Tag Archives: fundraising

Nonprofit Radio for May 23, 2022: Many Ways To Test Your Digital Fundraising

 

Jeremy Haselwood: Many Ways To Test Your Digital Fundraising
As our #22NTC coverage continues, Jeremy Haselwood walks you through 30 variables you can test throughout your digital fundraising, including your homepage, donation pages, Facebook ads, and more. He’s from Fundraisers Unite.

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mm hmm. Hello

[00:00:12.80] spk_1:
and welcome to tony-martignetti non

[00:00:26.24] spk_0:
Profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad

[00:00:28.04] spk_1:
you’re with me. I’d

[00:00:28.35] spk_0:
suffer the effects of

[00:00:29.56] spk_1:
osteoporosis if

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I had to raise my eyebrows to the idea that you missed this week’s show many ways to test your

[00:00:38.94] spk_1:
digital fundraising As our 22 NTC coverage continues,

[00:00:41.82] spk_0:
jeremy hazelwood walks you through lots of

[00:00:44.59] spk_1:
variables you can

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test throughout your

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digital fundraising,

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including your

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homepage donation pages, facebook ads and more.

[00:00:54.24] spk_0:
He’s from

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fundraisers

[00:00:56.13] spk_0:
unite

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On Tony’s take two doubling

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down on please share

[00:01:03.84] spk_1:
redux. We’re

[00:01:03.95] spk_0:
sponsored by turn to

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communications pr

[00:01:06.57] spk_0:
and content for

[00:01:07.35] spk_1:
nonprofits. Your

[00:01:14.04] spk_0:
story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. And by 4th dimension technologies

[00:01:16.94] spk_1:
I

[00:01:17.12] spk_0:
thi infra in a box

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the affordable tech solution for

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nonprofits.

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tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just

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like three D.

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But they go one dimension deeper.

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Here

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is many ways to

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test your digital

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fundraising.

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Hello and

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welcome to

[00:02:11.54] spk_0:
Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 NTC 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10. Those very smart folks who help you use technology as you are doing your mission as you are doing your social change work everyday. They’re helping you leverage technology. My guest now is jeremy hazelwood. He is digital fundraiser, author, trainer and marketer at fundraisers United Jeremy Welcome to nonprofit radio Hey, Tony, thank you for having me here. I’m so excited to be here and talk digital fundraising. Absolutely. That’s what we’re here to do. I’m glad you’re excited Thank you. Alright. I’m glad to see you get excited about digital fundraising man. It’s my passion. So it’s like I wake up and I’m, I’m excited every day because I get to help companies raise money and do more good in the world. So

[00:02:31.26] spk_1:
it took a while to figure

[00:03:16.54] spk_0:
out what it is that gets me up. But that’s, that’s definitely it. This is it. All right. And your session is aptly named 30 ways to test your digital fundraising. You would like to see nonprofits develop a testing plan testing regimen. Yeah, yeah. I think it’s something that’s very underutilized just in my experience working with nonprofit, especially from a digital side. Um, my background is like I worked for agencies that marketing and fundraising agencies that serve nonprofits heavy and direct mail. And my role with them was to really bring digital and make it, um, just a better channel for their clients to raise funds. I noticed they do a lot in testing when it comes to direct mail, but when it came to digital,

[00:03:17.90] spk_1:
it was kind of

[00:04:06.44] spk_0:
bland and one message and I’m like, there’s still so much that we can learn from digital, we can learn it so much more quickly than we can with direct mail. Okay. Um, is there a way that you’ve organized these, these 30 ways. I don’t know if we’ll be able to tick through all 30. Yeah, depending on how much you have to say about them, but we might, you know, we’ll see well organized by like channel um, facebook goal etcetera. Yeah, it’s actually funny. Like the original concept for this session, um, that I pitched to NtC was like 100 ways to test and it was gonna be a 60 minute session. Actually. No, no, that’s not. I have a, I have 100 ways to test within fundraisers unite. But for N TC, I was gonna do like 60 ways to test 60 and 60 minutes and then They’re like, well we only have the 30 minute sessions available. I’m like, let’s do 30 in 30 minutes. Um, 40, There you go. See the math works itself out. But, but for the sake

[00:04:21.13] spk_1:
of like organizing to

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your point. Um,

[00:04:23.16] spk_1:
I did, I focused

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on some specific areas. So I looked really

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at email, um

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social media,

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um, search

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engine marketing and

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let’s see

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um, donation page and social media. Really your facebook ads, not like all social, but so email, facebook ads. Search engine marketing, your donation page and your homepage. So these are

[00:04:45.20] spk_1:
The five areas that I

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focused on for the session

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for NtC.

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Okay, let’s start with the homepage and the donation pages because odds are

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everybody’s got one of those

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both of those and I do see some pretty weak donation pages, uh,

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lacking

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technology,

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lacking visual appeal.

[00:05:07.84] spk_0:
Um, so, but let’s, let’s start with, let’s start with the home page and you know, we’ll go beyond those two, but let’s make sure we cover the homepage and then donation pages. So what’s your advice around the homepage?

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Yeah,

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so with the homepage, I mean

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naturally it’s like

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you want your donation page, there’s so many boxes at the homepage, has to check when people come to your website, they need to know who you are, why you do what you do, who you do it for um in a way for people to connect with you. And some of

[00:05:36.31] spk_1:
the things that I talked about it and what people

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don’t realize too is like there’s things

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that you should test on your

[00:05:41.28] spk_0:
homepage. Um and there’s tools that you can use to test.

[00:05:44.03] spk_1:
Also, I didn’t get into the

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tools within the session,

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but you can use

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like um optimized

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lee or um

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omni convert. These are

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tools and

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actually google optimized you

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can use. These are tools that I

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we don’t have time to

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go into those, but what they

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essentially do is help

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you kind of a b test

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different elements on your homepage, for example, resources. Those

[00:06:04.69] spk_1:
3. 1 more time I’d like to

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share.

[00:06:06.47] spk_1:
Sure, sure. Optimized

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lee.

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Omni convert

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and google

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optimized and google

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optimize is free, but there are certain limitations, but

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basically these are

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like conversion rate

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optimization tools for your website or even

[00:06:23.94] spk_0:
for your donation page and to summarize

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what what these tools

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do is let’s say you’re one time that your homepage

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loads, You’ll

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get image a, as your homepage better and the next

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time your web page loads,

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it’ll be image

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B of the homepage banner.

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So it’s kind of randomized

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if you will, just

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to simplify. So

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when people see your

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website, they’ll get a version

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A and version be of your website.

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So you can test

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different things on your

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website, like an image

[00:06:50.23] spk_1:
or a call to action or a headline or

[00:06:52.27] spk_0:
something like that. Um, that’s generally what that does. Um, that’s again, I didn’t get into any of that because it does get to be a little more technical. Um, really what my point of my session was and really the point today is like,

[00:07:05.74] spk_1:
here’s what you

[00:07:06.65] spk_0:
can test and then we can also get into

[00:07:08.72] spk_1:
why it’s important to test,

[00:07:09.85] spk_0:
which a lot of it’s kind of common sense knowledge, but that’s not always common practice though. Um, but when it comes to your home page, one of

[00:07:17.79] spk_1:
the things that, that I

[00:07:18.71] spk_0:
always recommend is like testing like your hero image, which is like that first image that’s at the top of your home page. Um, some nonprofits might have a video running up there instead of an image, but testing that using, like, especially if you’re

[00:07:32.64] spk_1:
doing a campaign,

[00:07:34.34] spk_0:
um, if you’re running a

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campaign like right now, I don’t know

[00:07:37.81] spk_0:
when people will hear this, but let’s say it’s

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a springtime

[00:07:40.85] spk_0:
campaign, your email is springtime campaign oriented. You’re, let’s say you’re running

[00:07:45.74] spk_1:
facebook ads. It’s springtime campaign

[00:07:47.75] spk_0:
oriented. Um,

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so like let’s

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have like your

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hero image on your

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page be that

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same campaign

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as opposed to like

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here’s what we do or

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here’s how you can volunteer,

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like make that image

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coincide with the rest of your campaign elements.

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Right? Make

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it timely make it integrate

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with your campaigns,

[00:08:06.69] spk_0:
test that with the campaign versus not testing it if

[00:08:09.68] spk_1:
you don’t have the tools

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and watch

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how your donations

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will increase because that message is right there in

[00:08:15.19] spk_1:
the front for people to see.

[00:08:16.62] spk_0:
Um, so

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you know, that that’s one thing that you

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can test is your hero image using a campaign image as opposed to like a

[00:08:22.83] spk_1:
general branded image or

[00:08:28.24] spk_0:
some other kind of call to action image. Um, so I’ll pause there, see if you have questions or if you wanted me to

[00:08:30.72] spk_1:
kind of roll into the next

[00:08:31.91] spk_0:
one, you know, go to the

[00:08:32.85] spk_1:
go to the next homepage

[00:08:34.13] spk_0:
idea.

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Okay. Yeah. Next one would be like your

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donation

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button text. Um,

[00:08:40.04] spk_0:
pretty much every

[00:08:40.80] spk_1:
nonprofit. I haven’t

[00:08:42.02] spk_0:
Seen one and I don’t

[00:08:43.18] spk_1:
know how long

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that does not include that donate button

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up in the upper, usually

[00:08:47.38] spk_0:
right hand corner.

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Uh, and most of

[00:08:49.52] spk_0:
them will say donate and I think

[00:08:51.45] spk_1:
that’s fine. I don’t think

[00:08:52.42] spk_0:
there’s anything wrong with donate, but what if instead of donate it said give now

[00:08:58.04] spk_1:
or make

[00:08:58.64] spk_0:
a difference

[00:08:59.42] spk_1:
or feed a

[00:09:00.32] spk_0:
family, you know, whatever

[00:09:01.72] spk_1:
that call to action,

[00:09:02.71] spk_0:
maybe fund

[00:09:04.24] spk_1:
a research study.

[00:09:06.24] spk_0:
Um, so

[00:09:07.12] spk_1:
we’re very accustomed to just saying donate now because it’s

[00:09:09.60] spk_0:
very direct, but it’s also

[00:09:10.99] spk_1:
very transactional.

[00:09:12.48] spk_0:
Um, but again,

[00:09:13.54] spk_1:
I’m not saying that it’s,

[00:09:14.48] spk_0:
it’s not going to

[00:09:15.59] spk_1:
work for your organization, but if we

[00:09:16.97] spk_0:
don’t test, we don’t know

[00:09:18.19] spk_1:
right.

[00:09:18.86] spk_0:
Um, and I think there’s certain

[00:09:20.52] spk_1:
kind of boilerplate

[00:09:21.54] spk_0:
templates that is non profit as an

[00:09:23.94] spk_1:
industry we go

[00:09:24.86] spk_0:
with because we know that in general this

[00:09:27.09] spk_1:
is what’s supposed to work. And I don’t

[00:09:29.71] spk_0:
remember you

[00:09:30.76] spk_1:
remember years ago act Blue

[00:09:32.36] spk_0:
did well with Chip in.

[00:09:34.44] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:09:36.06] spk_0:
something like

[00:09:36.69] spk_1:
that. But I’m sure they, I mean

[00:09:57.94] spk_0:
they have lots and lots of records that they’re mailing too. So I’m sure they tested and, and chip in. You saw the blue button and said and for them it was like chip in, you know? Yeah. Well, but, and even to that point it’s like chip in and that could be like vernacular. That’s that organization and their audiences like they associate with that non profit you know, So what’s the vernacular, the language

[00:10:00.72] spk_1:
that you’re a nonprofit would

[00:10:01.69] spk_0:
use, you know, maybe it is chip in, you know, maybe it’s feed a family, you know, whatever that is, but test that out. Um, if you don’t have, if you have zero data, your new nonprofit or you’ve never tested before, then you probably have data on what donate now is doing for you. Like let’s switch it for a month and try to keep everything constant If we, if we have too many factors going, we’re not going to know what works, you know, so you always want to change

[00:10:24.81] spk_1:
One thing at one time.

[00:10:26.14] spk_0:
Um, and if all

[00:10:26.91] spk_1:
things are the same and we

[00:10:28.01] spk_0:
only changed the text on that donated button, then it’s a pretty safe bet that the donate button was the reason that, you know, the,

[00:10:35.49] spk_1:
that we got and you can

[00:10:38.54] spk_0:
also test it with. I’m trying to think of some of the other

[00:10:39.85] spk_1:
tools. Um, well even the tools

[00:10:42.64] spk_0:
that I mentioned, they can test conversion rates and things like that.

[00:10:45.52] spk_1:
But because

[00:10:46.50] spk_0:
I know one pieces, like we talked about testing, but then there’s like,

[00:10:48.91] spk_1:
how do you measure the testing? Um,

[00:10:50.85] spk_0:
and one is if you’re, you’re not using any

[00:10:53.25] spk_1:
tools, it’s just kind of how did we do last month

[00:10:57.44] spk_0:
versus how we do this month? Um, did we change anything

[00:10:58.99] spk_1:
else? No, Then we can probably attribute it to this and that’s kind of the

[00:11:02.54] spk_0:
roundabout. Like

[00:11:03.49] spk_1:
we can probably attribute it to this.

[00:11:05.50] spk_0:
Um, if

[00:11:06.52] spk_1:
smaller, medium

[00:11:07.67] spk_0:
sized nonprofits

[00:11:08.40] spk_1:
may not have the budget

[00:11:09.68] spk_0:
to actually put the analytics and technology behind

[00:11:12.16] spk_1:
knowing for sure

[00:11:13.50] spk_0:
what

[00:11:14.30] spk_1:
the difference maker was. But if you’re

[00:11:16.18] spk_0:
looking for some data points like that’s certainly something that can help is

[00:11:20.11] spk_1:
swapping it out and keeping

[00:11:21.35] spk_0:
everything else the same.

[00:12:07.14] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, Content creation and content management, What projects do you have that they can take off your plate, lift these weights from your shoulders? Content creation Is there some writing project some series that you need to do or that you’ve been thinking about doing you’d like to do for internal audiences. External board donor’s community. What writing projects can they take off your plate and then the content management and also the distribution. Getting you the

[00:12:07.84] spk_0:
placements and

[00:12:49.14] spk_1:
as well as managing that content for you on your site, whether that’s blog, wherever you may, print or digital. Right, Alright. So how can they help you with content creation, content management and then also the distribution, getting the, getting your good word, you as an opinion leader, thought leader in your community. Getting that out. Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to many ways to test your digital fundraising.

[00:12:54.74] spk_0:
You made the point a

[00:12:56.05] spk_1:
couple of times, keeping everything

[00:12:57.26] spk_0:
else the same. I

[00:12:58.88] spk_1:
guess if you if you change a few things

[00:13:01.05] spk_0:
or a bunch of things

[00:13:02.54] spk_1:
and your outcomes improved,

[00:13:07.04] spk_0:
I guess

[00:13:07.82] spk_1:
by outcomes, you know,

[00:13:08.65] spk_0:
we’re keeping it simple. So we’re saying

[00:13:10.00] spk_1:
donations improved.

[00:13:11.67] spk_0:
Then

[00:13:12.47] spk_1:
then then

[00:13:13.21] spk_0:
then that’s terrific.

[00:13:14.25] spk_1:
But if donations declined

[00:13:16.35] spk_0:
and you don’t know what it is that you changed that caused them to

[00:13:19.14] spk_1:
decline. So then you have to go back to where you were in the beginning

[00:13:22.43] spk_0:
and then

[00:13:23.39] spk_1:
iterative lee changed

[00:13:26.44] spk_0:
one thing at a time and

[00:13:26.59] spk_1:
figure out what what what

[00:13:29.24] spk_0:
is, what is, what

[00:13:29.49] spk_1:
is it that’s depressing

[00:13:30.73] spk_0:
your,

[00:13:31.56] spk_1:
your outcomes and change that one little thing

[00:13:33.92] spk_0:
and then and then test and see

[00:13:35.54] spk_1:
if you, you get higher

[00:13:36.53] spk_0:
than your baseline.

[00:13:38.54] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. Because the

[00:13:43.75] spk_0:
tests that I’m talking about in the test

[00:13:45.31] spk_1:
will go through. It’s like

[00:13:46.44] spk_0:
these are tests that you do one at a time. I’m not like

[00:13:48.64] spk_1:
here’s 50 things

[00:13:49.62] spk_0:
you can test and let’s do them all at once.

[00:13:51.65] spk_1:
Because if you think about if you

[00:13:53.03] spk_0:
change that button, if you

[00:13:54.08] spk_1:
change it to say give

[00:13:55.37] spk_0:
now instead of donate now and

[00:13:57.07] spk_1:
it goes to your landing page. But you’ve

[00:13:58.64] spk_0:
also changed an image

[00:14:00.23] spk_1:
or headline or something on the

[00:14:02.54] spk_0:
landing page, then we don’t know if

[00:14:03.10] spk_1:
you’ve got more donations

[00:14:04.08] spk_0:
because you change something on your landing page or if

[00:14:06.55] spk_1:
you change something on that button that got them to the landing page. So

[00:14:10.47] spk_0:
you know the, the need

[00:14:11.79] spk_1:
to put together kind of a testing

[00:14:13.17] spk_0:
roadmap um,

[00:14:14.35] spk_1:
would be something that you would want to do for your organization and be like here

[00:14:17.76] spk_0:
and it takes time

[00:14:18.74] spk_1:
because you can only test

[00:14:19.78] spk_0:
one thing at a time. So it’s like

[00:14:20.87] spk_1:
here’s what we’re going to test

[00:14:22.07] spk_0:
in this calendar year and then whether it’s

[00:14:24.97] spk_1:
bi weekly, weekly,

[00:14:26.41] spk_0:
monthly, whatever it is, you know, having that plan laid out the

[00:14:29.73] spk_1:
to learn

[00:14:30.52] spk_0:
because the whole point of testing is like we want to learn,

[00:14:32.75] spk_1:
we want to raise more

[00:14:33.59] spk_0:
money for

[00:14:34.88] spk_1:
less cost

[00:14:35.65] spk_0:
of, of a transaction to obtain that donation and we

[00:14:39.13] spk_1:
want to learn more creative

[00:14:40.54] spk_0:
works. How many hits do we need?

[00:14:42.93] spk_1:
What’s a, what’s a

[00:14:44.24] spk_0:
sample size that

[00:14:45.20] spk_1:
we can rely on

[00:14:47.04] spk_0:
uh,

[00:14:47.69] spk_1:
to draw conclusions from?

[00:14:49.84] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s actually a really good question.

[00:14:52.72] spk_1:
Um, and I

[00:14:53.53] spk_0:
don’t, I don’t have like an answer

[00:14:55.01] spk_1:
that other than the

[00:14:55.97] spk_0:
generic. It depends.

[00:14:57.49] spk_1:
You know, I think

[00:14:58.69] spk_0:
if you’re a smaller nonprofit

[00:15:00.45] spk_1:
that doesn’t

[00:15:01.89] spk_0:
get a lot of traffic to your homepage in this case, then I mean

[00:15:06.04] spk_1:
where it could take

[00:15:07.08] spk_0:
you months to get enough traffic, you know, which is

[00:15:09.83] spk_1:
kind of like the sad thing about

[00:15:11.44] spk_0:
a nonprofit that doesn’t get a

[00:15:12.55] spk_1:
lot of traffic is when will,

[00:15:14.09] spk_0:
you know, we’ve, we have enough data to learn something. You

[00:15:17.83] spk_1:
know, I think it’s quicker to

[00:15:19.08] spk_0:
learn like with like

[00:15:20.11] spk_1:
advertising where you can actually have a budget and it will

[00:15:22.88] spk_0:
kind of force impressions

[00:15:24.16] spk_1:
to your website.

[00:15:25.25] spk_0:
Um, in that case, like

[00:15:26.78] spk_1:
I usually like to have,

[00:15:28.54] spk_0:
I mean at least a few 1000 clicks. Uh, so

[00:15:31.45] spk_1:
we kind of have enough data to make

[00:15:33.33] spk_0:
a decision.

[00:15:34.27] spk_1:
Uh, with the

[00:15:35.33] spk_0:
website, I mean going by that, I mean there’s, there’s some small

[00:15:39.98] spk_1:
nonprofits that may not get a

[00:15:41.99] spk_0:
1000 visits to their website in

[00:15:44.71] spk_1:
half a year or a whole year.

[00:15:46.38] spk_0:
You know? Um,

[00:15:47.58] spk_1:
in which case maybe

[00:15:48.65] spk_0:
you want to test something else

[00:15:49.82] spk_1:
1st? Maybe when you’re

[00:15:50.78] spk_0:
prioritizing exactly exactly. It’s

[00:15:56.07] spk_1:
like, where? Which

[00:15:57.17] spk_0:
I think, And I

[00:15:57.93] spk_1:
didn’t really think about this

[00:15:58.96] spk_0:
when I put it together. But

[00:16:00.14] spk_1:
that’s actually a really good question. Because when you look at all the things

[00:16:03.04] spk_0:
that you can test with your

[00:16:04.08] spk_1:
nonprofit, it’s like, what makes the

[00:16:05.89] spk_0:
most sense to test? Like where do

[00:16:07.48] spk_1:
we have the most data? Where are we getting the most

[00:16:09.60] spk_0:
traction? Maybe it’s a social

[00:16:10.80] spk_1:
media post. Maybe we have a good

[00:16:12.25] spk_0:
audience on social media.

[00:16:13.75] spk_1:
So, let’s test

[00:16:14.95] spk_0:
some of our posts

[00:16:15.76] spk_1:
there because

[00:16:16.98] spk_0:
we know we have a bigger sample

[00:16:18.41] spk_1:
size that we can work

[00:16:20.84] spk_0:
with. Okay. All right.

[00:16:21.40] spk_1:
Well, so your host

[00:16:23.74] spk_0:
is uh, chosen to start

[00:16:24.62] spk_1:
with the homepage

[00:16:25.72] spk_0:
because it’s ubiquitous. Everybody has one.

[00:16:27.98] spk_1:
But with the

[00:16:29.06] spk_0:
caveat that it may not be the right place for you to start your testing.

[00:16:32.63] spk_1:
If you have if

[00:16:33.92] spk_0:
you don’t have a lot of traffic to your homepage. Alright,

[00:16:36.02] spk_1:
let’s stick with the homepage. You got another, you

[00:16:40.24] spk_0:
got another one or two ideas. The homepage, and then we’ll move on. Yeah. Some other

[00:16:41.27] spk_1:
Ideas for the homepage. one

[00:16:44.54] spk_0:
would be, um,

[00:16:45.28] spk_1:
the, like the light box.

[00:16:46.53] spk_0:
So when you come to a website and

[00:16:48.89] spk_1:
people call

[00:16:50.06] spk_0:
them light boxes, they call them pop ups,

[00:16:52.17] spk_1:
Interstitial,

[00:16:53.66] spk_0:
you know, there’s different names for them. Kind of the common name. Yeah. That’s

[00:16:57.06] spk_1:
the more technical. Yeah. Which I never used

[00:17:02.89] spk_0:
Exactly. 100%, 100%. Because you say that like the, you know.

[00:17:13.34] spk_1:
Exactly, Yeah. The bigger words

[00:17:16.14] spk_0:
aren’t always better.

[00:17:17.14] spk_1:
And when I

[00:17:17.97] spk_0:
talked to my, my tech and

[00:17:19.67] spk_1:
my developer friends and they’re

[00:17:22.54] spk_0:
telling me what it is, I’m like,

[00:17:22.94] spk_1:
okay, how can I take what they

[00:17:24.31] spk_0:
said and translate it

[00:17:25.39] spk_1:
just to everyday common

[00:17:26.58] spk_0:
terms. And sometimes I’m like, I

[00:17:27.98] spk_1:
have no idea what you’re talking

[00:17:29.24] spk_0:
about,

[00:17:30.62] spk_1:
but we have drug in

[00:17:31.55] spk_0:
jail on nonprofit radio

[00:17:33.93] spk_1:
I don’t know if I have no idea what you’re

[00:17:35.25] spk_0:
talking about. You know, I’ll stop

[00:17:37.31] spk_1:
you. So if you had

[00:17:38.28] spk_0:
introduced it with

[00:17:39.57] spk_1:
traditional

[00:17:40.10] spk_0:
transitional, you know,

[00:17:41.59] spk_1:
yeah, whatever.

[00:17:45.54] spk_0:
But like, yeah, you see,

[00:17:46.23] spk_1:
I didn’t introduce,

[00:17:47.54] spk_0:
Yeah. Because you

[00:17:48.25] spk_1:
got to know who the audience is, right?

[00:17:50.11] spk_0:
So if this was

[00:17:51.11] spk_1:
like for a tech blog or

[00:17:52.33] spk_0:
something, I’m like the interstitial.

[00:17:53.97] spk_1:
But no, we’re talking about just non profit let’s start with the base like, you know, um,

[00:17:58.57] spk_0:
let’s just

[00:17:59.56] spk_1:
the basics here. So yeah,

[00:18:00.58] spk_0:
pop up a

[00:18:01.67] spk_1:
lightbox testing

[00:18:03.24] spk_0:
that. And I say tested and, and

[00:18:04.53] spk_1:
a lot of these things I’m saying test,

[00:18:06.28] spk_0:
but in my

[00:18:07.98] spk_1:
own way I’m saying

[00:18:14.64] spk_0:
do this, I’m not saying tested because like light boxes are so effective. Like pretty much no matter how you’re using if using them for email acquisition,

[00:18:17.96] spk_1:
if you’re using them to

[00:18:19.08] spk_0:
promote a campaign

[00:18:20.07] spk_1:
to increase your donations.

[00:18:21.53] spk_0:
Um, what I find

[00:18:23.35] spk_1:
though is a lot of

[00:18:24.32] spk_0:
nonprofits

[00:18:25.23] spk_1:
and I say that a lot, a lot

[00:18:26.49] spk_0:
of non profits, but

[00:18:27.40] spk_1:
it is true,

[00:18:28.61] spk_0:
um, that they’re

[00:18:32.54] spk_1:
like, well I don’t like pop ups, so I don’t want to use them, you know, But it’s not really about what you like because your

[00:18:35.06] spk_0:
donors and your website visitors

[00:18:36.84] spk_1:
probably don’t

[00:18:37.64] spk_0:
like a lot of pop ups

[00:18:38.63] spk_1:
either. But the data

[00:18:40.42] spk_0:
doesn’t lie. Like

[00:18:41.60] spk_1:
these things do work.

[00:18:42.84] spk_0:
And the reason they work is

[00:18:44.17] spk_1:
there’s nothing else that you

[00:18:45.26] spk_0:
can do on the homepage when that

[00:18:47.44] spk_1:
pop up comes on the screen other

[00:18:49.05] spk_0:
than click it and turn

[00:18:50.20] spk_1:
it off or do the

[00:18:51.90] spk_0:
action that it says there’s

[00:18:53.06] spk_1:
two choices. If someone goes straight to your

[00:18:56.24] spk_0:
website, they’ve

[00:18:56.39] spk_1:
got probably 20 different choices, click on your,

[00:18:58.92] spk_0:
contact us, click

[00:19:00.10] spk_1:
on an image,

[00:19:01.16] spk_0:
submit an email, click on any of your menu items. Like there’s so many different choices

[00:19:06.21] spk_1:
that you can make. But that pop up is like A or B. Do I

[00:19:09.66] spk_0:
close this and look at the website or do I hit the donate button or do I put my email in and submit it and now I’m a subscriber. So

[00:19:17.04] spk_1:
they’re extremely

[00:19:17.69] spk_0:
effective. Yeah, 100%. So

[00:19:22.73] spk_1:
yeah, so they

[00:19:24.13] spk_0:
work. But I’m saying tested because the thing is like, I’ve never seen it not work. So maybe your nonprofit is different and maybe you can test it with running with the campaign and if you didn’t raise any more money, which if that happens, like

[00:19:37.14] spk_1:
I’d love for those people to reach out

[00:19:39.44] spk_0:
to me because I want to

[00:19:39.94] spk_1:
know who those organizations are

[00:19:41.40] spk_0:
because it’s like,

[00:19:42.34] spk_1:
well I’ve never heard of that but

[00:19:44.12] spk_0:
here’s maybe some other

[00:21:16.84] spk_1:
things that you can strike. It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra. In a box. It’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. It’s the buffet of I. T. Solutions because you pick what you need and you leave the rest you needn’t hire them for all the services that they can do. They’ve got this I. T. Infra in a box for you to choose from like overall I. T. Assessment whether you want to implement multifactor authentication which a lot of people are saying is a very good idea. We’ve had guests saying exactly that um there might be other security for your site for your devices those mobile devices that are in people’s homes. Now cost analysis help desk. Do you need help that way with tech with like tech support and there’s more in the I. T. In for in a box you choose what’s right for your current I. T. Status. What’s right for your budget? Yeah leave the rest behind fourth dimension technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Now back to many ways to test your digital fundraising with jeremy hazelwood. There are variables within the pop

[00:21:18.78] spk_0:
up that you can test how

[00:21:20.68] spk_1:
long a delay

[00:21:21.65] spk_0:
how long is someone on your homepage before it before

[00:21:23.93] spk_1:
it pops up?

[00:21:25.14] spk_0:
Of course what’s the text that’s in it again.

[00:21:28.40] spk_1:
What’s the button that’s

[00:21:29.43] spk_0:
in it. You have to have a button labeled that’s in it,

[00:21:32.14] spk_1:
Right.

[00:21:34.14] spk_0:
Yeah. What’s the offer?

[00:21:35.26] spk_1:
You know? So it could be

[00:21:36.35] spk_0:
$10 equals this or

[00:21:37.95] spk_1:
$50 equals that.

[00:21:39.17] spk_0:
So yeah, there’s

[00:21:40.14] spk_1:
probably a whole other

[00:21:41.73] spk_0:
15 different tests

[00:21:43.11] spk_1:
that you can run just within that. But let’s

[00:21:45.17] spk_0:
start at the basics. Okay. Give us one more for the homepage.

[00:21:49.74] spk_1:
Yeah. One more for the home page. And this is

[00:21:51.37] spk_0:
really simple. But um what

[00:21:53.54] spk_1:
about a donate button at the bottom of your

[00:21:55.59] spk_0:
page? Um And the reason that I say

[00:21:58.00] spk_1:
that is when people scroll

[00:21:59.98] spk_0:
pasture

[00:22:00.81] spk_1:
donate button, if your

[00:22:01.73] spk_0:
menu isn’t like what they call a

[00:22:03.09] spk_1:
sticky menu meaning when you scroll that top menu stays there

[00:22:06.11] spk_0:
and the donate button is

[00:22:07.05] spk_1:
always there or your

[00:22:07.94] spk_0:
menu is always there.

[00:22:09.29] spk_1:
Um If you don’t have that

[00:22:11.04] spk_0:
then you’re

[00:22:11.69] spk_1:
scrolling and that donate has come off

[00:22:13.45] spk_0:
of of the homepage off the

[00:22:15.66] spk_1:
top. So as you scroll down, you’re reading about who we are, what we do, why we do

[00:22:19.51] spk_0:
it. Um It’s just kind of a

[00:22:20.99] spk_1:
natural, here’s the next step,

[00:22:22.65] spk_0:
you know, donate.

[00:22:23.86] spk_1:
Um So it’s

[00:22:24.93] spk_0:
just right in the user flow. The user doesn’t

[00:22:26.55] spk_1:
have to scroll back up

[00:22:27.70] spk_0:
and find the donate or click the donate or

[00:22:30.68] spk_1:
even if they didn’t

[00:22:31.74] spk_0:
like if they kind of psychological or mentally

[00:22:34.20] spk_1:
blocked out that donate button when they came to your

[00:22:36.37] spk_0:
page? Is there

[00:22:37.43] spk_1:
scrolling through? Its in

[00:22:38.43] spk_0:
the natural progression

[00:22:39.60] spk_1:
of how they’re reading your

[00:22:40.44] spk_0:
page and that donate button is right there at the bottom. So

[00:22:43.67] spk_1:
um test that

[00:22:44.70] spk_0:
out, see if it’s something that you’re able to get more donations throughout the month. Um

[00:22:49.62] spk_1:
I don’t this is

[00:22:50.90] spk_0:
not something where you’re gonna earn like a ridiculous amount of conversions or donations

[00:22:55.94] spk_1:
From but even if you have like five

[00:23:08.34] spk_0:
more donations a month because you put a button at the bottom of your page, like wouldn’t that be worth the the 10 minutes it takes to put the button on your site And I think it would be, let’s go to the donation page. Okay cool. So donation and let’s say I’m looking at my my list over here. Okay, so donation

[00:23:17.47] spk_1:
page, one of the things that’s

[00:23:19.00] spk_0:
important to um

[00:23:20.42] spk_1:
a number of donors

[00:23:21.90] spk_0:
is is my donation secure and I don’t think it’s as much of a concern now as it

[00:23:27.06] spk_1:
was maybe even five

[00:23:31.14] spk_0:
years ago but there’s still people that are leery too uh do transactions online.

[00:23:33.12] spk_1:
Um We’re with

[00:23:33.97] spk_0:
the nonprofit. It’s like well I don’t know this nonprofit is going to take care of my data and hopefully your nonprofit is like your donation page should be the H. T. T. P. S. Meaning that it’s a secure page

[00:23:46.12] spk_1:
anyways

[00:23:46.87] spk_0:
but just putting some kind of

[00:23:48.83] spk_1:
Burbage

[00:23:50.34] spk_0:
or a visual indication that it is safe transaction

[00:23:55.19] spk_1:
on your website. So it could be

[00:23:56.44] spk_0:
something as simple as saying your transaction is secure like ssl security or putting like an image of a lock saying your transaction is secured. So doing that versus not having any language in there at all about a secure

[00:24:10.37] spk_1:
transaction.

[00:24:32.24] spk_0:
You can make a difference in someone going ahead and clicking that submit button on the donate because they could get as far as just putting all their information in. But they’re still kind of on the fence like, you know, if they’re nervous about giving online or giving because they don’t see any language that says their donation is secure because I’ve even experienced this to my house like myself personally, there’s some websites

[00:24:33.24] spk_1:
I’m not as

[00:24:36.94] spk_0:
familiar with and if I don’t see that language, then I

[00:24:37.58] spk_1:
may not actually

[00:24:38.55] spk_0:
include. I may not actually purchase whatever it is I’m purchasing and I’m not even talking about nonprofits. I’m talking about more like online retail. Um, so it gives the donor confidence in what they’re doing. So that’s something that you can test having that language on there versus just excluding it. Um, and seeing if

[00:24:55.04] spk_1:
that makes a difference in

[00:24:58.14] spk_0:
your conversion rates and you know, folks might say well, but people could look at the address bar and they can see if it’s https and, and lots of browsers have a lock when it is a secure site. I don’t know if all browsers, I use Safari

[00:25:12.79] spk_1:
predominantly. So

[00:25:13.69] spk_0:
I don’t know if all browsers do that, but, but

[00:25:15.73] spk_1:
even if they do,

[00:25:20.64] spk_0:
you know, think of older folks who are not so savvy they don’t know to look for https.

[00:25:22.05] spk_1:
So

[00:26:02.44] spk_0:
if you don’t, you know, what does it cost to put a sentence in with a little lock picture, it says, you know, it’s, it’s secured, encrypted on both ends, right? With 2 56 bit ssl technology or something, you know, something legitimate. I’m not saying make it up, but yeah, I remember you’re not doing it right. You know, I’m not, Yeah. Now this is the fraud how to test the fraud component of your donation. You don’t have to test for fraud. You don’t have to test fraud. Just don’t do that, don’t do it, you know? But if you’re, if yes, put put something in that’s reassuring to folks, especially older folks who may not know to look at the address bar. Right. Yeah. Alright. Alright. What else, what else for the donation pages? Um, one thing that I’ve seen more

[00:26:12.93] spk_1:
recently in the past

[00:26:39.54] spk_0:
Maybe 2-3 years and I want to say that there might even be specific, um, Tech companies that process donations for nonprofits and I can’t tell you who they are because I’m not sure which one’s doing and which ones don’t. Um, but highlighting like a certain gift that might say most popular gifts. So if you have like a $25 gift and $50 or 200 whatever that, you know procession of gift handles is There might be one

[00:26:40.24] spk_1:
that’s highlighted.

[00:26:41.34] spk_0:
Um, and it says most popular, but what it does and it’s

[00:26:44.91] spk_1:
usually not the lowest

[00:27:23.64] spk_0:
One because I might go to a site like I’m gonna give them $25, but then when I get there it has this $50 and it’s highlighted and it says most popular and so now there’s this social pressure to be like, well that’s the most popular. Like I don’t want to give less than what it is. So I guess I’m gonna give $50 instead of $25. Um So again, it’s, it’s, that’s kind of like a marketing trick if you will, but it does work. Um and you know, whether it’s the most popular or not, I mean again, that’s when you get into the ethics behind it, like, you know, um, you don’t necessarily have to say most popular, you could say, you know more

[00:27:24.31] spk_1:
impact or the

[00:27:25.12] spk_0:
most impact or something like that. There’s ways that you can word it, but

[00:27:28.99] spk_1:
the whole point is you’re

[00:27:29.88] spk_0:
drawing attention to a specific gift amount. Um that’s

[00:27:33.07] spk_1:
probably more reasonable. It’s not like you’re high

[00:27:35.46] spk_0:
like 500

[00:27:36.29] spk_1:
dollar gift, but it’s not

[00:27:37.37] spk_0:
Like you’re 10 20

[00:27:38.36] spk_1:
$5 gift either.

[00:27:39.60] spk_0:
Um, So

[00:27:42.24] spk_1:
what I found is that when you, when you do

[00:27:42.78] spk_0:
use some kind of language and highlight one particular giving level that it does result

[00:27:47.32] spk_1:
in higher conversions.

[00:27:48.53] spk_0:
Um, and again, this is my ash

[00:27:50.42] spk_1:
tricks with everything

[00:27:51.94] spk_0:
we’re calling it a test because this is what I’ve seen

[00:27:54.67] spk_1:
with nonprofits that I’ve worked

[00:27:55.86] spk_0:
with and research that I’ve done. But you have to test

[00:27:58.85] spk_1:
and see if this is the case

[00:27:59.82] spk_0:
for your non profit as well.

[00:28:01.44] spk_1:
That’s a good one. Like

[00:28:03.24] spk_0:
that average gift most

[00:28:04.85] spk_1:
popular gift. Most

[00:28:06.16] spk_0:
impactful.

[00:28:07.03] spk_1:
Alright. What else you got? Yeah.

[00:28:09.13] spk_0:
And the

[00:28:09.67] spk_1:
other one I have is kind of in the

[00:28:10.72] spk_0:
same vein as this and

[00:28:11.87] spk_1:
it’s really like your

[00:28:12.65] spk_0:
donation handles and your impact. Um

[00:28:15.59] spk_1:
So if you’re like an

[00:28:17.94] spk_0:
example of if

[00:28:18.09] spk_1:
you’re a nonprofit that does a few different things

[00:28:19.91] spk_0:
like for example, maybe like a rescue

[00:28:21.55] spk_1:
mission, like they do

[00:28:22.56] spk_0:
housing, they do food, they may do

[00:28:25.11] spk_1:
adult rehab

[00:28:26.98] spk_0:
kinds of programs. Um, so you can like test and

[00:28:30.76] spk_1:
there’s a lot to test in

[00:28:31.84] spk_0:
just these three different areas. You can test dollar amounts

[00:28:34.85] spk_1:
for these. So if you want to just look at housing,

[00:28:37.62] spk_0:
You can say, you know, $30 equals X. nights

[00:28:40.49] spk_1:
Of shelter, $60

[00:28:42.25] spk_0:
equals X nights. 100 equals

[00:28:43.71] spk_1:
X nights. You could

[00:28:44.83] spk_0:
test these against each other

[00:28:49.04] spk_1:
and have all of the gift channels at like $50, but $50 will help do

[00:28:50.12] spk_0:
X nights of shelter.

[00:28:51.43] spk_1:
$50 will help

[00:28:52.59] spk_0:
by X amount of

[00:28:53.40] spk_1:
Meals or $50 to

[00:28:55.04] spk_0:
send X amount

[00:28:56.02] spk_1:
of adults through rehab.

[00:28:57.55] spk_0:
And that way you learn about

[00:28:58.73] spk_1:
what your donors are more interested in. Um,

[00:29:01.69] spk_0:
so there’s ways that you can learn

[00:29:06.84] spk_1:
About that either way with, with that example, you’ll still get $50. But we, we test because we also want

[00:29:09.64] spk_0:
to learn more

[00:29:09.93] spk_1:
about our donors and more about what

[00:29:11.28] spk_0:
works. So if people

[00:29:12.24] spk_1:
respond better to a food offer versus the housing offer,

[00:29:15.62] spk_0:
then that might help us

[00:29:16.68] spk_1:
create a campaign,

[00:29:18.04] spk_0:
you know,

[00:29:18.98] spk_1:
in the calendar year at

[00:29:19.96] spk_0:
some point. That’s more around

[00:29:21.24] spk_1:
food. Um, and taking what

[00:29:23.00] spk_0:
we learned from this test.

[00:29:24.45] spk_1:
Um, so that’s one

[00:29:38.84] spk_0:
thing an NtC guest, uh, and he said they tested whether Children who are sick or Children who are hospitalized is has a greater impact. And

[00:29:41.68] spk_1:
intuitively you would think it would be the Children who

[00:29:43.54] spk_0:
are hospitalized

[00:29:44.63] spk_1:
because they’re the sickest of the among

[00:29:46.42] spk_0:
the sick. But

[00:29:47.56] spk_1:
turned out not to be

[00:29:48.19] spk_0:
true. They were getting more click throughs and more donations when

[00:29:51.52] spk_1:
they highlighted Children who

[00:29:52.66] spk_0:
were sick

[00:29:53.87] spk_1:
versus

[00:29:54.50] spk_0:
hospitalized.

[00:29:55.64] spk_1:
Intuition is

[00:29:57.83] spk_0:
not always correct. That’s why

[00:29:59.01] spk_1:
we test. Another

[00:30:00.05] spk_0:
reason, you know, like you said earlier, it doesn’t matter what

[00:30:03.25] spk_1:
you, the ceo

[00:30:04.88] spk_0:
or you, the chief fundraiser prefer. It matters what

[00:30:07.81] spk_1:
your donors

[00:30:09.08] spk_0:
and potential donors prefer.

[00:30:10.70] spk_1:
So you know, you

[00:30:12.54] spk_0:
have to ignore your intuition.

[00:30:13.90] spk_1:
You have to ignore your own

[00:30:15.94] spk_0:
preferences and do what Jeremy is saying and

[00:31:41.74] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’m doubling down on the redox who can you share non profit radio with, please think about colleagues, friends, folks who work for nonprofits serve on boards of nonprofits. Maybe they’re even avid volunteers, it’s a possibility these folks will learn from nonprofit radio the same as you are, share the share the knowledge, share the good, non profit radio vibe, share the pleasure, share, what else is there? Um, double the enjoyment? No, well you could double, you can triple the enjoyment. So please think about who you can share. non profit radio with, connect them with me, you can connect them with one of my social posts. Uh, connect them to tony-martignetti dot com share this show this episode however you can do it. I’d be grateful. Who can you share? non profit radio with thank you. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for many ways to test your digital fundraising. I do like most of my work is with

[00:31:43.39] spk_0:
non province, but I do some, I have some clients that are in the commercial

[00:31:46.87] spk_1:
world and they were

[00:31:47.79] spk_0:
running a

[00:31:48.56] spk_1:
facebook ad recently and they provided me with copy and I was looking at it and I was like, oh, this is terrible, this is not. And

[00:31:55.12] spk_0:
usually if I see something that is

[00:31:57.28] spk_1:
like, I don’t think it’s going to work like I’ll say, hey, what if we say this instead of that? And even with

[00:32:03.14] spk_0:
that? I’m like, what if

[00:32:03.40] spk_1:
we change, it’s like, well we want to try to run this first and just see, I’m like, all right and I thought it was

[00:32:07.87] spk_0:
going to Bomb and it actually

[00:32:08.95] spk_1:
did really good

[00:32:09.83] spk_0:
despite what

[00:32:11.20] spk_1:
I thought was going to work. Um, so that’s why it’s like I’m saying

[00:32:15.12] spk_0:
these things and in

[00:32:16.10] spk_1:
general, like you’ll see in the majority of cases, what we’re talking about, there will be a positive impact. Um, but these are not guaranteed. I’m not saying like, here are all the things that you should do if you want

[00:32:25.16] spk_0:
your nonprofit to succeed,

[00:32:26.47] spk_1:
what you need to do to succeed is

[00:32:28.27] spk_0:
to test and then

[00:32:29.34] spk_1:
find out what works. But those things like, let’s give

[00:32:31.73] spk_0:
some ideas. Like

[00:32:32.67] spk_1:
we just don’t be stagnant. If we have the same website, the same emails,

[00:32:36.21] spk_0:
the same everything

[00:32:37.20] spk_1:
Over a 12-month period. We have learned nothing about what we need to do to better serve our

[00:32:41.12] spk_0:
donors and and

[00:32:42.38] spk_1:
really better

[00:32:46.74] spk_0:
enable the services that we have because if we’re not learning how we

[00:32:47.14] spk_1:
can better serve our donors and how we can

[00:32:49.14] spk_0:
generate more money for nonprofit

[00:32:51.01] spk_1:
and still take care of our

[00:32:51.97] spk_0:
donors, then we’re doing a disservice down

[00:32:53.89] spk_1:
the road for the people

[00:33:09.54] spk_0:
or animals or whatever environment, whatever our nonprofit is serving. We’re doing that in other realms. We’re making sure we have programs that are appealing to donors, making sure we have events that are appealing to donors. We make sure we have fundraisers who are appealing to donors, right. Your staff is turning your donors off. That’s bad. You’re gonna, you’re gonna remove the people from the fundraising role. So, you know, in

[00:33:20.67] spk_1:
your digital and your digital

[00:33:21.73] spk_0:
marketing and fundraising as well.

[00:33:23.17] spk_1:
You want to appeal

[00:33:24.48] spk_0:
to your donors and your potential donors, you’re doing it in other places.

[00:33:28.24] spk_1:
We’re here to. Alright, let’s continue with the

[00:33:32.34] spk_0:
donation page ideas. Okay.

[00:33:32.95] spk_1:
Um, other donation page ideas.

[00:33:34.93] spk_0:
And this is gonna

[00:33:36.45] spk_1:
be my bad recommendation of tests, but I’m gonna throw it out there anyway, because I think it’s probably not going to

[00:33:42.17] spk_0:
work, but I’m

[00:33:43.09] spk_1:
curious to see if it will still work. Um, and that is testing an image versus a video on your donation page. Um, and for the very savvy fundraisers

[00:33:53.24] spk_0:
that are

[00:33:53.53] spk_1:
watching or listening to

[00:33:54.50] spk_0:
this, they were probably

[00:33:55.61] spk_1:
going to discredit me all over the

[00:33:56.97] spk_0:
place and say that Jeremy doesn’t

[00:33:59.20] spk_1:
know what he’s talking about. Um,

[00:34:00.93] spk_0:
but several

[00:34:09.54] spk_1:
years ago when you had a video on your, your donation page and I think maybe it’s because maybe a more a newer medium, you could tell the story of, you know, why we need the gift and be this heartwarming story and you’d actually see the gifts go up. Um, what

[00:34:16.83] spk_0:
I’ve seen over time

[00:34:17.69] spk_1:
now is that

[00:34:18.83] spk_0:
the images

[00:34:19.78] spk_1:
seem to be more effective

[00:34:20.87] spk_0:
than a video. And the reason that we’re

[00:34:23.35] spk_1:
suspecting that happened

[00:34:24.44] spk_0:
just because

[00:34:27.54] spk_1:
when people hit your donation page, You’re now giving them a video to watch, which maybe 30 seconds to minutes. I don’t know however long it is. But you’re now asking them to watch this video and command the attention

[00:34:36.94] spk_0:
and then

[00:34:37.63] spk_1:
fill out a form after that. So you’re kind of asking the donors to do too

[00:34:41.99] spk_0:
many things when they get

[00:34:43.05] spk_1:
your donation page, it is a distraction because they can’t do a donation

[00:34:46.61] spk_0:
page. Most

[00:34:47.78] spk_1:
likely they’re ready to make a

[00:34:48.69] spk_0:
donation. Yes,

[00:34:50.11] spk_1:
exactly. Don’t distract them from that purpose.

[00:34:53.23] spk_0:
Right? Because now there’s another action

[00:34:54.94] spk_1:
you’re giving them watch the

[00:34:56.19] spk_0:
right watch the video,

[00:34:57.63] spk_1:
but you’re saying

[00:35:00.04] spk_0:
test it, Why?

[00:35:00.74] spk_1:
Why? Why do you believe

[00:35:02.16] spk_0:
that so that people don’t think this jeremy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yeah. Well the reason that I’m kind of

[00:35:07.24] spk_1:
slick throwing this in here is for the

[00:35:08.89] spk_0:
people who have the

[00:35:09.81] spk_1:
video still on their page.

[00:35:11.55] spk_0:
So if that’s

[00:35:12.79] spk_1:
you like test it

[00:35:14.13] spk_0:
with an image on there instead

[00:35:15.59] spk_1:
of the video

[00:35:16.41] spk_0:
and see if

[00:35:17.50] spk_1:
your donations will go

[00:35:18.58] spk_0:
up a little bit. But I’m bringing this in here to recommend it as

[00:35:22.06] spk_1:
a test really to draw

[00:35:23.12] spk_0:
attention to it because there are still some

[00:35:25.36] spk_1:
organizations that

[00:35:26.68] spk_0:
are testing

[00:35:27.64] spk_1:
or not testing, but that have a video on their donation page. And I think if I don’t

[00:35:32.51] spk_0:
address it, then I’m not really bringing attention to that,

[00:35:35.69] spk_1:
that this is an issue. And,

[00:35:37.81] spk_0:
but what,

[00:35:38.78] spk_1:
what I’d also be curious is the people do that do have the nonprofits

[00:35:42.03] spk_0:
that do have a video on their

[00:35:43.10] spk_1:
page. Um,

[00:35:44.64] spk_0:
is that

[00:35:45.18] spk_1:
still working for them and how will, you know if it’s still working if you don’t test that against an image

[00:35:49.48] spk_0:
and if they tested against an

[00:35:50.61] spk_1:
image and the video is still really generating a higher conversion rate

[00:35:55.59] spk_0:
then then I’m

[00:35:56.45] spk_1:
wrong and I’m okay with that. Um I can only go by the data that I see and the research that I’ve done to

[00:36:02.90] spk_0:
say that

[00:36:04.00] spk_1:
was the best practice.

[00:36:05.27] spk_0:
But now not so

[00:36:06.10] spk_1:
much. But if you’re still stuck in that best practice,

[00:36:08.77] spk_0:
it might be time

[00:36:09.71] spk_1:
to test out of that.

[00:36:13.23] spk_0:
If you have neither are you better? Starting

[00:36:14.46] spk_1:
with an image and testing that

[00:36:16.43] spk_0:
and then trying

[00:36:17.96] spk_1:
a video and testing that

[00:36:19.42] spk_0:
in place of the image. Mm hmm.

[00:36:21.39] spk_1:
No. Yeah.

[00:36:22.44] spk_0:
And that that’s

[00:36:23.31] spk_1:
actually an interesting question to if you have neither.

[00:36:25.72] spk_0:
I would test the

[00:36:27.08] spk_1:
neither versus an

[00:36:28.51] spk_0:
image. Well, you’ve got that you have your baseline.

[00:36:31.43] spk_1:
You know what neither

[00:36:32.88] spk_0:
has been doing for

[00:36:33.67] spk_1:
you over however months

[00:36:35.58] spk_0:
years. Okay.

[00:36:36.73] spk_1:
So

[00:36:37.27] spk_0:
now you want to do

[00:36:38.31] spk_1:
an adequate

[00:36:39.29] spk_0:
test with enough

[00:36:40.00] spk_1:
clicks

[00:36:41.17] spk_0:
to testing your advice. It

[00:36:44.04] spk_1:
sounds like your advice would be testing

[00:36:45.16] spk_0:
image first

[00:36:46.62] spk_1:
because typically

[00:36:49.23] spk_0:
images pulled better videos,

[00:36:50.62] spk_1:
correct, correct.

[00:36:51.87] spk_0:
Because I’m not asking

[00:36:52.95] spk_1:
you to look at an image. I’m asking you to watch a video, but the image is just there to,

[00:36:58.16] spk_0:
it should have the same

[00:36:59.36] spk_1:
look and feel and

[00:37:00.12] spk_0:
reinforce the sentiment

[00:37:01.72] spk_1:
of what

[00:37:02.24] spk_0:
that donation pages. So

[00:37:04.04] spk_1:
going back to like a rescue mission like it’s going to be an image of

[00:37:08.11] spk_0:
probably someone

[00:37:09.03] spk_1:
receiving services, whether they’re um receiving housing or food or something like that because it

[00:37:14.13] spk_0:
reinforces

[00:37:15.25] spk_1:
what you’re giving to help out

[00:37:17.47] spk_0:
or giving to

[00:37:19.43] spk_1:
eradicate. Mhm.

[00:37:20.63] spk_0:
You

[00:37:20.75] spk_1:
got one more for the donation page. Um Let’s see. I know I was looking at

[00:37:28.62] spk_0:
this is I mean it’s in the same vein

[00:37:30.89] spk_1:
because a lot of these are like really nit picky. But even like testing the hero image

[00:37:34.74] spk_0:
for example,

[00:37:35.73] spk_1:
because we talked about testing

[00:37:36.85] spk_0:
an image versus the

[00:37:37.69] spk_1:
video. If you’re already doing an image, I wouldn’t

[00:37:40.51] spk_0:
test that against video. If you’re

[00:37:42.06] spk_1:
doing a video, I’d test that against the image. But if you have an image, I would test that

[00:37:46.46] spk_0:
against another

[00:37:47.78] spk_1:
image. Um using this rescue mission scenario. If you

[00:37:52.00] spk_0:
test a feeding

[00:38:04.12] spk_1:
offer. So maybe it’s a a man that is homeless and he’s receiving food. Maybe the next image that you test is maybe uh this gentleman um in the

[00:38:04.42] spk_0:
housing he’s sitting on his bed

[00:38:06.00] spk_1:
and so you actually see that what you’re giving is

[00:38:09.17] spk_0:
subconsciously tied

[00:38:10.13] spk_1:
to providing the shelter

[00:38:11.26] spk_0:
versus providing the

[00:38:12.30] spk_1:
food like someone in a cafeteria

[00:38:14.80] spk_0:
that’s eating a meal.

[00:38:24.02] spk_1:
Um So testing different images. If you’re testing like um cancer research or something like that, maybe it’s your showing a cancer patient, which I believe would be more effective than showing the actual research facility. Um But I’m sure that there’s cancer research nonprofits that are showing the

[00:38:32.55] spk_0:
facility on the donation

[00:38:33.81] spk_1:
page and not the

[00:38:34.97] spk_0:
end recipient

[00:38:36.16] spk_1:
who’s the beneficiary

[00:38:37.59] spk_0:
of that research.

[00:38:38.97] spk_1:
Um, so

[00:38:40.11] spk_0:
bringing attention to that

[00:38:41.52] spk_1:
is like, let’s test these images

[00:38:43.20] spk_0:
and see which

[00:38:44.50] spk_1:
one would increase the conversion rates for our

[00:38:47.22] spk_0:
heart donation

[00:38:48.92] spk_1:
page. Okay.

[00:38:50.02] spk_0:
I mean, I

[00:38:50.28] spk_1:
want to flush out something that you

[00:38:51.36] spk_0:
just said sort of in passing. I want to make sure we’re giving people the right advice. You

[00:38:56.45] spk_1:
said, If you have an

[00:38:57.29] spk_0:
image, don’t

[00:38:58.76] spk_1:
test that against the

[00:38:59.53] spk_0:
video, but if you have a video test that

[00:39:04.42] spk_1:
against an image, I would,

[00:39:05.09] spk_0:
that’s what I would say. Yes.

[00:39:07.09] spk_1:
I

[00:39:09.52] spk_0:
say that. Um,

[00:39:10.61] spk_1:
I think also

[00:39:11.46] spk_0:
non province. If they

[00:39:12.57] spk_1:
got the idea to say, oh, we’ve never tested a video. Like

[00:39:16.01] spk_0:
I know he doesn’t recommend it, but let’s

[00:39:17.93] spk_1:
just see if it works then have at it. I wouldn’t recommend it. Um,

[00:39:23.42] spk_0:
so yeah, you

[00:39:24.27] spk_1:
are correct. If you

[00:39:25.28] spk_0:
have an image

[00:39:26.30] spk_1:
tested against the

[00:39:26.96] spk_0:
video, uh, sorry.

[00:39:28.48] spk_1:
If you have a video tested against an image

[00:39:30.64] spk_0:
image. Yeah.

[00:39:31.69] spk_1:
Let’s test it against another image.

[00:39:44.92] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Let’s move on to email. That’s, that seems ubiquitous. Everybody uses email most likely. Right. Right. Reading my notes. You’re reading

[00:39:51.94] spk_1:
my

[00:39:52.05] spk_0:
notes. Everything you said

[00:40:02.28] spk_1:
is great. And there’s

[00:40:03.56] spk_0:
basics of these,

[00:40:04.52] spk_1:
you know, time of day, day of week. Um,

[00:40:06.64] spk_0:
taking a step back though. Taking a step

[00:40:09.08] spk_1:
back. Um,

[00:40:10.13] spk_0:
when you test email, it’s more important

[00:40:13.35] spk_1:
in my opinion,

[00:40:14.16] spk_0:
like to test, like

[00:40:15.23] spk_1:
what they call, like

[00:40:16.12] spk_0:
the envelope, what’s on

[00:40:17.19] spk_1:
the outside before you actually

[00:40:18.52] spk_0:
test anything within the email. Um, so people have to open it before they can see your email. So to me, the most

[00:40:26.07] spk_1:
important thing is like, what can

[00:40:30.11] spk_0:
we test before people click into that email to get them to open the email? And those would be things like time

[00:40:34.17] spk_1:
of day and day of week. You know, that, that’s,

[00:40:36.20] spk_0:
that’s a twofer

[00:40:37.10] spk_1:
right there. There’s a time of day,

[00:40:54.71] spk_0:
there’s a day of week. So testing different times of day with the exact same emails, same subject line, same pre header, same everything. We’re just testing the time of day. Is that the text you see like some people call it teaser text, text you see in your, in your inbox before you’ve opened the message, correct? Yes.

[00:41:00.36] spk_1:
So you have like your

[00:41:01.55] spk_0:
subject line

[00:41:02.68] spk_1:
and then below that, like if you’re looking on your

[00:41:04.56] spk_0:
phone or even on your desktop Yeah, you’ll see a little bit of text under it

[00:41:07.70] spk_1:
and and that’s called your pre

[00:41:12.01] spk_0:
header. Yes. Um, so you know, I

[00:41:12.53] spk_1:
would look at testing that the

[00:41:13.72] spk_0:
basics time of day to day a week.

[00:41:15.71] spk_1:
You mentioned

[00:41:16.67] spk_0:
one like the sender

[00:41:17.75] spk_1:
name.

[00:41:18.81] spk_0:
So if you’re sending it and it’s like your organization’s name is the center,

[00:41:23.19] spk_1:
which is probably how

[00:41:24.31] spk_0:
most nonprofits send it and there’s nothing

[00:41:26.25] spk_1:
wrong with that. Um,

[00:41:27.51] spk_0:
what if we tested it using a person’s name. Like maybe it’s

[00:41:30.74] spk_1:
the executive

[00:41:31.91] spk_0:
director or ceo of a

[00:41:33.48] spk_1:
nonprofit. Um,

[00:41:34.98] spk_0:
the only thing that I would kind of

[00:41:36.03] spk_1:
caution with that

[00:41:37.31] spk_0:
is

[00:41:38.02] spk_1:
if you tested that

[00:41:40.31] spk_0:
one time, you’ll likely

[00:41:41.25] spk_1:
see a bump because people

[00:41:42.50] spk_0:
aren’t used to seeing it

[00:41:43.52] spk_1:
from that person. And

[00:41:44.63] spk_0:
if they don’t know that person’s

[00:41:45.90] spk_1:
name or even if they do, they’re like, oh, who is this? And

[00:41:48.00] spk_0:
they’ll click on it just because they’re not sure who it’s from.

[00:41:50.57] spk_1:
So I think if

[00:41:51.81] spk_0:
you only tested once you’re probably going to say, oh, it came that we changed the sender name so we’re gonna

[00:41:57.89] spk_1:
always go with the sender

[00:41:59.51] spk_0:
name and that, that may prove

[00:42:00.40] spk_1:
effective for the short

[00:42:01.40] spk_0:
term. You can probably send a

[00:42:02.41] spk_1:
few of them that way and

[00:42:04.13] spk_0:
it’ll be effective, but kind of baselining it over time.

[00:42:07.16] spk_1:
Like I, I don’t know which one will be

[00:42:08.63] spk_0:
more effective for you. I mean,

[00:42:10.18] spk_1:
and I honestly don’t have seen mixed

[00:42:11.95] spk_0:
results on that. Um,

[00:42:13.35] spk_1:
so that is something

[00:42:14.22] spk_0:
that you run multiple tests on over time.

[00:42:16.94] spk_1:
Not just like a one time we’ve made our

[00:42:27.20] spk_0:
decision Ceo or executive director after the person’s name. Yeah. I’m like putting their, not just their name but their title on right. Comma Ceo or comma executive director. That might, you know, that that seems worth testing to me. Yeah, might open, it might get a higher open rate was writing. Okay. Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:42.68] spk_1:
And that would,

[00:42:44.80] spk_0:
um, like that’s almost like a second

[00:42:46.21] spk_1:
level senator name

[00:42:47.26] spk_0:
because just starting out sender

[00:42:48.46] spk_1:
name. Um,

[00:42:49.61] spk_0:
I mean if you’re even the nonprofit’s

[00:42:51.90] spk_1:
name, if you have

[00:42:52.58] spk_0:
the in front of your nonprofit,

[00:42:54.01] spk_1:
like the

[00:42:54.43] spk_0:
Salvation Army, you

[00:42:55.98] spk_1:
know, you can’t test it against the

[00:42:57.04] spk_0:
Salvation Army, you know,

[00:42:58.64] spk_1:
but that would be a further

[00:42:59.95] spk_0:
test. That’s deeper into the center

[00:43:01.27] spk_1:
name. But yeah, the actual

[00:43:02.79] spk_0:
name of the executive director could

[00:43:04.51] spk_1:
be one test versus the

[00:43:06.32] spk_0:
person’s name. Comma

[00:43:08.05] spk_1:
Ceo or

[00:43:08.66] spk_0:
executive director. That

[00:43:11.10] spk_1:
that could be interesting as well. Trying to participate in the

[00:43:12.73] spk_0:
activity here in the conversation.

[00:43:14.33] spk_1:
Trying to hold

[00:43:15.99] spk_0:
up, hold, trying to hold up my side of the conversation. Oh yeah,

[00:43:18.71] spk_1:
no, you’re doing a great job. Yeah.

[00:43:23.25] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:43:25.70] spk_1:
one thing that I think is, um, a good feature of the test is like if you

[00:43:27.67] spk_0:
are, if your

[00:43:28.49] spk_1:
email includes a

[00:43:30.50] spk_0:
video in it

[00:43:31.60] spk_1:
or a blog

[00:43:32.47] spk_0:
post. I mean you

[00:43:33.47] spk_1:
can’t have a video in

[00:43:34.48] spk_0:
an email, but it’s about maybe a video on your website. Um, and there’s a thumbnail

[00:43:38.58] spk_1:
of the video on your email or a blog post.

[00:43:41.05] spk_0:
Then I would

[00:43:41.68] spk_1:
include, um, like the word video, like in all caps and then like a sub colon or not slowed colon,

[00:43:48.12] spk_0:
like semi colon. And then whatever

[00:43:51.10] spk_1:
the video is, colon.

[00:43:51.57] spk_0:
Yeah. I’m all over the place

[00:43:53.10] spk_1:
with my

[00:43:53.50] spk_0:
grandma, right? That’s what you want to call it. You

[00:43:56.09] spk_1:
know what I’m saying? Yeah.

[00:43:57.38] spk_0:
You’re smarter than me. So you

[00:43:58.58] spk_1:
don’t, you understand that? Yeah. It

[00:44:00.52] spk_0:
took me two tries for video

[00:44:04.22] spk_1:
in all caps, I

[00:44:04.92] spk_0:
see that a lot. Yeah, yeah

[00:44:08.27] spk_1:
or blog

[00:44:09.05] spk_0:
because if you don’t have

[00:44:10.27] spk_1:
video and you just have like a subject line that’s maybe about the video or watch this or something like that. Like

[00:44:16.17] spk_0:
that’s one thing and it may

[00:44:17.36] spk_1:
work for you.

[00:44:18.39] spk_0:
But I think when you have

[00:44:19.33] spk_1:
like whatever that piece of

[00:44:20.44] spk_0:
content is and

[00:44:21.52] spk_1:
call it out and call attention to it now, it’s like, oh, there’s a video in here. Um and I see that first and foremost, I’m not reading like a title, I’m not reading a subject line

[00:44:30.50] spk_0:
per se.

[00:44:31.39] spk_1:
Um I know that when I open this, I’m going to see a video. I know when

[00:44:35.03] spk_0:
I open this, it’s going

[00:44:39.49] spk_1:
to be their blog post and and with this nonprofit like I like their blogs, you know, or I’m interested to see

[00:44:41.92] spk_0:
what they’re talking

[00:44:42.77] spk_1:
about and and so I

[00:44:43.96] spk_0:
know it sets my

[00:44:45.11] spk_1:
expectation

[00:44:46.16] spk_0:
as an email

[00:44:46.91] spk_1:
subscriber of what that

[00:44:48.12] spk_0:
content is.

[00:44:49.10] spk_1:
Um So I go in

[00:44:50.17] spk_0:
there and I’ll open it

[00:44:51.91] spk_1:
up. So I think that’s one thing too that

[00:44:54.39] spk_0:
um could help to sit

[00:44:56.04] spk_1:
down and see if it works for you. Give

[00:44:57.53] spk_0:
Us one more email.

[00:44:59.09] spk_1:
one more would be that pre header that we we we defined

[00:45:02.59] spk_0:
a couple of minutes

[00:45:03.53] spk_1:
ago is testing the language with the pre

[00:45:05.90] spk_0:
header and with this

[00:45:07.10] spk_1:
uh the day and time would be the same. The subject line would be the same, but the pre

[00:45:11.72] spk_0:
header would be

[00:45:14.89] spk_1:
something different and it could be

[00:45:15.49] spk_0:
a call to action.

[00:45:16.54] spk_1:
Um I do recommend that whatever you have in your pre header um and I don’t know the exact

[00:45:21.38] spk_0:
character count

[00:45:22.33] spk_1:
off the top of my head but just make sure that

[00:45:24.60] spk_0:
people can read the

[00:45:25.55] spk_1:
whole pre header um

[00:45:26.93] spk_0:
from whatever

[00:45:28.63] spk_1:
device they’re looking at it on. Um Some, some people may say well

[00:45:34.19] spk_0:
if you don’t include

[00:45:35.09] spk_1:
all of it then it adds

[00:45:35.93] spk_0:
this Mystique and people

[00:45:37.13] spk_1:
will want to open it up to see what it says and

[00:45:39.70] spk_0:
I think there’s some

[00:45:40.72] spk_1:
value to that. Um And I think maybe you can test that as well, but I think in general um that pre editor people should be able to read all of that.

[00:45:48.25] spk_0:
But testing what

[00:45:49.22] spk_1:
that is, whether it’s a call to action or um

[00:45:52.09] spk_0:
if it’s a

[00:45:53.49] spk_1:
video for example, maybe you have the person’s name that’s

[00:45:56.96] spk_0:
in the video. You

[00:45:57.96] spk_1:
know, bob’s testimony about blah blah blah versus

[00:46:01.21] spk_0:
here’s an easter

[00:46:02.30] spk_1:
message from blah blah

[00:46:04.02] spk_0:
blah.

[00:46:08.18] spk_1:
Okay, how about the,

[00:46:10.58] spk_0:
well it’s either search engine marketing or facebook

[00:46:12.94] spk_1:
ads.

[00:46:14.38] spk_0:
I’m pretty down on facebook,

[00:46:15.73] spk_1:
but I guess people are still doing

[00:46:16.86] spk_0:
a lot of facebook ads so we’ll ignore the

[00:46:20.63] spk_1:
the the hosts. Uh

[00:46:22.49] spk_0:
Predilection against

[00:46:24.21] spk_1:
facebook and

[00:46:27.78] spk_0:
let’s talk about facebook ads. Yeah

[00:46:28.17] spk_1:
facebook ads let me pull up

[00:46:30.57] spk_0:
my list here

[00:46:31.51] spk_1:
because I had a lot to say about that

[00:46:33.91] spk_0:
and actually like

[00:46:34.64] spk_1:
facebook ads is like one of those things where there’s

[00:46:38.88] spk_0:
I mean I

[00:46:39.37] spk_1:
could probably do 50 tests with

[00:46:41.00] spk_0:
facebook ads. There’s so many different

[00:46:42.31] spk_1:
things that you can test. Um,

[00:46:44.18] spk_0:
but for the sake

[00:46:45.53] spk_1:
of like maybe time and and quality

[00:46:47.60] spk_0:
of continent, what we

[00:46:48.73] spk_1:
talked about here. One thing that I do want to

[00:46:51.06] spk_0:
put out their first and

[00:46:52.11] spk_1:
foremost is

[00:46:53.25] spk_0:
testing

[00:46:54.58] spk_1:
um, link short ners within the ad copy. Um, so let’s take a step back and talk about kind of the anatomy of a facebook ad. Um and what I’m gonna talk about is more like the news

[00:47:05.77] spk_0:
feed ads. So if

[00:47:06.99] spk_1:
you’re on a desktop or on your

[00:47:09.07] spk_0:
smartphone and

[00:47:10.58] spk_1:
you’re just scrolling

[00:47:11.17] spk_0:
and you’re seeing what your friends

[00:47:12.24] spk_1:
post and then there will be an ad, they’re just kind of in your newsfeed. So newsfeed

[00:47:15.98] spk_0:
add the

[00:47:16.78] spk_1:
anatomy of it is you have like um text, which will be like your description and then you have the image below that and then you have a headline below that with a button that you can make me a

[00:47:26.77] spk_0:
donate button.

[00:47:30.88] spk_1:
Um, so one of the things that I would have nonprofits

[00:47:31.94] spk_0:
tests first and

[00:47:32.71] spk_1:
foremost is with the net description, which is that first

[00:47:35.56] spk_0:
block of content

[00:47:36.66] spk_1:
above the image where you’re writing that includes your ad copy

[00:47:41.08] spk_0:
is

[00:47:41.48] spk_1:
that you include a call to action with a

[00:47:44.26] spk_0:
link shorter at the

[00:47:45.43] spk_1:
end of your copy. Um for example, um,

[00:47:49.61] spk_0:
March is such

[00:47:50.84] spk_1:
and such awareness month here at

[00:47:52.44] spk_0:
X. Nonprofit.

[00:47:53.53] spk_1:
You know, we really believe X.

[00:47:54.75] spk_0:
Y. And Z. You

[00:47:55.88] spk_1:
can make a difference today. Um uh

[00:47:58.88] spk_0:
by donating

[00:48:02.37] spk_1:
$50. I don’t know, it’s very general um text or what

[00:48:03.57] spk_0:
I’m saying. Uh

[00:48:04.62] spk_1:
and then under that you have like make your gift here and then you have like a link shortening which

[00:48:09.67] spk_0:
would be like Bentley, B. I.

[00:48:10.90] spk_1:
T. Dot L. Y. You know, you can take a U. R. L. From your donation page, go to Bentley and it

[00:48:17.14] spk_0:
will compress it

[00:48:18.61] spk_1:
into less characters for your U. R.

[00:48:21.21] spk_0:
L. But

[00:48:22.48] spk_1:
include that within your um the description copy of your facebook ad. Um and the reason that I recommend that is

[00:48:29.75] spk_0:
Number one I’ve seen at work,

[00:48:31.10] spk_1:
you get a higher conversion rate but just thinking about the flow of a facebook ad. Like you’re reading the

[00:48:36.50] spk_0:
copy and

[00:48:43.57] spk_1:
let’s talk about the flow. If you don’t include this piece, you’re reading the copy and then you see the image or video and then you see a call to action

[00:48:46.10] spk_0:
and then over to the right

[00:48:47.14] spk_1:
of that call to action is a

[00:48:48.09] spk_0:
button. So

[00:48:49.27] spk_1:
what we’re doing with this

[00:48:50.07] spk_0:
essentially is bringing

[00:48:51.13] spk_1:
that call to action

[00:48:52.77] spk_0:
up

[00:48:53.11] spk_1:
quicker. Um, and eliminating

[00:48:55.39] spk_0:
some distractions to

[00:48:56.35] spk_1:
a degree. So I’m reading

[00:48:57.52] spk_0:
this wonderful

[00:48:58.51] spk_1:
ad copy that was written by this nonprofit

[00:49:00.75] spk_0:
and then they’re telling me

[00:49:01.75] spk_1:
what that next step is right here and there

[00:49:03.94] spk_0:
as opposed to

[00:49:04.77] spk_1:
like okay I have to watch this video or taking this

[00:49:07.40] spk_0:
image and I have to read this headline

[00:49:09.28] spk_1:
and then I have to click on this button

[00:49:11.67] spk_0:
so you’re you’re

[00:49:11.93] spk_1:
making that decision making process happen quicker. Um because

[00:49:16.12] spk_0:
by the time I read your

[00:49:16.91] spk_1:
copy I made tune out your image and the call to action in the button and I’m scrolling to the

[00:49:20.97] spk_0:
next piece of content

[00:49:22.51] spk_1:
so it just

[00:49:23.15] spk_0:
inserts that call to

[00:49:24.07] spk_1:
action a little bit earlier.

[00:49:25.28] spk_0:
So I would say

[00:49:30.47] spk_1:
test that out, see if that works. How about um what else? Facebook.

[00:49:32.00] spk_0:
Okay yep. So what else um

[00:49:33.84] spk_1:
I would test image overlays. So what I mean by that is like a

[00:49:38.77] spk_0:
text overlay.

[00:49:39.68] spk_1:
Um It used to be where with facebook you can only have a certain

[00:49:42.72] spk_0:
percent of

[00:49:43.74] spk_1:
your image and a image

[00:49:45.97] spk_0:
at be covered

[00:49:46.65] spk_1:
with text, but now you can put text all

[00:49:48.98] spk_0:
over it if you want to.

[00:49:50.24] spk_1:
So what I would recommend is like

[00:49:52.03] spk_0:
testing the image by

[00:49:53.48] spk_1:
itself. So let’s

[00:49:54.59] spk_0:
say it’s uh animal

[00:49:56.40] spk_1:
shelter and it’s just this picture

[00:49:58.22] spk_0:
of any animal, it could

[00:50:00.10] spk_1:
be a happy animal sat

[00:50:01.31] spk_0:
animal or whatever,

[00:50:02.48] spk_1:
but then you have a b version of the add

[00:50:04.84] spk_0:
and everything else is the same except the

[00:50:06.63] spk_1:
image. But

[00:50:10.86] spk_0:
over the image you actually have some text overlay that’s saying you know

[00:50:11.46] spk_1:
$50

[00:50:12.58] spk_0:
Or $10 a month

[00:50:13.93] spk_1:
can help save X.

[00:50:15.31] spk_0:
Animals X. Amount of animals. Um But

[00:50:18.54] spk_1:
seeing if that makes a difference.

[00:50:19.81] spk_0:
And honestly I’ve seen where in some cases it has, in some cases it has, you know, so that this is certainly one of those

[00:50:26.79] spk_1:
things where I’m like, I’ve

[00:50:27.82] spk_0:
usually see this happen, but I’ve seen mixed results with this. So I think non probably have to see what works for them.

[00:50:33.86] spk_1:
Okay,

[00:50:42.16] spk_0:
leave us with one more facebook made. You make your top one of what’s left. Yeah. What’s left is testing your audiences. So

[00:50:46.11] spk_1:
not even what the people

[00:50:47.35] spk_0:
see, but behind the scenes and facebook, whenever you’re

[00:50:50.21] spk_1:
building the ads,

[00:51:09.16] spk_0:
your audiences are so important. And I would test against your audiences and even within that I would break them into a few different audiences and won, I would take my email file of my donors and I would upload them into facebook and target them with ads separately from everybody else. Um, and then I would also target by

[00:51:11.58] spk_1:
age, I would have everything

[00:51:16.96] spk_0:
be the same except I would target different age groups because some

[00:51:17.28] spk_1:
nonprofits say,

[00:51:18.37] spk_0:
hey, we want to

[00:51:19.29] spk_1:
target ages 18

[00:51:20.53] spk_0:
and up because everybody, if they have money we want them to give. But that’s not always being

[00:51:25.01] spk_1:
a good steward of your ad

[00:51:36.56] spk_0:
budgets. So tests like 50 year old plus and then test maybe 35 to 49 see which one of those ad groups has a higher conversion rate because a lot of times when I talk to non profits, they

[00:51:38.51] spk_1:
have no idea

[00:51:39.71] spk_0:
what the age group is of people that donate to them on facebook. So I’m like we can find this out if we test

[00:51:45.35] spk_1:
enough, we’ll know that this

[00:51:46.51] spk_0:
is the age group that has a higher propensity to donate. Um So those are ways that you

[00:51:50.33] spk_1:
can test the audiences on the back

[00:52:00.45] spk_0:
end of it, you mentioned earlier that you have 100 ways to test. Is that something you said? I think you said it was on your website. Um it is, it’s you have to be a member of fundraisers unite

[00:52:04.38] spk_1:
to have

[00:52:05.07] spk_0:
access to that. Yeah, but it is

[00:52:07.37] spk_1:
available but

[00:52:07.99] spk_0:
yeah, just throw it dot com after that. So fundraisers unite dot com. Um and this is an online community uh subscription program for digital fundraisers. So there’s a lot of templates and trainings

[00:52:20.57] spk_1:
and tip sheets and

[00:52:21.77] spk_0:
resources that they

[00:52:22.87] spk_1:
offer to my

[00:52:24.75] spk_0:
audience. Thank you very much, jeremy hazelwood

[00:52:59.75] spk_1:
digital fundraiser. Next week we’ll take a break from 22. NTC with Don Gatewood on mentoring. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored

[00:53:00.33] spk_0:
by turn to

[00:53:00.90] spk_1:
communications pr and content for

[00:53:03.30] spk_0:
nonprofits. Your story

[00:53:58.25] spk_1:
is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by 4th dimension Technologies IT Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez marc Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by scott Steiner. Yes, thank you for that. Affirmation, scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great. Mm hmm.

Nonprofit Radio for March 14, 2022: Nonprofit Emeriti With JoAnn Goldberger

JoAnn Goldberger: Nonprofit Emeriti With JoAnn Goldberger

We’re kicking off a new feature, highlighting long-career retirees from the nonprofit community who have ideas, wisdom and experience to share. JoAnn Goldberger is our inaugural Nonprofit Emeriti guest. She shares strategies for getting your org to the next level. You’ll find her on LinkedIn.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:00:10.04] spk_0:
Hello and

[00:02:07.34] spk_1:
Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. You’re 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 pancreatitis analysis if you secreted the idea that you missed this week’s show, non profit temerity with Joanne Goldberger, we’re kicking off a new feature highlighting long career retirees from the nonprofit community who have ideas, wisdom and experience to share Joanne Goldberger is my inaugural non profit temerity guest on tony steak too. The jargon jail rules, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. It’s a big pleasure to welcome my inaugural non profit temerity guest, Joanne Goldberger, She had a successful 45 year career as an idea confetti bomb in nonprofit management and fundraising. She’s looking forward to retirement at the end of this month. Her only for profit job was many years ago with the largest Mcdonald’s franchisee on Long Island in new york. Since then it was Mount Sinai Medical Center of greater Miami alexander muss high school in Israel headquartered in Miami carol Child care center in Baltimore junior achievement of central Maryland and finally retirement out of barks Baltimore animal rescue and care shelter Where she grew their $750,000 budget to over $5 million dollars you can find Joanne on facebook she’s retired and linkedin why bother Joanne Goldberger, welcome to nonprofit radio and nonprofit emeritus.

[00:02:12.04] spk_2:
Thank you so much tony and hello to all of our guests today.

[00:02:16.84] spk_1:
Yes, well you’re the guest there. The listeners,

[00:02:19.49] spk_2:
you bring

[00:02:23.94] spk_1:
Them in as guests. Yes, we have 13,000 guests. Absolutes. Congratulations. Congratulations on your retirement.

[00:02:26.58] spk_2:
Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:02:29.14] spk_1:
What a career.

[00:02:30.24] spk_2:
It’s hard to believe 40

[00:02:32.21] spk_1:
five years.

[00:02:36.54] spk_2:
Who? Thanks now I feel old. Oh, come on. No, you got you have wisdom. It’s not, it’s not longer than most of your listeners lives. That

[00:03:18.84] spk_1:
Could be, I don’t know. Yeah, there’s a lot of listeners who are under 45. That’s probably, that’s, that’s true. But you have wisdom, its wisdom, not age. It’s wisdom, wisdom and experience. Um, no, it’s terrific. Congratulations. And uh, so you have, you have advice around and you’ve done this at many organizations getting to the next level like getting off a treadmill. What does, what does it look like? What, what does, what does the problem look like before we get into your, your ideas about get growing beyond it.

[00:04:03.34] spk_2:
Well, first of all, I’ve been with some grassroots organization and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a grassroots movement to conceive about the organization and what it can be and it’s, it’s a lengthy journey. It’s, it’s not an overnight process. So especially for those newer nonprofits and even the middle nonprofits, you need to give yourself about five years and I was very fortunate when I joined barks because I was there at the time, their first director of development. And they were wise enough to know that they wouldn’t see major results until about five years and that’s an important thought for executive directors and their boards to know when you’re embarking upon a process that it does take time and it really did take every bit of five years.

[00:04:38.74] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. So you need a long term view. But, but what is the problem look like? What what what is the, what is a nonprofit that needs to get to the next level? You know what like small, there’s lots of small donors pursuing small gifts. Talk about, talk about what the symptoms are. You know what it looks like.

[00:05:06.54] spk_2:
Um, I like to call it the moneygram because that’s what we were doing. We, um, our goal was to raise $8 million 750,000 And most of the gifts are small gifts like 50 or $65. So we were burning ourselves out trying to grab all these small gifts and you can’t do that.

[00:05:08.50] spk_1:
And your your goal was $8 million. And you were coming nowhere near

[00:05:11.82] spk_2:
It, nowhere near, not even near $1 million. Yeah. Because that’s an awful lot of small gifts to grab.

[00:05:20.23] spk_1:
It. Can’t be done. It can’t be done 50

[00:05:32.94] spk_2:
dollars at a time. No, it can’t not. And with a small staff no less to um, very few people juggling so many plates and you also need a strong board with a fiduciary responsibility. The board also has to help lead the process.

[00:05:53.14] spk_1:
Okay. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna get to, we’re gonna get to them. Absolutely. Um and events right. It’s like hosting small events That bring in $1000

[00:06:34.24] spk_2:
or $1900 like two or $300 or 300 at the time. There were only 3.5 of us in the development department and we were doing literally dozens of these tiny events every week. So we were killing ourselves and not really raising it any money but we were working around the clock, go to this event on monday and this one on Tuesday and free on Wednesday and you really need to keep the big picture in mind and really grab towards the larger dollar events and also major donors as well because it’s wonderful to have those small gifts but you really need some serious cash infusions.

[00:07:08.64] spk_1:
Yeah. Alright. So It starts with you and you just mentioned it, you know, thinking bigger, realizing what you could be. I mean so barks had an $8 million dollars goal. They were coming nowhere near raising any, not even close to that. But so they had a conception of themselves as a much bigger agency but they didn’t have a plan for getting there. They just kept doing the same thing like you can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results year after year after year.

[00:08:59.84] spk_2:
And that’s exactly right. And we, we felt the need to break away from the norm and that took the buy in of our executive director, who was also the founder of Bar barks to take a leap of faith and say, okay, we’re gonna stop this, tell me a minute, see the bigger picture and envision how barks could be raising millions of dollars. And one of the things we started to do right off the bat is we had an annual signature event. We still do, it’s called barks Tober fest and it’s our largest fundraiser of the year. And we struggled, struggled to raise $165,000 each year without one event. And that was through sponsorships and other smaller donations. And it it was a struggle. And then we said, okay, we’re gonna try something new. We’re gonna try instead of it being a community celebration of pets, it was going to be a celebration and reward for peer to peer fundraising for people who raised the funds for pets. And then they’re gonna party hardy at park Stober fist. And we went from the first year of raising 165,000 to over $300,000 just in the first year because we had people who are our supporters were actually raising the funds for us instead of the department, struggling to raise those funds, which of course we did too in terms of sponsorships, but it was awesome to have hundreds of people raising the funds for us and also building awareness remarks at the same time.

[00:11:10.84] spk_1:
All right. So you need to, you need to be willing to experiment right to pivot away from what you’ve been doing for year after year and it’s not getting you even to 1/8 of your goal. Uh, you need to be, you need to be willing to try something different. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They have a free webinar coming up. It’s on March 24 crisis communications, they’re gonna walk you step by step through a crisis communications protocol because you ought to have a plan for a crisis or at least the outline of a plan for how you’re going to manage internally and to the outside some kind of major problem crisis that that befalls you. Um, you know, we don’t even, we don’t even want to get into what the possible crises are. You can imagine them. So I have a plan. If you don’t have a plan or at least the outline You can join turn to its on March 24. If you can’t join live, then you sign up and they’ll send you a link to the recording. That’s the key is the recording. So you go to turn hyphen two dot c o slash webinars now back to nonprofit temerity with Joanne Goldberger, let’s talk about getting this, the executive buy in on, you know, not only the october fest, but you know, on, on, on the, the bigger conception. I mean the Ceo had it in mind though because, because there was an $8 million goal. But how did you get the buy in for pivoting the plan or just like scrapping what you had been doing and moving to something very different? How did you get the Ceo to buy into

[00:11:51.14] spk_2:
that? You know, that concept? Well, it was a process. She was already almost there because she knew we had to raise millions of dollars or the organization was going to falter. So in order to do that, just like what you said, we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting bigger results. You already proved like this is what you can raise, but this is what we need to raise. Um, and by hiring a director of development because I was the first one that they ever had. Um, they were already half on board with the idea. They knew they had to do it. And so she was trusting and we, we’ve had failures, but we’ve had more successes than failures.

[00:12:59.54] spk_1:
Alright. We’re gonna get to the, the need, you know, talking to donors about the need, We’re gonna, we’re gonna come to that, but we gotta get the, we gotta get the internal first. Um, and you know, of course, you’re sharing your experience from barks, but this was experience gained over 45 Well before barks, I guess it was 35 year career. You know, you knew what needed to be done. It’s not just, you know, this is just come to you and barks. It takes time to develop the confidence in, in a different strategy and then being able to persuade the C. Suite or the one person, the Ceo and then the, and then we’re going to get to the board, you know, about what the potential is and how best to go about this. You know, this, you know, Barcs was the culmination of a 45 year career. So you know, you gain this wisdom over a career and then Barks became the, The lucky recipient of all your 35 years of

[00:14:38.04] spk_2:
experience. And as a matter of fact, um, I had a background in marketing and public relations in nonprofit management. So it all came together at bark. So I didn’t know what to do. I was a little mortified that it was just me and 2.5 other people that had this lofty goal because I knew how much work it would take, but I was very motivated to do it. I wanted us to succeed. Um, and so I started to put a plan in place and you’ve probably heard this other times that those people that can achieve the most get the most handed to them. So in addition to having to raise at that point, several million dollars, I also had to do all the marketing, all the pr all the social media and raise the money and so everything I would come in, I looked like a deer in the headlights, like how could this be? And back in the day. I love how you’re laughing about it now. But oh dear. It wasn’t funny at the time. I know. Um but at the time if I could make one post to facebook and then two months later make another post, that would be an accomplishment instead of engaging others like you’re supposed to. But there was like no way I could get it all done. So I always kept my eye on the prize of how are we gonna raise more money because we need all hands on deck.

[00:14:44.94] spk_1:
All right, the board. How did you get the volunteer leadership to accept this? Radical change in in fundraising strategy.

[00:15:15.44] spk_2:
That too was a process because I was used to working with very high powered boards. Certainly a junior achievement. It’s all suite c suite executives from the Fortune 500 companies. And even when I worked at the alexander must high School in Israel, our benefactor with Stephen must The son who owned the fountain blue for 50 years. The fountain blue

[00:15:19.94] spk_1:
in the fountain blue in

[00:17:37.64] spk_2:
Miami in Miami. Absolute. So he wrote, I had to go pick up a check, he wrote us a check for $1 million dollars just like that, just like without the checkbook and wrote it. So when I came to barks who’s on the board, of course nobody I recognized, but it was all crazy cat ladies and I’m one of them, so I could say that and you know, pet loving people, but they had absolutely no sphere of influence. Um they weren’t able to give on their own give or get for that matter. So that was one of the hardest and longest term processes process um, to turn the board over into a fundraising board. And that took pretty much almost my entire time at barks, which got to start somewhere um because without a board with a fiduciary responsibility, you’re never going to get into the, to the bigger fundraising dollars so slowly but surely we were able to have those board members roll off and they were very dear kind people. We found other places for them at, but not on the board. And one of the first things we did was we increased the giver get which they didn’t have one. You didn’t have to even make a financial donation to be on the board at that time, but we increased it to only $3000 and that got rid of the vast majority because none of them were able to give it or raise it or get it. Um and so slowly but surely we started to bring in more notable people because as many people know if you want C suite executives on your board, they’re only going to be on a board with other C Suite executives. They need other people. And so that was a long process in identifying um members of the board that we wanted and to go after them to attract them. How do you

[00:17:42.34] spk_1:
entice the first couple of of transformational board members? The first one or two or three? How do you? And then I could see, you know, okay, now I could be affiliated with somebody else who is prominent in the area, but but that first one or two, how do you get? How do you

[00:18:36.74] spk_2:
get them? That’s a great question. tony The first thing we did was mine our database to see who’s I mean we had thousands of people in there, but who are they? And lo and behold we had a few Baltimore Orioles and at the time, but it was right across the street from Ravens Stadium, M and T Bank Stadium and Camden yards, we were right, a stone’s baseball throw away. And so we saw that one of our not donors, but one of our adopters was matt Wieters at the time. And so we reached out to him.

[00:18:40.74] spk_1:
I don’t know anything about, I don’t know anything about

[00:18:42.59] spk_2:
sports. It’s OK, he’s not an Orioles anymore, but his wife is still on our board.

[00:18:48.02] spk_1:
The Orioles. The Orioles is a football

[00:18:49.91] spk_2:
team. And now it’s it’s Baltimore oil Maryland’s baseball team.

[00:18:54.14] spk_1:
They played baseball.

[00:19:41.64] spk_2:
Okay, okay. And they used to be quite famous. Not so much now that they’re reconfiguring, but back in the day, that was a big deal to have a sports figure tied to Bart’s. So we reached out and they love their pets where they adopted from us and they agreed to be on the board. Oh, that’s fabulous. Amongst our volunteers. Of which parts has 400 active volunteers. We had somebody that was very engaged and he was um higher up in the Teamsters Union and he was very interested in joining the board and he had he knew everybody in Maryland. He really did. And so he brought with him several other board members and that’s how it started to

[00:19:52.29] spk_1:
get started. Alright, brilliant. So you, by the way, I knew that the Orioles is a baseball team. I was I was I was messing with you. Um

[00:19:59.74] spk_2:
They don’t know now though,

[00:20:02.04] spk_1:
that’s what

[00:20:03.00] spk_2:
most people don’t know who the Orioles are now. All right. What happened to them? Well, they had a changeover in players and they’re they’re they’re they’re struggling but they’re they’re on their way back.

[00:20:16.04] spk_1:
Okay, but they’re still there. They’re

[00:20:17.54] spk_2:
still in Baltimore. Okay.

[00:20:34.44] spk_1:
Go Yes of course I say that all every day I wake up saying goes um All right, so that’s alright, brilliant. You mind your own database, you found a prominent person who has a multiple adopter? All right, so it was in it was there all that time?

[00:20:37.84] spk_2:
It was

[00:20:39.14] spk_1:
right. And someone who could be a very uh major donor to you also.

[00:20:44.64] spk_2:
It

[00:20:45.95] spk_1:
is there you go. Alright, I see. And then then you got your guy from the teamsters union and then it snowballed from there

[00:20:53.54] spk_2:
and, and that’s okay.

[00:21:20.44] spk_1:
And these are folks who are going to want to be on a high powered board. Uh, so they’re gonna start to recruit their own folks as the, as the union guy did, uh, their own friends as as as donors as well as fellow board members. And the organization starts to gain prestige and not these, you know, $350 events on a Wednesday afternoon. They’re gonna think these are folks who are going to think bigger.

[00:22:34.84] spk_2:
And I have to add in that all along the process. We were building the bark story because it started off as a very sad story. We took over the animal shelter from the city who was euthanizing 98 Of 12,000 animals that came to us annually. And by raising more money we put in, we put into place more life saving programs. So gradually over time our live release rate has been at 90% since 2018. So it became the gem of Baltimore city that has so many sad stories coming out of it. But this was really a wonderful story to tell of how we were saving animals lives. And it was due to the entire city. I mean the donors, the supporters, the government, everything. Um, truly took a village. So by creating that story for barks more donors came and larger donors came and more board members came because they all wanted to be part.

[00:22:55.44] spk_1:
Okay. telling the story telling the story of how you turned it around from the, from what a city agency was doing. You almost turned it upside down from 98% kill to 90% live live and survival. Alright. Um, how does grants, How did grants? Manship grants writing play a role in this transition.

[00:24:33.14] spk_2:
So that was a very, very important role because in the beginning we had no $1000 donors, very few $100 donors for that matter. And here I came from a background with people, you know, writing a check for $10,000 or a million dollars and we don’t even have our 1st $1000 donor. So I knew from my past history in grant writing but to get a large cash infusion in the door so that we could start building programs for bars. We needed to write grants. And of course that fell on my shoulders also. Um, But I started investigating grants writing and I got our first grant and probably the first four months that we were there, um, for over $25,000 and then grew it from that point on. But that too is a process because while grants is a huge portion still of the barks budget, it brings in now almost three quarters of $1 million, you have to have okay support from your staff or your volunteers to maintain that grant, you have to implement the program, but you also have to be good stewards of that funding and do all the grant reporting that’s necessary. That comes along with it. But you can always look for volunteers. You can always look for freelance grants, writers. But it was one way I knew to get large amounts of money in the door somewhat quickly

[00:25:16.34] spk_1:
and look if you need to go outside, you know, if you do need to hire someone to do grants as you said, either on a freelance basis or maybe a part time basis, you know, maybe maybe one of your transformational donors can fund that fund that for you. So, you know, you’re, you’re trying to do you share with them the vision for where you’re trying to get to, you need some bridge money. You need grants manship, you know, could it could a donor or to help you across that bridge with by funding some professional help. If you don’t have it in in, in the form of a volunteer or in their inbox case, you know, you were there. Um, but if you have to pay for it, maybe you can get a donor to help

[00:25:30.94] spk_2:
you. That was another thing that barks always does. We always try to get everything. We can donated first before we would ever lay out any money. Um, there’s a wealth of places you can turn to for anything,

[00:29:21.14] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two just recently on linkedin, someone that I follow posted about jargon. So I of course had to mention that I have drug in jail on nonprofit radio and she said, oh, you know, sounds like a good idea she had posted against jargon. I’m not sure if there is a pro jargon lobby, but she was anti jargon. So she loved the idea and then she asked, how does somebody get out of jargon jail? So that was the impetus for me to uh codify jargon jail enforcement. So we now have a jargon jail enforcement protocol, which I am going to read from because you know, I don’t want to misquote the statute because the slightest comma or word, you know, can make a difference in statutory interpretation. So here’s our drug and jail statute. If a guest defines the jargon on their own, they’re sentenced to only probation, no jail time. Then if I have to call them out as offenders and they show contrition and then define their jargon, they’re granted parole. So if I have to identify it and then um, they do show contrition and then they define their jargon. Okay, they get parole. But if there’s no contrition and or no definition of their jargon, they remain in drug in jail and I shut off their mic end quote. Now that draconian punishment has never been meted out on nonprofit radio but it remains on the books, it’s on the books show host. Oh well I guess there is a little bit more show host is judge and jury and there are no appeals available. Okay, end quote. So there’s our jargon jail enforcement regimen statute for jargon jail. I have to give credit to Claire Meyerhoff, our creative producer. She came up with this idea At the beginning of the show 12 years ago. She thought of Jargon jail of course when when someone transgresses the drug in jail statutory enforcement mechanism is triggered against that scofflaw. It has to be, we have to have a, we live in a society based on law and order, right? We know this. So there has to be guardrails boundaries around bad behavior That is Tony’s take two, we’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for nonprofit temerity with Joanne Goldberger and I hope that you are enjoying this new nonprofit radio feature, non profit temerity, let’s turn outside now you start, you’ve got a, you’ve got a much stronger board, a giving board. You’re telling a very different story about barks. Um, the Ceo has been on board for years now you’re starting to go out to external folks. You know, attracting major donors. Let’s talk about how you get those uh, you know or whatever stage it came at, you get those first several $1000 donors and then you’re looking for investment level donors, 10,015 25 $50,000 donors. How do you start attracting these folks?

[00:31:36.84] spk_2:
Well, one thing that we did when we started to get some funding in the door, it was a necessity, a necessity to grow the development staff, Joanne couldn’t do it all anymore. It was, it was too hard. So we started to grow the development staff, which today from 3.5 people when I started is now 10 people. So it’s huge. But we were very fortunate that the leadership and the executive director saw the need like, oh, who wants to add development staff? Nobody wants to do that. They want to add everything else, but they realized in order to make money, you have to invest in the staff. And so we started to grow people internally who could cultivate these major donors and take the time again to look in the database. Because what good was amassing a database if you’re not doing anything with it. Um, and looking to see who those people are. And as you probably know, people love to give to success, not rats off a sinking ship. They want to get, you know, gone are the days of um, terrified fundraising, where it’s like, oh my God, we’re gonna close our doors if you don’t give us money, well, nobody’s gonna give you money because you’re closing your doors. So why should they? But if you could build a story of success and get that out there, um, the donors come to you and that’s exactly what was happening. As soon as we started to get a few $1000 donors, we got more and more and then we started to get monthly donors, which we never had. Um, so we started to build up that base of monthly donors as well. And the board was doing and is doing a tremendous job of attracting others to also donate to Barks.

[00:32:07.14] spk_1:
So the organization has to invest in growth and then the, and in which includes investing in fundraising. You know, you hire professional fundraisers and then you can get those donors to invest in the organization, but you have to invest in growth first in your own growth and then you can attract those investment level gifts

[00:32:36.94] spk_2:
and you’ll also have to paint your organization’s picture as once as, as one of success, no matter what’s happening internally, you still have to paint a positive picture because if you don’t, unfortunately you’ll be dead in the water. Um, because for many years, Barks was euthanizing for space every day Every day. But we didn’t paint that picture. We painted a much brighter picture and a better day where we would be able to reach a 90% live release rate and that’s what people wanted to hear. And that’s what we were able to achieve with their help

[00:32:54.64] spk_1:
right now, we’re getting into the, uh, Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos territory. Remember you know the woman with the pin prick, you know what I’m talking about? She just just had her

[00:33:04.75] spk_2:
trial the

[00:33:06.50] spk_1:
Pin the pin prick technology that was going to diagnose 30 or three

[00:33:09.89] spk_2:
100 different

[00:33:15.14] spk_1:
additions. Yeah. Alright. Right. But you you achieved, You got to where you were telling people you wanted to be, you got to that 90% live release rate

[00:33:46.14] spk_2:
and that was always um the apple or the carrot that we were reaching for um That that was always the mission of barks to turn around that 2% live release rate and change it to 90%. So we knew what we had to do internally. Forget fundraising. We knew what we had to do internally and add all those life saving programs to do it. So that’s why I said in addition to fundraising, you have to be building your organization story and that’s what we were doing behind the scenes and that’s what we were doing with every penny that we raised.

[00:34:09.84] spk_1:
Okay, excellent. Thank you. What did you do with some of those crazy cat lady, former board members. How did they

[00:35:24.84] spk_2:
were really crazy tony It’s a, it’s a term of endearment in animal welfare to call somebody a crazy cat and they’re crazy about cats. But we had like I said a huge volunteer program, we needed cats socialize ear’s and dog walkers. So they clearly loved cats, so we trained them and it’s like come in every day and work with the 110 cats that we have every day, they need socialization so that they could get adopted. So they were happy to do that. And I kid you not somewhere quite piste off that we all of a sudden said, Okay the give or get is $3,000 and they just like stormed off and you know, there was nothing really we could do about that because in essence while we would love to have them back as a volunteer, we wouldn’t love to have them back as a board member. So we had to let those people walk. But um some of them stayed on as volunteers and either door walking of cats socializing. So we’re happy to have them. And I think they were much happier doing that than being on the board.

[00:35:29.54] spk_1:
Okay. Alright. What else? What else haven’t I asked you about now that to make this transformational change.

[00:38:36.52] spk_2:
What other advice do you have? One other thing that barks is really known for is out of the box thinking for how to raise money. Um and I’m gonna give you a few examples in a moment. But if you know who your constituents are and what they love, You play to that audience. So let me explain still to this day are average gifts is only $65, but we get thousands of them and when Joanne was doing social media, that was a joke because I really wasn’t. Right. Right and never looked back. But when we had enough funding, the first person that we hired with, somebody that lived with social media and did social media for bart. And she’ll tell you um, that she was working 24 7 because 23 in the morning, she was checking her phone for anything that she posted, she was engaging donors, um, or engaging followers. And so we used to have a following of 7500 followers and today it’s almost 200,000 and having that many also attracts many corporate sponsors and other people interested in you being an influencer. So that was one of the things we did and she was super creative. So we know that our funding bases primary primarily millennials. And so what do we do? We and this is all attributed to her who is now. She’s taking my role as I twilight away. She’s the director of community engagement we had. And some of you, some of your listeners may have seen it or may have seen it around the country Because everybody knocked us off once we did it bad pet portraits for $10 And our staff and our volunteers draw the most hideous pet portraits you’d ever want. Um, you would pay $10 and send us a photo of your pet and somebody would draw it. Now some of them were beautiful but some look like the pointed teeth. They look like vampires. It was great, but it was so funny and so unusual That it raised us $10,000 with just $10 donations. We had a dog wedding a few years ago because we knew our audience would eat it up and they did the tickets sold out like crazy. And we raised $30,000 from it and we got every single thing donated including The hotel Banquet Hall, all the food, all the liquor, all the music, everything was donated. I don’t think we laid out $300 for the whole thing.

[00:38:49.92] spk_1:
And you married

[00:39:38.52] spk_2:
a dog couple because that was blasted across social media. Everybody couldn’t wait for the big day. We had flour kittens, not flower girls with flour kittens. I mean that was the whole shebang. And one thing I always wanted to do was have a bark mitzvah and I never got to do it, but will one day, but I always had a tiny one. It was many years ago, but I really wanted to do a big one based on the success of the dog wedding and the bride I had was handicapped and had a wheelchair attached to our hind quarters and a very handsome groom. That’s that’s just a well I love you know, yeah,

[00:39:44.55] spk_1:
I love the bark mitzvah too.

[00:39:45.92] spk_2:
That’s yeah, I always wanted to do

[00:39:48.70] spk_1:
that’s better bark mitzvah is better than barks to Beerfest Octoberfest. Alright. But bark mitzvah

[00:39:54.96] spk_2:
works better. Alright.

[00:40:10.91] spk_1:
They’ll get there. All right. But the but the lessons are again, investing in the organization. They they they hired a social manager, somebody or somebody who was deeply invested, obviously deeply loved animals and

[00:41:19.61] spk_2:
All those stories. And that’s another thing. You know, when I was doing my one post every other month, barks gets in 30 to 35 animals every day of the year. There’s so many stories were never lacking for stories and that’s prime for social media, but I couldn’t do it. I definitely needed a person and now we have almost three people at barks doing it because there’s so many followers and there’s so much engagement. A lot of it comes from it and I have to add one other thing. We raised $350,000 a year. Just on Facebook, just from those followers, be it their birthday celebration and they have a fundraiser or just asking outright for donations for very specific animals. Um we raise a lot of money just on facebook, so it was well well worth the investment because the board and the executive director would say, well, you know, we’ve got to pay 40 or $50,000 at the time to hire somebody plus the benefit package. How do we know we’re gonna make that back, We’ll just in facebook we’re raising $350,000 a year. So I think we made it back? Excellent investment,

[00:41:49.81] spk_1:
right? Multiple times. Alright. But that’s an interesting point. What do you say to that? Well, how do we know, how do we know we’re going to get a return on this person? We got to pay $50,000 plus 20 or 30% for benefits. What, how do we know this is gonna be fruitful for us?

[00:42:22.60] spk_2:
And again, it’s just a matter of trust and knowing what could be. And it was a gamble. We had to see and everybody at barks a super motivated, they truly loved animals and will do anything to succeed. And she certainly did. And the money started rolling in. But it could have gone the other way. It could have. But we did our research and we were pretty confident that we would be able to raise a vast amount of money just with social media.

[00:42:37.20] spk_1:
Okay, Again, the willingness to try, you can’t keep doing things the same way as we said, willingness to try something different. Make make the investment

[00:42:38.44] spk_2:
All right. And I should add one other thing if it was to fail. We had plenty of roles in fundraising for her to take over instead. So even though she was doing social media, believe me, there was plenty of place for her if it didn’t pay off.

[00:42:58.90] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. So what does barks look like now after the transformation, you said you said 10 people is that 10 people doing fundraising

[00:43:55.60] spk_2:
all, all different aspects of it, including marketing, public relations and social media. Um it’s all lumped together as um community engagement. So we have somebody just working with corporate donors. Two people working with social media. I was doing grants writing. Um, and then we had other people working with donors under $250 and over $250. So everybody has a little piece of the puzzle so that it’s manageable because in the beginning it wasn’t manageable. Um, we just had to try everything. But you know, this high burnout when you, when you’re juggling that many plates, um, without extra help. So we’re very fortunate now that everybody is doing a certain aspect of development.

[00:44:05.69] spk_1:
So what does barks overall look like now is a $5 million dollar a year agency.

[00:44:10.37] spk_2:
So the goal is still $8 million. Alright, well you’re a lot

[00:44:14.92] spk_1:
held a lot closer than you

[00:45:12.99] spk_2:
were. That that would be the tipping point for barks where we would be able to do everything that we really wanted to do. So we were already raising close to 5,000,002 years ago before Covid, then Covid struck. So of course we had to pivot along with the rest of the world and it was truly grants and the payroll protection plan that helped keep barks afloat during Covid because everybody feared their fundraising tanking and we were very fortunate for the past two years To maintain our fundraising level at $5 million. So we sustained it? But we didn’t grow, but at least we didn’t shrink either. So now we’re starting to bring back in person events, dog weddings coming back again this year. Um, And so we’re poised to start increasing and heading again to that $8 million dollars goal, which is achievable. It’s just, we had a two year slowdown along with everybody else.

[00:45:45.39] spk_1:
All right. Uh, it’s a, it’s a terrific story of transformation, but it’s built on your, On your 35 years before that and now a 45 year career, you know, that that’s the, that’s the value of experience. You know, what to do

[00:45:50.08] spk_2:
have survived

[00:46:31.08] spk_1:
And, and or how to get it done. You know, it’s fine to have an $8 million dollars goal, but you have to have a plan for getting there. So, you know, all the things we talked about about conceiving your organization differently. Getting executive buy in dealing with the board, getting thereby in talking to and transforming the board. Talking to donors about the need, expanding the donor base, grants manship as a transitional tool. That was key. Um, telling the right story, transforming the organization. You know, it’s, these are great lessons, Joanne, your, your, your perfect. Thank you. Congratulations.

[00:46:33.27] spk_2:
Congratulations.

[00:46:41.08] spk_1:
What you did at barks, Congratulations on your retirement, Joanne Goldberger, you’ll find her on facebook, which makes a lot of sense, linkedin. How long is that linkedin? You’re gonna, you’re gonna stay on

[00:46:44.99] spk_2:
linkedin. Why why bother it’s gonna say retired job. Okay, right, yeah,

[00:46:56.88] spk_1:
put some confetti bomb around that. Exactly right, all right, Joanne, thank you very much.

[00:46:58.33] spk_2:
Thanks for sharing your most welcome. Thank you tony

[00:48:16.88] spk_1:
If you know someone appropriate for nonprofit radio temerity, non profit temerity on nonprofit radio please nominate them. You can use tony-martignetti dot com. You can email me tony at tony-martignetti dot com. They should have retired From a long career in nonprofits at least 30 years and please they should have good ideas. Please don’t nominate a mediocre lackluster retiree that’s the status is reserved for me, although I’m not retired yet but I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna have to tell somebody that their ideas are mediocre or middling so please don’t put me in that position. Smart retirees, those are the ones we want smart retirees with a long non profit career, let me know about those folks that is non profit temerity next week fail forward if you missed any part of this week’s show I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff

[00:48:34.48] spk_0:
shows social media is by Susan Chavez marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein? Thank you for that affirmation scotty be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the The other 95

[00:48:43.68] spk_1:
Go out and be great, mm hmm.

Nonprofit Radio for February 14, 2022: Fundraising Amid Polarization

Drew Lindsay: Fundraising Amid Polarization

From The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Drew Lindsay uncovers the details from his two recent articles reporting on the impact of political polarization on nonprofit fundraising.

 

 

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[00:02:25.84] spk_0:
mm hmm. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. It’s the valentine’s Day show. I hope you and your valentine or valentine’s can snuggle a bit and do something special together or at least share that you’re special to each other. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into para que sis if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show fundraising amid polarization from the Chronicle of philanthropy. Drew Lindsay uncovers the details from his two recent articles reporting on the impact of political polarization on nonprofit fundraising on tony stick to an example beyond polarization into conspiracy theory. Last week I said Amy sample ward would be on this week. You have no idea what it’s like working with these big time celebrities. There was a calendar mistake and it would be indiscreet of me to say who made the mistake. Amy, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o here is fundraising amid polarization. It’s my pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio Drew Lindsay. He is a long time magazine writer and editor who joined the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2014. He previously worked at washingtonian magazine and was a principal editor for teacher and M. H. Q. Which were each selected as finalists for a national magazine award for general excellence In 2005. He was one of 18 journalists selected for a year, Long Night Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. You should be following him. He’s at Drew Lindsay C. O. P. If he was Drew Lindsay COPD that would be chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But he doesn’t, he doesn’t have COPD. He’s at the Chronicle of philanthropy. So Drew Lindsay C. O. P. Welcome

[00:02:35.66] spk_1:
Drew, appreciate it.

[00:03:24.84] spk_0:
My pleasure. Thank you. We’re talking about two of your very recent articles in the Chronicle. one is donations in the balance fundraising in the age of polarization. The other is advice for fundraisers caught in the middle of political battles. I’d like to start with a quote from, from the second of those. And then, uh let’s let’s talk about what’s going on, quote at the extreme our episodes where blocks of disaffected donors protests and organizations position or work. But fundraisers report that even casual encounters with supporters can lead to challenging conversations about political and social issues. End quote. What does your reporting tell you what’s going on? Drew

[00:05:00.44] spk_1:
Well, it’s interesting how this story even came about in the sense that um for that I’ve been asked to do for six months. Very deep stories on fundraising. What’s going on. So, I’ve been talking a lot of sources, a lot of fundraisers, a lot of consultants just generally to see stories that I should pursue. And almost as sidebars, um, these individuals had mentioned and oh yeah, this is going on. This is sort of we’re encountering this daily. Um, and I also saw there were some stories where some of these, um, sort of collisions of politics in a sense popped up and became news stories. Um, so I decided this was sort of worth the story for us. And I think, um, importantly for us, I think we write for a audience that is largely fundraisers in the sense I have often is that they’re not very connected with each other. They often think their work and their problems and their challenges, they sort of face a little bit of isolation. So we wanted to talk about the daily experience as best as we could to sort of in one sense, make nonprofits, their leaders and fundraisers realize, hey, we’re not alone. It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong. Um, at times it’s that we’re encountering this because the way the country is and, and the way things are playing out. So that was our goal with this story, um, is to offer a glimpse. I don’t by any means suggests that my reporting covers at all and that this is happening nationwide. I do think it’s common enough that people are going to count encounter maybe just in a casual conversation and maybe something bigger. But we wanted to show that happening.

[00:05:21.54] spk_0:
Yeah. You know, you say in one of the pieces that non profits are bringing together large numbers of people who just reflect society’s divisions and the country is divided polarized. So nonprofits are sometimes in the Crossair. Um, you know, let’s talk a little about, you know, social media and what, you know, how things can inflame, you know, so quickly. And, but the anonymity behind that

[00:06:31.54] spk_1:
to, I think one of the interesting things, some of the veterans that I talked to about this issue said, you know, the, the country has, you know, this is not new to fundraising in the sense of encountering donors or others who disagree with the organization for some reason, but, and there are examples in the country’s history. Talk to one fundraiser who have been, you know, working since at least the civil rights movement, he said, she said, this is, you know, this, it’s been part of what we’ve dealt with a long time. I think there is some sense that social media um accelerates this intensifies. It amplifies it, um, that, you know, people are, as we all know, people are very quick on social media to be in their own camp one and two to react to whatever they see in the moment. Um, without measured thought without context. Social media itself is not a great, um, you know, a great means of conveying nuance of conveying, you know, um, deep background and context. So I think people are reacting sometimes too quickly to things that are not put forward in the right way, which just inflamed the situation in a sense.

[00:06:46.64] spk_0:
And then you have the anonymity to it. Also, you quote, you quote someone who wonders if the people there, that she’s talking to day to day, you know, it might be trolling anonymously, you know, and and inflaming

[00:07:55.34] spk_1:
I think that’s true. I think it’s unsettling for people that you don’t know. Um you can be sitting in a development officer communication office and you are putting forward messages from your organization and you can have um, what’s called clap back people reacting on social media to what you’ve done and you really don’t know. Is this a supporter? Is this, uh, alumni that is upset? Or is this someone from the outside? Is this someone who has no connection to the organization whatsoever will happen to see this and reacted. And so it’s a little hard as a um, you know, steward of your organization to understand how to react to those kind of things, because it may just be somebody who’s Who isn’t again, isn’t a supporter and doesn’t even know much about your organization just responding to those 160 characters in the tweet. Yeah,

[00:07:56.50] spk_0:
it could just be a troll threatening to stop giving who’s never has given and and maybe never even heard of your organization until they

[00:08:48.84] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think some of the in the advice piece, I think some of the folks really tried to help put that in perspective, that you can’t just assume that because you have a mini firestorm on social media, that that is all your supporters, that if someone on social media declares, I’m never giving you this organization again, that may not be true and maybe something I thought about it in the moment and so to try and also that it it often doesn’t represent had several organizations. Tell me, you know, something that happens on social media that probably doesn’t represent our whole constituency. It’s it’s maybe a small minority and you need to keep that in mind as you react as you respond. That isn’t all what’s on social media doesn’t represent your whole supporter base.

[00:09:45.14] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Thought leadership. Do you or your nonprofit want to be seen as leaders in a public dialogue, not merely participating in a conversation that involves your work. Wouldn’t it be delightful? Wonderful to have media call you to get your opinion on breaking news. It takes time to learn that credibility to build those relationships. But it’s eminently doable. Turn to can get you there, turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o now back to fundraising amid polarization. Yeah. You you say the group at M. I. T. The Free speech

[00:09:47.61] spk_1:
Alliance,

[00:09:55.04] spk_0:
You know, they based on your reporting or at least up until your reporting. You know, they had something like 500 followers but Almost 150,000

[00:09:56.36] spk_1:
alumni,

[00:10:10.64] spk_0:
but but a vocal a tiny minority but but vocal inflammatory and that you know that leads to um the potential of donations being used as a one of your 11 of the folks you quote says as the donations can be a screw that’s

[00:11:14.84] spk_1:
turned. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s um I think that’s one of the things that surprised me about it is that I knew that that you know, people sometimes talk about on social media and letters or you know, they’re responding, there’s an organization to a message that they may say in that individual response I’m never gonna give. It was interesting to me to see that some critics of an organization now have taken it and become more formalized since uh the M. I. T. Case. You you mentioned um the Free speech Alliance has not taken this step, but they are considering forming a donor advised fund in which they would encourage um supporters of their free speech issues to instead of giving to M. I. T. They would give to this donor advised fund. And then it would in a sense, be held as leverage as they try to convince the university to to pursue certain free speech principles that they adhere to. So um that somebody gets surprised me is that in some cases it’s become a little more formalized in terms of how you used donations as leverage.

[00:11:23.24] spk_0:
Yeah. You saw this at Washington. And lee also,

[00:11:55.44] spk_1:
that’s correct Washington lee the free speech group there um has I think 10 to 12,000 supportive followers. I won’t say supporters that, you know, they, when they sent out an email, they have a base of about 10,000 and they have encouraged repeatedly to their supporters to withhold their contributions to the university as a means of getting the university to pay attention to them. They feel the university we disagree that they feel they have not, their views have not been heard. And so they are trying to, in a sense, use donations as a way to make the university pay attention to them. Um, so

[00:12:15.24] spk_0:
yeah, at Washington and lee, it’s around the, the treatment of general lee, the, the administration took his name off the chapel and that, that seems to have incited ignited the, the, the organization called the general’s readout. That’s correct. I guess they’re the Washington and lee generals.

[00:13:05.94] spk_1:
And I think it’s, I think Washington is an interesting case study of this in the sense that, um, you know, it’s an older institution. Um, it has that history going back Washington lee or in the name and its current, there are a number of, of um, individual supporters, faculty alumni who would like them to consider dropping lee from the name of the institution itself. So they have that pressure at the same time as an institution, they made the decision to take the name of lee off of the sort of central chapel to the college. It’s now called the university Chapel. So, um, this, this generals readout is not, is not, I’m happy with the decision to drop leaf from the chapel name, but others are not happy with the university because it’s not taking lee out of the college name itself. So, um, in a sense, they’re feeling this pressure on all sides

[00:13:27.44] spk_0:
on 11 side believes they’ve gone too far on the other side believes they haven’t gone far enough. That’s correct. And then, and you know, non profits are caught in the balance. Um, and your reporting suggests this is, you know, across all missions. I mean, we’re talking right now about education, but you’ve talked to folks in the arts, social services, Environmental.

[00:16:32.74] spk_1:
It’s true. And it’s, um, that it was interesting to me and I think, um, the social scientists I talked to David Brubaker, um, sort of put this in context, in the sense that, you know, nonprofits, any, any organization in the country at this point, schools in particular, you’re seeing a flash point, any, any organization or group in the country that is bringing together large groups of people behind a mission. Um, it’s sort of subject to this because the nature of that mission now gets called into question. So yes, you see. Um, uh, so I think that’s one thing I think there’s another viewpoint we ought to consider in that, um, there are, there’s some pressure on groups, in a sense of taking it, you know, I’ll just say it’s their outside their lane, you know, since they may be doing environmental work, or they may be doing health work and if they take up an issue or cause um, I think the one that’s most, most, most top of mind for me is an environmental group, um, stands behind Black Lives Matter or takes up an issue like that. They even have some liberal supporters, people who are part of their constituency, kind of them saying you’re an environmental group. I’m not, I’m not supporting you for your stand on Black Lives Matter and supporting you for your work in the environment. So, um, I think it’s it’s across a lot of different cause areas, um, perhaps most, I would say it’s most intense, perhaps at schools, colleges, universities, um, in some sense, those are places where supporters feel a real personal connection to those institutions and they, in a sense, have much more invested in what they’re doing and how they’re doing than say, uh, supportive for a health group that is behind its mission to reduce produce cancer, to do certain things. So, um, and, and there’s a sense of belonging to those institutions. And so, um, a lot of talking to schools and colleges, that sense of belonging is sometimes hurt when or change, that’s their their relationship with school changes, um, when they feel like the mission is now, or the school has gone off and done something they don’t agree with. So, um, colleges and universities also see themselves as um, societal change agents in a sense. They may be seeking a change in, in the society that some of their online may say, Well, that’s not something I see as a positive. So I would say it’s most intense that I was surprised. Um, David Rubin acre put me onto this. Um, the number of clergy and churches that feel because of Covid caught in the middle in a sense and that they are, you know, obviously, you know, bringing large groups of people together. And the question of whether you have in person services, worship group meetings, kinds of things, whether you wear masks and things have become real contentious to the point that, Um, David pointed me to the survey, four and 10 pastors recently surveyed said they are considering leaving the field and this is a real distension. This dynamic is a real problem for them. So

[00:16:42.83] spk_0:
yeah, the masking is in churches is interesting, but I could see it in theater groups

[00:16:47.74] spk_1:
too. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:41.24] spk_0:
We’re gonna, we’re enforcing masking for the safety of our, of our patrons. Well, you’re going too far, you’re giving into fear. And then if they don’t have a masking requirement, then you’re not keeping us safe and we’re not. So for that reason we’re not going to come to the right to the congregation or to the theater. Yeah, It’s time for Tony’s take two drew and I are talking about political polarization, hurting nonprofits. There’s a story this week that goes even more extreme. It’s more extreme in what’s driving the pro driving the impact and in the impact. I can’t think of anything more benign than butterflies except maybe tofu butterflies at least you know, have have independent flight tofu, you shake the plate and just jiggles. So tofu might be more benign than butterflies, but butterflies are pretty darn benign. Not according to some conspiracy theorists who claimed that the National Butterfly Center, a nonprofit in Mission texas is a refuge of human smuggling and child sex trafficking. There’s no evidence to support any of these claims. It’s a, it’s a gross conspiracy theory. Sounds very much like the, the pizza parlor and pizza gate in Washington D. C. With the, with the theories the National Butterfly Center has had to close because they’re concerned about the security of their staff. I mean, I presume the butterflies would be safe, although maybe the butterflies are the ones, maybe they’re spiriting aliens across the border. Uh, so the center has had to close because of these concerns about safety. It involves the border wall. There’s, there’s a segment, there’s a segment of the border wall that’s near the, the butterfly center and, and the center objects to the wall being built through their property. That’s what seems to have given rise to the, to the theories claimed to be happening at the National Butterfly Center. So you know, you can, you can find that it’s again, National Butterfly Center in mission texas. It has been in the news just this week. So you know, Drew and I are talking about trends. I mean he’s a journalist. He, you know, he has dozens of people that he’s spoken to. I see this one case. I’m not saying it’s a trend. It’s not one case doesn’t make a trend, but it’s quite disturbing. And you know, it could happen to any nonprofit really. I mean, I don’t see how an organization can be exempt and I can’t think of one that’s more innocent than a butterfly center. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for fundraising amid polarization withdrew Lindsay listeners, you may notice a change in sound quality. That’s because we lost the internet connection and uh, I’m now on my phone. But non profit radio perseveres through technology, uh, disruptions and disappointments. But there’s no, there’s no, we’ve, I’ve been at conferences and had the lights turned off around me. So there’s no, there’s no stopping. non profit radio Drew, you had mentioned racial equity statements and black lives matter, but it could be something as seemingly innocuous as an auction item that incites people.

[00:21:40.34] spk_1:
Yeah, I think Auction finishing. I talked to some, some consultants and fundraisers in the west or some rural areas where 10 or 15 years ago, no one thought twice about Putting in, um, say an afternoon at the gun range as an auction item or auctioning off a piece of weaponry or some sort of accessory. No one thought twice about it now, 10, 15 years later with school shootings and other things starting raising the profile and issues concerning gun safety. Those are really questionable. Yeah. At the same time they’re part of the culture in some of those rural areas. So fundraisers think really wrestle. I think, you know, there are other things. Even something as basic as a holiday, email or video for any given holiday particularly say around the christmas season is a real cause for anger for people. How do you, how do you, um, write something that isn’t offensive at the same time? It’s not gonna gonna still has meaning still has something some some back. So, um, yeah,

[00:22:15.34] spk_0:
all right, interesting. You know, interesting times. Uh, important. I think just for consciousness raising. So uh, nonprofit leaders are aware that there’s the potential out there. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about advice for, for fundraisers, which, you know, draws from your second piece. And the first idea is that prepare.

[00:24:01.44] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think a lot of the folks that I talked to really want to put notice leaders on notice that this is part of your job as a nonprofit leader as an advancement leader is to consider this and prepare your staff. Um, part of, you know, the advice is often that a position the group takes or a new program or something needs to be firmly explained and put in context of the organization’s mission. And um, you know, that can be done at a high level. But the thinking and strategy behind it needs to be conveyed to the gift officers. That needs to be conveyed to the donor communications staff to steward folks. They all need to be prepared for even perhaps have talking points prepared for individual conversations with donors for putting out their own communications so that, you know, a stepped in organization takes that is rooted in mission. Those routes have to be made very clear to folks. Um, so that’s a little bit on leadership. I think leadership also has to look at gift agreements and look at, um, what those policies call for, what gives it that can accept what’s the contingencies for them. Um, that was something everybody suggested that the groups ought to take a second look at in in lieu of this kind of political context out there. Um, I think there’s also some sense that, um, Gift officers in particular needs some process put in place for them. That if they have really awkward, uncomfortable, even sometimes offensive conversations with donors that they have recourse, they have a process. They know what, how the organization will handle those situations. You can’t leave your Gift officers out there alone to deal with this and manage it on their own, that, that they have to feel supported backed up. So a lot of this starts with leadership and proper preparation.

[00:24:32.14] spk_0:
And your reporting suggests there’s there’s a shift away from donor centrism and, and into, uh, you know, you’ve, you’ve alluded to it a couple of times that the mission and values of the organization, that, that in the past this might have been something that organizations rolled over on just to appease appease donors, especially major donors, but not so much anymore. You’re seeing a trend away.

[00:25:17.94] spk_1:
Well, I, I think, um, and you know, put this in context, I think there there’s donor centrism that people embrace, say, 15, 20 years ago, some veterans in the field talked about, there might have been a time where the donor could call the shots on these things and this is a long time ago, but people have begun, I think, to move away from that strict and embrace of donor centrism and there was some sense that, you know, the gift that someone is giving you is for the mission and purpose of the organization. And again, your conversations have to tie whatever you’re doing into that mission and purpose of the organization. Um, so it’s perhaps, um, A little bit of a shift away from the focus on the donor and what they’re doing for the organization as opposed to here’s what the organization is doing. Um, so I think that’s true. And, and again, it was the veterans mainly talking about this and that there was a time again, 15, 20 years ago where donors called the shots. So

[00:25:46.24] spk_0:
and that also helps the organization root the, the controversy in, in its own, in its own work. And so that this is not, you know, just a reflection of the times. It’s not a whim that we, you know, we, we read a headline and we’ve taken a stand, but this is rooted in our, in our work, what we

[00:27:04.04] spk_1:
believe absolutely that and that folks may, you have to make clear when you make a change or you make a position, similar things you really have to read and strategy in your mission because people can too often see you as reacting to the headline, putting a finger to the wind, trying to react to the times. And you know, it’s one of the things about social media that was interesting in my conversations with both you for to hear two things you hear, you know, um don’t, there’s a temptation when you’re getting for the flap clap back on social to sort of pull back and not do as much and folks that, you know, you can’t do that. You’re not, you’re not, you know, you’ve got to continue to advance and promote what you’re doing in your cause. But at the same time you have to consider that social media is an incredibly condensed prism through which to view something and if you need to do the work to tie something into mission and to provide context and nuance, Keep dynamometer going to social social has to be done very carefully so that you can make the connections that are necessary for people to see how this ties back to your mission. Um, so that’s it sort of contradictory advice in the sense of you want to keep doing social, you want to resist the temptation to pull back, but at the same time you gotta be careful what you do and really craft it well. So,

[00:27:18.64] spk_0:
and then likewise, you know, having difficult one on one conversations with donors don’t, don’t shy away from them as well as its the advice you were

[00:28:09.04] spk_1:
hearing. Well, it was really remarkable and a lot of fundraisers, you know, there are some challenging and difficult conversations and um really they need to hear out from people some borders what the concerns are. And again the conversation is bringing about to explain calmly and, and you know, um, without reacting defensively, in a sense to how this ties to mission I think um, I was surprised and that a number of fundraisers talked about those difficult conversations actually leading to a deeper relationship with a donor and sort of getting you beyond some superficial sort of things and getting the donor perhaps to understand more about the mission of the organization. So that part of the advice that don’t shy from these conversations is there can be a real benefit from. Um, so, but at the same token, there are some people are gonna walk away, but that there are some benefits,

[00:28:28.04] spk_0:
it wasn’t it the ceo of the Salvation Army who told you that that when, when he has these conversations, they almost almost uniformly lead to, uh, an understanding across on both sides.

[00:28:52.64] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think that that suggests there has to be a process in your office for when perhaps you get an email back or you get, um, some sort of response or negative reaction to seek out a personal one on one conversation, those can often, you know, people are disarmed by those and suddenly you see each other as humans and things change, the dynamics change.

[00:29:08.24] spk_0:
So yes, considerably right, right. 11 thing that came out of the reporting that I was, I was surprised that was the idea of in these conversations sharing your own personal views.

[00:30:15.34] spk_1:
Well, attention that since the peace has gone out, that’s the most reaction I’ve got from people and some suggesting and that’s not what you should do. I think, um, I think as the piece suggests that there are some fundraisers who really feel like their job is not to censor themselves that, that in a sense, you know, they’re putting their whole self into the job and for them to censor. Um, I think perhaps one way to look at it is, you know, your personal view of why this fits within the mission of the, the, you know, I don’t think you need to sound off on things that are completely unrelated to the topic, but if you have a view of an organization position or program or what it’s doing and how it matches with your beliefs and what the organization should be doing. That’s a way to frame it. Um, as opposed to, you know, you know, if this conversation strays into say gun rights, it’s not like you have to pop off on that just because that’s how you feel. But try, you know, you don’t eliminate your personal, um, views when it comes to things that are really related to the organization and is said to make you a a more three dimensional person for for the donor, if you explained how your views high end to why the organization is important to you.

[00:30:22.94] spk_0:
Yes, you’ve, you’ve said it a couple of times relate how it relates to the, to the mission and values of the organization,

[00:30:28.74] spk_1:
right?

[00:30:29.27] spk_0:
Um, being willing to apologize when you when you do make a mistake.

[00:31:38.34] spk_1:
And I think that, um, you know, there are a couple example of, of organizations that perhaps did something that touched off something they did unintentionally. And I think, um, and again, I’ve had some response since the piece has been out, but being upfront declaring it a mistake, not trying to wrap it in some sort of pr gauze as if really this is what we intended and oh, you’re, you know, you the donor or not understanding how we came out, you know, just sort of upfront be upfront about it. I think some readers that I’ve talked to since the piece came out suggested that if a donor is offended by something, it’s not, there isn’t necessarily a mistake on your part and you shouldn’t be automatically apologizing for something. It’s, I think the piece and I probably didn’t frame it correctly is suggesting more where, um, you know, the organization truly has made a mistake in terms of language or something. And again, the the idea is to be upfront, um, to not try to hide that just leads to erosion of trust. Um, but by the same token, not to assume that every time someone objects to something, you’ve done that it is your mistake. Um, so if that makes sense.

[00:31:47.65] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah. And that’s a fundamental of crisis communications to and if if the organization has made a mistake,

[00:31:55.14] spk_1:
absolutely

[00:31:55.83] spk_0:
be out front with an apology,

[00:31:58.26] spk_1:
you know, right,

[00:32:04.34] spk_0:
yep, control of the, of the narrative. Um, and then, you know, finally you alluded to it earlier, but I’m gonna flush it out of it. Not to panic if people say they’re gonna withdraw their support.

[00:32:40.44] spk_1:
Yeah, I think that’s the case, and again, it’s it’s numbers and particularly looking at noise on social media or noise of, you know, phone calls or response, you know, keep in mind, um, you know, that you have a very large constituency and supporters, um, I know of, of a couple of nonprofits that had, um, something touched off, you know, phone calls or social media and they felt compelled then to write to their entire constituency about it. And then long behold their entire content. You know, 90% of the constituency had no idea what anybody was talking about. And all you’ve done is raise it to their attention. So keep the criticism, the protests, the concerns raised in context of your broader, um, set of supporters.

[00:32:58.24] spk_0:
What’s some of the other reader feedback that you’ve heard?

[00:33:46.34] spk_1:
Uh, it’s been it’s been good in a sense. I I described this as you said it to a glimpse of what’s happening. And, you know, I never in our reporting want to suggest that this is universal or anything we’re describing. And I really didn’t want this to be seen as a glimpse. Um, and, and this is not that people are seeking me out. But if I continue to talk to people for other stories, they will mention this story and said, oh, yeah, you know, you’re right, this is happening. And it’s often the what you and I have talked about in the small ways that this sort of tension is creeping into everyday work. There are some cases where individuals have mentioned, yes. Because of our stand on this, a million dollar donor walked away and, you know, that’s this is a reality. So, um, I’ve heard it just in casual conversations that I’m doing reporting on other stories. That a confirmation in the sense that this is an issue for a current in front of mine for a lot of people.

[00:34:20.44] spk_0:
All right, well thank you for making us aware and sharing some of the advice advice based on your reporting. Again. The pieces are in the chronicle of philanthropy donations in the balance fundraising in the age of polarization and advice for fundraisers caught in the middle of political battles. He is Drew Lindsay at Drew Lindsay C. O. P. Thank you. Thank you very very much.

[00:34:22.03] spk_1:
No, thank you for your time. I enjoyed it.

[00:35:36.44] spk_0:
My pleasure. Next week For sure. Amy Sample Ward returns to talk about the 2022 nonprofit technology conference. Talk about celebrity culture. But I will work through it. I’ll work through their booking agent, attorney Pr staff virtual assistant. I will get them here if you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein. Okay, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 17, 2022: Legal Outlook For 2022

Gene Takagi: Legal Outlook For 2022

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi returns for a mix of checklist items and emerging trends. It’s a good time to look big picture at your HR investments, corporate docs and financials. Also, what to look out for in crowdfunding, donor disclosure, data protection, and more. Gene is principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group (NEO) and our legal contributor.

 

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[00:02:10.34] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit 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 bear the pain of proto psychosis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show Legal Outlook for 2022, Gene Takagi returns for a mix of checklist items and emerging trends. It’s a good time to look at big picture items like your HR investments, corporate docs and financials also though what to look out for in crowdfunding donor disclosure, data protection and more, jean is principal of the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group Neo and our legal contributor On Tony’s take two 50% off planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s always my pleasure to welcome back Gene Takagi to the show. You know who he is. It’s almost it’s almost superfluous for me for me to do the intro. But but jeanne deserves it. He’s well credentialed and I want to make sure that he gets his due introduction. Gene Takagi are legal contributor and managing attorney of Neo, the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group in saN Francisco. He edits that wildly popular nonprofit law blog dot com, which you should be following and he is a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is at neo law group dot com and he’s at jeanne, Welcome back.

[00:02:11.94] spk_1:
Great to be back. tony how are you?

[00:02:13.98] spk_0:
It’s always a pleasure. Thank you. I’m well happy New Year.

[00:02:17.99] spk_1:
Happy New Year.

[00:03:05.74] spk_0:
Thank you. And let’s, so let’s let’s talk about the new year. Um and just before we do I want to remind folks that not too long ago we have genes one, our legal audit which you might want to look back at. That was a sort of a condensed version of some of what we’re gonna talk about today. Although we have lots of new subjects to talk about today too. But there was the one our legal audit and also with jean recently Risk management Part one and then a different show. Risk Management Part two. So those are resources that you can look back at just from a couple of months ago and we’ll go into and and those go into more detail on some of what we’re gonna talk about today jean. Uh where would you like to start for the new year, throw it open, throw it, I throw it open to you. What would you like to start with?

[00:03:58.64] spk_1:
So it does seem like kind of this chance that restarting, getting reenergized and thinking about our organizations and where we wanted to go. Um Yes, we have to keep in mind some of those um risks that we talked about in previous shows but we also have to think about kind of where we want to go. What of our, what our dreams are um what our vision is for the organization? Had we properly captured it? Um, what is our mission? Is that sort of properly captured? Is everything because our environment seems to be changing week by week. It seems to be new stuff that comes up that we have to consider. Are we still on track with where we want to go? So having these sort of broader discussions. I like sending those organizational priorities for the new year.

[00:04:06.64] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Um, what would you, what what priority would you like to start with?

[00:06:07.94] spk_1:
Sure. So, um, being the lawyer, I say, okay, let’s talk about legal compliance just to make sure we’ve got some systems in place, mission and values, which we’ve frequently emphasized them when we’ve had discussions about not just existing to further your mission, but to do it in a way that advances your values and if equity and inclusion of part of those values, then, you know, that’s something you should be thinking about as well, definitely considering some of the trends that are out there. And I know we’ll get into that a little bit later in the show, but also including kind of the times that we’re we live in and acknowledging that yes, we’re under the impact of Covid, which seems to be shifting constantly in both how it’s affecting us and how we might need to respond to it. The great resignation, which certainly isn’t completely unrelated to the Covid, but that is a huge trend and movement as we’re trying to figure out how do we keep our workers, are we burning them out? The mental health issues that are, you know, hitting pretty much all of us, um, from the isolation, remote, working from the uncertainties of health, from sick family members and loved ones and all of that and saying, well, are we going to be able to keep our team together? Should we be keeping our team together the way we’re working now? Do we need to shift our work practices? Do we need to shift what type of benefits for giving to them? All of those things have got to be sort of raised? And I would say raise at the board level, you know, together with the executives and senior management team. Let’s talk about it. Let’s brainstorm think about this and get what our organizational priorities are this year, because things can change rapidly and rapid change if you don’t have any plans um, to anticipate some of them don’t have contingency plans can force you into very, very stressful times where immediate actions are necessary and you can sometimes make bad decisions if you’re under that type of time stress. So

[00:06:18.63] spk_0:
then it because then it becomes a crisis

[00:06:20.30] spk_1:
right? Exactly.

[00:06:48.64] spk_0:
And and a crisis in staffing, especially knowing how hard it is to hire folks now, you know, you talked about, you know, keeping the team together or should we keep should we keep the team together? But, you know, I’m sure you’re seeing it with your clients. The difficulty in hiring, you know, you want to, that, that, that’s a, that’s a huge factor in, you know, do we have the right team? Well, putting the right team together, it’s gonna take a lot longer than it used to?

[00:08:01.94] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. And if you’re talking about retention, you got to figure out what are you going to invest in this? I know you want to, you know, provide as much as you can to your beneficiaries. But if you’re not really considering the team of people in, you know, on your team that are providing those services that are supporting those services, the whole thing can collapse. So just remember where your infrastructure and when your groundwork is and how important the human resources are in your organization to being able to deliver services and provide goods for your charitable missions. So really important not to neglect that. And that requires an investment both on retention and if you aren’t able to retain everybody and you need to recruit, you’re gonna have to be able to show what you’re going to invest in those new employees and give them time to learn. You can’t expect them to perform like experience people have, um, in the past. So it’s, you know, some patients, um, and definitely investment in education and training and orientation, um, and all the rest and again, um, to the extent that your executive is probably also overwhelmed with everything else going on. The board is really pivotal in trying to be able to come up with plans that help invest in their teams.

[00:08:10.44] spk_0:
This goes to legal audit the conversation we had a few months ago. You’d like to see a review of governing documents to.

[00:09:31.74] spk_1:
Yeah, I I always think that that’s a great thing to check out in the new year. Just even if you have somebody, you know, a higher up kind of a board member or where your executive or senior manager take a look At your articles and bylaws, even spending 30 minutes on it and saying is our mission really reflected in these documents or have we evolved into something else? And these documents are like stale and old and outdated now in that case those documents still rule. So if you have the I. R. S. Or a state regulator coming in audit you, if you’re not performing within that mission statement in your articles and bylaws, you could be acting completely out of compliance and worst case scenario, you can really threaten the organization through penalties, etcetera. So that’s something to take a look at. Also just take a look at a lot of organizations. I find out their their boards, they’re like, oh, you know, we forgot to elect them. You know, we, we, you know, we’ve had terms, you know of two years but they’ve been on for like 10 years and we’re happy with them. So we just don’t do elections that can be really, really harmful as well for multiple reasons. But you know, sit back, see what you’re doing and what you’re not doing consistent with your articles and bylaws. And if you need to change things determine that you have to change. And if you need the help of a lawyer, try to find somebody that can help you with that. And there are some good resources on the web as well.

[00:09:48.64] spk_0:
What’s, what’s one of the good resources?

[00:10:15.04] spk_1:
A little bit of a self plug because I’m a board member, but board source has excellent resources on board of directors, governance things of that nature. Stanford University also has excellent resources in terms of sort of template documents that are just a guide for nonprofits. It’s not one size fits all, but it just gives you a general idea about how some things operate. Um, so those are just too good resources to look at.

[00:10:18.35] spk_0:
And, and again, we, we talked about this extensively in the show called your one

[00:10:24.34] spk_1:
hour legal audit.

[00:10:30.14] spk_0:
You have some last one. You have some financial performance advice for the new year.

[00:13:04.74] spk_1:
Yeah. Well I think probably, um, most people take a look at their financials throughout the year on the board level and on the executive level. Um, but the new year, you’ve actually sort of completed your financials and they might not be, um, in final form yet, but you might have what some people call it pro form, a set of financials, um, sort of close to final, where you get to assess what you’ve done in the year, you know, for, for most organizations, this goes without saying, but you want to make sure that you’re performing in a way that you’re not becoming insolvent. So you want to make sure what your balance sheet looks like and whether you have net assets, um, if you don’t have net assets, that means that you are either insolvent or, you know, in the zone of insolvency, you have to think about how you’re going to address that very serious issue. And I would say you don’t have internal expertise on dealing with it, get outside help right away if that’s the case. But your, your statement of revenues and expenses as well, are you sort of operating what people call in the black so that there is, you know, some net income in there or are you operating in the red where you’re very concerned because you’re losing money, timing is always important. So it’s misleading to look at one year in isolation because sometimes grants are given in one year, but they’re actually uh received in another year. So the timing issue can pose different challenges about reading financials. So you want to be able to read it sort of collectively through a multi year period just to know where you stand. And again, if board members aren’t able to help an executive and the executive feels like they need some help with understanding financials, to reading financials invest in everybody’s training in this area and there are a lot of people, even pro bono, that, that are offering this training pro bono and a lot of resources on the web. So make sure you understand your financials and what they’re indicating. You don’t need to know every single financial ratio that you know, business people use, but just generally no. Are you healthy financially or are you trending bad? And if you have several years where you’re in the red, where you, where you’re not making money, it looks like you’re bleeding money, then that might be indicative of some change that’s necessary in order to make your organization sustainable on an ongoing basis. So again, you don’t want to hit crisis mode financially. So this is a good chance, take a look at your financials, not just last year, but over a multiyear period and see where you are, get help if you need it.

[00:15:08.54] spk_0:
We have a show that I replayed, oh, I think within the past six months, uh, the guest was Andy Robinson. So you could go to tony-martignetti dot com and just search his name Andy Robinson, but it was something like teaching your board basic financials and he wrote a book, I’m pretty sure it was published by charity channel, uh, with, with a title similar to that. So if you, and the show is a few years old, but reading financial statements and and balance sheets hasn’t changed much in probably 100 years. Um, so it’s just all in and out now now, it’s all in Excel. But uh, so if you’d like some help with that, there is a, there is a show where Andy Robinson was the guest talking about, you’re improving your boards, financial literacy. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, your 2022 communications plan. Does it have lots of projects? Lots of writing projects? You can get the biggest projects off your plate and outsource them. Free up staff time to devote to the work that it’s not feasible to have others doing for you. Like the annual report, just because it’s been done in house in the past, doesn’t mean it has to be done in house this year. What about research reports, White papers, your other heavy lift pieces. Do you need help with writing projects in 2022, Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now, back to legal outlook for 2022 with Gene Takagi. Okay, so let’s talk about some trends then, jean, you have a, you have a case we haven’t talked about, we haven’t talked about an actual case for a while. Americans for prosperity.

[00:19:16.54] spk_1:
Yeah. So um that was a huge U. S. Supreme Court case at least huge for the nonprofit sector. Um, but with deeper implications for if I if I’m not over hyping it for democracy itself. So um so americans for prosperity, Foundation versus Banta, who was the California Attorney general basically it was about the schedule be disclosure of donors who donated more than $5000. So for nonprofits who know how to prepare their form 19 nineties, you’ll know that on schedule B of your form 1990. Eur actually disclosing to the I. R. S. It’s not public information. Um But it’s to the I. R. S. The name and address of your donors who donated more than $5000. Now that hasn’t changed, you still have to disclose it to the I. R. S. But certain states, including California where volunteers from as the attorney general um New york I believe New Jersey I believe Hawaii also included Um all asked for a copy of the 990 including an unredacted schedule B to be given to the state regulator because they also want to look at that information for state law compliance purposes. A lot of them are concerned about donors who give money but get something back in return that’s not being disclosed. So if they ever have to have an investigation of that, that information turns out to be very helpful to the state to be able to say ah they were giving money but they also took in this huge benefit, this huge contract for example, which you know, reap them millions of dollars. Um So there was a legal case um that went up through the courts um finally hit the U. S. Supreme Court and the A. G. Lost here, The California G. Um So the court decided and we know the court’s composition is fairly conservative right now. The court decided that uh the states don’t have this right. Um It was based on the fact finding of the lower courts which is a little bit unfortunate because if the higher court could have considered more facts, then it might have been decided a different way but based on kind of how how our legal system works and and and how the Supreme Court works and the composition of the Supreme Court. They held that, hey this is not disclosed able to the states essentially that’s the impact of it. The broader impact on why I said democracy might be uh issue here is because well what about sort of campaign finance disclosures? And what about the I. R. S. Should they be entitled to that information as well? So it’s really helpful in compliance. But the counter argument and why some organizations charities, we’re also um not in favor of the disclosures is because of the protection of the donor. And the old case cited um in this part of the argument was an N double A cp case that said, well, if we disclose our donors, the KKK had threatened to kill all of them. Um And you can see why privacy was important in that issue and this issue, it was nothing like this. I think it’s a Koch brothers, um, kind of funded charity. They wanted really to keep their identity, um, more hidden because they have desires to influence politics in many ways. And if it always gets associated with them, then the impact lessons. So if they can look like they’re ground swells of movements that are funding these things rather than individual donors, um, it looks better for for what they’re trying to do. So that’s, you know, that’s what’s at stake here is not only are the state’s not allowed to get this information that would really help them in state law enforcement of whether there’s diversion of charitable assets that benefit

[00:19:29.74] spk_0:
donors. But

[00:19:30.15] spk_1:
in the broader sense, are we going to allow more dark money to enter into our political systems without knowing that there are donors, heavy donors that back these, you know, politicians or political parties or political movements. So that’s the scary part about this decision.

[00:19:57.94] spk_0:
What’s the, I think infamous Supreme Court case that that allowed the allowed the dark money into, uh, into politics. United

[00:20:02.73] spk_1:
Citizens. United

[00:20:27.54] spk_0:
United. Yeah. Um, All right. All right. And so I just want to repeat this. So this case that Gene was just talking about is americans for prosperity Foundation V. Banta B. O. N. T. A. What about crowdfunding you, you point out that there’s a new crowdfunding law. Hope is this a little more optimistic? I hope?

[00:21:22.54] spk_1:
Uh, well, depending upon how you look at it. And I think in one sense it’s inevitable. Um, a lot of our laws that are developed regarding fundraising, um, don’t even, and never anticipated the internet, right, johnny. So, uh, you know, now crowdfunding platform is, you know, not just the internet, the use of the internet, but it’s a lot of different for profit companies getting involved, um, to enable charities and organizations and people who are not charities to raise funds that look like they could be for charitable purposes, Right? So you want to help victims of a fire, but you want to help them directly, because some individuals said, I want to start a Go fund Me campaign, right? And say, well, you know, chip in 50 bucks and let’s try to get these people some help doesn’t, that doesn’t go through a charity. Often it just goes to this person, right, who promises to give these other people money

[00:21:35.90] spk_0:
and go funding the person’s goodwill. Honestly, yeah,

[00:21:58.14] spk_1:
Go fund Me is, you know, reacted to this and they’re probably the biggest crowdfunding platforms. So they’ve reacted to this in terms of having their own internal policies to help prevent a check. But overall, there’s, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of crowdfunding platforms out there that do this to make a profit. Um, and they may not have those types of controls or checks to not to just, you know, prevent somebody from saying, let’s raise money to help fire victims and then just keeping it. Um, so,

[00:22:11.97] spk_0:
what, what, what is the import of the law for, for us?

[00:23:21.34] spk_1:
So I think the import of the law is, if you’re going to get on and decide, hey, we want to do crowdfunding, um, you’ve got to select your platform provider carefully and this law, which is in California, but is likely to spread across different states in various forms, says, well now, if you’re gonna do that, you’ve got to make sure that this crowdfunding platform is registered. Um, and they’re reporting and there are all sorts of rules involved. So if you have a contract with them, it should be subject to these rules that might say things like, well, if they collect money, they have to give the money to the charity within a certain time period. Right? So they couldn’t say, well, it takes this administration, so maybe a couple of years before you get that, you know, nobody’s gonna be happy with that, but without rules, why not? Um, so these are, this is why it’s important for charities to have rules. The actual details of the rules. So I can see why some people have some, some issue with them. And we haven’t had all of the regulations yet, they’re still in discussion. So this is very, Still very trending, but the crowdfunding law, the law, the general law that’s in place now will become effective in California in 2023, and the regulations are being developed right now,

[00:23:58.04] spk_0:
let’s turn to remote work, which is obviously so much more common now. Hybrid work, you know, return to work dates are being pushed off and off. Um What what are what are what are what trends are you seeing? What should be on, will you be on the lookout for with respect to uh remote work and employment law issues?

[00:25:10.84] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s, you know, this is a really tricky area. Um you know, for sure, Covid where people were suddenly not permitted to to go indoors in some cases for months. Um and who knows if, you know, we’re going to return to some of those scenarios with the omicron variant out there, We’re hoping that it’s less um severe in terms of its impact, even if it might be a more transmissible, but if we if we keep worrying about this and saying, you know, our workers aren’t comfortable coming to work, even if the law allows them to come to work. Um Maybe we’re going to let people work remotely, and many of us have gone full remote, some of us have gone back to partial returns, some have gone back to full returns and then gone back, you know out the other way and said, okay, you know, it’s at the workers discretion whether they want to come in or not. So what makes us a little bit tricky. Um is that you don’t control the work environment as the employer, if they’re working at home, right? Um but that becomes the work environment, if they’re doing work from home, that’s their work environment, and, you know, the employer is responsible for the work environment if they should get hurt, for example,

[00:25:22.94] spk_0:
um

[00:26:56.24] spk_1:
So it becomes a little bit tricky about, well, how do you, how do you handle that for workers comp reasons, for safety reasons, for OSHA reasons? Um and I think there’s an understanding by regulators that, you know, this is out of control of most small businesses, small charities and, you know, to to that extent, we’re not really gonna look to enforce things on that level, but there are other things that, that are also concerning, because not everybody goes when, when they decide to work remote, we work in the same city or in the same state, right. A lot of us um have decided to, you know, maybe move back with family, which might be in another state. In some cases it could be another country, or some of us have decided to travel and spend a little bit of time, you know, in different places. Um So how does allow treat that? And basically, you know, the old rules, which are the rules, many of us are stuck with. Um the old rules are, well, you have to comply with the laws where the worker is doing the work, so if you have a worker in new york who’s now working remotely and came out to florida, well, then all the employment rules regarding worker safety and wage and hour laws and salary, overtime, sick pay benefits, all the florida laws apply to that worker now. Um, and so now it’s like, well, you’ve got to work in florida, you’ve got to think about, are you qualified to do business in

[00:27:00.21] spk_0:
florida,

[00:27:36.94] spk_1:
charity registration in florida? Um, and you may have had no connection to florida before, but all of a sudden you have a worker working there. Um, so a few states, um, and they’re not very many, but a few states that said, well, you know, during covid, we’ve got these temporary rules where we’re relaxed, where you don’t have to do that. And there’s also state tax issues, right? State payroll taxes, and, and other times, all of those things, some states said, you don’t have to worry about it. A lot of organizations are simply not complying with, But,

[00:27:37.49] spk_0:
but you said it’s only a handful of states that said, we’re we’re we’re not enforcing

[00:27:42.14] spk_1:
right. Exactly.

[00:27:43.33] spk_0:
The majority of

[00:29:01.34] spk_1:
states are, Yeah, well, I shouldn’t say they’re enforcing, but they haven’t the old laws or the existing laws still apply. There are no transition laws, so you’re out of compliance. And if they do enforce, which might not be like a, you know, a regulator coming out to you and saying you haven’t done this, it may be your employee is unhappy with something you’ve done, who’s working there and said, hey florida law applies and you haven’t been complying with the florida sort of benefits laws that, that apply. And maybe I could give you more specific example because san Francisco, if you came out to California, your remote employee came out to California, san Francisco has mandatory six hours and not a lot, a lot of states don’t have sick our pay. Um, but all of a sudden if you’re not paying them and they get wind of that, hey, you were supposed to pay me for this and you haven’t been, it’s the employee who could launch the complaint. Um, so it’s just to be careful of these things and, and just as your strategy for charity registration, tony when you’re sort of fundraising all over the country to, to, you’re not going to be able to maybe do all 50 states at once, but just to make sure you’ve got a plan to attack this kind of the same thing here. Um, check out where your employees are, you should know exactly where they are and check each state in terms of how strictly, maybe in terms of enforcing this and start to slowly comply

[00:30:12.74] spk_0:
the implications of state law. Yeah. What about the technology remote work? I don’t know if that’s all been figured out yet and maybe there were, maybe there were stopgap measures during the, during the, the darkest part of the pandemic, but but going forward, you know, tech technology has to be, has to be upgraded. You know, are we gonna, we’re gonna continue providing work phones? Are we going to provide work laptops? What about paying for internet access over the long term? I mean, you know, the internet access can be costly. And if if work is taking up a lot of the bandwidth, isn’t it appropriate for an employer to be paying a portion? And then how do then how does the, how does the, what’s the mechanism for the employee verifying how much they pay and you know, and then what percentage are we gonna cover of that, all the all the technology issues around, around remote work.

[00:30:58.44] spk_1:
Yeah, def definitely. And and as an as an employer, I would say, beyond sort of any legal compliance issues, um, you’ve got a, I think an ethical issue to make sure you’re providing your employees with the tools to do their job. And if you’re allowing remote work, you should make sure that they have the tools. So if they need a computer to be able to access it, so they’re not, they’re not using their personal computer. Um then you should make sure that happens same thing with the telephone. And if, you know, if those are going to be dedicated to work, um it should be explicitly written out that way. But if you force them to use their personal things, there are some states that actually do have laws that say you must reimburse your your employees if they’re using the tools that they need um for for remote work, but just ethically. Yeah.

[00:31:18.74] spk_0:
But then that’s then that raises security issues too. Absolutely. They have any kind of HIPPA protected information on their personal laptop. That’s gonna be a big problem. That that’s I think that’s probably a mistake if you’re dealing with that kind of data. But um

[00:32:01.74] spk_1:
and don’t we probably all have that type of stuff on our personal computers, right? You know, sort of HIPPA protected? We may have had emails like that are saved onto our computers. Um Right. So if if the computer is also being used for work and there’s a work issue that causes that data to be taken or corrupted, like, you know, what’s the employer’s responsibility if they hadn’t provided an alternative, it’s a great point

[00:32:50.94] spk_0:
and and it’s not only hip hop data, but other other personalized data that that maybe on now the personals, the employee’s personal computer, desktop or laptop or phone, you know, how is that? How is that private private data protected? Do they have malware prevention on their on their personal devices so that so that company emails that they’re that they’re using on their personal device aren’t potentially compromised. I mean, the use of the personal equipment raises a lot of technology and and Legal privacy and ethical issues to your right. I mean, if the person is eight or 10 hours a day, they’re using their personal laptop, shouldn’t there be some compensation for that?

[00:34:46.94] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think minimally because no matter you know how much we encourage people to have sort of work dedicated computers provided by the workplace, people are going to use their personal phones. I mean we can go back to the politicians who have all been using their personal funds. So we know it happens regardless of what the best practices. But what can the employer do, they can pay for all of that data protection stuff that that computer should have. Right, tony because now it has much more sensitive information on there and the employer is partly responsible for some of the other information that could be on there and hack. So yeah, employers should help. And that kind of leads us to the whole data security issue as well that everybody’s got to be paying attention to now is really um nonprofits have important data in their system. Some of it is, you know, hipaa protected some of it is other privacy information. You may have employment reviews on there that you don’t want going out into the real world or client, you know, feedback which might be positive. Some of it might be negative sensitive communications, all sorts of stuff that you might find on a work computer and if it gets hacked and if that data gets stolen or if somebody holds the system which might run your programs or aspects of your programs if they cause your system to crash and say that they will only sort of fix it because they’ve hacked and caused the crash. If you pay a ransom, you’ve got all sorts of problems. Uh and maybe some of that may have been mitigated with some basic steps like you mean you’re not going to be, well even the U. S. Government can’t prevent all hackers. I think we we know that, but you can take reasonable steps based on your budget, whatever that might be to to control some of this. So it really is important to have some safeguards.

[00:34:55.74] spk_0:
Another potential category of data is the G. D. P. R. Data. If if if your nonprofit is implicated at all in in that european common law law then or the yeah then then you’ve got those concerns as well.

[00:35:08.94] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So if you have european donors or you’re doing business with any european entities and you have data from those entities or persons be careful and again, remote working can trigger some of that. So if if they decided to, you know their home or or they want to travel to europe and do their work from there.

[00:35:28.74] spk_0:
Um,

[00:35:29.74] spk_1:
all sorts of implications.

[00:37:44.03] spk_0:
Yeah. Absolutely right. People very good point where where people are sitting and where they’re planted when they’re working, It’s time for Tony Take two We’ve got 50% off the tuition for planned giving accelerator. That’s because just last week A donor stepped up someone who believes very deeply in planned giving accelerator and he is offering to pay 50% of the tuition For the 1st 10 nonprofits that take him up on his offer. A couple have already done it as of the time I’m recording, but there are several spots left. So if you’ve been toying with the idea of planned giving accelerator, it’s never going to be cheaper than 50% off. What the way this will work is. You’ll pay the tuition in full, which is $1195 for the six month course. This donor will then make a gift to you of half of that. So you’ll have a new donor, he’ll pay half your tuition. So it ends up being 50% off the full tuition cost. I know the donor, it’s someone I trust you have my word. Your final cost will be half of the full tuition if you’d like to jump on this and be one of the members of what is now our february class. I want to give people enough time for this because it, it just came in last week. So I’m extending, we’re, we’re not gonna start the class until february if you’d like to be part of that february class At 50% off email and we’ll, we’ll talk about planned giving accelerator and whether it can help you launch your planned giving program. Mhm. tony at tony-martignetti dot com. That’s me. That is Tony’s take two, We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for legal outlook for 2022

[00:38:01.22] spk_1:
one and one of the tools to think about and I’m a little bit guilty of this as well um is be careful of public wifi um because that often is an entryway for a

[00:38:03.83] spk_0:
hacker. Yeah, that’s totally unsecured airports, airplanes,

[00:38:09.89] spk_1:
coffee shops,

[00:38:13.42] spk_0:
coffee shops, Starbucks, wherever those are, all unsecured networks.

[00:38:29.32] spk_1:
Right? Meaning that there is the potential for somebody in there who has some malicious intent if they want to be able to hack into to your computer through that public wifi. Unsecured wifi. And there are different systems um but maybe one of the simplest for for those of us who have smartphones, which I think is most of us is you could actually create a sort of a private wifi just

[00:38:52.92] spk_0:
for your smartphone, right? Hotspot? Hotspot and don’t use the unsecured wifi to connect to, you know, use the uh the four G or five G or the five GHZ et cetera.

[00:38:56.17] spk_1:
Right? And that’s something an employer could pay to make sure that the employee has significant data and data plan that can incorporate all the additional data that they may need in their plan because of the work. So again, that would be reasonable and and ethical for the nonprofit employer to pay for their employees to have a higher data plan. Um, if they’re going to to use that and insist as a policy that they do not use public wifi. If they’re using a work computer or a computer that contains work and sensitive information,

[00:39:36.52] spk_0:
all you need is to transmit an email on, on an unsecured wifi that that has a donors credit card number, maybe

[00:39:38.77] spk_1:
native

[00:39:58.12] spk_0:
birth address, name any, any two of those things together, uh, hacked could be very detrimental to that donor. And you know, whether it ever gets traced back to you is is uncertain, but you’ve, you’ve put your donors privacy at risk in a simple email that has any two of those pieces of information.

[00:40:04.31] spk_1:
And it appears to be a myth, um, when people have relied on, they’re not going to go after us because we’re nonprofits, people don’t go

[00:40:12.29] spk_0:
after. Oh, that’s bullshit. Oh, that’s ridiculous.

[00:40:14.57] spk_1:
Right?

[00:40:22.61] spk_0:
I’m working with a client now that, that is a, is in new york city that’s, that’s, um, victim of, of a malware, uh, ransomware, so brought me a ransomware attack.

[00:40:27.61] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:40:40.41] spk_0:
And they’re keeping it quiet so I’m not permitted to say who it is. But um, yeah, they’ve, they’ve been, they’ve been hindered for weeks and weeks with data accessibility issues.

[00:40:42.71] spk_1:
Yeah. And it’s much more common than we think because organizations do want to keep it quiet because if there is a vulnerability, they don’t want to come and say other hackers come come and attack us, we’re vulnerable. So it may be much more pervasive than we think

[00:40:57.61] spk_0:
and that myth also breaks down along ideological

[00:41:00.04] spk_1:
lines.

[00:41:21.61] spk_0:
Some some person on the left may may attack an organization on the right. Some person on the right may attack an organization on the left just because of where the organization stands with respect to the person’s political and ideological beliefs that that that’s enough. It doesn’t matter that you’re a nonprofit. It’s it’s your ideology and your mission. It has nothing to do with your tax exempt status as to why somebody would or wouldn’t go after you.

[00:41:28.41] spk_1:
Yeah and um in these times that those ideological differences have been very um pronounced and. Yeah.

[00:41:41.11] spk_0:
Alright where else should we go? Gene with trends, trends for the new year. Come on.

[00:44:24.69] spk_1:
Um Let’s talk a little bit since we’re talking about technology and data security. Let’s talk a little bit about crypto currency because I find that pretty fascinating. Um There was an organization that came together and bid $40 million on a copy of the U. S. Constitution just a few weeks ago. Um That money the $40 million plus more I think about 47 or $48 million was raised for that purpose in less than two weeks. Um So um Cryptocurrency donors um often have made a ton of money because of the appreciation of cryptocurrencies like. Bitcoin for for those who aren’t super familiar with it. Um And if you donate Cryptocurrency, it’s like donating a non cash asset, meaning that if You bought crypto currency for $1,000 10 years ago and it’s worth now several million dollars, which if you bought the red Cryptocurrency, that might be the case if you sold it, uh you would have a lot of taxes to pay on that appreciation right? The several million dollars of appreciated income that would be subject to capital gains tax. Um So if you sold it and donated some of the proceeds, that would not be a very tax efficient way to donate. When if you donated the Cryptocurrency itself, what you do is you get to take a fair market value deduction of the several million dollars. So you gave several million. So potentially you could deduct that is a charitable contribution and pay no capital gains tax because he never sold it. Um So very tax efficient way of giving um And Cryptocurrency people, wealthy millionaires and others who decided that they wanted see some positive impact um from giving these gifts are are making gifts of Cryptocurrency now and that’s that’s partly why I am so many gathered together to say hey we’d like to fund a charity to buy a copy of the U. S. Constitution so that we can ensure that this constitution is always for the public’s benefit and on public viewership and not sitting in somebody’s house, you know for for their own prestige. Um But that really opens it up, cherish. Think about there’s a lot of these people who made quite a bit of money on Cryptocurrency and a lot of younger people are investing barely heavily in Cryptocurrency now. So it’s something to not sort of blow away if we’re um kind of our age or older, tony to say, Cryptocurrency, what is that? It’s it’s something to really embrace now because it’s it’s not just this exotic tool now, it’s part of regular investment portfolios.

[00:45:56.79] spk_0:
Absolutely, it’s it’s it’s coming and and jean this dovetails perfectly with Our November 15 show of 2021 Bitcoin in the future of fundraising with my guests who are an Connolly and Jason shim who wrote a book Bitcoin in the future of fundraising. So, um it’s do you it’s just more, more sage advice that crypto donations are coming. It’s not a matter of if it’s just when are you gonna get on board now or you’re gonna wait two more years and potentially be behind the curve. Um and as an and Jason pointed out today, there are so few organizations accepting crypto that a lot of people are just searching for. Where can I donate? Cryptocurrency and probably largely, Gene for the reasons you’re describing there, They’re looking for a direct crypto donation to help them with substantial capital gains. Are there specific legal implications of crypto donations that that we need to be aware of or or is it just, you know, you just want folks to know that this trend is, it’s in the middle, it’s happening right now.

[00:48:15.97] spk_1:
So I think, you know, one of the reasons why charities are afraid to take Kryptos because they don’t know what laws apply when they receive the crypto. They’re like, what do we do with this? Um, and there are ways to easily cash that out and turn it into us cash. And in fact, most charities that accept crypto and they’re not a lot, you’re right, tony but most carriers that accept them liquidate them immediately turned them into cash and deposited into fiat currency, like regular paper currency, um, in their bank accounts. Um, So they’re not holding onto the crypto very long at all. One of the reasons why that’s, that can be very important is because there are prudent investor rules for charities that don’t apply to for profits that basically say if you’ve got investment assets, charities, this is not just endowments, but just any sort of investment assets for reserves or for a capital fund or anything you can’t invest. It speculatively, you couldn’t just throw it all in like Apple stock, um that would be too speculative. You have to look at it, uh, through what financial professionals, investment professionals called portfolio theory, are you sufficiently um, have an investment portfolio diversified across several different asset classes? So if one bombs, you haven’t tanked all of your money. Um, and the board of directors have a fiduciary duty to live up to the prudent investment laws that also sort of follow this portfolio theory of how how have you actually divest? Sorry? Um diversify Yeah. Um your your funds across different investment classes to protect yourself and there are different considerations that go along with that. Um But that is one reason why you don’t want to get stuck with all of your investments being in crypto because crypto maybe one of the most volatile type of investments where it can double in a matter of days and it could tank and disappear in a matter of days as well. So depending upon what type of Cryptocurrency you have and there are hundreds if not thousands of crypto types of Cryptocurrency um that have evolved in a lot of people and organizations that are making new coins all the time. So new new forms of Cryptocurrency arising and while we talked about crypto as being a part of more investment portfolios as a normal part of of investments. Now it’s not every Cryptocurrency that would be in that it’s certainly one

[00:48:47.07] spk_0:
1000 right? Some of these thousands trade for thousands of pennies, Thousands Yeah thousands of pennies even you know .0001 three zeros and a one is you know is the value of the currency. Um So. Alright that’s perfect as I said, perfect dovetail to that to that uh that november show because you’re you’re raising the prudent investor rule and and uh portfolio theory.

[00:50:07.66] spk_1:
One more thing on this, tony the forms the I. R. S. Forms for when you get Non cash contributions of more than $500. And how quickly you sell them. Um Also applies to form 82 83 is what the donor needs to sign when they give a non cash contribution of over $500 of over $500. And if it’s over $5000 which many crypto gifts are, they have to get a qualified appraisal for this. So that’s really important. And the Dhoni which is the charity has to sign that form for the donor. And then if the donor the Dhoni, I’m sorry the charity sells it within three years, they have to sign a form 80 to 82. Yeah so that’s again it’s not terribly hard. It sounds like a lot of just legalese I’m blabbing out but it’s not too hard but just take a quick look at those. If you decide that you want to start getting Cryptocurrency and at worst you might ask your donor to find a donor advised fund that takes crypto turns it into cash and then disperses it to the charity. So there are donor advised funds that do that

[00:50:15.76] spk_0:
interesting. Okay so so a Cryptocurrency donation is a non cash donation

[00:50:19.90] spk_1:
correct?

[00:50:58.76] spk_0:
Okay and for non cash donations of $500 or more, That’s where your your donor has the implication of i. r. s. Form 82 83. And you as the charity if you sell it within three years which your advice is that they do because it’s of its volatility Then you’ve got the implication of i. r. s. Form 80 – 82. I always thought those were backwards. The donors should have 80 to 82 because that comes first. Then comes 82 83 from the don’t to the Dhoni first the donor has it. Then the charity should be 80 to 82 82 83. But it’s not It’s 82 83 for your donor and 80 – 82 for you.

[00:51:06.16] spk_1:
That sounds like larry david logic. But that’s how I think as well.

[00:51:10.58] spk_0:
Yeah. I’ve been accused of being larry David in lots of ways. Including my my hair when it’s long like it is

[00:51:16.23] spk_1:
now. I’ve

[00:51:33.46] spk_0:
been accused of looking like Larry David. But we’re not complaining, we’re helping. That’s all right. Um Alright let’s leave us with something else. Another trend for the new year that you want us to be thinking about gene. Um

[00:51:36.96] spk_1:
Let me talk a little bit about diversity equity and inclusion. Since we’ve we’ve talked about that in the

[00:51:42.21] spk_0:
past. You could search jean and I have talked about D. I a bunch of times. But

[00:53:46.05] spk_1:
yeah please. You know I think in combination when we talk about the great migration and how the pandemic might be affecting different populations in different ways that we start to think again about kind of? Well if our charity is doing some some mission and we might not think of that mission as being really reflective of of specific races or or anything like that. Um But could D. E. I. B. Important anyway. And I think that’s where we get to think about. Well if we had more perspectives in our organization, if if we’re lacking some of those perspectives now, for example not having a lot of latin thinks Hispanics or blacks or asian americans on the board or in the leadership group, maybe we’re not really thinking about how our services that we’re delivering are affecting different populations differently. Maybe we’re just sort of providing services but we’re focused on urban centers or urban centers where if we’re center based, our center based is in neighborhoods that are much more accessible to uh white populations versus other populations. So getting different perspectives, even if we think of ourselves as being race neutral, which is kind of a charged term. But I’ll just use it for for these purposes. If we think some of us think of ourselves as race neutral and therefore we don’t have to get involved in the D. E. I work. We want to say, well don’t we care about serving our population in a way that’s kind of fair and not just favoring one segment over other segments or just totally neglecting certain segments of the population because they don’t have the same type of access. Have we ever thought about those things and having diversity can help us think about those things. Um, but it has to be done obviously in an inclusive way, which we’ve talked about and I know we just have a few minutes here, but it’s

[00:54:03.34] spk_0:
sort of it’s touching on, you know, not knowing what you don’t know without without having the perspective of diverse populations on your board, in your leadership, then you don’t know how you’re not serving other non white populations. Yeah. And even when we were perceived by other by by non white populations.

[00:55:32.64] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. And even when we say, well when we look at a group of people and we say diversity, you know, that has one meaning. But sometimes when we just look in our inside our own heads, uh, and when people go unconscious bias, for example, try to think about what that is. It’s like, well if we don’t have the benefit of having different perspectives are being exposed to that all of our lives and none of us have all of the perspectives in our lives. So we were all going to be guilty of some sort of unconscious bias because we just don’t know any better. We we haven’t had other information that would have help develop a sensitivity or understanding or just knowledge of some of the disparities that are out there. So, and and how our organization can be either helping those disparities or hindering them. So just getting a sense of where we’d like to go. I think that can improve employee retention. It can lead us to new areas of employee recruitment and it can make us more relevant as organizations in the future, where if we’re not addressing some of these things, we could find ourselves becoming irrelevant less attractive to future donors, especially younger donors who this is very important to. Um, and so that’s my, my closing thought. Mhm.

[00:55:48.24] spk_0:
All good thoughts for uh, for the new year for 2022, Gene Takagi are legal, legal contributor, Managing attorney of Neo. You’ll find him at nonprofit law blog dot com. He’s also at G attack and you’ll find the firm at neo law group dot com. Gene again, thank you very much. Happy New Year.

[00:55:57.39] spk_1:
Happy New Year. tony

[00:56:47.13] spk_0:
next week. I’m working on it very diligently. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Do you need help with any of those ready projects in 2022? Get them off your plate. A creative producer is claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein. Mm hmm, thank you for that affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.