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Nonprofit Radio for May 15, 2015: Creating Communities & Questioning Crowdfunding

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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My Guests:

Megan Keane, Michael Wilson, and Joe ProsperiCreating Communities

Starting an online community to engage supporters is a big investment. Learn how NTEN, Small World Labs and Relay Nation at American Cancer Society created communities that increase loyalty, fundraising, engagement and return on mission. Guests are Megan Keane, Michael Wilson and Joe Prosperi. We talked at NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

Amy Sample Ward: Questioning Crowdfunding

Picture of Amy Sample WardCrowdfunding is popular, but don’t jump in just because lots of others have. How do you decide if it’s right for your organization? Amy Sample Ward is our social media contributor and CEO of NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with four uncles and carb uncle’s if i had to hair that you missed today’s show creating communities starting an online community to engage supporters is a big investment. Learn how in ten small world labs and relay nation at the american cancer society created communities that increased loyalty fund-raising engagement and return on mission guests are meghan keene, michael wilson and joe prosperi. We talked at ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference and questioning crowdfunding crowd funding is popular, but don’t jump in just because lots of others have. How do you decide if it’s right for your organization? Amy sample ward is our social media contributor and the ceo of n ten the non-profit technology network on tony’s take two non-profit radio on the road and third sector, responsive by opportunity collaboration that working meeting on poverty alleviation that will ruin you for every other conference here is creating communities from auntie si. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen non-profit technology conference it’s day two we are in we are in austin, texas, at the convention center. My guests now are meghan keene, membership director for inten michael wilson, ceo of small world labs, and joe prosperi, digital lead for relay for life at the american cancer society. Meghan michael, joe, welcome. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Pleasure. Pleasure to have you your workshop topic. These online communities proinspire action and generate results. We’re going to get there in a second. First, i just want to point out that each interview today on day two, i’m highlighting on intense swag item. And i’ve got my zippered hoody. This is hi this’s, one of the high high end items, zipper pretty from from donorsearch. Welcome. Don’t drive, teo and ten peer-to-peer sec. Is that what they do? All right, it goes, it goes in our swag pile an outer growing pile. It is doing it all day today and i get that it’s eight eleven interviews yourself today. So good stash. Alright, let’s, build some online communities that inspire action and generate results. Um, where’s, the where’s the best place to start let’s, start down in the end there, joe, where should we start? With determining whether? It’s appropriate for us to build an online community, whether that’s really going to suit the needs of our organization, that is that a good place? Yeah, i think what’s really interesting to point out is that really for any of us that are non profit organizations, we already have community, you know, it’s already there we’ve got volunteers, we have staff, we have supporters, we have donors, those communities are already there, and how do we turn those digitally into online communities? And some of the most of organizations already have that whether it be a facebook community twitter community but the american cancer society, we decided a while a couple years ago that we really need to have a vault, a place where all of our top engaged volunteers are top supporters are kind of the big fish in terms of really, if her life had a place to gather in a place to share ideas, get inspiration from it mostly from a peer-to-peer fund-raising standpoint, but we also noticed throughout time that our community has grown too a peer-to-peer engagement place and a peer-to-peer inspiration place where we’re not relying on the american cancer society telling the story of what the american cancer society does. We’re relying on our supporters to do it for us within our community. Okay, michael let’s. Still stay at the overviews stage of community building? Yes. So when would you do it? So he’s really? Just an engagement platform. So i think similar to how email is a communication ty phone isn’t a communication like joe was saying. We have we have communities. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, just really late. You know, do do you want your communication to be isolated and one toe one like phone and e mails? Or do you want it to be many too many so in that regard, it can work and, you know, virtually any environment when you take the next step of okay, so is it going to work in this situation or for this program or for this constituency base? We generally try to look at the product of three things. So one is size so what’s the potential audience size two is what would they be able to do together? So the types of interactions that they could have at three what’s the affinity. So what is the relative similarity between each? Person that’s going to join because the hyre that affinity rate is the mohr relevant? Every thing is everybody there on and then yes, it’s floors for a fourth of that eyes the value. So how important is what they’re doing in the community to their daily lives? And so in that regard, you can have communities that are very small that are successful, that are very small in terms of potential audience, but high an affinity and high in value. Or you can have the flip side where you can have, you know, community of successful because they reach a large number of people, but they don’t have actually have that many that much in common. Facebook okay, okay, megan, about this threshold question whether we should be doing it. Yeah, well, when one thing that i think is always really important to look at is to look it like where people already are, you know, go do a little bit of hunting and kind of see, like, okay, who are the people you’re trying to reach? You know what? Platform? So they aren’t engaging on and that’s get indicated for you is like goto where they are already. Having those conversations are, you know, think about where you know where to reach him. So just doing a little bit of mapping and kind of seeing okay, are there conversations happening and kind of seeing what the landscape is and then seeing how how do you want to kind of be? How do you want to sort of guide that guide that bill? You know, if you will, you know, in terms of whether that’s thinking about your having community on your own platform, or having some other kind of group channel, that would be appropriate. Okay, interesting. Yeah. So i feel like i kind of started the wrong the wrong place because you all three made different points. But one similarity running through is the community’s exist in one way or another. We’ve got them. How? How robust can they be? How can they be built out? What methods do you want to use for the communications? Okay. Well, that’s cool. I’m i’m happy to stand suddenly corrected. Nobody is what he said it explicitly. I’m happy to do it. Ok. Where should we go next? In this community building topic what’s. Ah, if we do wantto billed out and make something special beyond what we where we are, where do we where do we get started? Something that might be helpful is we have a few community experts here that maybe could talk a little bit about what they’re doing to do to build community in their specific organisation. Ten and a cs to relay for life. Yeah, good. Megan, you want to? Yeah, sure. So one thing that we do it in ten and ntcdinosaur part of this is we really try to combine a lot of opportunities for people to network and connect and do some community building activities and sort of finding a combination of the online and the offline. So auntie si is a perfect example of, like, you know, what happens when you get a bunch of people in the right place having conversations and having an in person kind of community building, and then we really try to kind of keep that moment i’m going through some of the, you know, the online kind of community building, and so we’ve done that in terms of groups and what we have in anti seizure years, we have birds of a feather lunch. Which are lunch is for anyone who wants to meet on about a certain topics. So it’s a great way to break the ice because you automatically have something in common with someone else. So we’ve had every birds of a feather start that were women in tech table at lunch, there was another one that was a bunch of people that work at food banks, and some of those have led teo becoming more formalised communities of practice that exist online. So, for example, a year ago, we had a bunch of people howto birds of a feather table that was on arts non-profit group, and it has since become a community, a practice that has that lives on intense community platform and they meet on a monthly basis online or sometimes they have twitter chats in between the anti c and then they’re meeting up again this year. I want to explain what the inten community of practices yeah, eso our community to practice our our affinity group so it’s very similar to like thinking of like a bird of a feather in person thing on lee, it exists online on these groups will have discussions that take place in forums and usually will have some method of kind of connecting, whether that’s on, you know, on a monthly basis, whether that’s via tweet shot sometimes that’s on and online, you know, some kind of conference call with folks of shared notes, documents of different groups do different things with that, but some have some kind of kind of personal connection but mostly exists online. In between are the communities of practice on ly open toe, and ten members know they’re open to the public. So anyone who wants to join you very good about that, you don’t have to be a member. Yeah, any of our community groups, all you need is a lot in evil address and a password on your good. Excellent. All right, so pretty open ended. Kapin yeah, definitely very, very welcoming. Yeah. Go ahead, please. Joe. Relay for life. Yeah, so our online community is called relay nation and it came about really a couple years ago when we realized we didn’t have a really great way of taking all of the resource is the inspiration that we felt as an organization. We need to get in the hands of our relay. For life volunteers nationwide, you know, really, if life is such a large event, there’s just so many volunteers and they’re in all corners of the country, so getting them together in an online community to connect them to other relay er’s with similar stories, similar ideas, similar struggles even has been very valuable to us, and we’ve realized over the last two years with really nation that it’s not just an opportunity for us to share those resource is with folks, but it’s turned into even more of them, sharing things back to us, and it’s turned into almost a goldmine force in terms of online content, social content stories, videos, all of the things that for a non profit organization really help you tell your story about where the money goes, how the mission impacts people that participate in the event, and we’ve been able to use the really nation to do that. So an example, just a couple months ago, we posted a very simple question in our forum on relay nation and asked what was your moment? What was the moment? It really for life that you’ve got? What this event was all about and within? A couple weeks, we had over two hundred eighty responses from re layers across the country, some, you know, very short stories, some, you know, litanies of pages long of who they really for life for, um and many of those things came with videos and pictures, and we were able to turn a lot of that content into social sharing graphic. So by us asking one simple question in our community, we got lots of responses and lots of stories, and we really put an emphasis back on our relay for life participants telling our story for us because they could tell it so much better than we can as an organization and that’s really been the biggest highlight of having that online community is putting the storytelling of our organization back in the hands of the people that are benefiting from our services that are inspired by the events that they go to and that are, in the end going to recruit and raise more money for the american cancer society. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights. Published once a month, tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. What were the things you were thinking when you decided there’s a need for a community among all these three layers that this sort of maybe some of the symptoms would be helpful for people to understand, but yeah, so we don’t have a variety of nationwide meetings with leadership volunteers, and they always really enjoyed when we got the post event surveys back from those saying we enjoyed visiting with bree layers from other parts of the country in other divisions, other areas because they want to share the best practices as much as i hate that term best practice, it really does drive a lot of what really events dio, and they want to share their struggle. So there’s an event that’s having a tough time recruiting corporate sponsors or finding the right volunteer leadership, it not only allows them to share their concerns and get peer-to-peer feedback instead of staff at the american cancer society coaching these volunteers, volunteers air now coaching each other, and they were doing that in person, and we wanted to facilitate that online and give them a place tohave those shared meeting spaces for like minded volunteers, we have a number of featured groups in our community, so event leads kind of those key leadership volunteers have specific groups where they could just meet network, have forums, share resource is with other event leads all the way down. Two team captains and participants have their own forum specifically for their participation types on that really has been very helpful to one, you know, justified to those people that need assistance, that they’re not alone in the study, on the help that they need with their relay for life fund-raising in participation, and it makes a lot of advocates for us as well, because that peer-to-peer interaction, our volunteers air helping other volunteers which builds their confidence and their appreciation for the cause and their confidence in their leadership abilities, which grows more leaders for us. Michael, is that is that kind of segmentation in a community, and i don’t mean that pejoratively at all. But you know that kind of those kind of divisions where it’s a peer-to-peer is that eso lots of subsets? Is that important? And yeah, it is because when you think about how do you maximize going back to the, you know, the value of community affinity being one and then purpose. What can you do there and segmentation? So who’s the target audience for your community and what is going to be about when they get there helps increase that value. And so because of that, so we generally see it’s more lives, a few different community types and constituent groups that their focus on so one is event peer-to-peer fundraisers, which is where the american cancer society is doing. Another is members for more of like a association that’s what, like the american heart association is doing this with intent was doing another is for advocate. So the national wildlife federation has an online community called ico leaders targeted at student environmental activists, helping them create projects. Another is volunteers ahh par oh, very small organization in north carolina who’s here does all of their volunteer crew ting and matching through community on then the last is a kind of mission support, so for the people that the non-profit is trying to support. So the canadian cancer society is a good example of this. They’ve got a community in french for those in come back that is designed to bring together cancer survivors and those that are supporting them, you know, so that they can go through that challenge together, feel less isolated. So it’s kind of you generally do find in our experience, more success when you do kind of target who communities for and what the purpose is. All right, so you have the umbrella community, says the nation, but but lots of lots of affinity group well built build around different things. It could be geography. Yeah, language, but lots of lots of subsets. Yeah. And even really nation is that example that is targeted. Not for everybody who is on american cancer size email list. That is, for people who actually participate in the peer-to-peer or relay for life, and so that’s one segment and then below that joe is just mentioning they segment and even mohr. So carrion’s yeah, there you go. And that’s how you just helped make it, maura. And then the key there is to make it more relevant, invaluable to people so that they’re not just starting from, you know, the eternity of all space. And how do i find what i’m looking for exactly right now? And ten does a very good job of this. Andi. Carrying it well, geographically, but then carrying it to the meet ups, ted clubs all over the country. Yeah, in fact, internationally? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, similar this week, like we actually have one discussion group, which is, is kind of that sort of bigger group that’s kind of serving a bigger thing. That’s our general discussion list, which is kind of all things non-profit tech related. But then we have the individual, like, on the local level, people organizing the in person five oh, one tug clubs that will have monthly meetings, and then they’ll have an online space in which to connect in between meetings as well. And then the affinity groups i mentioned so it’s kind of similar to what you were. You know, you were saying, it’s, michael, about, you know, the kinds of things that people will connect about. And then how do you kind of narrow in that focus? So you have sort of niche is above sort of the larger what i find. Very interesting at intend those those local clubs is the names are not uniforms, right? Right. Right. Organise that the local organizations free to call itself me it. Could be tech for good maybe, and i see now on the spot, i can’t think of the group c tech friendraising cloudgood your butt you can call yourself whatever you want. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so that’s really where so comes in. I think that you kind of are segmenting indo, like kind of a good point about community building is like, you can kind of think of your community is actually being the driver of your community and you might be the person in, like the driver’s side seat, like kind of taken the steering wheel here and there, you know, to steer in the direction you want to go a little course correction course correction, you know? So you’re still staying on your mission and what your strategies and goals are, but you’re letting it be really self directed and then that way you’re communities really feeling a sense of ownership over it. Joe, what about that self directed communities is now a c s is a big organization? Is it that willing to allow that kind of decentralization alcohol it? Yeah, and it’s interesting, because when we first launched relay nation, it was fairly decentralized where we had just wide open groups that people could create their own user groups based on geography based upon participation tie based upon type of cancer that they were reeling for just a variety of things, and we noticed that we got a lot of groups right off the bat that people signed up and started those groups to try and network and that’s been great. But we realized about a year that we needed a kind of shift focus and provide some feature group some pieces that we’re setting out organizationally to put some resource, is behind moderate a little bit more cleanly and help push our resource is and our strategies out that way because, you know, after a while we noticed that for, you know, relay for life online volunteers that run our websites, there were four or five different groups that were all user generated, that we’re all competing for the same audience. So we picked out those ones that we knew had very large audiences that really applied to everybody across the country added them in a more prominent place on relay nation to make sure that the baseline strategies were out there the baseline. That’s like that’s, like one of the course corrections were just talking about you, and we’ve done a couple of those along the way. We used to have a very close community where you had toe, you know, log in to view all the stuff that’s there, and we realized, you know, again about a year ago that by unlocking that and long people to least read the information that’s there, see the stories, follow the threads, load the videos that we’re getting a lot more traffic that way, and a lot more use of john of the site and had a really great girl are alive because of that, okay? And i’m excellent at what you just said our ally and i was thinking, you know, let’s, let’s, turn the discussion to evaluation and and how do we know if these communities are successful? God, michael, you want to kick us off? Yeah, i mean, this is the this is an area where a lot of communities fall short and it’s not because they’re not achieving it. I think it’s, because of the mix of skillsets background and resource is that community managers have in that if you’re going to g o we’re going to go determine hey, what’s the r a y or if its mission related what’s the rom return on in mission from my community. Jerry lee skillsets of the community manager are to be able to kind of, you know, execute, build engagement, all of those types of things, and that’s a little different from alright, great. Now i’m to do data polls from our fund-raising database on going toe port them together with community data. And then i’m gonna run, you know, ve look ups if it’s an excel or queries, you know, if it’s a date what’s with the look up, we have george in jail on tony. Just you just seriously transgressed. All right? So, look, so we’ll look up is a function in microsoft excel that exactly that allows you to look at one cell and then say, go look in this other range over here and give me the value that corresponds to that it’s kind of a way to do a data base in my ear like myself. Okay. All right. Thank you. Probation probations allowed. So however, the the ability t get that data is there and being able to do so makes a big difference between the resource is that that community your community manager, gets and doesn’t, because, you know, after you started community and a year from now or two years from now, the cfo or whoever is in charge of finance he’s going to come around like, you know, like they should do on any project and go, you know, what’s this doing for the organization and so that’s one area where we, you know from from our perspective, so we’re kind of like a partner we don’t have, like, you know, we’re not a non-profit community provides metoo and that’s where we find that it’s really key to have not only the technology and then the strategy of the community, but also the support model for it so you can do things like, make sure your building engagement, but also run those end of the year r a y announce analyses and so joe, american cancer society, they got some great statistics that all of him share. But when you poll data together, here’s some examples of what you know it has been achieved. The american heart association has a professional online network. For their members, cardiologists, mts, nurses, it joined to be a part of us, they pay dues pre imposed, joining their online community thie upgrade rate from one paid level to another pay level went up seventy three percent, the rate at which people attend their revenue generating events, which are like conferences and sessions when a fifty percent the overall retention rate of members. So i’m a paid member one year. Do i continue to be a paid member of the next year? Ten percent and there are, you know, innumerable other quantitative, quantifiable examples like that, where volunteer hours have been increased two hundred twenty eight percent. I’m an annual giving. Yeah, i’m going to go to the folks who actually here. You don’t have a couple minutes left. Sure. So, joe let’s talk about your your comments on our oh, i do it not not just what you’ve achieved, but your advice for small and midsize non-profits teo to measure it. Yeah. So when we built out what our r o i looked like for real a nation, it was helpful to work with someone like small world labs who on their platform the users are are generated based upon their blackbaud id team, razor and blackbaud is the product we use for online fund-raising platform it relay for life, so we were able to easily export the data from the small world labs platt form where really nation is built and merge it using that constituent i’d with the fund-raising data of our users for relay for life, which makes it really easy for us to see what people that participate in really nation do fund-raising wise registration wise versus people that don’t, and we pulled that data about six months ago, and we’re just i geeked out for hours about it because it was just stunning to see that for people that participate in relay nation have had just one interaction, they’ve shared a one photo. They’ve commented on one forum those folks register on average eighty seven days earlier in the year than people that do not participate in really nation. You know, when you think about that in terms of a non-profit event, you know that’s almost three months that they register earlier there, getting your auto responders going called three months what’s three days, you know, it’s, mind blowing that what the amount of dahna the amounts that helps and to get those people in and fund-raising sooner and recruiting center was amazing. I mean, it wasn’t just their registration, it was they set goals that we’re one hundred twenty, one hundred twenty seven percent hyre i think then people that did not participate in relay nation and they achieve that goal seventy three percent of the time or all right, we gotta go turn to meghan, give her a chance on yeah, so i went again, not just not just what intends achieved, but how to yeah, one thing i would say on r o i is, you know, we’ve talked a lot about numbers, but it’s really good to keep in mind the qualitative parts of roo and so to be in continued discussion with your community and be really taking in that feedback. So we survey our community every year in an annual survey and it’s that kind of, you know? So while there’s some quantitative feedback that we get from that, we also get a lot of qualitative feedback as well, and that really informs our work in our direction for our programs and are content for the year okay. Excellent. Latto surveys, just simple surveys. All right, so now we still have a couple minutes. You were so quick. Anything anything more you want to say? Yeah. I mean, i think i on on that particular thing, i think it’s important to be, you know, when i said with constant, you know, talk, constantly talking to your community, i think it’s also good to not just have it be an annual in annual thing that you’re looking stats like ceo wants to know it’s like to be on a continuing basis, looking at those numbers and be able to course correct along the way and just being really nimble about being willing to change and be flexible with that. Okay, we got we got about another minute or so left. Anybody closing comments on community could be, yeah, i’ll jump in real quick because i think one of the takeaways i always like to share is when we share. These are aligned numbers from the american cancer society with the fellow our fellow staff, we had a ground long conversation about well, do you think that really nation is really driving hyre fund-raising or do you think? That your hyre fundraisers just naturally are migrating to really nation because that’s, what they’re doing, and after a good twenty minute debate, i kind of said, you know what? I really don’t care, you know, if they’re both really great things that we want, we want to provide a space for our highly engaged volunteers to meet and mingle, and we also want to take our less engaged volunteers and drive them to more fund-raising mohr engagement with us more recruiting and be more well rounded volunteers for relay for life. So, you know, i think it’s a good, solid mix of both, so you know, don’t think that necessarily you’re driving eight hundred percent hyre in something you are going to pull in some of those key people that are going to skew that number up a little bit, but it’s also a good thing to provide them. The resource is that they’re obviously seeking excellent. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. They are right. They are meghan keene, membership director for inten michael wilson, ceo of small world labs. And joe prosperi digital lied on relay for life at the american cancer society again thank you and thank you for being with tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen the non-profit technology conference time for live listener love. We got marquette, michigan, st, louis, missouri, new bern, north carolina, new york, new york, multiple san francisco, austin, texas. And langhorne, pennsylvania. That’s s o far part of our domestic live listener love also on twitter madeline nino’s software advice, jean takagi, thank you very much for doing a little live tweeting and, uh and your shout outs to the show and we’ll do a little bit of a broad, but we have ah, lots of listeners abroad would do just a little bit la paz in bolivia, italy, portugal and israel. Sorry, we cannot see your cities but live listener love to you and also in ah in taiwan. Ni hao, podcast pleasantries people in the time shift ten thousands of you listening wherever you are, whatever device, whatever time geever activity you’re engaged in as you’re listening, pleasant trees to the podcast listeners and, of course, those very important affiliate affections were gonna have a new affiliate starting in june. But we love can’t announce it yet. You don’t know exactly what day they’re going to start, but in california so i can, so i’m at liberty to say at this time, but for the everybody ate listening on the affiliates affections out to you, tony, stay two and ah, questioning crowdfunding coming up first, i gotta shout out the opportunity collaboration, our sponsor, the weeklong unconference in x top of mexico around poverty alleviation, it’s for non-profits impact investors, social entrepreneurs, grantmaker sze researchers, academics, corporations all of those entities will be represented there. I’ve seen it firsthand because i was there last year and i’m going this year. Any sample ward is going this year? It’s seventy eight percent sold out last week was only seventy six now. It’s seventy eight i stopped stuff to get my registration it’s selling out. Don’t be slow like me if your work is at all related to poverty reduction alleviation anywhere in the world, check out opportunity collaboration dot net non-profit radio is hitting the road, i’m going to phoenix, los angeles, then i’m going to drive from los angeles to san francisco spent a few days there, and then i’ll be in portland, so if you are close to any of those places, please. Let’s, meet up my itinerary and the video are at tony martignetti dot com third sector today at third sector today. Dot com amy davita runs it and she has lots of contributors. In fact, i met her live at ntc just what, two months ago they block tips, insights, best practices for the community. They have a podcast. Maria semple has been on the podcast stealing my guests just like guidestar did guidestar this past week had a newsletter i got the email newsletter three past guests on the guide star newsletter copying blatant copying non-profit radio it’s gross, but we love it because it’s it’s a flattering to be copied in any case, we’re not we’re talking the third sector today. That’s right, third sector today dot com valuable resource written and curated by very smart folks there run by amy de vida and that is tony’s take two for friday, fifteenth of may twentieth show of the year speaking of n ten and ntcdinosaur portland amy sample ward is the ceo of and ten the non-profit technology network. Our most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement her blog’s amy sample, ward dot or ge? And on twitter she’s at amy rs ward welcome back, amy sample ward hey, how’s it going. Thanks for having me back on. Oh, month after month. It’s a pleasure. You’re very well, thank you. Thank you for doing it all this time. Yeah, it was it was fun. And also strange at the same time to be, you know, listening in on the line muted, of course, and hearing hearing megan and then ten staff person talking, i just kept thinking, oh, i’m talking to megan. Oh, no, i’m not right. And that was all from auntie si, which you and i talk there too. I haven’t played that interview, but we will now intent has as a big announcement coming up next week. What can you share at this moment? Wait, do we have kind of two things going on, one that i can share more spoiler information about? We’ve been working for the last over a year on our new website and sharing that kind of publicly as we go along case studies of ourselves about things that we’re working on. Our things that we need to do is part of ah, website redesign. So we have nine working days until the site should be should be going live. So that’s taking up lots of energy and brain power over here. But then we also have announcement next week that will be on a new program area both kind of online content and educational programs as well as some offline pieces. Okay, okay. Eyes going, toby, is there another annual event coming up like leading change summit and and tc? Yes, the leading change summit is coming up from it. We’re really exciting. You know, last year was the first year that we did it. So we learned a lot about, you know, it’s it’s, a very different process. A ce faras an event, you know, it’s, not a conference. Where there’s lots of sessions happening. There’s no exhibit hall, things like thing, you know, the main kind of components of the non-profit technology conference or other big conferences. But this is more of a facilitated process. So everybody that comes it is kind of, you know, suspending disbelief and and going through this experience together to come out on the other side with more more kind of fully formed ideas. Concepts, new programs, whatever it may be, tio take back to their organization. So we learned a lot last year and have shifted some things around and made it just a lot more hands on. So this year it’ll be in september thirteenth through sixteen in washington d c so registration is open for that. And yeah, we got all kinds of things going on. Okay. That’s leading change summit info is, of course, that in ten dot or ge but that’s not what i was asking you. What i was asking you was, is as part of this new announcement, is there going to be on additional annual event? Is that is that now i’m not doing that, okay? No, but it will be. It will include a program and a delusional opportunities. So, you know, new areas of online programs, but then also ah, deep investment in offline capacity building. All right, all right. We look forward to that next week. And then, of course, on the website side, you and i talked about that just a few weeks ago, we were talking about mobile mobile accessibility and mobile friendliness. I’m pleased to say durney martignetti dot com is now mobile friendly. Look atyou between moving quick. We tweaked it. We did some work. Yes, it is now mobile friendly and i know you’re new and ten site will be also right. Ok? Yes, exactly. All right, let’s, move! Teo. What? We want to talk about our main topic. We lots of topics, but the main one eyes some questions about crowdfunding you were very prominently quoted in on npr blogged, along with other guests, gen shang, professor gen shang she’s been a guest. And sandra miniutti, a charity navigator? Of course. Ken berger, former ceo there was a guest multiple times on the show. So everybody’s stealing the non-profit radio guests remarkable god’s, pure steel. You’re just putting people on the map, tony, we’re i’m a pioneer in the pioneer in transit, so i better watch out for the arrows in my back. Because that’s, what happens to pioneers and the subject of this was the nape all crowdfunding. And you had some thoughts about. Well, i guess we could start with, like, organizational versus individual crowdfunding. Yeah, it’s. Interesting. I just thought that it was potentially an interesting conversation for you and i to have obviously you talk a lot about fund-raising on dh, you know, talking about crowdfunding isn’t necessarily something new to folks that listen to the show. Neither is kind of the rial surge of donations that most people are participating in after a natural disaster, whether you know, whatever country that’s in so that’s not new either. But there there does seem to be some interesting shift happening with the latest natural disaster, the earthquakes in the paul and i think, that’s why there’s been some of these, you know npr articles and others trying to figure out, you know, it’s, not it’s, not the most prominent thing this time to see, you know, text to donate to the red cross like that’s what everybody remembers from a lot of the most recent natural disasters the last few years, right? You know, as soon as something happens, we’re getting the text to donate to the red cross when there was the oil spill, you know, texted, donate teo national wildlife federation, you know, kind of big household organizational names, right? And this time, that’s, of course, happening like there are still those channels to donate to a very large international organizations, but there’s really big surge in in crowd funding efforts that are either totally personal, you know, just individuals setting up a page and some of those individuals they’re setting up fund-raising campaigns, you know, online funding pages that are not benefiting organizations they’re saying, you know, please donate and i will make sure that my parents, who are missionaries in the paul, get all the money and distribute it to villagers or, you know, donate to me, and i will fly over and help myself. So there’s, this kind of individual as the end, has the end relief effort there’s also individuals setting up pages that are directly connected to an organization so much more similar to what organizations are probably used to it they’re doing, you know, a walkathon, and everybody sets up their own fund-raising page, but the page itself is already connected to their organizational account, right? So that all the money is automatically going to them just through the system and then their organization setting that pages, you know, for themselves in the relief efforts that they’re working on. So it’s it’s interesting to see the shift where it isn’t just the red cross or use a i d or unicef, you know, very large international names, but, you know, people are just setting that pages for themselves or i know a friend that lives there, and i will send the money to them and they’ll decide what to do with, you know, and i think that, hey, it’s interesting to think about now, because this may be what it looks like more commonly as we go forward. No, crowdfunding is becoming crowded funding. Exactly. What about these? This is interesting individuals using the organization name. I mean, now you suggested an organ individual might be doing it, and then it goes just through the through the platt for the crowdfunding platform, whatever it might be on then to the organization. But what if it’s an individual using an organization’s name, but they’re not necessarily the infrastructure set up for the decoration to go directly, and they claim i will give it to whatever you know, whatever relief agency it is or something, you know? Yeah, that’s, that’s really a great point, teo, to provide some clarity on, i think it’s organizations or as individuals looking to donate if someone says, you know, i’m don’t worry send send me your money, and i will make sure you know that the red cross gets it. It is it is not. I mean, there’s no accountability and that, right? And if you if you really want to donate, you know, say, tony, you had a page set up and you are my friend and i wanted to support you, so i wanted to donate, you know, to your page because of that, you know, that feels good too. That’s, why we do individual based fundrasing right, like, i want to donate to relief efforts, but i want to do it through, you know, we’re together in this there’s there’s no reason why you couldn’t set that page up in a way that is connected to the red cross, right? So, you know, using most of these vetted, established fund-raising platforms that are are meant for organizations to receive donations. You can, as you’re setting up your page, it’s still in your name? You know, tony, this is my fund-raising page, but using one of these platforms, you can say, i want this to go to the red cross, and the money won’t go to you personally, you know? It really will connect to the red cross is account that they’ve set up in that system on dh if you are looking at a friend, our colleague page, and it says that it’s going to an organization but it’s not connected, you know, i would i would questions their own process to be able to make sure it goes, they’re not that they’re necessarily trying to be malicious, but that, you know, they’re they’re crowdfunding platform setup to facilitate that right? So why wouldn’t you take advantage of it? Yeah, it makes it a little yeah, it raises the suspicion, you know, exactly, it’s interesting. I mean, i’ve even seen, you know, there there are lots of there are so many platforms like you said it’s, a crowded crowdfunding space, and there are lots of platforms set up, you know, for organizations or entities to receive those funds, but then there are platforms that aren’t aren’t set up, you know, their intention is really individuals to receive money like, go fund me and you see people using go fund me to set up a campaign that like a you know example, you before, please donate money and i’ll give it to my parents, who are missionaries in nepal, and they’ll make sure this goes somewhere, but i’ve even seen people saying, hey, my friend, is there on the ground and, you know, they’re not really online because they’re there in the kind of aftermath and continued aftershocks of these earthquakes send me the money and also, and i’ll wire it to them without even using the platform literally just posting on facebook, you know, here is, you know, send a wire transfer to my hsbc account and i will send that money on which i think you know, of course, you want to believe your friends that you can send them some money, but i think even if you weren’t trying to be malicious, have you really weren’t trying to manage that it’s very difficult, right? You get a hundred ten dollars transfers. How are you even tracking that? So, yeah, okay, it like we said, reasonable suspicion and why not make it easier on yourself and and help the organization with accountability so that they don’t have to be concerned who’s using their name. Okay, we got to go away for a break for a couple of minutes. When we come back, of course, amy, you and i’ll keep talking about nepal. And some options is for organizations who might consider crowdfunding as a part of ah fund-raising campaign or not. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation. Top trends, sound advice, that’s. Tony martignetti, yeah, that’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. More live listener love abroad, seoul, south korea always always loyal listeners soul multiple anya haserot in japan, lots of people in japan soca, tokyo, fu chiu, saitama, konichiwa. And in china we have beijing and chung ching and ebay ni hao. I wish it was somebody from czech republic because i felt like saying dobre den, but there’s nobody nobody would understand that. So i won’t say dope breeding again. There’s nobody out there who will get that. And columbia is with us. Columbia. I don’t see your city, columbia, but live listener love to you also, amy, the the the unfortunate part of just slightly, you know, i don’t mean to be difficult or anything, but well, you are. You are. Ah, when you recorded it by npr, they referred to you as ceo of a non-profit technology organization called n ten, but here on tony money now provoc radio your intent. Everybody knows everybody knows what intern is. They need that leader all that worthy leading a technology non-profit forgone ization called and ah, i felt about oh, really, npr doesn’t know intend well as well as a cz non-profit radio does and your home here you’re home you exactly. I’m not. I’m not on every month at m p r i know you will be no, this is a stepping stone, but you’ll never forget it. You know you won’t forget us exactly what else? What? Anything else you want to say in the in the part of the, you know, organizational versus individual on crowd funding sites. Well, i just thought i could offer up during the break. I just pulled up a couple lynx to have some sort of data. Teo kind of illustrate the point we were talking about there. I thought it might be helpful. And of course, you know the caveat when i’m about to share the data, i’m about to share it, you know, on ly one to two specific examples, right? But so global giving is ah, online crowdfunding platform right, used by organisations that wanna, you know, crowdfund are raised money online and that exists and they right after the earthquakes and appall set up a relief fund and what i think interesting there is that this is global giving setting up the page, bir says, you know, say, and ten, like an actual individual organization and it was set up, i’m saying, you know, of course, here’s the situation, they just have this natural disaster and, you know, fund, add your donations to this pool, and we will work on both right away, immediate relief efforts as well as longer term rebuilding in africa, and we will put your funds in tow, locally vetted organizations, so they didn’t even necessarily say great global giving is going to raise money in this pool for these two organizations. It just said, we’re going to put this into other organizations and then over on go fund me what i was referring to a four platform that’s normally used by people who are having, you know, maybe a medical emergency, and they put up a page saying, oh, my gosh, my, you know, sibling is in the hospital, can you help us with our medical expenses? You know, things that are much more personal, personally, well, in the immediate zone, so they also have a number of people who have set up these fund-raising pages on go fund me, you know, saying, please donate and i’ll send this to my parents over there, you know, send me money, and i will you know, make sure it gets over so two different examples, right? One of organizations, but exclusively focused on organizations in one focused on individuals. So on global giving, they have received as of this moment ten fifty one a m pacific time, heimans thirty three thousand nine hundred sixty one donations totaling two million, six hundred and sixty one thousand dollars. Over on go fund me. They have fifty seven thousand one hundred and seventy two donors. So good. Twenty five thousand more and have raised four million. Five hundred forty two thousand double. Yeah, basically, two. Very interesting. Right? And i think there’s a lot to try and take a part there that we could of course, formulate our theories about, you know, the global giving sight didn’t even say specifically which organization so there wasn’t that recognition of oh, i know them, but it was focused on organizations doing this short term in this long term efforts where these individuals were able to just go out and campaign for themselves. Right? Like here’s, my page. Donate to it. You all know me and trust me, please donate and we’ll make sure that money gets over there to folks who need it and that has, you know, at least using these two platforms are two examples that go fund me is like you say, almost twice, yep, yep. Okay, wait, we have to move. I want to move to the organizations who might be thinking about crowd funding as a part of a fundraising campaign. There are different ways you could do this. Let’s, let’s, explore that like e-giving days might be one, for instance. Yeah, so i think we talked a little bit about giving daze awhile ago back after giving tuesday. So can a national international now day of giving after the u s thanksgiving holiday and there was there was also just give local, which was able to america just make was just may fifth. Yeah, exactly that i think it’s uninterested in idea when it comes to crowdfunding because, you know, you sure the nepal earthquake is happening in lots of organizations and lots of individuals or fund-raising so you’re part of you’re you’re part of that fund-raising effort, right? People could come across your fund-raising page just by looking to give to nepal, right? They don’t know who you are, but they found you by, you know, doing internet search are looking on global giving for a campaign on and that’s really, i think how to think about it when you’re thinking about giving days, it isn’t necessarily i mean, e-giving days are going to have the same kind of total donations as a natural disaster, right where you’re bringing people together all around the world, but you do benefit from the fact that you can engage your community members, and it feels like, hey, of course, we’re asking you to donate, but it’s this big organized thing, so you get a little more leeway and forgiveness and, you know, the asks of, please donate, and here we are really asking you to participate because it’s a larger event and you benefit from people participating in that event, sharing the link and others in their network coming in and seeing you there. Oh, i didn’t know about this organization, but, you know, my friend just donated to them because it’s, you know, give local america and i want to participate, and i want to donate, too, so you get a little bit of that exposure benefit by participating in a larger yeah get that bump weii just have we have actually less than a minute left. It could also you could consider crowdfunding as a part of an event. Why don’t you talk about that quick? Sure, i think that’s a real missed opportunity if you’re goingto have i mean, you even did this right? Tony, you could do a case study in yourself, you know that you’re putting on an event is an organization and you have community members who want to show their support for you encourage them to set up fund-raising pages in advance of the event, even if they’re competing with each other and have the live event in person be kind of a deadline for those donations. So people see what that timeline is, and they all come together offline and see who raised the most. Yes, i did that when i was honored by hermandad couple of weeks ago. Thank you. Yeah, we have to leave it there. Amy sample ward she’s at amy rs ward on twitter. Her blogged amy sample ward dot org’s. Thank you very much, amy. And we’ll be seeing you very shortly when i’m in portland. Thanks, tony. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Next week, maria semple and jean takagi return, so we’re hitting all the regular contributors in just two weeks. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Think of opportunity. Collaboration with world convenes for poverty alleviation, i warn you, it’s, excellent, and it will ruin you for every other conference opportunity. Collaboration. Dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam lieber what’s on the board, as the line producer shows social media, is by susan chavez, susan chavez. Dot com on our music is by scott’s dying. I love that, yeah, you with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Amador is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff sort of dane toe add an email. Address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five per se.

Nonprofit Radio for May 8, 2015: Consider Consulting & Top Skills For Your Board

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Is consulting to nonprofits for you? Do you have the personality for it? What about marketing, pricing and setting boundaries? Julia Reich is owner of Stone Soup Creative and Marlene Oliveira is principal of moflow, a communications consultancy. We talked at NTC 2015, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of giggle incontinence if it leaked out that you missed today’s show, consider consulting is consulting to non-profits for you do you have the personality for it? What about marketing, pricing and setting boundaries with clients? Julia rice is owner of stone soup creative and marlene olivera is principal of moflow, a communications consultancy, we talked at ntcdinosaur fifteen, the non-profit technology conference and top skills for your board software advice has a report on what skills to look for as you recruit board members. Melissa mccormick is their market research manager on tony’s. Take two thank you and third sector, responsive by opportunity collaboration, the working meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for every other conference here is considered consulting from auntie si. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen we’re in austin, texas at the convention center our hosts are and ten non-profit technology network with me are julie rice she’s, the owner of stone soup, creative and marlene olivera, copywriter and communications consultant with moflow julia marlene, welcome, thanks for having us thinking it’s a pleasure to have you on a busy conference day. Thank you. You’re a very interesting topic is, uh, considering consulting to non-profits i like that a lot. We don’t do a lot of career topics on non-profit radio. So that’s why? I was very much anxious toe have you and talk to you? Um, julia let’s, start with you. What do i need to be thinking about? Generally? Because we have plenty of time together if i’m thinking about making this transition to consulting what what should be what? Some of things i should be thinking about? Well, when marlene and i were putting together the session, we identified five different main topics that we’re going to cover, and one of them is actually making the leap and what to think about when you’re first starting out? Yeah, on and so we both came up with our own tips of what we thought would be important, and so i’ll just share one of my tips and it’s going to sound really obvious, but when you’re first starting out as a consultant, i think it’s important to be professional and there’s a lot of different ways, teo exude professionalism, and one of those things is really easy to do and that’s get a professional headshot so, you know, you can use something from your iphone or whatever, but that’s the selfie is not really doing it. Yeah, yeah. And i see a lot of people do that, and i think that they’re kind of it’s kind of an injustice. I think that they could really be presenting just a better presentation of themselves if they got a a professional headshot on and there’s actually, right here in the conference in the science fair, they’re actually taking professional about two boots over, right? Flux a fail you xx our neighbors are taking taking professional hit shots so there’s, no excuse, right? If you’re here it but if you’re not, yeah, and we’re in such a visual society on the web is so visual. When people go to your about paige or your bio page, the first thing they’re gonna do is look at your picture before they start reading. So it’s your first impression and a lot of ways, right? All right, marlene, you have a tip? Yeah, for sure. I think when you’re thinking about whether or not to move into consulting, my advice is to think about two things in particular. One is your personality and whether you have an entrepreneurial type of personality, whether you’re going to be able teo, learn the skills that are outside of your specialty in order to run a business, have you also within your personality, whether you’re a warrior or not, whether you’re gonna be able teo, stay, keep an even keel when the business is slow, right? We went in cash flow. We need to know that cash flow and income fluctuations very, very much a part of having your own consultant lee totally a part of it. And so i kind of think that you should potentially not be pursuing this if you’re a real warrior. Yeah, some real introspection. Yeah. Think about your personality. And and you know whether you want to run a business because it’s a big move from having a paycheck. And then the other thing is, think about your finances. So you touched on it. I think in my in my experience, it worked well to have a good cash flow. Good reserve before launching the business. So i think, you know, save up for it if you can spend some time saving up so that once again you can weather the downtime and that you make good decisions, you won’t just take any client for any reason. So i think thinking about your finances and think about how good you are with money. You know, julie and i have talked about, you know, your good favor when the money does come in. Do you spend it all? So those are things i think you think you should think about in terms of your personality way want to avoid making an impulsive decision because all of a sudden, our job sucks. Something has really just happened that we just can’t tolerate. So i’m going off on my own. Yes. Actually, that is something that we talked about as well as your motivation. Are you? What? What you said, you know, it seems like the easiest way out of a bad situation. Or do you really want to be a business owner? Okay, julie, you want to share another tip? You said you had teo just came up with. A couple, anything else or around the motivation, any opening question tips? Well, i would just add to it, marlene said, when i first went out on my own, a lot of people would say to me, oh, i could never do that, i would just be watching television all the time or, you know, going shopping and, you know, my personality is well suited to being a consultant and being self employed because i’m just really self motivated and no, i have to, you know, i have to make a living, so i’m not gonna waste my time, you know, going shopping and watching television and so it’s, just i know that part of my personality is is motivated enough teo toe work, like on a and i guess that’s going back to being professional, you know, it’s, i’m i’m sitting in my office in front of my computer basically monday through friday, nine to five, sending that setting those hours cem or introspection, but also recognizing that the need to pay bills is quite a motivation. So you may think that you may be on the fence about whether you’re whether you’re disciplined enough, recognize that you’re gonna have bills and you are going to want to make money to pay them so that that should be some help to you, right, discipline, that way of putting it. But on the other hand, if you say you’re total slouch and, you know, for a fact, you’re not gonna do it, then then this is not the right both for you, although i can’t say i kind of learned this one the hard way a little bit where the year i launched my business was also an olympic here i watched it few too many olympic duvette your income suffer, and i mean, it was mostly during a quiet time it was during the summer, but i did realize that i could have been building my business instead and started to build that structure and that discipline in a more defined way for myself started to structure it in what year was that what you live for? Two thousand eight? And how long have you been in business? Julia? Since two thousand one. Okay, oppcoll what’s something else? Well, can i presume that marketing is one of the areas of importance? Who wants to start with marketing ideas? How? Do we get this thing launched? You go first. All right, well, i have just a few of the things that have worked for me that i think are potentially surprising to people. I mean, i think you need to do what you enjoy doing and do what overtime you figure out what works but a lot. People cringe when i say i could have obtained some of my favorite and best clients by either cold calling or sending letters. Really? Absolutely. Especially in that first year, i think, you know, nobody wants to pick up the phone and do that, and i didn’t want to either. I don’t mind as much as other people, but i just did. I just made a list. I made a certain number. People i’d call on certain days. It’s good to schedule marketing days. That’s another tip that you will spend on your marketing, your business. And yes, between those calls and those those letters overtime, i did plant the seeds, and they did take a while to grow. But i got some of the best clients my favorite work because they responded to the letter or that phone call. I wonder if. It’s, because you were very careful about who you put on the list. I definitely would have been a lot of time on research, absolutely so much, so much more than the writing and the calling. Yeah, but marlene is also a writer professionally, so i’m sure it was an extremely well written letter. Okay, okay, still that’s not what i would expect all these years and you’re consultant two thousand eight, i would have expected you say comes from referrals mostly that that’s my number to me, actually between that kind of pitching, sort of cold calling or or letter writing and referrals that’s where most of my business has come. And i think referrals, arm or account for more. But that was just a surprising one. The first one that i mentioned and i’ve kept up more with referrals then with letter writing and phone calls. But, yes, absolutely referrals. And when it comes to referrals similar, i think people should be disciplined, structured about it. You make it really targeted list. What you do is you approach your clients that you like working with and you let them know i’d like to work with more awesome clients. Like you and i’m guessing, you know, like minded people, and i think that they’re to you, you said a number how many referrals will i ask for per month to say and make it a point? Make it on your calendar asked for those referrals and pre write an email that they can forward on that your contacts conversely, ford on very, very simple, just like all our sharing tools on the web. Okay, you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way julia let’s, come back to your marketing marketing tips. Well, i think when you’re thinking about positioning yourself, when you’re first starting out, that you want to position yourself as an expert, i mean, obviously, you have an expertise in whatever it is that you want to consult about. So i don’t think that that would actually, you know, be an issue. But, you know, you kind of want to just stake a claim and say, i am this expert with this with this specialty, and position yourself that way, go on and have the confidence to do that. All right, anything else? Marketing wise marketing is pretty big. Well, let’s say, i mean, julia, you mentioned professionalism and the professional headshot. Obviously, all your marketing materials should be professional might be worth investing in a professional writer if you’re not one designer. If you’re not one, definitely. I mean, you should be investing in your business. Yeah, and and i would say that in terms of marketing, something that i think has worked well for both of us is sort of building a network and developing a community and sharing your knowledge with that community. So whether that’s doing blawg posts or webinars or marlene does tweet chats, uh, different kinds of presentations, but sharing your expertise with the community and building it up that way. There’s a good way too, huh? Just build your clientele and your prospects. Julia, what is your consulting? What do you do? I do graphic design and brand strategy. Okay? And marlene, you’re a professional writer. I do copy writing in communications planning. So basically a block and a newsletter planning it’s. Not writing strategy. Not writing if it’s not writing it’s those do you think? Okay. Okay, so you’re covering it. All right. So we have writing and design. Ah, where? Should we go after after marketing? Well, they didn’t want to just say one more thing about marketing really lead to it and a lot of those efforts i know for both of us lead toward building an email list on and that’s it for me. It’s a focus now that hasn’t been a focus prior to now, but it also fits with that building a community, having people who want to hear from you and are waiting for your help and your tips and your information keeping yourself top of mind with them. So it’s ready to add that about female? Alright, excellent way wish we go after marketing. Well, we didn’t finish talking, but one thing that i love talking about a little bit of this bit working from home, one of the advantages yeah, and the productivity side for me because i think it’s both the luxury on the challenge of being self employed that you’re leaving the world of meetings if you work in a non-profit you’d probably spend forty percent of your day in meetings, and maybe maybe i’m under representing that, but you can get so much done, but you do have to be. Disciplined, so i just wanted to mention the idea about setting boundaries for yourself and for others on, and i’m very pointed about that, you know, there are certain things i won’t do while i’m writing, i won’t let an internet distractions of all that social media scheduled time for those those are put to the side until i’ve been productive enough and setting boundaries with people around you could sometimes those friends who have more flexibility in their life get excited that they can call you during the day or they can pop in, or the or the lunch thing that julia mentioned that that they think you’re available now to fit into their social calendar. So you just need to decide what you’re going to allow in if anything, during a work day and be deliberate about that boundaries. And i’ve had i’ve had an office outside of the house, and i’ve had an office inside my house, and i like them both for different reasons. Pros and cons for both. Okay, murcott how about pricing? We move, teo pricing, what base do we have around pricing? Well, i have a few tips. Sort of. I find it. Hard to give anyone advice about what they should do with pricing, but these are the things that these short, more smaller picture tips that i that i use well, the big picture point is, too. If you’re launching your business as a professional than charge professional feet, it doesn’t mean charging here here doesn’t mean charging a ton, but it doesn’t mean trying to compete with employees and related to that is to get away from hourly pricing because clients will compare you to staff and what they’re paying stuff. Oh, that’s interesting you’re recommending avoiding hourly, but i don’t think of charged hourly since since that first year since two thousand eight, when i when i realized that for me project based pricing works better clients, they like the predictability of it. They know what they’re paying, and i build in the steps that it is going to take to get there. So that’s kind of like to use the analogy, if you know you had kids say they come over your lawn for ten dollar fee or, you know, four dollars every ten minutes and you have no idea how long this kid is going to take. And i think my clients like that predictability about it other a few other tips are i think you should always give a ballpark first to see if you’re speaking the same language, maybe, you know, even in the same world and never quote in person, like always have the conversation go back and think about what that really should be and come back in writing later. Yeah, sometimes it can be sometimes hard. Teo, resist the impulse to do be thoughtful and answer the question. Well, what would this cost? You know, you always have to say step, step back, let me think about it. Let me put something in writing for you that’s usually that’s, usually sufficient to get the person toe agreed. It’s wait a few days or a week for something more. I appreciate that you’re thinking about yeah, exactly, you know, with anything that we do. We’re thinking about time, but we’re also thinking about our particular expertise, whether we’re right fit were probably building out timelines for clients. They want us to go think about what it really is and so yeah, it’s customized for them. Yeah, more, more, more tips around, pricing, anything. You wanna add julia? I wanted to add onto something marlene said about not pricing by the hour because i think it’s also a perception thing, you know, if a client is hyre is paying you by the hour, i think they’re more inclined to perceive you as a vendor, you know, like, you know, someone who most lawn and not then that’s, not really what commodity? Yeah, like that’s, not really where we are and what we do, we’re more i feel like i’m more of a valued partner with my client’s projects, and i’m really trying to understand what their goals and objectives are, and i want to help them. I want to be honestly, genuinely helpful to help them achieve their goals, and i’m helping them plan and strategize, and they’re not going to get that from an hourly rate and it sure you both of you come would come across this that you want to be helpful, so i don’t want my clients to hesitate to call me or ask me to do something because they don’t want to spend that other additional hourly fee. I want them to feel like they can talk to me. To get it right do what it takes to get it right. And then if there is a need for an additional fee, absolutely you can say, you know, i certainly can help you with that. But it’s it’s outside what we go talked about initially that’s actually is another thought about boundaries different than what we were talking about, but still that’s important about boundaries. Yeah, that’s well outside we’ve we’ve agreed, if you like, we can add that on absolutely and that, and that goes back to those careful quotes. You know, when i build a quota bill didn’t exactly what steps are included in that fie, and if it does carry on a little longer than we might talk about an additional fee? Yeah, yeah, okay, one of the topics i think you were going to discuss his establishing your niche and identifying yourself as that within that niche. How do we how do we do that with our potential clients? Julia has a great thoughts. I’ll lead over to her about the consultant versus freelance or kind of role, but for me, when your first evaluating your nation with a canadian e, i think, you know a few things to just consider again you have to find your way along the way we’ve talked about how did we each find our way? Because we can’t pin it down to any one thing, you know, but you’re you’re looking at obviously your expertise and your experience and your skills, you’re looking at what kind of non-profit you want to serve if you want to focus in on a sub sector and you probably should, unless you’re skilled that you’re offering is very specific. He wanted to think about what motivates you, how you can bring your personality into your business and how that can influence what you what you have to offer. So, yeah, that’s kind of go through my thoughts around establishing your brand in the shape of your business and of course, your marketing materials have materials need to support all that and be consistent, just like we have a consistent message within non-profits our own marketing message needs to be consistent, okay? Julia well, my answer is more sort of about the terminology that i might use to define what i d’oh on, and so now i’m using the term consultant, but i haven’t always been comfortable using that term, so i mean, when you think about graphic designers and graphic design firms, you probably don’t think of them as being consultants in the typical sense of the word, and you’re right because i do have ah, more of ah, creative agency hat and with graphic design projects, you know, and they’re and they’re, you know, project fee, and i work with a team of people, you know, like a website, for instance, and i work with developers and designers and content writers, but there is also i am also a consultant because i do brands strategy, and i work with my clients one on one, and so i am wearing that more of that consultant hat, but i also do trainings and workshops and things like that, so in that sense, i’m more of a consultant. So i guess when you’re talking about establishing your brand in your niche, you know, whether you call yourself a consultant or an agency or a freelancer or a coach on this, you’re really matters. I mean, maybe the clients don’t even really care as long as you are positioning yourself so that the client that you want to reach knows that you’re the person to call in their time of need, and that may take some tweaking, right? I’m still tweet like that been in business for fourteen, fifteen years, i’m still tweaking. You don’t always get the clients that exactly in the sweet spot that you want, right? And you might change over the years, you know, i’ve been tweaking when i started right away and interesting. Yeah, you know, i actually was focusing on not focusing i was helping with anything that fell under communications because that was my background was overall communications managing within a non-profit and in the first few months, i decided let’s focus on content because i think clients know they need it, and they don’t want to write it themselves. And then i did that for several years, and in the last couple of years i thought, you know, i can still do that, but i can help more non-profit by doing mme or things like this chat that julia mention now that’s, that’s, not for compensation. I do that for free, but i wanted to sort of change who i was, who i was in the marketplace and i offer more training and more webinars and developing a course so it’s, always evolving. I assume it will always evolve for me. That’s actually the fun part of it it’s it’s creative to be self employed to be a consultant you’re always trying to think of new ways to do things and better ways to do things many things. A twitter chat is a great example, cause it sets you up as an expert in the area, a za convener of others live in your profession as a guide and help in the niche. Yes, a resource that got all that well within the niche that you’ve selected. All very good, i think, for long term credibility. Have you ever seen anything directly business come from twitter? Chat directly? You know it’s a good question, because some of the things i do in that domain, i think, keep me top of mind, but they don’t result in a phone call. Yeah, that’s fine. So i think it’s someone who knows about the rest of it or has been to my website or his has met me through referral and then they see the other activity and that gives it. A boots that just keeps me top of mind i feel that way for the chat, but what i find with the chat specifically is also that it creates sort of a you know, my my own, even though i’m a business might maya ambassadors on social media, people who are more loyal, more willing to share what i’m providing, whether it’s block post so that kind of thing so that’s a definite benefit that i’ve had from your ambassadors on social media love that, yeah, very good in all those ways. Yeah, well, well put, well put, i’ve been doing this show for four and a half years and on lee within the past year, i’d say has it led to calls related to business? So interesting really took a good three years, i’d say before, before that started happening and and it’s it’s a love i mean, i just it’s a joint i love doing this show, but that’s just like an added benefit. A lot of marketing efforts are like that. Yeah, yeah it’s a long cycle, long term, but i do plan to giving consulting, by the way e-giving fund-raising all right, so we still have another like three minutes or so together? What? What else? What else you want to talk about? Well, one of these we’re going to be sharing in our session tomorrow is about lessons learned along the way. I don’t know if you want to keep that are julia share? So we’re going to wrap up with lessons learned along the way and when i was thinking about what i wanted to say about that it’s really more about sort of ah, something i’ve learned about myself that i’m not very good at and just acknowledging that i’m not very good at it or introspection more interest back-up introspection, asses, yeah, preneurs yeah, yeah, so one of the lessons i’ve learned about myself along the way is that i really hate to talk on the phone like i’m think i’m phobic like i will talk on the phone, you know, if a client wants to talk on the phone or one of my strategic partners wants to talk on the phone, i will do it, but i won’t almost never pick up the phone and initiate a car, so you’re definitely not doing the cold calling marketing i’m doing carlene store. Right? I’m doing cold emailing. Okay, uh, but i would rather clean out my refrigerator, then pick up the phone. Okay? And i think that’s really held me back. You know, i don’t think it’s a good thing, all right, but just you’ve identified it right way you’re not going to force yourself to do cold call marketing, right? Alright, alright. Lessons learned, marlene for me, the big one is learn to say no, you know, say no if if it’s not in your budget, if it’s not according to your fees and wait for the client that will pay your fees. Say no if it’s if it doesn’t feel right, or if it’s not the right fit for me, i say no when it’s not a non-profit because other people hear about me and they asked me small businesses and i really my passion is focusing on working with non-profit so that’s where i keep it and it’s not to say not to be leased a little flexible on work outside your comfort zone and try new things, but just understand it’s okay to say no when it doesn’t feel good so that the more you say no the more you’re actually building the business you want instead of the business that is just kind of coming around. Yes, letting it involve organically. Based on what comes in. Did you have you said yes? Unwisely? Oh, yes, definitely. And so this is a big lesson learned along the way, and i don’t know why, you know, i think it’s just a coincidence. But every time i took a large corporate client, a large corporate client, it didn’t go well out of money. A lot of money in those. Yeah, actually that’s not always true. I was surprised to hear the medical, nickel and dime with me more than a non-profit might, but just just think, it’s the common thread that whenever i took a large corporate client, like once a year for the first couple of years, something would go wrong. It would either be about a relationship or they wouldn’t pay on time, so i just took it as a sign, you know, there are they paid by not on time. I mean, like, four months later. But i took it as a sign that i’ve got to start saying no, because even when it came in someone metoo copyright a boat, nickel mining or i don’t know the subject. I don’t know the people i should’ve said no, i didn’t say yes, we’re gonna leave it there, ok, thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Oh, my pleasure. Julia rice is the owner of stone soup. Creative and marlene olivera is copywriter and communications consultant moflow m o f l o w ladies. Thank you again. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen the non-profit technology conference. Thanks so much for being with us. Julia rice has a very spotless refrigerator. Sounds like live listener love let’s start domestic right here, philadelphia p a the city of brotherly love live listener loved to philadelphia, lexington, kentucky. Langhorne, piela toronto in canada. San francisco, california. Marquette, michigan live listener loved toe all the live listeners going abroad italy haven’t had you? 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It’s in october, as of today, it is seventy six percent sold out. I in fact, i gotta get my registration in amy sample ward is going to be there also, if your work is related to poverty reduction anywhere in the world, check it out. Opportunity collaboration, dot net i thank you very much for loving non-profit radio your love keeps me going on cold, snowy nights when i have no heat or electricity. It’s a tough city here in new york, but your support gets me through. Um, actually, i’ve actually play of heat and hot water sometimes have to crack. The windows open it’s money that i could use you can send money because the love is no good if i don’t have the money. So what the hell is that? So i can’t go out for nice dinners can go on trips love is not going to be enough. Um, i can’t be golden corral and applebee’s. I can’t do those all the time. Although golden corral does actually have good salchow ices. I appreciate those, but you get the message now. 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Take two for friday, eighth of may eighteenth show of the year. I’m feeling well feisty this afternoon. I know why that is. I mean, i don’t know, but i’m not going to take it out on melissa mccormick. She is a market research manager at software advice. She establishes and enforces standards and best practices for research and analysis. She oversees the regular publication of original primary research on the role of software and technology across many industries. Her research has been sighted in court’s information week, elektronik ce weekly ceo, dot com and other outlets. Software advice is a resource for software buyers. They provide detailed reviews and research on thousands of software applications there at software advice dot com and at n p o soft advice. Listen, mccormick, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks, tony. Good to be here. It’s. A pleasure to have a researcher. And rarely do i get in someone’s bio that they are an enforcer. What is that you do smack knuckles with rulers? Or is it like, stockades or or waterboarding? Which way? Now i’m really not at liberty to say i could tell you, but you have killing these air company secrets of pride. I kind of helped establish and make sure folks are following our guidelines for conducting research and analysis. Now, our researchers typically ah, like a group of anarchists. They’ll do whatever they whatever they please. Unless there’s an enforcer, not my researchers. Now you’re well oh, yeah, but because there is an enforcer. So researchers, they the they get a little loose handed if they’re not reined in. Is this is this ah, true among the research community, you know, not so much that it’s just there are lots of methods and method oppcoll method illogical approaches. So keeping everybody on the same page so that were consistent. Okay. All right. So we know the the research coming out of software advices ous high quality. It is enforced. Yeah. Okay. That’s your responsibility. All right, so how about this survey on board skills? Why? Was this ah focus area? Sure. So, you know, through other research that we’ve conducted and just talking to folks at non-profits that are looking for software solution, we’ve kind of observed that non-profits air a little bit slower to adopt new technology. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, you know, budget, obviously being a big one, maybe just lack of prior experience with software and technology, but it’s sort of a kurd twist that boardmember zahra and kind of a unique position to help guide perhaps the exploration of tech options. So having tech savvy board members could in turn, help non-profits improve their operations in the way they interact with software and technology. So that was kind of our hypothesis on land of reason. Is that your is that called that h one? We still use that terminology. H one hypothesis. You know, i actually don’t use that term, and i don’t see it’s, uh, played well. Sure. Let’s. Call it a one. No, no, no. I took statistics in nineteen eighty two. So each one is probably outdated. Now, it’s probably something else. I don’t know. Okay, we used to call it a tch one h two. And then you try to prove these and there’s something called confidence intervals. I’m sorry. Ok, ok. Is that that still exist? Count your confidence. Interval still exist? Yeah, they do. Ok. Alright, im sorry. Little digression trying to show off that i know something. Go ahead. Okay, so you had your your hat? Your hypothesis. You want to call it a tch one. You had this hypothesis about technology adoption being, i guess, a little quicker for for non-profits if they had sabat your board members. Is that is that basically it? Yeah, that was just it occurred to us that would be one entry point. So one kind of way that change could be an after would be through, um, kind of a technology progressive board. So we wanted to explore that idea and just kind of the broader impact that aboard could have. And how non-profits go about recruiting board members and how they should go about recruiting. Board members so kind of morphed into a bigger topic than purely the software and technology that that’s that’s, kind of where it started on and turned into you just to look at, um, you know from a non-profits perspective, what should you be looking for in a boardmember and on the other side of that coin from a boardmember perspective, which what should you be looking at in a potential board to join? Yeah. So you write. You looked at it, right? You said both sides. So what are people looking for? Yeah, out of board service. And we’ll get a good chance to talk about that and and how khun boards used that information to promote board service. I’m sorry. Not welcome. Non-profits use that to promote board service. Exactly. All right. On dh. What was the which method? A logical choice. Did you choose among the wide array open to professional researchers? Yeah. So we conducted an online survey of a little over fifteen hundred people. So that’s, kind of the quantitative approach. We also i did some expert interviews. So, you know, quantitative is great, especially with a big sample size. You can kind of get a degree of certainty about the results, but we really wanted teo get a little color to those results. So we also did some qualitative interviews with, uh, what i call subject matter experts, folks. In the nonprofit world who have been dealing with boardmember zoho topics related to boards and technology in general for a long time, so interesting and then how do you ah, as a researcher, how do you i don’t know what xero score those those interviews you call, they’re obviously qualitative said yeah, and using that term a little bit loosely report that we published drew most heavily on the quantitative results that were a lot of charts and graphs on dh then really used thie commentary from the interviews we conducted as just kind of quotes within the report on dhe means of almost kind of get checking our own analysis that we’ve done as well, okay, and i see those quotes are in the report. Um, yeah, a lot of mar yeah, so we kind of tied together the broad themes from the discussions we had with those folks into thank you take away that we had already identified from the survey results. I was i was not interviewed. As i recall, i that was obviously an oversight on the part of god there go. I did not coach her to say that i didn’t coach i implicitly. Begged her, too, but i didn’t say it. I didn’t say explicitly. Okay, next time. Okay. There’ll be other opportunities. All right. So what do we find? What? What? Let’s? Look at it from the non-profit perspective. What? What should non-profits b promoting as as board service values? Tio, you recruit? Sure, sure. So, um, one of the biggest, i guess, kind of most decisive findings was that people join boards for personal fulfillment on dh that’s, perhaps not really terribly surprising. You know, obviously, these folks they’re giving of their time and their money. So they want to care about the cause that they’re giving to, but personal fulfillment was number one on the tops of folks list. Okay, okay, let me get a question about that. Now, do we have to be concerned about self reporting bias that people would say the choose the altruistic fulfillment choice over networking opportunities or, you know, something more? More self serving? Sure. Yeah, that that definitely comes into play. You know, it was far in a way, the number one pick. So i think we still have a degree of certainty there. But but yeah, it’s probably safe to assume that. Consciously or unconsciously, folks are kind of elevating their their altruistic nature, as you said, but, you know, i think it also makes sense, um, kind of was validated by the folks we spoke with that, you know, this is a commitment people want two really care about what the non-profits stands for, they’re going to be dedicating so much of themselves to it. Okay, now, it’s clear why i’m not i’m on no boards, but to your point about, you know, networking. We did get folks saying acquiring new skills was important to them honing leadership skills, networking and meeting new people. Those were all other sighted benefits commonly cited benefits, okay, back to the top one, personal fulfillment? What is it? Is it those elements that they’re looking for is that is that satisfying the personal fulfillment that they’re they’re seeking? So i think there are a lot of components to that and that’s something our survey didn’t actually explore very deeply. So, um, potential for future research opportunities exposed, but, yeah, i think it’s not personal fulfillment in the sense that, you know, i am acquiring new skills or meeting new people, but also in the sense that i’m contributing to the greater good. Um so, you know, other survey results included that people really want to see the impact of what they’re doing in the non-profit and the impact that the non-profit is having on its community. So i think that certainly ties in the personal fulfillment as well focused on to feel like they’re contributing to an organization that is contributing to community. I also saw a reliability and accountability mentioned, yeah, so i think those terms specifically came up in the context of, you know, what skills should you look for in potential board way? Kind of explored to different avenues with that one being more kind of professional experience and even almost personality based skills on another being technology based skills? So when it comes to just professional experience and personal skillsets accountability, reliability, those blanked on the west, okay, um, we have just about ah minute and a half or so before we take take a break, melissa okay, why don’t you? Ah, why don’t we go into a little bit about some of the some of the tech skills that are that are sought after what we’re looking for? Sure so um, a little over half of the folks we surveyed mentioned a specific type of software in some capacity or another. So fund-raising software obviously a big one, some kind of experience with systems for doner management. But the number one that came up across the board that everyone said was important was basic computer skills again, not super surprising, but that would include stuff like email aah! Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Okay. That’s got to be there, right? Yeah, exactly. So something really foundational? Tio the the way non-profits conduct business, email documents, spreadsheets. Yeah, yeah, general kind of office productivity tools. You know, like you’re your microsoft word and excel. Not sort of saying calendar tools. Um, dahna obviously critical, but what was kind of interesting and i think what was reflected and the professional skills that we saw being requested was just the diversity of the types of tech skills folks are looking for. So you invented fund-raising and ensured time we’re going way. We’ll take a break, but hold that thought because it’s critical diversity is critical, obviously to ah, two, two boards and we’ll get to that diversity of skills and and continue right after this. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. 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Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Yeah. All right, melissa let’s, keep talking about diversity, but what more can we say about that? Sure, yes. I’m probably going to throw that word around the whole lot. Ah, diversity it’s kind of a theme that came up a couple across a couple different topic areas that we covered. So i mentioned with respect to technology skills and software skills. You know, folks on boards were telling us, but the most important stuff was really a lot of stuff. So cr m donorsearch management kind of tools, tools for managing your website. Fundez counting obviously a big one and fund-raising tools in general, i mentioned already on dh that was kind of echoed when we looked at so not the technology side, but the professional skills that were most support. That was really interesting because it was almost an even mix when we asked people for the single most important we’ve got a pie chart with a bunch of pieces of pie that are very similar in size. Um, the number one that kind of had a little edge over the next few was fund-raising so experience fund-raising but others included, you know, just past experience with a similar type of non-profit so relevant volunteer experience. Um, professional services kind of experience. So stuff like legal and accounting skills. Project management provoc management, i think. It’s very grand marketing also. Yep. Marketing. Exactly. Good. You’re going to say something about project management, please? Yeah. That was one that was really echoed by the experts that we spoke with on dh. It makes sense to me that you would want someone who can, you know, manage lots of people working on tasks and keep things moving, keep things organized, keep lots of balls in the air at a time. So that’s a great one that came up in both our survey results in on our interviews, um, and then human resource, those skills, so just kind of oh, your management, which i think has tied to project management, but a little more on the, you know, actual people side. What do you think was meant by project management? What? Did you flush that out at all? Um, you know, i’m looking to see if we gave any examples. We didn’t flush it out much and mean kwan keita’s. But when we spoke to our experts, you know, they talked about the importance of this is where the reliability and the accountability came up. I think in the context of project management to the importance of, um, having the ability to hold others accountable. Tio get people to do great work without stepping on toes. And i think, you know, for non-profits, especially it’s, important to be really efficient. Anytime you’ve got a big group of people responsible for a single task. It’s, easy for, um, everyone to kind of go in different directions or, you know, lots of talking and not a lot of doing to happen. So folks with project management skills, i think, can really cut through that and keep things on track and keep everybody focused on moving in the same direction. Transparent communications was was thought as what? Where it was sought by by people aspiring to board service. Yes, what’s under that was i ah, that was very important. People want to know what the expected involvement is. So what exactly will they be doing? What will they be expected to do? Um and that includes you. You know, what kind of work will be doing but also e-giving requirements. So what will they be expected to give personally? What would what will day be expected to raise? Um, all of these things, people are looking for clarity. Um, and this was kind of echoed by some of the folks we spoke with us. Well, who said you know, non-profits tend to think that board members just understand what they’re getting in four or maybe don’t care about the specifics of what they’re getting in for, but it’s very important to have some layer of transparency and on the part of non-profits that requires maybe sametz tre thought into what the role will entail. So, you know, one thing that one of the experts we spoke to recommended was just actually writing up kind of a little job description to share with board members, you know, communicating really clearly what the expectations are in terms of, you know, frequency of getting together may be setting a schedule of meetings, like an annual schedule that you could share in advance. Um, and then kind of relating back to what i talked about earlier, the personal fulfillment thing. It’s important for non-profits to communicate the impact that they’re having and bringing things full circle. I think that’s kind of a role that technology can play, you know, helping track and also helping non-profits disseminate information about the impact that they’re having. That’s. All that’s, obviously very big topic in the community, especially now that charity navigator is looking for a new ceo. And what is that? What kind of priority priorities is that person going to bring to that to that organization? But yes, for interesting. And now, the way it ties back to technology. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, absolutely. What, whether what other questions are out there? We just have a minute and half or so left what the questions are out there that you’d like to answer. Software advice is going to answer? Sure. So, you know, i mentioned earlier i think one further area for exploration could be digging into that personal fulfillment question a little. We got the results back and saw oh, everybody’s looking for personal fulfillment and kind of went well, duh, of course. That’s what people are looking for and of course, that’s what they are going to say they’re looking for. But what does that mean? It probably means different things to different people. See? I asked. I asked that question also. So that makes me a subject matter. Exactly. You should be a researcher. Well, i’d rather just be interviewed, but i’m not a good influence. Our goal the line. All right, thank you very much. Just another minute. God, what else is out there? Um so so that was one thing another thing that i’m kind of interested in exploring, not necessarily in a quantitative way, necessarily, but just this idea of the diversity of skillsets you know what? What is the balance that you should look for? And how did these different folks with these different backgrounds worked together in the most effective ways? Um, and are there specific types of software and technology that can be leveraged by people with specific skillsets so, you know, should someone with accounting skills be advocating for accounting software for their non-profit that kind of thing? Just kind of the harmonies between the different topics that we’ve already dug started to dig into a little bit here, okay, actually, your urine unenviable position cause you can ask all these questions and then go research and find the actual answer based on quantitative analysis and not just based on best practices or tradition or anything else. I admire that, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. It’s a pretty exciting place to be cool. My voice is cracked. Melissa mccormack, market research manager it’s software advice. They are at software advice. Dot com and at n p o soft advice. Thank you very much, melissa. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. And at n p o soft advice. Thank you very much for doing some live tweeting today. Next week, another informative and tcs interview coming to the show, and amy sample ward returns. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it at tony martignetti dot com no singing this week. Opportunity, collaboration, the world convenes for poverty reduction. I’m warning you, it will ruin you for every other conference opportunity. Collaboration. Dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shoretz social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. 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