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Nonprofit Radio for March 3, 2025: Julia Campbell On Social Media

Julia CampbellJulia Campbell On Social Media

The social media maven returns to share her thinking and advice on short form video; ads; working within algorithms; content moderation; and, privacy policies. Let’s talk about X; Facebook; LinkedIn; Bluesky; Instagram; YouTube; and, TikTok. Julia is a nonprofit social marketing consultant.

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with acute glomerulonephritis if I had to drink in the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s going on. Hey Tony, we’ve got. Julia Campbell on social media. The social media maven returns to share her thinking and advice on short form video ads, working within algorithms, content moderation, and privacy policies. Let’s talk about X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Julia is a nonprofit social marketing consultant. On Tony’s take 2. You’re listening to a top 10 podcast. Barely We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is Julia Campbell on social media. What a joy to welcome someone back who has been here several times. It’s always a pleasure. Named as a top thought leader and one to follow by Forbes and LinkedIn for nonprofits and one of the 30 nonprofit IT influencers to follow in 2025. Julia Campbell is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to designing social media and storytelling strategies that help nonprofits share their mission across the digital landscape. You’ll find Julia on LinkedIn. You’ll find her practice at JComarketing.com. JC, welcome back to nonprofit Radio. Thank you, TM. It’s so great to be back. The pod. I love it. Oh, thank you. Yeah, people get a kick out of that. I do too. I, I could get a shirt maybe give out the NTC this year. All right. It’s good to see you. We’re in a, uh, an interesting, um, sort of digital landscape time. Uh, the, the new administration sucks a lot of oxygen out of the world. Uh, just right before we came on, I got another New York Times headline. Uh, the, the first word was Trump. I got a headline that Zuckerberg is eliminating all of his charitable foundation DEI initiatives right before we got on, so. Just lovely headlines all around. Yeah, it’s fantastic uh headed in a dastardly uh in an awful direction. What are you hearing from folks? What are you advising folks, uh, you know, you’re the, the, uh, social media maven. What are you talking about? I mean, social media has really been challenging in terms of strategy for several years now just because of the way the algorithms have shifted and the way that organic reach has completely plummeted, and you do need, you know, you need to invest in ads. Ads, but the problem right now that we’re seeing, at least for a lot of the organizations I work with and the students I have and my clients, is the struggle between, are these companies ethical, which we know that they’re not. And how can we balance our need to be seen and create community and get our word out there and educate people and talk about these causes and build movements? How can we balance that that with the fact that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, and, you know, a lot of these companies that own these social media platforms are bowing down to the administration and then are also actually really, you know, being very shoddy in terms of content moderation and data privacy. So that’s the bigger picture that I’m seeing, and it even goes beyond just how do we get more engagement, because that’s just the Scratching the surface. So, what I’ve been advising people, I really am saying, you know, you really need to take stock. I don’t think that leaving everything and closing up shop and washing our hands of social media is really the answer, because then we kind of leave it to Um, the void to be filled with misinformation and, um, you know, we really need to still be creating our movements and showcasing our causes there. But we do need to have some serious reflection on how we’re using these platforms. Do we want to pay for ads? Do we want to continually be giving money to these billionaires. I mean, it’s really a fraught landscape right now along with everything going on just in the political sphere and the fundraising landscape and philanthropy. But the marketing, digital marketing sphere is constantly shifting and it’s just like tidal waves of bad information coming at us. It’s pretty overwhelming. Let’s try to break down some of the overwhelm, so, so people don’t feel that bad about it. Maybe just, maybe just a burdened but not overwhelmed. If we can if we can reduce from overwhelmed to to slight burden, that would be. And we tend to be very thoughtful about where we put our time. Nonprofits are very thoughtful and intentional. I mean, you know, Target’s not going to get off Facebook. They don’t care, right? They just don’t care. But the American Red Cross really might. be considering, should we get off Twitter because or X because of all of these factors. So, I think it’s a unique position that social change organizations are in. Well, you’ve, you’ve left X. You, you left X when Elon Musk bought it, uh, but you’re, you’re on LinkedIn. So, right. So how do we, you know, so how do we in the small and mid-size shops think through where, where to be and where to just, you know, place that pin that says we’re no longer here, find us on Blue Sky or, you know, whatever. How, how do we think through that? We have to really evaluate where our audiences and what we’re trying to achieve, but then also figure out where is the line that will not be crossed. So, It’s very personal, and it has to, there’s not a one size fits all that’s gonna work for every organization. If your organization relies on fast-paced news, getting things out in a timely manner, connecting with journalists, then X is probably the place for you. You know, I would never recommend if you’re getting great traction and you are accomplishing your mission. And you’re getting the word out and building a community. I would never recommend leaving a platform altogether, but we really need to evaluate is our audience still there? Are the people that we wanna talk to still here? And are we able to reach them? Maybe they’ve migrated over to different platforms and what are our strengths and weaknesses? So. You know, people ask me all the time, should we be on TikTok? Should we be using Instagram reels, and should we be doing short form video? And the short answer, of course, is yes, because that’s the most powerful kind of content right now on across social media. But if you don’t have video content, then potentially building a thought leadership blog on LinkedIn could work. Maybe going to substack, maybe going to Blue sky, maybe creating infographics and putting them on Pinterest. I mean, there’s all sorts of ways that we can be using these different platforms. And also for me, you know, I, I can’t be Amish as much as I would love to. You know, I have an iPhone. I don’t like Apple. I have Google accounts. I don’t like Google. It’s just, it’s sort of like I, I would love to live in a cabin in the woods and Not have the internet. I, I actually wouldn’t, but we have to understand that we can only do what we can do, and I think our messages are so important to get out to the public, to the community, especially with so much mis and disinformation and confusion going on, that if we’re going to leave a platform where our audience is going to miss us and be craving this information, I think that that’s That’s just a bad, that’s a bad thing to do. So if, if you have a Facebook page, a Facebook group, if you have an Instagram account, and you know you’re really reaching people there and you’re helping people, and you’re helping people understand the cause and the issue, we have to think and reflect on what will be lost if you leave. You said short form video is now the most popular kind of Instagram and TikTok. Wait, you’re valuable things, but I’m, I was, I was trying to wrap up. So again, where the best places are. YouTube shorts. And Instagram reels, um, and TikTok. And TikTok is not going to get banned under this administration, I don’t think so. If you have a TikTok account, don’t, don’t worry about it. I think you’ll be fine. OK, so let’s let’s drill down a little on short form video. What’s your, what’s your advice there? Like length, caption or not? I, I guess that’s yes, but what’s your advice around short form video? My advice, if you’ve never done short form video, go follow candid.org on every platform. Uh, they are an organization. They do not have kittens or dogs or kids or landscapes or anything that would be like a sexy kind of cause. They are just putting videos out that are helpful information, but they’re doing it in a catchy way, like a catchy, entertaining way. So it’s very important for first of all, to have a purpose for the video. Like why would I watch it, but also to have that hook that’s gonna hook me within the 1st 3 or 4 seconds. So what’s the question you’re asking? Maybe there’s a statistic that you’re sharing. Maybe it’s an anecdote of something that happened. Maybe it’s something surprising that you found. Maybe it’s like, oh, this happened in the news, but guess what? You don’t know the real story. Like, what is the hook around this video? And there has to, it has to be a very singular specific focus for the video. Also, authenticity reigns supreme. Nonprofit professionals often do not like to get at their phone. And take video of themselves. We want to sit in our office, we want to do our work, put our heads down. We don’t want to be the face of the organization, but people like to see faces. They like to hear from people. So as much as you can be authentic and be conversing around relevant real-time topics that are timely, that’s really going to accelerate your connection with your audience. It’s going to build trust and that’s gonna create more engagement for you. Awesome. All right, all valuable advice. And so candid.org doing short films they’re fantastic. Malala Fund, Malala Fund, I follow, they’re a little bit more polished. And I think that’s fine as well. That’s just their brand. Candid.org is a little, they’re, they do great videos, but they’re not as polished. It’s much more just a staff member answering a question about like where do I find grant proposals or how do I talk to a board member about a touchy subject. It’s really helpful information for nonprofits. I also recommend really following like the New York Public Library. I mean, there’s all sorts of Nonprofits, organizations doing fantastic work with short form video. Invisible people. Mark Korvath um runs Invisible people. They do a lot of YouTube shorts. They are, they just film people talking and their stories. They do storytelling and that’s their purpose, and that’s what they. That’s what they share. So, sort of find your, your purpose. Like, why are you sharing videos? What are the topics that your audience would be interested in? And then I recommend just watching a lot of reels and TikTok videos. So you kind of get the feel for how they should be structured and the feel for what works, um, before you really jump off on your own. But, you know, done is better than perfect. I always think that. Oh, very good. Uh, a lot of people say don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, but is that’s, that’s well put. Done is better than done is better than perfect. All right, excellent. I knew you, yes, well, there’s no question you’re the right person to help us through this. I hope so. I I struggle as well. Oh, you do? Yeah. Yes, of course. What do you struggle with? I, I struggle with creating short form video. It’s challenging because I’m so used to recording webinars or recording podcasts or doing long form videos, putting it on YouTube, um, you know, putting it on my website, putting it on my blog, but this constant, you know, this constant need to feed the beast of social media. It it can get challenging. Um, and then, of course, I know I work with my clients and the features are constantly changing, and what’s working is constantly changing. So, for me, I really, I Um, grapple with shiny object syndrome just as much as the next person, and thinking like, oh maybe I should be doing more on Blue Sky, or maybe I should be on Mastodon, or maybe I should be on whatever the next new social media platform is. But for me, what helps me is just knowing where my audience is, knowing where my strengths are, knowing what I like to do. And, you know, if I don’t put out a video every day, every week, just really trying hard not to beat myself up about it and doing what I can do, and quality over quantity has always been my mantra on social media, because you can, you can’t beat the internet on clutter. You can’t beat the internet on like AI sludge that’s just generated from an app, but you can beat the internet on authenticity and storytelling, which I think nonprofits, that’s our big strength. That’s like our superpower. Quality not quantity, but done is better than perfect. Exactly. Do not, if you’re spending all day doing 1 62nd Instagram reel, no, that’s too much. That’s way too much. Uh, that’s way too much time to spend. And really just getting it out there and it’s gonna give you that data that you need. So the more you do it, the more data you get, the more you see what people like, what people comment on, what people are sharing, what they’re watching. You can see how long they’ve watched it. You can see, oh, this question works better than this one, or I’m outside, and that tends to work better than inside. So the more you do it, it’s like the more data points you have for what’s working. I’m gonna give a shout out to the woman who does my video reels, uh, which, which, which we use on, uh, we post on Instagram and uh and YouTube. Her name, her name is Judith George. Amazing. Uh, she’s the video, I think she calls herself the video whisperer or the video content whisperer. Judith. She’s excellent, excellent. So I always believe in outsourcing to people. Like I don’t edit my own podcast because it’s not my zone of genius. That’s not where my Talents lie. So I would never, and that is the enemy of getting things done, I think, is because we think we have to do every single thing ourselves. But outsourcing to a video editor, I mean, these people are incredibly talented and they know exactly what they’re doing. So I, I love that idea and I wish more nonprofits would get more into, more comfortable with outsourcing some things so they’re not spending all day editing a video. You and I have talked about this before that it it’s just worthwhile to pay experts to do something that you’re not expert in that is gonna take you a long time to learn and get good at. You may as well just bring in someone from the outside who’s already got the expertise they hit the ground running and, and you’re unburdened having to learn a new skill. Yeah, and you can focus on your superpower, your zone of genius, which is storytelling, which is program management, which is fundraising, which is creating fabulous marketing campaigns and messages, talking to donors. I mean, I just think spending, I, because I’m running my social media for social good academy right now is the time of this recording, and everyone struggles with time management because they have 10,000 other things on their plate. And I think There’s no way for a development director to be able to master 10 social media platforms and create 10 videos every week. That’s just, I don’t see how that’s possible, as well as doing grant writing and donor management and cultivation and stewardship and things like that. So, I, I agree we need to start thinking, we need to take social media more seriously and stop tacking it on. To other people’s job descriptions and really think like, no, it’s time. It takes a lot of time, creativity, effort. You also have to measure what you’re doing. You have to be on top of the trends. You have to have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the cause and the industry and the organization. You have to think like a journalist. There’s all sorts of skills that you need to have. And I really think digital marketing, I mean, it’s 2025. Like, let’s let’s treat it seriously. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s DonorBox, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Julia Campbell on social media. Let’s talk about ads. Uh, you mentioned, you know, is it worth spending money on ads, or, you know, uh, is the platform one that you want to even pay because you might have basic objections to, to their management or their policies or their algorithms, but you still want to be there. What, what do we think through about whether ads are worthwhile? I do think that putting some money towards social media advertising and Google ads. That’s definitely worth it depending on your goals. So a lot of organizations say, we’re the best kept secret. No one’s heard of us, no one knows who we are, no one can find our website. OK, well that would maybe require either applying for the Google ad grants, which um I’m certainly not an expert in, but I can, I can touch on it. I mean, there are so many experts out there on the Google ad grant, but it’s basically money that Google will give you. You have to manage it well. But to um promote it’s up to 10,000 dollars a month. Yes, you do have to, you have to manage it. I mean, you have to hit certain benchmarks to continue getting the $10,000 a month. You do have to get people to click on your ads. You have to get people to actually take action. Google has to see that your ads are worthwhile, they’re not clickbait. Um, those kinds of things. But you can also just pay for Google Ads. I mean, there’s nothing stopping you from just once in a while if you have a gala or if you have a really important marketing campaign for Domestic Violence Awareness Month or Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and you have some resources on your website you want people to find. Paying for search engine ads can definitely be a great way to do that. I always recommend, when you are considering paying for ads, really understand what the return on investment is worth to you. So, a very simple example, I worked with an organization, a local organization here. They were having a golf tournament. They spent $50 on a Facebook ad. And the return on investment for them in terms of golf tournament signups was $5000. So that’s a pretty good return on investment, right? So, then they can say, OK, well, we’re definitely going to run this ad again, um, this is part of now of our budget. That’s a very simplified way to do it. A lot of ads I see, you can’t necessarily track it like that. It might be awareness, it might be video views, maybe you’re driving people to your website, but as much as you can say, OK, we spent $500 on this ad, and this is what we got in return, and we can quantify it and we can say, OK, this was a really good investment. Uh, that’s what I think we lose when we boost a post or we just sort of throw money at an ad and then we never look to see what happened, and we never look to see, oh, did anyone take action? Did anyone sign up? Did anyone make a donation? We just sort of throw money at the problem and make Mark Zuckerberg richer, which he doesn’t need to be richer. And then we never figure out if it actually moved the needle at the end of the day. So we should be measuring as well. Absolutely, absolutely. This is the thing that that I think is so interesting about nonprofits and digital marketing. When we send out an annual appeal letter, you better believe we know exactly how much we paid for printing, for postage to send it out, and we know exactly how much we got back. But when we write a blog post or post on LinkedIn, we don’t track. Did anyone read it? Did anyone comment? Did anyone share it? Did we get emails? Did we get phone calls? Like what actually happened when we put this other piece of content out in the world? And the irony is that it’s so much easier to track on digital. You can instantly see, and I know Tony, you do reels, you can see within the 1st 30 seconds of posting a reel if it’s gonna work or not. And same on TikTok. There’s instant data that you can get to see, oh this is gonna work, I should do more of this. Uh, this is, you know, kind of falling flat, and then maybe why is this falling flat, time of day, maybe the sound is bad, like the topic isn’t interesting. But we get all of these points of data from digital marketing, and we, we tend to just not look at them. So we’re just constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and wasting time and spinning our wheels. So, measurement, analysis, improvement, that should be a huge piece of any social media or any digital marketing plan. You mentioned earlier on, uh, content moderation policies. Oh yeah, what are we, what’s your, what’s your beef there? This is really screwing over nonprofits. It’s really painful for a lot of organizations, especially if they use certain keywords. Now I’m kind of concerned. Well, there’s two ways to think about it. Content moderation in terms of X. There’s no content moderation. You can say anything, do anything, post anything, and it’s the wild west, cause there’s zero content moderation there. But then there’s also overly moderating on Facebook and Instagram, specifically, political and social issues. And if you’re posting certain words, especially actually if you’re using paid ads, you will be blocked if you are a social justice organization. We’re seeing this a lot, and they don’t have to answer to anybody. They can just say your ad is blocked. We’re not running your ad. I’ve seen this for um a local food bank that got their ad blocked for no reason. It’s not wasn’t a political ad. It wasn’t, it didn’t have anything to do with a political issue, but everything’s political, I guess now. But Their ad was blocked for no reason. So that’s something really important to understand you don’t need to say it violates our. They don’t need to tell you anything. They’re completely in control, and that’s the other problem. So sometimes they’ll say, oh this this falls into Like, you have to read the fine print of what’s allowed in ads really carefully. So, look up all of the specific terms, look up, um, you know, what they say they allow and what they say they don’t allow. But of course, really at the end of the day, it is the platforms, it’s the platform’s prerogative to allow you to run an ad. The other thing is, Instagram has specifically come out and said that they are going to They’re going to, um, I don’t know what it’s called, like demote political and sensitive issue content because they want their feed to be much more focused on like influencers and celebrities and fashion and happy things. And for a lot of us, I mean, I follow the HRC, I follow the ACLU, I follow so many organizations that are overtly political, and I want to know this news, and I want to hear what they have to say. Um, I’m seeing them in my feeds, but I know that a lot of people. They are saying that they’re seeing less of that kind of content because the, you know, the algorithm overlords are determining what we see and what we don’t see. It’s really true. This is why people love TikTok. TikTok is actually ironically much more of a democracy in terms of the feed, and it’s a lot easier to discover new things, and it’s a lot easier to see things that you actually like, just because TikTok has the business model where they want to show you things that you want to see. So, they’re not trying to overly police what you see. So, it’s just interesting. Each platform is so, so different in that way. What are you seeing on LinkedIn? LinkedIn, I, I really have been enjoying LinkedIn. So, LinkedIn for me though, I’m not seeing a lot of new people post. I’m seeing a lot of Um, my friends, my colleagues, you know, other consultants, people that work in nonprofits, because the LinkedIn algorithm, of course, if I comment on something or like something, if I’m connected to somebody, then they’re more likely to show me that post. I feel like LinkedIn for me, I, I don’t know how to get out of it. I might need to just expand into following some brand new people, but it’s a little bit of an echo chamber for me right now. I love it though. I am learning a lot of new things and I actually finding out a lot of news on LinkedIn, and a lot of articles and statistics and things about fundraising and philanthropy that I, I didn’t know. I follow the National Council for nonprofits for all my news around the federal funding freeze and what people can do to combat those kind of executive orders. So, but I am finding it’s harder to discover new people on LinkedIn, but that’s probably just the way that I’ve been using it. In my own little kind of bubble, um, for safety, really like for mental health reasons. Um, but I love, I think LinkedIn is a very vibrant place for nonprofits to showcase thought leadership, to build relationships with donors and board members, um, and other, you know, fundraising professionals. Yeah, I’ve been consciously following new folks a week. Yeah, so my strategy is, uh, I look at folks who make smart comments on It’s usually other people’s posts, uh, I, because I guess I’m not sure other people are doing what I’m suggesting because most of the people who comment on my posts tend to be the same, you know, there are certainly exceptions, but that’s not, that’s not where I’m finding new people to follow. I’m looking at comments on other people’s posts and saying, oh, that’s a savvy comment, you know, so click, you click the, the little, the person’s little head. And it goes to their profile and you can decide if you want, you wanna send an invitation to uh to connect. I guess I said. I love that. So yeah, you could be, it’s it’s just a proactive. I do a week. And so that it’s strategic and it’s proactive, and I want everyone listening to really embrace those two words because that is How you succeed on social media by being strategic and proactive. We can’t continue to just be reactive. We can’t continue to just post on LinkedIn or post on Facebook and then throw our hands up and say, oh well, nobody commented. We need, and Tony, you do this really a lot. Commenting on other people’s posts, thoughtful comments, interaction. That is what drives engagement and that’s how you get seen. We are not, you know, Taylor Swift, like Taylor Swift. Has 250 million followers on Instagram and doesn’t follow anybody. OK, we, we can’t do that. We have to actually go out there and find relevant people to follow and build our network proactively. So I love that you said that because I think that’s so important. Proactive and strategic. Mhm. Yes, I would love that. Well, quantity is better than perfect. Yes, that’s valuable. It’s time for Tony’s Take two. Thank you, Kate. You are listening, as you listen to nonprofit radio to a top 10. Best fundraising podcast. That is thanks to an organization called Million Podcasts. They put out their list of 100 best fundraising podcasts and squeaking in. At right at number 10. Is Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio. Thank goodness we’re not number 11 because what, what would I say? We’re a top 11. What is that? Ah, that’s like sad tromboneswamp wap, top 11, you so. Top 10, no, we’re not top 11 or anything below. We are top 10, barely squeaked in. So I’m very grateful to a million podcasts for their, their list, and it is, it is a valuable list of 100 podcasts, different types of fundraising. Uh, there, I saw event fundraising, I saw a crowd fundraising podcasts, and some other ones you may know, Julia Campbell, uh, We Are For Good, you might know Joan Gary, people like that, but working in there at number 10. Is your is your favorite, your favorite hebdominal podcast. With you since July of 2010, each and every week for pert near 15 years. Nonprofit radio. This is all because we have this outstanding associate producer. Kate, and that is Tony’s. Well, congratulations, pod father. I mean. The work, you can see it, all the hard work that goes into the show for 15 years. Oh, you deserve it. 15 years. 15 years. We’ve got boou but loads more time. Here’s the rest of Julia Campbell on social media. To validate what you’re explaining and sharing, LinkedIn for me has become my most popular platform. I’ve got the most connections there, right? That’s a vanity. I understand that, but I’ve also got most engagement on LinkedIn and other platforms where I’m less. Strategic and proactive. I’ve just, I’ve prioritized LinkedIn, so I picked one as a priority, and I would say my next is probably blue sky where I need to be more, more proactive, but that it’s newer, but I need to spend more time there. But you know, like, yeah, no, it’s true. I mean, you know, the things we measure are the things that get changed, right? So I’ve, my social manager and I put emphasis on LinkedIn. And it has made a difference over, over more than a year. I’ve just seen a steady, steady trend in the right direction in terms of engagement. And I I do recommend for the nonprofits listening, really look at your website and see where the traffic is being driven. If, if you, building up your website and a specific, specific pages of your website or specific resources on your website is a goal. For you, you might be surprised that LinkedIn is actually driving a lot of traffic or Pinterest, or another platform that you might not have thought of. We are so conditioned to just think Facebook is the king of social media, when actually the engagement and the reach on Facebook are the lowest. It’s the lowest of all of my channels that I’m on. And it’s the lowest of all of my clients’ channels. It’s not growing. It’s growing internationally, it’s not growing in America anymore. And it’s, I find that it’s just becoming incredibly stagnant over over on Facebook. It’s actually becoming very toxic from what I’ve been seeing. But I, we just are so conditioned to think, oh, that was the very first place we joined. We got a Facebook page. We’ve had it for 25 years now. And so, What are we going, you know, what we’re not, we have blinders on almost, I think, around that. And there’s so many other exciting platforms coming up and so many cool things going on. And LinkedIn also, I will say, is really doubling down on resources for nonprofits. If you go to LinkedIn for nonprofits, they have newsletters, they have a creator studio. They do a lot with Giving Tuesday. They just, I think they’re really trying to establish themselves in the third sector, um, and I think they’re doing a great job. So definitely something to think about if you’re getting kind of sick of the lack of engagement on Facebook. That’s good advice. Take a look at. Uh, you know, all your advice earlier still applies. You know, if you’ve got a good community and it’s active there, then naturally stay, but if not, if you’re seeing the declining engagement that so many of us have seen, my, my practice included, um, you know, either leave or DM or just deemphasize, deemphasize, you know, instead of, instead of a post a day, maybe it’s one a week, maintain a presence, but. You know, if it’s not, if it’s not paying off for you, then don’t spend your time on it. Just like, just like any program that you’re doing, you know, you evaluate your programs, right? Be like you’re saying, Julia, be strategic about thoughtful about your social strategies. Absolutely. And really looking at like YouTube, I’m so shocked about nonprofits, not posting video content on YouTube when it’s the #2 search engine owned by the #1 search engine. So if you have video content and all of us do, I would hope, repurposing it, putting it on YouTube where discoverability is key. It’s not your same donors that are following you, that are gonna follow you on YouTube. It’s brand new people that are hopefully going to discover you because they’re searching. They’re using YouTube as a search engine, people use Instagram as a search engine, TikTok. I think of younger people, especially like my daughter who’s 15, she would never Google something. She would look it up on TikTok. You know, she just wouldn’t, it’s like that’s where that’s her search engine. So that’s, we need to be thinking of these tools, not in terms of like broadcasting our message to our followers, but building new followers and being discovered and hopefully reaching brand new people. So your 15 year old daughter wouldn’t wouldn’t go to YouTube to search for something. She might go to YouTube, YouTube, but probably TikTok or Insta TikTok. Uh, uh, we’re gonna take a little digression, uh, around your background. You used to have, uh, I remember you had Ruth Bader Ginsburg up for a long time. Oh yeah, I have a Ruth Bader Ginsburg, um, but yeah, I changed it. I always have the nasty woman. Well, you’ve got my painted um right after Trump got elected in 2016. That’s been up for years and you’ve got a book with a biceps. Yeah, you’ve got a framed framed framed piece that says well behaved women don’t make history. Wonder Woman and then the one the etching behind me is my mom. Threw that, um, and you can’t see it. It’s so detailed. I know it’s like a good place for it because you can’t pencil? Yes, it’s an etching. So yeah, it’s really beautiful and I was, I actually put it there so it wouldn’t get broken. I need to put it in. I need to hang it up. And on the on the end, is that Wonder Woman’s Wonder Woman. Yes. So what is it about who do you consider strong women? Who do you clearly you you have a You you have an affinity for strong women. Uh, who do you think of? Oh wow. Well, do you know who my favorite right now is um Elona Mar. She’s the rugby player and she was on Dancing with the Stars and she’s 6 ft tall. She’s a Award winning, um, she’s just an incredible athlete, but she’s also just her social media is absolutely incredible about, she’s a different body type, you know, she’s got really broad shoulders. A lot of people think she’s a trans man, you know, write horrible comments on all of her stuff. Um, but she’s just such a light and so inspiring to women and to young girls who, you know, and I’m 6 ft tall, so I love, I love seeing not like little petite girly girls, you know, in my feet all the time. So, yeah, she’s someone I really love. And of course, I am still a huge fan of Hillary Clinton, still forever. I do you know that I went as Hillary Clinton for Halloween in 1992? I have loved her forever. So, I still follow her. I love her pithy comments on what’s going on um on Instagram. But, you know, I just am seeing so many. I mean, I watched all of the SNL 50. Uh, all of that coverage, so like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler are obviously amazing. I watched all of the Grammys, so like Dochi and just all of these incredible female performers. Chapel Rone is amazing. Lady Gaga, obviously. Just it’s the, you know, I think it’s the year of the woman. I’ve been seeing just everything I’ve been seeing in pop culture, um, a lot of women coming up into politics, getting really interested in politics now. Um, hopefully a lot more women will be leading nonprofits. I know that. I don’t know the percentage, but it’s incredibly small, especially women of color leading nonprofits. So I’ve, I’ve been seeing some positive signs despite all of the noise that is trying to keep marginalized groups down. I’ve been just seeing a lot of positive signs of resistance. And I’m very excited for the Handmaid’s Tale to come back in April. About Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, so I do like her. I, I follow her videos. She was one of the ones that first started using reels actually. No stories. So she was one of the very first politicians that was using stories. And do you remember she would do Instagram Live where she would just be cooking in her kitchen. I would watch those all the time. It was when she was very first coming onto the scene. She would just do these Instagram lives cooking ramen in her kitchen and like talking about politics of the day. And I thought that was before anyone was doing that. And I thought that was really cool and made her very accessible, and just really interesting. Um, so she’s totally social media savvy, but yeah, she’s a powerful force. And Ayanna Presley, um, senator from Massachusetts, um, she is, she’s one of my absolute favorites. I follow her on social. I love her. So how do all these women influence your own practice? Well, I think being authentic to who you are and shunning the non-believers, you know, Seth Godin always says, shun the non-believers, and not getting so hung up on the people that don’t like you. And now, I am a Canarian. I was, I’m July 9, so I have the strong predilection to have people like me, and I’m a people pleaser. I’m also the oldest daughter. So I have all of these personality traits where I want people to like me. But then when I see what these other women are doing, and they’re standing up and they’re talking and they’re saying their truth, like Ayanna Presley actually has alopecia, and she shaved her head and she’s bald and beautiful and famously just, I mean, she’s stunning, but she’s bald and she just talks about it, and she shares her truth and helps other people. And that’s what I, you know, that’s, that just really inspires me. So, putting your personality into your work, I think is part of the reason why I have been so successful, um, but certainly, of course, not everyone agrees with me or likes me. I’ve gotten some nasty email responses, I’m sure you have too. From time to time, or like a nasty direct message about something. But to me, if people are not responding, it means they’re not paying attention. So, I try to remind myself to be provocative, to be authentic, to be myself, and never, never back down from things that I stand for. So that’s that’s really how they inspire me. Thanks for sharing all that. Sure. What else would you like to talk about? Well, it’s important. I, I like to, you know, too. And I know it’s memorable like I said, I know. I change it up once in a while, but These, the, the things behind me, they really ground me and just really helped me remember who I am and what I stand for, and also the fact that if you’re on a Zoom call with me and you don’t like my background, we’re probably not going to be able to work together, so. All right. What else would you like to talk about? We still have time. Well, you’re gonna go to NTC, right? I’m not able to go this year. OK, yes, I am going. Oh, it’s not. It’s not far from you as well. It’s not. It’s not far. I could probably stop by. I didn’t have any, I didn’t apply to speak, um, but I know you always do a great. Showcase in the exhibit hall, they’re actually it’s it’s nonprofit will be there. I’ll capture 15 or 20s. Yeah, yeah, make sure you let me know if you drop in for a day or something. I know I’m thinking of AFP Icon, which is in Seattle. I don’t know why I thought the nonprofit technology conference was in Seattle, but no, because it’s usually out there, right? Because that’s where they’re. Yeah. OK. Any other conferences you’re excited about this year? Um, yeah, I know, me too. I mean. Yeah, I, I, AFP I, yeah, I applied a bunch of years, you know, I have my theory about why I was never selected, so I don’t, I don’t go to AFP, even though it’s I know it’s huge, but they don’t, you know, being strategic. Yeah, I’ve heard that from a few people that I’m always shocked because like you, they’re really thought leaders in the field and I just don’t, I don’t understand how they pick, but. I, yeah, I’ve been on the NTC committee that’s chosen. Chosen proposals. I did that for a few years, but um, yeah, I don’t know. Icon is is such a. Such a hard nut to crack. You know what I’ve, I think it really does, it parallels what you’re saying about the social networks, and I’ve, I’ve embraced this in my own practice too. Um, I, I, I go where I’m wanted. And, and if, you know, if you’ve turned me down a couple of times. You don’t want me. That’s OK. I’m gonna focus on this is parallel to what you’re saying about the network. I’m gonna focus where people embrace me. They see the value and 10 and their nonprofit technology conference. They routinely welcome me on the what used to be the exhibit floor, like I said, now this year they’re calling it the hub. They routinely, you know, we work out a deal. I amplify their speakers with over 13,000 listens because nobody’s. You know, nobody’s getting 13,000 people coming to their 90 minute session. So I amplify their speakers and they, and they cut me a break and, and I’m, I’m, I’m wanted and, and I feel loved there. So, so routinely year after year I go back to the NTC wherever last year it was in Portland. It’s probably about as far as it could be from me in North Carolina, but I still was happy to go. It was a pleasure to go this year happens to be a little closer. I can drive from North Carolina to Baltimore, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll go year after year. Same thing with clients, same thing with the social networks. Like go where, go where folks embrace you and wanna work with you. That is, I love that. That’s perfect. I completely agree. Um, people always ask me, there’s several conferences, you know, like a nonprofit storytelling conference, but I’ve just never been asked to speak. I’ve never been accepted to speak, and that, and I am fine with it, and it’s just like you said, I don’t lose sleep over places that don’t want me, you know, I focus on where where people want me. It’s almost like really unsubscribes to my email list or people unfollowing me on social media. If I It’s just a, it’s just a signal that’s like, I’m not for you right now, or there’s something going on, or my message is not connecting with you, and that’s completely OK. And I think we do need to get More comfortable in our own skin. We also need a little thicker skin, but we need to say, this is what I stand for, this is who I am, this is my message, and that’s how you’re going to attract the right people to your cause. That’s how you’re going to attract people that want to participate, that want to become part of the movement, rather than we we just focus on numbers and not real quality of connection, a lot of the time. But I completely agree with that. I would only want to be somewhere that would really want me. Let me interject something you said earlier, quality over quantity, right? Real engagement on a couple of networks versus being in 12 different networks and nothing is you’re not gaining traction. No, I, I really do agree and just really, you know, understanding. That your audience wants to hear from you. I think that nonprofits tend to think they are bothering their audience. They don’t send, they send a quarterly email, you know, like 4 emails a year to your donors? No, that’s insane, cause what if they delete one and they don’t hear from you for half a year. So, we always think we’re inundating our donors, our message is boring, or we’re annoying people, but the reality is that, you know, your cause matters and what the work that you do matters, and people want to know about it, especially if they’re giving you money. If they’re not giving you money, they want to hear about it if they’re on your email list, but if they are giving you money, they want to hear what’s going on and they want to hear from you. So we have this imposter syndrome. That is very hard for a lot of people to shake. And I would just encourage any nonprofits listening, you know, communicate more and communicate more authentically, and communicate more strongly than you might be comfortable with. You know, I’ve I’ve received, I’m thinking about Everything going on in the news, like you, you don’t have to, you shouldn’t say something maybe specifically about Trump. I’m not saying you have to do that, but to not comment on the federal funding freeze if it’s affecting your organization, I want to know that as a donor. I wanna know, oh, like, did the USAID shut down? How did that affect Amnesty International, or how did that affect these international organizations? I really want to understand that more. But having, you know, just being so afraid to talk about anything going on in the headlines, that’s not serving your donors. It’s not serving your community and it’s not serving your mission. I have a client that does international relief work and I’m sorry. I said that right to their donors, including their planned donors, and the messages of support that they’re getting back, they’re heartening and heartbreaking at the same time. I mean, you, you, you hear the people’s frustration. And some of them respond with gifts with increased gifts, including, you know, these are folks who have already included the, the, the organization in their long term plan in their will or something else, and now they’re making a cash gift. Uh, I saw one, you know, um, I wanna do an uh a qualified charitable distribution which is an, an IRA transfer for folks who are 70.5 and over, but it’s, it’s immediate cash. It’s not at the person’s death. It, it comes. Immediately now and there and there are others, you know, so yeah, to your point, people do want to hear. They, they love your work, your, your messages are not junk mail and spam to them, and in a lot of cases they will, they will respond even though in with, with gifts, even though you’re not asking for gifts. You’re just informing, but they love your work that much. They hate to see. It hurts them to see that your work is, is, is being impinged on, impinged on, that’s putting it mildly. Your work is being devastated, you know, in, in other parts of the world. They don’t like to see that. And I saw, I saw a great Instagram post, uh, rescue.org. They did a whole series about how to talk to your friends and family about the importance of humanitarian aid. So it was a series of. where they addressed some of the miss and misconceptions. So an example would be, you know, if your dad says to you, well, all foreign aid is just a waste, or, you know, just um, corruption. How do you address that? Or if it says, well, why don’t we just focus on America? How do you address that? So, it was really interesting because I shared it and my stories, I took um photos of it, because it was so helpful. Because obviously people that follow Rescue.org care about humanitarian aid. Um, and so it was a helpful way for us to say, OK, here, we don’t really know how to participate in this conversation. It’s so emotional, it’s so fraught, but here are some talking points that you can use. So that helps your community. It helps your mission, um, but it helps your community advocate for you. And I’ve been seeing a lot of that lately and I love that trend. Julie Campbell, what else do you want to talk about? We still got some time. What else? Um, how much time do we have? 10 minutes or so. Oh, I have a call at 3. Oh, you do. Oh, OK. All right, then let me ask you. I you and I chatted at the top of the hour. Oh, I know we took some time. Um, let me ask you then sky. What do you see? What’s your opinion? Blue sky right now, which I love. It tends to trend toward more social justice, social activism, and left leaning causes right now. Because people are leaving Twitter, but I see it growing and expanding. Content moderation and data privacy are big priorities for that company. I don’t see ads, I don’t see a lot of crap in my, you know, feed. Um, it’s very curated and it’s, uh, I think it’s a much more positive experience right now for me. So I really encourage you, you’re a nonprofit. I think at least to, um, At least to set up your account there. So, save your name, at least bookmark your name, and then, you know, and then like I’d say with everything else, spend time on the platform, see what other people are doing, follow other organizations that make sense, follow consultants you like and writers and influencers, creators that you like, and see what they’re posting. And I, I think it’s, it’s gonna actually grow. I mean, I’m hoping that, I’m hoping that it will grow. I just, it’s not like no other social platform out there in terms of management and what I’m seeing in the feed right now. It’s very like curated and I really like it. Julie Campbell, social media maven. Hey, thank you. My pleasure. You’ll find Julia on LinkedIn. You’ll find her practice at JCsocialmarketing.com. I hope I see you at NTC. Let me know if you’re there. OK, I will let you know. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing, Julia, savvy advice. Thank you very, very much. Thanks, Tony. Thanks for everything that you do and everything you do for the sector. Thanks. Next week, nonprofit activism in our political environment. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor Box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. I love that alliteration. You didn’t think I was gonna do it this week, did you? Uh, I knew it. That’s why I did it. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 26, 2023: Data Driven Storytelling

 

Julia CampbellData Driven Storytelling

Julia Campbell returns to share her thinking on retaining and engaging donors by creating and curating your best stories. She’s an author, trainer and speaker. This continues our coverage of the 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN.

Also this week, we welcome Nonprofit Radio’s first announcer, Kate Martignetti!

 

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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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[00:00:34.88] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti, non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Our announcer, Kate martignetti is gonna stick around last week. I invited her on for fun and I love the way she sounds. So I hired her, Kate. Welcome.

[00:00:36.29] spk_1:
Hello.

[00:00:41.36] spk_0:
Glad to have you. Congratulations on your May graduation from American Musical and Dramatic Academy. How did you, how did you find that program?

[00:01:14.59] spk_1:
I went to a high school at a technical school for theater and then I just kinda wanted to continue theater as like a professional career. And one of the places that I found during one of those um college fairs where you can let go and speak to other colleges in the area in other states found Amanda. Um and they were like, hey, come work with us, we’re professionals. Everyone has the same passion as you. You will be worked very hard, which is something I really wanted because theater and just being on stage is what I want to do for the rest of my life and

[00:01:28.69] spk_0:
where you worked very hard. How did you like, did they work too hard?

[00:01:32.49] spk_1:
Yes, they did. They worked me very hard. But I, you know, out in the Real World you’re gonna be auditioning every single day, maybe multiple auditions a day. So I am to throwing us new material every day was honestly really, it helped to prepare us for the Real World.

[00:02:02.01] spk_0:
I’m glad you had a great experience at an NDA. And I’m really glad that you are non profit radios announcer. So welcome again, I’d be hit with pseudo AG graphia if I had to write the words you missed this week’s show,

[00:02:48.75] spk_1:
data driven storytelling. Julia Campbell returns to share her thinking on retaining and engaging donors by creating and curating your best stories. She’s an author, trainer and speaker. This continues our coverage to the 2023 non profit technology conference hosted by N 10 on Tony’s Take to the gift butter video. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with an intuitive fundraising software from Donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others donor box dot org. Here is data driven storytelling.

[00:03:23.73] spk_0:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC, the 2023 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. You can tell that this is much quieter than all the other 23 NTC recordings you’ve heard. That’s because Julia Campbell and I were not able to connect on the floor at the conference, but we’re doing it in follow up.

[00:03:26.56] spk_2:
I got the time zones wrong. It’s my fault. All

[00:03:34.39] spk_0:
right, Julia, I wouldn’t say it, but yes, Julia messed up the time zones. She was ready two hours after she was supposed to come. I

[00:03:38.69] spk_2:
was like, where am I going? What am I doing? And your poor, lovely, you know, associate said, oh, no, that was a while ago. So thanks for bearing with me.

[00:04:00.14] spk_0:
Yes, of course. Yes, it’s, it’s Julia Campbell very well, very well worth waiting for. And Julia is an author trainer, speaker and even years ago was the social media manager for tony-martignetti non profit radio which helped launch her author speaker training

[00:04:12.55] spk_2:
career. I really, really, really did. That’s so interesting. It was so long ago because it doesn’t seem like that long ago.

[00:04:35.35] spk_0:
It was good. 878, 10 years maybe. I’m not sure quite 10, but it’s around there. Yeah, we had, we had fun together. Yeah, we did. Yeah, you always knew what you were doing. You just get me, get me, get me straight. Google. What? Google Mail. What am I like?

[00:04:38.03] spk_2:
Yes, you have some, you have some great ideas. But yeah, the technical application, but that’s the perfect example of being in the weeds. And I think you are a great example of knowing your strengths and hiring out and you still do that. It’s inspiring for, you know, entrepreneurs and freelancers like me,

[00:04:57.66] spk_0:
I’ve had a social media manager for many uh 15 years, probably 14, roughly 14, 15 years, I’ve had somebody helping me.

[00:05:08.51] spk_2:
So nonprofits take note. You don’t have to do it all yourself.

[00:05:59.26] spk_0:
Oh, please don’t. Yeah, you don’t, you, you know, based on your scale, you know, you might be able to but if you want to really scale, you know, you need help in a lot of different areas might be grants, it might be social media. Yeah. Don’t, don’t fear the outside folks who can help, you know, they specialize, alright, like Julie, like the Julia Campbell’s, but she’s moved on from being social media manager. Now. She’s author trainer, speaker, August personage generally. So your topic at NTC at NTC? Yes, was retain and engage your donors with data driven storytelling. I feel like we should start with what is data driven storytelling. So let’s start there.

[00:08:40.91] spk_2:
Yes. So I think that the term storytelling has taken on this interesting almost jargon e quality where people just sort of throw it around and they say, oh, we have to tell stories or collect stories or share stories. And I’m definitely guilty of a lot of that because a lot of my content and materials and training is around effective storytelling, but a lot of nonprofits don’t work in human services. So there are quite a few of us that maybe don’t have those stories that are incredibly apparent like the puppies and the kittens and the kids and the, you know, the Food Bank. Um So how can we use the data, but also create a narrative around it. So, with storytelling that is data driven, it’s really appealing to people that have that logical mindset. So the way that I taught it and just to go very briefly, the way that I tried to frame it in the session. Okay. Well, the way that I framed it in the session and I did have two other speakers with me that were absolutely fabulous. Um And I want to talk about how they covered it as well, but I talked about Aristotle’s rules of persuasion. So the only way you can persuade someone to take an action is to have three elements. One is logos, which is logic, the logical nature. The second is ethos, which is, which means you need to be credible, which is tony, why you read my bio and talk about my accolades before the podcast even get started because people are automatically saying, why should I listen to her? You know, why should I even pay attention to her? And then there’s pathos which is the emotional connection that you need to have in order to take an action. So data figures into the logos piece of it, which is convincing me that what you’re working on is something that’s urgent and relevant and timely, but also something that’s really a problem like is food and security a problem that sounds silly. When I say it out loud and I’m sure for everyone listening, it sounds silly. But if I ask someone on the street, they might say no, I don’t think so. I don’t know anyone that goes to a food bank. I don’t know anyone that’s food insecure because what we don’t understand, we’re so caught up in the curse of knowledge and what we know that we don’t understand. We still do need to convince people that the problems we’re working on our problems. You know, we can’t just keep sending out fundraising appeals that say everything is great and hunky dory and wonderful because people will read it and say, oh great and just throw it in the trash. We need to incorporate data and statistics into our storytelling to show people that this issue, this cause is relevant and timely and also is really worth our attention,

[00:08:55.08] spk_0:
but still make the story humane,

[00:10:31.06] spk_2:
but still make the story humane. So storytelling is the way that you’re going to create that empathy that is required. So if the only thing you do is share statistics, you know, and actually I should have pulled up my slides and gotten some statistics because I’m going to just make them up right now. If you say, you know, 100 billion, not 100 billion, 100 million people are refugees right now in Ukraine, right? That’s just a statistic people’s eyes kind of glazed over if you don’t start talking about the story. Like what is the story? Maybe? Tell a story of a family that was displaced, tell a story of a family that came to the United States and what they experienced. So if you read anything that’s good journalism and tony, you know, I studied journalism. Journalism. Journalism is really my passion. That’s why I started my podcast. That’s why I love to write. I love to get the story, but not just the story. I really want to drill down into. Why is this something we need to pay attention to right now? And why is this relevant? And how does this sort of relate to what’s going on in the rest of the world? Because what happens is when non profits do their storytelling, a lot of the time they focus just on their locality or they focus just on maybe even their region if we’re lucky, but we need to tie our stories into the bigger picture of, you know, racial inequality and racial injustice or maybe, you know, the bigger problem of substance use and abuse, the bigger problems of income inequality and how that affects people experiencing homelessness. I think we need to do a better job tying our little piece of the pie into the bigger picture to create that context for our audience. So we shouldn’t rely on data, but we should definitely be incorporating it more, I think with our stories.

[00:11:04.62] spk_0:
Alright. This is, it’s, it’s sounding very valuable but a little esoteric. So like how can we or what are there things that we need to think about or I mean, this is not, it’s not a 1234 steps, you know, when you’re done, but how do we approach this so that we can get to what we aspire to human stories that also incorporate data so that people see the bigger context

[00:11:33.00] spk_2:
thinking about. So we need to be really creating a system where we’re constantly looking out for not only really effective stories but also data that supports our point that this is a problem. So while I love Humans of New York, I love Humans of New York. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s,

[00:11:49.71] spk_0:
I don’t know if there were more than two volumes, but I have two of those on my

[00:12:16.50] spk_2:
book. It is anyone that wants to be a storyteller, especially a storyteller on social media needs to follow Humans of New York on Facebook and Instagram get the books. They’re fantastic, they’re wonderful stories. They make me feel something but Humans of New York, they don’t ask you to do anything. I think they might now be fundraising and there might be a call to action at the end. But in the beginning, it was just sharing these stories to make you, you know, to help you feel like you’re part of the human experience

[00:12:22.88] spk_0:
is and compelling photographs of folks

[00:12:26.27] spk_2:
exactly compelling

[00:12:27.27] spk_0:
visuals and not by a professional photographer. I don’t think he was a professional

[00:12:31.36] spk_2:
photographer. No, I think he’s just using an iphone.

[00:12:34.07] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:14:54.64] spk_2:
Talk about just something that exploded because as you can see, you know, we’re craving that human connection. So we’re craving like seeing ourselves and other people or you know, we want to be empathetic, we want to be compassionate. But when you want someone to do something, you can’t just share a fantastic story and then say give at the end, it really needs to be what is the impact going to be when you give, for example, what’s going to happen with that donation? A lot of people say give so that 10 people can, you know, have access to the food bank or give so 40 kids can get the backpack, something like that. Yeah. So I consider that a piece of data. So data doesn’t have to be a statistic on the problem. It really just has to be something that is going to appeal to the logical side of my brain. So you’ve got me emotionally, you grabbed my attention, you piqued my curiosity, you pulled at my heartstrings, maybe or you inspired me, maybe you made me angry. That’s a valid emotion to elicit with storytelling. And what are you going to do with that energy? And that’s where a lot of organizations I think get lost. They focus on telling this great story, pulling the heartstrings, but then what happens after or they tell these great stories and they keep telling them, but I’m a donor and I now want to know what is the effect, what is the impact? Like? Tell me great stories. Fine. But if I’m an active donor to organ is a, I’m a monthly donor, I really now want to know how many people have been served this year. How much is this affected? What’s going on? Is it pushing the needle on this problem? Is there legislation being passed? Like what is the sort of what is the impact? And I think that’s lacking and a lot of donor communications because we focus so much on donor acquisition and we don’t focus on donor retention. And when I designed this training, it was really retaining and engaging donors. It was not about donor acquisition. There’s enough data on that. I talk enough about that. But how do we really get them invested by using the statistics and communicating the impact? I think we just continually tell them these great heartstring pulling stories. But at the end of the day, we really want to know a little bit about what was done with the funds that we provided.

[00:15:59.12] spk_1:
It’s time for a break donor box. It’s the fundraising engine of choice for 50,000 organizations from 96 countries. It’s powerful enough to double donations and simple enough to be used by everyone. Black girls code increased donations by 400% upward. Scholars increase donations by 270% Maya’s hope saw a 100% increase in donors. The donor box donation forum is four times faster. Checkout, no set up fees, no monthly fees, no contract and 50,000 or go all over the world. Donor box helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Now back to data driven storytelling.

[00:16:59.72] spk_0:
The whole point of this is retention and engagement. Alright. So data for, for context data for so for understanding the scope of the problem, you know, sort of human storytelling to pull us in and, and ground it because you’re right, we can’t, we can’t understand something on a scale of 100 million people. It’s not that many in Ukraine, but whatever it is, we can’t understand even a million, even even 10,000 people is hard to understand, let alone millions, right. So, all right. So you know grounding in in one or two concrete stories, um data for impact. So you know what, what, what are we doing? Yeah, the problem is enormous. What’s our part of it? How can you be allied with us, help us alleviate the hunger problem or the domestic violence problem or in our community? Okay. Okay.

[00:17:07.59] spk_2:
These are huge problems and it takes the story to contextualize it, but the data to put it in perspective,

[00:17:25.56] spk_0:
write the story. Yes, the story contextualized data for perspective and, and context. Exactly. Alright. Alright. Um Right. Without too much reliance on data but but the numbers are important to, you know, get a sense of the scope of the problem. Like you said, I’m just, I’m just reiterating the smart points you, you, you already made. Um

[00:19:26.76] spk_2:
And I think another thing that nonprofits trouble with and you probably see this too in your work with like planned giving. Don’t donors, I don’t want to say not all donors are created equal because I hate that saying, but I don’t know how else to say it. Like donors don’t all want the same information. You know, donors don’t necessarily all want the same information depending on where they are in the donor journey. And they might, you know, they definitely need to hear the stories, the success stories, the testimonials, they need to hear the good things that are being done, but they also really need to understand that these problems are not going away. Like you give a $10,000 gift, you’re amazing and wonderful and that’s incredible. And thank you. And here are ways that you can get even more involved or becoming a go to resource on the issue. That’s always what I like to think. People start out the conversation trying to be the go to resource, but they should be, you know, kind of wining and dining the donor. Once they get the money, then they become the go to trusted go to resource on this issue. And they almost become like an advisor telling people you really care about arts in our community. This is what’s going on. You know, this is what the data showing arts is a fantastic way to improve academic excellence or are, you know, we have shown that the kids in our program are getting into college at higher rates, whatever it might be, we throw all that data at people that don’t even know us and don’t even care necessarily care about us. And we don’t end up giving this information to the donor who has raised their hand and put their credit card down and said I care about this issue. Um I think we just focus so much on donor acquisition and throwing so much information at brand new prospects, but not enough using this data to cultivate and retain existing donors

[00:19:56.58] spk_0:
and motivate. Um you know, you want folks to feel good about whether it’s $10,000 or $1000.50 dollars, you want them to feel good about what they’ve done. So they’re encouraged to, to do the same or more and not leave and not be among the, was it 75% of first year donors leave us?

[00:20:05.48] spk_2:
I think the fundraising effectiveness project data that just came out something like 80% of first time donors leave and then overall donor retention is around 46%.

[00:20:32.87] spk_0:
Yeah, not even half right, not even keeping half half our donors. Yeah. Alright. Alright. So smart to focus on retention engagement. Um What else? What else what else did you talk about? Because you had the other, you have the uh co presenters. So I don’t want to specifically ask you things that were in the like the learning objectives. And then you say, well, that was somebody else’s support

[00:23:41.34] spk_2:
so well, we really worked collaboratively together. So, um my two co presenters, one was Patrick Byrne, who’s the CEO of the Challenge Foundation, which is an organization based in Denver. And then Candice Cody, who’s been a longtime friend of mine, but she does marketing and data analysis for community boost, which is a consulting firm. So I asked Patrick to join us because he has that for, you know, um in the trenches perspective, he had just actually changed jobs, but he’s been working in um education and after school and youth development for decades in Denver is actually pretty well known. So, and he’s the CEO, he goes out and does a lot of these donor meetings, which we’re all very familiar with. So he’s one of those CEO that loves to go meet with donors, loves to talk, loves to present, loves to be like on the forefront of the issue. And he says that he Jen, he generally like will with a major donor lead with the data almost. It’s not like they’re parading around, you know, he doesn’t usually have one of the youth um come with him to these meetings, first of all, because of confidentiality and ethic, ethical reasons. Certainly they have events where the donors get to see the program in action. But he says often what he finds with the big big donors in the foundation certainly is that they want to see that data. So they understand that the problem is, you know, it’s really large and they know the success stories because the Challenge Foundation has done a great job in terms of marketing and pr and they’re always in the news, but they want to see kind of the hard facts. Like are we really pushing the needle on this? Like, are we really getting good results? Are we getting the bang for our buck if you will? Um What are the outcomes? You know, what are, what’s the actual impact based on our goals and objectives of what we’re trying to achieve? So he was talking a lot about his experience, talking to donors, his experience collecting those human interest stories as personal stories, how they do it at his organization. They have a whole system, they train their employees in storytelling, all of them so that they can notice a good story or a mission moment or a little quote or a testimonial when it comes up so that they always have like a database of stories to pull from. So when I tell clients that they, that really freaked out because they don’t want they, they think that it’s going to be everybody out in the wild West posting all over Instagram without any guidelines, but that’s not what it is. It’s really just people collecting the stories and sending it back to one person who’s kind of the gatekeeper and figures out the permissions and things like

[00:23:43.42] spk_0:
that. That’s valuable. You’re curating stories throughout the organization. Yes.

[00:24:40.43] spk_2:
And really, that’s the only way that storytelling is gonna work if you have it infused into the culture, if you just have your development director and I’ve been that development director that is the only person responsible for stories. What’s going to happen as I used to do every Friday, I would send out an email and say, hey, everybody, I’m gonna send out the newsletter this week or I’m sending out donor. Thank you. I really need a great story. And then of course it’s crickets. So if it’s not infused into the culture and if it doesn’t come from the top down, the importance of collecting these kinds of things, it’s just not going to happen. I mean, people are so busy, think about all of the things like anyone listening, think about all the things on your plate right now. But if it’s part of your job description, you know, part of your expectation. And if it’s just something that’s part of the culture of the organization, it makes it a lot easier. Yeah. And it

[00:24:41.46] spk_0:
makes it easier for the for the person who does have to curate the content because there’s this library of, of valuable stories that you can go back and ask more detail about. But, you know, like, well, you know, this, we have this great success or this, this woman gave said something about our work and here’s, you know, here’s what she said.

[00:25:09.61] spk_2:
Exactly. And you, you can’t always be on the front lines. In fact, you’re probably not always on the front lines, the marketing person, the fundraising person, and you’re not gonna

[00:25:10.53] spk_0:
remember it, You know, six weeks later when the, when the newsletter person emails you, you know, because it happened six weeks ago, you’re not gonna remember that story, but in real time. All right, that’s valuable in real time. If people just have somebody to email, look, there’s great, great quote from this woman. You know, I can tell you more if, if you decide

[00:27:41.51] spk_2:
exactly, I can tell you more or I had lunch with this donor and I think she’d be really perfect for our gala. Just make a mental note. You know what I mean? And it’s things you can follow up on later. And what I always say is that these stories are evergreen. People think that email and social media, everything has to be something that you came up with that second. It really doesn’t like if it’s a story from five years ago, it’s still powerful and no one knows it was from five years ago and it’s still like it still has that impact. I just think we overthink the content creation and the storytelling, the story gathering process because we think it has to be something that happened this week. It really does not. Like sometimes people work on stories for months, you know, they work on them for weeks. Like thinking about making a video, you can work on that for a really long time. It doesn’t have to be this like, oh, this person told me this story today and I have to post it today. That’s the way I think we think about things, think about websites that have stories on them that are really God only knows how long the stories have been on there. But that doesn’t diminish their impact. It doesn’t diminish the person’s transformation or the life that was changed or the impact that was made. It just, it just um you know, if you have that, that powerful like evergreen story that never goes stale, you can build on it and why not revisit stories? That’s another whole topic. Charity Water does that they constantly are revisiting people that they told stories about and sharing new information about these people. And I just wonder why we have to constantly be on this hamster wheel of storytelling and we don’t dive a little bit deeper or maybe, you know, revisit someone that was in our program that we talked to, maybe talk to them five years later or even just a few months later. So the constant content creation, hamster wheel and the view of storytelling is it has to be this perfectly crafted Lord of the Rings trilogy kind of thing where there’s, you know, the hero’s journey drives me crazy journey.

[00:27:47.80] spk_0:
Yeah, the

[00:28:21.34] spk_2:
hero’s journey. It’s the, it’s the one we all know. It’s like the Luke Skywalker, the Harry Potter Frodo. I mean, it’s the, the Hunger Games, you know, Katniss, it’s the reluctant hero and then the guide and then we all know that story. But when we are talking about storytelling, especially on digital channels, it really can just be a great picture and a quote like Humans of New York does it or it can be a mission moment or it can be a piece of data and then illustrating that data with a quote with a testimonial. So I think we tend to think everything has to be perfect and very produced. But on the other hand, that’s stopping us from doing the work, I think it’s a little bit of an excuse. Honestly,

[00:28:36.25] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:29:13.33] spk_0:
You can watch the video of last week’s webinar that I did with Give Butter. It’s debunk the top five myths of Planned Giving. I was with Floyd Jones from Give Butter. And when I say with, I mean, we were sitting next to each other, it was terrific. What I’ve never done a webinar like that and I hope I can do more where we’re sitting side by side. So we joined each other’s screens and we just, we had a good time at, at the, we were in Brooklyn. So if you want to watch the video of debunked, the top five myths of Planned Giving the video is on the Butter blog at give butter dot com.

[00:29:23.98] spk_1:
That is Tony’s take to, we’ve got just about a butt load. More time for data driven storytelling with Julia Campbell.

[00:29:53.07] spk_0:
That’s all very valuable. Go back, you know, like if you’re listening, I would go back 10 minutes and replay what, what Julia just said because there’s 44 valuable points in there that will help your storytelling, help your content curation really valuable. Um And what did you just say that something is hurting us? What was the last thing like last sentence you said?

[00:30:00.97] spk_2:
I think it’s a little bit of an X. It’s

[00:30:03.11] spk_0:
an excuse. Yes, it’s an excuse. So not happening because we don’t have anything that’s 24 hours recent.

[00:31:12.51] spk_2:
So or we don’t, we don’t have the budget to make produced video. I could tell you every excuse in the book, every storytelling excuse I have been told and there are ways around it and this is not my quote and I just wrote it down for a talk that I’m doing and I can’t, I want to give credit to somebody for it, but it doesn’t take resources to be resourceful and you have to consider, you know, your budget, your band with your capacity and also, of course, there’s ethical considerations around storytelling, but none of this is insurmountable. I’ve worked with organizations. I work with an organization that focuses on their think tank and they focus on chronic absenteeism in the United States. They never tell stories about students because they don’t want to focus on a student who’s chronically absent. I think that would be highly unethical to do that. And also it’s, you know, there’s such a stigma around it that it’s hard to find personal stories for them, but they still managed to talk to teachers or principals or even other um like legislators about their work. I mean, there’s ways to do it without getting that. You know, Julia was hungry and she came to the shelter and we helped her.

[00:31:27.96] spk_0:
But can’t they tell a story of a student just anonymized?

[00:31:37.21] spk_2:
They could they tell they interview a lot of teachers who tell stories, the third party stories, okay. But because they don’t provide direct services so they provide training and assistance and legislative advocacy. I mean, their think tank,

[00:31:54.70] spk_0:
right? But let’s, let’s take, let’s take a hypothetical then playing off that. I mean, if you, if you do do direct service work, the stories can be anonymized, right? Not to use the neighborhood that they live in, you can pick another neighborhood. You don’t have to use their age, you can pick something different than their age. You don’t have to use their name, you can pick a fake name. No, the, but the story can still be told that that sounds like a, that sounds like one of your excuses. We don’t want to, I don’t want to compromise. We have ethical and maybe even legal

[00:33:49.15] spk_2:
requirements. Okay. So anonymized of confidentiality clients I’ve worked with one is called Plumber Youth Promise their foster care agency and Salem Mass, they only work with underage kids because once they turn 18, they age out of the foster care system. So they sent an email out the other day that I saved because I wanted to use it as an example um with my clients and it said that 40% now this is like such a horrifying statistic. 40% of kids that age out of foster care, like our homeless instantly just homeless because they don’t, they’re not staying in their foster care family. Maybe they can stay in their foster care families house. Um They certainly can’t stay in the facility because of laws, state law. Oh my God, it’s so horrible. So that is such an example of that statistic grabbed me and then they told a story of girl that they assisted um while she was transitioning out and they talked about their whole transitioning program and what they do when kids turn 17 and how they work with them for a year to figure out this transition. So they don’t turn homeless. It was really amazing and like it was just super I opening for me because I guess we all, I don’t know, I just never thought of it that way, but it was using data in this way to kind of open my eyes. But then sharing a story of how okay this this piece of data is horrible, but here’s what we’re doing, you know, in our little corner of the world to combat it. And it was, it was all anonymized. Like you said, there was a picture of like a tree in the email and it was, the story was, you know, obviously names changed and everything. So there’s definitely a way, there’s ways to do it.

[00:34:28.71] spk_0:
All right. Thank you. Encouragement, encouragement. They always, this is, this goes to something I’ve, I’ve said on the show a few times and I say in my trainings too often, you know, I like to think about how we can instead of why we can’t, if you’re looking for the, why we can’t. You come up with 1000 reasons were under resourced. We’re, we’re understaffed. It’s a holiday

[00:34:29.83] spk_2:
week. It’s a recession. It’s this, it’s that it’s a political campaign

[00:34:34.80] spk_0:
has time, right? It’s the summer. It’s the fall, it’s the winter. It’s the spring, nothing can get done in those four seasons. No, we need a new season. You know, exactly why you can’t. But the, how you can focus on the, how you can see why you can’t, how could we get it done. Let’s assume we’re gonna do it. How can we do it? How can we do it?

[00:35:36.64] spk_2:
I love that. I think it’s all about framing and a lot of it is mindset like you and I both teach tools and tactics. But if you have a person, what you just said is so interesting is if you have a person that comes to you for training and help, but they are just thinking about, they want you to just legitimize why they can’t do something. I immediately say, I just don’t think this is gonna work until we can get into that. What can we do space? Because especially with storytelling, people do, they have a lot of challenges that are very valid and then they have some challenges that maybe they could work on that. They put up these walls that they think. Well, we can’t share this, we can’t collect this data, we can collect this story. So coming at it from that we can, I think I’m guilty of doing that in my own life. I think you’ve just inspired me to change my own thinking. Sometimes I’ve got to come at it as a I can like, what can I do? I can’t do that. Okay. What can I do?

[00:36:11.90] spk_0:
Exactly. Exactly. Alright. Any more encouragement on data, the intersection of data and humanity, let’s say

[00:37:43.52] spk_2:
data and humanity. Well, I believe that we do so much data collection and we have absolutely no idea of what we’re doing with it? So with any kind of data collection that you do, whether it’s internal or external or social media or its program related, always have a focal point. How is this going to be used? How are we going to improve what we’re doing? How you know, what could this inspire? What could this elicit, what minds could be changed? What behaviors could be changed? Always have that sort of bigger picture view of the data you’re collecting. Because if you know, we can all collect data all day, every day, but if we’re not using it in an effective way, if we’re not contextualizing it for people or if it’s just a piece of data that we’re not doing anything with, it’s really not going to be worth anything. And I also really encourage people have empathy for your audience. So this is something that J Kenzo says he’s one of my favorite authors and podcasters, J A Kenzo and he says have empathy for your audience, make everything very explicit, very clear, very short, don’t wrap a ton of stuff in 90,000 statistics and flow charts and things like that. Unless it’s a funder, you know, you’ve gotta know your audience. But if you’re thinking of an email or social media post, just have empathy for people, they’re scrolling, they’re busy, they have 90 1000 other emails, their boss is yelling at them, their kids are probably homesick, you know, whatever it is. Just make sure that you are providing the most relevant information, something that’s going to help them inspire them, something that’s going to encourage them to take the action that they want to take,

[00:38:02.73] spk_0:
have empathy for folks. Channel, channel your folks. I try to channel our listeners when I’m talking to smart folks like you. All right.

[00:38:11.95] spk_2:
Yes, I love that. Be your audience. Think about your audience first,

[00:38:16.04] spk_0:
Julia Campbell August personage

[00:38:20.42] spk_2:
personage. Uh going to put that in my email signature.

[00:38:33.66] spk_0:
Uh But more more uh perfunctorily, she’s author, trainer and speaker and was a speaker at 23 NTC. Thanks to

[00:38:37.57] spk_2:
excellent

[00:38:39.63] spk_0:
my pleasure and thank you for being with the ever continuing coverage of 23 NTC. Even four weeks later, still still capturing the smart speakers. And we were sponsored at 23 NTC by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[00:39:42.29] spk_1:
next week, 10 fundraising boosts on a budget and personalized fundraising at a scale. If you missed any part of this week’s show, we beseech you find it at tony martignetti dot com were sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I am your announcer Kate martignetti. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:39:48.78] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

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[00:00:11.54] spk_0:
Okay. Hello. Welcome to tony-martignetti non

[00:02:30.78] spk_1:
profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. I’ll have something to say about George Floyd and racial equity in Tony’s Take Two. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of Ballon O prostatitis if you pissed me off with the idea that you missed today’s show. Don’t get played by the product demo. We’ve all watched in awe as the cursor flies across the screens of a demonstration. Nine months later, we’re scratching our heads. They made it look so easy back then. Get insider tips from Ruben Sing, who’s led hundreds of sales demos. He’s CEO of 1/10 Consulting. This is part of our 20 and TC coverage and Facebook fundraising data. This 20 and D C panel feels your frustration over Facebook not sharing donor data, but they also admonish that you can’t ignore the value of Facebook fundraising. They bust myths, help you overcome the challenges, reveal had a thank and engage your fundraisers and steer clear of pitfalls. There. Nick Byrne from Give Panel and consultants Julia Campbell and Maureen will be off tony Stick to be The change were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers. Regular cps dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Here is don’t get played by the product Demo. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC. That’s the 2020 non profit Technology Conference sponsored A 20 D. C by a Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guest now is Ruben Singh. He is CEO of 1/10 Consulting Ruben. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Thanks

[00:02:38.40] spk_2:
so much, tony. Glad to be here.

[00:02:48.54] spk_1:
Pleasure on pleasure. I’m glad that we could work this out virtually. And I know that you are well and safe outside Baltimore in Maryland goods, your topic is don’t get played by the product. Demo, Exclamation mark! If you’re shouting this from a mountaintop, don’t get played by the product. Demo. You’re an insider you’ve done How many? Hundreds of product demos?

[00:03:02.44] spk_2:
Yeah, definitely in in the hundred’s. But the thing is, I’ve been on all sides of it. I have, ah, delivered demos. I have been on the the the customer side or the prospects of receiving demos, and I’ve also coordinated them on behalf of my customers. So I felt like I had a lot of good experience and perhaps some insider tips and tricks toe offer.

[00:03:22.57] spk_1:
Okay, there is There is some deception in these in these demonstrations.

[00:03:40.46] spk_2:
Well, you know, I wouldn’t quite say deception. It’s a spectrum, Really, Uh, some things I have some practices I’ve seen over the years have ranged from you, maybe a little questionable to mislead it, and then some of it has been deceptive. But, you know, honestly, tony Yeah, it’s a little tongue in cheek. I I don’t want to imply, especially the non profit sector, that these that these sales reps are being dishonest in any way. I think most of them have great intentions. But what I really think that there’s a handful of tips and tricks and practices that folks can use to really make sure they’re getting the most out of their demos.

[00:05:07.37] spk_1:
Okay, My my recollection of these as a consult. So I do plan giving consulting. And I’ve gotten some demonstrations for profit from products as a as a as an observer for on the client behalf. Um, and then together we make a decision, but my memory of them is that the cursor is flying around the screen. It started non stop. And then at the very end of a 30 minute demonstration, Do you have any questions? Well, I probably had questions from screen number two about 90 seconds into the thing, but I’m flummoxed now. I’m overwhelmed by the by the movement by by the screens flying around. I can’t remember my question. I I think I had one, but I’m not positive of that. I need to I need a I need a drink. I need to calm down, because the thing just went so damn fast, you know? Um, all right, so that’s that’s probably on the negative end of the spectrum again. Not suggesting deception, but it just goes so fast, you know? Shoot. All right, So where should we start? I mean, you have tips for preparing before the demonstration starts. Yeah,

[00:05:12.64] spk_2:
Well, what you just described is a very common situation. And I would say where the biggest gap is I’ve seen where customers have come back to me and said, You know what? Everything looks so seamless and looks so, uh, you know, so nice and shiny and so quick and easy in the demo. But that’s not the product we ended up with. The biggest reason for that is, in my opinion at least, is how you come into that demo. How prepared you are. If you simply just walk in, let the sales rep do their thing and just, you know, as you and just wait to be wowed and impressed. You’re very likely going to end up disappointed so that one of the first points that I really bring up in, uh, my talk was to present some use cases to really think to yourself, what are the four or five things that we must have on Day one when our new system is live, as well as one of those four or five things that are working terrible right now in our current system, those are the areas we want to focus on, Let’s draft up our use cases. Let’s get very specific examples, not yes or no questions and provide that to the sales rep account executive ahead of time. That way, you’re not really focusing on the fluff. You’re not focusing on the bells and whistles. You can watch that stuff on YouTube. You’re really focusing on those areas that are going to be critical for you to be successful.

[00:06:24.34] spk_1:
Okay, Anything else we should be thinking about as a team before we before we view this extravaganza?

[00:06:30.66] spk_2:
Yeah, definitely the prep that you do up front. You know, I kind of alluded to this that you doing your homework? A lot of these products that you see out there, especially in a non profit technology side. There’s demos available. There’s demos available on their websites. You know, maybe you need to download a white paper. There’s demos available on YouTube. Eso, you know, watch those demos do your homework. Don’t just wait to the demo. You know the facilitated demo before you see it for the first time. That way, you can really understand what the potential pain points are again. Also, there’s many different organizations out there that do independent studies on the various donor management C r M systems eso. So that might be a place as well as other other applications. So do your homework. Understand where the weaknesses are already a prom. That way you can focus on their those areas in the demo. So the team or the pattern I really focus on here is move away from the demo just being a presentation and really try to make it a working session with your sales rep. Eso you’re really working through this scenarios and not just sitting back and watching can presentation.

[00:07:29.58] spk_1:
Okay, Yeah, you’re focusing them on on where your pain points are, what your must haves are and not just getting a generic description of, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you if you end up meeting this, then we have this component and and we have this feature to you might not end up needing it, but I just want to acquaint you with it. You know, that that’s really irrelevant.

[00:07:52.71] spk_2:
That’s right. And so those were some things that you could ahead of time, you know, even during the demonstration itself, there’s certain things that you want to look out for, You know, again, the yes, no questions. Do you have all into your management? Do you have events management? Do you have playing? Giving the answer is always gonna be yes to a Yes. No question. We had a If you can always repurpose, you know, certain functionality to make it fit A particular scenario. So I try to encourage your my profit, remind my customers that’s gonna move away from that and really give a specific example. Hey, you know, I do a lot of events and I sit at the desk during our gala and I need to register people when they come in the door and also have the ability with the check and check out process to enter a new attendee. Show me how I can do that and that that could be one of the use cases that you present ahead of time. So again it gives it gives very specific things. Another thing that I suggest is is be careful about those words of integration and compatibility. Um, because everyone is integrated, you know, especially I deal a lot with Salesforce and everyone claims to be integrated with Salesforce but that integration it could mean anything. It could be a plug and play out that takes 10 minutes. Or it could be, Ah, it could be a separate third party solution that you need with 1/3 party consultant to integrate it. So all that falls within the category of integration. So you want to be very clear when someone says, Oh, yeah, we’re compatible with such and such or were integrated with such and such. What exactly does that mean? And how does it look?

[00:09:57.04] spk_1:
Okay, that’s interesting. Yeah, I don’t think most people know that. They just they say, Oh, it’s integrated. Okay, that’s awesome. It’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As Things are moving fast. The Senate passed a bill on paycheck protection program loans that extends the covered period from eight weeks to 24 weeks. You need a place to keep up with everything that we’re being hit with. Financially wegner-C.P.As dot com Quick resource is and blawg now back to don’t get played by the product demo. I should have given you a chance to shout out what? What’s the work at 1/10 Consulting.

[00:10:27.99] spk_2:
Oh, well, we, uh we do everything from strategy we work exclusively with nonprofits. We do strategy, work. We do implementation of C R M. Systems all the way through change management and user adoption. So we take a slightly different approach in the sense that we, uh it’s not really just the technology that we focus on. We really try to make sure that the people, the process, the strategy, the data, everything is aligned. Because if one of those pieces were missing, you’re not you’re not gonna be happy. So as a consulting practice, we try to make sure all those are aligned to help help move missions

[00:10:35.81] spk_1:
forward. What’s the significance of the name 1/10 Consulting. What is that? Does that mean?

[00:10:55.56] spk_2:
Yeah. You know, in the six faith, there’s a, ah principle or a concept of thus fund we call it, which is giving 10% of your your income, your time to the community into the greater good. Um, and in my early years of starting this practice, I worked with a lot of faith based communities. Um, and as I was implementing donor management systems for churches and synagogues and masa, I started noticing that this concept of 10% or 1/10 of your income. Er, and giving back was was such a central component of every one of these faiths and every one of these faith traditions. Eso to me, it was it was nice. It was this unifying principle. And and so that’s kind of where 1/10 comes from that the 1/10 really represents this this treasure. And, you know, I’m hoping 1/10 consulting helps helps that 10% really realize its full

[00:11:36.74] spk_1:
potential. So before you recognize this commonality, what were you, Reuben sing Consulting? What were you before you were 1/10

[00:11:43.75] spk_2:
before 1/10 I have worked for, um I worked at a non profit sector, but also in CR ems for over 20 years. So prior to 1/10 I was with an organization called Round Corner. In their non profit technology sector. I was vice president of digital transformation, and, um, and they actually have been acquired by Salesforce. But that was the time I realized that I don’t want to be tied into one particular product and really want to be able to look at things more holistically that way. Started.

[00:12:14.94] spk_1:
Um, let’s go back to ah to advice you um, you know, part of what you ah talk about is tough questions to ask way at that stage, or is there more you want to say leading up to it? But you you, uh you take it where where we need to go,

[00:13:44.97] spk_2:
right? Right. Yeah, I think you know, as far as the tough questions that we covered, some of them the integration, the interoperability. Okay, I think another thing we talked about with terms, not just the yes, no questions. Also, when it comes to things like, Do you handle soft credits? Do you handle plan giving? Do you handle solicitors again? The questions the answers will always be Yes. And although, you know, matching gifts, workplace gifts, these these air something that all non profits due in some way, shape or form. But you want to make sure that your impression and your understanding of it is the same as the sales reps because I’ve noticed a lot of gaps in that area as well. Another couple tougher questions that I always like to get into is asking this question of what exactly is has been upgraded in this demo. So I’ve just seen it Time and time again, tony. Where, uh, you know, again, you’ve seen this great demo. And then when you come back and say, Well, these air, like, archaic looking Web forms can’t show these to my donors, and then they come back and say, Oh, yeah, you just need to upgrade to the next forms package or, oh, if you’re going to send more than three emails, you have to say you have to upgrade to the next email package. So the demo has been filled with all these add ons and upgrades, but you’re kind of getting something different, you know?

[00:13:47.33] spk_1:
And so you bought that you bought the base model, but you test drove the, uh, the SLX expanded, uh, 16 cylinder version.

[00:14:01.74] spk_2:
Exactly. And I often, for example, a few years back I was, uh, family. We were purchasing home, and we wanted a new home, and we were looking all these model houses, and I know some people really like to see these beautifully furnished homes with great interior decorating. And I was just like, Can I just see an empty house? You know, I want to know what I’m getting. I get thrown off, I get distracted by all this. You know, Do you have some sort of, you know, house that’s being built, That that’s the same model that I could look at. And so I kind of looked at demos the same way. Do as little as possible, you know, and And don’t customise too much. Don’t add on anything. I want to see how close my use cases worked with your out of the box product that way. Ah, comparing apples down.

[00:14:39.06] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. So you can actually ask them to demo a specific version that you’d be most likely to be buying without whatever add ons, plug ins, upgrades, et cetera.

[00:14:51.31] spk_2:
Yeah, and it really should be easier for the sales rep to to prepare for that on and really have them. You’re focusing less on customizing and focus more on the use cases that you provided them. Okay. And I will tell you, you know, this not all sales reps or account executives will be receptive to this. And some of them might say, Oh, this is too much work. Or where they might look at your use cases and say we’re clearly not a fit, which is not a bad thing either. At least you know upfront. Yeah. The sales reps that I think are really good. And some of the ones I’ve worked with they would love something like this. They would love the client toe, give them a list of use cases. Give him some very specifics That way, they’re not guessing either. Ah, and the session is going to be a lot more fruitful when both sides

[00:15:34.44] spk_1:
are prepared. OK, OK, Reuben Weaken, spend some more time together. If you have more suggestions,

[00:16:04.52] spk_2:
you know, I’d say that there’s there’s probably one other suggestion that I would, uh I alluded to this at the very beginning on I think it kind of sums up. The whole point is when I talked Teoh sales reps and want to prepare them for a demo, I even tell them up front. You know, we’re not really interested in the demo. We’d like to have a working session and just even using that term, it changes the paradigm, and it really changes the relationship. They’re between yourself and the vendor. Eso even just something as simple as recommending that we’re calling it something different. The sales right will come in a little bit more prepared to work with you and really try to work through those use cases. Eso the more you can move away from the canned, you know, bells and whistles, presentation and Maurin toe a meaningful conversation on your use cases, the more happier you’re going to be with the end product,

[00:16:38.54] spk_1:
okay? And I guess if you get any if you get any pushback or objection from the from the sales rep about converting this from a demo to a work session, that’s a red flag about whether whether you want to purchase their ah, against purchasing their their product and continuing with the conversation with them.

[00:16:47.75] spk_2:
Absolutely. I mean, you know, we’re talking about on profits here, and, you know, obviously funds are always limited, and you want to make sure that you’re making smart decisions on where that money goes. So, like I said, a nonprofit sector, that’s the sales reps I’ve worked with their usually very much in line with this thinking. Um, so so but yeah, if there was any objection, that’s definitely red flag. In my opinion,

[00:17:10.04] spk_1:
you have ah, you have a resource at the on the 1/10 consulting site

[00:17:17.24] spk_2:
Yeah, yeah, you know, and we’re really bummed about that. The conference, the NTC conference being canceled. So what we did is we went ahead and I recorded the session that I had planned to deliver at the NTC conference, Um and ah ah. And have uploaded that recording to our website www 0.1 temp that consulting. Um, it’s there in the blog’s section. And you know, I would also suggest that that blawg section does have a lot of other resource is, you know, if you’re interested in grant management and what products are out there or if you’re trying to figure out what might be the CIA RAM solution for you, we have several articles free webinars on other insights that folks are welcome to take a look at

[00:17:56.84] spk_1:
Okay. And the full the full conference. Ah, this presentation is there. That’s correct. Okay, is 1/10 dot consulting. That’s correct. Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t know dot Consulting is a, uh Is it available for those called extension?

[00:18:17.13] spk_2:
Yeah, it’s available. Signed, signed up for a couple years ago and definitely opens things up. T create the name that you want, so yeah, www 0.1 temps that consulting, and we’ll take you right

[00:18:29.14] spk_1:
there. Okay, It’s in the block block section. That’s right. All right. Ruben saying he’s CEO. 1/10 Consulting, Um, in Maryland, outside Baltimore. Rubin. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for sharing.

[00:18:35.14] spk_2:
Thank you, Tony. I appreciate your time.

[00:21:12.05] spk_1:
My pleasure. Thanks. And thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software, Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up. So you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands how you work. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now time for tony Stick to George Floyd. It’s a recorded murder. I am skeptically optimistic that the United States will deal this time with its institutional racism. If we’re gonna have a chance that that we each need to be the change we want to see, there’s no waiting for political leadership. They’ll get dragged along after we the people, start the conversation at our level. That needs to happen and I would like to help. Next week, non profit radio will have a special episode devoted to how to start the racism and white privilege conversation in your office. It’s a long journey. It begins with a single step. We each need to be the change we want to see. Start with me next week. That is tony Steak, too. Now, time for Facebook fundraising data. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020. Non profit technology conference with me now, our Nick Byrne, Julia Campbell and Maureen will be off. Nick is founder and CEO at Give Panel. Julia Campbell is author, speaker and teacher at J. Campbell Social Marketing And Maureen will be off is digital strategist and technology coach with practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Welcome, everybody. Nick. Julie. Morning. Welcome. Welcome, city pleasure. I’m glad we’re able to work this out. I know you’re each well and safe on. I’m glad to hear that. Everybody’s okay. Um, we’re talking about Facebook. Fundraising your 2020 topic, uh, for NTC is best kept secrets the getting and using Facebook fundraiser data. Julia, you’ve been talking about Facebook fundraising for so long we had you on?

[00:21:16.09] spk_3:
Yeah, last two years ago

[00:21:18.57] spk_1:
Was the the last year or two years ago. Um, you’re gonna have toe. You have to find a new gig.

[00:21:23.62] spk_3:
I know. Well keeps changing

[00:21:26.41] spk_1:
this this one trick things.

[00:21:27.84] spk_3:
And now I found neck. You’re like my Facebook fundraising soulmate, so

[00:21:32.14] spk_1:
that’s right. So I’m going to start with you, Since I know for a fact you’ve been doing this thinking about Facebook fundraising a long time. Um, what the problem is, Facebook doesn’t share. Right? We lamented the last year or two years ago, you and I.

[00:22:42.13] spk_3:
Yes. So I Yeah, it was in New Orleans, Um, 18 ntc with and I did the first session on Facebook fundraising tools, and it was when they had just come out and I had mental health, America and the Polaris Project with me because they were kind of just slaying it with Facebook funders and raising thousands of dollars. Like Nick likes to talk about that magic money that comes down when you turn on the tools. But the number one this was two years, the number one quandary and problem, an issue that nonprofits had and still have is this issue that you don’t get the information of the contact information for everyone that makes a donation, even if it’s not to you? Necessarily. It’s to someone else’s birthday fundraiser. So our entire philosophy and the three of us are all on the same page, and we talked about it. We have talked about this a lot is that you’re missing the point. If you focus on the data that Facebook gives you, there are ways to get the data and the content information for your fund raisers. The people that are raising money for you that are stepping up and saying I want to donate my birthday. This is a cause that I really care about right now. Everyone come together, raise money. Those are the people you need to focus on. And I think Nick made an amazing amazing point earlier this morning when we were talking. I love that point where you don’t want to clog up your Sierra Room in your database with the data of all these donors who don’t even want to hear from you anyway because they haven’t elected to hear from you. They didn’t really box

[00:23:27.81] spk_1:
their connection here, person they’re connected. The person who is running the fundraiser?

[00:23:32.51] spk_3:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So get around this. We need to get over this hump. And Nick can also talk a lot more about that. And Maureen can

[00:23:40.82] spk_1:
too. All right, So you don’t want to focus on what we don’t have.

[00:23:44.34] spk_3:
Yes, there is a

[00:23:44.95] spk_1:
possibility that they might be, uh, uh, interested in engaging with you and your cause.

[00:23:51.81] spk_3:
Maybe,

[00:23:52.45] spk_1:
But you don’t want you don’t focus on that possibility. Want focus on what we do have is that

[00:24:31.94] spk_3:
Well, yeah, there’s kind of two ways to look at it. One is Do you want un discretionary? Do you want to, um, totally on un discretionary funds? Do you want free funds that you could do with whatever you want to do with coming in? No one telling you what to do? What? They’re not earmarked. Do you want that kind of money? Do you want exposure to a brand new audience? Or do you want to focus on the fact that I gave $5 to Maureen’s birthday fundraiser But I only gave because of Maureen? I’m not really interested in animal rescue yourself. Hung up on getting my email, but we got to stop with that.

[00:24:33.41] spk_1:
OK? All right. Well, Nick, Julie obviously teed you off. So why don’t you give us your overview?

[00:24:39.94] spk_5:
Yeah, I mean, I think, like like Facebook. Call it social fund raising. And I think that’s the key, right? It’s social. It’s it’s enabling people who love your cause who want, like, support your mission to go out and raise money from their family and friends. And if if organizations and nonprofits just treat it like direct mail or something, right, it’s not social, and so you have to you have to go with it. And so there’s this myth that, you know you can’t get the data. Yeah, Facebook don’t share the data. That is true. But actually, we’ve pion eight near two ways that you can get a lot of fundraiser data. You’re not going to get the data of every single donor that gives to every every single fundraiser on Or do you want to clog your sierra em up with that information, right? Because they’re not gonna convert on email or direct mail like less than 2% of them opt in. When Facebook asked them to hear from you. And that’s a good sign that they gave to your t their friend or their family or their loved one. Not Teoh your cause. So go with the flow. Don’t fight Facebook. Use it for a CE, much as we can possibly use it for. It’s a fantastic fundraising

[00:25:50.14] spk_1:
tour. Okay, Nick, what’s out in your background? You have You have a projector on your ceiling projecting that onto the wall.

[00:25:56.43] spk_5:
So that’s Michael. Jordan told me to read the quote. It’s a bit it needs to be bigger, right? But Michael Jordan quite. It’s a Michael Jordan quote. So is Michael Jordan

[00:26:05.70] spk_1:
Reed. It go ahead.

[00:26:20.05] spk_5:
It says, Uh, I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games 26 times. I’ve been trusted to take the winning shot and missed. I failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.

[00:26:25.02] spk_3:
I love that

[00:26:26.76] spk_1:
additional. Okay. Is that that’s not a projection from your ceiling onto the wall, is it?

[00:26:31.26] spk_5:
That is one of those decals things.

[00:26:34.15] spk_1:
Okay? You’re very, very high tech. If you’ve got one

[00:26:38.12] spk_5:
E say it’s like a hologram,

[00:26:41.29] spk_1:
right? Exactly like It’s a

[00:26:42.77] spk_5:
commercial reality. It’s argument is not really there.

[00:26:50.94] spk_1:
It’s one of those lights that shines in front of a restaurant on the sidewalk. Where is it coming from?

[00:26:52.25] spk_5:
A car, guys, it’s,

[00:26:53.94] spk_1:
uh uh OK, Marine. You want toe? Er, why don’t you add to the overview and get helping us get started?

[00:28:30.69] spk_4:
Sure. I think that, you know, part of what Julia and Nick are alluding to has been around for a long time when you think about peer to peer fundraising generally. So I’ve helped a lot of people over the years with either live physical events, that’s a five K or a bike or walk or D i y peer to peer fundraising events and organizations, generally speaking, do not do anything with the donors who give to those team captains or those participants. The data does go into their C. R M because somebody’s made an online gift and is part of that text stuff. The date is getting sucked over, but they’re not trying to convert those people. But for some reason, people feel very frustrated about the inability to get the $5 donor into their database and is Nick and Julie have both said. You’re paying attention to the glass half empty. You need to shift your mind, pay attention to the information you can get and cultivate those relationships. Um, we and fundraising think a lot about the lifetime value of a donor, right? It’s just like it’s ingrained. And whether you were formally trained in the stuff or not is all around us about who’s valuable, Who do I spend time on and who I don’t. And Facebook turns that like a 45 degree angle. And it can be awful hard to get your leadership on board with ignoring donors just really what we’re telling people to dio. Those aren’t the folks that you should be paying attention to When it comes to Facebook fundraising, it’s the fund raisers themselves, not the people who were actually giving. And that could take some conversation at your board level or your your executive or sea level Um, inside your award that it is. It is not the way it’s always been, and you have to be cool with that and give

[00:29:00.80] spk_1:
it a try.

[00:29:01.75] spk_5:
Can I just jump in, jump in and just come off the back of the no Yeah, yeah. On anarchism. So polite, right?

[00:29:21.14] spk_1:
No. Yes. You’re not sure what I was? What I was going to say, Maureen, before I was interrupted was e. I could see how clearly. Yes. Take a drink, Nick, please. I can see why your company’s practical wisdom.

[00:29:23.34] spk_4:
Yeah, like

[00:29:30.74] spk_1:
your wisdom for non profit accidental techies. All right. And I saw you checkered with Donald Techie. Okay, so So we’ve gotta persuade our vice president, CEO and board, Maybe. I mean, the board may not be involved in what we do. Ah, fundraising campaign on Facebook or not. But at

[00:29:43.83] spk_4:
least these leaders, you

[00:30:05.28] spk_1:
persuade some people in the chain that we should be focusing on the five people a year who hosted us hosted a fundraiser for us on Facebook. Or it might be more than five, But but not not the 500 who gave at the rate of 100 each to to those to those five fundraisers. Ones who created the campaign’s not the wardens who donated to the campaigns.

[00:30:32.38] spk_4:
Okay, wait a few rooms about Facebook. You know, sometimes people have negative feelings about Facebook and that can you know, dr their business practices and where they’re choosing to invest their time. And what we’re what we’re here to say is Evaluate, evaluate, test it. Is it gonna work for your organization or not? And

[00:30:32.57] spk_1:
it

[00:30:32.68] spk_4:
probably is. So, you know, get ready. Get ready for that

[00:31:05.04] spk_1:
time for our last break. Turn to communications. They’re former journalists. So you get help getting your message through it is possible to be heard through the headlines. They know exactly what to do to build relationships with the journalists that matter to you. They are themselves former journalists. Those great relationships will lead to great coverage. They’re a turn hyphen to not CEO. We’ve got but loads more time for Facebook fundraising data. Nick you not because you interrupted, but Julia said earlier that you had some tools that we can applying here. You want to acquaint us with something?

[00:32:40.83] spk_5:
Yes. So my background as a digital fundraiser, we got into this early when client we saw the problems of the clients were having with data on. We started doing everything like, manually with spreadsheets and reaching out to fund raisers one of their time on Facebook, that kind of thing. And we just decided Look, this is crazy. We’ve got to build a tool to help that fast forward 18 months later, and we’ve got over 100 nonprofits in seven countries using give panel on What we do is we basically help organizations take the power back from Facebook? That’s kind of what we do. Like Facebook are getting a lot out of this, and that’s great. They’ve given us free tools. It’s free to use no platform cost, no technology costs, nor even any credit card fees, Right? So Facebook have given us something great. We know that they benefit, but our job is to leverage that tool as much as we can get a gun and leverage it for their advertising model on to keep them employees happy and like it’s a great thing that they’ve given the world. But it’s upto organizations toe to take the power back. And so we do that by helping how organizations Steward Steward their fundraisers get the data from their fundraisers on do you know, see graphs and dashboards and all that kind of thing. So it’s kind of the missing tool that Facebook haven’t given Facebook’s base books. No interested, necessarily in kind of building the best tool for charities, their customers, the end user on. So they’ll always be a gap where people like me will want to service the non profit. Right? OK, that’s what we

[00:32:43.61] spk_1:
do. Okay. Thank you. Julia party. Your description says how to identify who launches Facebook fundraisers. Is that Is that something that’s difficult to dio Julia?

[00:32:54.64] spk_3:
Yes. So Facebook is not going Teoh tell you when someone launches fundraiser and they’re not going to tell you who has necessarily launched a fundraiser. So you do have If you’re small organization and you’re not using a tech tool like give panel to help you, then you are going to have to figure that out. You’re gonna have to constantly be looking at your fundraisers and constantly trying to figure out and identify where the campaigns are. But that is absolutely crucial even for a small organization to dio to thank people especially, and give them the tools to sort of have already in your maybe on your website toe have a little bit of a tool kit. Maybe it’s a one page document with tips for fundraisers to really elevate their campaigns because we know nobody was born a fundraiser. No one’s born knowing how to fundraise. And if someone’s trying to raise $200 for their birthday, it’s a win win. If they can succeed because they’re gonna feel great and it’s going to be an amazing legacy for them and they’re gonna be really excited, and then you’re gonna build that relationship with them because you helped them. So, yeah,

[00:34:06.96] spk_1:
so how do we identify if we don’t have a tool? How right? Go to Facebook O. R. And find who’s doing this for us.

[00:34:14.09] spk_3:
I’ll turn that over to net cause there’s a couple ways.

[00:34:25.07] spk_5:
Okay? Yes. So Facebook. When you signed up to Facebook giving tools, you get a tab on your fate on your non profit Facebook page that says fundraisers. So you can see fund raisers that have raised more than $50 in that list. The problem is that you over about 70 60 to 70% of your fund raisers don’t reach $50. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of big fundraisers, but there’s also a lot, a lot of small fundraisers.

[00:34:41.89] spk_1:
All right, so you’re not going to capture the smallest ones. You won’t be able to say thank you to them. Maureen, what do we do? Once we have identified the people who have have launched these fundraisers for US

[00:35:35.06] spk_4:
micro appreciation, I’ll use next term. You have to find small ways to recognize and appreciate the effort that these fundraisers air making, no matter how much or how little they’re raising for you. Facebook is the great equalizer in that everybody sort of knows what everybody is doing, and your fundraisers expect it. They expect you to be paying attention. They expect you to thank them and acknowledge them all within the tool, you know? Yeah, you certainly want to try to get enough information and their permission to move them over onto your email list so that they can learn more about your organization. They can be more empowered to fundraise more for your get otherwise involved, but, you know, sending a message. Knicks got a great program where people send a tiny little gift like a like a pin, a piece of swag that in your non profit they have sitting around It’s pennies. Teoh access it a diner to to mail it out, and then that person has a tangible thing that is reinforcing that relationship. They knew that I did it. They took a minute to say thank you. They actually gave me a thank you gift. And so every time an opportunity comes up in my personal life for me to start a fundraiser, I’m gonna go back to that organization and show my loyalty.

[00:36:20.11] spk_1:
And what can we do to encourage these fundraisers, whether it’s birthday or or whatever, How can we? How can we be promoting that idea to To our constituents?

[00:36:34.41] spk_4:
You do have to promote it. Radio promoting Julia, which I

[00:37:28.28] spk_3:
guess you have to be proactive rather than reactive. So sure, setting up the tools and registering for Facebook payments. Make sure you’re you know I’s are dotted and your T’s are crossed and your registered and you have all the tools set up. But it’s just like with the Donate button on websites 5 10 years ago. If you just put it on your website and don’t tell anybody, then you can’t just expect the donations to rolling as much as they could. You really have to be proactive. So advertising it, telling people this is an exciting new way. It’s effective. It’s safe Facebook doesn’t take any fees, kind of dispelling the myths and misconceptions out there around Facebook fundraising showing people examples of other fundraisers that have occurred, giving them the tools like, um, giving them photos, giving them videos, giving them text, explaining to them here the top five things to do when you start a Facebook fundraiser. Here’s what to do when you hit your halfway point but actively encouraging people. I’ve seen it in a welcome email sequence. Actually. Ah, lot of nonprofits. When you sign up for the email issue, make a donation. I’ve seen them encourage you in their little sequence. Say, to make a bigger impact. Would you be interested in setting up a Facebook funders or force? Put something on your website? Put something in your email signature. Do a Facebook live. You know, you really have to look at it as all hands on deck promoting this.

[00:38:06.00] spk_1:
What do we know about the characteristics of people who are most likely to do this? Are they necessarily the under 30?

[00:38:13.12] spk_3:
I don’t know, Nick. You might know that we

[00:38:15.41] spk_5:
we don’t have any demographic information. What we do have is that its acquisition, actually, this isn’t for something for your existing supporters donors as much as it is people who are getting noted, verified a week before on Facebook, a week before their birthday. Hey, do you want to set up a birthday fundraiser? And then they’re searching for breast cancer? They’re searching for arthritis. They’re searching for dunk cap, you know, whatever they want, their passion about what they want to give to. So 90% of our client data From what the studies we’ve done our new to the organization. They’re not people that were already on the database. So this is acquisition and its huge. We have clients that have 30,000 fundraisers a month. I mean, when you get it right, it’s by big.

[00:39:05.70] spk_1:
I’m surprised to hear I’m surprised to hear its acquisition. I didn’t expect that at all. We’re committed donors who thought of you on their birthday. You’re saying they’re thinking that their birthday is coming up and they’re looking for a cause?

[00:39:39.52] spk_5:
Yeah, that’s like So my my wife lost unfortunate, lost her mom to breast cancer two years ago. She wasn’t she just fighting breast cancer and shows the 1st 1 that came up on what we’re seeing is as more nonprofits get on Facebook, the slice of the pie is getting thinner and thinner, so you need to get in early is growing, but so is the adoption. And so organizations that go on it two years ago did very well. It’s not the birthday. Fundraising is slowing down is the fact that actually more organizations are jumping on because they’re seeing how successful it is.

[00:39:46.57] spk_1:
Okay, we’re gonna start to wrap up, Julia. I’m gonna give you ah, a shot and then never go to Maureen for the final. What do you want to leave people with? Maybe how to get started. Whatever final thoughts.

[00:39:59.52] spk_3:
Well, if you’ve not started yet, go to social good dot FB dot com and see if you’re eligible to register. It’s not open in every single country yet. And some tools air open in some countries and some are not. But the very the second thing I would dio is understand that this can Onley augment and enhance what you’re doing. What we’re saying is not to completely replace everything that’s working. I’m not saying Onley to face with fundraising and throw out your direct mail, which is what people are hearing. I think sometimes when I talk, I’m not saying that. I’m saying this is gonna enhance. And like Nick just said, it’s a way to acquire new people that are passionate. That could be even more passionate about your cause. Because everyone’s already on Facebook all day already. You know, there’s millions. Billions of people on Facebook is the leverage, the tools and do the best you can with what you have.

[00:40:55.84] spk_1:
Okay, Marine, would you wrap us up, please?

[00:41:31.71] spk_4:
Sure. Um I would say, Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good, you know we can. We’re very terrible about snow. Sometimes in non profit culture. We take a really long time to think about things. A really long time to change gears. This is a time for action. Even if the world wasn’t dealing with the pandemic, it is a time for action for nonprofits. Try something having experimental frame. Get buying from your leadership, but try it. Try it. You really have nothing to lose. How’s that?

[00:41:38.24] spk_1:
Would an impassioned plea Yes, that Z from from Kit God, that’s Marine will be off digital strategist and technology coach with practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Also, Julia Campbell, The

[00:41:47.02] spk_3:
Penis of your voice over Any time you talk

[00:41:49.93] spk_1:
work what it is. The company right?

[00:41:52.11] spk_4:
It absolutely is

[00:42:10.80] spk_1:
way. Non profit. Accidental techies. Julia Campbell, author, speaker, trainer, author, speaker, teacher and trainer. Well, teachers Train right, Jay Campbell, social marketing and Nick Byrne with Any at the end. Founder and CEO Give Panel Marine and Julia and Nick. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

[00:42:15.43] spk_3:
Thanks, tony. Thank you.

[00:43:41.52] spk_1:
Stay Well, I’m glad we were able to work this out and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the virtual 20 NTC workshops sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. The Knowledge Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us next week. The special episode on the racism conversation and more from 20 NTC on the regularly scheduled show. If you missed any part of today’s show, I’d be sent. You find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com. But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and my turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Ah, creative producer is clear. Meyer off Sam Liebowitz Managed stream shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our rep guy. This music is by Scots You with me next week for not profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great