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Noah Barnett & Kenny Kane: Peer-To-Per Peek
Our panel from the 2018 Nonprofit Technology Conference shares an overview of community-driven fundraising. How do you plan for, inspire and activate your supporters? They’re Noah Barnett from CauseVox and Kenny Kane with Testicular Cancer Foundation. (Originally aired 7/6/18)
Amy Sample Ward: Poverty Porn
Amy Sample Ward returns to discuss the issues around graphic images and descriptions of poverty. How can you avoid the porn trap and white savior stereotyping, while telling compelling stories and advocating effectively? She’s our social media & technology contributor and CEO of NTEN. (Also from the 7/6/18 show)
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Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with in duration if you harden to me with the idea that you missed today’s show. Peer-to-peer Peak. Our panel from the non-profit Technology Conference shares an overview of community driven fund-raising. How do you plan for inspire and activate your supporters? They’re Noah Barnett from causevox and Kenny Kane with Testicular Cancer Foundation. This is from 18 and T C, originally broadcast on July 6th 2018 and Poverty, Porn. Any sample Ward returns to discuss the issues around graphic images and descriptions of poverty. How can you avoid the porn trap and white savior stereotyping while still telling compelling stories and advocating effectively? She’s our social media and technology contributor and CEO of and 10. That’s also from the July 6 2018 show on Tony’s Take Too Bad data at Consumer Reports Responsive by Wagner CPS Guiding you beyond the numbers wagner cps dot com By Cougar Mountain Software Denali fundez. They’re complete accounting solution made for non-profits tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turn, to communications, PR and content For non-profits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. Here’s peer-to-peer Peak. Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio coverage of 2018 non-profit Technology Conference hashtag is 18 NTC. Where the Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. This interview, like all our ntcdinosaur views, is sponsored by Network for Good. Easy to use donor-centric software for non-profits. My guests now are Noah Barnett and Candy Cane. Noah is head of marketing for causevox and candy cane is yo the Testicular Cancer Foundation. Gentlemen, welcome. Thanks for having us. This is great. I’m just telling, you know it’s great. Not that in 10 things. Not great. It’s exceptional. It’s exceptional. Thank you. In 10. Thank you. All right. Um, your workshop topic is community driven fund-raising. How do you peer-to-peer to cultivate dahna relationships and reach new donors? That sound familiar? Yeah, absolutely. We just wrapped up our session. We’re already done. Yeah, we’re all done. Yeah, we’re on the downswing. So this is the after party victory. Last. Both Put it. Well, um, community driven fund-raising. Let’s start with you. Let’s start close to know what’s what’s not being done. Quite right. That non-profits could you better. Yeah. So I think what’s interesting is we’ve gone through a few shifts in fund-raising. We went through this idea of there was, like, localized fund-raising back in the day, and then we went to Mass fund-raising, where we basically didn’t differentiate any of our appeals. We sent all that out, and now, today, like, I think there’s a fundamental shift where we’ve moved into what we call the connected economy, where the lines between digital and offline are starting to blur. And that requires a shift in how we approach fund-raising. And we see kind of a playbook for the connected economy is community driven fund-raising. Okay, the I like the way you you sort of set this up for us. The lines between online and the physical world and our real life are blurring. Indeed. Yeah. Okay, so we’re bringing these things together? Yes. Okay. Peer-to-peer community driven. Okay, Yeah. We’re calling it the connector economy because we’re just connected to anybody anywhere, at any time, through technology and our lives are more connected than ever. So why shouldn’t our causes b similarly, shouldn’t we be similarly connected to our cause is exactly is through our community. Exactly. Okay. Getting anything you want to add to the start up? Yeah, I would just say that. You know what? The Testicular Cancer Foundation were really big on storytelling and creating compelling stories that resonate with our audience. Not only, you know, as someone who’s been through it as a caregiver myself, but, you know, we try to put ourselves on the other end of the computer screen, or the phone would have you where these stories will compel people to act, compel people to donate, compel people that take action. Okay, let’s stay with you. Your your description says in fact, in boldface your description says that you will share with us exactly how to do this. How did so where Where should we start? We’ve been, you know, everybody sees peer-to-peer. Well, let me take a step back and I okay to synonymous eyes peer-to-peer and community fund-raising or you guys drawing a distinction between those two. Yeah, we’re definitely drawing in this station. Please educate me. Yeah. So I think what’s interesting is community driven fund-raising is what we’re calling the umbrella that lays over all the various aspects of fund-raising, where your community of supporters are actually the key driver of success in the campaigns here, it appears your war is a tactic inside of that. Larger. Exactly. And so in community driven fund-raising, there’s kind of a scale of the different types of things that qualify as that that moves from organization. Led meeting, like the organization is starting a campaign like a giving Tuesday campaign, a crowdfunding campaign, an annual campaign all the way down to supporter initiated, which could be I’m wanna raise money for cancer. And I’m choosing to do that for the Testicular Cancer Foundation. But I decided as a supporter to do that he didn’t created environment metoo do that. Organic indeed. Thank you. All right, so I’ll refrain from making those two synonymous because I’m being too narrow. I’m just choosing one method, one tactic. Okay. Um, all right. Exactly how, uh, Kenny, where Where did wish we get started? Yeah. So appealing. But I don’t know where to get going. Sure. So in this rolling in my last roll, which was a broader young adult cancer non-profit called stupid cancer, the same rules apply so you have people who are affected by cancer. Cancer was huge. Yes, you have enormous millions of kids and engaged around. Um, I know you’re probably right. Way did pretty well. Yeah, it still exists There. Still there. Still hammered away at it. He’s going to take a look. He’s one of the co founders of super cancer. Yeah, OK, so So the long story short is that my father was diagnosed at age 50 with testicular cancer, which put me on a path towards can fraud advocacy. Ah, in my early twenties and about two years ago, my friend Matt first learn who’s the founder of testicular cancer foundations and 80 wanna move from New York. Uh, lost. And I said, Sure. Ah, and I’ve taken over Testicular Cancer Foundation. Okay, But getting back to you, you know that the same rules apply where we serve people who are in a at a disadvantage spot going through cancer. You know, whether it’s a survivor, the patient, the caregiver who is helping the person caregivers often forgot. Yes, caregivers need to take care of them. So I was need to be coddled and cared for 100%. That was So what we do is we see these people go along a path of being recipients of the mission, being beneficiaries of the mission. And then they come back, you know, 23 years out. And, you know, they decide they want either run a marathon or they wanna create a cancerversary party. Cancerversary is a really big milestone where on the, you know, annual date of their diagnosis or when they finish treatment, which everyone they choose, people will give back, and typically they get back to the non-profit that help them. You know, I think it’s probably similar in all chronic health. I know what I know. An oncologist office where they have a bell, you ring the bell. Uh, your final treatment. I’ve seen a bell lifting a gun. Yeah, it’s a great milestone. Okay? And I had my own. I’m sympathetic to caregivers. I had some sense of it before this, but during the summer, this past, last year, summer and in the fall, September October, my mom was declining, and I was my mom. My dad and I were caregivers. I just watched her, and then she actually died early October of 2017. So I it became even more. I became even more aware of how you need to take care of yourself. I know it’s just one component of what testicular cancer is doing. Sure, the caregivers often think that they have to be selfless and and they can’t. You cannot give up your own life. T give another to get to another, you’ll burn out. There’s a lot of self care that goes into your caregiver. So when we talk about the community aspect of community and fund-raising, you know, and I’m so let the host Tigress. I’m sorry. Sorry about that. Sorry about Mom. Thank you. Um, about the host back to discuss. Welcome to the show cubine xero all week. So community German fund-raising kayman. Yeah. So the same rules apply. So people go through this process, they come back. And for every person who was perhaps turned away from the person going through this acute episode of, you know, not episode but a stretch of cancer treatment What Not whether somebody wanted to give them food or take them to the doctor’s appointment? The person kind of turned away. Community driven fund-raising is a great way to really activate your community of people who wanted to help you. And in the past we have created opportunities for fund raisers to convert into things like travel scholarships to a patient conference. So if you’re this arrive, er, you could fundraise within your community to raise money for a travel reimbursement. So it’s not necessarily scholarship is a little bit more democratic of a process. Scholarship can get a little tricky. So this skull, this reimbursement program that we did it stupid cancer actually allowed the the people around the person affected to help fund their way to the conference while doing ah e-giving back to charity, getting the tax benefits all that. But it was just a really nice way of recognizing what that person had been through. It’s time for a break. Wepner C P. A. Is they have a new wagon are on September 25th exempt or non exempt? Everybody in your organ has to be paid either hourly nonexempt unless they are exempt. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, you need to classify employees correctly, and you need to document the decisions that you made around the classifications. The cover it all got a weather. CPS dot com. Quick Resource is and upcoming events now back to peer-to-peer Peak. And then so what’s the broader lesson for our listeners in small and midsize shops? Yeah, I think what’s interesting is community driven. Fund-raising is just a reframing of how we approach raising money and building awareness for the causes that were advocating for Okay, bye, basically recognizing the true value that every person in your non-profits community and as a community of supporters, whether they’re known or unknown supporters of your organization, Typically, we look at it from just a financial perspective. And so what community room, fund-raising says, is that it’s not just about the money that support Ercan give you. It’s about their influence in the time they can give you a swell and in the connected economy of the influence that a supporter has is actually more valuable than it’s ever been before. Because brands are being kind of blocked out of feeds. Whether it’s Facebook, it’s becoming really difficult for non-profits to reach any new people. And so, by turning inward and saying, How can we actually empower our supporters by inspiring, activating and rallying them? Latto actually be the fundraisers for organization. Okay, How do we get How do we activate this within our own organization? How do what we need to be thinking through? Sure, we’ll be in the team discussing. I feel like we’ve spent enough time on motivation. What are some steps? How do we get started? I’m interested. But I don’t know how to organize myself. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think community German fund-raising is just like lens on how you approach fund-raising. And so I think it’s important to have non-profit leadership buy-in but also a fund-raising team in general and communications because community fund-raising is basically saying we’re gonna inspire people in our community, becomes supporters rather than guilt them. Then we’re gonna activate those people that have true potential to become fundraisers and advocates for our cause instead of and we’re not trying to convince people to do that, we’re just activating the potential that’s already and they’re already exists exactly. And they were rallying them together. So fundraisers usually see raising money and reaching new donors as their responsibility community German fund-raising says No. It’s actually your job to be a player coach and basically see your community is a valuable asset to help you fund raise, help you grow your impact, help you reach new donors. But I’m gonna ask you again. But how do we get started? I mean, maybe isn’t identifying certain people to maybe seed the program? I understand you’re not throughout the life of the pregnancy thing. Okay? You do something, you do something. But we need some seeds. Yeah, I think what we do is all. We always advise people to understand the different stages of community German fund-raising. And so the first stage is inspiring. And so, as you look at your current fund-raising, whether it’s an event, whether it’s a male piece, how do you look at that piece and see it from a lens that you’re not trying to convince someone or guilt someone to give to your cause? We’re actually trying to inspire them and because inspiration leads to sharing and action. Okay, so, yes, we wanted to share. Exactly. And then inside your current supporters, which is the second stage, which is activation identifying key supporters that are ready to do something more. And so one of our customers world bicycle relief every time someone donates at that moment of inspiration that they’ve someone’s been inspired to support the cause. They want to provide a next step, activate them to actually be an advocate or a fundraiser for the cause. And so it’s something as simple as that by they implement this new program, and they’re just asking new donors if they want to do more okay and presenting the opportunity. And if you apply the commune German fund-raising methodology, you couldn’t find things across your current fund-raising program where you just shift your mindset to be. How can we make this more community focus rather than organization driven? It’s sort of empowering them to India. I’m just adding another. I mean, you’re talking about inspiring them that they share, and then they take action. I guess I’m calling it, empowering them and giving them well in power and giving them permission and maybe some tools to work with the backdrop is shaking video stable. It’s not gonna fall, but I would add that historically we’ve created a fund raiser. Maybe you donate $20 to yourself so that you don’t share this fund raiser with the xero balance. The same rules apply to when you’re launching a campaign. You really need the buying of trusted, uh, folks in your, you know, in your group people that you know will ah, create a buzz. And you certainly don’t want to launch it on deaf ears, right? With zero balance et cetera. You mentioned storytelling earlier. You seem to make a point of how important that is. How does that help us? I guess at the first stage that Noah was describing inspiring the community. I think I think it contextualized is and provides insight into your motivation as a fund raiser. How do we start telling these stories? I want to get into the nitty gritty here. So obviously, we’re up against the algorithm of any given social media platform, and you can do it whether it’s the ah, email or through social post, but really providing, you know, maybe a before and after photo, in my case where people are, you know, going through treatment, and they come out with a smile on their face. That’s the best case scenario and just really humanizing it. You know, we talked a lot in our session today about being human throughout the fund-raising process. I think it’s really easy to get kind of technical and robotic about it and just create opportunities for people to self serving, you know, cradle, uh, fund-raising page and then never to be heard from again. Yeah, uh, I think causevox and you know, I know using causevox We aim thio certainly create opportunities for more than that. So you actually have a relationship with the non-profit as you’re going through the fund-raising fund-raising stages and and finishing the campaign about empowering people to tell their own stories so that it’s not coming from the organization, But, um, giving them the option to create a two minute self d’oh or log on their own way actually saw this firsthand. So and 10 is a non-profit who hosts this conference, and what they did was they said, How can we raise money for scholarships so that people could come to this conference for free? Who can afford it? And one of the biggest things they did was they said, you know, we have 10 board members that have influence and ability to do this, And so let’s empower them to tell the community why ntcdinosaur turns to them and fund-raising on our behalf. And so they were able to raise over $18,000 I just saw the banner over there. And there’s, you know, 50 60 70 different donors that came together to help support that campaign. And all they did was they said, Hey, boardmember is Ur supporters were gonna activate you to tell your story on our behalf. They did videos they wrote like testimony is different content. And so they didn’t say one thing that the other again, they just activated those supporters and said, Hey, can you share your story with the community and raise money on? And they were able to do that. And there’s people at this conference because of what those board members did in the stories that they told. Yeah, excellent. Excellent. Um, so eso were starting capital. So we’re activating people that they share. And then that they take the act, take the action of of actually beginning of fund-raising fund-raising on their own as we’re okay. It’s rise where, uh, going through this process of empowering described, we describe it. Do we need to circumscribe it a little bit about her boundaries around it? For listeners, that might be a little leery of maybe the power they were transferring too much power. Yeah. No, it talked a lot about this during the session about giving, You know, the non-profit needs to give up a certain degree of control. Do you wanna talk about that? Yeah. And I think that’s why the third phase of community fund-raising is about rallying, not controlling. And so I think our default is Well, how do we control this? How do we do this? How do we do that? I think in the connected economy, all the powers with the customer. And it’s on the non-profit to realize that their supporters have more power than they think, and so they can try to control that. Or they can really say, Hey, let’s rally this. Let’s support this and help drive this forward. And so I think if you jump to taking a control position instead of how do we actually rally people in the right direction? Um, you’re gonna miss huge opportunities, Really Activate your community. And, you know, this reminds me of the fears that non-profits had around Facebook allowing people to come. It’s been going on for years on their Facebook page. I don’t know if we’re gonna allow that we should have opened comments posted. Yeah, well, circling back earlier, we were talking about you know, the storytelling aspect and in the cancer world and again in the probably the chronic illness world of non-profits. It’s a beautiful thing when you have somebody sharing their story whether we are sharing on the behalf, which is most of the time. When you see in the comments, let’s say they have a rare type of brain tumor or something like that. They’ve never met or connected with another young adult with cancer. Little on somebody who has their exact same diagnosis. Tow Watch that unfold in the comment section where now these people are gonna be able to support one another. The fact that you facilitated that on the non-profit side eyes amazing. And it’s only going to contribute to this overall strategy of activation and engagement and getting people thio really buy into your non-profit and buy into your mission. Yeah, and you shared a great example that stupid cancer had a different name before it was stupid cancer. And it was, you know, this moment when they said everyone calls us stupid cancer because that’s the tag line so let’s actually switch. So he convinced the founder of the organization to switch the name too stupid cancer. Make the name of the organ and kind of say, you know, hey, like, we’re going to give power to this community that wants to be a part of this. And that’s when they saw growth from 252,000. Like you saw hundreds of thousands dollars being raised because they just again said, Hey, we’re not going to control this. We’re not gonna you know, they would correct people like we’re not the stupid cancer guys. Where the geever the other name? Yeah, it wasn’t I’m too young for this cancer foundation. Yeah, very Slavic, very wordy. But they gave up that control and then they saw, like, the momentum in the community like flourish. And I think what was interesting is that still progressed. What their mission Ford Waas. Maybe in ways they never expected or never would have done themselves. But it’s still pushed the mission forward. And I think that’s the opportunity that non-profits small, large medium all have today. And we see it time and time again with our customers at causevox and in parallel. You don’t get to decide what’s cool. Your audiences. Same sort of thing with fund-raising storytelling. All the concept for presenting today. It’s all about the audience. Indeed. Um, what about let’s talk a little more about building this into your annual fund-raising plan? OK, OK, what? You’re the experts. I have a plan now, and I don’t feel like I’m sufficiently community driven or or or at all community community supported what I need to rethink, not just what we’ve already covered, but how did I get this in my plan? Yeah, I think what’s interesting is fundraisers have like the same playbook, and they just think, if they do more of it that there’ll be more successful results. Um, and I think that’s why the burn out rate for fundraisers is so significant in our industry is because they feel as though there’s one playbook to run, which is more events. More e mails, more male, more time alone decides that they have exhausted that playbook. A organization w move onto organization. Yeah, try again. Yeah, and I think what’s also thing is it creates this window shopping experience where you’re always looking at other non-profits and being like man, if I only had what they have I would be able to solve. And what we challenged our people that attend our session is that you really need to look at the challenges and reframe them. And so we said is instead of saying OK, I need to do more of these things. It’s saying as part of my annual fundraising campaign, whether other things like we can do and what we provide It was saying, How about we take a look at our community and see if there’s opportunities that we can inspire our community, activate them and rally them to actually help raise more money and reach new donors? That’s part of our annual can I? I would, I would add that you know, people listen this interview who were saying All right, how do I deploy this? He certainly don’t want to cannibalize anything that’s working for you. So if you raise a ton of money in queue for you know, don’t don’t suddenly pivot and say, All right, I’m gonna try to spread that out for the rest of the year and then suddenly you’re exhausted by Q for. But there’s a lot of little things you can do throughout the year, like being more human, connecting with your audience. Giving up the control is we’ve, you know, keep reiterating Ah, and just being more of a social entity, you know, that’s kind of what it comes down to is is it’s not a one way communication channel. It’s, you know, the feedback goes both ways. Yeah, and I think it’s just even seeing the potential and being able to create the opportunities where you’re actually saying, We’re asking for more things than money. So a quick story. I spent six years running growth at an international relief. Non-profit and I was overseeing growth. But that was communications in development, and so are major gift officers, obviously were hard core, like go after money, cultivate new gifts year over year. And when I told them when I oversaw them was like there’s other opportunities for these major donors to make a difference. Their influence in their time are really valuable. You know, Major donors know a lot of other major donors, and so we continually go back and say The only thing we want from you is your money. We’re only going to get a portion of their value. And so we went to them and said, Hey, you know, would you want to do something interesting by, like leveraging your major gift to run a matching gift campaign? Or do you want to do a employee engagement campaign at your non-profit? Or do you want to basically go into the business network that you’re a part of and share this opportunity? Two. Promote and inspire other people to support the cause? And what we saw is that Mme. Or that we got them to invest their influence in their time. The more money they well, how do you make those asks? You just ticked off like three things. How do you make those? So I think, in the major gift side, obviously, you know, it involves, like face-to-face conversations and having a conversation and providing examples of what other individuals but people Do you wantto do this campaign or activate matching gift? So many make those asks. You want to do your own workplace campaign? Yeah, so I think obviously, in major gifts, it’s different because you have a personalized contextual relationship with that individual, and so if you know that they’re a CEO of a company. You can have a dialogue about that and say, You know, how are you engaging your employees to give back? As a community, you obviously care and see your legacy as giving gifts into our organization. How is your company doing? And so it’s having a conversation around that I think, in the broader sense where you’re asking a broader audience to do. Fund-raising is again making sure that you’re not asking everybody and just being like, Hey, this is a new way that you can give to our information our gift to our organization rather looking for segments of your audience that are ready to do something whether that means they’re new donors, they’re volunteers, their board members. They’ve been giving monthly for 10 years, looking for signals that they have the potential to do something. And that’s why we say that second phase is about activation because that means they already have the ability to do it. You’re just activating that, and so it can’t just be this broad sweeping thing where it’s like, Hey, now you can raise money on X, Y and Z on behalf of our cause. That’s not gonna work. You just ticked off a bunch of very good. Identify IRS indeed. Uh, who who? This might be appropriate for Kenny. I want to go back to something that you said earlier. The feedback has to be both ways, not organization Thio. Everybody correct. This that involves real listening on the organizations. And it’s hard. Sometimes you don’t hear things you might not. You’re not always gonna hear things you want to hear, right? Talk about how, how an organization consort of shift culture in terms of real listening, engagement that way, I think I think you guys were just talking about some really important, which is the signals, you know, in a non-profit situation, you have a lot of people who will come to the table. And, you know, people have ideas. People have always. You do this, you should do that. And, you know, one of the things that we always say is if you don’t pay attention to mission A, you know, mission B, C and D, whatever, we’ll all fail. Um, so listening is important, you know, for us, the example of changing the name of the organization was kind of a really big undertaking when you look back at it, Um, I think that you just have to have a qualifying process, you know, kind of Ah, multiphase approach to letting feed back into the top and looking at the person who is suggesting it, Uh, kind of like I said, creating a rubric to take me back in. And you know, you have a board of directors for a reason. So if the board is providing you with information, obviously it’s probably a good thing that listen to, but also, people who were out of the core of the Apple can sometimes override the most meaningful feedback and again, trying to figure you gotta be, you gotta be ready to hear that you know, not only not only listening to your board and also where they’re coming from, what is their motivation for providing this feedback? And if I can have two things that what we did at my non-profit, it’s first and foremost, we had to convince the organization that the donors in our supporters actually mattered. So much of our head was like we’re doing great work, were, and we just need people to give us money, and so what we did was every week we had on our designated. So we got leadership buy-in where everybody in the organization wrote thank you notes to donors. And so that started to say, Hey, we’re gonna send her on this. And then we started doing what, like, surveying or net promoter score type things where we asked, Hey, you know, uh, would you recommends our organization to a friend, family or colleague? If so, why? Why do you support our organization? And we actually started using their responses in our fund-raising copy because they were telling us why they support our organization in a way that was specific, that we could actually share with others. And they also told us ideas on how we could improve. And so I think the person foremost is you have to cultivate that idea that you’re actually gonna listen because you value that person’s opinion. And second is you just have to ask. I think we asked for money all the time, but we don’t ask for what people think or why they support our organization or how could we improve this organization? How could we reach new people? We asked that question to a small segment of donors. They gave us tons of ideas that we were able to filter throughout our organization. We’re gonna leave it there, gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you for having us. You’re not on the You’re watching the video. They’re both redheads on. And they are Noah Barnett. He’s head of marketing for causevox and Candy Cane, CEO of the Testicular Cancer Foundation and co founder of Stupid Cancer. That’s right that way. Three a curveball. And you just handled it. It’s amazing. Oh, yeah. Thank you. You get to use overviewing. Ingratiate yourself. All right, we’re out here where he’s trying to get in by the back. I’ve been listening to 20 martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 18 90 sea This interview sponsored by Network for Good. Easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. Thank you so much for being with us. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software koegler cook amount in software is simple to use and the support is phenomenal. With a program like QuickBooks, you don’t have support. If you don’t get support, it’s worth nothing. That’s from Christine Christenson, owner of Broomfield Sheet metal. Okay. Granted, not a non-profit. But so what? You can’t learn from a small business. I’m sure that you can. Small business owners have, ah many of the same challenges as small and midsize non-profits, and she’s got experience with Cougar Mountain. Kruckel Mountain has a free 60 day trial for you. You get it at the listener landing page. Tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain. Now time for Tony’s Take two bad data. Bad data at Consumer Reports. My dad and I have very similar names, although he uses an initial middle initial, I do not. And, um, that should be a clue. That’s the sufficient clue for somebody who works in data s O that it should be queuing. Consumer reports that we are not the same person. Nonetheless, when I moved, they thought it was my dad who moved. So they address his correspondents to me down in North Carolina. Not only the middle initial but last known address should have been a clue. Also because I did not live most recently with my dad. I lived in New York City. So last address. That was another clue. Um, so they did not pick it up. I’ve told them several times by reply cards and by e mails, they haven’t gotten it. Maybe this will do it. And there’s also a lesson for you. You need to pay attention to your data. The video is consumer reports. Your data is bad and that is at tony martignetti dot com. Now time for poverty. Porn with Amy Sample Ward. Now let’s bring in any sample Ward. She is our social media contributor and CEO of and 10 the non-profit Technology Network. Our most recent co authored book is social change. Anytime, everywhere about online multi-channel engagement. She’s at Amy Sample ward dot or ge And at a M E R s Ward. Welcome back, Amy. Simple word. Hi. Thank you for having me back. It’s my pleasure to have you back. This is, uh, uh, this is the Have you been back on the show since n. 10? Since ntcdinosaur Theo ntcdinosaur think this might be the first time I think it is. I’m pretty sure because I was leaving you alone because I figured, you know, there’s clean up to do and thank you’s to sand and lots of stuff. So, um and then you had a staff planning Then you have your staff planning time? Uh, yeah. So to two times a year, all of the staff? Because not everyone is here in the Portland office. Have some remote dafs. Everybody comes to Portland for a week together of planning and craft and happy hour and things like that. Wonderful. Yes, I think they call it staff planning. But planning is not all that we D’oh. Excellent. Nor should it be because you’re all together only twice a year. So you have many vulture virtual employees. So congratulations on a wonderful and fun. And I hope from your perspective, successful certainly was from mine. Uh, and T c non-profit technology conference. Congratulations. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think it was a really good year. You think so too? Good. Yeah, I’m glad. I know it was fun. I know that’s without question, but we’re doing it for a little more for the just the fun purpose fundez one is up there fundez up there, but education and technology, You know they rank too, but congratulations. Thank you for being part of it again. Thank you. Uh, was my pleasure. We got a lot. We got 30 interviews for non-profit Yes. Great. No, thank you. Um Okay, so we’re talking today about poverty. Porn? You said this had come up for you in Ah, some discussions or members have been raising it. You’ve been hearing, Ah, little more chatter about this. Yeah, I think that organizations are organizations have been criticized for participating in poverty, porn for years. But I think those have often been organizations that are really, really big operating on an international scale, global scale that are maybe more vulnerable to criticism because so so many people are seeing what they’re doing. And they’re raising so much money. And, you know, with all of that kind of spotlight and revenue, I think naturally organizations, regardless of what they dio, are open to criticism of lots of different forms. Right. But now I think organizations are starting to see Yes, we’ve, you know, maybe criticized those organizations for years, but also maybe we’re a part of that. And what does that mean for us? You know, you don’t just have to be really, really large organization or making lots and lots of revenue off of a single appeal toe, have some issues with the way you’re you’re doing your work. So I think these organizations are starting to see that there. Maybe starting to ask more questions because they’re getting you know, the the digital teams who are managing that content are starting to feel like if something does happen, you know, they’re the ones that posted that photo or sent that tweet or whatever and really wanting to figure out how how to navigate. What? What’s the best way to tell this story? Onda void. Ah, potential backlash. Yeah. Um, how would you define this? Do you? Ah, I have a way. But I’m gonna hear, you know, how would you define poverty? Porn? I guess I don’t have probably an eloquent think definition. But if I was explaining poverty, porn to an organization that I think you know without knowing, whoever we’re talking to you, what their mission is poverty point is when you’re who may be taking advantage of the difference between the audience, you’re calling tau action. Most often it’s for donations and these people that you are serving in whatever way instead of maintaining the humanity of everyone involved in that situation and honoring all that all of those people have and really um, owning the story about what you do in the power of in a example, their donation versus trying to exacerbate the difference and the things that are quote unquote not had. But this group that you’re serving and focusing on that discrepancy, I think to me is, is really what it’s about. You’re not maintaining everyone’s humanity and then highlighting the service you provide your instead maybe kind of further opening a divide. And most of the, um, backlashes that have seen or, you know, examples of this on the Web are our images, but could be written and you could see right majority video. But a written description could also be, um oh, totally exploitative or, you know, yeah, the language that we use to describe communities right? Could also highlight that that gap that you’re describing Yeah, um, you know, it’s ah, it’s It’s very sensitive, you know, because we are trying to do very good work and we are motivated. And our mission statements are oh, are around help of this vulnerable population. What? Whatever it might be whatever country it might be. I mean, it’s not a lot of the lot of the images are from abroad. I mean, I see a lot of, like, South America, Central America, Africa. But it could, you know, it could be right here in the U S. To I mean, you could certainly, ah, go astray with images and written descriptions of conditions right here, right here in the U. S. Certainly certainly. Um, but, you know, so where were motivated by the right, um, in the right directions. But But we, uh you know, it may just be is easy is like, you know, consciousness raising, which is what our conversation hopefully is doing, and and certainly a lot of the conversation. You know, like, I saw things back to life 2013 or so talking about this subject s so I think a lot of it, because our motivations are, you know, I always impute good motivations to non-profits. And most people, uh, there are good, you know, it’s just raising consciousness. I mean, I think that is there are lots of tactical things that we could talk. Yeah, you’re right. It’s not just your right. Your underlying the thing that’s really gonna create change is that organizations and the individuals in those organizations actually do some really hard work. Two to figure out an address and accept and try and move forward from all the biases that they’re bringing to their work. The again, even if their motivation, their intent internally, is field pure and good to them, it could still be coming from a really kind of dangerous place that they are the savior of that community. Right? And that, in itself, isn’t is a bias. That’s gonna mean you. You cannot create content whether that, you know, photos are writing these descriptions that not coming from that place, right? So I think just doing that internal work to say, Gosh, how are we, you know, without explicitly, like deciding to do this? How are we already coming at this from not the best place, you know? And as an organization, what are the practices or policies that we have that can help us change that? I mean, you know, if we want to start at the big picture level, don’t think about tactics. Things like do every single one of your staff regularly have opportunities to interact with the community members you serve. If they don’t, they’re not in a position to speak from a place where they understand the shared humanity. They under stand that everyone both inside the organization and those being served all have strengths and weaknesses and hopes and dreams and challenges and are at a place to really, I think, talk about the work in a more productive way. So even just at that level are you creating opportunities for every single one of your staff to be a part of the community. I think I’m always surprised how many organizations where they say, Oh, no. If you work in the office, you don’t ever talk to the community. Only our programs. After that, why would you do that? You know, why would you create this wall? The silo between the staff talking about the work, the staff, deciding how the work is gonna be done and the people participating in that work that doesn’t make anything? No. And those opportunities need to be more than photo opportunities to know that there’s lots of examples, you know, it has to be meaningful. You know, there’s one of the iconic ones, I guess infamous one’s better. Better than infamous ones is, you know, eyes, Ellen Too generous in Nairobi with lots of kids around her. And, um, there’s one of cheering wearing the red nose with Liberian children around him. So what? I mean, I think it’s really smart to bring that up, eh? Because now, people, now everybody listening to our conversation, you can think of the same kind of image, but also that I think, totally the kind of thing that organizations would think to do with staff right is like, Okay, here are the folks that we serve. Here’s some of quote unquote us. Let’s take a photo together. And inevitably, these photos like the two you just suggested when you’re years ago like Ellen and Nairobi, a red in Liberia. It’s like here is this person in the center of all these other people and you are both figuratively and literally centering yourselves instead of centering your community. This is now not a photo about those people. This is a photo about you, and that is kind of the epitome of what we’re talking about. Your right is that you have come in to save them your services, you’re donations. You or whatever it is, um are literally the center of instead of this community truly getting, too to be in that place. So I think that’s a really great, like daily kind of check check and balance for yourself. When you’re when you’re looking at tweets or you’re looking at the way you describe something that you’re looking at a photo, you can just say, Is this photo centering the people that were serving? Or is this photo about us? Um and there are certainly times where a photo should be about you, but that doesn’t mean that the photo should be you surrounded by people you served. Maybe Then it’s a photo of just your staff at you know, the conference table looking on something or you know what I mean. It it’s going to be about you make it only about you and not you. In contrast to your community. Very good point about figuratively and literally making the individual the center surrounded by the community in need. Yeah, excellent. Yeah. See, this is why that’s why we have you on. Because I looked at the same pictures and I did that did not occur to me. But that’s the brilliance of of ah expert, you know, lots of flecks of expert Well, in this case, we have one expert and me but other ex other people contributing, exper having experts contribute. That’s what I mean. Okay. You think about this, You know, it’s a value of having multiple multiple opinions and and eyes on something. Very. It was very well said. Thank you for that. Um, I was thinking you buy what? I wasn’t thinking me for what I just said. Yeah, that was obviously you’re welcome. I had a defective. I wouldn’t I would probably not consider it effort, perspective, but it is an opinionated one. So, uh, you bring a lot of insight and wisdom to the show. Um, yeah. You know, another part of the problem is that these images are descriptions, You know that it’s one dimensional. You know, if I’m here or if you swoop in with your donation from the United States, that’s going to solve the problem. The child will no longer have empty hands reaching out, you know, on. And we just have a minute. But weaken. Obviously, we can keep talking beyond the break. Poverty is multidemensional mean. It includes Gover, the local community. The local community needs to be empowered. It includes, um, well, and I think thinking about those layers, we can talk more about this. Those layers of change that need to happen are are important. But also, as we continue to see the kind of donor base of America change as Boomer’s got older and millennials, you know, come into more of the majority in the world of social action that there is also your community. Your audience for this kind of message also knows there are multiple layers and maybe that immediate kind of gut reaction of Oh, my gosh, this crisis just happened. I want to respond, is there? But if you also if that’s all that you do, you may not be really seen as a sustainable organization undressing all of those layers of change. And I think that’s a huge opportunity. No, you’re seeing yourself. Yes, Thio one dimensionally. All right. Uh, time for our last break. Turn to communications, PR and content for your non-profit. They help you tell your compelling stories, get media attention on those stories and build support, media relations, content, marketing, communications and marketing strategy and branding strategy. They’re at turn hyphen to dot CEO, and we’ve got butt loads more time for Amy Sample Ward and poverty. Porn? Yes, we were just saying, Yeah, it it Ah, it narrows the the viewers focus to just donate. And there’s a lot more that you can do. I mean, and, you know, if we’re talking about, um, poverty and hunger, I mean that that could reach to, you know, advocacy around, Ah, global climate change policies, which you’re never going to get from these one dimensional ideas. No, in little. I mean, I also don’t wanna got buckslip name now to our conversation up for this idea that every single tweet, every single picture, every single email appeal needs to talk people through. How do you know this action today is connected to this action in this all the way on. That’s not what we’re trying to recommend. That every single one of those has to include all of that context. But it should always include the context of what really you’re asking for. If you are asking for donations for a really immediate need, the donation is still not the actual transaction of those medical supplies. Most likely, right. So So at least framing it truly in what it is people are donating Thio. Was there an earthquake? And these donations are in part to buy medical equipment and to support the medical teams administering it. Well, that’s also a really great story. Who are these medical teams? What kind of expertise are they bringing? You know, you don’t just have to focus on transactions, because when you do, you make both the donor feel like they’re part of a band transaction and the people receiving the support her the end of a transaction. I don’t think anyone really means for that. I like, you know, back to that good intent piece intent is not impact, but also, even even in this case, I don’t think that’s really what you intend. You know it so So raise that up and don’t focus on Oh, this is just like your example before I really like that, you know, Now these hands are full, doesn’t know what happened in here, you know, and so really talkto what is happening. And at a a tactical level, you know, there’s this is opportunity for terrific content. No direct people to, you know, you and I was talking about fresh content and depth of content. You can tell the story elsewhere. So the tweet is bringing. The tweet is briefed The Facebook post, the ad, whatever is brief. But then there’s a link to you know, the back story back-up more medical in this example who these medical teams are. You have an instagram account. Well, you could do, you know, instagram stories with either, you know, actual quick video interviews, updates Facebook, live there like there’s a ton of rich content you could have when you move to trying to really own what you do and what your story is, instead of trying to focus on this idea of a really, really immediate really, really fast transaction. Because that’s not the humanity that you want to be representing anyway. Yeah, yeah. And and wrapped wrapped up in all this is you know, the idea that the important idea that the donations air not sufficient while while they’re necessary and we do need them, they’re not going to solve the problem alone. Exactly the bigger context. You know that. And I love your idea. The xero You’re not talked about this a little. Okay. Going well, just you can You can actually then shift the spotlight to some of the work that you’re doing. Like you’re saying, you know, show videos of some of the programs and some of the care that you’re actually giving you can you can shift the lens back to you as the provider. You know, when it’s all in the bigger context. It’s a part of the bigger context. Well, I think there’s two things to think about here. One is that we talked about before. Any campaign, whether it’s fund-raising campaign, our advocacy or whatever is never gonna have only one ask, of course, every you know, kind of sector best practices. You only have one ask a time. But once someone takes that action, they have made the donations they have called their senator. Whatever you need to be ready with another ask because they were just willing to do what you ask them to do. You might as well tell them that to do something else right? So instead of having you know, here’s eight different things, please do what you want. You give people one, and when they do it, you take them to the next step. Then you take them to the next step and you just keep going. And, well, from a tactical perspective, definitely think about it that way. And from a content perspective, just as you’re recommending, I love that. Get people hooked in and then have them kind of watch the whole thing play out, right? Continue to see how the work is happening on the other thing to think about, I think, is that there’s a lot to be sad out in the sector right now about how you know, there are certain changes in fund-raising that people are more connected to a topic than necessarily a single organization that they’re gonna donate to over a year over year. You know that they care more about, um, the topic and whoever is maybe doing something good on that topic is who gets their money. This is a great way to keep people actually hooked to your organization instead of floating between organizations in the same cause. Because you’re not just getting them to have a single transaction with you because it was immediate and compelling and kind of Ah, uh, fast. Wait for them to feel connected. You have then continuing to connect them to you with these with content, of course, but also with those continued actions, ways where they’re getting deeper and deeper into this and feeling like, yeah, I donated, but also high, you know, submitted, uh, short message for the medical team to provide to those children. And they’re starting to actually feel like they are a part of your work, which is the whole goal of this. Instead of feeling like, Oh, I feel relieved that I sent my $10 to that organization and I don’t even know who they were because it was just the organization I saw on Facebook, right? So really shifting. How you frame all of this is, of course, as we’re talking about today getting you out of this trap of poverty porn. But it’s also serving you to build real community with these supporters. Yeah, it’s the how many guests we’ve had on urging the relational over the transactional That’s you. You put a lot of depth into it, but you and I have talked about it and other guests as well. That’s the way to stand out, you know, as you said, that’s the way to bring people to your cause and keep the mayor. While the, um the ah, a lot of lot of, ah, activists and donors are you’re saying more mission oriented versus organization oriented. But, you know, if you can draw them into your work there, they will stay with you. It’s the relation, actually, Yeah, it’s the relationship, of course. All right. Um, you know, another. Another facet of this is that, um all you know, these regions are not monolithic. All of Central America, South America and Africa are not poor on and needy and destitute. You know, there are thriving cities. There’s beautiful, rich history, culture, toe, all of these, you know, to all the African nations and all these other parts. I’m talking about parts of the world I’m talking about. So you know, e I think you want some balance there, too. Tooley. And I think there’s argument to be made that there are can definitions that we have organizations. We as Americans. We, as white folks, can put onto what is, uh, community experiencing property or what is a geographic area that lacks access to refers is that are not going to be a shared definition by the people living in those communities. And I think That’s a really important thing to remember as organizations trying to highlight the service you are providing or the way that you’re serving that community. Is that your definition of their needs and comparatively, to you? You know how how unquote in property they are is going to feel different in their own lived experience. So finding ways where they can authentically talk about again back to it was the beginning. You know, their hopes and dreams, their challenges, their life, and the way that they benefit or appreciate the services is going to feel far truer and position your organization into their community than it is for you to say from the outside. You know, look at this community we’ve kind of defined as meeting this And here’s how we’re going to fix, you know, back to that idea that are you centering you and and the organization? Are you really centering this community? How How are you doing that? Um, recognizing that part of deciding who you know that a certain community is or is not in need is part of that we’re gonna leave it there. Any simple word? Excellent. Thank you so much for talking about Tony Anna. What the a scary topic for some, but I think it was a good conversation. I absolutely agree. And we’re not scared to be a little provocative. No, not at all. Thank you. She’s Amy Sample Ward at Amy Sample Ward dot or GE and at Amy Rs Ward. Next week I’ll be back live in the studio. I know that’s what you live for. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by Wagner. CPS. Guiding YOU beyond the numbers Witness cps dot com Bye Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there Complete accounting solution made for non-profits tourney dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for the free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for your non-profit, Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO Ah, creative producers Claire Meyerhoff Sam Liebowitz is the line producer. Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit Ideas for the other 95% go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. You’re listening to the Talking Alternative network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, I’m nor in Sumpter potentially ater. Tune in every Tuesday at 9 to 10 p.m. Eastern Time and listen for new ideas on my show yawned potential Live Life your way on talk radio dot N Y C. I’m the aptly named host of Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95% fund-raising board relations, social media. My guests and I cover everything that small and midsize shops struggle with. If you have big dreams and a small budget, you have a home at Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Friday’s 1 to 2 Eastern at talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business. Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested? Simply email at info at talking alternative dot com Are you a conscious co creator? Are you on a quest to raise your vibration and your consciousness? 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