Tag Archives: NTC

Nonprofit Radio for April 28, 2025: #25NTC & The Human Factors Driving Your CRM Success

Amy Sample Ward#25NTC

We launch our 25NTC coverage with the CEO of NTEN, which hosts the Nonprofit Technology Conference, sharing the numbers and the experience of this year’s Conference, earlier this month in Baltimore, Maryland. They’re Amy Sample Ward, and they’re also Nonprofit Radio’s technology contributor.

 

Rubin Singh: The Human Factors Driving Your CRM Success

Don’t blame your tech first when it feels like your CRM database is letting you down. Human beings, the tech users, have responsibilities that precede, and must align with, your technology. Rubin Singh returns to enlighten us about business processes; inclusive design; personal and professional growth; and more human factors that impact the success of your CRM database. He’s founder and CEO of OneTenth Consulting.

 

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We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

Nonprofit Radio for March 24, 2025: Join Us At #25NTC & Great Value In Sustainable Giving

Amy Sample WardJoin Us At #25NTC

The 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference is next month in Baltimore. Nonprofit Radio will be there. You still have time to join in-person or virtual. NTEN CEO, and our technology contributor, Amy Sample Ward, reveals all the learning and fun you can expect.

 

Dave Raley: Great Value In Sustainable Giving

Dave Raley is the author of the book, “The Rise of Sustainable Giving.” Our subscription economy has spawned a change in donor preferences and great growth in recurring donations. Dave shares his expertise on incentives; creating a thriving sustainer program; naming; converting donors to sustainers; what the future looks like; and more. He’s the founder of Imago Consulting.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Notice. I expertly wished you happy Saint Patrick’s Day last week when it was Saint Patrick’s Day, so prompt, so timely, right there, so no need to apologize this week for wishing you happy Saint Patrick’s Day week, a week late. We’re right on time here on nonprofit Radio. And I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of cataphagia. If I had to repeat the words, you missed this week’s show. Pretty sad when the, the bar is just set at. Being on time with a happiness wish. That’s, that’s, that’s a sad state. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, to introduce this week’s show. Hey Tony, this week it’s join us at 25 NTC. The 2025 nonprofit technology conference is next month in Baltimore. Non-profit radio will be there. You still have time to join in person or virtual. N10 CEO and our technology contributor, Amy Stammple Ward reveals all the learning and fun you can expect. Then Great value in sustainable giving. Dave Raley is the author of the book The Rise of Sustainable Giving. Our subscription economy has spawned a change in donor preferences and great growth in recurring donations. Dave shares his expertise on incentives, creating a thriving sustainer program, naming, converting donors to sustainers, what the future looks like, and more. He’s the founder of Imago Consulting. On Tony’s take 2. Tales from the gym. If they can do it, we all can. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. Here is. Join us at 25 NTC. I’m ready to record with Amy Sample Ward. They are the CEO of N10. Uh, they’re also, of course, our nonprofit radio technology contributor, but today it’s the CEO of N10 role that we are here to talk about because we’re talking about 25 NTC, the 2025 nonprofit Technology Conference. It is coming up April 16, 1718 in Baltimore, Maryland. Let’s talk 25. Amy, can’t wait to hugs, hugs. Uh, and, you know, I, I know that most of your time at the NTC you’re recording for nonprofit radio, but what’s nice about it is you’re not in like a recording studio. And so I can always walk by and just listen to who. You’re talking to and um I always see other people standing there listening, um, or taking photos, you know. Yeah, I love, I love the visibility. Yes, we’re, we’re gonna be, we’re in the hub in the commons, which is where all the meals are, all the all the uh keynote sessions, all the general sessions are right there, everything. What else? What else? The receptions, receptions, yes. Uh, so I, I feel like, you know, we’re just, by the time this is airing, we’re just gonna be 3 weeks out. So we probably should focus on the online. Version of uh you know, people register for the in-person conference. Even in person, like they will walk up on day 10, you get walk-ups every year. Oh, all right. Well, all right, so then let’s keep that open. All right, yeah, you you can still register to join us in Baltimore. Of course there is an online only virtual side of the conference that you can also register for and never leave your home or your office or wherever you are. That’s right. There’s, there’s a version for uh each in person and online, and if you need to switch, you can go, this is all on the website, there’s a little spot for switching from virtual to in-person and vice versa. And if you register for in person and end up not coming or you came and you felt like there was too many sessions to choose from, or you could only come for 1.5 days of the, of the 3, you have access to all of the online content, just like somebody who registered for only online. It’s all So if you register for Baltimore, you’re basically registering for both, essentially, because you can access all content. Right, for next, for the following 3 months, I think you can get access to all the, all the, uh, virtual sessions because there are a number of virtual only sessions, but as, as you just said, OK, you get access to both really if you, if you, OK, so all right, so let’s keep up the possibility then. so, you know, where should we show up if we’re, uh, if we’re walking in. Uh, of course, all the info is at.org naturally. But you know, just where, where are we in Baltimore? Where are we going? We’re at the Baltimore Convention Center right by the harbor, and I don’t believe that there’s another event happening in the convention center, um, but at least the area we’re in is very clearly just us. You can walk right through the sky bridge from the Hilton or walk from the Sheraton. They’re connected to the building, um, and Of course, as always, there are lots of other activities that happen that aren’t in the convention center, but all the sessions, all of the main conference stuff will all be in the convention center and We’re trying something that we’ve never done before, um, but because of the physical proximity to the stadium, we, with thanks to the financial support of three of our sponsors, have bought out two sections in the stadium for attendees that want to, to all go over to the Baltimore Orioles game together, uh, Wednesday evening. So, like, knock on wood for Memorable weather, whatever. I don’t want to just say good because it seems like it’d be good, you know, jinx, but um and this is free. This is free. Yeah, you got sponsors covering hundreds of tickets for, yeah, yeah, that’s outstanding. Baltimore Orioles game. OK, that’s that’s the football team. Noball. Oh they play baseball? All right. Well, baseball, no, that’s good. Baball is good. That’s right. That’s right. OK. um. Oh, I thought you were joking, but you were being serious. No, I was joking. OK, OK, good. OK, good. I was like, oh gosh. Yeah, so it’ll it’ll be fun and I think that. Somebody from our group, I mean, it doesn’t need to be me. So maybe, maybe we can convince the sponsors to do it. Even goes down on the field and says, Hey, everybody from the conference is here, and we all get to wave. So cool. I thought you were gonna say you’re gonna sing the anthem. Oh my gosh, no, they would pay me not to do it. All right. Um, so let’s remind folks that NTC. The nonprofit technology conference is not only for technologists. We, we say this year after year, but we have new listeners each year and maybe somebody didn’t listen to last year’s NTC TS TS show. Let let’s make this very, very clear. It’s not only for technologists. Well, it’s, it’s such a complicated thing because on one hand, I would say it’s 2025. We are all using technology to do our job. And so in some ways, we’re all technologists, but This is not a conference that was founded 25 years ago or still today operated with the assumption that everyone that is making decisions about technology or using technology or wants to know, like the latest developments of technology, see themselves as The IT director or or has technology in their job title, right? And so the topics, I mean, there’s, I think 162 with the latest count or whatever in the spreadsheet, you know, of of sessions, but there’s so many opportunities in sessions and out to talk about all the other implications beyond any technology system, you know, it’s not necessarily. Just about which CRM which database are you using? It’s why, why do you even have that data in your database? Where did it come from? Do you know when you could get rid of it? Do you have a retention policy? You know, it’s all these other pieces that impact, yes, our technology systems but also impact our work and how we can do that work and technology is just in in the mix of it all. There are multiple tracks that that are not that involve technology naturally that overlap but fundraising, there’s a fundraising track, there’s a diversity, equity accessibility track, um, there’s a leadership track, you know, there’s, so there’s lots of different subjects across these 160 some uh sessions, and some of them will be. Uh, I’ll be talking to the speakers from some of them, a subset of them, for future episodes of nonprofit radio. Of course, that’s what I’ll, will be on the hub, uh, will be in the hub at the Commons recording. Um. I love the, you know, if you do go, if you go in person, I had to, you know, I’m looking at the lunch, it’s incredible. We had to, I think we talk about the food every year, but I got, I got, I’m reading now. I’m reading from the lunch description for each of the three days, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. All meals at the NTC. Include a range of options for gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, low carb, low salt and low sugar dietary needs. Menus avoid or label the inclusion of peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, eggs, cow’s milk, soybeans, sesame and wheat. Halal, kosher and celiac meals are available on request, and if you need a space away from the cacophony, look for signs for the quiet tables. It’s such a thoughtful damn conference. I mean, this is just around the food, but that’s a microcosm of the thoughtfulness around NTC. Well this is a quite a core value of, of NTC and N10. Tell us how you, you think about what people need. At a conference and and how you execute on that. Well, maybe I could start with the food that feels um especially relevant, what you don’t know, or externally doesn’t know. Um, we have, um, I will say an animal rights activist organization, uh, that you can anticipate who they are in the community, glad they’re in the community, glad they come to the conference, learn from sessions, you know, presented sessions, etc. Who Has, um, for a number of years, tried a few different campaign strategies to have the conference be entirely vegan. I am vegan. I have been since I was still a teenager, you know, I I don’t disagree necessarily, but as an insight, and I’m glad that there are conferences that are able to be all vegan, but our community has Members in it who have allergies that make uh all vegan, you know, diet at a conference where it’s just all set out on the table, not something they could eat at. Um, and we have folks with disabilities who, even if they don’t have an allergy, they have food related needs that allow them to be comfortable and manage their day without having to go back to their hotel room, right, to eat, um. There are a lot of different things that come across someone’s decision making mind when they’re standing at the beginning of that like buffet table, right? And some of them are dietary, medical, health related, some of them are emotional, some of them are social, right? Like, what if you don’t recognize any food on that table? None of this food is from a, a shared culture that you have. We have people from 16 different countries coming to the conference, right? You might not be allergic to any of them, but if you don’t know what any of them are, and you’re trying to have professional conversations and you’re really trying to get along with this person that you just met in a session, right? And maybe you wanna work for them, and now you’re faced with a bunch of food that you don’t know what it is. That’s very difficult, right? And so we think about Accessibility in a lot of different ways at the conference, and what are the pieces that we can put in place that make it so people are comfortable, they have some things that they can recognize and anticipate throughout the day. It’s why we have coffee and tea at all different hours because Again, culturally or from the time zone that you’re in, right? You, this might be when you want coffee. Uh, so we really wanna think about how do folks move through this space without having To use up all of their decision making or all of their thinking for the day on where do I need to go? Is there gonna be food there? Can I get more water? What do I need to do? Like, we want all of that to be in place so that people are using up their brains saying, wow, what should I think about AI? Oh, wow, what should I learn about this new data standard? What, right? We want that to be where people can spend their thinking and not on Am I gonna be able to eat here, you know? It’s all very thoughtfully done. You, you, you, you call it accessibility and ease, uh, and I, I just caption it as thoughtful, thoughtful. A lot of thought goes into, uh, hosting over 2000 people, right? How many, how many do you think we’ll have. Well, I mean, unfortunately, we have in person, yeah, I mean, unfortunately, it’s so similar to 2020 in which, um, that was the year that it was meant to be in Baltimore previously. Um and with the start, uh, it was scheduled for March 23rd through 25th, 2020. So that was right when We were the first event that was canceled with the governor’s, you know, declaration that events are. I remember, I remember tearful. Yeah, because we made the choice to cancel before the governor, before any governor had stopped events, and so we had to make the choice to cancel, knowing that it would mean we’d close the organization because we’d have to pay all the fines. And thankfully, our lawyer found that the cancellation to the convention center, uh, has to be in writing, and we, we never bothered to tell them we weren’t coming because that felt self-evident, and we had spent a week telling the community and the governor said, hey, there’s no events, and we’re like, what we’re, we don’t have to pay. I mean we still have to pay some, but We didn’t have to close as an organization, right, and pay every dollar we had, um, but now with all of these just erratic and harmful changes that the administration is unleashing basically every day. We’re having, you know, we’re hearing from folks asking for a scholarship. They just lost 75% of their funding because of what’s happened, you know, they still want to come to the conference. They, they know that that’s where they can connect with people and get resources and, and learn. But they are firing staff, they, they have no funds. So we’re giving scholarships out to, you know, anybody who’s writing to us um in those situations, and we have continued the regular rate for anyone within about 100 miles of Baltimore that is maybe, you know, a a a local in that way to try and keep um it accessible. To folks who are really having those impacts. Um, so we’ve seen a lot of, not a lot, but a number of folks in February need to move to virtual because they Their organization no longer has funding, you know, um, which is Difficult and just outrageous that we’re in this place where organizations, you know, are somehow the target of I don’t know. I, I, I don’t even know how to frame what the situation is. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, so that is gonna impact how many folks are there. I mean, I’m sure they’ll still be, um, you know, 2000. Regis registrants, it’s just by the time we get to April, what will be the mix of a couple 100 online, you know, people in person, who, who, who can still physically come, you know? Um, and unfortunately, we’re having folks from a few of the non-US countries say, hey, I’ve been advised not to come to the US. So I’m not going to travel there anymore, and I’ll just be a virtual attendee. Which is also infuriating because this is a global community and I Don’t like that we would have, I mean, we’re just talking about accessibility, right? And, and that all the elements that we try to control so that we can create a, a place where folks really can be together and share their ideas and build power and, and make relationships that are beyond any of these, you know, oh, you work in a different organization. Who cares? We can still share our ideas. We can still figure this out together, right? And To have folks Feel unsafe is is. Not what we want, you know, and obviously not in our control, not in our, not our doing, but it still on a bigger scale to have folks feel unsafe entering the United States. Right. It infuriating. All right, let’s not end on an infuriating note, although, uh the the realism is uh realism and not ignoring. I feel like, I feel like too many. Too many of our community’s content creators are ignoring the reality that it’s besieging us every single day. Yeah, it is every day. I, I, so, you know, reality is essential. I, we’re living it. So, well, that’s a great pivot. We could end on something uh positive, which is the three keynotes that are coming because Alyssa Richardson. Her work is just on what you’re talking about. How do communities use the technology they have access to social media, etc. to shine a light on what is really happening in their community, to have some access to power through truth and information. Um, she has written books, she’s a professor, she has a, you know, whole lab, um, at UCLA or USC, um, and it’s just really An incredible person, so she’s One of the keynotes, just as you were just saying, why are we not talking about this, um, and Doctor Ashley Xu, who is the author of Against Techno Abelism and you know, kind of trying to counter this idea that technology is here to cure us and make us perfect because we don’t need to, you know, what what if we get rid of disabilities, which is such a Elitist ablest idea like this disabilities are in so many people in so many different ways, and that’s not that something’s wrong with them, you know, um, technology isn’t some cure or solution or path to perfection, right? That’s no, no, no, that’s so antithetical to, to what, at least in the community we’re talking about with technology. So I’m excited for her talk, um. But we also have Michael Running Wolf, who’s worked on indigenous language projects through AI. So yes, it’s probably unavoidable to talk about AI, but can we talk about it rooted in absolutely using it in ways that help us as the users, as communities who didn’t get to necessarily have access. To build open AI or anything else, right? So what, what do we, what, what can we learn um from Michael’s projects really rooting those technologies in um communities most impacted. All right, 3 outstanding. Keynote speakers, you’ll enjoy one each morning. Right after the breakfast. Yeah, or you can even, you know, if you’re a slow eater like me, save your breakfast and eat it while they’re talking, yeah, and savor your breakfast because it’s all in the same place. It’s all ins and of course the virtual attendees are are part of that part of the the keynotes as well, and they’ll be having breakfast, you know, on their own, just your camera will be off while you’re eating your Cheerios. Yeah, exactly. All right. Uh, so April 16 to 18, uh, Baltimore Convention Center, all the info is at n10.org. It’s right up the top of the website. You can’t possibly miss it. Join us in person, come see, come see nonprofit Radio at the Commons in the hub. We’ll have our studio set up or join uh 25 NTC virtually, but join. It’s, it’s worth it. It’s, it’s, it’s a smart savvy conference. That’s why this is the. 11th NTC that I’m bringing nonprofit radio to because the speakers are savvy and smart and they benefit all of us and as Amy, as Amy said, we all work with technology in our jobs and so the nonprofit technology conference is for you. Be with us. Thank you, Amy. Yeah, see you there. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Sounds great. All right, bye. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s DonorBox, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges. Helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs. Helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now it’s time for. Great value in sustainable giving. It’s a pleasure to welcome Dave Raley to nonprofit Radio. He’s the founder of Imago Consulting, an advisory firm that helps organizations create growth through innovation. He’s the author of the book The Rise of Sustainable Giving How the Subscription Economy Is Transforming Recurring Giving and what nonprofits can do to benefit. That’s what brings him to the show. You’ll find the book at sustainablegiving.org. You’ll find Dave Raley on LinkedIn. Dave, welcome to nonprofit Radio. So good to be here, Tony, and good to actually be, as we were saying offline on the other side of the mic. I’ve appreciated listening to the show and glad to be on it. Thank you very much. Thanks for being a listener. Congratulations on the brand new book. Oh, thank you, thank you, it’s been uh. Quite the journey, 3 years, um, 438 hours of writing enumerate the stats in the book. I, I have a friend who, um, because I I I’ve worked a lot with uh charities through the sort of the marketing agency space, Tony, and so I had a friend comment like, Dave, you don’t need to track your time. You do know that, right? And I thought, I don’t know, I just like tracking things, so I don’t want to track my steps every day, but I will track the number of hours I poured into this. This, uh, this, uh, passion project for sure. So as you were writing over those 4, you were you were keeping a log. I was keeping a log and thinking I don’t know if this thing’s ever going to. To be done candidly, I think the 1st 3 years, probably the 1st 2 years were like, OK, 1 ft in front of the other, and, uh, such a, such a huge effort, um, but I’m really proud of the book, uh, the early reception, and just I’m really hopeful that it makes a significant difference in our sector. It has that potential, absolutely. Um, if I may, I’d like to read from, uh, the foreword to, to sort of frame us a little bit, uh, your, your forward is by Gabe Cooper, CEO of Virtuous who’s been a guest on uh nonprofit radio also. The reality is that nonprofits are fundraising in a world that no longer exists. The total number of donors giving to nonprofits has consistently decreased over the past decade. Donors are more distracted than ever, and they receive a constant stream of ads and personalized messages from their favorite brands. Most donors still desire to make an impact in the world, but it’s become infinitely harder for nonprofits to break through the noise. That’s, uh, that’s as far as I got on the book. That’s page uh XXII. I stopped. I didn’t even to the pages. That was great. I didn’t even get into the Arabic numbers, so I, I stopped at XXII. Um, now, so. Uh, it’s getting hard to get through the noise. We’re, we’re fundraising in old methods. That was a little frame up. Why don’t you please give us, uh, your take on, on Gabe’s wisdom there. Yeah, you know, I, one of the meta sort of topics that I’m really passionate about is what does sustainable innovation look like? Uh, the book is certainly about sustainable giving and recurring giving in light of how, um, shifts have changed, and we’ll talk about that shortly, but You know, to respond to the way Gabe positioned that, number one, we are absolutely in the middle of a generosity crisis, um, and, uh, that is in North America, that the number of Americans that are giving to charity today is less than, uh, last year and is less than the year prior. Now, as those of us in this industry know, often the amount of dollars that are being given to to philanthropy, um, by individuals is increasing, but that’s thanks to largely mega, uh, you know, billionaire donors, which go for it. I would love them taking their, their philanthropic giving as well, but I do think there’s something about how do we teach the next generation generosity and what does that look like? Um, but to Gabe’s point about models, um, one of the things I always, uh, say is that it’s really important not to confuse your organization’s mission with your model. So your mission is about what your organization, your cause is, uh, is trying to change in the world. Your model is how you do that, right? Including how do you fund doing that. And so when I think about sustainable innovation, I think every organization, every institution, Is really somewhere on that organizational life cycle curve, you know, that S curve you see in like business books, you know, where it’s like infancy, early growth, mid-growth, slowing plateauing and decline, right? Every organization goes through that, and that’s just kind of a like the, you know, fourth law of thermodynamics for organizational health is that those models do age out. And so for me, um, the reason innovation is so important is because it helps us create new S curves, new models to effectively accomplish the mission that our organizations are called to, so. Innovation is critical, uh, models do shift over time, and one of the models that I’ve seen shift, uh, tremendously over the last decade is what’s been happening in the space of recurring giving, namely for the charities that have historically been left behind, uh, Tony, 3 quarters of charities, um. have historically not been able to really tap into strong, growing, resilient giving, you know, they’re not the local public television or public radio station or museum or, um, you know, 1 to 1 sponsorship type of organization. They’ve done pretty well over the last 100 years, uh, with Rick Gibbing, but it’s really the, the food bank, the rescue mission, the relief and development agency. The, uh, the think tank that hasn’t been able to really build strong growing resilient, recurring giving until really the subscription economy and the rises of subscription economy has essentially led to changes in how we consume. You know, the average American today, Tony, has, uh, more than 12 subscriptions, maybe to their chagrin, right, I know 96% of us I think have more than one. And yeah, I was 9. 9.8%. I have at least one subscription, adults, um, and what’s the number you just cited a number of subscriptions. Oh my gosh. All right. Um, before we get into the sustainable, let’s let’s define the subscription. I mean, Yeah, no, the Amazon Prime and Netflix are ubiquitous, but let’s just, let’s just make sure we’re all starting at the same place. What, what’s your sense of the subscription economy? Yeah, and you know, you, you hit it on the head. I think everyone kind of intuitively knows what it is today. Um, 10 years ago when I first started talking about this in the industry, Tony, I had to explain that, you know, what do you mean? You know, subscription. I was like, well, have you heard of Netflix? Oh yeah, OK, I get it. But today it’s really the rise of recurring ongoing, um, transactions in every area of our life, in our business lives, you know, we’re on Zoom right now. I don’t know about you, but I have to pay for the Zoom subscription. Um, you know, I listened to Spotify this morning while I was writing my latest wave report, the weekly column that I write on innovation, that’s a subscription. I had to change the batteries, by the way, in my Arlo camera, um, uh, some people use Ring. Uh, these, these doorbell cameras. Yes, right, you have a subscription, yeah, you make a point. You have a subscription to your doorbellion to your door. If you would have told me 10 years ago that you’re going to be subscribed to the doorbell company, I would have said, uh, no thanks, that’s not great. And yet I gladly spend, you know, whatever $15 a month to know when an Amazon package gets dropped off. One that that strikes me is that we used to pay. One time you used to buy a subcri you used to buy the product Windows. Windows you used to buy the, the operating system and every couple of years there was a new operating system and you have to spend $200 or $300 to, uh, now and, and other things similar but you now have a subscription to Windows 365. It’s called 365 and, and that’s the way you now access the Windows operating system. I don’t know, just, I don’t know, 78 years ago it wasn’t that way. Yeah, well, and I don’t know about you, but or your listeners, but I went uh kicking and screaming, you know, you’re like, no, I wanna own my software. I wanna own my music. Until you start to realize, oh yeah, how long did it take me to go from Windows, whatever, 95 to it was XP first and then 95. It’s like you would, you would end up with this like grossly out of date software because you’re too, I don’t know they meet you, but I was too cheap to, you know, get the next set of software to the point where it is so that ongoing value proposition, which by the way, is a key lesson for fundraising. Your proposition, yeah, but you have to, you have to like the reason I I give money to Spotify every month is not because I’m renting music from the music company. It’s because there is an ongoing each month I’m receiving novel value, and that is what’s uh helping me continue to stay in that subscription. And so I think software, I now look at it as a gift, right? I started uh started my company. And Mago just uh just under 3 years ago and I was so grateful that I have to spend several $1000 in, you know, in software costs. I knew I could I could subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, to Google Workspace, to Zoom, and get a lot of value and spread out that cost, um, but that their ongoing value is so powerful. Share some of the uh stats that you have about sustainable giving, why this is so important for nonprofits. Yeah, there’s, you know, there’s certainly some of the, um, the commonly used stats about the value of sustainable giving, which just to rattle through a few of those, average retention rates, 78 to 86%, that’s versus a multi-year, you know, single gift owner we call them. That typically they’ll retain about 42%, so, you know, almost double or in some cases literally double the the uh the the retention rate, significantly high, higher long term value, 5 to 7 times the long-term value. They’re 6 times more likely to leave an organization in their estate, um, or legacy plan, uh, if they’re a recurring donor. I was just doing a seminar with a Group that does uh recurring or I’m sorry, does legacy giving, Tony, and they, um they just did a study of all of the organizations and all these state gifts they’ve monitored and the number one most predictable factor, um, after an after a donor had been on the file for 10 years, so. The first one was longevity, but the second was frequency. It was the frequency of giving and so recurring givers were the most likely um indicator that they would be a legacy giver. That’s outstanding. What can you shout the company name? Yeah, Canopy Resources, um, for Ministry. They’ve got two different brands. Oh sorry, no, C A N O. OK, OK, but don’t spell it right, the incredible value. And but there are some less known statistics. Neon, the folks over at Neon looked at over 200. They found the average charity from 2019 to 2024 grew recurring 127%. So this is not, um, you know, I’m a big believer in seeing, you know, what changes on the horizon and what waves, you know, are coming. This is, this is an opportunity that’s not something that’s just coming down the line. I’m not here saying, hey, I wrote a book, Tony, in 2 or 3 years, this is going to be a big deal. It’s like, no, no, no, it’s a big deal right now, and it’s been a big deal the last couple of years. But, and this is critical, my, I feel like part of my role in this sector is to help people to connect the dots that it’s a big deal now, but then what do I do about it? And so really the, the third part of the book is ultimately, well, the 2nd and 3 parts of the book are how to take advantage of the subscription economy and then how to build and grow a thriving recurring giving program. Also recurring donors, uh, you make this point, give 25% more than their, their recurring donation commitment. Just, just flush it out a little bit quickly. Yeah, the, you know, and, and I, I’ve had some, as I’ve been speaking about this at conferences, I have had occasional people come up to me and say, yeah, set it and forget it, right? And I’m like, no, that actually it turns out in the subscription world that doesn’t work either. But really your recurring donors are the most generous single gift donors, meaning the average recurring donor um on a file will give in addition to their annual recurring giving another about 25% in single, what we call single gifts, right? So it’s the year-end gift, it’s the emergency relief gift. And so when I work with organizations to map out their cultivation of recurring donors, I’m we’re always looking at what are you doing to give your recurring donors additional gift opportunities, um, how are you messaging that to them because just as much as some organizations might think, well, you know, we should just uh not send any uh additional asks to our recurring donors. No, the opportunity is really to. To cultivate them because they are, they’re the most bought into your cause. So when there is that disaster or that uh crisis situation or that year end, again, those major times of year, those donors are often the most responsive. So what we’re seeing is that That this uh subscription economy that’s ubiquitous as you described. Has led to a change in donor preferences on the charitable side so sort of the, the corporate side has taken this and accelerated it and, and it’s like we said now ubiquitous. People are expecting this on the and, and looking for it even on the, on the charitable side. So it, so it’s a, it’s a shifting donor preferences, would you talk about that in the book. Yeah, and it’s really about um a lot of these trends, um, start on the what I would call the consumer side, right, which is just it’s it’s it’s setting tones. I remember I I started in the industry in the early days of digital fundraising and um I remember when people were were worried about putting their. Credit card in online and I remember when Facebook came out and clients would say, hey, should we do fundraising on Facebook and I would say, no, it’s a good, it’s a good relational platform, you know, it’s a good way to connect with your alumni or whatever, um, because it wasn’t intel several years of in this case Facebook being around and people becoming used to basically their consumer lives and their social media lives intersecting. That’s when then. You know, in this case, I think it was the Haiti earthquake that was the real uh linchpin moment, um, in the late 2000s when Facebook and the Red Cross raised, I think it was $30 million overnight and it just, that changed the landscape. Of people being willing to give related to their social media presence. Well, if it weren’t for several years prior to that of people getting used to using their credit card online and all these other things, it wouldn’t have paved the way for generosity. And so I’m seeing the same thing, the subscription economy is not new. I don’t have to convince people that it exists when I speak now, but I do have to help them understand how that has really laid the groundwork for people’s philanthropic behavior changing. You call in the book subscription philanthropy. Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s your phrase. I had I had I’m crediting well, and the funny thing is, you know, and I don’t want people and I talk about subscription giving too. I want to be careful on the reason I didn’t use that in the title of the book, by the way, was I don’t want people to think I’m trying to, we’re trying to make philanthropy and generosity a consumeristic act. Now there is a value proposition and there’s a value exchange, and sometimes, by the way, there’s goods and services that even exchange hands. If I watch your public, you know, television station or I visit. The museum or I get the, you know, the free book resource, there could actually be some form of sort of good or service that exchanged, but what I’m trying to point out with subscription philanthropy is that really, um, there are some lessons we can learn from those subscription worlds and we can apply them to today. I remember when the streamlined purchasing uh um pages, I’m thinking of, you know, Amazon, one click buy, when, when those were emerging, they were influencing. Well, they were influencing what donors expected from an online transaction, and that influenced what nonprofits had to. Had to create that we had to make a, you know, more seamless online not a purchase but an online giving process because people expected that from the, from their commercial side. So this is, you know, it, and I think that’s terrific. I think there are lessons that can be translated, they learned from the commercial side to the charitable side, uh, that’s, that’s all to our benefit on the, on the charitable side. Totally agree, totally agree. So let’s talk about, you know, now we have to, you know, I always remind listeners, you know, you got to get the book because there’s only so much we can talk about in an hour. So you got to get the book at um at sustainablegiving.org. Of course, we all, uh, you can also get it through Barnes and Noble and Amazon, etc. um, but you know, give Dave’s landing page some hits because uh. He’s a metrics guy he’s tracking the metrics on the. You’ll you’ll end up with a copy of the book either way, but you may as well make, uh, make the gateway through, uh, sustainablegiving.org. So. Uh, we’re, we’re jumping a little ahead, but I, I do want to talk about some of the incentives. So now, you know, we’ve talked about sustainable philanthropy, how important sustainable giving is, how that’s created a subscription philanthropy, so that’s what I meant, subscription philanthropy model, um, some of the incentives if you wanna, if we wanna move into this. We, we, we don’t feel like we’re doing it well enough, the, uh, the way the Gabe Cooper quote, you know, suggests that we either not doing it, which is really unwise, um, well, you know what, let’s take a step back. Let’s go to, let’s go to the nonprofit that isn’t doing. Uh, isn’t doing sustain or giving. And we’ve already explained why, why it’s important. We’re not, we’re, we’re past the, the motivation step, but what should we think about, you know, like what should we bring, what do we need to bring to our vice president? What, what topics do I need to, as the vice president bring to the CEO or what issues, you know, what help me make the case, I suppose, for the nonprofit that may not be, uh, unwisely, unfortunately, but, uh, doing this type of giving. Well, the first thing I would say is you have a recurring giving program. Whether you call it something or you’ve actually spent any time on it, whether it’s any good. I have not met a nonprofit that does not have donors who have chosen to give on a recurring basis. The question is whether or not you’re taking advantage of that and whether or not you are creating growth. It actually again reminds me of the early days of digital, where I would, I would go and, uh, to a charity and I would say, hey, I think we can really help grow your, you know, your online giving. And they would say, oh, it’s already growing 20% a year. And I would be, and I would say, but how fast could it be growing because the reality is just with adoption, people are going to choose of their own volition. You know, in this, in the case of digital, to give online, in the case of subscription giving to give on a recurring basis. So first thing I would say is you have recurring giving um going on in your organization and so it’s about understanding what is that today and then what could it be in the future. I am a huge believer in the potential and, and really painting the picture for that. So I always like to ask people, you know, how many, how much, how many donors do you have today? How much are they giving on a recurring basis, because Nobody’s starting from zero, and that’s actually the good news. So that’s the first thing I would do, um, uh, certainly give them a copy of the book, that’s apparently, uh, work, uh, the book’s only been out, Tony, but, uh, just for a month as we record this, but it’s been really powerful when you have that kind of like I could try to convince you of something or I could let this third party podcast episode or you know or actual book, um, uh, you know, do some convincing for me, um, but. I think it’s really just recognizing that you do have a recurring giving program. The question is, are you going to do anything about it? And, um, and once you know kind of where you are today, that’s where you can start to um forecast for lack of a better term, like what would it look like to grow this program, and, you know, what, how might that enable our our mission that our organization is trying to accomplish? You’re, you’re thinking, you know, as I was reading. Made me sort of reimagine the work that I do, uh, it’s sort of a different framework. My, my work is planned giving fundraising consulting. You, you listen to the show, so you probably know that, um. You know, and there are, uh, clients that have donors. I’m thinking about a handful of people, but they, they’re doing their recurring giving, they’re just doing it every year. They’re putting $1500 or $20,000 into, you know, on the planiving side into a charitable gift annuity. So you, you got me thinking, you know, well, all right, so. In, in, in my practice, I’m seeing this. I, I don’t think that is recurring giving. I, you know, but what, what value proposition we’re gonna get, you know, we’ll get formally to the, to the value proposition. We’ve, we’ve teased it like 4 times now. We will get to it. I, I promise our listeners, um. You know, but what am I offering these folks, you know, so some of them, uh, have come to expect maybe a comp to the annual gala at which is like a $500 a person ticket. So there’s $1000 you know, that, you know, I, I hesitate to be, uh, too, too, um, lofty in my own like self-aggrandizement, but I meet with them often, you know, there’s that, um, I’ve introduced them to the CEO. And in one case I’m thinking of uh an attorney who I introduced to the chief legal officer at a client. So they’re, so they’re getting it just got me thinking, thinking differently about my work. Yeah, uh, uh, uh, you just gave me a little different framework to think about, um, which was very kind of, uh, opening to me. So thank you. Oh, you’re welcome. Well we’re seeing it in planned, which, you know, you would think, well, planned giving, like that’s the opposite of recurring recurring giving is transactional. No, well, this is what we’re here to learn that sustainable sus sustainer giving is not transactional, that’s not what you want, but the, the, the stereotype is, well, planned giving is totally relational and, and this recurring giving is totally transactional. All right, so we’re here to break that down for you’re wrong about the sustain the sustainer giving. And there is overlap between the two. it was kind of a broadening thing as I was reading the book. Well, and even there’s a reason that you don’t see in the book, uh, save for maybe one or two spots. Um, I don’t refer to it as monthly giving. I refer to it as recurring giving. I didn’t call it I did I make a mistake? No, no, no, but I’m, I’m actually, it, it reinforces the point that you’re making, which is, is planned is at least certain parts of planned giving actually a form of recurring giving. You know, I go back in the, in the early part of the book, the kind of the ancient history studying humanity and Plato and you know, different people around philanthropy and the earliest form of recurring giving was the ancient Jewish people and the practice of what they called first fruits, you know, it’s like if you’re a If you’re a farmer or you’re a shepherd, then you would take the 1st 10% of your crop or your, you know, your livestock, and then you would bring it to the temple, which was the local central, you know, essentially authority for the Jewish people, and they would, um, They would then as a part of that process, they would then feed the, the poor and the widows and, and care for, care for those in need in their society and so that was a form of recurring giving. Now did it happen every month on the 1st and 15th? No, it happened every season, turns out because when you’re an agricultural economy. Uh, that’s when that happens, but this idea of this pattern of, of giving, and I do think we’re seeing lots of areas of fundraising, including plan giving, including what I would call major gifts, you know, middle or major gifts that are seeing their own influences, um, in recurring giving, you know, I had one client, uh, a couple of months ago, we ran a campaign. For new, you know, recurring donors to the organization, uh, and they had one donor sign up for $5000 a month, and I said on their credit card, and they said, yep, somebody’s getting a lot of miles, right? Um, but that donor, that’s the, that was the comfortable giving level for them versus another donor that might be $50 a month or or $20 a month, right? And so I do think we’re seeing this form of philanthropy intersect other, you know, uh, areas of philanthropy as well, and it’s all kind of, um, I think working together to increase generosity. I agree, yup, absolutely. We are seeing it. OK, thank you. Now, let’s, let’s talk about some of the incentives uh uh uh that uh you can use to induce folks. To, uh, into sustainable recurring giving, tick off, tick off some of your your favorites from the book. Yeah, you know, and I think with incentives, especially when I write about those in light of the subscription economy, people think again the more the consumer side, and there are certainly incentives that are literal, you know, it’s what we would call a backend premium, you know, like. Uh, you know, I donate and I get a copy of the latest book or I get a, you know, a chotchke of some form, um, and those are a form of incentive, um, really incentives are about helping move the donor to that point of decision, um. So some other incentives that I like though, um, so, uh, classic fundraising, but an absolutely powerful incentive is a match or challenge grant for recurring giving. So not just a sort of we have an overall match, but no, we have a donor that has agreed to match every first gift or the first few months of every, every new recurring donor that signs up. It’s a win from a middle and major donor perspective because you can actually uh use that to say, hey, you can help us multiply giving. Um, but then it’s also a very motivational thing for donors. Um, I’m a big fan of, um, uh, multipliers depending on the organization. So like if some organizations do a lot of like gifts in kind or volunteer service where you can say every gift, uh, every dollar you send results in $30 or $10 worth of impact because of the donated goods we have or the, you know, the volunteer force that we operate, so multiplier. Um, I would call deadlines and goals candidly a form of incentive, you know, um, so I’m a big believer in saying, hey, by this date, because of this very specific need and this very specific reason, we’re looking for, you know, 150, uh, you know, monthly partners to help accomplish this, you know, this vision. Um, and there’s other, there’s others, but those are some of my favorites, um. Could you do the bounce back for me? Explain, explain the bounce back is a device, um, and I, you know, my first job was in direct mail, so it’s it’s a direct mail specific term, but, um, is really a device that you send that then the donor’s gonna return. So I, we used to do this um with some of the shelters we would work with, we would do a Thanksgiving place map. And we would allow, um, donors, we would send the placemats to donors and we would say we were going to use these when we serve the Thanksgiving meals, the week of Thanksgiving. Would you consider writing a note of encouragement to somebody who’s down, you know, um, and that’s like a really beautiful bounce back device because it’s like, yes, I would love to do that, um, for, for those listening that are familiar with the concept of child sponsorship, you know, letter writing is actually a form of a bounce back like I’m gonna write a letter to. To, you know, the, the person that I’m sponsoring, um, so it’s just some sort of involvement device, um, that engages the donor. It’s time for Tony’s Take 2. Thank you, Kate. Another tale from the gym. Uh, an uplifting one, not, not a whiny one like Mrs. Blood and Soil last week. Uplifting There’s a man who comes to the gym. I see him 3 times a week, probably. He comes in in a walker, and he needs help. He has a friend who comes with him each time the friend holds the door. They park the walker alongside the wall, and then the friend helps him over to the bike, stationary bike, and this guy does the stationary bike. He’s certainly 80 plus, uh, could, um, could be mid to at least even could be mid 80s, maybe even a little higher. But there he is Several times a week. Coming in his walker, but he makes the trip and he does the stationary bike for, I don’t know, a long time, you know, I’m not cocking the guy, but he doesn’t just do it for 5 minutes. And then there’s a woman who comes in, not as often as the man in the walker. Uh, she works on the treadmill. And she has supplemental oxygen. She has a cannula. In her nose, and she has a small oxygen bottle in a backpack. And she does the treadmill, and not also not for a short time. We’re not talking 5 minutes. So, Of course I don’t know these people because, uh, I, as we know, I keep to myself in the gym, just try to listen to others and do my business and, and depart. But if the man with the walker who needs help getting from the, from the where he leaves his walker over to the bike, and the woman with the supplemental oxygen, if they can be working out. We all can. They inspire me. They make me realize there’s no excuse when I don’t, you know, sometimes some mornings uh don’t really feel like doing it. I think of, uh, I think of these folks. So if they can do it, we all can. And that is Tony’s take too. OK. I think you should go talk to these people. I mean, I’m not a gym person, so I don’t know like the gym etiquette, but I mean if they don’t have like headphones on, I think you should go like introduce yourself, go talk to these people, see what their story is. You do, right? I don’t know. Uh, neither one of them owns uh headsets, I don’t think. They don’t, no, they’re not wearing AirPods or headsets or anything. I don’t know, you know, I like, I like to keep to myself in the gym, you know, because, especially the man, the man on the uh on the um on the bike, he does a lot of talking on the bike. Um, you know, it’s the chatty, it’s the chattiness I’m trying to avoid. I don’t know. Uncle Tony, you’re a little chatty yourself where you wanna be. Uh, when I want to be, yeah, I turn on the charm. I turned the charm on, but, uh, in the gym, I just, I turn it off, I keep to myself, you know, I’m still the New Yorker. I, it wasn’t, I lived in New York 15 years. I didn’t grow up there. I grew up in New Jersey, but close to New York City, you know, and these folks are, it’s, it’s North Carolina, small town. Different sensibilities, uh, and I’m making, uh, unfair rationalizations, uh, and, and, uh, stereotypes and rationalizations, but these things are important, stereotypes and rationalizations. Right. OK. Well for now. For now, you’d leave it. OK, thank you for now. We’ve got uu but loads more time. Here’s the rest of Great Value and Sustainable Giving with Dave Riley. Do you know the movie about Schmidt with Jack Nicholson? Well, I mean I know it, but I don’t know. He has a pen pal that he’s he’s he writes to this as his life is a spiral down after his wife dies, um, he writes to uh I think it’s, I’m pretty sure it’s. Yeah, so you hear him. Like probably 3 or 4 times in the movie, he’s, you hear a voiceover of him writing to uh to explain how his first world problems are uh spiraling. Well, there is, by the way, a principle in that story, and that is the power of human connection. Um, in fact, the first, um, uh, shelter that I ever worked with on a recurring giving program was called Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles. I write about them in the book. And the first program I ever worked on, Tony was what they call a meal a day program. So it was this idea of if you give, it costs about, um, at that time with goods and service uh donated goods, it was like $1. $20 or something like that, a meal. Um, and so if you do the math, that’s about $35 a month, pay for $35 a month, you can join our quote unquote meal a day program. But Tony, a couple of things. Number one, it was a ton of work, and number two is it didn’t work very well, like it had a pretty low fulfillment rate. Um, these were in the old check writing days, by the way, that’s how long I’ve been in this industry, um. And um you’re gonna have a hard time dating because I’m 63, so you’re you look like 40 something, so you’re a way to go, yeah, 43. I’m right behind you. Um, the, but the, um, the reason I bring that up is because what one of the things we did that when we pivoted the program was we made it. About the actual guests at the at the mission. Now you had to be careful, uh, you know, privacy, all those sorts of things, but we made it about, um, this idea of you are helping to care for the women, children and families that are at the mission, which at that point was more than 50% of their guests. And Tony, when we shifted from being about meals, which are, if you think about it, inanimate objects that like, well, I guess if I don’t give this month a meal doesn’t happen, sort of abstraction to human connection. To the actual, this is, this is a story of a person and we may have changed their name and, and changed their photo for their privacy, but this is a story of a person you’ve actually directly made a connection with when we made that human connection, the fulfillment rates immediately went up by double digits, like literally overnight, we pivoted from meal a day to this representative sponsorship, and it was a huge lift in fulfillment because we made that human to human connection. So I think of Nicholson and his, uh, pen pal apparently. Yeah it was that human to human connection. How did you get to uh the Union rescue mission? The, the, it sounds like I just kind of hearing your voice that that work really moved you. How did you, how did you get into that work? Well, I grew up in Southern California was was really the part of the reason why it so moved me, and I remember, um, volunteering in high school at um at uh one of the missions downtown San Julian and San Pedro Street, right there, Skid Row, the original Skid Row, Los Angeles. And, and you say in the book that’s one of the most dangerous places in the country. Yeah, it’s one of the most difficult place to this day, it’s yeah, it’s it’s a difficult environment, um, and I’ve I slept at the mission downtown and, um, and served and uh so for me, my first realization that I could do um professionally. The kind of work that I, uh, feel like I’ve really am, am wired for the marketing and fundraising and business and, you know, that kind of stuff. Uh, Tony, the first time I realized that was when I, um, got a job at a fundraising agency. Um, this was 20 years ago, uh, called Master Works, and it was the realization that wait a second, I actually actually could have a career, professional, fulfilling career where I actually am able to help. Uh, causes, um, and the first client I ever had, Tony was Union Rescue mission. So it was, it was doubly, it was a double whammy. It was a personal passion of mine, having grown up in Southern California and having experienced that, but then also right at the point where I realized that my life’s work could be about helping with uh issues and situations like that. And so it’s just, it’s always been close to my heart. How old were you when you started the volunteer work? Oh, the first time I probably went down to Skid Row, I would, I would have been a teenager, um, yeah, early high school, you know, 1516, something like that. That’s not for 15 or 16 year old. What do you remember what was it, was it your parents or what moved you where most people are hanging out with their boyfriends and girlfriends. You know, I, um, it was a school related activity. It was a, it was a, uh, one of the missions down there that did like a shoe exchange, you know, donate, uh, lightly used shoes and then we pair them up with people and so I remember it was the one of the high school teachers that, um, basically said, hey, we’re getting on a bus, we’re going down, we’re going downtown. So then you’re like literally, I was, you know, sorting shoes and stuff, but then you’re helping, you know, uh, individuals find shoes that were great for them and their needs and I just, I still remember that today. And candidly, you know, I just wrote about this week the the question of are we teaching generosity to our children, um, Tony, because now fast forward however many years, 25, 30 years, uh, from that point. Um, I’m a dad, you know, I have two daughters, they’re ages 11 and 14, and I’m asking the question, like, am I, are they seeing me and my wife display generosity? Are they have are, are, are they having experiences that they’ll be able to tell 30 years from now that impact the way they choose to live out generosity in their own lives. Um, and so it’s been a more introspective time, uh, but yeah, thanks for asking that question. And how do you think you can motivate an 11 and 14 year old to, to, to be generous? Oh, I love that. Um, so the first thing, and I was just, this was very top of mind, so the first thing is to, um, make it visible. I think so much of generosity these days can be invisible, and I mean, this coming from a guy who literally just wrote a book about recurring giving, which is generally automated and You know, EFT or, you know, ACH preferably or credit card. And so the first thing that I think especially for us today is how do we make that visible, um, and Uh, that’s the first one. The, the second is, um, how do we, uh, the phrase I use is normalized generosity. I think, um, I think there’s, there can be, uh, an issue with kind of virtue signaling for lack of a better term, like, you know, you look at me, I’m so generous. However, I’ve been guilty of like not talking about my passion for generosity and I think that’s candidly just as. Not just as bad. I don’t know what the right phrase is, but I want, I want my kids, I want the people that are in my life to know that generosity is just a part of who I am. And so in our family, we, we want to do things that help people’s help our kids see that generosity is a way of life. It’s not like, oh, at the holidays, you know, it’s like, no, this is something that we do on an ongoing basis and we actually just had a conversation with our kids. Um, this last week, um, because a local charity, uh, actually it’s a national charity called Atlas Free. They do a lot with human trafficking. Um, our local church actually partnered with Atlas Free to do a, um, a, a program called Freedom February, and there was this idea of the phrase they use is do what you love to fight what you hate. And so do something that you’re passionate about, but essentially raise money to help fight human trafficking. And so my girls, um, on their own said, we wanna, you know, we want to do baked, you know, goods for, uh, for, for, uh, fighting human trafficking. And so my oldest made French macarons. We just spent some time in France, so she’s all about that. My youngest made cake pops and cookies and they sold them. And it was so cool. I have a picture on our website of them at the at the the the Sunday market, you know, selling their, their baked goods, and just the joy on their faces. Number one, they got to do what they love. They actually really do enjoy baking, but this idea of like we are making a difference and, um, I think that’s a memory, I hope, and I think they will, will stay with them for the rest of their lives and will maybe subliminally but will shape future decisions that they have around generosity and the joy of giving. No, you’re, you’re clearly thinking through it for your, for your children, um. Let’s go back to the book. Thank you for a little, uh, personal digression. Uh, we, uh, teased a couple of times, as I said, the, the value proposition. Now this is all part of your, uh, 76 or 7? No, he’s 77 steps, 7 steps to a thriving sustainer program, right? Uh, we don’t have time for all 7. You just, you gotta get the book because, uh, you know, we’re gonna, we’re just gonna, we had a couple. Uh, I would really like to talk about the crafting, uh, your, it’s your number 3, crafting. The an ongoing value proposition. So here’s where we’re explicitly defeating the Myth misunderstanding that this is transactional work, not at all, not at all. Uh, give us your, give us your thinking about, uh, you, you, you make it clear it has to be holistic, you know, ongoing quarter in the slot on, on the value proposition. Absolutely, yeah, you know, in in classic fundraising, you know, that we talk about the offer, you know, how, you know, how much will, you know, a dollar do kind of a deal, and this is an expansion of that. Um, and I do borrow a lot and quote in the book, the, the folks at Next after, they’ve done a lot of work on what I would call single gift value propositions, so like what is, what does it look like to create a value proposition for a single gift, but really it’s not a big stretch to say, OK, what does an ongoing value proposition look like? And so, Um, so a couple things. Number 11 of the mistakes I see organizations make is they use their single gift value proposition and they just say, hey, would you give us that monthly? So, Union rescue mission, classic example, the best single gift offer for the the mission was a meal and shelter, was this like, you know, very low on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it was a survival need. It was very easy, easy math, you know, $1 could basically a little more than $1 could provide a meal. Um, but like I said, the meal a day program, which is equivalent equivalent of saying let’s take our best single gift offer and just ask for that monthly, was the meal a day program. The fulfillment rates were not good. Um, so, so the first thing is I would just say be careful not to just assume that your best fundraising offer that you might use for single gifts is the same as your best fundraising offer for ongoing recurring giving. So some things to look for as you um define your ongoing value proposition. Um, the first thing is just to be super clear on the problem your organization exists to solve. Then, The second step is to really list out what I call your value claims, and again, this is borrowed heavily from the folks at Next after, but what are those things that are um Uh, that, that That are unique to your organization that helps to answer the question of, yes, we are the solution for this particular problem. Um, and then what you want to do is you list out those value claims, then you, uh, prioritize those. And the best way I know to do that is to actually talk to donors. Um, and so I don’t mean that euphemistically, by the way, Tony, I mean actually talk to don’t like call them, set up interviews, talk to donors. I’ve done that a lot with organizations as a third party, um, but until you actually understand what really motivates the donor and fires their imagination. Then, um, you, you’re just going to be guessing, you know, so talk to donors, and then I would say make sure you answer the question, why is this necessary on an ongoing basis? Because again, unlike uh single gifts, this is a donation that will hopefully be made month after month, year after year, and so you want to have a very clear ongoing need and the ability to then affirm the donor on an ongoing basis as they get towards that need. You make the point too that you should try to target um survival, safety, belonging, those again, those basic sort of Maslow needs. I think every organization has the ability to communicate its need in those sort of lower level survival, safety and belonging needs. And I think, and this is especially for organizations that tend to be a little bit more maybe esoteric or a little more um. Philosophical, you know, we help equip people with knowledge, which is true, but I think the question to for me to that type of a charity is, how does what you do contribute to the survival, safety or belonging of the people that you serve? And um, it’s so important to articulate your need in those terms and not in these kind of like higher functioning self fulfillment. You know, kind of needs, it’s just, um, and that’s really a classic fundraising lesson, you know, the, the more we can talk about how what we’re doing contributes to the survival, safety or belonging of the people we serve, the more just candidly emotionally resonant, um, the program will be with donors. Which one of your other seven steps, uh, to a thriving program? What do you, I’m feeling, I’m feeling very altruistic. We’re talking about talking about your daughters and now what which one what do you want to talk about? Well, we’ve had really two. We’ve hit the first one which is to benchmark your program and by the way, we do have a a vet blueprint guide, um, that is free, uh, Tony, so if folks want to get that, they can get that at sustainablegiving.org. Um, but so the first one we had is a benchmark your program, which is just how many, how much, how many donors do you have today? How much are they giving, and, and that’s a great place to start, crafting an ongoing value proposition and then, you know, just to pick one, I would say, um. I would say let’s talk a little bit about growing your program because that’s hard for you to pick, it’s hard for you to pick a favorite. They’re all my children. Yeah, so the 6th step is really to grow your program and I want to just point out one, there’s a number of things we cover in that that chapter, but one of the things we talk about is sometimes organizations make the mistake of focusing on the wrong growth lever. Um, so there’s two ways to get more new donors into your recurring donor program. Number 1, acquisition, straight, the first gift is a recurring gift, and then number 2 is what I would call conversion, and that is they’re an existing donor, single gift owner, and that you’re and they are becoming choosing to give on a, on a recurring basis. And the mistake I see is that organizations will focus on the wrong one of those two. and so they will be, for example, an organization that really their offer and who they are is really um tuned to them being what I would call a conversion focused organization, where really the best, most significant um success they’re going to see is by acquiring donors as single gift owners and then converting them to recurring. Um, but the mistake I see is I come in and they say, well, we’re running, you know, um, I don’t want to knock a channel, we’re running ads, uh, specifically for acquiring new donors, but nobody’s responding, and it’s like, well, actually your offer and your program are much more conducive to getting a donor in the door and then converting them. And then vice versa, sometimes organizations are very conversion focused when they could be acquisition focused. And so in the book, I’d say, what are the, the, the basic um components of an offer that is more conducive to acquisition. So just for example, um if it’s a highly visible need, very clear solution. Um, and it’s got a very clear specific price point and it’s widely understood. So, uh, for example, uh, not a client, but an organization I’ve respected over the years, Operation Smile. Uh, one of the things they do life saving surgeries, operations, certainly cleft palate, uh, surgeries. And it costs about, I think it was $270 to do a surgery. That’s a perfect acquisition offer because it’s super visible. Like you can literally, photos and video can tell the story of Operation Smile without doing anything else. It’s a very clear solution. We do these surgeries, very specific, you know, need, uh, an offer amount, $270 to a surgery, and that’s like a slam dunk for acquisition. Um, but a lot of organizations, and I would say a majority are more their uh their need, the need is takes a little explaining, um, the offer is not as clear and so it’s more about how do we get donors into the, the front door, giving that first gift and then. Move them candidly within 30 to 60 days, typically to then giving a monthly gift or or a recurring gift. And so that’s just one of the the levers and I write about that in the book of how do you know which one you should maybe uh uh put more emphasis in. You make the point in the book about the 30 to 60 day period. That’s the, that’s the period where people are most likely to convert. You want to flush it out a little bit? Yeah, it’s, it’s the, you know, people ask me when is the most likely time for a new, new single gift owner to convert, and we’ve already answered it, but it’s really right away. It’s that 1st 30, 60 days and I don’t know exactly why I have some hypotheses, you know, I think one of the reasons is that is the point in time when it’s the most fresh to that donor. They’ve made an initial decision to give a gift. Um, and by the way, this is a beautiful thing when you do have crisis type fundraising or disaster funding because those have classically been the most difficult donors to. Get to give a second gift. Um, but thanks to the subscription economy, we are all much more wired to be, uh, willing to do that and so. Um, you have the opportunity to basically within that 1st, 60 days to say, uh, basically two things affirm and invite, affirm that gift, you have made a difference. Thank you so much. You are the type of person that cares deeply about this cause, so you’re affirming, affirming, inferring, but you’re also very directly and indirectly inviting them to stand with the organization on an ongoing basis. And when I do a curve of um when people are most likely to uh convert, the highest time is always in that 1st 30 to 60 days, and then it falls candidly off a cliff for a while and then about a year later it might bump up again. So I’m not saying you can’t get people to convert to monthly giving on an ongoing basis, but that first introduction is, is really one of the most critical windows to uh to do that. You have a little advice on uh naming your sustainer program that that struck me because I, I have a sort of contrary opinion about naming, uh, what I don’t like legacy society, you know, plan giving recognition societies like stay away from legacy and heritage, please. There’s like ubiquitous, it could be anywhere, it could be any charity anywhere leg the legacy society, but share your advice about naming the recurring giving program. I think the short version is, um, and I think I opened that chapter with the Shakespeare quote, you know, um, you know, what a rose by a name, smells sweet, right? But I do think having a name meaning something that you can refer to as essentially a proper noun of the program is helpful because then when you’re referring to it in communications or you’re referring to them, the recurring donor, there’s like the shorthand, there’s the name, where a blank. I think it does create belonging. Um, but, and I outlined in the in the uh chapter on designing your program, really there’s two broad ways to do that, and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here, but one way is what I would call descriptive naming and so that’s like, um, basically it’s our, uh, friends of the family program where you’re literally describing the program, and then there’s what I would call fanciful naming. Um, and that is where it might be more of a metaphor, you know, like Charity Water has the spring, right? Um, and I give some examples of programs in that chapter, uh, and I wouldn’t prescribe one way or the other, um, fanciful or descriptive, uh, but I would say having a name that you can refer to is actually really helpful and, um, and, and a piece of the puzzle. Beautiful, thank you. And so we still have several minutes together, but I kind of like to close on your, your thoughts about the future. That’s your last chapter in the book, the future of sustain or giving, trends you’re seeing. Uh, in terms of mindset, yeah, you know, it’s one of the things that really caused me a lot of consternation in the first year, uh, since of saying I think I should write a book was. These things are changing, right? So how do you, how do you write a book that is then, um, you know, going to stand some test of time? And I will say, uh, those of you that are fundraisers, you know, there’s there’s some real timeless fundraising principles in the book, and so it’s not just certainly not a fad book, uh, or at least that’s not the goal. But I did feel like it would, I would be very remiss to not um include a section in the book on how recurring giving is continuing to change. And so I break that into a couple of different categories. Um, I talk about, um, where what people might think of in terms of technology and how technology is continuing to shift. Um, you know, there was a, there was a comment you made earlier that I was thinking about, you know, in terms of how people are choosing to give, um, I can’t remember offhand, but the, the, the reality is that um technology is shifting. Um, I think I saw a stat the other day, more than 50%, I don’t remember the exact percentage. Of, of, uh, consumers today prefer to use what is called a digital wallet, right? So that’s the thing where I double click on my phone, um, and I can choose my Apple credit card or my whatever Bank of America credit card. And so, you know, things like, um, that the charity I just mentioned that my daughters um did a fundraiser for Alice Free, I was able to You know, standing at the bake sale, you know, actually go in and make a make a gift and use a digital wallet. That’s a big deal when you’re when you’re not on a computer and I don’t have my credit card handy or whatever. So I do, I do have a chapter on technological advancement. I have a chapter on how AI is actually enabling um some capabilities around. Uh, recurring giving I think is really powerful. Um, I do think the donor experience will continue to evolve. You mentioned the one click checkout. I still don’t think most nonprofits have the equivalent of a one click checkout, so I write about that. Um, and then, um, I write about some, some, uh, innovative ways that organizations are thinking about financing, um, recurring giving. Uh, I’ll give you one simple example because that sounds maybe, uh, pretty high level. Um, some of the most innovative organizations I’ve seen have basically, uh, created a system by which they can reinvest in their recurring giving program from new donors. So they basically talk to their board and they say what we want to do is we bring in 10 thousands or millions of dollars a year. We want to reinvest the first. 10 months of value from any new recurring donor, um, to then grow the program and so what it ends up doing is it basically creates a snowball effect where instead of just Uh, you know, investing whatever the number is, um, every month in a straight line, which creates, by definition, linear growth, like, oh yay, you know, it’s growing. When you double down that investment and double down and double down, you essentially get a compounding curve and so I know of organizations that have grown, um. Double and triple digits because they are, uh, basically reinvesting. They understand the value of a new recurring donor and they’re reinvesting that in. And so that’s not very common today. I don’t see that a lot, but where I do see it, I see really explosive growth and so I wanted to shine a light on some of those trends. And where would you reinvest in in promotion, marketing? Technology, well, it depends on what your growth engine is, um, so for some folks, if they’re more of an acquisition oriented, uh, institution, then acquisition versus do more, yeah, do more, you know, face to face or whatever, um, versus an organization that might be more conversion oriented, it might be like, actually, we need to invest more in our single gift acquisition because we know that’s what fuels the funnel for for recurring. And just generally too, you, you anticipate a sustainer first mindset. Yeah, that’s the, that’s the, I don’t see that um completely across the board, but I couldn’t come away and not see that the some of uh many of I would say the fastest growing charities today have this sustainer first mindset and they either have had that for a long time, you think of organizations like the Compassion, International or World Vision, they’ve had that for a long time. Or, um, Charity Water is a more modern equivalent where they’ve had it for, you know, 89 years and that’s created significant growth, and then now they are, um, sort of diversifying their focus, but is it is this kind of this sustainer first mindset, at least for a significant period of time that seems to have been really correlated with rapid growth. The book is the rise of sustainable giving how the subscription economy is transforming recurring Giv, what nonprofits can do to benefit. Uh, person who wrote it is right here in case you, you probably put those two things together by now. Dave Raley, you’ll find him on LinkedIn, you’ll find the book plus the free resources. At sustainablegiving.org. Dave, thank you. Thank you very much for sharing and, and you have my good wishes for your, your daughter’s philanthropy. Oh, thank you. Well, and I, I hope for, for the rest of us, you know, that’s just it’s a deep passion and I do think that sustainable giving is a part of that. So thank you, thank you for investing the time and reading that book and drawing out those insights and, and, uh, yeah, I’m just, I’m just really uh hopeful for uh for our our sector. Next week, mental wellness amid the political chaos. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor Box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. I love that alliteration. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for July 1, 2024: Use Your Tech To Enable Generosity

 

Jamie Mueller, Peter Genuardi & Natania LeClerc: Use Your Tech To Enable Generosity

Our panel encourages you to expand your definition of generosity and how you measure it, to better acknowledge diverse forms of giving. They help you facilitate generosity through your data, tech and business processes. They’re Jamie Mueller with PTKO; Peter Genuardi at See the Stars; and, Natania LeClerc from Feeding America. (This was recorded at the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference.)

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. I apologize for the distortion you’re gonna hear in this recording from 24 NTC. It’s especially in the, the last segment, but kind of throughout uh it was much worse and I, I had to edit out some parts because you just couldn’t understand what was being said. I, I kept in what you could hear over the distortion. So, uh just I, I forgive me for the distractions that you’re gonna hear in a few places in today’s show. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with dysphagia if I had to swallow the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s coming? Hey, Tony, continuing our 2024 nonprofit technology conference coverage. We’ve got use your tech to enable generosity. Our panel encourages you to expand your definition of generosity and how you measure it to better acknowledge diverse forms of giving. They help you facilitate generosity through your data tech and business processes. They’re Jamie Mueller with Tko Peter Genuardi at see the Stars and Natania Lalai from Feeding America on Tonys take two Jim attire were sponsored by virtuous. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org here is use your tech to enable generosity. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC. You know that that’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. This conversation kicks off our day two coverage. We are in Portland, Oregon at the Oregon Convention Center and we are here sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Kicking off our day two with me are Jamie Mueller, Peter Genuardi and Natania Le Claire. Jamie is Chief Growth Officer at Ptko. That’s papa tango kilo Oscar for those who like the phonetic spelling. Ptko Peter Genuardi is founder of see the Stars. And Natania La Claire is Director of Strategic and Integrated Planning at Feeding America, Jamie Peter natanya. Welcome. You did your session yesterday and your session title is use your tech to enable generosity. Uh Let’s start right here. Uh Sitting, sitting next to me, Jamie, why don’t you explain why, why the session was needed? Why, why uh what, what we could be doing better in the, in the community about uh, about the session topic. Yeah. Well, Tony, as you, well know, we’re seeing a decline in individual donors, right. Um, and we have some very uh generous people that are kind of making up that difference in the 1% and that is not a sustainable model for the industry. And so we’re really trying to figure out what is it that is decreasing fundraising or dollars coming into organizations. And, you know, the Generosity Commission has done a great job at uh looking at what makes people be more generous, what um encourages people to be generous. And so we wanted to have a topic that really explored all the realms of generosity and how they interconnect together and create a AAA pipeline for dollars to come in uh by way of volunteerism, advocacy and um just giving up time and influence and how our tech can better enable us to identify those indicators of generosity so that we can be more prepared to ask more of um the individuals that want to support our missions. Ok. You mentioned the Generosity Commission. I don’t, I’m not familiar with that. Yeah. So the, so the Generosity Commission is a group, a coalition of individuals that come from Stanford and a number of other uh uh um think tanks in the area. Um The Giving Institute is involved in that as well and give usa coalition. And so there’s been a number of studies that have been done over the that have looked at and explored through different colleges and universities and think tanks. This role that generosity has to play in our society, is there a report issued a report recently, a number of reports 2022 was the latest report, but there’s actually been a longitudinal amount of research that’s been done. And over, I mean, as you probably can imagine, volunteerism is a key indicator of uh of donations in the future. And um also advocacy and just overall relevance to somebody’s life and the way that they are being generous in their everyday life um can be an indicator of future generosity. And so how are we actually identifying those behaviors that people are naturally displaying in their everyday lives as being generous opportunities and then funneling that into the dollars that organizations really need to in order to, you know, further their mission and their capacity. OK, I see. And uh Peter, part of what you talked about in your session is expanding the definition of generosity, which Jamie was just alluding to how, how, how should we be redefining generosity? Yeah, that’s a great question, Tony. Um I think there are two ways that we should really look at it to help organizations just be more productive and engaging and getting more from their audience. The first is what Jamie alluded to, which is really taking a look at, say, Tony and saying, OK, today we really see him as a donor, but we know that he, you know, um volunteers that he is actually seeking services from us, that he is doing so many other things with us, but we’ve hyper focused on just his value to us as donors. And so we need to expand that. The other piece I think um that’s really important is expanding who we think of as people who can be generous to our organization. Um I’ve done a lot of work uh for and with direct service organizations and the vast majority of them really see those as two separate audiences, the people they serve and the people they raise money from. And so the more that we can think about a holistic uh relationship with people uh with the people who come to our organization to seek services, but also to support us in the future, to volunteer creates just a, it, it lets us expand the tent and draw more people into those who could support the organization in a, in a bigger and more holistic way. OK. So I, I’m, I’m, I’m stereotyping and generalizing with both of which are dangerous. But I think the stereotypes, I don’t know, I think they’re, I think they’re not valid. I think they’re ubiquitous that those of us, those who come to us for service are, are whether it’s feeding and of course, we’re gonna get to Italia Feeding America um or, or sheltering or, um, you know, I’m, I’m something of the, the, the the personal type of services that those folks aren’t just don’t have the, the capacity, capacity, the means to, to be donors. And I don’t think we think of the future, but we think of now they just don’t have the means. We’re, we’re wrong headed. I would say yes, I think with direct service organizations for sure. And I’ll let Natania um, tell us a little bit more about that. I think one of the, one of the organizations that actually does this really well is the American Heart Association. Um Several years ago, my dad had a heart attack and we need to get some help from the Heart Association. They gave us great advice and guidance. Um You know, after uh my dad got sick, he passed away, we made a contribution to the organization as donors and now as somebody who’s 47 and, and needs some support myself, I’ve gone back to the organization for information and that sort of thing. And so the way that they have thought about engaging me across this whole cycle of things where I’m a service uh beneficiary as well as a donor as well as somebody who will probably leave the money when I pass. You know, it’s that kind of long term thinking and holistic relationship that I think is really a productive model for many, many organizations. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only response of nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now back to use your tech to enable generosity. Natania. You’ve been doing a lot of nodding as uh as Jamie and Peter were talking uh whether you want to share your experience at Feeding America or you wanna, you wanna think broader about this expanded definition of generosity who’s capable? Yeah, I think I just wanna touch on the fact that it is a stereotype that the people that we serve and that are in service uh would not be contributors, financial contributors. We find time and time again that our best supporters are our neighbors and the people that have received the services from our food pantries, our food banks and, and the network at large. And we even tell stories of our neighbors who are now volunteers at these pantries. Um So they see the direct benefit of the service they received and the value that they get from that and want to immediately give back and, and turn that into more that, that ripple effect of continuing to give to others who now need. Um which is, you know, it’s a beautiful thing and we’ve started to give them a platform as well, not only through our storytelling and um you know, not being the mouthpiece for the, for the movement, but really allowing our neighbors to be the voice of the movement and, and telling us what they need in order to thrive. Um So that’s one way in which we’ve been generous. But I think, you know, in terms of expanding the meaning of generosity, um you know, I think the big um the sound bite that I wanted to bring from yesterday was I think, you know, not that you need to throw out technology in the whole process, but that you can start from a place of ignoring the drop down menus that you have in your technology and, and not trying to categorize generosity based off of the constraints of what’s in front of you in, in whatever platform you’re dealing in, but go out and talk to people about what is meaningful to them, about giving to you um in the ways in which they want to give and then try to build systems that can track that in a, in a way that is, that helps you understand how invested they are in you are, are there other constituencies Natania that, that we should be thinking about? Besides those of us who are uh service beneficiaries, are there other constituencies? We should be expanding the definition of generosity to I think. So, I think uh you know, there’s advocacy for sure. And I think there’s also folks who um who want to create their own fundraisers or they want to give in ways that are not currently in our structures. And really what this is about is giving people the opportunity to, to support you in the ways that are meaningful to them. That could be a number of ways and a number of platforms. And one of the things that we kind of ran into some friction in, in the conversation yesterday was, well, you know, how do smaller organizations that don’t have the resources and um the means to adopt all these platforms and run all these programs and just, you know, try anything under the sun, you know, what are we supposed to do? And um you know, really, what, what we, our other um compatriot who’s not here today was, was able to contribute was, you know, pitch it to your leadership as a test start. Say it’s a test of trying out a new platform, a new way of um you know, tracking the, the ways in which people support you and then see over time if it gets you um exponential results, Peter can we talk a little about using technology because your, your, your session topic is use your tech to enable generosity. Now, Natania just referred to the inadequacy of the current drop down menu uh menus. I’ll just, I’ll just pluralize menu and this way, I don’t have to think of another noun. So the inadequacy of the, the drop down menu, how should our tech be integrated into this expanded definition of who can be generous and how folks can be generous. Yeah, I mean, you, you’ve kind of opened up this Pandora’s Box and I got, I’m afraid I’m afraid that my friends who work at software companies here are listening to this podcast and I hope they are. But um I’m gonna be critical of us as an industry for a second. I think Jamie um by coordinating this session really got this topic out on the table for us and it’s being had at, you know, all levels of organizations um in all the departments. But here at the, the technology conference, you know, we have to be a little critical of ourselves. Um I’ve worked for a couple of software companies that have made online cr MS that help with email and fundraising and advocacy and volunteer registration. And I have to tell you, you know, the place where those platforms are the most mature is when it comes to uh seeking money. So whether it’s getting people to convert more often on donation forms or to hit them at the right time with an email that gets them to open their wallet. That’s all well and good. And that’s important. But I think, um, don’t stop there. That’s right. We’re not, we’re not expanding beyond, beyond the, the simplest. That’s right. And so, you know, as a senior ranking Marxist at this table, I don’t really know if I’m the senior ranking Marxist. But I would tell you that my goal is to take all of this technology that we use to get people to open their wallets. Um All of these tools of late capitalism and flip them on their heads. So how do we use the tools that help us advertise to find people to draw them into the fold to provide those social services? Can you imagine if we lived in a world where direct service organizations brought the same kind of discipline and technology to serving their population as they do to raising money? Um I think that’s where we’re going to see a lot of research and expansion in the next couple of years. Be a little more specific about the software shortcomings. What’s the ideal for you? You know, I’ll give you a good example. Yeah. So here it is one of the organizations that I work with, we help them find about three quarters of a million people to put into and lead to their job training programs every year. Um Part of that challenge is that we’re trying to reach them with advertising tools that find people who are over 50 people of color, primarily women, lower education, lower banking rates. And those tools for advertising are optimized to find rich people who have money to spend on discretionary stuff, whether it’s buying a TV or donating to, uh, a worthy organization. And so we’ve had to come up with really innovative ways to identify people who meet those criteria, um, because they’re not optimized to find people with lower income, lower discretionary dollars and that sort of thing. And so, um yeah, I’m not sure, I’m not sure how we do it. I think we have to do our best to take those tools that exist that have been built by very smart people and get them to really deliver a human service and make the world more compassionate, diverse forms of generosity is essentially what we’re talking about. So, Jamie, you were, you were the impetus behind this, this session. Don’t be ashamed. It was, it was, it was my fault. No, what else? Um Let’s see, uh facilitating generosity. I’m just reading from your session description, facilitating generosity through your data tech and business processes. I mean, we’ve alluded to all that stuff but why we, you know, you had a full hour session. What else? What else can we dive deeper in? Well, we had two other individuals that were here and I think that they made two very strong points that I’d like to just bring up real quick. Yeah, I will cheer. So Mike Fisher Trusts Republic land, he was uh he was really bringing home the point that one thing that nonprofits could easily do well and that there is technology to support is to encourage those individuals that are your five star fans, your, your, your individuals that are advocating, they’re opening your emails, they’re clicking through, they’re donating, maybe they’re volunteering, maybe, but they’re just consistently available to you and your mission. They are the ones that you should be asking to get more involved by bringing more people into your organization. They are your super fans. They are the ones that can tell their friends about you easily and well, because they’re obviously passionate about your cause and mission. Um The other thing is to be looking at who your social influencers are, uh who is on um who’s retweeting you who or re xing you. I don’t threating you. I don’t know. I know, but you know what I mean? I think now they just call them posts which is totally generic. So let’s do that. Well, I like, I like I do too that we’re expanding the definition, we’re expanding definitions. So yeah, so the ones that are posting about you on social networks that matter to you or that you’re finding um engagement on those are the people that you should be asking to support you in those regards that the idea of spreading generosity and connecting people to resources into each other is, is something that I think we undervalue yet is extremely important. And so Mike Fisher was really great at driving home that point that we are well under utilizing those individuals that can help us invite more people into our cause. And then also, and how we measure what they do. We don’t even have metrics really for like social influencing. Oh no. Does that exist in CRM systems? It does in some? Yeah, but it, it’s underutilized primarily and then it’s, it’s the other thing is, is that it’s a acknowledged and Peter really brought this home to us yesterday is the fact that when you get an email talking about the way that you’ve made impact at an organization, commonly, they’re reminding you of the last donation you made and how you can expand that donation or up a $10 and become a sustainer. But rarely do they say, and we really appreciate also the 25 hours that you, you gave to us this year through volunteerism or the peer to peer fundraiser that you helped us make a success and our match with others on Facebook last year. And so we’re really not tracking these different ways that people are showing their generosity and it’s really a shame. And um, so I’ll just make two other points real quick. One is um, storytelling which I think Natania has led, um, has done a great job at talking about and Michelle Payne who is jobs for America’s graduate on our panel as well. Um She, you know, they work with youth and high schools that um need are, are looking for a pathway to success in underprivileged neighborhoods or, and in areas um where opportunity is limited and the stories that those J A alumni are providing jobs for America’s graduates fundraising team in order to go out and raise more funds is critical to the success of jobs for America’s graduates. And um that, that needs to be acknowledged that these people are spending their time, their energy and being vulnerable by telling their stories to others in order to help raise critical funds for organizations and commonly, that goes unnoticed. Last thing I’ll just challenge everyone to say is we talk about donors like we’re not donors and like we’re not generous people, we and to take a step back and say, why aren’t donors giving more or why are, you know, or what should we do to make our donors more engaged with us? Look, look at yourself what is missing from the process of donations and from the way that organizations are engaging with you, how are we going to get folks to be more engaged with us, engage with them? I mean, you’re saying, acknowledge, acknowledge the breath of their generosity. Right. Exactly. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way that a mission or organization has been responsive to you? How would you like to see that improved? Um If you’re feeling dissatisfied by the process, then I guarantee you every stakeholder in your organization, every stakeholder that’s giving to your organization is probably feeling the exact same way. Um So do unto others as you want to do unto you, I think was Peter’s line yesterday. Several years ago, there was someone on who I followed on then Twitter. So I’m gonna keep using Twitter. Uh She was, uh she was the Whiny donor. Uh She was a board member and I had her on the show. She didn’t want her name revealed. Uh but she was a board member of a couple of nonprofits in upstate New York, Buffalo area. Um So I had the Whiny Donor on several years ago and I used to follow her on Twitter and we would engage and she was, you know, she was, um often disappointed, not always. I mean, she would point out successes too, but, you know, you sent me, uh you sent me a thank you letter, but the donation amount is wrong. I mean, that’s a, that’s like a killer, you know, I mean, that’s so basic. That’s that, I mean, that is cr MS are capable of somebody put the wrong number in, you know, someone who was careless or, you know, they didn’t proofread the letter to compare it with the data in the, in the CRM and it’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers. Just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate in the gym. I’m, I’m coming back to these gym stories. Uh Yeah, no spending a lot of time there. I’m, I’m noticing things. I see a big difference between the way women dress in the gym and men dress in the gym. I, I think it’s easier to describe men the way they dress. They don’t give a shit put on anything old. I mean, and I know for myself like I’ll go in a pair of uh I, I typically wear, I wear a bathing suit as a workout workout shorts. Uh because they’re nice and short, you know, like they’re running, I use them as running shorts and also workout shorts like, uh you know, orange, uh orange bathing suit shorts and a green shirt. It makes no difference to me and my socks. All my socks are white. I don’t, I don’t call to coordinate any socks or anything that’s men, don’t give a shit. Women the color co ordination. The time that goes into the, the, I can imagine the hours that go into the shopping, not just the dressing but the shopping to match like the, the ankle band on the socks matches a color on the shoes or the ankle band on the socks matches the shorts. I’ve seen both of those or the shorts and the top color coordinate. Not identical. Man, you, you don’t have to go identical, but they’re coordinating a color, not saying matchy. Matchy. I’m saying coordinate much more sophisticated than Matchy. Matchy color coordinate or the shoes and the shorts. That’s another one. I’ve seen a lot. I the, the time that goes into matching these colors, it’s, it’s amazing uh or coordinating these colors. So women have a much better game in uh in gym attire. Uh You gotta say much better and um I just saw something in the New York Times this afternoon, uh about sock length in millennials versus Gen Z. And we get some of both on, on a, uh I’d say most of the people probably more than half the people who come to this gym, this town community gym are over 55 sixtyish uh but some, you know, but some are, are younger. Uh Now I have not noticed this myself. This is one that I I got from the Times today. Your, your Gen Z will, will not show their ankles with socks. It’s gotta be above the ankle and maybe even up to like mid calf gen Z but millennials always show the ankle what heads, I don’t know if P socks is an outdated. I didn’t, they didn’t, I don’t think they mentioned pets in the, in the article. Maybe that’s an outdated term, but that’s how I know them head socks. So you’re supposed to be able to tell Gen Z for millennials by the height of their socks. I don’t know what that’s all worth. Uh Congratulations women for having so much more pride in your gym appearance. And now I hope, I hope the energy that goes into your workout is equivalent to the energy that went into your shopping and then wearing the coordinating colors. I mean, I hope you’re working out just as hard as your shopping, but women got it over men. That is Tony’s take two Kate. What do you think? It’s, it’s like that old. Um If you feel better, like you’ll be better kind of thing. I think when you look better, you’ll feel better and you’ll do better. Um Also shopping for active wear is like so much fun nowadays because they have so many colors and you don’t want to show up in like boing black leggings or like white tank top. Like I want to show up in coral, you know, color coordinating, head to toe. It’s more fun that way. Ok. Ok. That’s the, that there’s the sentiment behind what I’m, I’m, I’m observing. And then you said pets for the socks. That’s how I know low, so low socks that are, are below or right at the ankle. Those are pets. We call them no shows because you can’t see them above your shoe. Yeah, I, I, I gathered that meaning, I, I was able to figure that out why they might be called No show. Thank you. All right. So, I’m using an outdated, outdated, antiquated, uh, uh, anachronistic term for old. Simple, old. All right. Well, I like, uh, I like, uh, I like, uh, synonyms as well. Ok. No more pet socks. No shows. We’ve got just about a butt load. More time. Here’s the rest of use your tech to enable generosity. Uh, Natania. I’m gonna put you on the spot. Do you wanna, do you wanna tell AAA um, a fee? No, no, a feeding America story. This antiquated, uh, mindset that nonprofits have that donors, you can only communicate to donors about giving money. And if you have advocates or volunteers don’t, don’t ask them for any money, you better not, you know, don’t, uh, don’t intimidate them or vice versa, you know, don’t encourage your donors to do other things besides donate. Um, we don’t want to distract them. We want to keep them on this path on the, the donor journey and the ladder of engagement to get them to be major donors. But none of this other stuff is gonna matter in that Um And I think that’s, that’s broken thinking and we have started to see how we’ve turned that around at Feeding America is, we’ve started to message all our in full file about advocacy actions and legislation that’s at risk. Here’s the spectrum of possibilities of how you can engage with us. That’s how you’re going to really build those brand champions for yourself. Um And, and get them to be the voice of your organization too as Peter um alluded to um II, I presume you haven’t had a lot of pushback from these donors as you’ve broadened their, there’s been no, no risk to it. I give, why, why do you ask me to sign the petition? Why do you ask me to write the email to the representative? You know, I’m already donating. People don’t still think that way they see everything as something coming from feeding America and a message from us to them. And, you know, I think that lifting that up and, and starting from that point, you can create a more holistic message that is more meaningful and stronger and gets you the results that you wanted. This is right within your purview as strategic and integrated planning director, right? And that’s a pretty big portfolio, strategic and not just strategic, strategic and integrated big portfolio. What I have to ask you the uh the significance of the you’re wearing a hat that says bagels, are you a, are you a bagel? Um connoisseur because I live here. They live in OK. Now I’m from New York where we’re boiled bagels? Are they boil them? OK. That’s the boiling. That’s the boiling. That’s the pre boiling before the baking. Which is, that’s, you get the golden crust on your bagel. It’s not supposed to be a pound cake. The definition of relevance. I’m learning a lot. I find this to be very generous. Henry Higgins. Henry Higgins. Henry Higgins. Spoiled bagels. Tony. If I could be so cheeky. I’m going to ask you a question. Um, Zars or David Bagels. What’s your, what’s your bagel place in New York? Well, it used to be H and H God, they close, they close, they always warm bagels. It’s gotta be, if you were willing to wait like five minutes, it’s the next round of warm whole wheat bagels, which is my, my, my, my go to would be coming out. But so, but h and h isn’t there anymore. So I’d probably have to say Zars. There are, I’m hearing an echo from our production assistant. Soon to be demoted. I said that earlier though to be nice to Amy free. I think that’s a good idea. No, after the conference, after the conference, but before the bonus. Yeah, exactly. After the work is done before the bonus is paid. Um, ok. Uh, so, ok. No, probably Zars. Yeah, we’re in Portland. Natan is Portland. Not a food city. It’s a big food city. This is an appropriate digression plus, you know, the middle aged white guy has got the master board and I I’m dictating the agenda. So, no, but I do, I do, I wanna work food in because Portland is an enormously rich and rightfully proud, rightfully proud food city from the trucks to the restaurants, et cetera. So, uh ok, let’s go back to genero expanding the definition of generosity though. Um What else? What more can we Peter? You’ve, you’ve been uh well, the, the, the one who hasn’t spoken. Well, you did contribute the bagel to the bagel conversation. But aside from that, uh what else, what else came out? Well, maybe some questions if uh if you feel we’ve covered topics, maybe some questions that came out of the session yesterday that were provocative, informative, interesting things you all hadn’t thought of. No, the questions were dull. You know, honestly natanya mentioned a couple of the really good ones and it was, you know, hey, look, we’re really small. How do we, we’re just trying to find our um our butt with both hands. How do we, how do we do the things that big organizations are doing? And I usually don’t say it so kindly, but with both hand that’s acceptable here. Oh, we had somebody say, fuck yesterday talking to my 14 year old daughter. So, you know, I try, I try to keep her. This is, this is not a G rated show. I mean, it’s a PG show but yeah, I still think it’s appropriate. I get it, I get it. Um I might, um, I might let you talk a little bit about it, Natania. Um, but I, I thought like, you know, look, you just have to, you just have to do it. Um delivering value to people and delivering a valuable experience is really critically important. Um And that’s one of the ways that smaller organizations can dive in and really try to grow. Everybody started their email list or their, their, you know, Instagram or Facebook profile or tiktok. Uh What do they call it an account, I guess over there um with one follower, right? Them, plus their mom. So um it’s really one of those things that I think we get asked a lot is how do small organizations get in? And so, you know, you just have to do it and, and from my perspective, I think delivering value is the way to, to really um start to do it. Just just give people something that they want, whether it’s that experience, whether it’s those compelling stories, whether it’s, you know, imagery that reflects people who look like them and the people they care about. Um that becomes probably the first step on that ladder towards, you know, programmatic maturity and getting people to really um engage an audience and get them to support their cause. Um Natania, I trounce all over what you were saying yesterday. Can I just insert something? There’s, there’s a basic principle in promotion and marketing that the way to get more clients or in this case, donors or volunteers is to be great to the clients or donors or volunteers that you’ve already got. And Natania, that goes right to what you, you’re saying about expanding their engagement. Uh and not, not, you know, putting people in silos as strictly a donor, never talk to them about, you know, other, other opportunities. Uh You know, and I think it’s just treat people the way you’d like to be treated. You know, you don’t even have to go to Prenn of promotion and marketing. Just uh the golden rule. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And no, you did not trounce all over. I was gonna say, um I do think, um, you know, yeah, offering those opportunities and, um, you know, I think there’s, there’s this perception that, um, you know, if you can’t do things at the, at the Cadillac or the gold standard that then you shouldn’t do it at all. And I just don’t think that’s true and, you know, we might be at, or I might be at a large organization now. That doesn’t mean we have everything figured out either. You know, we, we all are in the same industry that is founded on some broken principles, you know, the nonprofit industry isn’t perfect just like any other business out there. Um, and we all have to deal with the same fundamental um cultural issues that we, that we are dealing with um as an industry and uh at the end of the day, if you can ask three people, five questions or five people, three questions. However, you want to go about it, which are, you know, something like what are the ways in which you want to be involved? Do you prefer to support in person virtually or behind the scenes in an operational capacity? Do you wanna get email from us? Do you wanna get paper mail? Do you wanna not get anything? Um You know, asking people how they want to be involved is the first step and that can get you more data than any kind of, you know, the only caveat there is you then have to honor their honor their request. I mean, if you can’t, if you don’t feel that you can segment that way, then don’t ask the question. But I do think you can ask people, you know, what are the ways in which you do want to be involved? That doesn’t mean you’re gonna promise them that, but it does mean that you want to get to know them better. And then this is for in the future for us to be able to understand what do we need to deliver to you in the future. And it’s all about how you deliver that message to them. And I think you can keep yourself honest and accountable. Without over promising too much. All right, I’m gonna defer it to Jamie as, uh, as our origin originator, uh, to, uh, to wrap us up with some warm motivation. Ok. Well, so there were actually two other things that came out. They weren’t questions. We had a lot of people that offered a lot of great ideas in the audience as well. So we actually did, yeah, we did an exercise where we turned to each other and talked about as donors. How would we want to, how do we like to be treated? Um What seems to be missing from our, our um generosity experience beyond donations. And there were two things that came up as one is uh a Human centered design approach and starting from places of generosity, different origins of generosity, right? Volunteerism or advocacy or influence or engagement of referrals, storytelling and then mapping a journey uh throughout your organization for how you believe that individual is going to want to engage with your organization and, and delve deeper into your mission. Um And then using CRM automation or Eecrm automation, um offline analog, whatever, whatever you need or have available to you to make that journey as realistic as possible. People that are showing generosity in a certain way together to uh to help design together. How are you going to further that form of generosity within the mission? So if you have a number of volunteers that are volunteering at a food bank, uh bringing them together into a roundtable or fireside chat to talk about what’s missing from the experience. What could we be doing better? What are you finding fulfilling about that experience is a great way to get people involved and people find that form of generosity and, and being invited into a community of common, like individuals and common behaviors to be very fulfilling and a way of saying thank you to those people because you’re acknowledging the fact that they are contributing in a certain way. And that’s why leadership circles exist and giving circles. I just want to insert that I had someone a guest yesterday, call that a town hall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you want, whatever you want to call it, people feel warm invited to that. Absolutely. People want to share their ideas. I will say I’m very, I am excited about this book, Tony and I do not know the gentleman’s name and I apologize. So I hope you can find it for me. But the head of Ted just came out with a book called Infectious Generosity. And it’s all about how the greatest form of generosity is spreading ideas. And he gives some great examples, some great stories throughout. And I think that there are some really critical lessons for us in the nonprofit industry on how we are helping individuals uh and facilitating individuals, the spreading of ideas and resources to each other. Um because that’s really what connects us all together. That’s Jamie Mueller, Chief Growth Officer at Ptko papa Tango, Kilo Oscar, also Peter Genuardi, founder of see the Stars and Natania Le Claire, Director of Strategic and integrated Planning. What a portfolio at Feeding America. Thank you very much, Jamie Peter Natania. Thanks very much for sharing. Thank you, Tony. Thank you outstanding. Thank you and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits next week using A I in your communications. If you missed any part of this weeks show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for February 1, 2019: Successful Run/Walks & #19NTC

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Emily Parks melds her productivity consulting with her experience in run/walks to give you her best tips that will make your sporting events winners. She’s founder of Organize for Success.




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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. We have a listener of the week, Molly Sullivan at Fordham University here in New York. She was sharing the show with her colleagues and accidentally sent it to me. We love listener sharing. So thank you very much, Molly, for doing that, even if you have to share with the host. I love sharing. So share with me all the time, but thank you for trying to get it out to your colleagues. Hope you hope you got that Taken care of. Thanks for sharing Molly. And congratulations on being our Listener of the week. I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with forma cation if you made my skin crawl with the idea that you missed today’s show. Successful Run Walks Emily Parks, Melcher Productivity Consulting with run walks to give you her best tips that will make your sporting events winners. She’s founder of Organized for Success and nineteen NTC twenty nineteen Non-profit Technology conference is March thirteen to fifteen in Portland, Oregon. I’ll be there. Amy Sample Ward are social, media and technology contributor, CEO of N ten and a Portland ER, shares. Why you need to be there. Here’s a hint. You can hear this right now, so you’re use technology durney steak, too insider responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled Tony dahna slash Pursuing, but Wagner CPS guiding you Beyond the numbers. Wagner cps dot com Bye. Tell us Attorney credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash Tony Tell us and by text to give mobile donations made easy text. NPR to four four four nine nine nine. Pleased to welcome Emily Parks to Non-profit radio, she’s an award winning productivity consultant who founded Organized for Success in two thousand seven, using tips using tips garnered from her years as a small business owner and productivity consultant. Emily has more than doubled income generated by the lunge Forward, five k run, walk and rally that she directs for the Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina. She’s at or GE the number four success, and her company is organized. The word for success dot biz. We’ll have to show Emily Parks thank you so much for having me today. It’s a pleasure to be joining you. Thanks. You calling in from Raleigh, North Carolina, Are you? Yes, I am. Okay. You know, my heart is in North Carolina often. Yeah, cause I own my own two homes there once. Ones like, only an hour away from you in Pinehurst. Yes. And as a beautiful town. Yeah, it is. It’s nice. There. Rallies. Lovely. I love Raleigh. Absolutely. A little bit of everything in rally. A lot of college students Do I like that? Yeah. So let’s talk about our successful run walks to get started. You like to see a comprehensive checklist? Well, my experience working with entrepreneur small business owners, non-profit managers, frontline employees, every human being has reinforced the research that our brains are meant for thinking whether that strategic or creative. But they’re not meant for remembering things. And so when we’re putting together any sort of an event, but particularly a charity, run or walk, there are so many things to be remembered, and I find that capturing those is a great way to make sure number one, nothing falls through the cracks, but also, we can actually a sign a deadline for each of the items in the checklist. We can make sure that it it flows more seamlessly from conception that to the event day, and that we’re able to actually check them off the list. But there’s definitely a sense of accomplishment and empowerment where you’re checking things off the list. Yeah, I was like that when I can scratch something off a list. But so So if I forget, uh, my wife’s birthday, I could just say My brain is not made for remembering. So layoff, Is that true? Well, there is this little thing called technology that can help you with reminders and things like that so we can use the tools around us. But yes, actually, when so numbers were first created, they were given four digits. Because all the psychological research shows that we’re not able within our brains to capture more than four things at a time. And you’ll notice when when children or adults go through I Q testing and they give you the items that you need to remember and then they do something else and they come back and they ask you for those items. They only ask you for three or four different things in that list. And that’s because our brains are just not meant for remembering those things. Okay, now, when I was in when I was in college, I took some psychology courses, and it was cognitive psychology. One of the things we learned. Maybe this is Maybe this is outdated now, because this was nineteen eighty, Something, um was that the brain could remember. It was it was seven plus or minus two chunks. Does this sound familiar to you, or it does So bizarre is that learning so on a chunk is not necessarily a digit. I mean, you could put if you were, If you trained yourself, you could put six or seven or eight digits in a chunk. And then you can remember seven plus or minus two chunks of somewhere between five and nine chunks, you know, but you have to train yourself. You can’t do that right out of the gate. That is that. Is that antiquated research that I just wasted people’s times listening to? No. But there is a caveat to that. There’s the emphasis on number one training yourself, but number two, using tools to connect those items together. So a lot of times you’ll hear people talking about a list of items or shopping list or something, and they create a story that ties the different items together. So you’re more inclined to remember closer to that seven to nine range, then the four to six range. If you’re doing something with your brain to make those words matter, or there’s numbers matter or they’re more meaningful. Yeah, okay. You got do some exercises with them or something. Yeah, part of the part of the final exam in that course, the Professor Red things off. And I think you know how to have pens down or something. Your hands up in the air or something. And then And then after he read off a series of whatever they were, you had to write down as many of them as you could remember. That was, uh that was interesting. Exam. All right, Durney. How’d you do on the exam? Oh, no. I’m more like seven. I’m more like one plus or minus two chunks. My, my So so I grasp on when you say our brains are not made for remembering, I grab onto that so that will sustain me for another ten or twelve years. Well, in another thing, not only that our brains are not meant for remembering, but they’re meant for thinking is also that our our brains don’t grass someday. So one of the other reasons that I like a checklist is because of those deadlines that I mentioned. If we have associative deadlines with our checklist items, then it’s not floating out there as a wish. It becomes a goal and something that we contain. Gia ble attain. I don’t know about you, Tony, but I have yet to dahna calendar that has some day on it. So when I say that I’ll get to that someday, it usually just keeps falling down the list further and further and never actually gets accomplished. And when you’re planning a walker run, that charity is depending on the action’s getting completed in a timely manner and deadlines pair nicely with that. I admire how, how deftly you segregate us back to the topic. We’re supposed to be talking about an off the topic that I digressed, too, which was a seven plus or minus two chunks in the psychology class and everything else. So that was very well done. We’ve got to take our first break pursuant their newest free E book, The Art of First Impressions. Do you need more donors? This resource is all about donor-centric guiding principles of ineffective acquisition strategy. Plus how to identify your unique value and use it to advantage, plus creative tips. It’s all about making an excellent first impression for Donorsearch acquisition. You’ll find this at Tony dahna slash pursuant Capital P for, please. Always for that listener landing page. Now, let’s go back to successful run walks. All right, Emily. Eso brava. Well done, Segway ing us back to the topic that you got tired of talking about That I made you digress to That was never tired of talking about psychology. But I do know that I want to be able to give your listeners as much value as we possibly can. Yes. And if you, uh, worthless host digressions as possible, that’s that’s the natural conclusion From what you just said. I understand their kayman value is always Well, it better be. I just got some value to this. Okay, so what’s our next step? You You tell me what you want to talk about after after having that critical checklist, How about teamwork? No, I don’t want that. I don’t like that one. Now go ahead. Of course, Steven, do it. Well, I the quotes that come to mind when I’m thinking of planning charity walks and runs are in love as faras. You know, if you want to go quickly, go by yourself. If you want to go for go with a group or together everyone achieves Mawr. I mean, there’s there’s countless Mantra tze with which a lead our organizational group. But having a committee might be the most important element for the success of both the event, the growth of the fund-raising and the overall mission driven element of any charity organization committee’s Okay, we don’t want a committee too big. I mean, of course, right? I mean, this is a run walk, so of course it can’t be handled by one person, so absolutely I’m not not debating that. But you get too much committee. Andi, you get more, get more committee. I don’t know stagnation. Then you do productivity out of a committee. Absolutely. You want to make sure that you have enough people in the room said that each of the necessary rolls is fulfilled. But you want to make sure that you don’t have so many that it slows down the decision making process or that anyone on the committee doesn’t feel like they’re truly contributing. People want to make an impact. People want to help your non-profits vision and mission come to fulfillment, but if they’re just filling up space and coming for a free meal, they’re going to feel less fulfilled in the process. So I find making sure that the committee includes a volunteer coordinator, a team captain, coordinator, an exhibitor coordinator or host for those vendors that will be at the event a media contacts and then particularly someone to oversee the food and beverage element of your event. Those air really integral roles that helped the committee divide and conquer on the necessary functionality but also empower all those team members. Because if you’ve got a planning team that has the the right people in the right roles, then everybody excels because they’re all ableto bring ideas and energy and their network for bigger and better results. I’m in Italian, so I gravitated to the food and beverage section. What if we’re thinking about doing a run walk you know, we don’t do these annually with planning one first. One. What kinds of what kinds of foods and beverages should you provide to your your runners and walkers? The answer to that, Tony actually depends on what type of event you’re trying to have. I find it. The charity event that I oversee for our Greensboro Lunge forward here in North Carolina is part of a run, Siri. So there are running events all throughout the year, and participants that do at least five of those in the Siri’s get X surprising. So been to many throughout the series, and there’s different feelings at different events throughout the year. Some of them really focus on making sure there’s enough doughnuts and bagels and sausage biscuits or bananas or oranges for free race snacking and then refueling as soon as you’re done with the rich. There are others like ours, where we do have those items beforehand, particularly the bagels, the doughnuts, the bananas, oranges. You know, those high energy fuelling foods. But we also partner with a local restaurant in brewery in the area to be ableto have brought and beer now talking. Now, now breathe here for everyone that participates in the five K is always an exciting draw for any runner. And I’ve decided that if you run a five K, you’ve earned your free beer afterward. Can I just show up in shorts and a T shirt and just crash and forget the five k part? And just just I’ll do the walk from my car to the beer stand. Well, how about you registers a participant to the five K, but she just sort of hide in the background during the running part, and then you get your beard the alright? Exactly. Yeah, right. Right. I mean, you still get the teacher about trying to skirt the system, but I don’t want to cheat the charity, so I mean, I’ll donate, you know, I’ll donate to the charity too, but you’re in Brant’s. That xero okay. So a little some comfort food for afterwards, if But you know. But I hear you too. And you know, it depends on what part of the country you’re in. It depends on what your mission is. Beer and brats may not work for the American Heart Association. Well, the beer could mean that that alcohol is hard healthy too, in moderation I don’t know about. Maybe they read washing. Yeah, Yeah or yeah. That’s a myth, though. You know what? That’s the red wine producers all, however all alcohol? Yes. All alcohol again in moderation. The two ounces to three ounces or two to four ounces a day or something. Has the has the heart healthy benefits. But the red wine industry jumped on that when it first came out and said, You know, red wine is the is the source. You get the same heart healthy benefits from white wine or other other alcohol spirits. Trust me. Just you have to just trust me on that. That’s great. That marked the price of admission. Jellicle, my limoncello Limoncello, not lemon Jell O, please, Limoncello. What else do I like? Bailey’s? Yes. You get the get the advantage from all those different alcohol types. Not on ly red wine. OK, another worthless host aggression. I’m sorry. I don’t know why you come on the show. I would if I were you. I’d hang up because the hostess who keeps dragging you into places there only I think the lesson about alcohol. That’s a pretty good lesson learned All right. It’s true. Um, especially skillsets wear Red day today. Always today. Where? A day for what? Yeah, for the American heart is American heart miss that one. All right. Okay. Uh, while I’m in New York somewhere and gray and black, that’s that’s That’s the de rigueur colors here. All right, So what’s next? We gotta have some captains coordinators on the committee, right? Absolutely. So, talking about this, members of the committee that touched on the volunteer coordinator was the team captain coordinator. And I find that that team captain coordinator is an integral part for the growth of any run wall. Because if you’re using your committee and your media contacts and your email messages that go out your social media marketing to touch on each individual directly from the organization, you’re not gonna have the breadth and depth of reach that if you have a team captain coordinator who is the point person for energizing all of your team captains, then it gives the team captains the fuel to go out and work with their network and make those personal place to grow their network. And thereby you have this whole army of individuals that are out getting people excited and energized and signed up and making donations and asking their friends and family and neighbors and colleagues to come and join them. Research shows that we need to hear about something at least five to seven times before we want to learn about it. So if you’ve got your marketing messages going out, but then you also have Team Captain’s asking for help e-giving personal invites to their contacts. Then you reach that five to seven threshold faster, and you get more people to go to the website, learn more about the event and sign up, make known ations and truly take action. Okay. And then, of course, there’s technology that can help us to. It’s enlarge our network as well. Absolutely. I’m a firm believer that a combination of message sitting so email, marketing, multiple platforms of social media if you if you were non-profit, is the size of a mid having a text messaging element, that’s a huge way to get people while they’re on the go. You can also make sure that you’ve got calls going out. Our team captain coordinator does a great job to make calls to the team captains and then the team captains. Often Tom’s will call people on there on their teens, so it’s sort of that domino effect and also another coordinators that we touched on earlier. The volunteer coordinator and Exhibitor Coordinator. Um, you could also have a sponsorship coordinator, but those air all people to get other organisations involved. So your sponsor coordinator is getting people to donate money as sponsors. Your exhibitor Coordinator is getting organizations, businesses, community partners, tohave table tops at the event. And your volunteer coordinator is working with Universities High School’s key club, all different types of volunteer outlet to get more people there on the premises. Most events I’ve seen need anywhere from one hundred two hundred volunteers for a walker run. And you want to make sure that you have those bodies so that things run seamlessly throughout? Okay, wait. If you’re talking a minimum of one hundred volunteers, that’s a that’s a huge event. Yes. You know, you’re talking about So what size hominy, run runners. Walkers? Do you have just wait? We average between five hundred eight hundred participants, but we have a cz many as twelve hundred event. Okay. Okay. One factor we want to make sure we consider again. I imagine this is most valuable for people who haven’t done this much or at all. We need to make provisions for the folks who aren’t able to run or walk, but they’re going. They’re going to participate in a wheelchair or, ah, bike. So it’s one of the I don’t know what those bikes are called, but they’re they’re not your average bike, but you know, people who want to participate or need to participate, other than running and walking two, two elements to that number one, every walk run is responsible for partnering with the city in which they host their event to make sure that there’s adequate police coverage. One of the main functionalities of those police officers is to make sure that whenever that walk run participant goes through an intersection there protected from oncoming traffic. And so part of that is, Is your course flat? Or are you educating potential participants about where the hills are so that they can plan accordingly? Part of it is making sure that the police are aware when there are participants that needs special consideration, like those in a wheelchair or those that may be walking with a walker or things like that. We have also partnered with local organizations that they have runners that put some of our lung cancer survivors into these. They’re there kind of like they’re like, adult stroller type things. But they have three wheels and then the two handles on the back so that the runners can push the survivors that are unable to make it through the five k or the one k distance so that they’re able to participate in the festivities, right? Sure. Okay. Okay. Very good. And but making sure also, one of the most important things to add to your checklist as you are somebody doing a walker run is to make sure that you have first aid coverage. And for us, that has been a an organization with city where they have first aid medical medic who are on the bicycle. But it depends on where you are located and what resources are available in your city or town. But make sure that you’ve got first aid covers. Okay? Excellent admonition. Thank you. And then. So if we have this overall logistical checklist, there’s got to be sub checklists for probably each of these committees, or write each of these discreet activities were talking about. They need their own checklist with timeline and deadline absolutely going back to that part about needing to hear about something thought to seven times before acting on it. A checklist for marketing messaging that incorporates multiple different emails, multiple different social media campaigns, multiple different mentions that other events that people might be coming tio or calendar listings and things like that is huge. So a checklist for your marketing efforts is important that could in-kind clued media coverage and a timeline for how to reach out to media people. But then also a separate checklist for volunteer recruitment is huge. That volunteer coordinator needs to know where they should be sharing information and with whom. At what day. There’s not a someday on the calendar, so making sure that their specific deadlines for each step in it is huge. The exhibitor coordinator needs to know at what intervals to reach out to sponsors to see if they’re going to exhibit two. Solicit details about who needs electricity or who’s going to be bringing a ten by ten ten things like that. So the overall checklist being broken down into subjects list makes it great to delegate and have teamwork and everybody carrying a part of the load. But Mohr ever make sure that everybody is working and tamed them together so that your checklist makes sense working? Congrats, Emily. What’s your plan for crummy weather? Oh, I wish I could just stick a biodome up over the area where we’d have our event because, unfortunately, whether it’s the number one thing you cannot control and our events do happen, rain or shine. We have had some really chilly mornings because the greens for lunch forward happens in November because that’s Lung Cancer Awareness Month. But also because Veterans Day falls in November and military veterans are impacted by lung cancer a significantly higher rate. So our weather plan is threefold. Number one. We do an amazing goodie bag for each participant that has things like an extra pair of socks. Gloves that have, like the TEC tips on, Um, um, we give out to bargains are Beanies, I guess, is the new name for them. That people can wear to cover their ears in their heads. So number one is the Good East to acquit people for the weather. Number two is we do have the contingency plan that if there is a tornado coming through or lightning strikes or things like that, would you cancel the event in that place? But the third is to just educate people from the get go that our event happens. Rain or shine. OK, thank you very much. Very welcome. That was a wonderful question. I appreciate you touched tonight. Only took me twenty five minutes to achieve one. Thank you. Now all of the questions are great, that one, especially because people don’t necessarily think about the weather being something they can’t control. Your looking on your checklist, that all these great things that you can control and unfortunately, we don’t have a magic wand away just and say, Oh, we need a bright, sunny day with seventy some degree temperatures outside. Well, you’re in North Carolina, so you have a better shot at that. And lots of other parts of the country That is very well, remember, it’s a wonderful weather and November you have a better shot of that, then Lots of other places. Okay, way. Got a few minutes left, like, three minutes or so. Left. Um, well, how how early do you like to start the planning for this? We often times start as a committee with a debrief of the prior year’s event the week or so after that prior year’s event. And because our event is in November, we will do the debriefing in December in January. And then we actually start hitting the ground hard and February with making sure location is secured that our race route is is confirmed and certified that we coordinate with the city we coordinate with the police. So we started that the past couple of weeks. In January. We will hit the ground running through February, and then our committee will start having regular meetings in Mark and we start meeting every other month with people doing functionality in between those meetings on their own. And then starting in the summer, we’ll meet every month. But our with the event being in November, we make sure that the website launch is no less than six months before the event. Okay, the registration went okay. Excellent. All right. So really, you’re ITT’s a year round deal, all right? Absolutely. Family. We just have a minute left, which I need to hold you too. So what do you want to wrap up with in a minute? Make sure that you, as a leader for your event as well as everybody on your committee, understands that everybody is human and we can do the best we can. But schedules are going to change. Problems are going to arrive. There’s going to be fires to put out. So cut yourself some slack, incorporate self care and asked for help because teamwork will make everybody so much more successful. All right, That’s excellent rap, Emily. Thank you very much. Thank you. Toni. This fabulous. My pleasure. You’re right. You are fabulous. Emily Parks. She’s at Organ. The number four success and her company is organized for success. That’s the word for dot biz. Thank you again, Emily. Thank you, Tennessee. This was a pleasure. Let’s take a break. Well, your C P s. Here’s a block post for you. The differences between your nine ninety and your financial statements. Have you ever looked at these two things and seen the same word description, but there’s two different numbers, and it seems like they ought to match, especially if the same person, same companies doing the two things. But there are reasons why they don’t that and other things. Simple explanations there covered in this In this post, you goto wagner cps dot com Click Resource is then blogged. Now, Tony steak, too. Have you become a non-profit radio insider? Yes, he’s talking about it again. Oh, my God. Because that’s where you’re going to get the special access now special access to the private videos that I’m doing with guests Thiss Week with Emily. Since she’s a productivity consultant, we’re goingto do something, as as these videos always are that we did not talk about on the show. It’s not just we got a short regurgitation of what you just listen to on the show. What’s the point of that? So we’re going to talk about a productivity tip using the Eisenhower matrix, Emily and I. So that’s one example. But there’s there’s Ah, probably got six of these or so in the can that haven’t been released yet, but it’s going to be all part of part of a they will all be part of a private playlist and you get access to the playlist. But being a non-profit radio insider, how do you do that? You go to tony martignetti dot com and you click the insider alerts button. It’s so damn simple. It’s just name and email, some other podcast. It would probably charge you, but I don’t and I’m not going to. It’s not like I’m putting you on a list that you believe you’re going to get. You’re gonna get charged. I just wanted to be an insider. That’s how you get it. Okay, So you started twenty martignetti dot com. What a surprise. Let’s bring in AA step award. She’s been listening in, and, uh, she’s our social media and technology contributor. What do you know about that? She’s also the CEO. Event ten. How about that? NON-PROFIT technology? I’m sorry. Uh, well, the Non-profit technology network she’ll admonish me. Her most recent co authored book is Social Change. Anytime, everywhere about online multi-channel engagement. She’s that Amy Sample, ward dot or GE. And at Amy R. S. Ward. Welcome back, Amy. Simple word. Hi. Thank you for having me back. Actually, just as I was waiting my turn in the digital Q. Here I was looking twenty nineteen, a brand new year calling in non-profit radio. And then I was like, Wait a second. How long have I been doing this? And I just checked my email and it six and a half years. Is that, like a real thing? Absolutely. Just gave me a chill. Literally. I have a physical chill. Give me goose bumps. Yeah, because the first show you were on, we used to talk about this on the anniversary shows, but happy Toa. You know, not that that’s the only time. But so this is how I know the first show you were on was the one hundredth show. And yes, that’s what I remember that, you know, there’s searching through your Gmail can be a little difficult. So I just Tony hundreds show because I knew that the first one and yeah, that was in July of twenty twelve. That’s right. July is every every July is a new fifty new fifty more shows. Fifty show milestone and live twenty twelve. Yeah, and we’re at show four hundred. This is four hundred twenty seven or six or eight or somewhere around there. So that’s three hundred and twenty some shows and fifty shows a year would be six, seven, six years and a little less than half. You’re absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. How do we possibly have things? They still talk about you. Uh, well, you make that you make that you make that determination on, then I routinely veto them, and then you make another determined. You probably have. Come on. So true. Yeah. You probably have come up with more. Like probably like seven hundred topics. Three hundred fifty. Some shows you’ve been on. Well, of course, you have been on every week either, but But But it has been that long. It has been that many years, you know, because you know, we get along great eye. I think you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. Wei have a strong enough relationship that I could say you can remain silent you on the show and it’s fine. You can remain silent when I say we have a good relationship. E-giving all right. So are you calling in from the End ten office? Yes, I’m calling in from antenna H Q, where we are quite literally surrounded by boxes as we have one last week where you know different different swag, different supplies, all the you know, physical things that make the conference happen are being sent to the office and then they get all rounded up and take take to the convention center in, like, one giant truck. So right now it’s the final week of the boxes like Back-up around us. I see Right? And, of course, we’re going to talk about nineteen ntcdinosaur twenty nineteen non-profit technology conference now. In years past, when this has not been in Portland, where your physical headquarters is, would those things just have been shipped to the hotel. And so that would should save staff a lot of a lot of labor fame. It’s here in pieces because a lot of it, you know, I mean, we are somewhat conscious of the carbon footprint we’re creating by putting on a conference. So as much as we can, we use your two year so a lot of it here in our building storage and then, you know, we bring it out in package. What we need to take for that year by the stuff that we need to buy, and then it normally gets put on him one or two palace and shipped to conventions come. But since we’re in the same town, that’s not like a thing we can’t have should become falik ties the boxes and literally just drive them across the river, you know, five minutes away. But we also can’t just take it. And, you know, like behind the scenes reality of big conference planning is that convention centers and decorators have all these rules about when you can access the pre event storage when you can access, loading, dock all of that stuff and that you’re charged every time it does get access. So instead of Ah, shipper, that’s going to put it on a pallet, you know, on some big truck and go across the country and said, We have a moving company coming to move these things. And that was quite an interesting process of trying to talk to movers. And we’re like, Well, no, we’re not moving offices, but you do need to pick it up from an office. We’re still going to work here. It’s just other stuff you’re picking up, so Yeah. Okay. That’s s o. I liked the behind the scenes stuff. Um, yeah. So you said Big conference. It’s always over two thousand. You have. Ah, you have a goal for the number of its India. We have a map Wey have, like, the amount of people that can sit in chairs. So we’re currently on track to sell out at our cap of twenty. Three hundred twenty hundred. You thinkyou? Yes. You think you’ll sell out twenty three hundred? Okay. Yeah. I mean, we have we call it a calculator, but essentially, it’s all of the week by week registration data from the last, like, ten years, and it just charts it in. So every week we put in how many registrations we do have. And it calculates out what we’re on track. Tio hit. If we continue the pattern of the previous data at Tio hit our cap of twenty three hundred a head of the conference, which means we’ll have tto, you know, hang up the closed sign on registration at some point. Yeah. Turn people away. All right. So get in. So then now place to go. Of course. Is in ten dot or GE. It’s right on the right On the home page. Big band. Is there a banner across the top? Yes. Big dahna krauz stop you. And ten dot or ge. Um Okay, So what? What are what are we signing up for? What we’re getting into if we when we sign up. I’m glad you asked. You’re getting you’re signing up for all kinds of things. There is. This is my very weak attempt creating a bridge to Emily Segment. There are some community members who already organized some morning runs, and one of the lunches has a guided walk by Beth Kantor. So the NTC, then I’ll have a technology conference ISS filled with all kinds of things that I think folks expect at any conference. They’re going to tow learn, but it’s also filled with things that I think community members often don’t expect to be in a conference. So on the first hand, there’s over one hundred eighty sessions this year so that, you know, three hundred some speakers and just lots and lots of opportunities to go learn from other practitioners what they want to dio on our conference has we label sessions are in our kind of way of thinking. We’re more like categorizing them or tagging them into the five kind of categories of an organization. So program fund-raising marketing, communications it and leadership. But they don’t act as like tracks or, you know, some conferences. You sign up and you’re you have a certain job title and those of the sessions you have to go to. That’s not how it is. I can’t see anybody can go to any session, but we use those labels because since then, DCS all about technology, there could be two sessions happening at the same time, about data or about maps or whatever. But if you see that one of them is tagged as a communication session and one is tagged as a night session, it’s easier to say, Oh, well, I couldn’t see the difference between these one of these is maybe going to be more technical, and one of these is going to be about, you know, external community communications. Um, and in that same way, there are people attending all those sessions, people speaking those sessions who are from every different kind of job type, every different kind of, you know, organizational mission, big, big, huge enterprise size organizations and really small one person organizations. So wherever you are at in that world, however, many staff are on your team or what mission your organization has there will likely be someone else has that matches your reality that you could find at the conference and share and learn with them. Have you ever gotten to go to many sessions, Tony? Because you’re always also creating content. I thank you, and we’re going to talk about what I’m gonna be doing there, but no, I’ve I’ve never been. I’m proud of this. It’s just the way, because I’m on the exhibit floor capturing fantastic interviews from your speakers. I have never been to an NTC session. Although I’ve been to This will be my fourth and T C. Hold that, though. We gotta We gotta take a break. Please tell us. Can you use more money? Do you need a new revenue source Get a long stream of passive revenue? When cos you refer process their credit card transactions through Tello’s, watch the video, then you send the potential companies to watch. And of course, there’s also applies for your own credit card transactions as well. And you will get fifty percent of the fee that Tello’s earns for each transaction. Not the prophet. Did I say profit? No, I did not. Fifty percent of the fee for each transaction goes to you from the referrals you make to tell us that video you will find at the landing page for listeners at tony dot m a slash Tony Tello’s All right, you gotta do the live listener love on DH. It’s going out. It’s going out. Tio, New York, New York, Brooklyn, New York. Thank you. Brooklyn and New York for Brooklyn and Manhattan being with us. Uh, let’s go. Let’s go west Phoenix, Arizona and Tampa, Florida. Well, that’s coming back east, of course. Um, and then let’s go abroad. We got We got two nations where we cannot tell the city and they’re very disparate. One is Columbia, and one is Russia. So I’m sorry I cannot dahna shout you out by city, but the live love goes naturally. It just goes, it goes to the whole country generally. And then you got the targeted and the specific and the attribution yl love directly to those listeners. And then we also got sent to Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic. We don’t see you too often, so thank you. Thanks for being with us. Live Love to you as well. Yes. And the podcast pleasantries. Thank you very much. But I’m not finished quite yet because I have to send the podcast pleasantries. Amy, you know that That’s the that’s the vast majority of our audience thie over thirteen thousand people who listen, whatever device, whatever time whenever it fits into their life could be Could be the next couple days. Could be many weeks or even a couple of months sometimes based on the stats, and I see the loud the downloads continue. We easily weeks after and sometimes months after an episode, so That means podcast pleasantries. Tow our podcast listening audience. Now, Amy Sample Ward. Thank you for your indulgence there. Um, yeah. So non-profit radio is partnering with and is sponsored by You don’t mind if I do a lot nastad out on my own ship. Well, y you know what I’m doing Asking you? Yeah, Come on. Stony martignetti Non-profit. When did I get so polite? What is this transformation? Yeah, of course. I’m gonna be doing a video and saying more about this as we get closer. Teo Ntcdinosaur Tch is March thirteenth to fifteenth. Um, we’re sponsored by ActBlue at at the NTC Act Blue and Non-profit Radio. We’re gonna be sharing a booth with an oversized booth a ten by twenty. So come and see us. ActBlue will be there and they are the non-profit radio sponsors. As I’m capturing at least twenty five, hopefully as many as thirty interviews for later broadcast on the show. All speakers from Ntcdinosaur as people come off or sometimes before they do their session, they come and see us in the booth. And we recorded very cool interview all about using technology to make your work easier so that you can focus more on your mission and less on the the tribulations of technology. This is ntcdinosaur and ten and ntc. That’s anti tech tribulations. That could be our new catchphrase. Yeah, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t use that. I don’t think it’s for just that. They both start with T, but they don’t have the same sound. So it’s not an alliteration. It’s just two teams that don’t. So don’t don’t use that. In fact, let’s let’s talk about something that’s Ah, I thought you were going to admonish me for even even set it up so you could admonish me. So End ten is no longer the non-profit technology network. Right? Okay. Eso you’ve got You’re going the way of the American Automobile Association, the National Abortion Rights Action League, Thie, American Association of Retired Persons. All these organization that just want to be known by letters. What? Why do you do that? So we’ve always been known by letters. We’ve always been in your right hand, but I’ve always been allowed to say and ten we allowed Or we kept the Non-profit technology network a piece of it. Not that we use that ourselves, but that it was still there if you went to the website or, you know, use the logo or whatever, because people have this very strong expectation that they should get to know what the letters. I mean, you know that the letters have to be an acronym and that they need to know that I’m afraid I’m one of the one. Ultimately, even though we were saying the word stood for non-profit technology network, that wasn’t even what they stood for anyway, are actual legal name is Non-profit Technology Enterprise Network. What is Enterprised? Clearly has an organization. This wasn’t just me. You know, this is many years even more. I was here that e I did not mean anything. It’s not being used. So we just got to a place where we said, Why do we have to focus on Non-profit technology network? Which, if you didn’t know if you weren’t part of the community, just heard those three words. What do those three words means? They don’t really mean anything, right? Like they’re still not very descriptive. Um, so if the whole long words aren’t descriptive, let’s just stick with the name we already used. It’s maybe not descriptive, but neither is the long words. So let’s just go with an ten. Have that be our name and move on. Not have to spend all of this time. Oh, and then stand for this. No intense stand for no technology tribulations and stands for using technology strategically to meet real community need. Right? Like, get that piece out of there. Stop wasting time on that and just say, antennas this community in this work, and this is what we d’oh Okay, Okay, but, I mean, I think non-profit technology that part of it anyway, of the Non-profit technology network. I mean, yeah, I don’t agree. I mean, I think that’s descriptive. It says it says we’re about non-profits and we’re about technology, but Antenna doesn’t tell me even, Well, where do social enterprises sitting there? Where does that mean that we build technology or that we use technology or we endorse technology or were consultants I’m not offering. That is our perspective. But those are the questions we got all the time based on that name. Okay, because non-profit technology network could Alright, could mean a lot of different things. I was just focusing on the fact that it at least narrows it down from from brightstep. Ditigal would come to us say, Oh, it says that you you must build non-profit. You must build technologies for non-profits ru must, you know? So it’s still wass. Those words have meaning, but it’s a different meaning to all different people. And it is It wasn’t right. You build websites or something like that. Okay. Okay. So So then a newcomer Well, a newcomer would goto and ten dot or GE, presumably on. And then I guess they would quickly about. And then they would then read the text on the about Paige, right? I think it’s that simple, right? Okay. Okay. Look, very few people really care what didn’t What’s the name of the organization is what they’re coming to the website for is all the content that we have the conference looking for community groups, right? They’re coming for something else. And the name is just like where they got that article from right way. Didn’t we have received one email sense since dropping the Non-profit technology Network and on Lee going within ten, which is something we did back in November. But we have received one email from from someone that just said, You know, I’ve spent x amount of minutes I cannot find on your website what NTM stands for, and I need to know. I need to know. All right. Right. Well, did you talk about him or her off the ledge and word using technology strategically to meet your mission? It stands for deporting this community in this way. You know, you used to tell her you didn’t tell them they want and they wanted to know what? Those letters. So did you give it up? Eventually Did you say non-profit technology, Enterprise Network? Or did you refuse? I don’t know. I think I wasn’t me. That responded. I didn’t get the email. I think they may have said, You know, our founding legal name is this, but this is our D B. A. I’m not sure. All right. We just see this is This is why I, uh um Oh, yeah. No, we got time. Yeah, I’m thinking I just got a cue that we only have a minute left thinking Oh, my God. Can’t be over yet. But that’s just for a break, OK? Just for a break. Yes. Yes, of course. Way need Teo Metoo? Yes, but now we need to talk about ntcdinosaur. Uh ah. There’s more to say. And I’ve I’ve decided from from talking to Emily I think I’m going to coin this new thing W worthless host digressions because we’re there rife there with the show is rife with them today. And they do pop up from time to time. W hd is worthless. Host digressions. All right, let me take Let me take our last break. Please. Hoexter give. Can you use more money? Do you need a new revenue source. This is the second way you heard the first way before now is the second way right now. Amglobal e-giving learn about it with text. Gives five part email many course. Very simple. You get five emails over five days, dispelling myths, telling you how that it’s not as expensive as people think that the barriers are not high etcetera, including the tech barriers. Um, very easy start the many course to get it going. You text NPR to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine. Okay, and indeed, we do have several more minutes left, for example, Ward and ah, what else without? I was going to So what I was saying earlier we could rewind prior Tio tio. It’s hard to remember. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what came before there. So long. So long, their arduous. I was saying, There’s things people in debate, so duvette educational sessions. But the things that folks don’t necessarily anticipate that are part of what I think makes the NTC such a special event are more of the community pieces. So every day during lunch we have active sessions. So instead of a session where you would go sit in a room and hear somebody speak these air sessions where you can go do something. So there’s yoga. One day there’s going for a guided walk around around the river outside the convention center. You know things like that. You don’t need toe, bring other clothes, are you know Otherwise, Prepare for those things. You Khun, decided to him in the moment, but they’re just a different kind of peace. Um, all of the lunches and the breakfast on the last day have what we call birds of a feather. And those are things where people even now are submitting topics that they want and those then get set on the table. And anybody, you don’t just sign up for them. But you can go find one of those tables and meet other attendees and talk and those air anything from people saying, You know, I use WordPress for my website and I want to talk to other WordPress users to people who like Star Wars or people that mitt for people that like board games, eso it. It doesn’t have to just be technical topics, but that’s a really fun piece. And similarly, in the evenings we have dine around where people say, I want to go to dinner because we always need to eat dinner and you can just put your name onto a list. And these air reservations made for six people at all at, you know, delicious restaurants around town. And you don’t know the other five people. But you all get to go to dinner together and have a great dinner. And you are only responsible for buying your own food, of course, but you get to meet a couple other people in a setting that is, eh, Something needed to dio You need to eat, but be a small group. So you’re not trying to, you know, Here’s somebody ten seats down. I’m just a small group dinner. And, of course, Portland, Portland. Very well known for food here. I’m here. I’m season on the food again, like I did earlier. Yes, you make. No, we’re already trying to limit, you know, but challenge. We’re coming up with just again pulling back the curtain here to the behind the scenes is Portland Restaurant culture is mostly a no reservation culture. So the way the dying around usually work is that we have placed, you know, We’ve held reservations at restaurants, and then people can just add their name to the block. But many restaurants don’t allow reservations at all. So and that convict for tasty, delicious Portland restaurants. That way, we anticipate people want to go, too. So we’re trying to think of ways where it’s like you all are signing up with the group, but you’re just gonna walk over there and wait together for table. Might just have to be the reality, you know, right? But for a table of six, you know, that could be a bit of a weight too, right? That’s going to have fun around it. You know, we can have fun in the restaurant right now. Yeah, okay. But you know, you’re driving home the point that a lot of ntcdinosaur community driven. You keep it very open for people, Teo, contribute ideas and make ideas happen at NTC from the community. Very. Yeah, well, altum up. I mean, if you want to plan ahead and and do that kind of thing, you can. But we also wanted to be a place where people feel like they could meet somebody in the hall, start having a conversation, Realize they want to organize something and be able to have that happen while they’re still in person at the conference. Yes, that’s something I admire about Ntcdinosaur. So we have a couple of more minutes left. Of course, you goto in ten dot org’s you’ll it’ll be very obvious where to go to sign up. Are we still in the early bird pricing time, or has that passed? Oh, that passed in December. We got ten days until the regular registration rate runs out on DH. Pretty shortly after that is when we’ll be it the sellout No limit on the wait list to go up. So definitely go get your registration. And one thing we’re always asked is if they’re still opportunities to present. And the M ten session process is again kind of a community open process. People submit sessions in the summer than the community votes on them than US Steering Committee of experts based on topics vote on them, etcetera. And so that process has already happened, however, part of and then values and recognizing how strong and smart this community is that we don’t allow single speaker sessions. There is no topic that could be covered that truly. Only one human knows about it, so we don’t have sessions where just one opinion is getting shared. But however, that means there are some sessions where the person who you know is leading the session and was accepted. They don’t know somebody else that’s done a project like they have done, or they don’t know someone else who has an area of expertise like they have. So we have a page on the website. Anybody can see that lists any sessions where the speaker has currently told us they want help finding another speaker. So if you want to go, that page changes every day. But if folks want to go to that additional speakers page in the program section of the website and take a look. And if there’s a topic there that you know about, you can fill out the form and suggest yourself as their co presenter. Awesome, yes, So there there is still that opportunity. Wonderful. All right, so that’s Ah, twenty nineteen, the nineteen ntcdinosaur course. That’s the Hashtag ninety ninety SI Portland, Oregon at the Convention Center in Portland, March thirteenth, the fifteenth Come See me and Act Blue and non-profit radio together in a booth. Um, any sample board, of course, will be one of the guests that will be interviewing. And they’ll be twenty four to twenty nine other guests of panels. Panels that, Amy. That’s true. You’re the only single that I do interview at NTC sometimes. Well, actually, sometimes it’s a panel, but only one person could show up. It could be a panels two or three, but only one. But that’s rare. It’s quite rare, like one or two others. Maybe it’s always at least two people be for the probably eighty percent of the interview interviews that I captured there. All right, we have to wrap that up. Thank you so much. Amy and I will see you. I’LL see you in March. I can’t wait to see you. Great. Thank you very much. She’s Amy Sample Ward Amy sample war dot org’s and at Amy R. S Ward, you goto and ten dot org’s to sign up for nineteen Auntie si next week. Financial fraud with Tiffany couch. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com insiders, you’ll be hearing increasing your productivity with the Eisenhower Matrix with Emily Parks. Get those videos sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant by Wagner. CPS Guiding you Beyond the numbers regular cps dot com Bye. Tell us credit card and payment processing your passive revenue stream. 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Nonprofit Radio for October 19, 2018: Your Tech RFPs & Donor Advised Funds

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Drew McManus & Ceci Dadisman: Your Tech RFPs
Two tech providers from #18NTC reveal what they wish you knew about crafting your proposal solicitations. Plus a few secrets their colleagues wish they wouldn’t reveal. They’re Drew McManus, principal of Venture Industries Online and Ceci Dadisman from Form.

 

 

Gene Takagi: Donor Advised Funds
Gene TakagiGene Takagi returns to discuss the pros and cons of this increasingly popular donation method that gets lots of press. It’s gifts for nonprofits, why all the fuss? We’ll find out. Gene is our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law firm.

 

 

 

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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 come down with sheer adoni sis, if i saw that you missed today’s, show your tech r f p s to tech providers from eighteen ntc reveal what they wish you knew about crafting your proposal solicitations plus a few secrets their colleagues wish they wouldn’t reveal. They’re drew mcmanus principle of venture industries online and sissy dad baizman from form and donor advised funds jean takagi returns to discuss the pros and cons of this increasingly popular donation method that gets lots of press it’s gets for non-profits where all the fuss we’ll find out. Gina’s, our legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm tony take two a driving rant responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuing capital p wender cps guarding you beyond the numbers gregor cps dot com bye tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us and by text to give mobile donations made easy text npr to four, four four, nine, nine, nine here are drew mcmanus and cc data zeman from the non-profit technology conference welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntcdinosaur twenty eighteen non-profit technology conference we are in the convention center in new orleans, nola, louisiana, and we’re kicking off our coverage with this interview. This interview, like all, is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profit i’m very pleased to welcome for our kickoff interview. Drew mcmanus and cc dahna sametz drew is principal of venture industries online and cc is digital marketing manager four for money and your seminar topic is everything tech providers wish you knew about reading an r f p plus the stuff you want they want, plus the stuff they want to keep secret. All right, let’s hope that the conversation is shorter than the title. Welcome well thinking. Well, you’re very welcome, let’s start off cc i love you. I don’t know, i don’t know if viewers of the video are not gonna be able to see your pendant, so show that off. No, all that off. Put that on the mission in camp. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Very striking. Thank you. Why do we need this topic ? What’s what ? What’s not going right with peace ? Well, i think it a very basic level as non-profits we all need to do our peas at one point or another. Right ? And sometimes they can be a source of a little bit of trepidation for, to write and to sort of put out there to vendors. And we felt that this was a very timely topic to talk about to help ease people’s minds a little bit about that. And really give them some deeper information into the r f p process. Yeah, okay. Drew there’s, there’s trepidation people people are fearing this this process, right as a web developer, we get extremes there’s either trepidation where people don’t know how to approach it because they don’t feel comfortable with how to evaluate proposals. They don’t know what to ask for. They just don’t know how to kick the process off or on the other side of that. They have this extensive laundry list of things they think they want without really knowing even what they can can’t ask for or what i knew. Platforms and options are available. The r f p process really should be more involved with learning what you have and what can be. Okay, so that’s, what we’re gonna be talking about what you have and what can be so both of you are on the receiving end of a piece. Is that right ? From from non-profits currently, although i’ve spent most of my career working full time at non-profit organizations and as a consultant working on behalf of the non-profit for these kind of things. So that’s sort of how we’re approaching this drew is definitely on the vendor side, but my experiences is farm or on the non-profit side. Okay. Okay. So, let’s, stay with u c c your description promised tio pull back the curtain. What ? Pull back the curtain of how tech providers are crafting their proposals. Okay, with you right now, he’s. The current can you ? Uh, yeah, yeah. I mean, i could talk a little about what’s behind this curtain. Yeah, i can talk about it a little bit from the from the non-profit side in creating the r f p you know, our peace can be a really big project, right ? They could be something has looked at that is that is very involved because you want to make sure that what you’re putting out there is is true to the project that you’re looking toa have completed, and you want to make sure all the right information is in there so that you get the right vendors because ultimately you want a good vendor experience. You had a good working experience and we want attracting the right exactly you want you want the right vendors toe look at that project and won a bid on it, and ultimately you want to find the best vendor for your particular organization on dso in this session, you know, we’ll talk a lot about, you know, really what needs to go in that r f p from the non-profit standpoint, it only in the session we’re going to sharing here, too, right here yet. Zoho back on non-profit radio listeners, i don’t know we’re going to be doing out here too, right ? Right now we are ok, we are right. So one of the big things that we’ll talk about from the non-profit standpoint is at a very basic level just being honest about what you need from this project to put into the r f p, you know, bring all of your assets together, bring your team together before you even start writing the r f p to, you know, figure out what you really want let’s say it is, you know, a website project. You know what ? You really want this website to do what you want, tohave it, what you want to have contained in it. You know what your delivery bals are, what type of conversions you’re looking at so that you can start the process out where everything is sort of laid out on the table before you’re even starting to write the r f p and then as you go through the r f p process, making sure that all of those things are in there so that you know it’s full disclosure for the vendors, okay, what i what should we have in place before we start typing words into r r r f what does stick with you ? Ok, the big things to have in place are number one, the team that is going to be working on this project and have a point person assigned. For the project and that’s a really big thing, making sure that there is somebody responsible for communicating with the vendors about the project, who, you know is going to make the time and the energy commitment to do that, and also gathering together all of the information that needs to go in the website, whether that’s text or photos, multimedia files, whatever that might be bringing all of getting all of that together because ultimately your vendor will need that you’ll have to give it to them eventually, so might as well do it right off the bat, and then you need to gather together all of your other sort of software providers. You know, any other piece of tech that might touch that website ? So if you have, you know, a fund-raising cr m ifyou’re in arts and culture organization, and you’re selling tickets to shows, you know that that software is well, you know, your email marketing software, whatever those things are that need to interact with that website in some way getting all of those things together. Okay ? It’s, time for a break pursuant they’re e book is fast non-profit growth stealing from the start ups. They take the secrets from the fastest growing startups and apply those methods and good practices to your non-profit it’s free as all the pursuant resource is our it’s on the listener landing page. You know where to find that it’s tony dot m a slash pursuing the capital p for please now back to your tech or f p’s drew let’s, go to you. Who should be the point person ? Who’s the right person were now our listeners small and midsize non-profits so i’m gonna assume there is no director. Ok, correct. We should be in charge of this process. Dede was sisi was describing. I knew that was gonna happen that way. Have a dd coming later. I’ll answer to it. It’s not here. Now, it’s actually, cee cee cee is with us who should be in charge for most organizations is going to be the marketing director or the vp of marketing that’s typically the person who ends up becoming the point person because they’re going to be the gatekeeper for most of the content architecture that sisi was talking about. And so that’s usually a decent person to be able to be the point to contact oh, and process the art piece that are going to come in, you know, i’m one year earlier questions you had toss to see see about, you know, the things that we’re looking, i didn’t metoo i’m not gonna look at me, i’m gonna beat it up. Now i gotta beat it up now, so i focus on myself, okay ? On my my mistakes. I know it’s just but being able to actually educate non-profits into the things that they need to realize before they even start soliciting our peace and won the big ones is that that tech provider world, especially web development, is in a massive state of flux. Right now, there are really two large competing schools of how to go about being a service provider, which there’s the traditional old school model of you. Give us the specs, we build this for you, and then it’s yours. Hand it over, enjoy it. Yeah, and then there’s mohr of the annual license fee model. There are one ofthese for things like design and development programming, that kind of stuff. But then there’s an ongoing relationship that provides training support. I like to call it attrition insurance because you’re going in insurance, attrition, insurance, you’re going to have people who are going to turn over, and you need whoever comes in to be able to talk to someone who has some kind of institutional knowledge about that online presence, at least and that’s really not even just a non-profit but in the tech sector, especially that’s been around for years now, it’s almost expected oh, and it’s still a new concept to non-profits and so even understanding when they start soliciting are of peace, they could get some very radically different ideas coming in, and if they’re not prepared for it, you might out of hand, just toss something else that could actually be your better solution. Do latto on doing a lot of nodding ? Yeah, yeah, i mean exactly what drew just said about non-profits are used to this in terms of websites, the subscription model type of thought where, you know, you might pay a maintenance fee, monthly or yearly two, your web developer but really, i think for this particular industry, that is the way to go because there is so much turnover in terms of staff and knowing that you have someone there at all times to, you know, sort of help out, you know, god forbid something breaks or, you know, maybe you just have a question that there is somebody there at all times that can really take care of that. This industry, maybe more than others, should be using that sort of dahna i’m surprised to hear that non-profits air not acquainted with this attrition problem, i mean, they have it in having a crime, i mean, certainly in fund-raising where i mostly you’re saying that they’re not factoring that into this process, exactly, exactly there not really thinking about how that relates to their web presence and also having, you know, a monthly maintenance contract or yearly can be very helpful, even just when you need a little thing fixed or changed usually non-profits will go out and you don’t try to find, you know, a one off kind of developer project or, you know, hyre a freelancer to do something and and once you have, you know, all of these different people that are going in there and touching your website at any one time, ultimately that’s sort of going to dilute the integrity of the website so it’s best to just be able to keep with one person who really knows it in it. Out now, i highlighted. Beautiful necklace pendant. I want to highlight drew’s vest, very dapper vest and pocket square. Now, i am not to be outdone. Pocket squares, but yeah, exactly. Undo that. Drew is the king of the waistcoat. He has a warrior he’s, a waistcoat warrior hashtag waistcoat warrior he’s got a waistcoat for every occasion, and he looks damn good in them. Thank you very much for your marriage. You know each other. You know, it’s outside, outside the professional realm way. Do we’ve been friends for a very long time. And actually, one of the first ways that we met was doing a session. You contacted me to a website session. But when c z was a marketing director at the palm beach opera, they became client of mine, and they’re still clients. Oh, and we worked together on a number of sessions and mostly in performing arts based conferences. But yeah, way. Have a good report. Okay, show’s. Awesome. I love that this is a great energy. Great five kickoff kick off our coverage of auntie. Easy. Okay, drew let’s, stay with you. Something else that sisi mentioned next in the sequence. Gathering the right information that belongs as a part of this or ft flush out out more that’s the perfect question to ask yeah, number question number eight is it took me a while, we’ll slow out of the gate. Oh, it’s, just a number eight it’s one the best ones, because that’s also one of most difficult, because when organizations look at their content, i mean, they look at the stuff that they’re familiar with and what they know. So the actual copy, the media co-branding elements and that’s something that they tend to do fine with but where we encounter groups, having the most trouble is when they have to actually get all that information from point a to point b, meaning that let’s say they have a system built on julia or even wordpress, which is what we use in its open source. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to extract the data depending on how that web site was originally built previously. And if in order to say what kind of data we’re talking about trying to get out, it could be anything from more complex information like customer data or event information there an event driven organization if they sell tickets. There’s all kinds of event. Meta, which are little bits of data, like the starting time, the location to find these terms. Because we have jargon. Jail on non-profit mirriam would hate to see you behind bars, but you live served time. You have. Not on this show. I don’t allow it. So you described it. You defined it quickly. Okay, so, yeah, little bits of data that right ? And so that they don’t know that that getting that from point a to point b isn’t a simple as doing, like a simple export. There’s no standardized format for something like a vent data. Even though google and apple have their own standards, it only covers a few bits of metal, so being able to move that might actually require a substantial amount of time and effort that they had no idea it was needed. But worse didn’t budget for, and that could sometimes be the most expensive element dahna project outside of something like developing an ap i connection to something like sales force or cr m or any kind of outside donor-centric connection between your data and some other outside latto yep, it’s the language that allows to different platforms to be able to talk to each other in the same language as opposed to having, you know, something in german trying to talk to someone in russian. Okay, now, how does it now ? I made you tigress thought your fault. How ? Does this all relate back to what belongs in our f and that’s ? Just it ? Those are the things that providers in my position usually don’t tell clients in advance because they well, do they even know i mean at the art of the stage ? Well, that’s just it most non-profits don’t they didn’t ask for that. But the provider doing replying to the r f p at that stage probably doesn’t even know that level of detail, do they ? They should, and they should be asking, and not every provider does that this goes into the heart of this stuff they don’t want you to know about the process is going to be iterated we’re not not just foisting an art of pee on a bunch of vendors, and then they return it within within this by the specified deadline. But there’s a there’s a back and forth there’s a community there. This conversation there should be questioning that’s a beautiful way to put it and that’s one of things that were going to be talking about is the r f in the traditional sense that we’re talking about way are is that the old school ? Throw out the laundry list of things that you want and get it back is not probably going to be in your best interest. We’re going to be talking about some alternative methods, which will be including project evaluations. We are talking about project evaluation, and a project evaluation is different than our pee. In that you will usually pay someone a small fee, a developer, aura potential provider to look at all of this stuff for you, and then be able to give you a legitimate fair estimate of what it cost will be. Okay, so that that’s sort of. Leading into your r f or is it in place of it could go in both one of the options is a migration where i’m sorry, ah, hybrid model where that can then let them build a detailed, accurate r f or they can use that as just the basis of being able to move forward after they’ve looked at a couple of groups to narrow down to a shortlist based on reputation and previous work. Ok, and this can only be good, really, for the non-profits because in this process, you get to know the developers who are responding to this r f p and, you know, that can help you choose what the right relationship might be, you know, rather than just saying, oh, well, these people look great, and there are f p submission looks great, but you don’t really know them. Yeah, all right, so we’re holding hands before we sleep together. Exactly. Get way. Get going. We’re going on a few dates before we sleep together. Okay, look on dating apps. A great wayto use that analogy. That’s. One of the things we have in the session that we’re talking about here now. Thank you. Is that if you wanted to go online and find someone to date and you just have a laundry list that’s called tinder ? If you actually want to find someone that you want to have a relationship with that’s that’s an entirely different story and shoot it might be in harmony, i would like to know the harmony, harmony, scientific that’s, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Profiles are more detailed, nothing no yeah, that i know from experience. I’ve heard. I’m happily married on dh, not on any any dating site. In fact, i’m happily married has nothing to do with other dating sites. That’s. True, i don’t know. I don’t see a ring, you know, you’re right, i don’t know. My wife has what she’s here, but we don’t wear rings right on. But, yes, i see your true oh, she’s on she’s, yes, okay, showing you just take that truth, okay ? So what was that ? Aggression ? Okay, all right, so so we’re dating, all right ? So how do we find the people who the potential vendors who could be valuable to us either for this project evaluation or for our f p how do we know where to send this thing ? We’re jumping around a bit, but listeners are accustomed to that that’s a good question, how do how do we know that’s actually really good question, and i know that, and i know that drew will have some thoughts, too, but if your friend on for non-profit that doesn’t really have a lot of experience in doing this kind of thing. I think the first thing to do is to reach out to colleagues for other organisms from other organizations who have recently been through a website, redesign or development project, or maybe you don’t even know them, but maybe it’s a non-profit or another organization that has a website that you like, reach out to them and see who did it see with their experience with and then also utilizing any sort of membership organizations or associations that you might be involved in convene helpful like a f p or a or p r s a and ten more any of those only, like number three any of those. And only after i prompted you. All right, let me sample warning would have been on my list. Trust me. Hyre where ? Seven it’s not there’s, no value. Nobody’s listening that yes, people listen. So all right, so i think that would be the first laurel referral to someone who did something you like or from among your or from among your professional network, including professional associations. Yeah. Putting. And i think putting it out there that you are looking for someone is really good as well. Even just on your social media on your linked in that hay, whether it’s personal or professional or both. Hey, we are looking to redo our website. Does anybody have any ? You know, recommendations, people you love people you worked with that you don’t love you no stairway from this kind of thing. Okay ? Do you have more ? That that’s a great way to go about it. I would say when you go the social media route or a public rout beep prepared for the onslaught. Yes, because there will be plenty of people who are in business development, we’re going to look for those sort of things reach out to you. The only thing i’ve really add to that is looking at other sites that you like as a starting point. You look at that that face is it pretty ? Do i like it ? Do i enjoy how it worked as faras the interaction and the user interface ? And if there’s, ah, website credit at the bottom, which not all sites do, but if there is, then start to reach out to those organizations. But most importantly, when you go to their websites, you want to try to find someone that has as much information about process as in the results because it’s the process that what we’ve been talking about here that really develops that relationship, that build a successful lives, you’re because you’re successful outcome ? Yeah, absolutely. Ok. Yes. You don’t want to just focus well said you want to focus on how great the site looks. It works. But was was it held to get here ? May not be worth it. It may not have been worth it. Is it a mistake to send out a dozen or of peas. I mean, is there an optimal like there ? Max, i don’t need. I don’t want to hear from fifteen vendors. I can’t r or just can’t process that much. Cc what’s. Your advice around how many descent ? I think that i don’t think that it’s a bad thing to get a lot back, i think in this kind of situation, because there aren’t there aren’t a ton, ton ton of developers that work with non-profits to start out with, you know, with some other types of businesses where you might get an onslaught of r f piece from web developers non-profits air a little bit lucky in that, you know, it’s going to be a relatively smaller number just to start out with, but i do think that it’s better to sort of see what your options are and that’s an important part of this process because what i find is a lot of non-profits when they’re doing a website project, they may be stuck, quote unquote stuck with a certain solution because they didn’t know what their other options were, and they were they were working with a developer aura developer was recommended to them that is saying, you know, this is the way that you need to do x, y and z and not that that’s a bad way, inherently, but maybe not the best way for that particular organization, but they just went with it because they didn’t know what there are other options were. So i’m more of the mind that the more sort of information that you have and it is it is a pretty good thing. Okay, so you don’t want to put our backs on it. Andi it’s likely to be a small number anywhere you’re saying, because right, and you’re going to sort of tear those things down. So once you get the first group of them, then you’re immediately going to be able to see, okay, yeah, these were not interested in so here’s, my smaller core group that we’re really going to look at, you know, and then from there, okay. We still have a few minutes left together, drew let’s talk about something that’s related to this development versus legacy costs. How does that relate to this sort of process and what listeners need to know about development versus legacy cost everything they don’t know, which is everything, and it is the biggest issue moving forward for non-profits is if you’re a non-profit like a performing arts organization, they already have a really good idea of what legacy cost is with labour expenses because their labor intensive organizations there’s no way to avoid that. Websites and technology platforms in general are starting to become mohr like that there’s, a minimum legacy threshold, cost wise from an expensive perspective that is increasingly going up because of how much organizations are relying on those platforms, but they don’t traditionally look att them from that perspective because of that one off here’s your website. Now i’m gone. We’re talking about the ongoing costs of maintaining the site exactly, but it’s not just maintaining the site, is maintaining that the ap i connective ity all the software in the scripts that make things do what they do change at haste, that is far more. Rapid than it used to be that’s a great example. Sites are goingto break connections, yes, and what other things are legacy costs that the last thing, the biggest one the next one is going to be with regard to how responsive design functions and responsive design is when you see a website on a desktop, as opposed to on a smartphone and everything shifts around so it looks better on a smartphone that works better. The underlying technology that makes all that work is also in a hyper state of developed and that’s, constantly changing. So it’s and it’s constantly changing to keep up with changes and things like iphones, they come out with new specs and new dimensions, and thing’s called media query thresholds change. So all the rules that go into how stuff shifts around has to change. And if your website or your online platform is a couple of years old, it may already be behind the times and not working well on those devices, even though you thought it originally was designed to do that. Now, listener’s, you’re gonna want to know that i did hear drew say the media query threshold we don’t have enough time to flush that out. So i’m gonna get you gonna get passed, it’s one of fury’s, everything but i’m letting this one go, but i did notice do not do not think that i didn’t catch it, okay ? And then sisi, why don’t you explain the different mean, what ? Drew was just describing those legacy costs and development costs, which i think is pretty commonly understood, but that’s just right, right ? So your development costs that’s really going to be, you know, the money that you’re putting out to make the site right in that first project to actually create what you’re trying to dio and it’s, i love that we’re talking about this because from an organizational perspective, it’s really important to keep a line item in there somewhere and some money in it for those legacy costs, you know, because a lot of times we’re just looking at it and say, okay, well, you know, it’s going to cost x amount of dollars to build the site and then that’s it or, you know, we’re given, you know, we get a grant for it or were given money from a donor to build the site or something like that and it’s looked at as just sort of a one off. You’ve got to think about keeping money in a line item for these ongoing kinds of things and also the developer that you’re working with. Khun give you a good sense of how much money that might end up being, depending on the functionality of your sight, because that’s really going to vary from site to site and from organization to organization. Okay, i should got they should another should from drew. All right, we gotta leave it there. This is twenty martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc. I’ve been talking to drew mcmanus principle of venture industries online and cc dat baizman digital marketing manager at form. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc and this interview is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profits. Thanks so much for being with us. We need to take a break. Wagner, cps. Do you need help with accounting or your nine ninety thinking about a change of accountants ? Time to get a fresh opinion. Check out witness. Cps dot com start there. Then talk, you know. The partner to talk to you, eat each tomb. He’s been on the show, he’s a good guy. I trust him. He’ll be honest about whether they can help you. Regular cpas. Dot com. Now time for tony’s, take two. I do a lot of ah long distance driving about twelve hundred miles every month, or or every six weeks on dh. I’ve got a couple things. Ah, couple things on my mind about that, that i’ve, that i’ve seen that ah, bother me. So the video talks about three of them. I was for here. I feel like the one i wanna talk about is getting gas. The gas lanes in ah, in a gas station are for getting gas and for cleaning your windshields on when you’re cleaning your windshield, that doesn’t mean wash your car with the squeegee that means clean the winter came the glass certainly get your glass nice and clean. Fill up the gas. Take your time doing all those things don’t trip don’t spill any gas, you know, dribbles over anything, nothing like that, but when you’re done, get out of the gas lane and park that car. Don’t be the person sitting still in the gas lane while you’re going to get iced tea. There’s a couple more rants along with that one on the video at tony martignetti dot com now time for gene gene the law machine you know who i’m talking about ? Of course. Well, who else would it be ? Jean takagi, the managing partner of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, he edits the wildly popular non-profit law blogged dot com and he’s, the american bar association’s. Twenty sixteen outstanding. Non-profit lawyer he’s jean takagi he’s at g tak. Welcome back, jean. Thanks, tony. How are you ? I’m doing very well. How are you this afternoon ? I’m doing very well, feelingood out there. Good. Good. I’m glad. Um, i’m overdue for a visit. I need to i need to come see you on the west coast. The ads actually the perfect time that we’ve got some nice weather. It’s a little cooler earlier this summer. But we’re headed out towards cem. Cem a nice weather at the end of september and october. September, october. There are good months. You’re right. I know, i know. I’ve heard that from others. I’ll get there because it was, like twenty. I think twenty fourteen may have been the last time was that when we met, i think it was twenty fourteen the time we met, i think quite awhile. Yeah. Yeah. Uh oh. But then i had another trip, and then you were. I think you weren’t available. Yeah. You blew me off my last trip. I think that was two years ago. Twenty. Um, okay, so we’re talking about donorsearch vice funds. You have some interesting stats about how popular they are that they’ve grown oh, since twenty twelve, give us give us just some basic numbers so we know why we should be paying attention to these things. Sure. And i think some of your listeners may know that that we have to start paying attention to donorsearch buy-in funds and and i’ll i’ll use the lingo dafs if that don’t get me into jargon, no that’s that’s approved. Yeah, okay, so dafs sir, like the fastest growing recipients of charitable giving now in the in the u s so donations of increased from just under fourteen billion in two thousand twelve two. Twenty three billion in two thousand sixteen. And meanwhile, sort of in two thousand sixteen, we’ve seen the top. I think six, uh, charities or six recipients of charitable giving in the country were dafs so, you know, the biggest one being fidelity charitable out doing united way and and american red cross and everyone else. So six out of the top ten recipients of charitable giving were dashed. Something to pay attention, tio sure on also the interesting that the growth rate so you cited uh, fourteen billion in twenty twelve to twenty three. Billion. Twenty, sixteen that’s. Two thirds growth, sixty six percent over five years, and individual giving over that was five years grew by only fifteen percent. Yeah, and you’ll see a lot of reports now saying, suggesting that they’re fewer and fewer donors e-giving teo to public charity, that air doing direct service work. Now, the big donors are still contributing, but fewer numbers of smaller donors, and part of that because of the tax incentive that are changing. But, you know, that’s, huge growth in the donor by fun, you know, in light of those numbers of lessening donors, the growth of donor advice on sixty six percent over five years. Any investment manager would love that. Yeah, no kidding. Shoretz naturally. My my portfolio would certainly love that. My portfolio buy-in buy high sell low. That seems to be my mantra if you look at my portfolio over the lifetime of my portfolio, um, so you and there are a couple of reasons why these air so attractive to individuals ? You know, you get that immediate tax deduction first ? Yeah. I mean, it works great. From the donor’s perspective from, you know, from the donor, you make a contribution. You khun taken immediate charitable contribution deduction, but you get to practically kind of control that gift on and decide who you want to ultimately give it out to in future years, even if it’s going to be two years later, five years later, ten years later, twenty years later, you can sort of hold it in that fund. Now, legally speaking, you make that gift immediately, and you get the deduction. Because your gift is complete. You have given it to a charity in the in the year you made that gift. But practically speaking, that charity that’s, the dafs sponsoring organization, that donor by sun sponsoring organization, which typically is associate it either with a financial services company like fidelity. Charitable that’s the biggest, you know, charity that that receives gibson in the world or hyre you can give it to a community foundation that’s, the other big sponsoring organization of bath and so legally they have control of the money. But practically speaking, they’re probably going to listen to where you want to make the donations to so long that it’s illegal distribution later, so long as you’re going to make the grant toe another public charity, even if it’s you know your intention to give it twenty years later, that’s okay ? Yeah, the donor’s make what’s called a recommendation to the to the charity fundez holding their donor advised funds and ninety nine times out of one hundred. The recommendation is approved. I think basically, they’re just looking to make sure it is a bona fide five o one c three charity that’s being recommended. And then the fund hyre approves that recommendation and makes a gift from from its fund to do that to that five. Twenty three ? Yeah, i think that’s right, tony. So, you know from from the sponsoring organizations by then they might have a little bit more in terms of little legal obstacle. Teo to live up to but from from the perspective of the donor, a lot of them feel like it’s still their money, they still get to control where they’re going to make a grant to even after they’ve taken the charitable contribution deduction, right ? And it’s, you know, apart from sort of getting an immediate charitable contribution deduction, it also allows him to do other things like it allows them to give annually i’m sorry it allows them to bundle up their donation, so maybe they give to a charity to the dafs sponsoring organization like once every five years, and they do that because the incentives for getting a charitable tax deduction have drop because, you know, i don’t want to get too technical, but the rise of the standard deduction that took effect earlier this year and we talked about that that already means only five to ten percent of taxpayers actually get a charitable contribution deduction anymore for making a gift, because the standard deduction is higher than their itemize, but by bundling there donations and say, bundling them up. So instead of making a five thousand dollar gift every year and not being able to use that to get a deduction, they can decide to make a twenty five thousand dollar gift over five years, and then that twenty five thousand dollars now, combined with their other itemized deductions, is big enough to get the value that deduction so they can use the dafs to give every five years. But the charity that they want to be the beneficiary of the fund could receive money from the dafs on an annual basis after they do that, so to the charities that looks like the donor is giving to them every year once that funded the death. So another another useful way that that an individual can use the donor advised funds that’s created by the new tax laws understand, right ? You gross it up to get the get the hyre deduction compared to the standard, and then you can give it out, uh, slowly over time, all right, but make it make it the gift huge big enough to take advantage of the larger deduction at one time or maybe a couple times over several years, exactly in the charity might like that, too, if they’re like saying, you know, we actually don’t need your annual contribution because we’re actually saving up to buy a building or to create this brand new project. So if a year five you give us the larger gift, we would really appreciate that, so it can work for everyone involved as well. Okay, we’re going to take our first break, but when we come back, we’re going to talk about this feature of being able to latto it’s, make your gifts directly to the to the charities over over lots of time and the constant nation that that causes tell us for pete’s sake. Oh my goodness! Think of the companies you can refer and start asking them. You’ve heard the charity testimonials. You’ve heard the company testimonials, it’s time to claim your own long stream of passive revenue from tell us fifty percent of the card processing fees that tell us gets from the companies you refer. Go to you fifty percent month after month after month. That’s your long stream of passive revenue. Start with the video at tony dot m a slash tony tell us now, let’s, go back to jean takagi. Okay, uh, sometimes i don’t remember where i am. But this time i do. So i made because i said it, okay, so this feature that you can give over time over many, many, many years causes consternation in the non-profit community. Do i have that right ? Yeah, you’re right. So what ? You know what ? If the donor is e-giving annually to their donors buy-in spun and saying to the charity, you know, well, i’ll give to you at the end of five years at the end of ten years from my donor advised funds, but, you know, in five or ten years that donor, right have other priorities, and so that charity that used to get the annual gifts from that donor might not be on that list anymore, and so they can’t really think about that in their budget, so it does create some concern by charity. Yeah. Now, in that case, i mean, if i were advising them, i would get that pledge in a written document and the legal enforceability of that, you know, we can we can write us that it’s got some enforceability weaken. We’re relying on your promise, we’re going to take some administrative actions. Buy-in reliance, you know, maybe there’s a small consideration, maybe there’s a small dahna yeah, so, you know, we can we can we could make that legally enforceable in a lot of states, if not all the states, yeah, i think that’s true, tony, but then you have to think about whether even if you win the battle with the one donor-centric it in court, what that does in terms of the long term and your relationship with every other donors who now knows you sue donors when i don’t clean get yeah, yeah, i mean, you got a definitely are you ? Yeah, i know you’re right. This is an interesting conversation because planned e-giving i’ve dealt with this and way we deal with it as gifts come, and i’ve dealt with the aftermath of it after afterwards, i’ve never had a client that that maybe i shouldn’t reveal this. I don’t know clients non-profits are very reluctant to sue their donors. They you rather work something out. Andi it’s true, i haven’t had a client that well, first of all, i haven’t had that many clients we have to enforce we had where we had to force agreements against, uh, right against the donors and that’s, very rare that you have. To hold this document up that they signed years earlier and remind them of the enforceability of it on ben, you know, charities are reluctant to do it and have to be, i don’t have to be a scenario where there’s a lot of money at stake and it’s a pretty clear case because you’re right, the pr is very bad, and, you know, it may never even make the popular press, but just in donorsearch coll’s within that individual organization, you know, things get around, especially if it is a large gift from a prominent donor. Back-up yeah, and especially that donors still alive tony versus in a plan gift where you might be contesting it against airs or for other recipients of that. But when the donor is still alive and saying, i don’t like your charity as much as i used to, i still like you a little bit, but i don’t want to give you my full gift that i thought i wanted to give to you that’s a tough i got a raise, so there is a practical aspect too the enforceability of these agreements that i’m saying can be made legally enforceable, but but the enforceability and itself sometimes is enough of a persuasive factor to a donor that, you know, i think they keep up their commitment when, when they think they might not have otherwise might never go to court. Yeah, but the donor might see the seriousness of the donation and know that he would hurt the charity he or she would hurt the charity if they didn’t go through with that pledge because maybe relied on it to partially constructed building, and you need the full funds to finish construction. Otherwise you can’t do it, and you’ve wasted a lot of money and may be created some lawsuits against you for not being able to do it. So the donors, you know, relying on that donor’s money to your detriment or twenty to your detriment is is the basis for a lawsuit, and that would hopefully be convincing to a donor, even without the lawsuit part that you relied on on their promised teo, meet their place. I like heidtke idea. Yeah. Okay. Um but the bigger issue so let’s take it away from an individual charity. The bigger issue is that there’s. A lot of money parked in dahna. Advice, funds and we really don’t know how much and the what bothers congress and a lot of people in the charity community is that this money is parked there and it’s not getting to the five oh one see threes that it’s that it was that the donor earned a charitable deduction for giving to you it could sit indefinitely literally, right ? Yeah, so under tax laws, it could sit there indefinitely. So the donor advice fun sponsoring organization is not legally compelled to make any distributions at all. If the donor says nothing about it for ten years, twenty years than the sponsoring organization doesn’t have to do it. Although some of started to say, you know what ? We’ll have an internal policy that says, if you don’t, if you’re completely inactive your fund, we will start to make distributions based on what information we have of where you want it to go, so they’re trying to do some self regulation there, but there are no external laws right now that required donorsearch funds, teo, make any distributions at all. Yeah, well, i suspect they see a lot of a lot of the the the concerns, especially from the isat, the senate finance committee, charles grassley, chuck grassley is chair of is that senate finance ? Yeah, right, well, the senate finance committee might be concerned with that asshole, but they’re really the argument is going on with academics and professionals and big organizations, including community foundations and these big financial institutions all over the place. And you’re seeing a lot of books on the non-profits sector now sort of criticizing no philantech be including through donorsearch buy-in funds and the controls that these donors have over large amounts of money even after they’ve taken the deduction. Interesting, interesting discussions out there now now it za parallel to me, you know it’s, it’s, it’s similar to a lot of the planned gift’s a similar principle or policy around a lot of the planned gif ts so take i’m thinking like the charitable remainder trusts or charitable gift annuities where basically ah, person let’s use the trust because that’s not that’s, not charity specific. So let’s use that example. Someone creates a charitable ranger trust. They leave the option. Teo name some charitable beneficiaries a cz remainder beneficiaries which means at the death of the donor what’s left, goes to these charities and in the during the life of the donor or donors, sometimes a lot of times, it’s a couple there getting income for their getting income. So getting income for life when they die, what remains goes to charities, and they reserve the right to change your those charities might be now they get an immediate income tax deduction for that. When they create that in the year that they create that charitable remainder trust. So i see a similar policy. No it’s it’s. An immediate deduction for a long term gift to charity. Although there is some guarantee because the difference is that the donors are going to die and when they die, the people getting that people died getting the income die, there will definitely be a gift to charity. So there’s there’s that right there is that limiting factor. But you could see the policy similarity, right ? Yeah. That’s. Definitely some similarities. But i think that the donor advised funds are more concerning, particularly because when you do a charitable remainder trust, for example, your deduction is going to be the value of the gift that ultimately is left over for the charity using you. Know, like actuarial tables. Yeah, that present value there going ? Yeah. So what is it going to be worth ? The likely could based on average, like bands and stuff. What will the charity likely get ? That’s what you can deduct the donor advised funds, especially if you give gifts of like real estate or privately, closely held stock, you get to not pay any capital gains on it. If you’re a donor on, then you get a deduction of the fair market value, which is big because if you gave it to a private foundation, if you formed a private foundation, you don’t get that gift a fair market value, that deduction of fair market value essentially get the deduction of cost. So being able to sell something that, you know, wildly appreciated in value and getting the fair market value deduction and not having to pay any capital gains on it and then still having the practical control of where to ultimately spend that money. Um, you can see how that might be even more attractive. A donation vehicle tow an individual donor, but why ? At the same time they’re concerned some from from congress and from from others. Who think that they are, you know, advocates for the nonprofit sector of saying is really going to be put to good use for charitable use, or is it going to sit in these funds, particularly in funds that are run by some of the financial institutions where their continued to get, you know, investment season stuff that that air being generated because they’re continually being invested ? You know what charitable good are those funds doing ? You know, professionally, you know, if they’re if they’re held by fidelity and being managed and no promise of went to distribute. All right, hold that let’s, take our last break hoexter give, you’ll get more revenue because they make e-giving simple if your donor’s consent a text that can make a donation not only simple, affordable and secure ceo chadband oid very smart guy, he set up a smart company. You want to get the info, which you should, you should want to get the info text, npr. Two, four, four, four nine nine nine and you will ah, not only get info, but also be able to claim a special listener offer. We’ve got several more minutes left for fund-raising no, not fund-raising dahna advice funds where’s, my where’s, my lousy intern. I wish i had one. We’re not talking about fund-raising that was a big mistake. Sorry, jean. We’re talking about dahna advice funds. I need an intern. Esso, i have someone to blame for this poor copy. All right ? Yeah. Yeah. The fair market value. Yes. The donor donor advised funds gives a fair market value. You made several points, but the one that hit me the most because i do plan giving is dahna advice fund to get a fair market value charitable deduction immediately plan give to get a present value deduction based on your life expectancy. So it’s going to be less. And if you hold the money in your donor’s vice fund for twenty years, it’s, in fact worth less, then it was in the year you put it in. But you’ve got a face value fair market value deduction, didn’t you ? Well, actually, you know what ? What you holding to donorsearch buy-in fundez might appreciate wildly. So if you put a, you know, a million dollars investment or even a ten thousand dollar investment into a donor advice fund of apple stock, you know when it was nothing, and you held it for ten years, and all of a sudden you’re sitting on, you know, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody take capital gains tax for that, right ? But you are, you know, the donor advisor or the donor of one hundred billion dollars fund, you know, that’s held by financial institutions, affiliated charity sponsoring dafs sponsoring organizations. And, you know, you get all sorts of benefits for, you know, being, you know, the donor to donorsearch by son. You know, you get to go to the fancy cocktail parties and gala charity gallas and people swooning all over you because, you know, you can make huge distribution to the to the folks if it was your own money, but not your own money anymore. Yeah, well, it’s, not yours, right ? It’s yours to decide what to do with, but it doesn’t belong to you. The recommendation of where it should go belongs to you. Now, of course, on the other side of that, you could have invested in. Annoy ll start. I’m trying something the stock that crashed terribly, but you might have invested in something that depreciated on dh there’s going to be a lot less left for charity because you didn’t invest well, yet you got you got a deduction for what you put into the fund initially. So in that case, the charities really do lose the public loses out because a lot less money is going to go to charity. Then we gave you a deduction for sure that’s true as well, and i don’t mean teo be sort of a nay sayer of the donor advised funds because there’s a lot of good things that they do and, you know, they’ve been around for, like over eighty years, really, with community foundations and, you know, the original intent was sort of to collaborate. Have donors collaborate with the advice of the community foundation about how they could sort of use their money’s on dh use their donations together to fund some of the most important things to benefit that community. And, you know, that aspect of donor advised funds is, i think, a wonderful thing and the, you know, a lot of critics. Who are arguing against the critics of the donor advised funds so the ones who are the pro donorsearch buys fundez woobox are saying, you know, a lot of this money that is going into donordigital fun would otherwise not go into charitable goods anyway, they might they might never make the charitable sector. S so it’s not like saying that, you know, people are e-giving too don’t advise funds, and it never gets charity that way that, you know, the counter argument is some of those funds would never get to charity unless they went through donorsearch buy-in funds. And by the way, our distribution rate is much higher than private foundation grade, so even if the donor gave it to, you know, created their own private foundation, then they’re just required to invest or grant out essentially five percent of their investment assets per year and don’t advice funds are granting out, on average, somewhere about twenty percent of their assets for years, so we don’t even have a problem here. Why do you want to create rules to limit what we’re doing but there’s a counter to that as well ? That says well, that twenty percent includes donorsearch vice funds e-giving toe, other donor advised funds and that’s like when you want to shift your donors fund from fidelity to vanguard xero or to the silicon valley community foundation or did it new york community foundation ? You’re just moving money around from one financial talkto another one charity to another, but nobody’s actually putting it to use teo, do good for the community that the other arguments and counter arguments the other problem with that look atyou doing both sides. The other problem with those measures of distribution are they could be skewed by very large gif ts that come from one or two funds while lots of small funds aren’t making any any distributions jean, we have to leave here. Maybe we should have planned this for a whole hour. But we hyre is this your lackluster host ? He’s ? Jean takagi, managing attorney of neo non-profit exempt organizations law group he’s, our legal contributor just following for god’s sake non-profit latto blood dot com and at g tak thank you very much, gene. Great talking to you next week it’s website day https and getting more gift from your sight if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant capital p weinger cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps dot com, by tell us. Credit card and payment processing, your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us and by text to give mobile donations made easy text npr to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine. Creative producer is claire meyer, huh ? Sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez. Marc stein is our web guy. 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