Sarah Wood reminds us of the value in telling good stories to your stakeholders. Also, how do you tell them? Where do you tell them? Which ones are worth telling? What’s ethical storytelling? And, what’s the right engagement or call to action? We pull some lessons from her children’s favorite stories, the “Narwhal and Jelly” series and “Dandelion Magic.” She graciously shares her own story of solo motherhood by choice. Sarah’s company is Sarah Wood Communication.
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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 thrown into dextrogastria if you upset my stomach with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, to tell us what’s going on this week. Hey, Tony, I’ll be happy to. Storytelling. Sarah Wood reminds us of the value in telling good stories to your stakeholders. Also, how do you tell them? Where do you tell them? Which ones are worth telling, and what’s the right engagement or call to action? We pull some lessons from her children’s favorite stories, the Narwhal and Jelly series and dandelion magic. She graciously shares her own story of solo motherhood by choice. Sarah’s company is Sarah Wood Communication. On Tony’s take 2. Thank the folks who nobody thanks. 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 Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity.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. Here is storytelling. It’s a pleasure to welcome Sarah Wood. She is the founder and chief communication consultant at Sara Wood Communication LLC. A lifelong voracious reader, Sarah has been helping individuals and organizations identify and effectively share the stories of their good work for her entire professional career, and she still loves a good story. We’re gonna talk all about stories and storytelling. You’ll find Sarah on LinkedIn and her company is at Sarah with an H Wood communication. Dot com. Sara Woodcommunication.com. Sarah Wood, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here today. Oh, I’m glad, pleasure. Storytelling. You’ve been doing this for a long time. Why, uh, why are, why are we still talking about storytelling? We’ve been talking about storytelling for years now. What, what brings this, what makes this so timely for us? Well, storytelling has become the the term, right, that we’re using now, uh, and people are very into, you know, they talk about storytelling, they talk about narrative, they talk about all that. In reality we’ve been doing this. The entire human existence, right? Uh, I mean, you can go back to caveman days, um, before we even had a written language. People were telling stories, sitting around the campfire, telling stories, uh, and that was how they were teaching people. It was how they were remembering things. It was how they were communicating with each other. Um, and so in some ways, nothing has changed, right? Uh, we still know that there’s a lot of research out there that shows that’s one of the best ways for humans to pass on information. It’s what we do with small children, right? We read to them, we tell them stories. If they’re getting ready to do something new, we talk about like, oh, here’s a children’s book for it, that’s gonna help them kind of like understand and process and go through it. And the same is true for adults, and we still love a story, even those of us who don’t get to read that often. I used to be a voracious reader. I still have that in my bio, but I’ve got two small kids and, you know, a business and everything else, and so I don’t read as much as I would like to anymore. You’re reading. I am. I’ve read so many of them. You’re a voracious reader of children’s stories. What age are your children? Um, they’re 2 and 6. Oh, the 22 year old, do you? I don’t have children. Do you read the 2 year olds or is that too early? You you when they’re like newborns. It’s a it’s a good thing I don’t grow up illiterate because I wouldn’t know I wouldn’t know. Hopefully somebody would have told me. Uh, OK, so you start at, uh, at birth or, you know, we’re hearing our whole lives, right? Whether they’re books, whether it’s radio, whether it’s television, whether it’s, you know, just some story that your parent made up to help you go to sleep at night, you know, we’re telling stories the entire time and we’re listening and we’re learning and that’s how. We learn about humans and we feel connected to each other. So we’ve been, we’ve been doing it the entire time, but there’s a rise of interest in it as far as nonprofits go recently. All right, but before we get to nonprofits, so give a shout out to your six year old’s favorite book. That’s a tough one. You know, he really likes the, um, trying to think of the name of it, Narwhal and Jelly series. It’s a kind of comic graphic novel type thing, and the main characters are a narwhal and a jellyfish. Um, and so there’s all these different titles in the series, and, and he really loves those. OK. So there are, so they may they may be sympathetic or maybe they’re in need of a title or. To, to, to broaden their own voracious reading children’s books. Yeah, and I mean the good thing, good thing they’re they’re kind of out of the, I want to read the exact same thing like over and over and over again. My 2 year old, you know, we’re definitely like, we can read the same book like 10 times in a row and she’s still fascinated. have a favorite? Uh, she likes it. It’s right here next to me. It’s called Dandelion Magic, and she likes it because it instructs you to like blow on the magic dandelion. So, you know, she gets to like, and, and blow, um, and make magic things happens. It’s an engaging. There’s some, there’s some engagement that we may talk about, uh, hopefully we’ll be talking about donor engagement with their stories. So she likes the act of blowing on blowing on the dandelion. Yes, she does, she does. She’s a big fan of that. All right, so we can pivot back to the less interesting but maybe more relevant nonprofit storytelling. All right. Well, some of the same things apply, right? You still want to make it interesting and ideally you’re making it interactive in some sort of way. Um, you know, a son and daughter, you know. Uh, what about feedback or or volunteer feedback or just whoever readers reader feedback on our stories? How do we get feedback? How do we know which is the favorite stories? Well, it depends on how you’re presenting the stories, what stats you have available, right? Different platforms are gonna have different ways for you to measure kind of what’s happening, who, who’s interacting with it and, and who’s not. Um, I mean, you also have kind of Behind the scenes ways of doing that, you know, you can kind of set up some separate URLs or landing pages, you know, so that you can kind of track specific interests of like, you know, who’s coming from this place and who’s coming from that place. Um, so it really kind of depends on what your setup is and kind of how you’re presenting your story. OK, if you’re, if you’re presenting it to a list and if you’re, I guess if your list is big enough, uh, you could test, you could test different stories, right? If you, if you have a large enough list to have a valid test or a simple AB test of different stories, OK. All right, I’m making you jump around, but, uh, I, I know, I wanted to launch off the uh the children’s children’s reading because that’s what you’re a voracious reader of children’s stories. So, yes. Well, and you know, I mean, some, some storytelling does happen in person, right? So if you’re at an in-person event, if you’re at an event for your donors or an event with uh potential donors, right, you can kind of catch up on all the cues, right, of are they interested or not, you know, you’ve got the nonverbals then. Um, but you know, it really depends on kind of how you’re presenting it. That’s, that’s a very interesting ones on that thread a little bit. The in storytelling, like having your cache of, uh, I don’t know, one program or, you know, whatever, you know, you’ve got some stories in mind that when people say, you know, oh I love your Uh, the hospice work you do really moves me, you know, then maybe you’ve got a hospice story or it’s the, uh, you know, it’s the fact that you’re a no-kill shelter. Oh, that really, now I’ve pivoted now. Now that’s not a human no-kill shelter. That’s an animal I’ve pivoted from human to human uh hospice, although you get a pet hospice too, but I wasn’t thinking of that. So we’re not talking about animal urine you’re a no kill shelter. I love that, you know, that aspect because you’re the only one in our state that’s a no-kill shelter or something like that, so. You know, so yeah, I mean I I never thought of in storytelling. Yeah, I always encourage anyone. I mean this is any organization doesn’t have to do with what industry you’re in, but you have to have your elevator speech down first, right? What is your organization? What’s the main thing that you do? Why should people care? You know, you need that kind of one minute spiel, right? Um, that you can give to anyone. And I always tell people, listen, don’t just get your executive director who’s able to do that. Every single. Employee in your organization should be able to give a one minute elevator speech about your organization, what it is, what it does, and why it’s important. Uh, if not, you’re just missing so many potential opportunities because think about how many more people every single staff person of yours interacts with on a daily basis than just, you know, your executive or your C-suite or or what have you. You know, you really wanna make sure that everyone’s on the same page. Um, so that’s one. But also, yes, absolutely, you should have like your back pocket full of like. Pack full stories. I mean, people want to do business with people. We know that there are companies, we know there’s organizations, but the more we can humanize and personalize those and we can put a face to what we’re doing and why it’s important, the more successful a nonprofit’s gonna be. I mean, it’s, it really lays the foundation for anything that you might want to ask those people later, right? Because if you just come up to someone and you say, hey, give me some money to do X, they’re gonna be like. Why? You know, like, what, what impact is this gonna have? Like, and people love other people, right? So, I mean, and it is not, even if your nonprofit doesn’t work with people, like you were just saying, like, the, the dogs, right? Or the no-kill shelter, you know, the dogs or the cats. We wanna like personalize and humanize the dogs and the cats, so that people feel close to them. They feel connected. The more connected someone feels, the more likely they are to. Invest in your organization and in your mission. Right. Now, how about uh disseminating these stories to, let’s say board members or volunteers it could be, could be non board member volunteers, you know, they’re, they’re great spokespeople because they, they devote time. They give several hours a week or whatever, you know, time, time is great value, especially now, time and attention. So. So volunteers could be great storytellers and as well as your board, but how would you, how do you pass these stories on to them? Like, so let’s take, um, let’s take the harder case first, like volunteers. So these folks are spending maybe 45, I don’t know, 10 hours a week or something. How would you arm them with stories about your work? I think volunteers are going to have their own stories, so it’s more about helping them share them in a way that is helpful to the organization they’re gonna share what their work is right, they’re gonna talk about their personal experiences, um, and, and their personal interactions or or and you know what they get out of it and what they feel like they’re doing. Um, so like I said, it’s more about helping them learn how to share that in a way that is effective, um, and that helps the organization overall. So how do you, how do you help them effectively? I think you have to arm them with the facts, right? You want them not just to have their personal experience, but to give them the the bigger picture, right? of how does their personal experience fit in with the bigger picture. I think if they have a particular thing that they want to talk about and they let you know that, I think that you can provide them with the background. Yeah, I mean, if you’re a big enough organization, you can even do media training for your volunteers, um. And you can pitch them as speakers as kind of ambassadors and out into the community, uh, that does take, you know, some, uh, staff effort on the, on, on the inside, but I think take advantage of the opportunities, you know, if you have a volunteer, particularly if you have a volunteer that is very well connected in the community, make sure that they have the information that you want them to have. And if they want to take that opportunity to kind of like practice what it is they want to say, give them that opportunity. OK. All right. And uh board members, that’s a little easier. I mean you could, you could write some story, you could write some anecdotes, you could share, have people come and tell their own personal story at board meetings, right? How important your work is not to the community, but to me, me, my family, my child, me personally, my spouse, whatever, right? And board members and the same thing with volunteers like that are already there if they’re already there. They’re already kind of committed, right? They already know about your organization. They are, they’ve already drank the Kool-Aid to, you know, throw an adage in there, um, you know, they’re, they’re already on board with what you’re doing. You don’t have to convince them. It’s not a hard sell, right? It’s just about showcasing the impact that you are having and nonprofits do so many good things and if they don’t talk about them. They’re just kind of lost, right? I mean you might impact a few people, a handful of people that directly know what happened, right? But if you can’t share those stories and amplify them and put them out into the world, you’re gonna hit a plateau for your organization where you’re not able to get the volunteers or to get the donations or to expand the programming or bring people in that that you could help, right? Because they don’t know about you, they don’t know about what’s happening so the more you can tell your stories, the more you can put it out into the. World, the better off your organization is gonna be because you’re gonna be able to have this foundation of support you’re gonna have this relationship with your audiences because you’ve been consistently telling them what you’re doing so that way when you ask them for money or you come out with big news, they’re already primed to listen to what you have to say because they’ve already decided, OK, this is a valid source and this is a source that is doing important things and so I’m gonna pay attention when they are saying something to me. Right, get good folks out. Um, let’s get folks out storytelling and finish, finish my thought. Um. Yeah, don’t overlook your ambassadors. Any, you know, anyone who is willing to be an ambassador for you and to talk you up, you know, give them the tools to do that. It’s time for a break. 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I mean she does really blow and of course, you know, like you know it is not a slot like dandelions in the book. OK. What’s the name of the book. And magic magic, OK. So let’s let’s continue there. So what about engagement with your stories? Is there, is there a parallel for for nonprofits, folks engaging not so much, yeah, not so much the metrics, but the engagement. The old mode of communication was much more one way communication, right? It was kind of we say it. You hear it, and there wasn’t really an an ability to interact, certainly not in real time, right? I mean, you could conceivably like write a letter and mail it, you know, and, and all those kind of things. Um, but there wasn’t really the ability to interact in real time that we have now, right? And so now we have much more ability to get instant responses or instant reactions, and we can do, we can even do live things, right? Um, and we can get them like right away. Um, so I think. Things that your audience is interested in and that they want to interact with are very important because you don’t want it, you don’t want people to feel like they’re being lectured to, right? You want them to feel like part of the community, part of the conversation. And part of the way you do that is just having interest interesting content, right? But and humanizing it and personalizing it and all the other things that we’ve talked about, um, because that makes people feel more involved. But other ways you do it is, you know, you ask them questions, you give them ways to get involved. You don’t just kind of like put it there. And then drop off the face of the earth, like, um, what do they want to see? You know, what does this make them feel like? Are they going to take action? Here’s the actions we’d like you to take. Would you do any of these things? Like, I think all that kind of engagement is, is important, and It depends on where your audience is, how you’re going to interact with them the most, you know, maybe, maybe your main audience is on email, maybe it’s on social media, maybe it is these in-person events, maybe you do a lot of local in-person meet and greet type things. I mean, it, it really is gonna depend on. The organization and the specific people that they are trying to reach. Um, but yeah, you, I mean, you have to be engaging. I mean, I think we’ve, there are so many people trying to catch your attention. That you have to be engaging or. You’re you’re forgetful, right? I’m not forgetful, you’re forgotten, um. And it’s, it’s hard to catch people’s attention. I, you’re forgotten or you’re forgettable. Yes, yes. And you know, I feel like there was that old adage that You know, you have to hear things 3 times before you would take an action. And I was like, well, that’s very outdated, right? You have to hear things way more than 3 times now. I was on a webinar the other day and someone dropped it, it’s now 25 times. And I was like, well, they didn’t actually cite that. So I don’t know if that’s research based, but it kind of feels true, right? It feels like it, it passes the smell test, right? Because there is just so much information out there and we’re bombarded with it, like all the time. So it’s an and everyone can sell their story now, right? That’s the main thing that’s different about storytelling in the past versus storytelling today. The storytelling in the past was, you know, you kind of had a few people who were able to tell the stories and able to get that out and it was like your major national television networks, you know, your radio channels, that kind of thing, and now everybody has a platform, right? authors, journalists, yes, yes, there was kind of like gatekeepers, right? There were people you had to go through and now everybody can tell their story. It’s really been democratized, you know, we can all tell our story. It’s a what’s important now is being able to choose the stories and determine how to present them in the ways that best reach and resonate with your audience. And another thing that’s come to light is not a lot of, I won’t say just nonprofits, a lot of organizations in general. I feel like back in the 90s we’re doing this a lot and it was kind of the um poverty porn, um for lack of a better term, stories, right? Where you were putting these kind of sob stories of these people that were in this terrible situation and you know, the organization came in and they really like changed their lives, right? And, and up and did it. And, and that may very well have been true. um. But I think there’s more of a recognition today of the importance of telling stories ethically, right? And part of that ethical storytelling is really making sure that telling the story benefits everyone involved, you know, and that we’re not taking advantage of someone who we were able to help in order to kind of. You know, make ourselves look better or to to get more for that, right? We have to be very careful about how we tell these stories, particularly, you know, when people are involved, um, not exploiting a situation or, you know, a tragedy. Exactly and making them aware kind of of the the potential repercussions of sharing their story that maybe they haven’t thought through um because particularly, you know, you might have someone, you know, maybe they’re maybe they’re young and you know they haven’t necessarily thought through that they can tell the story and they can literally follow them their entire lives, right? Um, because of the internet, because of social media, because of the ability to like find information now in, in ways that were not present, you know, in past, in past areas. Um, so I think just making sure that you’re telling the story in a way that benefits everyone, and that might involve, you know, being anonymous, it might involve, you know, changing the way that you’re doing it. It certainly involves making sure that you have The appropriate releases, you know, to, to tell the story and making sure that you’re kind of educating people who may be, who are doing you a solid, right? We’re doing you a solid by sharing the story of how your organization impacted them, that, that they’re actually getting something out of it as well, and that they’re not gonna get negative repercussions from doing so. Let’s talk about what makes a good story, uh, a good ethical story, of course, and uh I wanna use the uh the Norwhal and jellyfish example. What, what do you think makes that a good story? For your, for your son, is that why is that you said it’s a, yeah, what is it what is it about the uh the Norfish that we can, we can extrapolate for good storytelling nonprofits? Well, one, it’s very visual, right? It, it is a graphic novels. I don’t even know. I don’t know if there’s a length to be called a graphic novel because they’re not super long, but I’m going to say they’re graphic novels. OK. Children’s graphic children’s novel. Right. And like most children’s books, right? Most children’s books are super visual. So I think, um, you know, you have to catch people’s attention, you know, and it’s not always visual, but you have to think about what is it that’s gonna catch and keep people’s attention. So that’s not only the story itself, right? So it’s the actual storyline and that being interesting and these particular books have a lot of comedy, right? They’re, they’re funny and they’re cute, um, and there’s a lot of puns. He’s very into word puns, um. So, you know, there’s the things that make the content itself engaging, so the words themselves are engaging. Also the visuals, right? It it’s very visually engaging, there’s lots of pictures for him to look at, um. In his case, there’s not a huge amount of words per page, that’s important when you’re 6, right? Because you’re you’re kind of done with it and you’re ready to move on. But aren’t we supposed to do we supposed to do like we’re like grass grade or something? I, ideally, yes, I mean. You don’t know everyone’s education level, right? And particularly depending on your audience, you know, or if it English as their first language or anything along those lines, right? So, um, you need to keep it easy for that, but also people don’t want to work that hard, right? Um, don’t make people work for it. Make it easy for them to do what it is that you want them to do, you know, and if that’s be invested in your organization in whichever way, if it’s volunteering, if it’s donating, if it’s doing whatever. Make it easy for them to do it, and don’t make them work hard to understand the story and what you’re saying. There’s a lot of industries that jargon is very common, and they tend to throw around acronyms or terms that make a lot of sense to the people involved, you know, like inside baseball, if you will, right? Um, but don’t mean anything to the general audience, and I think that’s one thing we have to try to catch. It’s like, you know, you aren’t speaking to yourself, you aren’t speaking to someone who has the same background and the same details and the same information that you do, uh, and you need to recognize that and you need to use a conversational manner and you need to use language that people are familiar with and that doesn’t mean. You know, you don’t co-opt, you know, you don’t need to kind of co-opt something and be someone who you are not. Still be who your organization is and have that consistent voice. But, you know, you don’t need to speak at like PhD level. I’m writing a dissertation style way to, you know, Joe from down the block, right? Uh, you need to speak in a way that your audience reacts well to and that they understand. You reminded me of, uh, when I was in law school, first year of law school. I hate, I, I, I, I hated practicing law, by the way. I don’t do it anymore, but I was very glad that I went to law school. I still am very glad I went, but your first year of law school, uh, now I went in, uh, 1989, so you, you’d be reading cases and I had literally my dictionary. My Black’s Law Dictionary by my side because every, you know, every paragraph there’s a word I don’t understand. There’s, you know, Latin phrase or something, you know, you don’t, you don’t want need people to be going, going to an online dictionary to get, you know, you don’t need to show off your extraordinarily literate vocabulary in your professional. Storytelling. Keep that to your friends. Because we, we kind of train people to do one thing in school and then you need another thing in real life, right? So in school, we kind of train people over time. You write longer, you use bigger words, you, you know, you do this, this, this, and so you start off, you know, I mean, my kid is in kindergarten, right? He’s writing like I saw. Sue run, you know, like that’s what he’s working on writing, you know, and then by the time you know you’re in college or you’re in grad school or law school or whatever it is, you know, you’re writing these long papers, right? You’re writing a dissertation, you know, and you use the, the big words and use the academic language and you use the insider terms because you have to do, you have to, that’s what you’re trained to do. That’s right. And then once you get out into like the real world. And I was like, I haven’t written anything that’s more than like 4 pages and I don’t even know how long, right? Because nobody wants to read all that. Like people want it short, succinct, like get to the point, what’s the summary, you know, if, if we do write something along, we always have that one page executive summary in the front, right? Because a lot of people are just like they don’t have the time for it and they don’t have the interest and their capability they don’t, you know, they’re not that invested in it that they’re gonna spend all this time. Digging through to find the gem that they need, right? They really need, they need some bullet points. They needed an executive summary. They need a story that they can remember and that sticks with them and makes sense, you know. And I mean, sure, you could do, I mean, when we talk about storytelling, there’s so many formats, right? I mean, you could really do a really long term, you could write, you could write a book, you could do a long term. Documentary, you know, those type of things. But most of the time when we’re talking about storytelling in this context, we’re talking about, you know, short hits, right? We’re talking about things that are, you know, like under 3 minute video, you know, that you can read in less than 10 minutes, a podcast, right, that you can listen to in a half hour. I mean, we’re really talking about shorter, more succinct, getting to the point. Stories. So you have to kind of like capture someone’s interest from the beginning, and keep it. I mean, the good thing is, I feel like that that is easier to do in a shorter time frame, right? But you have to get to the point faster. You don’t have a lot of runway to kind of meander around the point. I hope there’s still a place for longer form podcasting because we run like 45 minutes to an hour. But uh the good thing about podcasts to podcasts, people are frequently multitasking, you know, so I feel like you get a little more leeway for. Yeah, I hope. You know, I hope they’re not, I hope they’re not doing crossword puzzles or sudoku while they’re listening to Tony Martin and nonprofit radio because then you’re not gonna get the, you’re not gonna get the, the genius of Sarah Wood and other guests if you’re, if you’re too engaged in you’re multitask. So, you know, let’s dumb down the other, the, uh, the, the other part of the, the other tasks while you’re listening to. Nonprofit, you know, if you digest of the impressive. I bet there’s somebody out there who’s done it. I hope so. Oh, if there is, I’d love to know. Well listens to it. That’s what we should do a picture of your nonprofit and you can be a star. I’ll I’ll listener of the pages. Um, let’s talk, you know, the narwhal and the jellyfish. What’s the relationship between those two? Let’s talk about relationships. They are. OK. OK, BFF. It’s time for Tony’s Take 2. Thank you, Kate. The people who nobody thanks, you know, they kind of. silently breathe by us, and they are ignored by most people. I am encouraging you to give a simple thank you, a simple, have a good day. You know, it costs nothing, it’s, it’s, it’s a second. Um, and I’ve been trying to be conscious of this in my own. Mostly, mostly in traveling, uh, so, you know, I’m thinking about. Airport bathroom attendants. They’re keeping these bathrooms clean and like I said, they just come silently in and out, nobody gives them any mind. Say a quick thank you. That’s it. Just, thanks. They’ll get it, they’ll get it. Um, in hotels where you, when you get the, the free breakfasts, now this is not the breakfast that’s served to you, but, you know, I’m thinking of like the, uh, I use Marriott a lot. So like Fairfield, Resident Inn, Spring Hill Suites, you know, they have the free breakfasts, uh little tiny buffets. The folks that put that food out for you, thank you for breakfast. I, I, they’re so grateful to be thanked. Um, flight attendants, you know, flight, I, I, flight attendants, um, they come around and they offer you something and Lots of people don’t even remove their headsets or their AirPods, whatever, earbud, whatever, you know, whatever you got in your ear. And then, and then, and then you, you gotta ask the person, what did you say again, you know, you see them coming like remove the device from your ears so they don’t have to repeat themselves and then, and even some people don’t even give them the courtesy of that, they just They just kind of guess what’s being said, you know, you can usually tell if the court is there with, with the beverages, obviously, you know, it’s time for beverages and snacks, so they, they don’t really even hear and give the person the courtesy of Being listened to. Because they won’t, you know, the passengers won’t remove their devices. So you have a little courtesy, like pause your music or your movie and and actually listen to the person, hear them. Another one, restaurant, um, in restaurants now I think servers are, you know, waitresses, waiters, they’re, they’re generally thanked, I think. What about the people who fill your water in your coffee? They come around sometimes, it’s not the server that you’re, that you’re tipping. And we ignore them, you know, I see this when I see it with friends, I see it with donor lunches, but nobody says thank you for the, for the coffee refill or the water refill. A simple thank you, you know, like the arm is extended in, you know, and it’s just, it’s like it’s not even a person, it’s just an arm reaching in with a pitcher of water. These are people, say thanks and then carry on your conversation. It’s, it’s just that simple. Um, and also in restaurants, uh, the bus staff, people take your plates away. You know, again, it’s an arm, a couple of arms reach in and and and disappearing. They’re not disembodied. These are people. Thank you. Thanks for taking my plate. So, I’m being more conscious of this. Uh, I’m encouraging you to be. Maybe there are folks in your lives who come in and out and, you know, we’re treating them almost like they’re not human, like they don’t even exist, but they do. But you know, so it’s, it’s it’s uh, it’s not very thoughtful, it’s not at all generous to. They giving to to people who. You don’t have to say anything to, but I, I, I think we should. That’s Tony’s take too. Kate, I’m just gonna add a few to the list from my own life, um, Boston guards, we live near a school and you know they’re out there. Uh, making sure our kids are safe. Now, give them a very good one, right, and especially now, freezing out there for an hour or so. Crossing guards, excellent. Wait, you got others. And then also I was thinking shuttle staff, whether that’s like your buses, your trains, that also kind of has to do with your flight attendants, but the people transporting you to and from, give them a little wave. Yeah, yeah. My shuttle driver was actually really nice yesterday because I got off at the wrong stop, or I was going to get off at the wrong stop, but then I stayed on with her. She was like, you got off at the wrong stop, but you can stay with me and I’ll recircle. So she was really nice. See, they, they were people, yes, people are generally thoughtful and helpful and Uh, see, there, there was a very generous thing she did. So there you go, yeah, those are excellent, thank you. Excellent additions. Well, we’ve got Bou butt loads more time. Here’s the rest of Storytelling with Sarah Wood. Relationships, so, you know, how do we? How do we make sure these stories aren’t, you know, so complex? Like you’re, you’re, you were just talking about the length, you know, but. How do we make sure that we’re not including so much detail that the important things get buried? I mean, they’re in there, but they’re not coming out because we’ve got detail about the make another human story, you know, the person’s background or something we need to, we need to edit down, right? Absolutely, yeah, uh, I mean, I am a I always start with more than what I need, right? Um, because I’m like, I’m gonna have everything that I could possibly need when I’m, when I’m kind of crafting this and when I’m thinking about this. And also because I tend to be, even when I tell, even when I tell my stories, right? I, my personal stories, you know, I’m always putting too much information in too many details, and then sidetracking and be like, well, let me explain this part, you know, um, and so it really is, it really is the editing process, and you really do have to have a A standard process, I think for doing that. Um, and you can set that up in lots of different ways depending on your organization, but I think, you know, you can’t necessarily just have your first cut be a final product. Now, sometimes you can, sometimes you can catch some candid, you know, I mean, that’s become very popular now, right? Candid kind of just like impromptu, put your, put your phone up and, and grab a, a quick snippet of something. Um, so I’m not saying that you can’t do that, but I’m saying when you come to your more formal stories and the things you’re gonna be using for a longer period of time. That you’re gonna want us to kind of think that through, right? You might want to storyboard it out, um, you know, think about what your goals are going in, what are, what are the goals, what are the key topics that you want to hit, and then, you know, think further about how are you gonna do that, you know, what’s what best exemplifies what you were trying to share. You know, I mean, you also can, you can start from the story. You can have a great story, and then you can figure out how to use it. But I personally feel like it’s easier if you kind of start with your goals and then think through, OK, what kind of story best fits this? Who would be the best spokesperson, what is it that we want them to talk about? What are the key points that we want to get across. I think if you know that going in, it’s, it’s easier than kind of going back after the facts, um, and kind of shaping it, but it is possible to do it after the fact as well. All right, I’m gonna take a chance here because you said you, you, you tend to wander in your own storytelling, but you have something in your bio that’s very interesting that uh that you’re a single parent. So I’ve never seen that. chose to have children on their own. Um, so both of my children were conceived using donor sperm. Um, and they, they do not have a, a father in their life. Um, I have other family members, obviously, who kind of step up and friends and whoever and lots of loving people in their life. But, um, you know, I was a person who, I mean, this has something to do with communication, but I was a person who always I felt like my life would be unfulfilled without having children, and I did not feel that way about a relationship and or marriage or, or anything along those lines. Um, and so I opted to have them, you know, on my own and and raise them on my own. Um, and they are amazing little humans, and it was the best decision of my life because like they are the best thing I have, I have done, you know, I’ve created these amazing humans to kind of go out and make the world a better place. Um, and so that’s an, that’s an awesome experience. I mean, I was gonna say, I was gonna say, you know, I don’t try to talk people into doing things, right? But I will say if you are interested in in potentially doing it, I would advise you to explore it, right? And to look into your options because science is great. I, I work with a lot of health. Science nonprofits. And 11 of the reasons is I just like really think that there’s so many neat things that are happening now, right? That you couldn’t even potentially do years ago. I mean, I think the first, I think the first IVF baby was born around the time I was born. Um, so that’s give or take 40 years ago. Um, so it’s only potentially, I mean, my kids were not born through IVF. I used IUI, um, which is insider term, right? But because we have jargon jail on nonprofit, yes, but it doesn’t matter we’ll just say it’s less medically invasive. IUI IUI is interuterine insemination, um, and so it’s not as, uh, it’s not as technical. I didn’t have to have eggs frozen and retrieved and, and, and all of that. It just, you know, it’s kind of. They put some sperm on up there and right, right, yeah, yeah. And you double down on this now, so you have two children, 2 and 6. I do, I do. Yes. So one was one was not fulfilling your first, your son was not fulfilling enough. Well, I wouldn’t say it that way, right? I mean, if I had been unable to have another child, then yes, I would have been fulfilled with my son. But, uh, I had always wanted two children, and, um, I was at a spot where I could do that or try to do that. And Was able to be successful with that and so yeah, they. They’re awesome and I’m I’m like traditional spouse or partner is not a, I mean, I hope they would say I’m successful. I feel like I’m doing all right. I’m sure, yeah, we can’t yeah yeah yeah you know it’s interesting. I’ve never seen anyone that way as a Yeah, there’s a growing, there’s a growing community of us. There’s a growing community, you know, I think times are changing, right? And, and you can do things now that you couldn’t do in the past both with technology but also kind of being more socially accepted and you know, being a more tolerant society and. To, to families that are shaped differently and created differently. Um, and I think that’s an amazing thing. Um, I mean, you know, um, my sister is, um, married to a woman, and, uh, they obviously had to use sperm to, to have their child as well, use donor sperm, and, um, you know, they actually had to use a surrogate as well, uh, for health reasons. And so, you know, the. It’s just amazing that we get to have these children in our lives in these in these ways that, like I said, would not have been possible. You know, a couple decades ago, so in the adoption process, did, did you see any bias against a single parent? Well, I didn’t do adoption. I am saying? Oh no, no, I’m sorry. So in the, uh, yes, of course, of course. I’m sorry, that’s embarrassing. Um, but in so in the, in the, in the the process of being approved as a As a parent, whatever that requires, was, did you see any bias against being a single parent or we are in the fertility industry are are kind of well aware of, um, you know, kind of the single mom by choice, you know, it’s not, it’s not new to them. Uh, uh, they’re like they’re probably the in in the in group. I, you know, I will say, you know, it. You have to kind of be clear at like medical appointments and things like that, that you’re the only legal parent, you know, um, and all those kind of things, but I, I don’t think that’s really any different than Anyone who say had had, you know, a spouse pass away or, um, you know, otherwise was like not available in their life, um. But yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what people are thinking in their head, but I will say that, you know, I haven’t felt bad about it and I haven’t had anyone like try actively try to make me feel bad about it. So I think that’s a plus, right? I mean, people might have their own thoughts, but if so, you know, if you don’t have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself, right? Yes, I was. I was wondering about like institutional bias or something, but it sounds like we’re past that. We’re we’re we’re past that. Well, I wouldn’t say that we are past that. I would say I have not personally experienced it or knowingly experienced it. Um, I think that, you know, it, I would not go so far to say that it does not exist. I mean, I think it certainly still exists and, uh, you know, probably maybe more dependent on, you know, the areas that you were in and your, and your localities and kind of, uh, their perspectives there, um. May play in a bigger part yeah. Um, so let’s let’s go back. Thank you for sharing the story. I thought that was a poignant part of your, right? Right. Well, you might say, well, I only third party, not my own, but it’s harder to tell, right? I mean, I think, you know, People tell stories all the time and I, it’s easy for me to look at someone else and think, OK, here’s the angle, here’s what makes you different, unique, here’s what we can kind of, you know, talk about, here’s what we can, you know, get some leverage, here’s, you know, all of that kind of thing. And when you try to apply it like to my own business, right? It’s, it’s much more complicated to do it with your own business and yourself, right? Because you, you kind of overthink it and. And impostor syndrome kind of pops up and, and also you kind of think like, oh, well, I can’t do it unless I’m really good at it, because, you know, I am in the field, like I feel like there, you know, there’s a benchmark that you kind of have to get over, right? You have to be like at least X is good about and really it’s not. Like you can try things out the same as anybody else and and do things in a different way, but it’s really getting out of your own way and getting out of your own head, um, and having enough mental energy left after you serve your clients to kind of apply the same principles to your own business. And you even you devolved into jargon in your own story. I did you spotted it. You did, you did self-identify too, but I, I would, I would have called you out because we do have jargon jail, but I didn’t, I didn’t need to. Um, so you, something you mentioned, uh. We we were earlier, uh, consistency, messaging consistency, like I think like tone of your stories, you, you know, you said the, uh, the narwhal and the jellyfish, like they have, there’s clearly a pattern. You, you expect the puns, etc. Let’s talk about the value and, and, and how you ensure consistency in, in nonprofit messaging. Yeah, I always tell people, you need to know who you are first, right? And you need to decide as an organization, this is who we are, this is what we do, and this is how we talk about it, um, because it’s gonna be confusing for your audience if your emails are written in one way in one tone, and then your website is a copy is in a completely different tone and your social media is in, in, in, you know, a third one, and just, you need to pick one which is realistic, which feels like it. Works for you, which feels honest, um, and also want a voice that resonates with your audiences, and then you need to stick with it, um, because you don’t want to have mismatch between what you’re saying in one place versus another. And also you need to. When we talk about consistency, it’s not just being the same but it’s consistency and kind of the cadence, right? It’s I we’re consistently telling our stories we’re consistently talking about what we’re doing we’re consistently, you know, emphasizing what are the most important parts for us. So it’s both how often you’re doing it, and it’s making sure that it’s kind of similar, that there’s a similar vein, right? Of course you’re gonna alter things depending on like what format you’re doing it in. If you’re writing a case study, it’s gonna be different than, you know, if you’re doing. And Instagram reel, right? Uh, you’re not gonna do those the same way. They’re not gonna exactly have the same vibe and the same language and and all of that because they’re very different styles for different audiences, but you want overall your voice to be consistent. Your key messages across the board should be consistent. Your values should be evident and consistent across wherever you happen to be. And then like I said, you know, telling people. You have to tell people over and over and over again what you do. It is really hard to overcommunicate with people as a nonprofit organization. I mean, you’re inside, you’re embedded in it, you’re you may be tired of talking about it, right? You may be like, oh, we’ve done this so many times or, or we’ve told this story and so many times in so many ways and and all of that, but the reality is, you know, you see every message your audience does not. They’re gonna miss a lot of the messages that you’re putting out. Yes, that’s a very good point. They’re not seeing every message that you send. Exactly. And they’re not seeing it kind of the way you are, right, where, you know, it shows up like, you know, back to back to back to back, right? All the message you might send, like, here’s, here’s all your emails in a row of what you’ve sent or here’s all your, like, you know, when you’re looking at the back end of it, they don’t see it like that, right? It’s, it’s all this other stuff in between, you know, that they’re seeing. So I, I try to tell people I I feel like. Nonprofit organizations in particular, they’re worried about like annoying people, right? They’re worried about, um, kind of irritating them and then, oh, they’re just gonna like, you know, unsubscribe or unfollow us or they’re not gonna wanna do this, that and whatever. And I was like, it is really hard to annoy someone so much that they’re gonna opt out unless you are really just spamming, right? And like you’re, but if you’re providing content that is of value, and you, I mean, they might. See 1 in 10 of the things you do, right? I mean, I, I don’t have the actual data on that, right? Like, you know, but they, they are certainly not gonna see every single message that you send out. And then if they do, great. I mean, and if they are seeing every single message and they come to you and they say, you’re sending too many. I’ve seen all of these or whatever, like, let’s figure out a way so that that that particular individual, you know, doesn’t maybe doesn’t get quite so much of it. But I mean, I think that’s, it’s hard to do and. That’s something that nonprofits kind of have to get out of their own way on, is they’re worried, like, oh, we’re gonna annoy them, they’re gonna unsubscribe. If, if they’re gonna unsubscribe because, you know, they got Or end of year email like fundraising ask, then they weren’t someone who should have been on your list in the first place, right? Because they aren’t someone who’s like regularly invested in your organization. If they’re gonna be, you know, I mean how many emails does Target send me? Like how much like I haven’t unsubscribed from them yet, you know, like, I mean, now, do I delete most of them without opening them? Yes. But I mean, I, most nonprofits are not saying anywhere near the volume, right? That, you know, a target or or someone along those lines is sending. That’s consistent with uh advice around boards and utilizing your board, being afraid that you’re asking your board to do too much. If, if that happens, they’ll they’ll let you know. But odds are you’re not asking them to do enough and they’re feeling like they’re, you know, kind of a lackluster board member because they’re, they’re not engaged enough with. hopefully the right kinds of tasks you know they don’t know what to do, right? I mean, I think, I think that’s common, right, is that, you know, when someone joins a board and they’re very, or a volunteer or or or however they’re joining, however they’re, you know, being involved with the organization, they want to help, but they don’t necessarily like know how to go about that or they don’t want to step on someone’s toes, you know. And, or kind of take over what someone else is doing. And so I think the more information that you can provide internally as well, right? Not just externally, um, about what is most helpful, like, you know, don’t just leave people hanging. Like, ask them for what you need. And I know it feels awkward. We all hate, like, you know, we all hate asking for things and, um, That’s why some people who are like, you know, major fundraisers who really are OK with it, get, get paid more, right? Um, but it can feel awkward until you get used to it, right? And once you do it, and you see like, OK, you see the reaction, you see that it is a positive reaction. You know, you’re not getting the negativity that you thought you were gonna get. Um, I think that it’s easier to do it the next time, right? And, and it becomes, it becomes routine, and it’s no longer hard for you to do. Don’t be afraid of your board members. Don’t be afraid of your, your volunteers, your donors, whether they’re your major donors or your audience in general, right? Don’t, don’t be afraid of them and don’t be afraid to talk to them and to ask them things and you know, you might get crickets, they might not respond back, but, um, give them the opportunity, you know, give them the opportunity to engage and and to connect with you and to communicate and to let you know what it is they’re most interested in. Um, and, and not hearing back doesn’t mean that they don’t like you, means that they, they’re time constrained and, you know, they didn’t, they didn’t read that particular ask or they didn’t, they didn’t have the time to respond to it or they just chose not to. You know, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like you when, when they start unsubscribing, that’s when they don’t like you. Yeah, so they don’t, don’t default to thinking negatively, right? You know, um, if no one responded, then it’s just as just as likely that they responded positively as they did negatively, right? Probably more likely because I think people are more likely to actually let you know if they have a negative reaction to something than if they have a positive reaction to something. Um, I mean, we see that in online reviews all the time, right? Uh, the people who leave the review a lot of times are the people who have like a really bad experience for whatever reason, um, because most people who have like an OK or positive, you know, experience are just kind of like going about with their day. What else do you want to talk about around storytelling that uh either I haven’t asked you or we didn’t go deep enough. What else is out there? What’s on your mind? What’s on your mind? We’ve covered a lot of, um. I think maybe talking a little bit about kind of like how you pick the stories. I mean, we touched on this a little bit about how You know, how it’s important to kind of go in knowing what you want to get out of it. Um, but you may, if you aren’t used to storytelling, you may kind of be looking at your organization. I’m like, well, I don’t have any stories to tell, and that is like. Oh, that’s, that’s definitely wrong. You shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be in business if you don’t, if you can’t come up with half a dozen stories, like sort of off the top of your head. Well, I mean, let’s not say it like that because for some people, you know, they just haven’t learned how to see it in that way yet, right? It’s the, the stories are there. You have, maybe I was being harsh, but you have. You just have to identify them. All right, so help us, help us, help us do that. All right. So I think you, I think you’re gonna, like I said, you can start with your kind of the goals of like, you know, this is what I really would like to have a story talking about or this is what I would like to have a story that there’s an example of. Um, and having that in mind can kind of help you when you’re looking at it can kind of like frame it and kind of shape how you’re looking at what you’re doing. Um, so that’s one way to go about it. I think another way to go about it is, um, to kind of train yourself and your staff to think about things through the lens of a story, right? So, so many times we’ll have, uh, you know, people they’re like, Oh, I don’t have enough, I don’t have enough content for social media, or I don’t have this. And I was like, OK, well, What does your staff say? You know, what is your staff doing like day to day, you know, are you asking them like, OK, what is there we could take a picture of? What is there we could take a video of? Could we do a behind the scenes of like what their day is like, you know, um, when someone comes in, have you asked them like what to give a testimonial of some sort? Have you asked them for their feedback, you know, those are always That you can kind of gather things that can kind of turn into stories. Uh, I think, uh, I worked for an organization for a while and they had been around like 90 years, right? And they’ve been running these programs for like 90 years. And, you know, so in all that time, there’s so many people that had been involved with it, right? And we really had to kind of create a program where they were like reaching out to like alumni of this program, right? Um, and kind of talking to them and doing blogs, a blog series and, you know, using that to then spin off and repurpose into like other, other storytelling content, right? But they just hadn’t thought about it, right? Like no one had just sat and thought like, OK, well, we should reach out to, you know, it’s been this amount of time, like they’ve done all these like different things. Like, it’s not like they’re still in high school. This was particular program was aimed at like middle and high school kids, um, you know, and, and some of them were like famous. So, you know, it was a matter of just like letting people know to think about it in that way, you know, because the stories are there. That’s one of the reasons I really like working with nonprofit organizations is because there are so many good stories that are just like right there for the bank, right? It’s not like you’re having to like create it. Anything else that you want to share? I don’t want you to give uh give nonprofit radio listeners, you know, like short shrift, I would want to just encourage everyone that everyone can be a storyteller and that the and that everyone has a story, right? So when you’re looking at your organization, think about what stories would be most effective for you, um, and how you can share them in a way that will resonate with your audience the most. And that’s the way I think you can best approach it, because otherwise it can feel overwhelming, and you want it to feel approachable, and you want it to feel like something that you can accomplish. Sarah Wood Founder and chief communication consultant Sarah Wood Communication, you’ll find Sarah on LinkedIn. You’ll find her practice at Sarah with an H, Sara Woodcommunication.com. Thank you very much, Sarah. Thanks for sharing your own personal story as well as all the uh valuable advice on. Nonprofit storytelling. Thank you very much. I hope somebody goes out and tells a story because of this. Many folks will, I’m sure. Next week, your grant maker relationships. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. 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. 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%. Come out and be great.
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Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into dentinogenesis if you tried to gum me up with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s coming? Hey, Tony, it’s get heard in the election season. Peter Panepinto returns with Savvy advice about getting your messages heard through crowded noisy channels for the rest of this year. He urges you to prepare your messaging, prepare to pivot away from that messaging and more. Plus the value of journalist relationships. Peter comes to us from turn to communications on Tony’s take two hails from the gym. This is blood and soil were sponsored by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org here is get heard in the election season. It’s a pleasure to. Welcome back Peter Panepinto. He is the co founder and managing partner for Turn two, a communications and pr agency specializing in nonprofits, foundations and organizations serving the greater good. He began as a journalist including more than a decade at the chronicle of philanthropy where he advanced to assistant managing editor. You’ll find the company at turn hyphen two.co and Peter is at Key Panopo on X. He’s also on linkedin. Welcome back to nonprofit Radio, Peter. Great to be back, Tony. It’s been a while, but it’s great to see you. I’ve had a chance to, to share the, the microphone with you several times over the years. It’s always great to do this indeed. And our avid listeners will recall that your name, you as a guest were the answer to one of the quiz questions on our 7/100 show. Wow. Yes. Our uh our creative producer Claire Meyerhoff brought uh Claire’s quiz to the 7/100 show and uh it was a quiz for, it was for me. And then all the folks that were with us. This one was directed at me and the, the question was, uh which I believe it was five time guest has initials. That would be funny to a kindergartener. That’s why she did that correct. That’s why she’s the creative producer. I did get, I did get it correct. There aren’t that many people who’ve been on five times and then I thought of uh PP and I knew it. It was. Uh, yes. Do you do? I get like a robe like you do when you’re a five timer on Saturday Night Live or anything like that, or is it? Well, now this is your sixth one? So now you have to wait till 10. There was, we instituted something for five after your fifth. So you didn’t qualify on the fifth and then you’ll, you’ll start something. You have to wait until the 10. I assuming the timing works out. Uh, you’ll, you’ll get a crystal obelisk with 10 if the timing, if the timing is right. So, uh, you have your, uh, biweekly newsletter, your, your, your turn to email newsletter that I’m, I subscribe to and that I think folks should subscribe to where, first of all, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s acquaint folks with how they can get on your newsletter list. So they may, they may learn of future nonprofit radio topics. That’s how I, that’s how this one came. Where do they, where do they find a, you can sign up for the newsletter right on our home page at Turn two.co or you can reach out to me and I’ll gladly get you added there. Um, our, our newsletter is called on Message and you get, um, we, we try to do weekly but it’s, it’s sometimes in the summer it’s biweekly, but you get weekly, uh, pr and communications advice. That’s really spec, you know, specifically focused for people who work in the social good space. So it’s really geared towards people who are working for nonprofits and foundations. And, uh we really try to make it as practical as possible for folks who are wanting to maximize, uh maximize their communications and pr for their organizations on message. OK. And so I’m sorry, I, I, uh, credited you with being always biweekly. I thought it was always biweekly, but I, I read them whenever they come as often as they come. I read them in the summer. So I think it is, it was biweekly now. All right. So that’s very, that’s very gracious of you to say thank you. Uh Saving me. Uh And one of the recent ones uh that you wrote was about uh crisis, communicate well, was about uh not crisis. It was about getting your message heard in our um really presidential election cycle. Uh There’s nine, we’re recording, I believe there are fewer than 90 days left until November 5th. Um a lot. So there’s a lot of messaging around that obviously, uh which could be valuable. We gonna talk about that. There, there could be hooks there for you. Um But just, you know, in a, in a crowded media landscape which is, I think now typical uh to me it’s above average from what it was over. I don’t know. Well, you know, you and I have known each other for about 14 years. I think the level of communications the level of attention grabbing uh by all media and all channels, you know, has, has increased. There are, there are more, there are more places that want our attention and then that’s amplified by the uh presidential cycle that we’re in and nonprofits still have important messages that need to be heard. Absolutely. It, I think you’re absolutely right that it’s becoming increasingly hard or difficult for us to be able to get our messages heard, given the amount of noise that there is out there. And, uh if you think about what has already happened in this presidential election season, um, you know, we’ve had an assassination attempt, we’ve had a, uh, uh, you know, criminal convictions. We’ve had, uh, Joe Biden, you know, doing his bombshell, you know, dropping out of the race, we had the fallout from the first debate. Um If you had tried to, to get all of this into an episode of the West or a season of the West Wing, you would have been told you were jumping the shark on the Republican convention and the, and the democratic convention is coming up in a couple of weeks. Right. Yeah, that hasn’t even happened yet. And this is being recorded. Um, uh So, and, and each and all of these things just create so much noise in the media and in social media that it becomes really hard for nonprofits that are, are vying for the public’s attention to get their voice. Heard you have to, to really be ready to kind of roll with the punches, uh capture opportunities that happen, but also be really willing to kind of scrap your best laid plans in the in the, you know, in the, in the wake of bombshell news as they as it happens. So it really requires you to be both prepared and adaptable. At the same time, you had uh 44 major points in the, in the, the Onmes uh uh uh email that I received that uh stimulated me to email you and say, let’s talk about this on nonprofit radio. And your first one is to um create a new or review your crisis communications plan. You and I talked about crisis communications plans years ago. So we’ll hit a couple of those points. But why, you know, why is that essential now in, in our extra crowded media landscape? Yes. Um It’s really important for organizations to have a crisis, communications or rapid response communications protocol or plan. Uh because um things are happening so quickly. You need to really be equipped to get your message out quickly or make a decision about getting a statement out. Um You know, and, and be able to do it in a way where you can respond while the news is fresh. Um So a lot of organizations will kind of wait for something to happen. Uh They’ll have a discussion about whether they need to put a statement out, they’ll have to get it reviewed by, you know, the, the, uh, executive director and, or board of the organization. And by the time they do all of that they’ve missed the moment, uh, it’s been, you know, days have passed by the time you’ve kind of gone through all those steps and, and you’ve either missed the moment or you’ve gotten run over by what’s happened. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers, responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only response of nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact virtuous.org. Now, back to get heard in the election season, the moment can last like 12 hours. Right. Right. Yes. And then, and then the media has moved on and nobody’s gonna be interested. That’s right. That’s right. And um so we really advise having AAA rapid response protocol in place where you have a clear set of steps that you take in response to some too fast moving news. Um, you kind of know who’s equipped to do what, um you’ve game planned some scenarios and you even have some key messages prepared ahead of time. So that when that moment strikes, you know exactly what to do, you can pull things together quickly and you can get the approvals you need. So you don’t miss the moment. Um So that, that’s the first thing we recommend everybody do um at your organization. And if you have one already, that’s a wonderful thing. It’s probably smart for you to, to, to revisit that a couple times a year, make sure everything’s up to speed that your messages are, are clear and in good shape and that, you know, all the key people who are part of that protocol, know their roles and have kind of done some um some prep work ahead of time and are are kind of ready and practiced and ready to go. Yeah, because a part of that is going to be who the spokesperson or people are. That’s right. You, you, you suggested having messages that are ready, which you know, clearly you may need to tweak based on what it is that’s uh stimulating this, this, this move, this need to do to get into the media. Uh But having something to start with, but who’s going to release them? Is this a and in what form is this social media post. Is this a press release? Is this calling the reporters that hopefully we have relationships with? Right? I mean, what form does it take and who are the people who are doing the work? That’s right. And, and it really helps to game out some of those scenarios and know who’s going to be your spokesman, who’s going to be the person who is putting messages out on social media or by email and even how to decide how to do that. Um We’ve done this with a number of organizations put these plans together and the thing we tend to do is is put together almost a matrix. You know, if this happens, here’s what we’ll do. Um Here are some of the key messages that we’ll want to pull from and, and here’s how we’ll, how, you know what channels we’ll use and what way we’ll, we’ll actually deploy the message based on, based on what’s happening. And you can, you can game some of this out ahead of time and say, all right, this type of thing, you know, is something we would respond to on social media. Um Here, here’s who needs to be involved here, here’s who needs to make the final decision on it and, and just having that in place saves you so much time when, when actual situations arise, what could be some triggers that would stimulate entry into this? Well, one would be um, news that affects your organization or, or is about your organization. So let’s say you’re an organization and um there’s a rumor spreading on social media about one of your key employees or about one of your key donors. Um You’ll wanna definitely get, get the word out quickly. So that uh about what’s true. So that um a rumor or, or some, some, you know, conversation that’s happening about you doesn’t grow legs and become, become a story. Um in the political realm, it might be um one of the political candidates making a major policy statement about your, something that relates directly to your cause and wanting to make sure that you kind of come out and, and talk about what type of policies you think are important uh to make sure that you’re, you know, a accurately and, and, and actively um being a spokesperson or a champion for your cause. So if um if one of the candidates comes out and says that they want to um uh you know, bring back the charitable tax deduction uh for, for anybody who files their taxes rather than just add itemizers, there might be something you want to say there. Uh If one, if you’re an environmental nonprofit and one of the candidates says that, you know, we should just go back to, to um to the old days of not having the EPA, you’ll certainly want to have something to say about that too. So, you know, having, having some key statements in place, um that really validate what you stand for and, and, and how you would respond in, in certain situations can help you respond quickly in situations like that. Using that energy example, makes me think of fracking. But, but I think it really, it had like a six hour moment and, you know, it was, uh one of the candidate. I, I, maybe it was, I think it was Kamala Harris said something she had in the past. She, uh was completely opposed to, uh, fracking, wanted to have a nationwide ban when she was running for president um in that cycle. And, but now she’s, her position has evolved. So if you had something to say about fracking or energy policy, you know, if you saw a hook, you had to act fast because it was not a, it was not a major, you know, it wasn’t like the assassination attempt, but it was in the news, her, her position, some people call it flip flopping. She would say she evolved what it doesn’t matter. Fracking was in the news for a while. So if, if that’s related to you, like, because you’re in Virginia or Pennsylvania and maybe your population is affected by fracking adversely or, or positively, maybe the, maybe the revenues, the stream of revenue from fracking has been, has been valuable for, for your population in southeastern Pennsylvania. Uh You know, so you want to, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t a long cycle before, before fracking was out of the news and then it was old. Yeah, that, that, that’s exactly true. So, you know, being ready for when those, those situations arise so you can capture the moment is really important. Um, and it can be for even bigger things that have longer news cycles. Uh, when, when the Roe decision came down by the Supreme Court, um, I think it was two years ago now. Um, the nonprofits that were ready to respond quickly to that and, and had something in place were the ones that were getting a lot of the media opportunities because they, they had already are, they had their, their statements and, and what they were going to say and their spokespeople ready to go and equipped with what to say. So when that decision came down, they weren’t scrambling. They, you know, they were able to pull from, well, if this, if this decision comes down, here’s what we’re going to say, here’s who we’re going to reach out to. Here’s how we’re going to deploy that message. And they were the ones who were, you know, on television and, and, and putting out statements on social media that we’re getting a lot of attention to. So it can be for something unexpected, like, you know, uh, uh, you know, fracking, you know, being, uh an issue coming out of one of the, the campaigns or it can be kind of a major policy or or court decision that, that, you know, that really connects closely to your cause and, and something that you know is coming. Right. Right. We knew there was going to be a decision about abortion in the United States. That’s right. So you could prepare ahead for that. You can’t prepare ahead for everything that a candidate is going to say, especially a brand new Democratic candidate where we don’t know a lot about what she talks about and a Republican candidate who can really say anything at any time. Um So, um but knowing like what you’ll say, if your cause does end up in the news, regardless of whether it’s a positive or a negative statement from one of the candidates can really help you capture that opportunity. And before we move on, I want to apologize to uh the Pennsylvania residents. I southeastern Pennsylvania is Philadelphia. So they wouldn’t be fracking there. Yeah, central I instead of southeast, I probably meant uh like uh northwest, northeastern, northwest, northeast or central northeastern central Pennsylvania. All right. I, I, I’m sensitive to the, to the, to the listeners in Pennsylvania. I understand. And plus I went to law school in Philadelphia. I think it’s all good. And I went to law school in Philadelphia. So I know there’s not fracking on uh on broad street or around uh around Rittenhouse Square in, in Philadelphia. All right. Uh Anything else, anything else on uh crisis, communications, creating it or reviewing it. Um, I, I just think it’s important to, to take the time to do that and, and, you know, even if you’re a small organization just knowing, you know, who gets the call when something happens or, um knowing that you might have to have a, a consultant on, on call in certain situations, you know, gaming that all out ahead of time, just put you in so much better position when, when real situations arise. What’s your next point? Well, the next point is uh being ready to pivot. Um you know, most organizations plan out what they’re planning to do with their communications and, and pr efforts a bit ahead of time. Uh It could be that you’re scheduling, you know, social media posts a week or two in advance. It could be that you’re, you know, you’re targeting a certain date on the calendar for a major announcement. Um And when you plan those things out, you’re, you’re doing it kind of taking into effect, what, what you know, is going to happen on the calendar, you may peg it to a certain holiday, you may peg it to a certain milestone or an anniversary that you’re having with your organization. Um But, you know, when unexpected news happens, you really run the risk of either getting those, those carefully planned messages drowned out or having them seem very tone deaf if they, if they come out at the wrong time. So, um so it’s really important. Um Even if you’re planning things out well in advance and you, you feel like you have everything buttoned down to really be paying close attention to what’s happening in the news and being prepared to, you know, hit, pause on that scheduled social media message for a few days until, um, until, you know, a situation that might seem insensitive to be posting about passes, um, or, um, or holding off on a, on a planned news announcement, um or even just completely, you know, rethinking the way you’re communicating about something based on what’s happening in the news. So if you were AAA nonprofit that had, um that had uh social media posts out about voting or civic engagement or, or anything related to uh anything even remotely political the days following the, the President Trump assassination attempt, for instance, it was, if you run the risk of it, either seeing insensitive or, or just getting drowned out by what’s happening out there. So, um it’s really important to just, you know, not just think about what’s happening in the news as a news consumer, but as uh what does this mean for our communications? I, I think, yeah, the assassination attempt is an excellent example. Uh Any, any of these, uh I think of uh President Biden stepping aside, you know, so if you had anything that was like critical of the administration, you know, it seemed like that would, that would be a bad 48 hours or so to in which to release it. That’s absolutely true. And I, I even think back to Tony, an example from when you and I were working together on uh on um on the uh plan giving Accelerator. Uh We had a meeting, I think the first meeting planned on January 6th, 2021. And uh once we saw what was happening in the world, we were like, well, there’s no way anybody’s gonna wanna sit in on a meeting on this. That was the fir that was the first meeting of our first class. It was exactly right. And you let me know what was happening. I didn’t know and we got a message out quickly, the class is canceled, you know, we’ll be in touch uh because of what’s happening in Washington DC. Um Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. So, yeah, be prepared to pivot and be ready to move quickly if you have to. So, um it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been a very engaged class on that first day. I don’t, I hope I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t hesitate. Did I didn’t, I didn’t push back and say no, it’s a, it’s an auspicious occasion. It’s, it’s something important is, is Martin Planned, giving Accelerator. I can’t, no, I didn’t. I think once you, I think once because you were busy preparing for that, that I was preparing. Right. But once I, I went to the CNN or something and I saw the you know, people crawling up the walls of the capitol. No, of course. Yeah. As soon as you knew what was happening, you knew, you knew it was time to hit. We were on the phone. You didn’t have to bring me along. We were on the phone. We were on the phone together and yes. All right. Prepare to pivot. Ok. Um, key messages, even though you may have to change your messages, you sh you alluded to this earlier, but let’s flesh it out, having, having some messaging ready, right? So in those fast moving situations, if you are somewhat prepared with what you’re going to say, um you know, if candidate A says, you know, something that relates to your cause or candidate B does um or even if something’s happening in the world, um that, that relates to your cause. If you have some key points that you have already vetted, worked through with your team that you kind of have in your back pocket and ready to go in a fast moving news situation, it can be really helpful uh in terms of you being able to get something out quickly and often those messages can, can really be an affirmation of what you stand for as an organization. Um What you think is, is, is the best course of action to, to make sure that you’re um ensuring that your mission is, is achieved. And um and even working through um how to, how to make statements in a nonpartisan way while still kind of validating what you stand for. Um If you can spend some time working through those in advance, having those in your back pocket or, you know, not physically in your back pocket, but, but somewhere on your hard drive, um where it’s something that um, your executive director, your board, everybody’s had a chance to weigh in on when a situation does arise. You can pull from that. Um Play a little bit of mad Libs with kind of filling in the blanks of what’s happening and, and get a statement out very quickly. 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 Donor box, 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 donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. I’ve got another tail from the gym. I go to classes once a week. Usually I like to work out just by myself, quietly, do my own thing. Elliptical floor work, Pilates, push ups by myself. But I do go to a class once a week each Tuesday and in my very first class, uh, you know, I walked in, it was, first of all, it was all women. I was the only guy in the, in the room and I saw, you know, everybody had their stuff, like, you know, they had water bottles. I had a hoodie on, uh, people had like light jackets, you know, whatever, all lined up along the wall. So I went over and, uh, I put my little pile, took my hoodie off, put my little pile of hoodie and my keys and my little ID card for the gym. You know, I put that all in a, in a pile next to somebody else’s pile right alongside the wall and I went and got some, uh, weights because the woman who runs the class was announcing you’re gonna need weights. So I was going over to get the weights and then I came back and the woman who, uh, was belonged to the, the pile that was next to mine started to talk, you know, hello? She said hello? You know, she didn’t ask my name. II, I remember that. She, but hello, you know, you look new to the class. I’m the only guy in the class. So I guess I am new to the class. She said, ok, well, I’ll just move my stuff. I said, oh, I, I said, well, ok. Well, I don’t know, just move your stuff. What it’s not, I don’t care if it’s touching my stuff. Is that your concern that it’s, that the, the two piles are, are, uh, I don’t know, commingling the, the, they’re, they’re having some kind of intercourse what the piles are touching. You just can’t have this, but maybe I have bedbugs in my hoodie. What, what do you mean? You’ll, I’ll just move my stuff. She says very curtly after being, you know, kind of pretty cordial, you know, just friendly. Well, I’ll just move my stuff. That was it. Well, well, I’ll just move my stuff. Uh, ok. What I, I can move my stuff. I just, I see, I see piles along the wall. So I, I stuck, well, this is where I work out. I said, well, ok, I, I didn’t know, I didn’t, I didn’t know that the title delineates your Space, Mrs Blood and Soil. I didn’t call her that I didn’t say I didn’t say that. I didn’t know that that would demarcated your, your turf. You know, you can work, you could, you can work out here, that’s your place and I can see how it’s important to you. It’s a big room. It’s like a big fitness center room. You know, it’s, I don’t know, a couple of 1000 square feet, no wood flooring. It’s not like there’s boxes or anything with your name or a little chalk line where you write your name or something, you know, and there’s weights on one side and there’s, uh, the balls, you know, the big, the big flexi whatever those big balls are, there’s a bunch of those along another wall. You know, it’s a big, big room, a couple 1000 square foot room. Uh, you your spot, your turf. So I said, ok, you can have, you can have your spot. It’s my first time. I didn’t know. Uh, I moved my stuff over a little bit so they wouldn’t be overlapping the piles. And then I worked out uh I did the class for an hour, you know, 11 step over from her spot. So we, we worked out together. I gave her her turf. I was like, what? You know, not be gracious and kind, right? Be uh embodying uh a good, a good spirit and friendly to neighbors and welcoming. I work out here. All right, fine. So that was my first class. I still go to the class. She’s still in her special spot. I’m not, I’m not anywhere near that. I don’t need to be, you know, like week after week I’ve raised my heart rate by having uh turf wars with the Mrs blood and soil. So, you know, I, I go somewhere else. I work out in another spot and if somebody gets there before me or you know, I there’s no spot. It’s not like my spot or her spot, it’s just first come first serve. Alright, I think you get the idea that was Mrs mud and soil. But I still go to the class every Tuesday. Uh, I just work out on the other side of the room from her and that is Tony’s take two Kate. The entitlement. Yeah. Astonishing in some people and, and not even, you know, I mean, an older woman who should know better. She’s, she’s, she, she’s quite fit. Uh, I have to give her that she’s very fit. Uh, I don’t know, she looks a little older than me. 65 maybe 70 or so. You know, somebody who shouldn’t be. Yeah, feeling entitled having wars over like you’re, yeah, you’re new to the class. You would think that, I mean, if your stuff was genuinely on hers, I think there’s a different way to approach it and be like, could you move your stuff because your stuff is on my stuff. But if you’re, but the way that she said it is so entitled and the fact that she’s like in a class is very embarrassing, like go home and work out if you can’t be around other people like that. That’s very savvy advice for this 65 or 70 year old. Yes. My blood is boiling. Well, we’ve got just about a but load more time. Here’s the rest of get heard in the election season with Peter Panepinto. You’d want to know what, what format the, the statement is gonna be. Again, I would say it was a press release. It was an email, social posts and you want to think through what the channels are gonna be with being prepared to pivot on that as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yes. So here’s, here are a few points we would make for a news release. Here’s a few things we would do in a social media or, or, or kind of email statement. Um And, you know, you can almost have some of these things templated and ready to go where you can, you can fill in some key details. Um And, and make sure you’re ready to go. Um We even went so far with an organization we’re working with right now that has a, um the, the founder of the organization is, is getting rather advanced in years and, and um uh we worked with them to prepare what we would do if something were to happen to her and they needed to get something out about her passing. So, um we’ve, we’ve gone ahead and written kind of a AAA templated news release a statement for the website, some social media copy to help them prepare for, you know, for if and when that happens. And we’ve, you know, she’s been part of the vetting process on that and, and has seen what is being said, it’s kind of like writing your own, like writing your own obituary at a time, but it, it, it allows the organization to make sure that they are announcing that news on their terms uh that they’re explaining clearly what would happen in that, in that situation and, and what the plan is for the organization moving forward and also on her legacy at the same time. So you can almost game out some situations that may impact your organization, whether it’s something political or even something like that where, where you might have to unexpectedly announce, um you know, a, a, you know, somebody no longer being with the organization or, or passing away. And um by taking that those steps ahead of time, you, you really put yourself in a position that kind of own your own narrative in those situations. Was this woman amenable to that process. Did you have to be pulled along a little bit? Like, no, explain the value. She, she recognized it. No, she was, she’s a very self aware leader and I think understands that. Um but, you know, and, you know, even if, uh even if you’re the not actively involved in the day to day operations anymore, and you’re the founder of the organization and still engaged, I mean, that’s, that’s a, that’s a major event for that organization. And um she was, she was open to it. I don’t know, you know, personally how she felt about it, but I, I do know that, that she recognized the value of doing that and uh the staff and board of that nonprofit, I think feels very comforted knowing that um you know, uh you know, father time is undefeated, it’s gonna hit, hit all of us at some point that, that this is, you know, that they will be prepared to communicate with their supporters and with the public about what happened in a way that, that she is comfortable with and has signed off on already. And that, you know, the organization is also comfortable with too. I kind of like the idea of contributing to my own obituary uh after a life of selfless sacrifice and uh enviable success. The, uh, no, I like the idea of contributing to my own obituary. I’m starting to write it now. Ok. And your final piece of advice from, uh from the Onmes newsletter. Yes. And, and that is to be ready for November 6th and beyond. Um II, I don’t think anybody, regardless of where they are in the political spectrum, uh thinks that this is a, uh a minor election. This is an election that has a lot at stake. Um And, um there are a lot of potential eventualities with it, uh regard, you know, depending on who wins and, and which party controls the Senate and the House and everything else. Um It’s very hard to predict right now. Um But very likely depending on your cause. Um People are gonna want to hear from your organization on November 6th or November 7th and, um with, with what the, what the, what, what the stakes are for the outcome of this. Um And so it, it might be helpful for you to, to game out um a few different scenarios and, and, and be able to talk about what it means for your organization and your cause. So, you know, depending on which presidential candidate wins and which candidate or which party controls each house of or, or chamber of the, of, of congress. Um and even, even at the state level, at the state level and especially at state and local level for a lot of organizations, um whatever happens on Election day will really impact the work that you’re going to be doing and um the impact that it’s going to have on the people that you serve. So it could be your local school board planning board, your mayor and council election, any of those, any of those things on the local level as well. Yeah, absolutely. So I think it’s really important to think about like, you know, what, you know, what a scenario or b scenario will mean for your organization or your cause and, and what you’re going to be asking people to do, it could be a cause to, to raise more money. It could be AAA call to advocate um for, you know, for, you know, some aspect of your cause. Uh it may be a cause to celebrate but you know, and say the work isn’t done, we still have to do XY and Z in the months ahead. But really thinking about um how you’re going to respond to that to, to the results of that and having some things queued up and ready to go can again help you, um you know, own your own message in those situations. If, if there are things that you want to ask people to do, especially if it’s raising money, the faster you can do that and capture the moment the, the more successful you’re going to be. And also, I think if you’re not heard from right after the election, uh uh you, you risk being irrelevant, like these people have nothing to say, but, you know, they’re not going to think of it right away. But then two weeks later, when you, when you do send a message related to whatever it is, you, you finally got around to sending, let’s say, well, well, didn’t they have anything to say about the election outcomes? I mean, the local, the local school board, you know, and, and they, uh, and they advocate for, they advocate for, for Children, they, they advocate for uh uh a free pre kindergarten universal or, you know, whatever you, you risk being just kind of like I said, irrelevant, left out of the conversation or moving yourself out. Right. Right. So, yeah, there are, are, are real opportunities in the, in the months ahead to, to think about what you want to say in November. Um And you know, I, you, I, I think it will be impossible for us. To predict who’s gonna win. Xy and Z at this point in, in most cases, this year, it’s, it’s very close everywhere but you can be ready with, with whatever message you want to get out there, depending on the outcome uh by taking some steps now. Um And, you know, I think about a lot of the progressive organizations, uh right after the election in 2016, a lot of them were in mourning and we’re not putting, we’re not saying anything and that it took them uh in some cases weeks to, to, to be able to weigh in and, and mobilize people and, and that was a waste of time for that. Let’s talk about something that uh you and I have talked about in the past but it’s been a few years. Um i it’s all related to all of what we’re talking about today is the value of having relationships with journalists that are, that are long standing, not just when you need the person, but you know how to build those relationships. Well, let’s start with just the value of knowing some journalists in advance of when you have something to say. Right. Right. I it’s really important um regardless of whether you’re a local organization or a national organization or something in between, to really identify what journalists are covering the topics that most intersect with your organization or your cause and uh and making sure that you’re taking steps to, to cultivate them and let them know that you are a resource for them. Um because it, it’s really valuable in two ways. One, they’re ready to, um uh they’re gonna be more receptive to covering something significant that’s happening with your organization or that you’re looking to announce and, and b it, it provides an opportunity for when the journalist is looking for an expert, uh to comment on a specific topic for you to, for you or your, your executive director, your, your board chair, whoever is your, your biggest spokesperson uh for them to reach out to you when they’re working on something and, and get you to weigh in on it and, and share your expertise with them if, if you’re interested in, in, in reaching people and, and, and persuading people about whatever cause you work on and, or just getting visibility, cultivating those relationships is really important and by cultivating those relationships, I don’t mean just sending them a press release three times a year with like um and, and not, and not engaging them. Otherwise it, it often can involve you reaching out to them, telling them a bit about your work or a story that you think is important but then asking, you know, what are you covering, what’s of interest to you? How can I be helpful to you and, and starting to build uh some rapport and a relationship with them so that um they take your call or they, they, they open your email when you send something to them and, um, and, and that you’re top of mind for them when they’re looking for something. You pulled a, uh, car talk. You remember that, uh, show on N Pr Car Talk? You did, uh, you did number one and B Yes, I, it was funny. I was, I was halfway through saying that and I was like, did I use one or eight years ago? Then the car talk guys used to do that all the time. One and b uh, don’t worry about it. Um, no, so you’re, you know, I mean, you’re a 10 plus year journalist. So, so reassure us that journalists are open to conversations before, you know, before we have that they’re open to having relationships. They are like you and me and journalists are people too. That’s right. That’s right. And they also get bombarded with a lot of, a lot of pitches and, and press releases and emails and kind of like you and I do every day, like where, uh, where all of us do every day where it’s, it’s a bunch of stuff that’s not relevant to you. Right. It, it’s clear that the, the person that’s sending this to them doesn’t know what they cover, doesn’t, it doesn’t even know what beat they’re on. And, um, when you’re, when you’re drowned with hundreds of messages like that every day when somebody actually does take the time to say, you know, Hey, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve paid attention to what you cover. Here’s a story. I think you might be interested in that, that actually relates to what you cover. And if it’s not, you know, I’m here to, to find out what, what is valuable to you and, and, and provide you with some, some insights and resources to help you get it. Um that stands out first of all and second of all, it, it, it, it is something that gets noticed by that journalist because you’re, you’re not just throwing and trying to pitch them all the time. You’re actually taking the time to find out what, what that journalist needs. And um when you take that stop, you know, they may not respond the first time, but if they see that you’re genuine and that you actually are paying attention to what they’re doing, oftentimes they’ll, they’ll start a conversation with you and, and it turns into something really useful. Um you know, as a journalist, you wanna have, you know, some, some vetted people that you can turn to when you’re on deadline or an editor gives you a story that you’re, you know, that, that’s, that’s on a topic that you don’t cover every day. Um to be able to say, oh, the executive director at the, the local food bank really knows her stuff and I can, I can reach out to her and get a, get a read on what’s happening here and and you know, once you, once you have that, that list of go to sources, it, it becomes very easy for the reporter to, to get their job done and you’re helping them. I have a, I have a personal story that is an ideal example of what you’re talking about. Um, Stephanie Strom at the New York Times used to have the nonprofit beat when that, when that exi when that beat existed in nationally internationally known papers, she had it at the New York Times. And, uh, and I reached out and we actually, we ended up having coffee and, and through the years she, she, she called me, uh, sometimes I was never qu I wasn’t quoted, but I was happy to help her on, on background about some nonprofit fundraising issue. But there were times when she did quote me. And so, uh, and that, that’s a major, you know, the major outlet of the New York Times, um, years ago, she’s, she’s long said there’s no nonprofit beats anymore that I’m aware of. Um, and she’s long since left the New York Times. But, you know, that was, and that was just on the strength of doing what you suggested. We, we, uh this is, this was before I met you. So I was not using your wise counsel. I had the, I had the, uh almost equally wise counsel, not, not nearly as wise as your counsel, uh, council of, of another person who you know, we, we looked at her stories and what she had done and crafted an email and I followed up by phone and we ended up meeting for a coffee. Right. Right. It’s, it’s almost the same as if you’re a fundraiser, you know, really making sure that you’re getting to know your top prospects. Right. And that’s, that’s a perfect analogy. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Being persistent, pleasantly persistent. Um, and, and you don’t know where that relationship is gonna go and that’s what ended up happening with me and, uh, and same with your donors. That’s a very good, exactly. That and, and, and often they’re, they’re not going to cover exactly what you want them to cover. But, um, if, if they are covering something that, that connects to, to what you’re doing and they see value in talking to you, you’re going to get a lot of value out of that even if it’s not, you know, hey, you, you know, you’re, you’re not covering the press releases, I’m putting out, but you found something else that’s really, that’s really valuable that my organization can provide, um, that, that, you know, being included in that kind of coverage when it’s not something that you’re pitching yourself, it can be incredibly valuable to you. So propagate the, uh, the journalist relationships because they, they, they, they can be enormously valuable and they, and they don’t have to be on a national scale. You’re local, local outlets. Absolutely. 11 thing that we, we advise a lot of people about is don’t worry about the, you know, reaching the biggest number of people, make sure you’re reaching the people that, that matter most to you. So if you’re a local profit, um you know, being covered regularly in your local paper on local television is way more valuable to you than, than being uh you know, included in some national story once, right? Um So, you know, really be mindful of like, where are your donors? Where are the people who you need to be advocating for you? What, and, and, and what journals there are the ones that are, are covering the topics that, that you care most about and, and really focus your efforts there. Ok? If we leave it there. All right, I’m great. If we leave it there, Peter Panino, the company is Turn Two Communications. They’re at turn hyphen two.co, you’ll find Peter at uh P Pena Peno on X and also on linkedin, Peter. Thank you for a valuable conversation. Thank you for helping our listeners. Thank you, Tony. Always a pleasure to join you and uh and glad we can, we can cover this timely topic before we get too close to the election. Absolutely. Yes. Great value. Next week, the responsive nonprofit with Gabe Cooper. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. 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.
Carlos Morales: Improve Your Communications With AI
Carlos Morales, from Viva Technology, shares how to use specific ChatGPT prompts to accelerate your written drafts; optimize your messaging for clarity and audience; and, personalize your outreach as you maintain a consistent voice, tone and brand. All through artificial intelligence. (This was recorded at the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN.)
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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 pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with dysphasia. Not last week’s dysphagia, dysphasia. If I had to speak the words you missed this week’s show. Our associate producer, Kate is away this week. It’s all me. We’ll get through it. Hey tone. Oh, sorry. Continuing our 2024 nonprofit technology conference coverage this week. It’s improve your communications with A I. Carlos Morales from Viva technology shares. How to use specific chat GP T prompts to accelerate your written drafts. Optimize your messaging for clarity and audience and personalize your outreach as you maintain a consistent voice tone and brand all through artificial intelligence. I’m Tony Steak too. Giving usa why do we have to wait six months? We’re sponsored by Virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box. I’m channeling Kate fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. This isn’t so hard here is improve your communications with A I. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC. You know that that’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. And we are in Portland, Oregon at the Oregon Convention Center. We’re sponsored here by Heller Consulting, technology strategy and implementation for non profits. With me now is Carlos Morales, digital marketing strategist at Viva Technology. Carlos. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here. Pleasure. Thank you. How’s the conference going? Are you enjoying? Oh, I’m loving it. This is very good. Is this your uh this is actually, this is my second one in like in the last 14 years. And so it has been a while. It’s been a while since you came, you miss them. I mean, NTC is a very good conference. It is. It is, I mean, great, great information, great sessions and great networking opportunity, meeting awesome people learning from a lot of people as well. Yeah. Have you done your session? I did, I did yesterday. People learned from you and now you’re learning from others as well. This is the community, the N 10 community. It is. It is. And uh your session that you did yesterday is accelerating nonprofit communications draft, refine and personalize with A I, correct. All right, personalization. It’s possible. It is, it is. Well, give us the overview first. Why, why did you feel we needed this session? Sure. Uh Well, as you know, A I is sort of actually now the uh the talk of the town, right. And so a lot of organizations are using A I or want to learn how to use A I to actually communicate better, to market better and to reach their audiences better. And so it’s a great tool. It allows to save, uh save us a lot of time. It can give us great ideas and how to do our job better. We can be more efficient. And so the whole purpose of decision is actually to give practical tip hands on uh tips and how to use chat G BT in this case, uh effectively for nonprofit organizations uh create some efficient and effective communication strategies. So, yeah. Alright. So uh you say, you know, draft, refined and personalized. So why don’t we take those in order, drafting comes first before we’re writing? So what’s, what’s your advice around the use of A I drafting? Sure. So when we’re talking about drafting, communication is basically let’s, let’s uh let’s talk about CG BT as being the tool that he actually we talked about yesterday. It’s going into chat GP T uh and prompting or giving instructions to cha G BT on a specific task. For example, help me write an email about fund raising for my donors. Um And you know, I want this email to be very uh to have a grateful tone. Um And I want you to cover, you know, mention all the goals that we were able to achieve based on our fundraising strategies. It’s just, it’s just a simple prompt. This is a simple instruction. Now, Judge GP T is gonna come up with, OK, here’s the email based on the instruction that you gave me as you actually read the first draft of the email, right? What you’re getting is basically, that’s the first thing that’s the draft based on one instruction, the email comes up and then you’re gonna actually now refine it. But the whole idea right now is just to start getting some ideas, brainstorming and what would be the best email I can send out to my donors? That’s it. So I’m just giving you one instruction, you create the task and then from there we’ll go and improve it. So that’s the draft piece and, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna improve it with future with additional instructions exactly in a prompt. And so that’s when the refining piece comes along because then as after I looked the draft, I can say, well, this is great, but I want you to be more specific. And so, and I want you to address the donors that actually donated between five and $10,000 for example. Um and I want, and I wanna make sure that uh you know, as you were thinking them, I wanna make sure that we actually put a link where they actually can go and click on it so they know how their money is being used. So now we’re actually adding more instructions to be able to actually refine that email. Now, maybe the first draft was not what you wanted. Maybe the first draft was too vague, too general. Well, the refining piece is giving more context, more detail to cha GP T. So you can actually get better results and you go from there. So this is obviously an iterative process, you know, using A I in G BT or any other language model is not a one time thing. It’s not like giving instruction once you’re gonna come up with, you know, with the best idea, the best email, the best marketing communication is not gonna happen. So you have to continue talking at it providing the context or the additional information for that, you know, for cha GP T to give you the best result possible. OK. Yeah. So you know, we’re talking about prompt engineering, which is a fancy way of saying, you know, learn how to talk to A I by giving actually the right prompts the right instructions. That’s what that is. And we had a session yesterday, a conversation about prompt engineering with uh with two other guys. Um All right. So is that enough? I mean draft refine and then personalize right, the personalized piece though, after you are refining after you’re enhancing your communication that email. Now, we wanna make sure that we are personalizing, right? Remember that I said donors that actually donated between five and $10,000 that piece of it. There you are segmenting you are, you are sort of actually personalizing your message to a specific specific segment of your audience, right? Because the language that you’re using is gonna be different for someone who probably donated about $1000 right? Because that money might go to a different cost. And so that’s the personalizing piece. The other thing too is that you can actually train cha GP T to adopt the tone, the brand voice of your organization. For example, you can actually give them documents, you know, past emails or a specific flyers in which you say I want you to look at the way that we have written this communication pieces to donors and I want you to actually adapt or a adopt that specific tone into the email. So that’s where the personalization and keeping your brand voice comes in. So that’s, that’s the piece about personalizing it. But you’re gonna, when we talk about personalizing it, it’s pretty much talking, you know, we’re talking about let’s let’s communicate with a specific type of audience. No, in this case, we’re talking about donors, it could be parents, it could be youth, depends who, who, who your target audience is. Yeah. OK. And right. And the personalization also comes from you giving it text to train itself to you, to train it to adopt my tone. Use this ii I don’t know, use some of the maybe use the language of the second paragraph, you know, or things like that. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact virtuous.org. This is uh it gets a little tiring now back to improve your communications with A I I think we’re doing OK though. Uh you mentioned a link. Now, how would we a link? So donors can see how their gift was used. How’s that gonna work? So basically, you can actually do that. You can actually say well and I want in the email to for them to go to my website, give them, give it the URL, give it to your RL and then that will be included in the email that Chad G BT generates. Alright, I mean uh there must be more to talk about because you had a session we just did draft or fine and personalized. Um What what what, what more, what more do we need to talk about? Sure. Well, I think we look what we’re talking about actually communicating with JG BT. The whole thing is about prompting is actually about, you know, making sure that you know, exactly or you learn how to actually talk to it, give the right instructions. So one of the things that we talked about is OK, we actually came up with a basic structure, right? In other words, first thing that you wanna do is actually just state what your uh goal and the communication type is. So in other words, if you’re asking to write an email, that’s a communication type, the goal is to actually raise awareness about a specific, about a specific cause. You wanna also give context, tell cha GP T why this is important. You wanna also highlight the audience who is the audience going to be. So in other words, if the email is going to donors, that is my audience, you know, donors that actually donated between five and $10,000 for example, right. And what’s the call to action when I want them to actually go to a specific website for them to actually see how their money, how their funds are being used So that’s the structure, right? Basic structure that a prompt should have. When you actually have that structure, then you actually come up with a very good draft. In fact, we actually put it in practice yesterday. And when people actually saw that email, the first draft, they say, well, that’s a pretty good one. So when, when you actually come back into an editing mode, you’re refining it. Obviously, you spend a lot less time. Why? Because you were specific in the first try. If the promise to beg you’re gonna come, you know, you’re gonna have an output, you’re gonna have an answer more, more generic. So you’re gonna end up editing a lot more. So that’s the whole, that’s the whole, uh you know, kind of the whole idea is to actually learn how to talk to it. Now, I’m just mentioning, you know, email, but you’re gonna use it for marketing, how to create effective social media post. You can fact give it a, you know, if there’s a social media post, for example, either from your organization or another organization that actually has created a lot of engagement, you can grab that post, give it to chat GP T and say this post generating, you know, 25 shares had about 1000 views, whatever, whatever the metrics that actually you get from that post, you feed it to chat GP T and say I want to create something similar. But my audience is Xy and Z right, please adopt the best practices that you found from this post to generate one that is actually gonna work for me. Do you need to say please, you know, GP T just do it right. So it’s interesting because we, we, we were talking about it and one of the decisions like, well, you know, che GP T appreciates when you are polite and say please and thank you because you know, there’s been some research where this actually shows that when you are polite, you know, it’s end up producing better results for you. There’s research. Yes. However, however, the nice thing about this, you can actually read all this research in the world, but you can actually test it yourself. Is there been instances on my, on my end where I haven’t said please and then the results versus versus an instruction when I say please doesn’t change much. OK? So in my experience, you know, this is, this is one of the things that I’ve done. I get frustrated with cha GP T and you know what I’ve done is like you did not do what I asked you, you are making stuff up, you’re hallucinating because that’s the term that we use. So you’re making stuff up, please. OK. Revise the instructions and pay attention to details. All right. So I use the, please, then I draft the same prompt, same instruction without the plea and I pretty much get the same result right. There’s some instances when the results varies. A little, a little bit, right? But with a GP T, I’m gonna be honest with you, you can use the same prompt right now. Uh And then 10 minutes later you get a different, a different, um a different result. I’m gonna give you an example. So yesterday, someone asked at my session, OK, what happened if you actually say to chat G BT, write this email based on the target audience, you give it an audience and, and, and, and, and all the criteria. But then for the second prom, you say write an original email. What’s the difference between those two? Actually, there’s none because when you’re asking chai to write something, it’s going to be original. He’s actually creating the text for you. All right, you can edit it, you can change it, you can go back and forth, right? So, so we tested it out. So we tested it out. And so basically, we’re asking the same thing and one prompt, you know, uh we didn’t say original, the other one, we did. Obviously we had two different answers, right? Because because just one word that we changed now, what happened when you actually use the same instruction? The same one, no changes whatsoever, identical prompts, we also get different answers, but they were close but different answers. Here’s what happens when you can grab both, both of those answers. And you can say, oh my God those are good. What I can actually take from each of them to make one that is actually better and what you can do, you can give both answers to Cha J BT. And I said, I like both of them mention what you like about it. And now I want you to create one final email based on the instruction based on this criteria to make sure that is the best of the both versions that you gave me. So see all the things that we can do with it. And I’m just talking about text based, but we can do a lot of stuff, we can ask it to help us create prompt, to create images um to analyze data. Um You know, for nonprofits, for example, yesterday, we talked about let’s talk about different roles that you have in the nonprofits, right? You have a grant writer. How can you use a GP T to actually write a grant that’s very useful, you can actually fit in the whole information of the grant application, right? And then you can actually give a specific instructions and to tell you, you know how to actually answer those sections from the grant application with the tone of your organization. Make sure that actually highlights or give more importance to some of the sections of the grant of the grant application that it needs to be given importance to. But making sure that it maintains the whole brand’s voice, right? Obviously, it’s gonna come up with an answer. It’s not gonna be a perfect one. That’s where you actually go and start refining it and going back and forth. That’s, that’s just one, you know, one practical way of doing it. 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 Donor box, 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 donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two giving USA. Why do we have to wait six months for a report about fundraising the previous year giving USA comes out each June 6 months after the end of the year, we used to have a far far superior product. It was the Atlas of giving longtime listeners to the show. May recall that the Atlas of giving Ceo Rob Mitchell was on the show several times, usually maybe always in January because the Atlas had and he was announcing the report on fundraising from the previous year in January. And on top of that, very importantly, he came with the forecast, the quantitative forecast of fundraising for the coming year and he had this report from the previous year and the forecast by sector, meaning nonprofit mission sector. He used to say, sector source, the source of the giving and state state, he could break down giving by state. He could tell you that last year, what the dollar amount was of arts fundraising in the state of Wisconsin. And in the forecast, he could tell you what the religious fundraising is going to be for the coming year in the state of Maine. That’s how robust and detailed and sophisticated the Atlas of giving was giving USA doesn’t even come close to this and we have to wait six months for it. And the forecast you get from giving USA is qualitative like uh the election and inflation and donors perceptions will impact fundraising this year. Oh What, what brilliant insight. So, so, so deep, the analysis and, and so actionable for us, it’s worthless. Uh OK, so what happened to the Atlas of giving? Uh it, it, it fell away, you know, so if, if I here I am saying it was far superior, why didn’t it survive? Well, the best products don’t always survive. Um In this case, it may have been underfunded. So the marketing and promotion was not adequate giving USA has its relationship with the University of Indiana and the Lily School of philanthropy which lends it uh undeserved uh credibility. And so, you know, puts those institutions imprimatur on the, on the giving USA product uh I believe it’s misplaced, but anyway, it’s there. So, but I, I really don’t have a complete answer as to why the Atlas of giving didn’t survive. I think the last report was 2017. So I think the last time Rob Mitchell was on was January of 2018 with the report from 2017, again, such deep analysis by sector source and state. And also, of course, then he had the forecast for 2018. I guess I’m voicing frustration and lament that we don’t have a better product. And uh I lament the loss of the Atlas of giving. That is Tony’s take two, Kate. No, of course, Kate’s not here. We’ve got just about a butt load more time this week. Here’s the rest of improve your communications with A I. Again, when you say use, use our tone, our voice, you can train it with your own text. You can even give it URL si mean, maybe a blog post or you can copy and paste or whatever. Well, and Tony, here’s the thing about it that you said give it a blog post. Somebody actually asked yesterday can actually, can I give cha G BT a link to my page? So he knows a little bit about me about my organization and ask him based on that information to actually write an email, making sure that he’s skipping that brand’s voice, that has a little bit of background of who the organization is. And use that when it’s actually drafting that email, right? And so, um, and you can certainly do that. You can certainly do that. And so, um, so it’s powerful, there’s so many things that we can do with it. You know, I’m gonna share with you a, a concern that I have that I shared with the, the, the two, um, the two technologists who were talking about the prompt engineering yesterday. And I’ve shared this with other folks too. I, I’m interested in your reaction. Um My, my concern about the use of chat GP T or any of the, the generative A I tools is that we’re, we’re seeing away our most creative time, which is the blank page, the creation of the draft. We’re staring at the blank screen. How do I get started? Um You know, where should I start with my ending or should I start with my call to action in the middle or, you know, but where that to me is the most creative that we can, we can be and then less creative than that is refining editing, you know, copy editing, uh proofreading naturally, you know. Um So, so to summarize it, like my concern is that we’re, we’re gonna become less creative, we’re giving away our most creative moment. That blank screen moment. What’s your reaction to that? You know, I don’t know what kind of answers you get in regards to that, but I have found myself to be more creative by using Chat G BT. And the reason why is because now I’ve learned how to be more effective at communicating and given a specific instructions. Not only that though, but as I’m actually seeing the answers, I start thinking of ideas that I actually can use to enhance the final product that I want from cha GP T. So in other words, to me, for example, if I’m looking, I’m gonna give you example, I did, I did my workshop yesterday. Did I use C GP T to create an outline for my workshop? What do you think the answer to that is, of course, I did have I done workshops before on marketing and social media and uh and technology. Yes, I have prior to chat GP T. What did I do to create an outline for a workshop that I was about to present? What do people do? You go to Google? Right? You do a little bit of research, you can come up with an outlet yourself, but then you go to Google and you start actually looking at case studies, you start looking at concepts you start looking at and then you start putting all the information together. What Cha GP T does is basically grab all the information that he knows that exist and actually put it in a package for you in front of your screen based on the instruction that you give it. That’s what it does, right? So, so to a certain point is like if I want to write an email, for example, I would say to cha GP T I need to write an email, right? Um Ask me clarifying questions to get more context before proceeding. That’s it. Then cha G BT will say, all right, you, I I understand you need to write an email. Now tell me who the audience is. What’s the type of tone that you wanna use in the email? What are the key messages that you want to convey? These are things that well, we, we already know that we need to write on an email. But what chat G BT is helping me is kind of actually be more organized if there are things that I’m seeing there that I hadn’t thought about. And then once I see it is, oh my God, I forgot this. Now, now chat G BT is prompting you exactly is prompting me instead of actually thinking and being a little bit more creative and how I can enhance that process. And so that’s the way that actually I see it. Um So I don’t think the creative process is gonna go away. What is actually happened with shifting and how to be creative in a different way by using technology. And so, and that’s, and that’s the way that I, that I see it. That’s actually I see it with the people that I work with and how we have applied A, I thank you. Creativity in a different way. Yes, definitely. Um What else do you want to talk about? We, uh we could still spend some more time. What, what haven’t we gone deep enough on or? Well, yeah, I think, uh you know, for nonprofits, for example, but this is the audience of your, of your podcast. It’s like the question is, how do we actually use a tool like cha GP T to be more efficient? Well, you know, I gave you prior examples and how it can help you save lots of hours. You know, one of the things that we talked about yesterday was like, you know, if you want to write a blog post and you want to write a blog post about um mental health issues for teens uh in your, in your local area, for example, and the purpose of the blog post is to educate parents and provide resources well, prior to cha GP T, you probably would think and you will look at the blank screen going back to your, to your concern and you probably spend about eight hours trying to write, to write a very good blog post. Right? Well, with J GP T, we can certainly actually spend between 2 to 2 and four hours and actually write a very good blog post. Now, what happened with the other four hours, the other four hours that I’m not spending now and writing a blog post can be used in the marketing piece of the blog post. Now that I have written it, what can I do to actually promote it better and making sure that parents actually get to see it and get to apply what I have I have written for them to do or the tips that are provided for them in terms of mental health and, and, and, and, and how to deal with that with, with their, with their Children, for example, with their kids. And so notice how technology now is being used more efficient and we become more, I mean, uh more efficient on time, but more effective in the way that actually we produce results. So those are some of the things that I think is important for if you are a for nonprofits, if you ask the question, OK, what are the number one thing that you want cha GP T to help you with a lot of people are gonna raise their hands, they’re gonna say content creation, how to create more engaging content on social media. For example, my goodness, you have these tools, it’s gonna help you do that, right? And so when we’re talking about, you know, uh you know, using a GP T more for the nonprofit organizations, you know, one of the things that I would say is like get good at prompting. But on the other hand, just yesterday, I was reading an article where prompting in a few months is not gonna be something that it’s gonna be needed because what’s happening is as this technology advances, um the la language model is actually by just giving an instruction, the language model is gonna be able to actually predict what exactly is it that you want. So, and so basically, it’s not gonna be, you know, you’re not gonna need to be more detail than necessary sometimes. And so, so it’s a dancing rapidly, right? You actually go and go to websites and grab uh you know, uh prompts library for any type of role that you want. And then what you do is just copy and paste it and edit it based on your own needs. Prompt library. Oh yes, yes. So you want you, you know, you copyright it. Yeah. If you actually are a graphic designer, uh data analyst, there are actually prompt libraries in which you actually for anything pretty much that you want, you can copy it and paste it, edit it as you see fit and it will allow you to get more results faster, right? And so, so, you know, for nonprofit organizations, one of the things that I say is like, let’s get good at the basics first. If you get good at the basics, you’re gonna, you’re gonna see right away. Very good results. You’re, you’re gonna actually produce some tangible results, great results for your organization and then you’re gonna be able to now promote, better, communicate better. Um you know, if you are using uh cha GP T to create content on social media, you’re gonna be able to actually see the results of that by the content being more personalized, remember, personalizing and refining. And so those are the things that I think will be beneficial for fund raising. My goodness. If you’re, you’re fund raising and you have a database of donors, you feed that to cha GP T and you start segmenting your donors based on the amount of money that they actually have given you. Not only that, then you personalize that email, like I told you at the beginning based on that, not only that those that are actually have not engaged with you or for some reason, they haven’t donated with you in a while. How do we re engage them? How do we make sure that we remind them of the cause that at some point they actually, you know, believed or they engage with us at the first, but they haven’t done in a while. How do we re engagement? How do we actually make sure that actually they, you know, they donate, they come back. So look at all the great benefits that you can actually as a nonprofit can reap from this technology. It’s just knowing how to use it, right? It’s key. But you know, but as you, as you’re learning how to use it, the creative, the creative actually thought comes to you and say, oh my God this is just one tip of the iceberg. Now we can do this, this and that. So that’s what I say is technology for me had to allow me to actually be more creative in the way that I do things. All right. Yeah. All right, Carlos, we’re gonna leave it there. All right. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you, Carlos Morales, digital marketing strategist at Viva Technology. Thank you very much again for sharing, Carlos. My pleasure. Thank you and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC where we’re sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits next week, exploiting conflict and intuition makes better products. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous. Like I’m 14. My voice breaks, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Love that alliteration. This does get a little tiring doing my per one person. II, I must be out of practice doing it by myself. It’s been over a year. Our creative producer is Clare Meyerhoff. I’m your No, no. 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.