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Curtis Springstead: Free Coaching In 2018
SCORE coaches small nonprofits nationwide through its network of volunteer specialists in marketing, HR, technology, management, finance and more. Curtis Springstead is from the northeast New Jersey region and he reveals how to get free, ongoing support for your organization.
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Welcome to twenty martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas to be either ninety five percent on your actor named oh, i’m glad you’re with me, i’d suffer the effects of organ neo-sage if you got taste saying you missed today’s show free coaching in twenty eighteen, four coaches small non-profits nationwide through its network of volunteer specialist in marketing, hr technology management finance and mohr kurt kurt springstead is from the northeast region, and he revealed how to get free, ongoing support for your organization and maria’s twenty eighteen plans. Maria semple has strategies for your fund-raising digital marketing and trusted research prospect, research contributor and prospect finder. I thought he’d take you twenty eighteen plans all this month responded by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enables, tony got a last person and by wejust piela guiding you beyond the numbers. Western piela dot com hello durney credit card processing into your press of revenue stream. Tony dahna made black teller i’m pleased to welcome kurt springstead to the show. He is a certified mentor and chairman for the score northeast new jersey chapter his near forty year career was in information technology and ranged from programmer trainer and adjunct professor. Tow it, director, consultant and non-profit boardmember score is at score. Mentors and score dot org’s. Kurt springstead. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It’s. A pleasure to have you, um, score. Now, i i grew up with score being the service corps of retired executives, but that’s ah, that’s. Old news, right? Yes. We’ve dropped that. That acronym? Because it turns out that nearly half of us are working to some degree, many full time in some part time. Okay, so so i was like, like, aarp is no longer the american association of retired persons. It’s just aarp like that, right? Like that. Okay, um, and score is nationwide and supported by the small business administration. Technically, we have our own funding from the directly from the government, and we’re a partner of this administration. They just kind of helped me or the money out. Okay, okay. But of course, score is itself a non-profit so people can give to score and support the work. Well, the way we have our own non profit foundation called the score foundation. Okay, in order to to accept funds donated from the public or from corporations that want to sponsor is because as a government agency, which is what we are, we obviously can’t take donations. Oh, you’re still you like you’re a part of small business administration? Not just i thought, supported by the website says, supported by i thought that meant like you get grant, you get a grant from score. I mean, from s b a. But what exactly happened? Wear actually empowered by an act of congress and they give us a small grant that they they ask our big brother, the spd administer. Okay then, when someone tried to donate a large sum of money a few years ago, we had to figure out how to make advantage take advantage of that. So i created the square foundation, which then sponsors various programs that were involved in whether it be training or outreach. They allow us to be more effective than what we get from the government. Okay, so the yes. So the score mentors are acquainted with non-profits not wanting to turn down gift if they don’t have to. Absolutely. Well, we we end up in our particular chapter having to raise nearly half of the money we need to operate. So we understand all the all the issues that not-for-profits okay, excellent. Eso s o score is i think i feel i feel like my voice just crafting a score score score score is mentoring that is on coaching that is available nationwide, including for non-profits let give us a sense of the breath of this. What? What? What non-profits could learn? Sure. So, yeah, one of the key services we do offer is confidential and free mentoring for as long as you’ll have us. And, you know, there’s about thirteen thousand of my friends in three hundred thirty chapters across the country with people who have done everything you can imagine serial entrepreneurs, uh, people with industry specializations, i spent a lot of time as you mentioned it, but we have people who are retard lawyers piela people have come from not-for-profits organizations and so on, and then what we offer you is whatever services you might need it’s really, in terms of a coaching, a relationship. So if you were people come to us with simply a gleam of an idea, i’d like to create an organization or like to create an entity that does the following and i need to know where the steps are. What are my resource is? How do i make it happen? And since most of us and our careers have been down that road already, either in for-profit or not-for-profits we can i tried to tell you where the where the dangers are and what kind of decisions you might have to make. Okay. And that’s, that’s, that’s pre startup. But our listeners are are already in non-profits, you know, vast majority is already in non-profits so i first of all, i just love the idea that this is available to us as us taxpayers and non-profits ah, you know, in part supported by our small business administration. I love that guy like that, right? So actually, you should be really important. Happy the taxpayer because for every dollar the government gives us, we return fifty dollars. I don’t think there’s any other group in the government that actually gives money back. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So the yes. I mean, well, you know, we tend to see a lot of people who are looking to start a business, but probably nearly half our business. People who already in business. Ok. For a significant period of time, and so the services are the same. The questions they’re sometimes different not trying to find out necessarily where to go, but we have some trying to grow or i’m thinking of adding a new line of service, or i’m struggling with managing the people that i have a client come to me has been a business for twenty five years, and suddenly the numbers went went rid. She had no idea why that happened or what was going on had, uh, any number of people who come to us with, uh, you know, i just we feel we need to grow. We need to serve more of our clients. We’re not getting out to the the community we were designed to serve. How do we make people aware of us? How do we get volunteers? All those kinds of questions that we run into excellent. Okay, so so even though it’s small business administration, you know that there’s a reason that you’re on non-profit radio i want listens to b b certain that they can avail themselves of this inn non-profit so so whether it’s marketing or law or human resource is a righty or accounting? What? I mean, like any any business functionality is available for the is available as coaching and mentoring that i haven’t run into anything yet that i can’t find, you know, the reality is that for, you know, a cz you’ve mentioned, i’ve been on board and, you know, i’m i’m running a fifty person ah, small non-profit myself locally with the team that i have, so i’m struggling to find more money trying to struggling to find volunteers, i’m tryingto struggle to keep them engaged, too. Figure out how i can reach more clients, which is one of the reasons is wrong with you today. What can i do to make sure that everybody knows our service is out there? So we have the same kinds of problems, the same issues. So, you know, sometimes you need legal advice, and i appreciate the nuance that there are some regulations and some decisions that are different for those of us who are in a not for profit status and the have you got a charitable registration you need to set up? How do you? Some of the legalities of when we hyre people on how we treat them are a bit different howto do with the tax situation. I mean, one of the most interesting questions i get it someone has come to us, has had a for-profit business i have working with a woman who’s been teaching art for a number of years, but now she wants to turn it over and offer some of her courses for free on the internet. And she was going to look for grants. Well, unfortunately, she’s a commercial operation and the number of grants for a commercial operation are quite small. So we started to talk about how she might look at establishing an aw for-profit and attract people to make donations to that business. So i, you know, i’ve only been with score about three years, but i’ve been all over the map. So in terms of those kinds of questions, i can’t help but notice the similarities between my four business work in my not-for-profits although, as every business has its own unique nuance, um where where we do our best to help with that? Yeah, we have to take our first break so you just hang out for a moment and it’s time for a break. Data driven fund-raising field guide that is their newest resource on the listener landing page. There was more data generated in twenty, sixteen and twenty, seventeen, and in all of previous history made that is amazing and it’s too much for you to deal with a field guide to help you translate the data. You have the fever got into actionable inside, drive your fund-raising so you can act on your data, not be stuck in its muddled through it. You know that, ah, fancy report that you get out of your fund-raising starita basis is not worth anything. If you can’t act on it and have it helped you in your fund-raising what is taking what they’ve learned in working raise large organisation, and they have boiled down to basic principles for you in data analysis. The data driven fund-raising field guys it’s at tony got a flash for students capital p now, back to springstead and free coaching in twenty eight i’m with kurt springstead on, we’re talking about score, which is consulting, coaching, mentoring, that’s available to you in all these different areas that that kurt has been touching on anywhere in the country. Him he happens to be in the northeast new jersey chapter, but how many three hundred chapters you said throughout the country, country hundred thirty welcomed the beauty of it is we have a significant number of clients that we service, uh, who who are comfortable with an exchange of e mails, and we’ve also started in the last year or two significant amount of mentoring the video conference, so if the particular expertise you need isn’t in the small team, in your neighborhood or in your your area, then with some help your you, khun, search and find a person anywhere in the united states, and you can make the arrangements to work with it. I was working with the young man who originally met with him in kentucky or talk with him while he was in kentucky and one day we were chatting while he happened to be in china working on this project, so we’re no longer bound by the code we working. Okay, excellent. All right. Very good to know. All right, so if someone wants to work with score, we want to take advantage of this vast consultancy basically that that’s free to us way get started with the the website it scored out. Or gore or how oh, that is the most efficient way to do it. Okay, you go to score dot organ, you’re going to find one of several buttons that it’s going to or hidden around the screen or on the screen that will tell you, you know, meet with a mentor. And at that point, you’ll be asked to you know what? How do you want to do that? Face-to-face email whatever you type in very minimal information that your name and address phone number email a little bit about what you want to talk about and hit entering within two business days. Somebody is probably going to be back in touch with you trying to establish the appointment to move ahead and you make a distinction between mentoring and consulting? How do i know which of those is better for me? Okay, well, actually, there you’re going to be with one person. We find that we have to wear a couple of hats were primarily mentors and had been a consultant most my life. I could make a hope, a simple distinction. A mentor, a guide you through the process asks you questions, ask you to probe things, operas you advice and counsel and points it out, but allows you to come to your own conclusions. We make no judgments about what it is you’re proposing to do or how you propose to do it, because ultimately it is your business. But there are times when what you need is information and instructions specifically how to do something and when we can do that, you know, we can’t practice law, and we can’t do the work of people do, but we can we can help you review a business plan, our build, you know, proposal to a bank. We’re going to coach you on that when i was a consultant, i i also would charge you to do that work or i do it for you. We are not. Equipped to fill out your business plan, but to help you go through that. So most of the time were mentors were were advising coaching, encouraging, sometimes supporting when times get tough. But every once in a while you need someone with the main expertise. Oh, and that’s, when we put on our consulting hat for a bit of time. Now, how do you get familiar with the work of the non-profit before this before this initial meeting? So so the initial meeting is for the purpose of, of understanding. What is it you want to accomplish? Where are you? What have you done so far? And then establishing a game plan? And one of the key things is do we need other players in the meat in the mix? That’s the advantage i have i i i’m probably meet with you with someone else anyway, just because more people that are listening, the better hyre information will gather anyway. But then if i know that there’s a particular expertise or challenge at the moment, then i can go out and make sure that i have the right person with me at that time, or i might need to do. Some more research to find out through my other channels, other partners that we work with to make sure that we have the information that you’re going to need or the access so the resources that you want. So that first hour, so it is really sort of like the doctor taking your vital signs, we need to kind of know what we’re dealing with first, before we start begin to do any kind of diagnosis. I mean, many people come to us, i think they have just a quick question. They want to get answered, and and that may be true, but oftentimes during the dialogue, they come to the conclusion that they there’s more than they had asked for the problem’s bigger or the questions are broader than they had thought and that’s that’s why we look at that first meeting is simply this sort of the diagnosis, okay? And you’ll stay with them. You said it’s a cz long as they’ll have you. Right, so the ad varies a bit by by chapter, but in our our chapter, the basic model is if i were to work with you, for example, i would intend to work with you for as long as you have me and as time would go on, i would expect you would need to have many different resource is, and you’d need things well beyond whatever my expertise might be. So i’m going to just make sure that i’m going to be your single point of contact with score throughout that entire relationship and get you the resource is that you need within score and without way our research, your partner, the fda, there might be a time when we need to reach out to there were two other governmental agencies, for example, to help you with something you’re trying to do and that’s the ideas we have that you can you can build that relationship with deaf. You not constantly telling your story to new people who might show up the answer a question, i suppose it’s something general, i’ve had guests on talking about, you know, planning on dh here we are in january talking about planning for the new year, i suppose it’s like, you know, i don’t feel like my will keep it in your in your ballpark, you know, i don’t feel like my eye is is adequate. You know, but i’m not really i mean, i don’t feel like the programs we have or the methods we have, like we’re two spreadsheet dependent, but, you know, i’m not really sure what direction to go or what, and i don’t know how much you know, money i need to spend, i suppose it’s something you know as general is that, uh, you know, sort of nebula nevertheless, is that well, that’s actualy pretty specific. Thank you, really? For that i was trying to give you a hard i was trying to give you a hard hypothetical. Yeah, so the whole idea’s, because i happen to have that the main expense, i’d start asking in little more in depth questions and understand and why you have these feelings with the challenges are what, what your current situation is preventing you from doing what things you think you’d like to be able to do, and we could talk about whether or not your system would do that. And then because i’ve had thirty or forty years, i can start to help you figure out how to shop for a new solution. If that’s the right case i could give you. Some ideas of what the orders of magnitude of expense might be the time to get these accomplished some thoughts about the steps of going forward, you know, recently have been advising a couple of people who are creating app in their particular space, and it’s it’s been a lot about strategy? You know what kind of a platform that we put it on when i have no money to start with? And then what do i do if i open up my app and i suddenly become, you know, huge, i’ve got, you know, one hundred thousand users where am i thought i might have a thousand on the first day, so all those kinds of things, you know, we’re equipped to do it, and, you know, it doesn’t it’s not always going to happen in a one hour session, and we understand that, yeah, of course, yeah, now i assume this is all confidential, absolutely pr every year we’re we’re required to re certify on our code of ethics and the number one tenant is confidentiality we that’s built into the when you actually agreed to be a client, you’re you’re covered by that, and i could just tell you from my own experience, unless we engage of one of my colleagues into a into a particular client, i’m not likely to be speaking about your personal situation with other members of the team. Frankly, just no, no need to do that. So you could be you can be absolutely certain that whatever we talk about it it’s just between us. Can we bring in other people from the organization? If i want, maybe it’d be helpful for you to talk. Tio my c f o r a boardmember can we can we engage multiple people on our on our side? Absolutely. We recently had a team of from my office to meet with the entire board, a new organization to provide some residents living facilities for people with special needs. And they were struggling with there being pressured but costs. And so it was important to get the full perspective from from their, uh, their leadership to what they thought their challenges and issues were. And that was so we had a nice big meeting, so we’re oftentimes it’s scaled up. And that sounds like a good story. Good non-profit story. How were you able to help? Those folks they st louis where they, you know, they gave us a rundown on what they saw, their challenges and what the in terms of the quality of people they needed toe hyre because of the concern for the people that the population they were serving, the challenge is about how they were funding the business. There were some options available to them, given the structure of some of the reimbursement that’s available through healthcare plans and such on dh ahs well as the diversity of their program, and we were able to share with them from our differing expertise. I had someone who had financial background, and there was another one with people back, personnel background, and i looked at some of the systems approaches, we were able to provide them with some frankly, in their case, so a way of sort of prioritizing the many challenges that that they had, and that seemed to be a recurring theme by the way that we run into many of the existing businesses there are there are so many things we could work on that sometimes we can’t make up her mind, which is the one that, uh, it’s going to be the most productive well and that’s, that and that’s a big challenge, of course, in the non-profit community, especially now, as you know, if if if we see government funding reduced to the point, where are our state can no longer offer services, you know, i think a lot is going to fall to non-profits and prioritization is going to be the challenge. I mean, this is gonna be so much more that needs to be done. Can we do it? Should should we be doing it on def? So you know how right? And, you know, i think the other thing is that for many clients of in both the non-profit world as well, the for-profit world, sometimes the best be that outside force or that outside opinion, um, your board is a good team, your volunteers were good team, but you you are not already looking through a filter based on your day to day knowledge of what, what you do and how you’ve done it. We come in with with none of those constraints, we don’t we don’t know everything about the business, so we’re not afraid to ask stupid questions or two proposed the idea from another industry or another space that perhaps could be adapted to your space. One of the interesting things we teach some business start up ideas, and one of the concepts in there for one of the leading thinkers is that there are no new business models. There are simply people who were innovatively applying business models into a world where they have not traditionally been used thinking of things like amazon into the book market, for example. So sometimes it just creates it’s just good to hear somebody who doesn’t already have the corporate think, if you will say, agree with your idea or think that your priorities are correct. What about around social media? If i if i feel i’m struggling, i’m not sure which which channels to be in? Um, i’m not you know, i don’t feel like i’m thoroughly engaged with people you know is help with social media within within the score of expertise to a degree, yes, i would be we find that more often than not just because of this, the fact that it moved so quickly, even with some of the the younger subject matter experts that we have on our team it’s just hard to keep up, so we understand i mean, frankly, is an organization we were struggling every day and constantly checking to make sure that what we’re investing in, what we’re doing is social meat is working, but so we can give that some overviewing could put that in the context of other efforts that you might be doing to get your workout, but we also can help you identify a partner if that turns out to be the right thing, because there are two aspects to it through the strategic aspect, which we can offer probably more help with, and we have we have, you know, hundreds and thousands of resource is on our national website on a variety of topics, several of which are around that we also produce a webinar every week on a different topic and oftentimes social media’s his way one part of that so we can provide that overall information, but sometimes it’s uh, i will just tell you that score we’ve hired a contractor who actually implements a lot of our strategy and making sure that we’re getting post out, helping us figure out howto measure and find out if it’s actually working if we’re if we should be boosting post if we should be buying at how are we using our google place that nature so we can get you two started in that the right direction? Sometimes all we can do is help you be a good customer when you have to go out and buy a resource. Because you what? You really someone who could come and spend time, day after day doing the work for you, which were just not structured, right? Right. That’s, not yours. Ok, but but you can’t help identify the questions we should be talking. We should be asking potential vendors and identify the for us, you know, a process for for hiring, whether it’s frankly, whether it’s, a social media manager or ah or an outsource cfo or right. I mean, you can help with that, you know, acquiring the expertise? Absolutely. And so it will be better than just sort of, you know, hitting up google and looking for the one in neighborhood. Yeah, we’ll give you some some measurements of some things you can ask during the interview. What should you look for in their in their background or in their proposal, if that’s the right thing and some sort of sense of perhaps with the fees and costs on toby, i’m thinking about this, too. In terms of finances, you know, a lot of people, lots of people get into non-profits started non-profit because they have enormous passion for some cause and let’s put aside the question whether forming a non-profit was the right business decision to make or not because they already passed, that they’re already incorporated, but they often are lacking the business savvy that it takes two to scale and sustain. And i think i think financial issues particularly stand out what you know suppose suppose that’s me, i mean, i got a lot of passion and i’ve already incorporated is a non-profit but i’m not sure i’m accounting correctly, you know, people talk to me about ah, accounting software, you know, how do i start? Right? And you have the reality also is this significant potential legal and issues if you don’t do that sort of thing, right? So yeah, that is that’s a very common peace. I would just tell you that very few people who go into business a cz well, who might have a passion for a not for profit uh, area really ever intend to be the business person they wanted. They want to serve the population, they wantto feed the cause they want to, you know, sell the best pizza, whatever it might be. So and then they say, oh, not so now. I’ve got to run this business thing and double these forms, and the government wants something, and i got to write a check to this guy and i just, you know, what’s all this about and that’s where we can provide a couple of layers of support sometimes it’s simply where those of us who are from score who have the financial chops of the management chop could just be that that mentor we meet with you on a fairly regular basis, help you realize, you know, figure out howto watch the pulse in your company and make some of the long term, bigger decisions if you’re comfortable doing the day to day checkbook and that sort of thing, okay, for other people, it’s it and, you know, maybe you’re lucky and you you’ve blossomed you in your really big skill, you know, i was on the board of a couple of not-for-profits that are, you know, had million, multi million dollar budget. So we we had professional accounting firms to do it eso again helping to find the right people. But also, you know, people will tell you, make sure you do the right accounting and so on. But you need to go with them and help them explain to them well, what your strategy, which your long term plan for the organ ization? Where am i going to go next? Because that might affect what they do today. So we can help you crystallize and formulate those plans on growth situations. And then you have someone who could do the day to day blocking and tackling. If you do need sources of funds, where do i find that? You know, if i’m not for-profit i have some opportunities. Perhaps go for grants. How do i write a grant? Where would i find a grant writer? Do i need a grant writer? That kind of thing all come up as we go forward. And then also how do our their limitations on the money that i have? I can tell you that in my organization. There are certain things that i can’t pay for with the money the government gives me to operate, but i can pay for with the money i get through donations off. All right, so these are all factors that we many of us have expertise we have their knowledge of and worst cases again, we will help you become the better informed consumer of services for by a professor. All right, we have to leave it there. I just wantto make sure that people understand, too, that there are a lot of do-it-yourself resource is at score dot org’s articles outlines templates. Kurt mentioned one hour webinar every week, so i’m encouraging you for twenty eighteen to check out, score, score, dot or ge and at score mentors. Kurt springstead thank you so much, my pleasure. We need to take a break. Redner’s here’s a testimonial, i was on my new position when i began working with regular piela my confidence, i can have grown knowing that i can rely on the professionals to answer any questions and make recommendations that will ensure the success of our non-profit you were given sound advice enabling us to increase investment income while at the same time, protecting you. Ask that. I trust and respect our audit team on the forward to their annual visit and vote. That is, from a midsize religious organization in the big graft. Dahna look at this. I mean the people of more than piela e-giving investment income on that’s. Good advice. And the person looked forward to their orders. I don’t think you have no properties are looking forward to order. I think they’re more feared, maybe dreaded, but it’s not a fortune from the midtown religious organization in the mid west and diversity of expertise reminds me of all the guys that they have all the guys, guys, guys, all these forms in ten places and white papers on diver subject oppcoll way beyond accounting. No, lecter goes way beyond the numbers for their clients. You know that you’re supposed to change audit firms every three years to get a fresh perspective on your practices on the first set of eyes looking over your books and your management management processes. You want the advice of a firm that goes broads help you? I think you know beyond the balance. So that is what i’m always saying. They go beyond the numbers talking on one of the people you could talk to. Is you too, who’s? Been a guest on the show martignetti piela dot com that’s not tony. Take two. Well, it’s almost for your twenty eighteen planning there’s. More coming after this one next week. Takagi what is the new tax law metoo for your twenty eighteen? Hundred. And on january twenty sixth, it’s gonna be me and amy, i’m gonna be talking about starting your plan e-giving programs in twenty eighteen, and then amy sample ward is gonna have her twenty, eighteen plants, just like maria has plans coming up very shortly. We’re supposed to have joe garrett. Unfortunately, he had a family emergency, couldn’t make the day that we were gonna be recording, so we’ll get joe garrett back fund-raising plan. But instead of joe playbook, that i get that, but i’m always got, so we have got you covered for the whole year, all month of january, that is all you got to do. My pleasure. Welcome. Maria semple, prospect finder, trainer and speaker on prospect research. Latest book is magnifying your business. Six tools and strategies that growing your business or your non-profits our joy and if they’re free, get the prospects finding dot com and at maria semple welcome back, maria semple. Happy new year. Happy new year county. How are you today? Thank you. Doing great. Thank you very much. It’s. Good to talk to you. And and you’ve been thinking through what i’m calling maria’s twenty eighteen plans. What are you going to start with? So, you know, i thought i would give a little bit of a mixed some tips that i might be, you know, might have offered through my focus. Well, it’s, um, it’s really focused in on prospect research in particular. And just, you know, trying to make sure that non-profits are a cz short up, as they possibly can be for the upcoming year. Okay, so that book might like that magnifies your business school gravity’s growing your business or your non-profit looking talking about? Yep. That’s the one that’s, the books magnifying. Okay, i wanna make sure that was it. All right. So what? Do you want something? Well, you know, i was thinking about thie importance of really solidifying your relationship with individuals. Andi, this is where i think non-profits really have the greatest strengths on dh, their greatest opportunities as well, for growing. So, you know, when you think about, you know, launching a major gift effort or maybe upgrading your major gift effort, this is really the year to do what if you haven’t done so already? So, you know, sort of a first step that you might consider doing is to do a database screening. There are a number of companies out there that will screen your entire donordigital base, um, so that you’re really able to kind of elevate those those prospects that might be hidden in your database and give you an opportunity that you know where to focus your efforts. All right? So you’re encouraging diversifying into an individual e-giving program if you don’t already have one that’s, right? That’s, right? But you need to know where we’re to focus so very often if you’ve got a board that’s been changing out a lot or you’ve got, you know, a lot of staff changes and so forth. And you really don’t have that longevity and people really standing who’s in that donor database, so you’re able to sort of look at it on your own, obviously that’s seen cheapest way to do it right? Because now you’re not, you know, outsourcing anything, they’re not paying anybody to screen the database, but i really find that when when organizations take an opportunity to do that, it gives them the chance elevator to the top, the names of the people they should really be focusing in on. So, you know, you might even do it. Has a lot of the companies will allow you to send in a batch and test your database to see, you know, if it’s going to be worthwhile. Thio do the whole thing. Okay, um, something else you want to have in place before you do a major gift on individual individual giving program, major gifts or welchlin yeah, you’re gonna end up with maybe get program if you take this important step starting individual e-giving program’s going to end up with major donors, some are goingto give more brothers, but either way, you want to have ah, constituent relationship matters in a database. You crn database in place on dh. There are very affordable ways of doing that there’s so many different cloud services and there’s some that you just played by the records. So when you’re starting small, you know, you don’t have to have the major’s your commitment, maybe database, that, uh, that is only going to have a couple dozen names in the beginning, but you want to have a way of capturing all those relationships all those different data points with people because of something that you just mentioned area staff turnover, when when one person leaves, they’ve had all the conversations with, you know, half your donors, uh, you don’t want to lose weight, and i talked about that. You don’t want to lose all that precious information, right is right, and, you know, it’s a problem as as i’m sure you’ve seen in your own consulting that happens time and time again, where you get in there and you talk to an organization and they say, you know, well, you know, i’m new here, i’m only on the job three months i’m really not sure what those relationships were like on dh then you find out that you know, a lot of conversations and so forth, which simply not recorded anywhere. Elearning yeah, i mean, the last thing that you want to do is call the donor and say, hi, you know, my name’s, maria semple, on our new year of the organization, and i’d like to get to know, you know, for your interest, why do you give to us, you know, i mean, you should know that you should know all of that information. Yeah, i just had that conversation with your your predecessor two months ago, so so database screening find find people on, of course don’t only pay attention to the wealthiest in your in your in your database on that also have your e r n, right? Okay, you’re you’re also encouraging, looking into recurring yeah, you know, this is a place that you have an opportunity to garner, and i’m going to say those smaller gifts, those people that will commit ten dollars in most twenty dollars a month, whatever it is that’s hating their credit card, everybody so, you know, many of us are already used to paying whatever netflix, whatever this monthly charges that’s hitting our credit card accounts. On dh so it’s already sort of been absorbed into our monthly budgeting and so forth. And so if you can convince people to start setting up a recurring, uh, payments to your organization that’s going to go a long way to helping booth and of course, you’re not talking to the major gets here. You are talking about getting people in, perhaps at a much lower entry point and keeping them engage. I think it’s pretty standard practice, but i was going to make this explicit no on that donation page that you’ve got. You want to have a button for making monthly or something like that so that the person who is giving at a level that could conceivably be the monthly recurring donation could easily do it, you know, you know, ryan and i have to go in someplace special to make a set of recurring giving, i think that’s pretty standard, but i want to make it quick, make sure hyre no, that could be it could be very valuable. And you know what we get on saying that people just forget about it and fills, usually until their credit card expires, and then they’re reminded oh, yeah, no, i got this thing, and then and then sometimes that’s an opportunity for you asking for upgrades when a person is reevaluating. I mean, yeah, there’s always a chance that they’re goingto stop those donations at a point like that. But there’s also a chance that they’ll they’ll increase it. So you use a of failed transaction as an opportunity to essentially increase. Yeah, yeah, and, you know, it’s an opportunity for you to really start using the language that you would use, maybe with a major gift donor-centric tuo invest on a monthly basis in our organization, you know, you might have a monthly investments that you have set up for, you know, for yourself, for your for one kings or, you know, whatever we’d like you to take just ten dollars and twenty dollars a month and invest with our organization in the future viability of the organization. So, you know, give that compelling story, give that compelling reason why they should be engaging and investing with you on one thing faces, okay? And that’s, uh, you wanted to be telling them stories about about your outcomes, basically, what a big part of the story. Selling that’s, right? That’s right night. I saw that you actually had done them a video recently, you know, kind of on this topic as well. You know, you’ve got to be able to thankfully tell your story and, you know, there’s a lot of information out there on the web, all you need to do is really do a google search for non-profits storytelling, um, there are a lot of experts in that arena i’ve seen some of them speak even at the american marketing association conference on dh you know, the thing that you have to get across to people is, yeah, you’ve got your stats on, you know, those important metrics that you’ve got to be able to communicate, but that’s usually not what’s going to sell somebody right on on wanting to invest with your organization. So you’ve got to be able to humanize it and tell stories about the impact that your organization has on the community and, you know, making sure that you’re kind of a hearing too, really good storytelling, a beginning, a middle and an end and really understand all the different types of stories that there are out there. There’s a reason why we can’t remember, you know stories about whatever little red riding hood and the three little pigs, right? There’s a certain set up to those stories, you can learn tons of information about that on the web, and i really encourage you, teo teo, focus focus in on getting the story straight not only for your major gift donors, but also across the board at all we know right now definitely cross for this matter from e-giving five dollars a month with five dollars, more than they need to know what you’re infected and we’ve had listen, we have a guest here too. You go, teo durney martignetti dot com and search storytelling, the the guests we’ve had on that subject will obviously come up. Yeah, you got to share your impact? Um, you’ve also been thinking about trying to capitalize on sigil ambassadors? Yeah, yeah. So talented people. Yeah. So, you know, i’m sure that this is something that amy sample ward talks a lot about when when she’s on your show, tony as well. But, you know, you want to think about engaging people to be able to help amplify your message. Right? So, you know i think we’re all asses point sort of accustomed to seeing campaigns were online where your friends or maybe joni there their birthday, you know, raising money for an organization on behalf of their birthday, that type of thing. So those types of sort of crowd funding these people are digital ambassadors for an organisation when they do that, all the people that were involved in that bucket challenge, they were digital ambassadors, right? And there were some that were really, really strong, obviously that the first family, the first guy that kicked it off, they must have had a pretty good following to get to get kissed off as well as he did, but you wanted to try and figure out who those digital ambassadors are if you don’t have any really it’s time to start recruiting some on broadening your outreach, even if you have to think about some paid opportunities, you know, on facebook such as, you know, i don’t know ads are boosted post, yeah, big book and also twitter yeah, yeah, you know, as you find the people who are most network most deeply connected and you start a campaign you wantto be working with them. And this is something that any and i have talked about to work them back channels. You get them enthusiastic and you get them talking before you start your public campaign, right? Get there. And you get that they’re connected to help you in the public. And so that i know that people who follow you, uh, people who were with you and you have the most followers fanned. Whatever. You know, those were the most connected are going. Teo, be active participants in your campaign. Maria, we gotta take a break. We’re going toe. We’re gonna come back and talk more about yeah, ambassadors. And i know you have some resources share finding them right now. I gotta take a break. Elearning credit card payment processing brovey check out the video at tony dot m a flash tony, tell us explained the process of businesses joining tell us on having their credit cards, other payments process by tello’s and reminds you that you are going to get fifty percent of the revenue that hello elearning that’s a long revenue stream because they have one hundred percent satisfaction rate. So you can be assured that the business is going to be pleased, and you’re going to be earning revenue from this four, a good long time every single month. Also, the video for their, uh, one hundred percent satisfaction and the price match guarantee. You go beyond that. Tell us, can’t save the money that you started to tell us, and you’re getting two hundred fifty dollars. So it’s worth starting. Think about businesses. That next-gen tio, you know, as the rest of you watch the video. Think about like, a local body shop where, by the way, out there, all wearing masks and your protection jewelry store the area where they make a pie with the crust recognize from a bakery where hope that we don’t have very good. Um, think about that think about the businesses that you’re you’re boardmember zoho family members only any of these potential referrals to tell us for credit card processing, you just have to generate some interest to check out the video. That’s brightstep teo, your long tail of revenue. Tony got a last tony tellers. Now, look, rebecca miree simple and her twenty eighteen plan. You have some resources for finding who the deepest, most networked ambassadors are among your constituents. Yeah. Yeah. I have some resources that you might want to consider looking into. First of all, i came across a great white paper download that blackbaud put together. They put together a nice free guide. And it’s actually called super has the kids program how to create a super advocate program. So there i read through it, and it looked like there were a lot of really good chips in there. So that might kind of give you the first time ideas about how the framework and what it is that you might want to do and, you know, it really is going to be able to create opportunities foreign organizations most committed supporters really did take more action hyre value actions than than a typical supporter. This’s why you’re our joy and of your cubine free, right? So that the guide is free, but the guide three guys? Yeah, another one, right, yet so a couple of other things actually one that you brought to my attention called attentively, which is one of the blackbaud solutions actually wait give you the opportunity to identify whose influential so they say that a mass email files with social data and so that you can better understand the social side of yours supporters. So if you do have an email list, it is an opportunity to see who amongst that list might be really great social ambassadors reorganization, that’s attentive dot leaves they’ve got a y yeah, they they also make the point that home email i just better don’t. Usually the one people used to sign up with social network, so if you have a file of of home addresses, home email addresses attentively that’s not that’s not well, my treat so that’s not a free one, but no that’s correct zsystems blackbaud but value there and finding the most connected people and you got zaptitude what is zaptitude about? Yes. Zaptitude right. Kind of an interesting name. They have one of their service offerings is called good influence. And i learned about this company a few years ago. And i actually met some of the folks behind the company at one point and met people at the american marketing association conference who use this tool. Two years ago, you been holding out on us. You got a couple of years. You’re feeling it now in january twenty eighteen, you know, i’ve got i’ve got to keep some gems for you. I don’t think w hole not on non-profit idealware way. Never talked about you and waited. All right, maybe you alright? I get it out? Yes. So anyway, they have they have a tool called good influence and basically it it’s an opportunity to is your existing customers because this is used side both, you know, businesses and non-profit so in this case, your existing donors to dr support through new donors. So it’s a platform that really again helps to amplify not so much doing the search like thehe tentative job l y product would do, but really, this could be a platform for you. Teo, try and scale off your digital ambassador efforts. And when i was going back and reviewing some information about the current leadership team i’m looking at the bio of the founder and ceo is kind of interesting in marinette, we talk about the good influence product with the bat phone for the social activation engine for the famous i spoke a challenge current, so i’d be interested in having another conversation with him, actually myself. Teo, figure out more about how exactly the good influence taught. It played into that. I stuck a challenge. Okay, cool. And that’s that information about that is that zaptitude yeah. Dot com. Right. Okay. That’s that that to write? Well, you would be our most likely contributors. So let’s, get some prospect. Researcher idea. That is okay. So i was also thinking about a new arena we haven’t talked about before, which is maybe trying to research some of the companies in your community that are set up as the corporations and so i know, you know, you know why i don’t want to get thrown in the jargon jail so let’s, talk a little bit of what? You know well, listeners know that’s okay, well, that’s all right, gene cog and i’ve talked about the corpse on there now, and they’re they’re social, social good missions, not sickly, profit driven, but they certainly can be profit making, so you’re okay. You’re okay, cool. Cool. Ok, good. So there’s, actually a website called b corporation dot net. Uh, where you can go and search by state and see, you know what? All the big corporations are right in your state on dh. Then, you know, you’re kind of using, you know, good old fashioned prospect research looking at that company, trying to figure out who’s behind the company and so on and so forth and trying to learn a little bit more about him. You know, these people already have a social mission built into their companies. Perhaps the work that you’re doing can align some way with a particular social mission. So, you know, i think it’s an opportunity for you two. Maybe developed, um, uh, some relationship with him. Yeah, most of the time. It’s, private companies, so relationship supply. The companies that are set on our course. I love it. It’s, like it’s, like doing the same kind of research assay. Would foundation wear where they would be court they’re aligned with, and whether you might fit in. Yes, in-kind. What do you got for us? You mentioned a family you mentioned foundation so it’s touch upon that for a moment. If you have not made your annual trust to your local cooperating collections of the foundation center in your in your next the woods it’s time that you do that no, we’re going ahead and get a subscriptions directly to the foundation directory online. So if you have the funds to do it and you do a lot of foundation’s research definitely worth while having that tool in house, but it is available fourth grade if you go to the foundation center or one of their cooperating collections in your community. So what i recommend is to try and focus in instead of the really big foundations in your state, which everybody seems to kind of know today everybody goes, everybody goes, yeah, focus more in on the foundations that are the family foundation’s, even if they do not seem to have a lot of assets and some you will even notice some will come up xero and assets and don’t let that turn you off because if they had gone through the effort of setting up the framework for a sound of private foundation, but there may be, you know, a plan in the future that that family is may be planning to sell business and funding the foundation, and you don’t know what the thinking is behind it and it’s going to get to know them a little bit. So don’t discount the ones that you even see with xero asset, okay? And you trying to find connections between your non-profit and foundations not only terms of mission, but you know, if you’re looking in your state, you’re looking for a board connections two are some kind of some kind of relationship, right board connections, mission over laugh, it could be that they are literally in your county or in your town. So these air opportunity three to try and develop relationships with some of these people don’t forget, i mean, if it’s a family foundation, people behind the whole thing on dh there’s, you know, it’s just happens to be the vehicle by which they are, um, you know, putting all of their philantech through so it’s worthwhile, taking an opportunity to research it there if you don’t have any access, any way of accessing the foundation centers products you could do a similar type search on guide star okay, another case, and as you do your research, don’t be afraid to bring lips of foundation board members and foundation names to your board meeting try to have a board members or, if not at your meeting, circulated some other way, but have your boardmember scrutinizing the foundations that you’ve found that align with your work and start getting people you’re boardmember you know where the where the connections might be, but we gotta leave maria, thank you very much. Happy new year, thank you are joining of thirties and free, you’ll find her at the prospects finding dot com and at maria sinful next-gen takagi what’s the new tax balm for your twenty eighteen fund-raising plan if you missed any part of today’s show, i didn’t think you’d find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuing online tools to small and mid sized non-profits data driven and technology enables twenty dollars, by pursuing your guiding you beyond the numbers regular piela dot com and tell us credit card payment processing your passive revenue streams. Tony got a last tony killers our creative producers try my family, which is the line producer shoretz social media site. Shadow and its wonderful music. In-kind you give me that? We’re not from the radio. Big non-profit ideas for the odd third, ninety five percent go out and records. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah, insights or no presentation or anything, people don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane. Toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
Your board probably recognizes its fiduciary responsibilities, but does it know its role in overseeing programs? Gene Takagi is our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (
