk_4:
now? Yes. Well, so if you’re interested in exploring the resource library, we have a lot of different tools on it. But what I would recommend and what we recommend for those who are just starting their day to maturity journey is to think about strategy. So, data dot org has a specific guide for strategy in the resource library and you can think about, okay, where is my organization now? And how do I enact and write up a strategy with my team in order to use data more effectively, to better understand how data is coming in and what you could uh think about in the long term and future, what you want to do with the data. [00:55:23.52] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. What else was in your session that we haven’t talked about [00:55:36.09] spk_4:
yet? So unfortunately, my co presenter couldn’t be here. But another part of our session was thinking about um you’re using data but how you’re using it in equitable ways. So equitable, cultivating Ecuador practices for data for social impact. Um and the organization that was part of this presentation was the Data for Social Impact Initiative at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in ST Louis, [00:55:58.24] spk_1:
took four layers to get there. [00:56:26.87] spk_4:
All right, I have to make sure I take a lot of pauses during that. And so what they’ve done is they created a course module. So it’s free and open to anyone to use and it’s thinking about data for social impact. So if you as an individual or thinking, you know, I want to learn a little bit more about data, I want to learn, you know, perhaps in my role, how you can use it better, just some foundational knowledge, this free and open courses, something you can access um at the Data for Social Impact Initiative at the Social Policy Institute website. [00:56:44.36] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um How about questions that came from your, from your session? Uh What kind of questions did you get or anything that’s stuck with you? Maybe a provocative question around [00:58:42.39] spk_4:
data. Yeah, I think um a question, one of the first questions we got was thinking about the word assessment and how that lands with people. So R D M A is called the data maturity assessment. And thinking about maybe assessment is not the right um word because it does have a certain connotation that you’re being evaluated. And the real purpose of the D M A is to help you set a um an understanding of what you think your organization is. So it’s not necessarily a value to it evaluative, it’s more of a um a snapshot of where you are. And so a suggestion was perhaps benchmarking is a little more um is a little more friendly or a little more descriptive of what it actually is. Um So that was really interesting question and useful feedback. Um I’m trying to think of others. I think an interesting piece about the data maturity assessment is that we um are global organizations. So we encourage wherever you are in the in the world to take it. And we’ve had um a lot of different countries represented in our dataset, which is over 1000 submissions at this point. So it helps us understand the field of data for social impact a little better. Um It’s a relatively emerging field. We’re still learning about it and the fact that we can have a larger pool data sets, we can better understand perhaps where there needs to be more support in the fields, um where there needs to be more funding in the field. Um Something that data dot org releases every year is, is a report on thought leadership. And our first report was work first wanted and thinking about what is the current talent landscape of this sector right now? And how do we train more purpose driven data professionals uh and bring some people over from the private sector, encourage new talent to get into data for social impact because we believe that data is going to be a huge um indicator whether or not your organization is going to be successful. What’s, [00:58:47.62] spk_1:
what’s I guess I I really have kind of a neophyte question. So, but you’ve been your your data professional scientist and I’ve been studying this for about 16 minutes. So, [00:58:58.10] spk_4:
well, I’m not a data scientist. I am. Yeah. Well, [00:59:16.15] spk_1:
your title, your title is Project Manager, Strategic Partnerships. I’m sorry, you sound like a data scientist but you’re not. No, I’m not. Okay. Um Well, you have been working with this for a long time. Um What’s the value of knowing where we are in our data journey as an organization? Why, why, why is this important? [01:00:54.28] spk_4:
Yeah. So I think, well, we hear a lot from organizations is everyone is collecting and consuming data regardless of whether or not you have a strategy in place. And so when you want to make a decision, perhaps you’re having a challenge at your organization and you think maybe buying software technology is going to solve everything. Um What we often hear is that making that big financial investment didn’t actually solve everything. It created more problems. And our hypothesis is that because there was no strategy in the first place, there was no overarching reason why um the decision to make an investment in some technology or software would help you achieve your overarching goals, which was, which is usually in some sort of programmatic objectives, your outcomes that you want your organization to achieve. And so it’s understanding what data are we collecting, what is our infrastructure, what tools do we already used and how do we make them all work in the same direction? How do we make it all work? So we’re going towards and working towards our programmatic objectives and something that we’re learning more and more is that data can help you be more efficient. It can help you understand the different trends in perhaps the different constituents you’re serving or the trends in um whatever your mission, maybe it can help you get more information and oftentimes you have this information, but it’s thinking about how do you um look at it. How do you analyze it in a way that can drive maybe financial decisions you’re making, maybe cultural decisions, you’re making leadership decisions. Um and this is just one data point. So thinking about the different types of data you’re collecting uh and helping you make as informed a decision as possible. [01:01:21.88] spk_1:
Okay. Alright. So helping with strategic direction, obviously meeting mission um strategic [01:01:24.96] spk_4:
planning. Yeah, talent decisions. If you want to hire who you want to hire, what skill sets you need, etcetera. Okay. [01:01:32.28] spk_1:
How do we leave it there? All right. All right. So a big part of this is encouraging folks to do the data management assessment. [01:01:41.57] spk_4:
Majority, maturity, [01:02:01.46] spk_1:
maturity, dammit, I’m sorry, data maturity assessment, which you will find at data dot org slash D M A. She is Joanne Jan project manager of strategic partnerships at data dot org. Joanne, thank you very much and thanks for carrying the, the uh the other part of the other part of your session to for your co presenter who couldn’t be here. Thank you for representing that as well. And thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C 2023 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits [01:03:07.70] spk_0:
next week, multigenerational technology teaching and goals aligned with technology. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
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