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Nonprofit Radio for August 7, 2023: Leadership Lessons

 

Steve JohnsLeadership Lessons

Steve Johns’ book is “Fearless.” He shares his philosophy of fearless leadership including building a service mindset and embracing a culture of curiosity; investing in yourself; talking without telling; understanding how “No mud, no lotus” can help you persevere; and a lot more. He’s CEO of OneCause.

 

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[00:00:33.70] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite He Abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with mono blea if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with highlights.

[00:00:56.43] spk_1:
Thank you, tony. This week we have leadership lessons. Steve John’s book is Fearless. He shares his philosophy of fearless leadership, including building a service mindset and embracing a culture of curiosity investing in yourself, talking without telling, understanding how no mud, no lotus can help you persevere and a lot more. He’s CEO of one cause on Tony’s take too

[00:01:11.38] spk_0:
summer stewardship.

[00:01:27.09] spk_1:
We’re sponsored by Donor Boxx with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is leadership lessons.

[00:01:54.67] spk_0:
What a pleasure to welcome Steve Johns to nonprofit radio. He is CEO of One Cause fundraising software company and he’s author of the book, Fearless Leadership Lessons at the Crossroads. He has over 30 years of experience in technology, corporate development, venture capital, event production and entrepreneurship. You’ll find the company at one cause dot com and Steve is on linkedin Steve Johns. Welcome to nonprofit radio.

[00:02:03.24] spk_2:
Thanks tony. Thanks for having me. Appreciate

[00:02:05.19] spk_0:
it. Uh Absolutely, my pleasure. And uh the, the book is leadership lessons. So we’re gonna talk a good bit about a bunch of your lessons. And I love every, every chapter has a collection of lessons from that chapter. Uh But just, you know, give us the, the high level overview why this book, you know, why

[00:04:27.82] spk_2:
now ha ha happy to do that. So, so first of all, I didn’t set out to write a book. And so what I call myself is the accidental author. And so this all started tony at the beginning of the pandemic, we’re making a bunch of changes to the business and I made a commitment to the company to keep them informed of how the business was doing. And II, I hesitated a little bit and then I said, I’m gonna make that commitment to, to be weekly and so on April 2nd, around 2020 I wrote my first weekly update and I wrote my second weekly update and my third and I kept writing these weekly updates. A year and a half later, my marketing team presented to me that, that following summer, the compilation of these weekly updates. And we looked at it and we shared some labs and actually, we probably shared some tears as well. And we said, wow, this feels like it might be the beginning of a book. And that’s really how it came about. And so, and so we, we set about then taking and I had, and then I wrote for another year because this was the summer of 21 and we weren’t out of it yet. And so I continued to write and we continue to look at the opportunity to kind of bring some of these lessons together thematically. So we didn’t just do it all chronologically. So we grouped them together in themes. And in the summer of 22 we wrote introductory pages to, to talk about how I was feeling what the company was going through, what the tone of the country was at that moment in time. And then to your point, and I said, what we have, if we’re gonna call this leadership lessons at the crossroads, we have to have some pretty specific leadership lessons. So I was really insistent and we got it at the end of every chapter. There’s three or four leadership lessons that here’s the, here’s the thing that, that I want that I hope people take away from this. Yes, we wrote these chapters during the course of a global pandemic that changed our lives. But these leadership lessons I believe are lessons that people can use every day. We, we, we run across crossroads every day, we have decision points every day. And what I would say is these are lessons that can be applied every day, whether it’s at, at the office as a, as a CEO or any type of leader in your company, as a spouse, as a parent. These are just leadership lessons that I think are broad based and can be broadly applied.

[00:05:20.69] spk_0:
There are a lot of episodes of nonprofit radio folks will say, you know, this isn’t only for nonprofits and this is clearly as I expected. And you’re suggesting this is clearly one of those episodes, not only for nonprofit, less lessons for life, really, a lot of, a lot of them do. Um I love your humility in the book. You know, you’re open. Uh you share even that you had trepidation about committing to a weekly update. That was, that was gonna share how the company is doing. Uh you know, that just, you’re, you’re, you’re very, I, I think humble and, and transparent in the book. I, I admire

[00:06:11.17] spk_2:
it. II I appreciate that. And again, you know, part of, part of what I like to do is, um you know, just kind of rally around this notion of being authentic um in, in and also part of my authenticity. Tony is this vulnerability and, and the vulnerability that I had to show in, in the pandemic. Because if, if you stand up and say in, in the course of this, this, this great unknown, these great uncertainties, I’ve got all the answers. Well, then people are going to know that you’re not being transparent and that, and that you’re not being honest. And so I think the, the only, the only way to do that is to basically say open yourself up, be vulnerable, have the trust in your organization. Um when you expose yourself like that, that they’ll follow you. And so what I also say is that vulnerability has a little bit of a paradox because everyone thinks of it as a weakness, but it actually has to start from a, from, from a position of strength. You have to be strong enough to know that when you open yourself up and when you make yourself, as they say, vulnerable, that, that you have a plan that you have the strength to say, I don’t know, I don’t have all the answers, but I have a plan. Let’s go.

[00:06:41.46] spk_0:
Absolutely agree that vulnerability is a sign of confidence, I think and, and not at all weakness, uh vulnerability, humility, you know, these are, I think, I think very good uh very positive traits in, in all people leader, leaders, leaders are not um help us with uh fearless leadership. The book is fearless leadership lessons at the Crossroads. What, what do you conceive of as fearless leadership?

[00:09:23.37] spk_2:
So we were all so we have this raise conference that we sponsor every year and we’ve been doing so since 2017 and we started using the word fearless together with fundraisers and we hashtag fearless fundraisers and it became something of a mantra that we would continue to use with Ray. And then when it came time to, to name the book, we just really came back to this notion of being fearless. Ok. So what does fearless mean? Right. Fearless means the willingness or the ability to take action in the face of great unknowns and uncertainties. Well, if you think about when we started writing these chapters, it was in a time of the the of great unknown and great uncertainties. And again, you can call that courage. I, I really like the word fearless. And I, and I actually mentioned in the book, I, I wrote about wearing this No Fear hat that, you know, kind of uh I was a brand in the maybe in the early two thousands, maybe late nineties or something like that. And, and I, I really, you know, uh metaphorically and actually, you know, want to put that no fear hat ad on all the time. And so, so being fearless is being willing to move forward, um not getting stuck down with analysis paralysis that, you know, because we could have all just kind of just frozen in time, right? What do we do? We, we, we’re, we’re in the, we’re in the business of providing software to help nonprofits fundraise at primarily in person gatherings, auctions, galas dinners, runs and walks and rides that all came to a screeching halt in March of 2020. We had literally had 2100 in person events scheduled for the spring that went to zero overnight. And so you can just sit there in your fear or you can choose to be fearless, create a plan and move forward and, and that’s what we did. And in fact, you know, I say sometimes procrastination is really just another form of fear. It’s either, I don’t know, fear of being found out, it’s fear of failure, it’s fear of uh not being good enough or smart enough. And we basically said we just, I need to, I need to set the tone. I need to take action, I need to put a plan together. Let’s be fearless together. And in the face of this great uncertainty that we’ve never experienced before, let’s move forward. And again, that’s what being fearless is all about. And like, like we said, this isn’t just for nonprofits, this isn’t just for one cause or Steve Johns, this is about every day. We face these fears when we get up in the morning, when, when we, when we get to the office in the morning, when, when we’re just taking our kids to school, there is this, you know, uncertainty and doubt and it’s just the willingness and ability to take action

[00:09:45.49] spk_0:
that that actually gets to one of the lessons that uh I, I’m, I’m sure we’ll have to talk uh a chance to talk about which is uh that you can’t control events, but you can control how you react to them. But we’ll, we’ll get to, we’ll come to that. We’ll come to that. One of, one of many, 11 of many, um, something else that runs kind of runs through the book and, and I think is important to, to, to get at the outset is the uh, no mud, no lotus metaphor. Uh, share that with us.

[00:10:17.54] spk_2:
So I, I appreciate the ability to do that. And, and that really, I, what I would say is that I’m gonna call it maybe a parable really set the tone for the rest of the book.

[00:10:22.72] spk_0:
That’s, that’s higher level. Now, I only called it a metaphor. You’re going parable. I’m all right. Go ahead,

[00:13:01.98] spk_2:
go ahead. Really set the tone for the rest of the book in terms of finding inspiration outside of our world to bring to the one cause one cause team every week that we could kind of rally around. So it was probably my, my third or fourth update. I have a, I have a routine tony every morning iii I get down on the mat and I listen to my, my Calm app. I listen to the daily Calm. I listen to meditative music. I try and get a sense of mindfulness going in the morning so that I can kind of use that to propel me through the day and take me through the day. And that morning, I was listening to the Daily Calm App and there was a retelling of the story from Buddhism that starts with the lotus bud in the mud. And the lotus bud makes its journey through the mud and the muck and the mere of the pond and, and it represents potential and as it works its way up through the pond and finally comes to the surface of the pond and begins to open up, pedal by pedal into this beautiful lotus flower that’s rebirth. That is, that is the the ultimate of what that bud can become. And so when I was on the map that morning, I heard that story in, in, you know, the the shorthand is, you know where there’s no mud, there’s no lotus, it’s without the test, without the mud, without all of that stuff that the lotus bud has to get through, then that journey and to become that beautiful lotus flower um is something less than and so I said to myself, this is who we are. This is who one cause is right now. This is our customers, our nonprofit customers, we are in the mud. We’re not even in the pond, we can’t see the surface. And so I have to be able to tell the story and I have to be able to tell the story of where we are today, but also provide a vision for where I think what that we can go or where, where we can finally become. And that’s that beautiful white lotus flower that sits at the top of the pond. And so that became uh very inspirational to us in terms of the artwork for the book. Um and again, uh it is, it is so beautiful. It’s such a beautiful story. It’s such a beautiful illustration and it, it’s such for, for me, it’s such a uh an illustration of where one cause was where our customers were. And I will say that 2022 was a great year, 2023. You know, we’re, we’re getting hit by all kinds of different issues. Now, now we have fears of inflation or fears of recession, we have inflation, we have high interest rates, we have all that other stuff. But from the, from the aspect of the pandemic, I would believe that we have finally emerged as that beautiful white lotus flower on the top of the pond

[00:13:23.91] spk_0:
pushing through that the, the uh the muck of, of adversity. Yes, to uh to

[00:13:30.21] spk_2:
emerge. I really like that. You use that word too because I use that word a lot. So the fearless is a story of great resilience in the face of great adversity. That is really the story of fearless.

[00:14:15.25] spk_0:
Let’s talk about some of these lessons like we’ve said, every, every chapter uh wraps up with, with several uh lessons and related to what we’re talking about. Uh So I’m gonna take a bunch off and I’m gonna ask for you to ask you to elaborate on them if that’s ok. And we’ll, we’ll come to a point where I’ll ask you what your favorites are too, but we’re not quite there. We’re not quite there yet. That gets, that gets a little anarchic. I, I gotta, I gotta maintain, I gotta maintain my control. So, um, focus on what’s in your power that we can’t control the events. But we can, this is, you know how we respond. This is the one that I was just alluding

[00:15:21.37] spk_2:
to before. So, so again, II, I appreciate that because you just helped me jump to one of my favorites. So, so that is, that is definitely one of my favorites. And, and so this the, the, it, it, it comes in a, in a few ways, it really kind of weaves its way through the book, right? And it’s this notion and, and, and I actually refer to it as like the secret to happiness and the secret to success. And I wish somebody would have explained this to me 30 years ago, tony. It, it, you know, that, that, that, that what you need to focus in on is the things that are in your control and not focus on those that aren’t in your control. And there are various forms of this, that, that, that, that we, we see um every day. But my, inspire, my inspiration from this came from the Stoics and, and there was a couple of Stokes, particularly Seneca and Marcus Aurelius um is one said something like it’s not what happens to you but how you react to it, that matters. So, so again, take for example, the pandemic or even somebody cuts you off on the road or somebody’s at the grocery store taking too long in front of you, right? Oh my God. The examples

[00:15:32.35] spk_0:
are, are rampant. I mean from right, from somebody cuts you off at the grocery store to climate change

[00:15:37.52] spk_2:
and climate change, right? The the

[00:15:39.02] spk_0:
exist existential

[00:16:34.56] spk_2:
questions like that we’re not in control of those external factors. And so what we have to do is we have to say, ok, I’m not in control of that. But what I’m gonna focus on right now and that I’m 100% in control of is how I react to that I can react with anger. I can react with frustration. I can, I can react with compassion and, and grace. And so man, it’s such a it’s such a great lesson to, to learn. And and so, you know, again, as I said, I wish somebody would have taught me this 30 years ago. I hope somebody listening today hears this and says, aha, that is going to change. My life is not to dwell on those things that I can’t control but to focus instead on what I’m 100% control in control of. And that’s how I react and respond to that. And I know that my wife is happy that I’m trying to embody this lesson as well.

[00:17:20.33] spk_0:
I, I have AAA, personal example that I, I’ve seen several times, uh, calendar mistakes, you know, somebody, we, we’re all, we’re all scheduling events, right? And the, the savvy of us, uh, use calendar and then there’s the rest of us like me who just still do the back and forth emails and, um, you know, people make mistakes, you know, they, they, they forget the time zone change. Oh, you’re eastern. I thought, yeah, I’m central. I thought, you know, I was an hour so I was an hour late, you know, et cetera and the way you react, you know, people. Uh Well, II, I always say, you know, I’ve done it, I’ve, you know, with no problem, we’ll reschedule. I, I can’t do it right now. We’ll reschedule. No problem. I’ve done it myself. I’ve, and people are, people just come back with such effusive gratitude that I’m just saying, you know, I make the same mistakes, you know, instead of all right. You know, uh I, I guess I understand uh we can, we can reschedule some time. We’ll see if it works out for the future

[00:17:36.41] spk_2:
in that passive aggressive kind of way. Right. But

[00:17:43.12] spk_0:
people are just so gracious, grateful for a, a decent gracious, you know, I, I screw up too. Let’s, let’s reschedule.

[00:17:46.32] spk_2:
Yeah, I think Grace is one of those words that we really started to use a, a lot during the pandemic. It’s just like grant people some grace, man. It’s, it’s OK like stuff happens. Let’s just, yeah, let’s just figure it out.

[00:18:04.16] spk_0:
Um start a conversation. Uh a a around difficult subjects.

[00:19:29.25] spk_2:
Yeah. Again, um what, what, what, what we were trying to do there again, was to say what we have to do is engage and, and again, from, from my perspective, this is, this is really about more human connection. And so, and so, one of the things that we lost dearly is our ability to communicate, I think effectively. And we all went to Zoom. Uh and we lost this, this ability to just have a conversation in a hallway. Just have just, just to talk with these serendipitous um uh collisions as I think that they’ve been called from time to time and just have a conversation and have an openness about something and be willing to talk about it. And I think sometimes we lose that with Zoom. Sometimes we lose that with everyone working from home. I think we lost that during the pandemic. And so part of what I uh you know, big strong message. Again, for me, it’s actually the second thing that I like. Uh one of my favorite chapters actually is about connection and it’s, it’s chapter 15 and it’s called Connect. And it’s about friendships and it’s about family and it’s about making sure that you live your life now and celebrate your life now. So, um those are a, again, those are lessons that we learned during the pandemic, but also lessons that can be applied um, every single day um of our lives. It’s also important

[00:19:54.28] spk_0:
to be conscious of this because it’s so easy to default to the zoom meeting and, and sometimes they are necessary, you know, if we’re in, if we’re, if we’re across multiple states, you know, we don’t have a choice. It used to be phone, you know, now it’s, now it’s zoom or, or some equivalent. But when you do have the chance for a face to face, you know, when it can work, opt, I think opt for that opt for the opt for the in person when, when it can work and just don’t automatically default to the, to the virtual.

[00:22:00.32] spk_2:
And I think, I think what you’re touching on is a, is another one of the lessons I think it’s called what I call like the silver silver lining mindset is, is that we are always looking for silver linings in the crisis in the everything that the pandemic was throwing at us. And I think, I think the ability to, to reach, for instance, from a, from a, let’s take it from a nonprofit standpoint. Our events went from essentially being all in person to being 100% virtual and online. And so that, that is, you know, at first you think, wow, that’s a real negative because you lose that face to face. You you lose the ability to have that dinner and have that open bar happy hour and experience that gala feeling that drives auction, silent auction, live auction donation moments that drives the generosity of, uh, uh you know, associated with that. But what going virtual did was expanded the reach. And so if you’re in person and inclusivity as well, if you’re in person, maybe you have three or 400 people who can afford the $400 ticket to go downtown. Dress up, get the babysitter, you really kind of spend, you, you make an investment of a day and a lot of, of dollars to do that. And there are some people who don’t want to. So, so what our nonprofit customers found was that the reach of that event expanded from three or 400 people who were of course, very generous to the thousands of people who are in their mailing database who would simply get a link and click on the link and could tune in to the live stream, participate in the silent auction, using our software, participate in the donation moment. And we saw again while the attendance at, at events shrank dramatically to, to kitchens and living rooms and in small studios, generosity continued to flow and people continue to, to, to step up and answer the call of the, of the nonprofits who needed them now more than ever. So we saw that as part of the silver lining mindset is that they found reach in this, in the, in the void of in person. They found the opportunity with online and virtual.

[00:22:31.55] spk_0:
Let’s talk something too about uh having these difficult conversations, you know, making uh making time to talk about weighty subjects rather than waiting for the time to appear, which, you know, time never taps us on the shoulder and says, uh you’ve got a half a day coming up, you know, tomorrow. So do something, do something important with it that, you know, to make the time for these, these weighty

[00:23:31.24] spk_2:
conversations. Yes. So, so time was, was, you could see time was a topic that I tackled a couple of times in the book. Number one, I tackled it in connection with the Eisenhower matrix, which is kind of, uh, some, some a different variation of the Stephen Covey urgent and important. We’re gonna get, we’re gonna get to that. Yep. Yep. Ok. And then, and then, uh, so I’ll move on from that. And so, and then I also talk about this Kronos time and Cairo’s time and Kronos time is time that goes so slowly and it ticks away. And if you’re watching the clock, you’re like, did the clock just move backwards? I swear the clock just moved backwards. But Cairo’s time is that time flies, feeling that feeling where you can be just involved in something. It’s a moment you’re experiencing this moment and all of a sudden three hours have gone by and you say, where did, where did the time go? My gosh. And so my, my, my rallying cry was, let’s, let’s live life in Cairo’s time and, and, and not in Kronos time. And I’ll uh I’ll, I’ll send it back to you and say, I will wait to talk about uh the Eisenhower Matrix until you, you’d like me to. Ok.

[00:23:56.47] spk_0:
But why don’t we do it now? We’re not gonna tease listeners right now. You, you gave a great instruction to it. It’s, it’s such, it’s so simple and Eisenhower and uh Stephen Covey.

[00:26:12.45] spk_2:
So what I was addressing with, with this, this topic was this notion that I just don’t have the time to do this. And so, you know, I get a little bit like, yes, of course, time is the one thing is the one thing that everyone on the planet has the same of Elon Musk doesn’t have more than 24 hours in a day. He doesn’t have any more than I do. He doesn’t have any more than you do. But somehow he’s able to create so much more in that, in that period of time. And so we’re all given this time and, and during the pandemic, we were, we were forced to really manage this time. How do I office from home? How do I school my Children from home? How do I be a good spouse and be a good partner at home? Be a good parent at home and also look after my friends and family. And so what I tried to do is I said, let’s put, let’s let’s learn some things from some, some, some people and the Eisenhower matrix in the, the Covey matrix kind of really focused on urgent and important. And what we, what we, what we don’t take the time to do. Tony is the things that are important but not urgent. And what are the things that fall into that category? Things that are kind of uh bettering us as human beings learning a new language, reading books and, and, and, and educating learning. It’s so important to our development as people. But yet we get caught up in the day to day and the urgency of paying the bills and making money and, and taking care of the kids and feeding the kids. Those are urgent things that have to get done. But what we have to eliminate is those things that are not important and not urgent. What were we doing? We were watching a lot of TV. We were, we were, we were getting caught up in scrolling through Facebook and Instagram and, and all the online social media. And so what I was trying to do is get people to think, listen, you do have the time. What we need to do is just, is just take inventory of how we’re using that time. Give yourself a little bit more of the things that are important and not urgent and eliminate some of those things that are not urgent and not important. Of course, the things that are both urgent and important, you gotta do it right. You can’t, you, you have to do those.

[00:26:22.51] spk_0:
And then there, there’s the fourth cell of urgent but not important and the advice there is to delegate.

[00:26:51.52] spk_2:
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Delegate and, and again, it’s, it’s, it’s, you can sometimes delegate to technology too. It’s not just like, oh, I don’t have an assistant. Well, let technology handle that go into your email and set some rules, you know, just say, listen, I don’t want, you know, if, if, if they’re, if, if, if, if you’re spending all your time on, on managing your emails that are coming in, set a couple of rules that, that send them to, you know, later box and, and only work on the things that, you know, are important as they’re coming in.

[00:27:02.40] spk_0:
It’s a very simple matrix, uh simple. But, but valuable. If you learn, if you, if you, if you just pay a little attention to it, you can easily find uh your own work that belongs in all four cells and uh or your own, your own distractions in the case of the, they’re not urgent, they’re not important, you know, these kind of time suck type things. Um It, yeah, I, I love it. It’s simple, it’s elegant but it, it is

[00:27:51.05] spk_2:
valuable and then just think tony, what you can do. Let’s just say you find another half an hour of your day or another 45 minutes of your day. Just think of the things that you could do. I just talked to my call map only takes 10 minutes. And so you get, get on the map and get on the mat and listen to the call map for 10 minutes, 11 minutes and it’ll change your day completely. It’s time for a break.

[00:28:42.43] spk_1:
Donor box. What makes Donor box stand out? It’s a fundraising platform built with fundraisers for fundraisers. They have the Ultra Swift donation form that makes giving four times faster and it cuts down on drop off. They’re a comprehensive fundraising platform along with the Ultra Swift donation form. There’s event ticketing, peer to peer text to give and the new donor box live kiosk. So your folks can swipe tap or dip to pay at events. They’re committed to customer support and they understand nonprofits because they all have nonprofit backgrounds. Donor box helping you help others donor Boxx dot org. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:30:21.83] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate. Summer, summer is the ideal time for stewardship. It’s a time that we typically are taking care of ourselves. Right? Thinking about our vacation with family, friends, maybe vacations, right? And that’s all important you because you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. I say that routinely you gotta take care of yourself first. So, after you do that though, I’m suggesting summer is a great time for stewardship, talking to your donors. Easy conversations. What’s going on with their summer? How are they handling the, the summer extra heat? If, if that applies where you are, if it’s temperatures are higher than normal, it seems like they are just about everywhere. But you know, what are their summer plans? Uh How are they taking care of themselves? Share your summer plans, you know, so it’s just, just light, light touches easy stewardship during summer. So I, I urge you to take care of yourself first and then think about your donors. Make these easy outreach calls. Um And yeah, and, and calls calls are perfect. Not, not, I’m not thinking email. I’m thinking pick up the phone and have some light conversation with, with donors. That’s it. Summer stewardship. That is Tony’s take two Kate. Well, my voice just broke like I’m 14, Kate. Kate. Kate. Hey, Kate.

[00:30:29.90] spk_1:
Do you want me to continue? We got, but loads more time now back to leadership lessons with Steve Johns.

[00:30:39.90] spk_0:
Another of the many lessons harness a service mindset.

[00:32:00.92] spk_2:
Yes. Yes. So I’m really big on this. And so, and so again, it goes back to the stoics a little bit but it’s, it’s, we live in, I live in service to, to my customers. I live in service to one cause and, and we together live in service to, to our customers And so I think that if you, if you, if you operate from a position of being a servant leader or understand that you’re here for the benefit of others, again, I think that it will, it will change the way that you, that you act. And so it’s also part of the, the, the ancient stoicism of doing the right thing. And I think that’s why, that’s why I think stoicism connects with me because I would just call, I just, before I learned about stoicism, I just called it common sense. I just called it doing the right thing. I just called it being smart. And then when I started to learn about the, the how the, the, the Stokes went about life, it really was about living a life of service and doing what’s right. Um And, and putting yourself um second to, to others. And again, I, I try to live that way. I try and serve that way. When I introduce myself. Most of the time time, I try to say I’m Steve Johns and I serve as a CEO of one cause because I feel that is how I serve one cause and that’s how I serve our nonprofit customers. Say a little about

[00:32:14.13] spk_0:
the, the Greek Stoics. Yes, uh educate us on

[00:34:01.13] spk_2:
that. So this is a 2000 year old philosophy really started by the Greeks picked up by the Romans. And it’s this notion of um of, of doing, of doing What’s right? And, and um Marcus Aurelius is one of the uh greatest I would say, maybe most well known um of the, of the school of Stoicism. And he has a book called Meditations. That is a book that I carry around in my briefcase. II, I bring it on flights because I can pick it up. I can literally open it to the middle of it and learn something. I don’t have to be reading it. Chrono chronologically, I don’t have to uh remember where I was. It’s just literally his musings or his journaling of his thoughts as the emperor of, of Rome. And it’s really this, this sense of ethics um right and wrong. Um You said humble before um humility, um and the notion of serving others. And so again, I have been asked from time to time. Hey, Steve, uh what book are you reading now? And I’m not really a big reader of current novels and, and current books, but again, $9 on Amazon, I don’t get any royalties from it whatsoever. But here’s the offer that I made to, to the company in one of my updates. I said, if you go on Amazon and you buy Marcus Aurelius Meditations for nine bucks, and you don’t think it was worth $9 I will personally refund your money. And so I’ll offer that to your listeners as well. I would say, go pick up, go pick up meditations on, on Amazon. And if you don’t learn anything, if it doesn’t improve your day through, through tony, I will pay you your nine bucks back.

[00:34:04.13] spk_0:
And, and you, you don’t have the, uh, residual stream from Marcus Aurelius.

[00:34:08.34] spk_2:
You, I do not.

[00:34:11.35] spk_0:
This is all related to one that, uh II, I remembering now this was II, I wasn’t thinking about this one for discussion, but it’s so related that helpfulness is not zero sum.

[00:36:21.48] spk_2:
Yes. Yeah. So when I, when I say I say that I said what we do is not altruism because um it al altruism is, is helping at the potential um a loss of opportunity or benefit for yourself. And so what, what, and, and, and, and I think I, I quoted, um I think I quoted Zig Ziggler in there if I, if I’m not mistaken um about, you know, we are, we are help, helpful is one of our core values and, and I, I don’t know if there’s many companies out there who have helpful as a, as a core value. And, and it is our, it is our um obligation to help our nonprofit customers raise more money and connect with more donors. We do that by providing software that provides that value, but we also have a company to run. And so, and so I expect also I have, I’m in, I’m, I am a commercial company and so I expect a fair price for that software and that’s so that I can continue to be the innovation engine for nonprofits for the next 5, 10 15, we think, you know, 30 years or more. I want to be here for the needs of the nonprofit organizations because of the way that they’re structured, they, they can’t in invest in long-term technology and innovation and that’s where I come in. And so we want to be helpful, we want to provide the best value and software possible. We want to be able to, to, to wrap, you know, to, to have consulting and people around that and help them be successful. But we also have to get paid for it because we need to be self sustaining and we need to be, to invest. I said, you know, we’ve invested literally millions of dollars over the last several years in making our software better so that nonprofits can benefit from that. And so that’s what I say, it, it, it has to, there has to be, you know, a, a, this is not altruism, but this is helpfulness and, and I think related

[00:36:35.62] spk_0:
to, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. Uh uh as we’re talking about them, I’m seeing more how they’re, they’re intertwined than I did, you know, reading, reading the books. Um But, you know, uh listen, you gotta start with the book. So, you know, and, and I didn’t, uh where, so where I said, where the company is not that we’re done, we’re not done, but I’m just Midway. I want folks to know where do they find the book? Is it at one cause dot com or, or it’s not?

[00:36:46.77] spk_2:
No. So you can go to Amazon and search for Fearless and my name as an author and you should be able to find it there.

[00:37:09.40] spk_0:
Ok. Amazon. All right. We’ve heard of that. All right, good. Um So that so related, you know, again, the, the interrelationships between these um a, a culture of curiosity that not, not fearing change. And that’s, this is all related to what you were just saying about software development, software investment, nonprofits can’t do it uh largely. Uh but, you know, all your investments have not been lucrative investments in technology, of course, right? Curiosity, the, the the value of curiosity,

[00:39:00.74] spk_2:
right? So, so again, it, and, and our values go, we are passionate, we are curious, we are helpful and we are committed and so the, the curious comes the from the passion. So we’re, we’re passionate about our customers and their causes and, and the issues and problems that they, that they face. And so we’re curious, we wanna learn more about the problems that they face so that we can convert that to solutions and be helpful. It’s really interesting, tony, we have these four values and we talk about them at, at the company, we talk about them as we’re bringing in new, new staff, almost invariably the the younger generation. When we ask the gen Z and, and the millennials, which one of these values speaks to you the most. And for me, it’s committed because that’s what I’ve really built. My entire career around is like, is, is building and, and being committed to, to customers and, and, and boards and investors and, and getting the job done and to young professionals. It’s curiosity, it’s learning, it’s exploring, it’s innovating and just, I just love that because that’s what we need, we need that as, as a company, we need that as a society for that continual process. And I’m not too old to be curious. I want to be curious but it, it’s, it’s not, it’s not a, it’s, it’s more commonly found in, in these, in the younger professionals. And, and in the story, I talk a little bit about our uh our relationship with curiosity kind of as we grow up. And, you know, we’re curious until we uh burn ourselves on the stove or, you know, we learn a lesson. Um And, and you know, I, I quote, you know, curious George always getting into trouble because he’s always curious about

[00:39:25.61] spk_0:
something curious George man in the yellow hat.

[00:39:26.64] spk_2:
Exactly. So, so again, I want, I want us to live in this balance of our values, but I love the notion of curiosity. I love how it drives our innovation and it loves how it, I love how it drives us continuing to find solutions to our customers issues. And and problems that they’re, that they’re trying to solve every day. And how for listeners,

[00:39:56.40] spk_0:
for listeners, you know, the curiosity goes to uh you know, problem solutions, uh you know, exploring avenues to overcome challenges that, that your organization is facing, that, that your beneficiaries, your, the, the the folks your service are facing, uh you know, look exploring, you know, openness to new ideas about how to, how to, how to achieve your, your mission,

[00:40:56.41] spk_2:
right? And, and we even talk about curiosity just in terms of your, your f your coworkers and your colleagues and, and you know, just showing a curiosity to learn more about what is driving them and what is, what is their background, what motivates them and really understanding more, what, what, how your, your team works so that you can work better. And so we actually do take uh tests, strength finders, tests and learn about uh what makes Steve Johns Tick so that, you know, how you can work together with me. And so that’s part of our curiosity too, is learning just more about people and, and, and being more open to that. And for our uh

[00:41:19.36] spk_0:
generation Z and perhaps millennial listeners, uh you could be curious about curious George. You can certainly uh Google, curious George Man in the Yellow Hat and you will see the uh see the books, I don’t think Curious George ever had a movie, but I think you’re right. You should have, I don’t know. Why didn’t curious George become a Disney. He would have been a good Disney character. They could have, they could have worked with that. Why didn’t Curious George ever get a movie?

[00:41:22.41] spk_2:
I am not sure, man.

[00:41:39.82] spk_0:
He got screwed and, and the, and the nice man in the yellow hat. Uh, they both got screwed together. All right. They, they should have had a movie anyway. They were good books. They were good. They were good children’s learning books. Um Yes. Uh investing in yourself making that this, this sort of goes to that, that cell where it’s important but not urgent uh in the, in the Eisenhower coffee matrix investing in yourself. The value of doing that.

[00:43:32.30] spk_2:
Exactly. And it became it beca again, it became so important during the pandemic, but it’s not any less important today. And so I feel very strongly about investing in myself. And so, but, but to your point, tony about everything interweaving it all gets back to time too because what do we do is we’re too busy for ourselves most of the time. We’re too busy working, we’re too busy taking care of our family. We’re too busy doing everything else but ourselves. So then what I say is, well, when are you in complete control of your day? And that’s probably at early in the morning. And so you have to start back solving. It’s like, well, ok, the dog wakes up at seven, ok, the kids wake up at 6 30. Ok. Well, then get up at six, get up at 5 30 you have to figure out. So, so then now that is your time between 5 36 or between 5 36 15. Now, what do you want to do be, you know, if you want to focus on mindfulness, get on the mat and listen, if you want to focus on physical fitness, get outside, put your shoes on and go run or put your shoes on and grab your gym bag and go and, and work out. Or if you want to learn a language, put your headphones on and, and start listening to Italian or start listening to Spanish if that’s your goal and I, I called myself out. I have been putting Learn Italian on my personal development list for probably 20 years. I have yet to do it. Um And, but I continue to, I just put leverage on myself by telling you and so people can hold me accountable. I think that’s another great, it’s another great tool about investing is tell your spouse or tell your partner or tell somebody, hey, you know what, I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna learn a new language or I’m, I’m gonna lose £5 or I’m gonna get more physically fit. They will hold you accountable if you don’t hold yourself accountable. So make those investments in yourself. But I think it gets back to time again. You have to find the time to do it because you’re always gonna find the time to not do it.

[00:43:53.65] spk_0:
And can I challenge on one word there? You have to make the time. Yes, you have to make the time you. No. And this is related to one that I did want to talk about. Don’t be passive with time. Listeners are probably tired of me saying this, but you have to make the time. You, you’re not gonna just find it. Time is not gonna tap you on the shoulder and say you’ve got 45 minutes free tomorrow. You, you’ve gotta be conscious. You, you say passive, don’t be passive with time.

[00:44:14.77] spk_2:
And that’s what I was trying to do with this notion of the Eisenhower matrix and urgent and important. And you know, say I feel the same, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s bunk, that’s, that’s whatever it is. You know, you, there’s, there’s 24 hours, you can

[00:44:28.71] spk_0:
call it bullshit. It’s OK.

[00:44:30.84] spk_2:
There’s 24 hours in the day. You can figure it out, grab it, take it, control it, it’s yours. And, and, but you also have to stop doing the things that are time wasters

[00:44:47.87] spk_0:
talk without telling, talking without telling that that uh you don’t, you don’t, you, it’s related to what you had said earlier. I it didn’t occur to me at that point uh that you don’t have to have all the answers. You know, you don’t always, you don’t have to be telling you can be talking

[00:46:05.91] spk_2:
without. So when I, when I sat down to write my weekly update every week, I was talking, not telling, I was sharing stories. I was, I was letting people know how I was feeling. I was thinking I was, I was picking up the vibe of, of how other people were, were thinking I was tracking what was happening in, in, in the nation. I was tracking what was happening in with our customer base and, and fundraising. And I was hearing stories of, of success and creativity and ingenuity in ways that our nonprofit customers were using our software in ways that we had never experienced before. And I was having a conversation, I was talking, I wasn’t telling, I wasn’t preaching. I wasn’t, I wasn’t admonishing or anything to that effect. I was just saying, hey, this is how I feel or this is how you might be feeling and right. You know, it’s hard to argue. You can’t, if you say this is the way it is, then people can argue with that. But if you say this is the way I’m feeling or this is the way I think about that. Well, you can’t argue, you cant disagree, you can have a different opinion, but you can’t take that away from me. And that’s, that’s what I believe. And so that, that’s my point is, is we need to talk, we need to engage in dialogue. We need to have conversation, but it’s not about telling people what they need to do or telling people what they’re doing wrong or telling people what they should do next.

[00:46:36.52] spk_0:
All right. So we’re, uh, we’re 40 some minutes into this. Now, I’m, now I’m, now I’m feeling uh gracious and generous. So let me read to you. What, what, what would you like? Which, which lessons would you like to talk about that? We haven’t, uh we haven’t talked about

[00:49:44.44] spk_2:
yet. So again, um, you know, again, picking some of these lessons is like picking your favorite child. I have two. I love them both. Um And so I, I did, I did choose, um, you know, when I think about what I, what my favorites are is human connection. So let me just kind of touch on that one again because III I kind of glossed over it. A little bit. Chapter 15 is called connect. And I’d say that if we look back at the pandemic and what it uniquely took away from us was human connection. In fact, what it did instead was it taught us to fear humans. We were walking on the sidewalk and there were people who were walking towards us, either we or they would move to the other side of the street to avoid passing, you know, and, and so, and, and we were taught and we were telling our kids like, oh, don’t touch that or, or don’t go uh approach that person or here comes a person, we need to walk to the other side. And so it was such a huge loss. And so a lesson is seek human connection. There’s actually a physiological connection. I’m not. Uh and I probably cited a study in the book, but there’s actually a proven physiological con connect connection of health and wellness and well-being um in long living longer that’s tied to human connection and friendships. And so I said, reach out to people that you haven’t talked to in a while, be the person who makes the call, not who waits for the call. Um Because there might be somebody who’s sitting at home who’s feeling super isolated, who needs to hear from someone. Um So be the person who, who does that reconnect with old friends. Um uh you know, again, whether if you can’t see them in person, get, get, get on the phone or, or, or get on the Zoom, reconnect with your family, spend more time with your family. So I relate a story of us getting in the car and driving out west is that my kids are adult kids, but it was a lot of fun to just reconnect on that level and just, just spend more time with your kids. And then finally, this whole idea, we had great loss during the pandemic as well and we continued to have loss and my dad um is, is nearing 90 he is um he, he has dementia and the isolation of COVID rapidly accelerated his decline because he needed that human connection. And we had people in the family pass away who we weren’t able to, to, to, to be with. And so my, my, my message and my lesson behind that was celebrate life. Now, don’t wait, don’t wait for anything because we don’t know, nothing is promised to us. And I, and I wanted to encourage everybody do it now celebrate life, live life. And so, um I really want to uh encourage and again, I think the, the, the mental health crisis that we’re continuing to face today, that really um was it, of course, it happened before the pandemic, but it was really exacerbated by the pandemic. It’s gonna continue for a while and we just need to be, we talked about grace earlier. We need to give grace. Um And we need to, to, to, to be with people. We need to connect with people uh phy physically as well as help with uh the mental health aspect of the pandemic that unfortunately, we’re gonna have to live with for many, many years to come.

[00:50:08.39] spk_0:
One of your lessons explicitly is celebrate. Don’t wait. And you were just talking about celebrating celebrating life, friendships, loved ones. But celebrating uh on the professional side, celebrating successes and they don’t have to be, they don’t have to be monumental. It could be a daily, you know, I did a good job on that call. I handled that meeting. Well, II I handled that question. Well, they don’t have to be monumental for us to, to celebrate and

[00:51:24.95] spk_2:
recognize tony. And, you know, interestingly enough now in the post pandemic world that, that we’re entering, I was communicating weekly. Now I’m communicating maybe quarterly. I’m on a regular cadence of, you know, commercial entity reporting quarterly revenue and earnings and you know what I’m hearing, we’re not hearing enough. We, we, we need more. And so, and so I need to go back to that to your point celebrating those little victories being in touch more because I was, I was communicating weekly uh with the team. So, so I don’t, I don’t have another, another favorite, but I did have a quote that I wanted to, to bring to your attention and bring to the reader’s attention, maybe have a conversation around it, just love it. It’s a CS Lewis quote and the quote goes something like you can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. And I, when I found that in the middle of the pandemic, I’m like that is gold. That is mic drop stuff, right? It’s like you can’t go back and change the beginning but start here right where you are and change the ending. And I think, you know, if there’s anything that we could learn, we can, we can apply that at any point in time in our lives, at any point in time in our career, in our marriages, wherever we are, it’s just like just start again, start today and change how it ends.

[00:52:11.82] spk_0:
That’s a beautiful place to end. I appreciate it. All right. All right. The book, uh Fearless Leadership Lessons At The Crossroads. It’s on Amazon. The company is one cause at one cause dot com and you can connect with Steve Johns on linkedin, Steve. Thank you very much. Wisdom Pearls. Thank you. Thank

[00:52:15.78] spk_2:
you, tony. Thank you. This

[00:52:17.87] spk_0:
was uh I it felt like Cairo’s time to me. I hope it did time for you.

[00:52:22.67] spk_2:
It was Cairo, I can’t believe an hour passed.

[00:52:26.25] spk_0:
All right, good. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much, Steve.

[00:52:30.27] spk_2:
Absolutely. You bet. Thanks. Thank you, tony.

[00:52:39.90] spk_1:
Next week, Impact Metrics with John Mark Vanderpool. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I

[00:52:43.03] spk_0:
bet you find it at tony-martignetti dot com.

[00:53:01.33] spk_1:
We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from Donor Boxx. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others donor Boxx dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Barnett. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:53:28.07] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scottie be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 23, 2023: 2023 Fundraising Outlook

 

Sarah Sebastian & Steve Lausch2023 Fundraising Outlook

OneCause’s research study includes insights to help you benchmark, plan, prioritize and improve your nonprofit’s fundraising this year. From OneCause, Sarah Sebastian and Steve Lausch talk us through.

 

 

 

 

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[00:01:36.34] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh I’m glad you’re with me, I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of a fraser because I cannot bring myself to say the words you missed this week’s show 2023 fundraising outlook one causes research study includes insights to help you benchmark plan, prioritize and improve your nonprofits fundraising this year from one cause Sarah Sebastian and Steve Lauch talk us through on tony stake to webinars galore Here is 2023 fundraising outlook. It’s a pleasure to welcome to non profit radio steve Lauch and Sarah Sebastian both from one cause steve Lauch is director of product marketing at one cause where he brings 17 years of experience in automotive, retail, customer relationship management and marketing technology. Sarah Sebastian at one causes Director of corporate communications. She’s a marketer with eight years of experience in the nonprofit tech space. The company is at one cause and at one cause dot com steve Sarah welcome to non profit radio

[00:01:44.96] spk_1:
Good to be here with you Tony,

[00:01:46.85] spk_2:
thank you. It’s great to be here talking to you today, appreciate

[00:01:50.18] spk_0:
It. Pleasure to have both of you. Thank you and we’re talking about the 2023 fundraising outlook. Who’s the best person to talk about an overview of of this, of the study

[00:02:03.86] spk_2:
definitely.

[00:02:04.58] spk_0:
Okay, it’s unanimous

[00:02:25.75] spk_1:
dive in on that I mean this whole project has been such a great partnership with Sarah but as far as going back to the survey that that fuels the study, um, this, this was, I’d say I can dive in on that. So this is really the fifth year of developing the study into the size that it has been at one cause and the third year of releasing the data in such a way that it is served up in the annual fundraising outlook report. So getting some really great research in a rear view mirror and we’re excited to come out again this year with this report. Maybe to give a little bit more color as to what this report is about and how it works. Um,

[00:02:53.28] spk_0:
we kick

[00:02:53.88] spk_1:
it off every year tony at our annual conference. So the one cause raised conference and spends about a month in market where nonprofits are engaging and responding to the survey and this particular year, 890 nonprofits raise their hands and said, hey, we want to weigh in on this. So 890 voices from nonprofits,

[00:03:16.43] spk_0:
Let’s just call it 900,

[00:03:18.41] spk_1:
900

[00:03:20.48] spk_0:
900,

[00:03:52.42] spk_1:
900 all shapes, all sizes, all segments. We even did some really cool cross tabulation. Looking at annual operating revenue. I’m sure we’ll talk about that at some level. But you know, every year we ask ourselves as well, tony are we, are we getting the right voices. Are we getting the right um, inputs so that we’re capturing all the right information that is helpful to nonprofits and this year in particular, nearly 30% were executive directors, 31% Deb director Development VPs had a great voice from event directors and marketing professionals. So we really are getting the right voices. In fact, 81% of those who responded are involved in making a technology decision. They may even be the ones pulling the trigger on deciding how we’re going to move forward in the next year with technology to help drive our nonprofit mission. And a lot of that goes to fundraising as we’ll talk about.

[00:04:43.56] spk_0:
I also appreciate that the population is very much in line with with our listeners. You know, small and midsize shops. I see 48% have revenue of a million dollars or less. Annual, annual, your, your annual operating revenue a million dollars or less and 31%. So a third basically 350,000 or less.

[00:04:59.16] spk_1:
It is so important to to have the representation of that beautiful bride call at this broad base of the nonprofit world that is just those who are maybe just getting started in their garage or their bedroom or wherever they happen to be. But they have a passion for their mission and maybe those that are starting to add more and more volunteers. Perhaps that 1st, 2nd or third full time employee. But whatever it is, it is that beautiful broad base of the nonprofit world that we’re looking at

[00:06:15.87] spk_0:
11% were all volunteer. So just like a 10th or don’t even have full time employees. And I saw 49% have 10 full time employees or fewer, though perfectly in line with with our listeners. Now there are, there are large organizations represented over $50 million dollars in revenue. Um, if there are any of those folks listening, uh, let me know and I’ll shout you out because I bet I bet the list is small. Most of the vast, vast majority, vast, vast, overwhelming majority of our listeners are in small and mid size shop. So those are those who were, I’m channeling. Um, let’s define this. It was a little unusual to me the A. O. R. Which I look at as album oriented rock, but that’s because I work up, I was raised on rock and roll. So, but that’s not what you mean by a. O our annual operating revenue. So I mean is that annual budget sarah? Is that, is that annual budget or is that something different? What’s annual operating revenue? Because you segment by by this A. O. R. So it’s important for us to understand,

[00:06:45.95] spk_2:
so annual operating revenue, how much money folks are bringing in and then when we touch on budget, how much obviously they’re able to spend for the year. And I think some of the stuff that you just touched on and you’re talking about, like the volunteer numbers and everything that’s really going to come out when we get into some of the challenges. Some of those smaller organizations with uh, the smaller annual operating revenues are really going to be, um, feeling a little bit of a pinch in some of these areas that will take a look at. So I think it will definitely be some good data for the audience at home right now.

[00:06:59.70] spk_0:
Is it fair to just call? Not, I’m not going to change the term on you, but is it fair to call annual operating revenue? Like just annual fundraising revenue?

[00:07:08.94] spk_2:
Absolutely.

[00:07:09.64] spk_0:
It’s the fundraising revenue. Okay. Okay. Report calls it the uh annual operating revenue.

[00:07:16.56] spk_2:
Alright. Yeah.

[00:07:49.81] spk_0:
Okay. Um, so let’s dive in a bit. I see uh I see some challenges facing non profits of of all sizes really that this was, this was kind of interesting to me. Um, the the challenges that are rated sort of critical critical are definitely a concern. I mean they cut across all the, all the all the the annual operating revenue segments like donor engagement, all all all five of your segments, all six of your segments rate donor engagement as a, as a, as a top five problem. And donor fatigue shows up in five of the six categories. What do we do? What do we know about donor donor issues?

[00:09:13.98] spk_2:
Sure. So things things have Changed a lot since the last study. So the challenges that were related to planning around the pandemic dropped significantly because those were at the top of the list in the past couple of years surveys, but don’t get us wrong, like we’re not saying it’s not a challenge anymore. It’s obviously still a challenge, 71% reported that planning related to the pandemic was still challenging for them, But it dropped from number one to number 10 in the list. And those donor-related challenges that you just mentioned, those are coming back to the top. People are starting to feel a little bit of relief and they’re able to shift back to donor engagement worrying about hair. We fatiguing our donors with all of this messaging and everything that they’ve been through over the past few years and donor retention is coming back up into that top four to um recurring giving was something we saw that came out as a top challenge as well. And for the view of challenges that you’ll see in the report first where everything’s kind of rated, it was folks who rated items as critical, definitely a concern or somewhat a problem. And that’s where we came up with that donor engagement, donor fatigue, the recurring giving and donor retention were all there in the top four. So things have changed a lot steve, did you have anything like a little bit of color from the past or anything about like varying sizes? How that differed?

[00:09:31.07] spk_1:
Well, let’s start, let’s start with sizes. And then I think there is something to be learned as we look longitudinal e over the study over the past few years. But as we looked at non profits of varying sizes again by that annual operating revenue marker. Uh, that donut retention really fell into, became notable in the top two places for orders that were a million dollars A. O. R. And above. And then

[00:09:48.43] spk_0:
excuse

[00:10:15.24] spk_1:
me looking at the top three places really tony for most of the market. So we’ll call that the 350,000. 0. R. All the way up the scale. Um, recurring giving was something that became very much apparent in that. And, and I’ll say real quick, um, as your audience accesses this report and downloads it, there’s a, there’s a lot of data right in this one question and becomes v very visibly and visually better understood when you kind of see it, how we’ve laid it out. So I know we’re throwing a lot of numbers, a lot of information, but boy donor fatigue was definitely the top voiced concern that made it into the top five concerns for every segment every strata of the nonprofit nonprofit world. Um, what’s interesting about that for me

[00:10:41.49] spk_0:
though,

[00:11:03.24] spk_1:
is that while retention has a number, we can put on it. Um, while recurring giving has a number that we put on it, fatigue is a lot more of a perception metric. And uh, it’s, it’s interesting to me that, that, that had such important placed on that particular metric as you look at the data. Now, I’ll also say really quickly we saw staff turnover work its way into the top five challenges, especially as you kind of go up and that was for

[00:11:16.48] spk_0:
the larger staff turnover was

[00:11:18.39] spk_1:
you got it. Yeah,

[00:11:20.21] spk_0:
Over $50 million. They’ve got hundreds of employees

[00:11:24.88] spk_1:
well. And look what happened over the last two years. Right. I mean

[00:11:27.50] spk_0:
things talk

[00:11:54.70] spk_1:
about upset the apple cart, right. And that, that large organization perhaps felt the, the need for agility more and the need for finding out how do we get through this and with such a large staff, it’s just, it was, it was an unfortunate story. We don’t have to dwell on here today. The good news is that, um, is that those nonprofits are working through those challenges. I’ll also add that acquisition and management sponsors and sponsorships also is a challenge that we’ve tracked year over year every year, every year these last few years. And that has surfaced for a number of the segments of nonprofits. So there’s some other, there’s some other color there. But sarah, I’m sure you would agree having released the report yourself. It’s far more visually understood for, for those who can access this and download the report. Yeah,

[00:13:14.30] spk_2:
I agree. There are a lot of ways to look at, especially the challenges, um, by breaking it down by revenue level and looking at what’s critical are definitely a concern compared to having like the somewhat important mixed in there as well. But I do kind of want to touch on that donor fatigue because we have been hearing a lot about it and tony I don’t know if you’ve heard this throughout your career to that there’s, there’s been kind of a historical disconnect between nonprofits and donors when it comes to donor fatigue. I’ve done a few studies at various companies in the past where nonprofits said one thing they thought they were really fatiguing their donors and donors are like, no, you’re not. We want to hear more from you. But I think what it comes down to that’s important here is that you have to remember that the communications that you are sending out, if they’re engaging, they’re worthwhile, they’re giving something to your donor, then they’re not going to be fatigued. I know around like holiday giving season, even on linkedin. And I noticed there were a lot of folks popping on that consultant saying, I got this many emails from this, these nonprofits. It’s too many emails and only enough. A couple of donors popped and they were like, oh, I like getting those emails. They told me what was happening. Like how much they were raising from there giving Tuesday campaigns, etcetera. So as long as you’re giving them something that they want to hear. I think they’re going to stay engaged. They’re not going to get fatigued. Have you heard anything about that,

[00:13:53.67] spk_0:
uh, from some guests? Yes. Um, let’s first, let’s use this opportunity to remind folks or let them know where they can get the get the study because it’s, it’s very visually engaging as both of you have said. So. One cause dot com. And then where do we go after that?

[00:13:57.83] spk_2:
Sure. It’s one cause dot com backslash research. And you’ll find the study there. There are a lot of other resources on our website as well as well as past reports. So if you want to dig in and compare to past reports as well, they’re on that site.

[00:14:56.34] spk_0:
Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Um, All right. So this idea of the fatigue, you know, as as steve said, it’s it’s a perception. It’s it’s not something measurable, but it’s, it’s a perception internally. Right in in everybody’s office. What do you, what do you think is, what do you think is causing this idea that we’re fatiguing our donors where Sarah you’re saying they actually want more. And I’ve heard that also, I’ve heard that especially among among and about boards members that, you know, we’re giving our board members too much. No, actually, they want more because they’re your key volunteers. And they the fear is that you’re giving them too much. Um, so I’ve heard it in that respect, but we don’t have to, you know, we have to stick to board. I know that’s not your, that’s not the study, but that’s, that’s where I’ve heard it even even more? What do you think is causing this belief that we’re fatiguing folks

[00:15:24.30] spk_2:
right current state. I honestly think we all feel fatigued after going through a pandemic, going through you know political ups and downs. We’re still in this big mindset of uncertainty and I know everybody has heard that word 1000 times but it’s still there and it’s just making everyone feel very unsettled and very tired. So I think sometimes that just kind of bleeds over into our everyday interactions

[00:15:28.65] spk_0:
were contributing to it. Yeah we

[00:15:31.08] spk_2:
must be doing it too. We must be adding onto the pile but

[00:15:34.18] spk_0:
we see it we feel it we must be contributing to it because we send mail and email. Alright.

[00:15:39.80] spk_1:
tony I think I think I want to

[00:15:42.53] spk_0:
don’t be so hard on yourself basically.

[00:15:55.78] spk_1:
I want to jump in here real quick. I do wanna I do want to suggest here at this point that fatigue is a it’s a complex metric to unpack. It is not as simple. I mean I think we could probably spend the next hour kind of um in a conjecture of sorts of how to unpack this. But fatigue comes because as Sarah said it’s something we feel elsewhere. And so we translate that to I’m sending one emails to emails, five emails ergo my donor base must be fatigued.

[00:16:21.53] spk_0:
And

[00:16:42.39] spk_1:
when we actually look at the data as Sarah has said. In fact some of the great reports that we have available at one? Cause dot com actually give you the perspective of the donor as is our research done every spring. So this is the nonprofit voice every fall compare that to what’s going on in the spring with what donors are saying? Yes, they want the communication. I want to see those emails in my inbox and if I open up one or two of the five, it’s okay. I’ve heard from you and I can digest that you are not asking too much of me. You are not giving too much to me. It is not the fatigue level that perhaps we are putting on on our shoulders ourselves.

[00:17:04.36] spk_0:
Sarah, you have many years in your background with ford motor company, right? Oh, that’s steve I

[00:17:13.54] spk_1:
carry, you know, you mentioned that in the intro. I carry a good number of years in the automotive retail technology side. Um, and six years now or coming up on six years in the nonprofit world. Two very different worlds. But yes, go ahead. tony on.

[00:17:28.74] spk_0:
Do you know, does, does, does the ford motor company worry about fatiguing? It’s uh, potential customers like do they worry about sending too much buying too many ads? Sending too many messages to folks who have signed up? Does the ford motor company? Uh, do they worry about things like that?

[00:18:22.10] spk_1:
I would say in general, the automotive world perhaps. Um, let me say this first. Any good marketer understands the sensitivity around sending the right message at the right time to the right audience for the right response. Any good marketers, there are perhaps markets in our ecosystem in the world that are more sensitive to doing that and there are perhaps markets that are less sensitive to doing that. I do find that the automotive world sends a good number of emails and there perhaps, maybe those what you’re getting at, not as worried about fatiguing me at least as a recipient. So I’ll let you put a bow on that where you were headed. But

[00:18:53.72] spk_0:
No, that was it. I just, that was, that was my suspicion. But you know, I don’t talk to, uh, Fortune 100 folks, um, ever or even. So I was seeing it in your background. Uh, I was just curious about it. Um, let’s talk some about events. What Sarah, can you talk about, what, what, what is planned and I see more more hybrid being planned. Can you flush that out for us?

[00:19:51.24] spk_2:
Sure. I think if we start with a little bit of an overview from 2022, it’s a helpful kind of foundation. Um, so in 2020 to 95% of nonprofits who took this survey said that they held at least one online camp, 93% said they held at least one event in 2022. So vast majority of nonprofits there and that makes up the bulk of quite a few nonprofits fundraising budget, their revenue for the year. So 56% said that they raise 21% or more of their annual fundraising revenue from online and event fundraising. And an additional quarter of those nonprofits said that they raised 41% or more of their annual fundraising budget from event and online fundraising. So it’s huge. It’s very important. Um, and looking back at 2022, as far as how supporters participated in events, I think Steve Do you want to touch on that data for me?

[00:19:59.61] spk_1:
Sure, Sure, Absolutely. Yeah. This was really great to see tony So we asked these nonprofits, how did your supporters participate in your 2022 events and then followed up with how many of the following fundraising events do you plan to hold in 2023. So we have to look back, we have to look forward and again

[00:20:20.61] spk_0:
for

[00:20:47.57] spk_1:
Context, this question was asked an end market with the survey in September so nonprofits were giving us a good view into most of the year to 2022, but they were forecasting into 2023, still sitting in their third quarter of the year. So with that in mind, looking back in 2020 to 32% of nonprofits held in person only events. Now, just I let that just sit for a

[00:20:51.21] spk_0:
second and

[00:21:52.57] spk_1:
We look back in the rear view mirror a year or two and to consider how we were in 2020, early 2021. No way were one in three only having in person events. So what a great comeback in 2020-1 half of nonprofits, 56% did. In fact, as you said earlier, Tony Lean to that hybrid side, which is fantastic. So let me fill the blanks on the, on the rest here and I’ll come back to the hybrid 9% only virtual 4% no events at all. And for various reasons, I’m sure. But over 50% hybrid tells me a couple of things. You add the only in person and the 56% hybrid together and you have a mass of the, of the nonprofit world that is back in the ballroom. But so much of that is, is uh, an event that is in consideration of that virtual audience. So we learned from the last three years, we learned that people want to engage with with us differently. And so while we’re back in the ballroom, we’re not going to forget that virtual audience, we’re gonna include them. It may be for the whole event. It may not be for the whole event. It may just be for the appeal. It may be for other programming that we wanted to share with them. But the Great News is that we are back to the ballroom in 2022. Now that was of course last

[00:22:19.78] spk_0:
year, what

[00:22:31.18] spk_1:
about this year, september people are answering this survey and there’s looking forward and guess how many say we are going to hold an in person event, 83%. Look forward in time and with such confidence and Sarah maybe you can, you can elaborate on this. They’re willing to say that over 80% were absolutely back in the ballroom for at least one in person only event.

[00:22:59.78] spk_2:
Yeah, I think the confidence levels, that was a real takeaway for us. How much they changed confidence levels about in person events just kind of shot through the roof in this year’s survey. Um, nonprofits who said they were undecided about holding those in person events dropped to 8% this year, down from 20% in last year’s survey. So people are feeling really good about heading back to the ballroom. Like Steve said, uh,

[00:23:13.83] spk_0:
I, I saw that golf outings ranked as the number two most common event after after something social. So I’m assuming that’s a gala type event.

[00:23:25.60] spk_2:
Yes. I think that the in person auction events and then

[00:23:28.12] spk_0:
the person, we’re

[00:23:29.27] spk_2:
very successful as well. Yes, absolutely.

[00:23:43.28] spk_0:
Now golf outings and hybrid. I don’t know, can we, I don’t know are they playing like minute, are they playing golf? They have their favorite golf app or they, they’re, they’re in there, they’re in their stroke trainer, you know, maybe it’s videoing them while others are actually playing. I don’t know, can we do a golf outing hybrid.

[00:24:13.74] spk_2:
I have actually seen, I do not remember the name of the software or the company, but there was a virtual golf software that a nonprofit for an event. So I know it’s possible it’s out there. People really made some as we’ve all heard major pivots to, you know, fit the pandemic in our way of life changing. So it’s definitely out there. I’ll have to look into that and see if I can get that over,

[00:26:49.39] spk_0:
you know, the dinner, the dinner or the lunch after. I mean I could see that being a hybrid but I was just wondering about the golf experience itself. I don’t know, maybe golfers are out there with caMS on their GoPro’s on their heads or something. And so you vicariously. Oh, that shot sucked. Oh, you’re terrible camera to somebody else please. You’re awful. It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’m talking a lot about planned giving in January and February. I’ve got 15 webinars and podcasts on planned giving uh just in in these like not even the full two months. It’s more like six weeks january and early february. A cornucopia of webinars uh podcast, a prodigious profusion of podcasts. I’ve got coming up lots of content. Um, if you are at all interested in learning about the basics of planned giving, launching, planned giving at your nonprofit then you may very well be interested in this Horn of plenty of content that I’m doing with other folks who are hosting me for webinars and podcasts. You can keep abreast of what I’m doing by following on linkedin or maybe I should say more correctly connecting, connect with me on linkedin. Uh, follow me on twitter. And another way is you could sign up for the nonprofit radio Insider alerts at tony-martignetti dot com because I let folks know um, on that, who, who is hosting me and uh, where you can hear me speak. So if you are interested in launching planned, giving, planned, giving basics, I’m doing a lot of talking about that in january and early february. That is Tony’s take to imagine that We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for 2023 fundraising outlook with Steve and Sarah Sebastian, imagine that data, Let’s talk about data. You’re a data driven type organization and what, what, uh, you had some takeaways about data access.

[00:27:15.32] spk_2:
Yeah, I think this was our surprise, not surprise moment really when we were looking at data because we all know that a lot of nonprofits do struggle with data, whether there’s too much of it or what to do with it. Uh, so we found that making it accessible and actionable just continues to be a concern for nonprofits like, okay, yeah, we know that already. But when we actually saw the numbers, that was kind of the moment where everyone on our team Kind of got slack jawed whenever they heard the stats. Um, so only 18% of non profits who took the survey said that they actually have access to all of the data that they need 18%, that’s

[00:27:26.46] spk_0:
it and

[00:27:35.91] spk_2:
that they use it to make decisions. Um, and of course those smaller nonprofits did report having even less access to the data that they do need. So it’s a bit of a struggle and steve, I think, I know you have something to say,

[00:27:40.78] spk_1:
Oh, I always have something to say

[00:27:43.25] spk_0:
That that’s, that’s dismal. You know, one

[00:27:46.68] spk_1:
in five,

[00:27:47.80] spk_0:
one

[00:27:54.77] spk_1:
in five. Like if you’re sitting down around the table right with five nonprofits and one of them says I have all the data I

[00:27:55.86] spk_0:
need, I

[00:28:04.99] spk_1:
have it in the place where I need it and I have it served up to me in a way that I know what to do with it. Make a good decision. That’s dismal. That’s a great word for it.

[00:28:07.05] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:29:21.91] spk_1:
And then we looked at some other aspects to this tony and okay, if if you do have a lot of data, Then what’s holding you back from using it every day to make meaningful decisions in your fundraising strategy 26%. So again, another like, well in this case, one in four, I suppose roughly so that they don’t have the time to form the insights they have the data, but maybe it’s just it’s just a matter of time. We all get that we, especially your audience, as you said, the smaller nonprofit world is there’s never enough time in the day. So I think there’s an opportunity for us, especially as you said as our data providers, technology providers that, that work off the data serve up data help nonprofits live off data. We need to serve it up in a way that makes sense that it doesn’t take time. Another one that I’ll share another one in five said that they don’t know how to form actionable insights. Okay. So I have the data, but again, it’s, it’s, it’s not and it may even be like right there for me, I don’t even need the time to go dig, you know into it and pull a report and compare and pivot tables and all the, I just don’t even know how to form an actionable insight based on what I’m given. Again, I believe that this is on us and our world to say here is what your auction data is telling you

[00:29:35.32] spk_0:
this is a data literacy issue. Then people not feeling comfortable making conclusions from the data that they do have. Is that isn’t that that data literacy,

[00:31:16.58] spk_2:
I think to some extent it is. But I also think the data can be intimidating just because there’s so much that can be measured and there’s, there are a lot of numbers obviously coming out of fundraising. What do I do with all of this? And I think people, especially non profits, you know, they have big jobs, they’re trying to make the world a better place. They want to do big things. And I think when you’re looking at data, you have to narrow and pick something small first and focus on that. Okay, I’ve got this piece master now I can pick another metric and focus on that. And I guess trying to give an example of that if you have part of your fundraising strategies to boost your recurring revenue this year. Great. Okay, where do I start? What do I do? What data do I look at start by going into your crm and looking at donors from 2022 who gave maybe three or four times. And I use myself as an example for this because this happened to me, I gave I think four or five times two best friend animal at best Friends animal society last year, just throughout the year as I was giving an honor of friends, pets, my pets, etcetera. They called me after running a little campaign and said, Hey, you know, we noticed that you’ve offered ongoing support last year, thank you for these gifts of these amounts. Would you consider becoming a recurring donor at $25 a month? Why not sure I can, I can spare that. Great. And even with just those little incremental increases across a couple of 100 people, you’re boosting your revenue there. Alright, you’ve boosted revenue using this one small metric that you focus in on what can you do next. So start small. Don’t get too overwhelmed to try to find somewhere to start, got to start somewhere.

[00:31:23.02] spk_0:
Let me give you a generous softball shameless self promotion opportunity because we’re talking about data being overwhelming and, and, and uh, like frustrating, how does, uh, how does one cause overcome that?

[00:31:44.28] spk_2:
I

[00:31:44.45] spk_0:
think the great,

[00:32:02.93] spk_1:
the great news is we help in a lot of ways. I mean we help connect nonprofits with more donors. We help that connection be meaningful in a way that it, it truly helps them engage with those donors. And we talked, we talked about donor engagement back when we were looking at that Finding around challenges, Tony Right. And so once we connect with more donors and engage with more donors and do that through a number of different ways to fundraise. That’s one of the things that we found and maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here. But I know we’ll talk about priorities for 2023 that nonprofits had told us about.

[00:32:21.12] spk_0:
But looking

[00:33:36.68] spk_1:
at new ways to fundraise to find new donors, acquire new donors and then use that engagement to retain those donors are nonprofits find that they are more highly satisfied with the technology that they acquire that they, that they purchase, that they use every day. And uh, it drives our mission and that’s what it’s all about. I I tell, I’ll give you a little anecdote here. tony but tomorrow and every Tuesday first Tuesday of the month. I help onboard new 11 cost team members that join our company. And I tell them, hey, you’re gonna have its work. You’re gonna have a bad day every now and then. But what we do, even on those bad days, we help make sure that another child is educated, another family is fed. We’re taking two steps closer to just finding that cure. Right? And this is all executed through these amazing nonprofits, all over the nation. How do we get involved with that? Exactly what I shared with you before, helping nonprofits find those donors engage those donors retain those donors and building a wonderful relationship that helps build a better tomorrow. Softball question back at you. Nobody

[00:33:38.05] spk_0:
answered. I was waiting. Yeah, I’m glad you. Thank you for stepping

[00:34:32.11] spk_2:
up. I do have something. I think since I just started talking about focusing on small things, something popped into my head while steve was talking about connecting with more donors. We run a campaign every year called in detectives where companies sign up and fundraise for nonprofits in the Indianapolis area. Um, and we use our peer to peer system for that. So we get in there, we use it, we fundraise for, we would fundraise fundraise for make a Wish Foundation this past year and looking even in just our peer to peer tools, we’re talking about starting small, There are little data points in there. Even for our donors where you can trap how far your social posts are reaching, how far different campaigns are reaching. So even donors can look and see what’s working to get the word out about a campaign and shift their strategies to use that particular social platform or that particular technique. So there are things built in throughout the system to even help donors analyze data, which I think is really interesting and something I haven’t seen with a lot of other fundraising platforms to be honest. So I think there’s something helpful there.

[00:34:45.38] spk_0:
Thank you. Alright, let’s let’s let’s go back to the, to the fundraising outlook. What are their takeaways are there that we haven’t talked about yet that you like to highlight you think are important for small and midsize shops to know the benchmark against.

[00:36:55.44] spk_2:
Sure, I think I would like to touch back on the hybrid fundraising aspect quickly, Quickly calling out again, steve touched on that 56% held hybrid events in 2020 to 32% held in person And looking at 2023 as nonprofits were looking ahead 45% said they were going to be holding hybrid events in 2023, which is really good to hear. Um, those hybrid and in person events were what we saw as most successful budget wise, performing against budget. And when we looked at, um, how they were performing against their budget was 80% who held either an in person or hybrid event reported that they were raising in line or more than their budget for the year. So great. We definitely want to focus on in person and hybrid. But I think Steve touched on this point a little bit The good part about this is that people are listening to donors. He mentioned some earlier research we had done with giving experience study earlier in the year where we get donor perspective on everything. And in that particular report, 56% of event donors said that they wanted some sort of virtual option. So I think that’s something that’s really important for nonprofits of all sizes to listen to, especially the small and midsize shops. We understand that hosting a hybrid event, there’s a lot of work. It’s, it’s tough. We held our race conference was hybrid this last year and it was hard. So definitely empathize with that. And but you’ve got to listen. It’s worth the effort if your donors are telling you this is what they want to give it a shot. Look at that event calendar. See if you can fit in some sort of virtual option in there somewhere. If it’s not on there now because that’s what people are saying they want to do this year. And of course keep an eye on the news because we know we’ve been hearing from here and there. There’s some, some numbers numbers going back up with covid cases, fingers crossed. Of course we don’t want anything to happen. But in the event that it does, It’s good to have that in your back pocket as an option for your donors.

[00:37:03.27] spk_0:
Do you think it’s worth surveying.

[00:37:06.20] spk_2:
Absolutely.

[00:37:26.27] spk_0:
Or do or donors like is everybody going to say I want the hybrid option. But then the fewer people actually sign up for it once it’s offered, everybody wants the option and then we set it up. We spend the money on the production and the platform. And, and then a disappointing number of people actually subscribe to it, join the stream. What do you what do you think? Yeah,

[00:37:46.92] spk_2:
I agree with that. That is kind of a sticking point when planning events as well. But if people have been telling us this is what they want, give it a shot. If it’s a total flop, then, you know, but I do agree that serving finding out what people want to do. Sometimes people are going to say yes and then they change their minds. I mean people change their minds all the time. You never know. But we have had customers who have said when they did offer that virtual option, they even wound up just getting donations from people who couldn’t attend the event in person and didn’t wind up, you know, going the virtual route. So offering that donation option along with that registration could be a possible solution to that as well to make up some of that. If people decide they’re not going to go the virtual route?

[00:38:16.65] spk_0:
I I saw that um, the fundraising, the priorities

[00:38:20.55] spk_2:
looking

[00:38:36.37] spk_0:
Forward are consistent with the challenges. So that’s that’s good. Our our community is aligned with what they see, where they see problems and where they know they have to focus. So 97% of of your respondents said that donor acquisition is going to be a key focus. I mean that, you know, it may as well call it 100% and nine right. If we’re going around 8 92 900 we could certainly around 97 to 100. Um and 96% right is right there to say donor retention is a key focus areas. So it’s gratifying to see that priorities are in line with the

[00:38:58.80] spk_1:
challenges.

[00:39:00.00] spk_0:
We’re rational, we’re all rational.

[00:39:02.17] spk_2:
It makes

[00:39:03.47] spk_0:
sense that the actor, a bunch of rational actors

[00:39:39.41] spk_2:
Um outside of those, I wanted to run through the top priorities really quickly because there’s some interesting differences in how folks rated those. So you touched on the top two. Um, next up was increasing funds from existing campaigns and that was, that was pretty high as well, 93% said that there was a priority and these were ranked as critical or important by folks who responded. Um, then there’s kind of a draft in the rate here, new ways to fundraise came in at about 82%, a little bit above that was operational efficiency and effectiveness at 84 and I find that kind of interesting

[00:39:41.84] spk_0:
because

[00:40:09.51] spk_2:
you know, if you’re focusing on operational efficiency and effectiveness, there’s probably gonna be a little bit more time in your day to focus on donor acquisition and retention. But there’s kind of this vicious cycle and all of these little things that go into that because we just talked about people being short on resources short on time so they can’t get to focusing on the operational efficiency. So I think there’s some work to be done and figuring out how to address all of these challenges and priorities in a way that’s beneficial to everybody and especially for these small and mid sized shops that are struggling with the resources and I know steve and I have talked about new ways to fundraise and how that can help with the donor attention in the acquisition as well as you want to.

[00:40:39.93] spk_1:
Yeah, I mean that’s that’s the diamond in the rough, as far as I’m concerned because we’re looking at it, this is nothing shiny at this point. It’s 82% for new raise to fundraise when we’re looking at 97% for donor acquisition, but it’s very possible that the new ways to fundraise and, and I think what we tend to do tony we tend to imagine the worst possible scenario, right. If I look into a new way to

[00:40:50.59] spk_0:
fundraise, it’s

[00:41:48.03] spk_1:
gonna take loads more time that I don’t have, it’s gonna take a lot more effort that that I just, I’m not ready to give. It’s gonna, it’s gonna expose me to all kinds of distractions. Uh, let’s go back to something, Sarah said, how about we start small? There are there are fundraising platforms available that allow you to break out of just the event type of fundraising And we then elements appear to peer weave in elements of social fundraising. Be able to tie together your online with your event efforts so that perhaps you are able to, by using new ways to fundraise, acquire new donors, retain some of those same donors because you’re doing it in a slightly different way where you might actually engage them differently. So I would, I would encourage your audience to consider. Okay, what is available to me that I might be able to try a slightly different way to fundraise, engage a slightly different audience and in fact, I may end up acquiring those new donors and retaining my current donors at the end of the day. Even better.

[00:42:08.34] spk_0:
All right, what else? We have some good amount of time left. If we, if we like any, any other stuff that uh, we haven’t talked about that you think is important for folks to know anything else from the study? Let me just remind folks you can get it at one cause dot com slash research. It’s the 2023 fundraising outlook.

[00:42:23.94] spk_2:
Perfect. Anything

[00:42:25.35] spk_0:
else?

[00:42:25.65] spk_1:
I’ll add something. Let’s go back. Let’s go back to challenges real quick, just for just for a minute. And

[00:42:32.02] spk_0:
this is gonna

[00:42:33.23] spk_1:
sound, this is gonna sound a little bit perhaps initially on the negative side, but I’m going to try to turn it into a little bit of a sunrise for us and end on something inspirational. Um, I’ve had the privilege of running this survey for I think I said five years now, five or six

[00:42:51.04] spk_0:
years

[00:42:51.97] spk_1:
And one of the things Tony that we do is we take that question around challenges. And we, we talked about this right donor fatigue, donor engagement retention, recurring giving, etc. And, and there are 13 different challenges that we asked non profit respondents to rate individually so we can track those as individual challenges.

[00:43:13.35] spk_0:
We can

[00:43:13.77] spk_1:
also track them as a collective level of challenge that the nonprofit says, hey, this is my

[00:43:20.98] spk_0:
overall

[00:43:22.26] spk_1:
level of challenge this

[00:43:24.49] spk_0:
year.

[00:43:51.86] spk_1:
We take that average across the entire respondent base. We’ll call it 900 and we’ll link that back to what things look like in 2021 and we can compare that average as well to 2020 and a 2019. And what’s really interesting to me. So two points first one again, perhaps on the surface a little negative is that those challenges are getting more intense. The average of those 13 challenges year over year, the relative rating of those challenges is increasing year over year over

[00:44:00.65] spk_2:
year. I

[00:44:02.10] spk_1:
Would have thought initially that 2020 would have been defining the ceiling and perhaps 2021 a little less and 2022 a little less. That’s not the trend. The trend is actually showing more intense challenges for our nonprofits.

[00:44:20.49] spk_0:
The good

[00:44:21.01] spk_1:
news is that we have data like this report and other reports out there that help us focus in on that right step that, that next right step and how to understand that Sarah was saying to find that one metric, maybe it’s around recurring giving, maybe it’s around looking at my, my uh, tech acquisition. Uh, there’s all kinds of things in this report that we’re not obviously covering in in these few minutes, but

[00:44:50.45] spk_0:
take

[00:45:29.16] spk_1:
This report, find that one or two next steps that you can actually move against in 2023 and watch yourself move be pulled out of those challenges in that one area. Are you going to improve every area? Probably not because not one of us can do everything. But the good news is that we have a clear path to make good decisions to see what our peers are doing with through research reports like this, see what the rest of the nonprofit world is doing, where they’re succeeding and we can point our ship there and really look to succeed even if it’s in small ways in 2023. So that’s, that’s probably my, my, my message of hope and inspiration using something as as, uh, as vanilla as data. But boy, it really opens up the opportunity for us to see what we need to do next. What step we want to take and where we can make progress in the next year.

[00:45:48.63] spk_0:
Anything that sounds like, you know the way one cause hopes that you will use their 20, fundraising outlook. Sarah, what would you like to leave this with?

[00:46:58.64] spk_2:
I kind of wanted to touch on steve mentioned tech acquisition and there’s something in the report about shifts in nonprofit technology investment. I would love for people to kind of look at the particular chart for that. I think about it. I’m looking at it right now on my other monitor actually and there are 36% of nonprofits saying that they’re going to invest more in marketing automation. So that’s kind of in line with, you know, the donor acquisition piece we were talking about in the challenges etcetera. And I’m interested to see, you know, what is the R. O. I. On this once this year happens? How do people use it? Was it effective for them? Did they feel like they had enough training? Were they able to use it? Because I don’t really want people to fall into that hole of, here’s the data and now I don’t know what to do with it. So I’m interested to see if there are enough resources out there for folks related to that marketing automation. Are they getting the training? They need to know how to use it effectively. Um I’m just interested to see next year’s results I guess is what I’m trying to say, but I do kind of want to echo steve’s message. I I want nonprofits to know they’re not Lonely islands. There are other nonprofits out there who are obviously facing similar challenges and looking for solutions. Talk to other nonprofits, talk to your peers, uh something that may have worked for them, may work for you, something that works for, you may work for them. So really rely on your community to talk through solutions that you’ve been working through and share the wealth of those ideas because we’re all in it for the same reason and that’s to make lives better for everyone. So definitely share the knowledge.

[00:47:29.48] spk_0:
Alright, messages of hope and inspiration

[00:47:33.08] spk_2:
from

[00:47:34.25] spk_0:
from two directors at one Cause Sarah Sebastian Director of corporate communications steve Lauch, Director of product marketing. The company is at one cause and at one Cause dot com, The report is the 2023 fundraising outlook, steve, Sarah Sarah steve, thank you very much. Real pleasure.

[00:47:55.96] spk_1:
Thanks for having us

[00:47:57.13] spk_2:
appreciate it

[00:48:21.15] spk_0:
next week, purchasing pro tips If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%, go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for November 30, 2020: Virtual Event Engagement & Personalized Video

My Guests:

Mike Wilkinson & Joshua Meyer: Virtual Event Engagement
Virtual events are routine now and there’s good reason to believe they’ll outlive the pandemic. We’ve got you covered with pre-, intra- and post-event strategies to maximize engagement and raise more money. Our panel is Mike Wilkinson from Human Rights Campaign and Joshua Meyer at OneCause.

Mike Wilkinson from Human Rights Campaign

Joshua Meyer at OneCause

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Barnett: Personalized Video
Matt Barnett explains the benefits and use cases for short videos that grab attention and thrill recipients. Think volunteers, prospects, donors and anyone you want to feel special. Matt is at Bonjoro.

 

 

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[00:02:44.94] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Yes, Abdominal has made it into the introduction and exalted August position indeed. Welcome. Heh Abdominal. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with Bala Muthiah Mandrell, Aris if you exposed me to the idea that you missed this week’s show virtual event engagement. Virtual events are routine now, and there’s good reason to believe they’ll outlive the pandemic. We’ve got you covered with pre intra and post event strategies to maximize engagement and raise more money. Our panel is Mike Wilkinson from Human Rights Campaign and Joshua Meyer at one Cause and Personalized Video. Matt Barnett explains the benefits and use cases for short videos that grab attention and thrill Recipients think volunteers, prospects, donors and anyone you want to feel special. Matt is with bon jour. Oh Antonis, take to my December Webinar were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives Prospect to donor simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month. Here is virtual event engagement. It’s my pleasure to welcome Mike Wilkinson and Josh Meyer to non profit radio. Mike is deputy director of events at Human Rights Campaign. He and his team organized over 30 annual events nationwide. He previously worked for the National Kidney Foundation and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. HRC is that, HRC dot or GE? And at HRC? Joshua Meyer is senior director of marketing at one cause. He has two decades of fundraising, volunteer management and marketing experience. He started his non profit career at Human Rights Campaign. The company is that one cause dot com and at one cause Mike Josh, welcome to non profit radio. It’s

[00:02:45.10] spk_1:
great to be here. Thanks for having us, tony

[00:02:47.05] spk_0:
E. Have you back now? We had originally recorded this as part of the non profit technology conference when events were still face to face and we were talking about digital engagement for your face to face in person events. Obviously, Josh, you’ve seen lots of clients. Well, all clients, I suppose, either move or cancel events. I mean, there’s all that is the only two options in today’s world, Um, but there’s still a lot we could do around Digital to keep people engaged pre during and after, right?

[00:03:21.14] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s that’s for sure. I think back in March, we had a weekend with hundreds of events ready to go, and it went down to zero. But I think what What was really interesting is that, you know, non profits are so resilient and they quickly figured out that they had to sort of make this ritual pivot, right. And we’ve seen a lot of that Ana here one cause we become sort of focused on virtual. First Way had these long standing in person fundraising events sort of moved to a virtual virtual format on dso they all. They all get it. And I think I’m really excited. Toe have Mike share sort of what they’ve done over at H. I see, you know, as their sort of moving the virtual, the next thing now is really like, how do we engage people? Right? What’s the social engagement component of these of these virtual fundraisers, and how are they? How do we get the people who are watching from their living rooms right to get involved right in this, uh, this virtual program. So there’s all sorts of neat things that we’re excited to share about.

[00:04:24.77] spk_0:
Yeah. Cool, Mike. What did you see initially? A T h R c where you did you see declines in in, uh, event attendance initially when you moved online, and then now you’ve gotten smarter and you’re seeing increases.

[00:05:35.24] spk_2:
So initially, I’d say, you know, our approach was we sort of had, you know, money in the bank already for some of these fundraising events. So we used that as an opportunity to do some testing on virtual events. You know, we already had, um, some results for events that have been canceled. We had folks that are sort of like, wait a minute, I paid money for this event and, you know, as a charity, they want us to keep the money, but they want something for it s oh, we did two events in, uh, April and may, um, that were events that pretty much were carry overs from in person events. And we learned a lot from those events. Um, I wouldn’t say that we saw a decrease in attendance from the event, but I will say, um, you don’t have the attention span that you have for a Nen person event. That immersive nous to it is just not there. So you have to do a lot of work up front in order to get folks to be excited to actually participate in the virtual event.

[00:05:58.24] spk_0:
Have you found there’s an ideal duration or just vary by type of event? I mean, I’ve been hearing like 45 minutes, even less than an hour. People are seeming thio, seeming thio, seeming to seem to prefer.

[00:06:10.24] spk_2:
Yeah, I mean, I would say unless you have fee like blockbuster capabilities of, ah, Hollywood studio, you’re not going to keep anybody for longer than a now, er, like they’re just not going to do it because it’s not that interesting. You know, I think I think 45 minutes is a good amount of time. I think, um, we had one signature event that I think we’ll probably talk about here a little bit that went a little bit longer. That had a big national scope. But yeah, you have to be very, um, reserved in the amount of content that you present to the audience because they’re going to be paying attention to Onley pieces of

[00:06:50.64] spk_0:
it. All right, Josh, why don’t you start us with, you know? So we’ll do this, like, pre during and post event. Um, you have ideas around SMS texting?

[00:07:01.92] spk_1:
Yes. So we’ve seen texting, um, both to drive attendance. Right, But also engagement, um, at the event. I think the other thing that we’re seeing pre is this this sort of change on? Mostly, uh, you typically pay for one of these fundraising events, right? If you’re going in person and we’re seeing sort of a change in that people are organizations are charging them or they’re not charging. They’re trying. They’re using them Is broader engagement tools, um, to get sort of general membership. But maybe also major donors involved. Whereas typically, sometimes these gallons would focus more like the major donors set Onda as a result of that, then they’re also sort of layering in. And Mike and his team did a really interesting thing there, which is sort of doing tear. So there’s like, a free tier for ticketing. But then there’s also like you could upgrade paid, uh, ticket that got you some sort of swag or some sort of premium that they would send you afterwards, right? And so I think that’s when you’re kind of looking at sort of your driving attendance. And how do you factor in where you traditionally see revenue coming from from tickets? How do you should have recruit some of that that revenue and as part of your fundraising stream on driving through actual ticket sales and our engagement that day of using SMS Thio get people to engage like I don’t know if you wanna talk a little bit more about how you guys did, um, ticketing. But also e think it was really interesting the ambassador fundraising that you guys around your table captains?

[00:10:01.14] spk_2:
Yeah, certainly eso to Joshua’s sort of lead into that. We did realize that the really powerful capability of the reach that this messaging can have, Um, you know, people talk about it like this mystical thing, but it’s fairly obvious a virtual event. You don’t have to travel to it. Um, it removes some barriers to attendance. So, um, you know, I work in a division called Development and Membership Development being high dollar fundraising and membership being probably your $10 a month monthly donors, you know, we would not see a lot of those $10 donors in our ballrooms each night. So what we were able to do is create a new event that will merge both of these fundraising techniques together. Whereas we provided ways for folks who are smaller dollar donors to participate in the event at low to no cost at all way really brought in the messaging on dhe. This came at a really key time in our mission because, you know, we’re in election polit political organization, so that election was coming up and it was important to get our message is why it is possible. But we also wanted to provide opportunities for those folks who were giving us, you know, $100 well, over $100 you know, each month to participate as well. So we sort of did this thing called the Quality Captain, which is a peer to peer ambassador fundraising campaign. We allow people to set up fundraising pages and ask their friends, colleagues, co workers to support them. And really, since there’s no table for them to come and sit at, this is the spot that we said, Hey, this is where you tell your story. This is where you put your personality into this event, and it really worked very well. So

[00:10:49.54] spk_0:
Okay, let’s take a little step back just to get some mechanics down. So you’re you’re collecting cell numbers at the time of registration. Are you giving people an option thio to receive these text messages about the event, or do you just ask for the phone number?

[00:10:57.44] spk_2:
Yeah. So at the time that people registered, we did ask for their cell phone number on dhe. Then, you know, sort of told them that in participating in this event, you’re going to receive text messages. Uh, yeah. Folks that have attended in the past are pretty used to this because one cost has had a long history of doing this in with the event on dhe. You know, at any point, someone can opt out of this, but we did say, giving us your cell phone number and we will be texting.

[00:11:27.04] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Um, so let’s not Let’s not focus just on this large event, but you You’ve been doing lots of smaller events also since since March, right? Virtual events

[00:11:38.20] spk_2:
know what we did was we decided that rather than tests or organizational capacity. And do you know, 30 events across the country? We were going to use the leadership structure to focus on this one large event in September.

[00:12:05.84] spk_0:
All right? And and the event was in. I’m sorry. You just said in September September Okay? Okay. Mhm. Okay, um, Josh, anything more about the pre pre event phase? I mean, well, yeah, give me some insight. Like, how often are people getting messages before the event?

[00:12:26.54] spk_1:
You know, I think it varies with the organization, right? And I think it sort of depends on how you’re using it, right? We’re seeing, sort of. I think there’s probably too tight right there is sort of the messaging to try and get people to purchase the tickets or just to pre register. And then I think there’s the messaging sort of that happens the day of to get people engaged in the fundraiser, right? So there’s usually a set period of time when the sort of the program, right, so that virtual livestream is happening on dso. You wanna make sure that you get as many people there, you know, engaged in the live programming as possible, so I think there’s, you know, oftentimes a couple a couple of text messages that lead up to that. But then there’s usually fundraising components that are happening in tandem. Right? So we talked about ticketing, right? So that would be sort of, you know, prior to the day of to try and get people to purchase registrations. Often times we’re seeing our clients, um, set these virtual events up in tandem with online auctions. Right? And so there’s messaging around that on dhe. Then, you know, depending on the software people are using, right, as people are engaging in these online auctions right there getting automatic text messages. So the text messaging is, um you know, it sort of varies depending on what the organization is trying to accomplish at at the different points leading up to that event.

[00:13:36.94] spk_0:
Okay, okay. Eso then let’s let’s do during the event. So the event is live Now, folks are are on. Um, Mike, how many people did you have? A tw the peak.

[00:13:55.24] spk_2:
So we had I want to say we had 2000 people pre register for the event. Additionally, we live streamed the event on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. So Let’s say we probably had about 8000 people viewing at the peak. Um, okay, Of those 8000, those 2000 pre registrants are the ones that received text messages to engage further with us.

[00:14:19.04] spk_0:
Alright, and just for a little more context, how many of the 2000 that preregistered were were, uh, had paid? Versus were the free free tier. We had

[00:14:31.25] spk_2:
about 70% that were free on bond. We had 30% that were paid.

[00:15:16.54] spk_0:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. They have relationships with journalists because of the trust they’ve built with reporters and editors and outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Turn two is the first call these outlets make when they are sourcing stories on charitable giving, non profit trends and philanthropy. That means you get first crack at first class media exposure. The right turn hyphen two dot CEO. Now back to virtual event engagement. Give us a little more detail About what? What you got If you if you paid, was probably was it more than just Mike? I’m sorry. Josh mentioned swag, but what else What else did you get if you paid for the event?

[00:15:31.43] spk_2:
Yeah, we branded some really great merchandise packages. You know what’s great if the human rights campaign is We have a very strong brand that people identify with eso. We made some commemorative pieces. Um, and, you know, way sort of have different tiers. Where if you gave $35 you got a bandanna. Non. If you gave $50 you got the band and in the face mask. And the more that you gave, the more stuff that you received. So

[00:15:58.89] spk_0:
Okay, so it was OK. There was swag was ultra ultra swag.

[00:16:03.17] spk_2:
I wouldn’t say it’s like trade show giveaways. I would say stuff that you would probably walk into a store on 12 purchase. So

[00:16:10.95] spk_0:
okay. And strong brand. So loyal, loyal folks who would like to have a commemorative pieces. All right, All right, So now, Mike. All right, so during the event, what kinds of text messages or folks getting?

[00:16:26.34] spk_2:
There were two primary ways that you could support us during the event. Um, it is to bid in the auction that was online or to make a contribution. So folks were receiving text messages at key points in the run of show so that they would either a place a bit or make a you shot.

[00:16:47.64] spk_0:
Oh, what was the content for the? Was this a 45 minute event?

[00:16:52.54] spk_2:
So the event in September was a little bit longer because it was their national event. You

[00:16:58.63] spk_0:
did say that. I’m sorry.

[00:16:59.59] spk_2:
Thats one is a signature event, and people were really excited about it. So, um, you know, to your point, you know, folks that didn’t pay any money for this event, we assumed that they had a lower investment in attending at all. So those folks were invited to what I would probably call the main stage event, and that lasted for one hour. Um, for folks that were donors to the organization or who bought one of those ticket packages, that’s a clear indication that they’re very interested in seeing mawr. So they were invited to see additional content. That was 30 minutes in advance of the event. And this is really cool, because this 30 minute, um, basically VIPs section of the content was designed with, like a behind the scenes sort of look. So they got to sort of see how the virtual event was running. And some really specialized content focused on their deeper connection to the organization.

[00:17:58.44] spk_0:
Oh, including how the event was running. So they saw some backstage

[00:18:02.40] spk_2:
s. So we had some backstage elements backstage. Pass. Yeah,

[00:18:08.74] spk_0:
Okay. And what was the what was the main stage content?

[00:18:12.22] spk_2:
So the main stage content highlighted are really strong video packages we’ve even before the pandemic. We have very strong video content that’s very impactful. That really talks about the state of the movement, why you should get involved. We also pared those with a lot of celebrity messages and performances so that we were able Thio have some folks that folk that people recognized that really were boasting or cause. We have a long history of always having celebrity guests that are event. So this one was an opportunity. Instead of just seeing one celebrity guests, you got to see basically 15 of them really talking about why the cause was important.

[00:19:10.54] spk_0:
And I’m hearing that prerecorded content is valuable, takes a lot of pressure off. The folks running the show toe have to switch back and forth between live live appearances. Did did you have? Ah, do you have a mix of pre recorded in and live content or was mostly pre recorded? That’s what I’ve been hearing about pre recorded.

[00:19:14.65] spk_2:
Yeah, So I would say we’re probably about 60 40. Prerecorded content, 60%. 40% live. You know, we have found that pre recorded messages air great. But our mission sits on the cusp of history every day. And when something happens in politics, when you know who tweets something out ridiculous. We have to. We have to. We have to be responsive to that in our programming. So, um, some live, some live elements were absolutely necessary and honestly, like that takes a lot of the pressure off of us to use our crystal ball, which these days is so much more fuzzy than it used to be on be able to really resonate with folks hurt what folks heard in the news and what’s affecting them that day. But that doesn’t mean that, like the prerecorded content was bad at it just means that, you know, we were able to get some of these messages from folks that are celebrities or friends of the organization in advance and piece it all together in a way that worked. This

[00:20:12.74] spk_0:
seems like a good time for you to explain quickly. What? What HRC does for folks who don’t know. Human rights campaign. You have a lackluster host. Ah, good host would have asked you that at the beginning s, uh, but make up for my shortcomings, Would you?

[00:20:27.94] spk_2:
Yeah. So the human Rights campaign were a 501 c for charity, and what that means is that we are engaged in political work that advances the right of LGBTQ people across the country s Oh, this is a little bit different than 501 C three. Work where political work is not allowed. We are the kind of the opposite of that. You know, we still are designated as a charity. There’s some some differences with the way gifts or processed. Um, but, you know, we’re allowed to go out and say we think that this is the issue that should be report. This is the issue that should be pushed through Congress. Your local legislature. This is the This is tthe e candidate, that candidate or, you know, current, um, elected official. That’s going to do that so whereas in a 51 C three like that’s sort of off limits.

[00:21:19.41] spk_0:
Or mostly, I mean, you’re limited to the percentage of your you said at key moments. Folks got fundraising messages or maybe auction messages. How did you How did you time those to the content? What’s the relationship there?

[00:21:38.84] spk_2:
Well, we did do actually live fundraising appeal where, you know, folks were able Thio, you know, make a donation on their smartphone. And we had a large thermometer up there that showed how many people across the country were making donations. Um, and you know that that was always a really successful fundraising technique in person, and I continue to be so in the virtual world. We just had to make sure that we had the magic formula to get people to that moment in the program so that they were ready to give. There’s nothing different about that. You just have to think about what that means in a virtual world, starting with the first time that someone learns about your event,

[00:22:27.94] spk_0:
let’s lay concerns about, uh, folks maybe feeling like they got too many messages and opting out. What? What did you see in terms of people and any any time during the during the process before, during or after the show opting out of these SMS messages.

[00:22:47.14] spk_2:
So we get very few complaints about books in during the run time of the event, receiving too many text messages, I’d say maybe we get comments that there are a lot of text messages, but nobody’s mad at us. You know, folks sort of when they sign up for an event, realized that they are asking for a high level of engagement. So during the run town time of the event, um, it’s very difficult to over communicate with them. Um, you know, we have to pay attention to in advance of the event, like how often we talk to them. I would say we probably started about 10 days out with a message launching the auction on then maybe one or two reminders about what’s going on so that they could get get ready for the event, and some of these text messages are people were waiting for because it included information on how to do things like actually watch the live stream and stuff like this. So some of them were very nuts and bolts types of messages. They weren’t just Always give us money. Give us money. It’s like, Okay, you purchased two in a ticket. A ticket to this event. This is how you get in, you know? So

[00:23:47.24] spk_0:
Okay, Now, will you also emailing or this is strictly SMS.

[00:23:52.64] spk_2:
Absolutely. So we sent emails as well. You know, you’re obviously able to put more detail into email. Um, you know, I find that email is really tough these days just because there’s so much noise. You know, you’re lucky if you get somebody to even get their email on their high priority inbox and they get filtered a lot. So there are a lot of folks that do you read our emails, but there’s a lot of folks that that’s not how they found us. So they’re not receiving those emails. You gotta get really creative on how you reach out to folks.

[00:24:24.34] spk_0:
Okay? And but so the more immediate ones, like during the show that was that. I’m guessing that was exclusively texts. You weren’t sending emails that. Okay,

[00:24:34.46] spk_1:
Okay. E think One of the other avenues that we have at our availability right is also live chat, right So you have. You can sort of push that text message right to someone’s phone during, ah, virtual event. But we’re also seeing a lot of our clients engage in sort of live chat that’s like built into the page, right? So So as people are watching the converse watching the show, they’re able tohave conversations or they’re able to make comments. Or they’re able to actually engage to the school with the speakers or the organization on DSO. There’s that’s another sort of avenue we’re seeing organization sort of really harness in. Some cases were actually having, like, there’s a staff person whose sole responsibility at the virtual event is to monitor the chat and thio, address any donor questions or also to just really pump the pump. The people that are watching the show up right, like get them engaged on dhe sort of start the conversation. Uh, you know, somebody what you would do you see, like in a live event at at a table, right? People are commenting and watching and engaging on the show, and we feel like that sort of helps. It helps the fundraising in the long

[00:25:51.44] spk_0:
term. And Josh, I’m assuming one cause is a is a platform that offers this these functionalities that we’re talking about.

[00:25:59.64] spk_1:
It is Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do offer virtual virtual event center, sort of ties all that together on DSO. I think, you know, there’s there’s a couple other components depending on sort of what you’re looking, um, at accomplishing or how you want to set up your event. We definitely can help you with that, but yeah, I think between text messaging, the live chat, virtual streaming or even sort of broadcasting pre recorded videos as we just talked about, you know, we have We have tools to help nonprofit organizations make that really easy on. Really, really smooth. If they’re if they’re looking to make the move from in person toe virtual event,

[00:26:38.94] spk_0:
take us to the post event. Now, Josh, what does that messaging look like?

[00:26:43.74] spk_1:
Yeah. I mean, I think the post event really is, um we’re looking at some of those tried intrude best practices, right? Like you’re still gonna want to do the personal Thank you. Note. You’re gonna still you’re gonna look at all your data and who make who made a donation at that virtual event right Onda who made, you know, silent auction purchases on D do that outreach post event. And then I think it’s really, um, you know, if you have new if you’ve acquired new donors is part of that virtual event right, you’re gonna want to do You’re welcome. Siri’s. You’re gonna wanna take those people through very much like you would do in person event. You can get creative with social or online channels, right? You could as an organization. Do I Thank you. Video that gets pushed out through your social channels Or just, you know, it could be an instagram message or image, right? Thinking people who attended s So I think there’s ah lot in that post event, right? I think there is. A lot of it remains the same. Andi, guess right. We can also bring in text messaging, right? You could do a post text messaging as as a as a way to think, people. Uh, Mike, what did you guys dio a ce faras posted that wrap up.

[00:28:40.14] spk_2:
We always send a thank you email. We were in a unique position with our September event. Um, in that first holes, phenomenally successful, we raised over $2 million had great viewership of the Livestream. Um, and you know, we were facing the election coming up. So our campaigns and organizing team was highly interested in engaging these folks to see um, if they would doom or it was great. Is everybody who was, ah, supporter of our September event was ready to doom. Or so we gave them additional ways with the organization to connect eso that they’re not just sort of writing checks, but they’re also sort of getting the work done alongside a lot of the staff, which was really, really, really transformational for us is an organization. This year it’s It’s actually one of the things that I look at 2020 and think about. Wow, I never would have imagined that that to go like that, but it did so

[00:28:54.14] spk_0:
excellent. Did you use a lot of video afterwards? Video clips to remind folks of the experience.

[00:29:01.54] spk_2:
We had one video message from our host that we emailed and texted out on dhe. It was basically just a big thank you. Um, and I think it was a reminder that the auction was closing because it went a little bit a little bit longer and sort of last ditch. Like if you didn’t make a contribution and you’re feeling like it, then then don’t let us stop you. So, um, u m and that went really well. So

[00:29:26.84] spk_0:
and what was the I know you said raised about $2 million overall. What was the proportion of the 8000 overall who e either gave or contributed by the via auction versus non donor?

[00:29:41.60] spk_2:
You’re asking such so many data driven questions? Things,

[00:29:45.83] spk_0:
non profit radio Don’t hold that. Come on. What are you expecting? I mean, the host is lackluster, but the conversation is not Wow. Well,

[00:30:18.74] spk_2:
I mean, way clearly had about, you know, 800 people that make contributions for tickets. E would say that. I mean, this is a very hard number to quantify, because between our our ambassador fundraising campaign that the the ticket premium sales and the auction I’m making a guess and say we probably had

[00:30:21.64] spk_1:
it was a lot, right?

[00:30:23.12] spk_2:
Yeah. 2500 people making contributions at varying amounts. So

[00:30:28.54] spk_0:
just trying to set expectations. You folks, um, context, Okay,

[00:30:32.69] spk_1:
any one of the things that we’re also seeing as a lot of these virtual events are bringing in new donors for a lot of the reasons that we previously discussed. And so it’s making sure that you know what we’re advising our partners, our clients is that, you know, making sure that as you’re bringing in those new donors, that you have a way to engage them, right and that there there is. There’s a set plan to do that follow because it’s more than just the event. Follow up, right. You have new acquisitions, and now you gotta get them engaged into your mission and your messaging and make them, you know, become routine. Regular donors on DSO. I just think I don’t caution, but I think it’s just something to consider, right as you’re looking to do this, virtual that because it’s a lot easier for people to plug in and they don’t have toe, you know, go to a hotel and they can just turn on on from their from their living room, right? We’re seeing this high number of new new donors, and so figuring out the strategy around that is really

[00:31:37.47] spk_0:
important. Well, maybe not a caution admonition. You’re admonishing admonition that, and that’s consistent with face to face events. I mean, you had your you just You have to be thinking through what you’re going to do for the for the folks who came to your what used to be a face to face event, you know, they were brought by ambassadors might talk about the ambassador program. And so they were. They were brought by folks who needed to fill a table in the past. Excuse me, but they were They were new, new to the organization. And so you wanted to suss out. Are they interested in a long term engagement or they’re really just don’t wanna hear from us anymore. They were doing a friend a favor,

[00:32:10.15] spk_1:
right? Right. Well, then, yeah, and then trying to figure out how you could build that relationship, right?

[00:32:47.94] spk_0:
Uh, and, uh, you know, there was. I don’t know if I don’t know if it’s true or not, but just intuitively in the face to face events. The folks got these new acquisitions, got something out of it. They got they got cocktails and a dinner. Um, now they don’t get that. So maybe there maybe they’re more likely to be interested in the in the mission because, I mean, all right, so they’re giving up less time, but they’re getting less for it. There’s no there’s no free cocktail hour and and and dinner. So maybe I’m thinking maybe they’re mawr invested virtually even though they’re spending less time. But still, time is valuable. You know, they’re not even getting free drinks out of it. So

[00:32:57.39] spk_2:
I would say you’re onto something, tony there because folks have been looking

[00:33:00.90] spk_0:
Thank you for rescuing me. Thank you. Because I wasn’t even sure that I wasn’t sure if I waas Thank you, Mike.

[00:33:05.70] spk_2:
Folks are looking for those take action items in their homes. So if you’re able to provide those to them in conjunction with these with these with these virtual events, um, they’re much more apt to take them as opposed to, you know, they have a nice meal. 129 cocktails. And then the next day, they think that was great. I wonder if I will do that again, and then you’ll see them again next year, as opposed to the next day. They’re sort of like Okay, well, I can sit here, and I can get involved with this organization in ways that I haven’t before That you know, isn’t far off. And I think I think you’re definitely right. That that this leaves Thio, it lowers the bar for entry into further engagement with it with the organization.

[00:35:39.04] spk_0:
Yeah, all right. I think that’s a perfect place to leave it. My savior, Mike Wilkinson. Thank you for that. Deputy Director of Human. I’m sorry. Deputy Director of Events at Human Rights Campaign HRC dot Organ at HRC And Josh Meyer, Uh, senior director of marketing at one. Cause one cause dot com And at one cause Mike and Josh. Thank you very much. Good ideas. Thanks. It’s time for tony. Take two. I’m hosting a new free webinar planned giving five minute marketing. It’s kind of nice hosting my own webinars. I did one in November. We had very good turnout, so I’m hosting one this month in December. It’s another quick shot. 50 minutes on planned giving marketing how to promote the idea of planned gift to your prospects. Who are the prospects? What’s the message and how do you get it out? Multi channel. Plenty of time. Also, for your questions? Absolutely. My favorite part is questions you can register at planned giving accelerator dot com slash webinar. It’s on December 17th. I hope you’ll be with me. That is tony. Take two. Now it’s time for personalized video. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome my next guest, Matt Barnett is Papa Bear at Bon jour. Oh, he launched from Sales Hack for his first business, where he would send every new lead a personal video to delight and surprise them. His goal is to be the next Zappos to be the most loved brand in the world. When he’s not making videos or products, he’s out tagging bandicoot ce for wildlife research. He’s with us from Sydney, Australia. The company is at bon jour, oh dot com And at Bonn jaro app. Matt Barnett. Welcome to non profit radio. A pleasure. Pleasure to have you, uh, I’ve been doing this show for 10 years over 500 episodes, and you are the the most remote guest by far before this. Yes. Uh, before, before, this was your home was from the UK.

[00:36:07.13] spk_3:
Good. Good to hear. You should get some more. Ozzy’s a lot going on here, Especially the environmental side of things raises its head. I think

[00:36:21.83] spk_0:
and and and speaking of, well, environment or animals, what are you tagging? Bandicoot? What’s a bandicoot?

[00:36:23.63] spk_3:
Have you ever played the game? Crash Bandicoot? They are nothing like that. There are small marsupial. Looked like a get a rat with a long nose but have pouch with the care of the babies. On dhe, they dig around for grubs and roots. We go out and tag Aziz the isolated population and one the headlands here, where they’ve got certain genetic traits. And we tagged those monitor them and they’re great case study for for the animal in isolation. Also collecting the wildlife rescue we have you know, we have a python living in our basement. It’s very It’s very Australian out

[00:36:59.19] spk_0:
here, marsupial. So we don’t use that word too often here. But kangaroos are marsupials as well, right? Is that

[00:37:07.53] spk_3:
you guys have you guys have them? You have a as well.

[00:37:23.13] spk_0:
Okay. Thank you for educating me about wildlife in the, uh so it’s good to have you. Good to have you from Sydney. Um, personal video. What do we What are we talking about when we say that personal video, What does it look like?

[00:37:31.43] spk_3:
Eso what it is is essentially sending quick asynchronous. They’re kind of one sided personal messages that are targeted towards individual Boehner’s in this case. So if someone dropped, if someone gives donation, then having won the team within a few hours, we can say, Hey, Mrs Jones saw that you donated $734 to the cause. Just wanna let you know how much that means to us. You know, the money is probably gonna be used here, here and here. And just again, Thank you for a while. Support on. So the idea here is very quick messages that are shot on desktop or phone. They’re not edited, nothing else. It’s just a piece comes on its directed act. An individual rather than a piece of concerts used again and again, again, generically.

[00:38:24.02] spk_0:
Okay, one time. One person, one use. And they’re probably watching it on their phone, Mostly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I saw somewhere you call this the, uh, purple cow of donor engagement. What is that? What do you mean, there?

[00:38:26.02] spk_3:
Yeah, it’s actually it’s actually that’s actually quite fun about one of our clients because I think you’re international in the States. um se. So I guess it’s kind of a secret weapon that they used. They’ve used on a quality campaigns during the recent pandemic, because what they find is that going that little bit extra, I think I think it’s a really like linking donors to benefactors, especially if that could be done so in their in their cases. Actually send videos from schools in Africa to donors, Um, is just it’s like for three second investment. The impact it’s having on donations on be engaging lapsed owners and getting donations that don’t have to increase the nation’s isn’t saying it’s kind of off the charts they’ve ever done. I mean, it makes me it makes it might, of course. Of course it makes

[00:39:20.12] spk_0:
sense. Yeah, Andi think purple cow comes from Seth Godin that, you know you would if you saw a cow would be no big deal. But if you saw a purple cow, you know, then you’d be tweeting it. You’d be taking pictures, you know, it would stand out. So it’s a pattern interruption. We do something special on dhe. That’s that’s that seems like a feature of one of many features, like It’s something special it? Tze personalized. It’s sincere, right? I mean, you’re you’re looking at the person on your phone there speaking right to you. They’re saying your name there, thanking you. It’s it’s like it’s human.

[00:40:00.91] spk_3:
Yeah, like there’s like there’s incredible power in the name way. No, this year, I think Andi And then the other thing is that the the authenticity of it as well? I think I would suggest that authenticity is it’s a challenge day, a fake news that I said So I think I think that really is coming through, I think, especially where you know many of our experiences, our distance, you know, even prior to the world situation as it is today because the way we work gain that bit of community connection back again on doing it in a surprising, authentic, like the way it joins the light is because it’s not expected. It’s because because the bar is so low, it has a huge impact on the Barlow we could rant about again. I think it was just so much opportunity here for anyone willing to put it more often.

[00:40:47.33] spk_0:
Yeah, and we’re talking like 45 seconds or a minute, right? These air. Quick, Quick shots. Minute maximum. Okay. Is that one of your tip? Is that one of your? Is that a best practice? Keep it short.

[00:41:30.21] spk_3:
Yeah, I think there’s an engaging point of view, I think, within the women Charity Specter within down space You know, you could talk more like Absolutely, But the reality is you don’t you don’t need to. It’s not about It’s not about doing a sales picture and that, yeah, it’s just acknowledging. So it’s stopping for your danger, acknowledging, you know, a customer client a don’t know that that’s what you were doing it. It’s not even about the video. The video is the medium that that shows that you’re willing to do this, but it’s actually the time. That’s really what you give me, but you’re saying you are worth might be one of my teams. Time to stop. Just thank you in person. If the 22nd. That’s fine. Yeah, obviously you’re doing a lot of these from from the person doing the videos. Shorter means you can get them or easier as well. I mean, that’s an aspect to it. Less than a minute is all it takes.

[00:41:48.71] spk_0:
Yeah, and I like that. You know that you took the time to thank me personally in in a surprising, humane way. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, there’s a you know, you said I mean, there’s a there’s a there’s a connection there, you know, you’re looking right at the person you’re saying their name again. I gather, that’s I I see that in a lot of the the advice to that some other interviews you have done, you know, you got to say the person’s name mean that Zamora it’s personal. Yeah.

[00:42:07.40] spk_3:
Say the name. You know, like, if you’re able to see, you know, we’ll try to help you here. We’re trying to show you kind of actually where they’re based. What donation amount is how long they’ve been a donor. So you can customize what you say you go, the further you can. You know, I see you’ve been with us for the last three years. You know, everything you put in this on now, I think especially specifically here. This is what saying earlier is the idea of like connecting the dots so down into benefit. Like, what is that? You know, $734 done like specifically. If you’re gonna line this, there’s amazing people. It’s storytelling, you know, People go. I could see how that dollar makes difference. And quite often, you know, for me, like for us as a company way gives charities. We do this as well. The key thing is about impact. You know, we’re on enterprise cut like company. So and what we’re giving is not a million. So I’m like, right, I wanna make sure every dollar counts. So what’s the impact on this thing here? What you’re doing is you’re making it much easier for customers to see sort of donors to see the actual impact with dollar. And that’s what’s gonna make me stay with you. Be a donor for life versus, you know, switching other causes This time gets on.

[00:43:13.40] spk_0:
I saw one example where a non profit linked to a video. And so in the in the video that they sent to the donor, there was a link Thio, like a mini documentary about how the money is used and what the what the organization is doing.

[00:44:31.99] spk_3:
Yeah, and so s so you know the other part. This, obviously is that when you’re using this be this’ll kind of communication. It’s very hard, quite engaging. So you have an opportunity there. Thio, take that storytelling further, potentially ask that donut can take the next step. So in that case, what they’re saying is it Thank thank you in person, um to show you what it is go and watch this. And so what we’re doing is obviously driving traffic, but those videos of you getting a lot more views off the back of those those combined with the fact that take a long time bringing back in lapsed owners get people thio up their donations, increasing the nation’s obviously stay around. Some Chinese used that Teoh they’re available. They’re subtle. They’re like, Here’s a little bit more body or here’s a link Thio Share the story on social or, you know, here’s here’s our latest campaign we’re doing We’re building X Y Zed, please gonna be more about, you know, on inform yourself as well. So it is opportunity here. They’d be starting conversation that that’s not a it’s not a lycan endpoints. It’s the start of, you know, the next piece of engagement which can lead Thio. You

[00:44:35.06] spk_0:
wanna have some kind of a call to action, right? Have them do something beyond just beyond beyond the thank you. And so what are the use cases? Have you seen for nonprofits? Aside from donations, what other? What other uses are are nonprofits. Putting personalized video to

[00:45:04.75] spk_3:
E because it was just here is taking time with the individual donor. It tends to get so intense it used with donors and partners. So it’s being used either on on daily Drive, just as a daily habit. So anything comes in your thank you’s Ugo campaigns as well so specific drives they’re doing. We get used a lot for laps for lapsed donors. So reengaging past owners A ZX. Well, bring them back into the fold.

[00:45:14.19] spk_0:
Okay, so something like, you know, you haven’t been with us for a while. Exactly. We’d love to have you back. Here’s here’s what Here’s what our work is And here’s Here’s a link Thio what we’re working on now or something like that,

[00:45:43.59] spk_3:
Yeah. You know, obviously informations we’re just trying to do is to re engage those those users and be like, Look, this is what we’ve been doing in the last two years Since Since you’re with us, we’ve come a long way. Here’s what the impact you made. And so what I can do is to re engage me. Some of your customer base, especially ones that you know, are potentially large backers or more torrential backers to bring them back into the fold, especially especially with the younger child. Is that growing up where in the year the impact they’re making is exponential because of the movies they’re making?

[00:45:57.59] spk_0:
Um, I could see you know something like for volunteers. Do you know, if you just want to thank someone for having spent an extra 20 hours the past week doing extra volunteer work for the organization, stuffing backpacks for for Children, going back to school, where you know most people do five or 10 hours and somebody does 20 or something, You’re just a little shout out to them. I mean, it could be a simple thank you like that, right?

[00:46:55.48] spk_3:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s why we use that way. Get used internally on teams, especially when people have quite, um, probably less engaged volunteers. Nowhere like people like May. So I’m involved in a wildlife system called called wires, which which is huge really, although firefighting states in Australia where you know it’s massive again with us, where we’re not necessary is fitting underneath people above us, you know, we’re not turning up for such thanking people who are less connected as well. Like you said, the ones that go above and beyond for their work like it, it’s one Does that to you, Like you know, it’s all worth it. You know, like again, again, again, it’s connecting. What I’m doing is a volunteer to the end result. So again, it’s back to the impact Peace. Like, um, I’m making an impact. Has someone noticed the work I’m doing because you haven’t noticed? Maybe I should put my time somewhere else.

[00:47:19.18] spk_0:
Yeah, eso like anytime you would think about writing a thank you note, you could consider ah, personalized video.

[00:47:32.28] spk_3:
Yeah, I think so. And this is like it’s not the answer to everything. And this is just another arrow within. Within your quiver on. Great. There’s different ways. Toe communicates, I think, with the video. But here’s the thing. It again. It’s not about the video that the fact that you can get it across the authenticity it’s you yourself, you know that 70% of communication is in the face the face. Yet it’s not even in the tone of voice. So if you get across people love it. They connect with it better. I just think Video’s amazing medium for this. Ah, nde on the other side. It’s a lot quicker than sending. You know I’m more cost effective than than writing a thank you elements and that off. It’s definitely worth try

[00:48:42.97] spk_0:
time for our last break. Dot drives dot drives Engagement that drives relationships dot drives is the simplest donor pipeline fundraising tool. It’s customizable, collaborative, intuitive. If you want to move the needle on your prospect and donor relationships. If you want to get folks from prospect to donor, get the free demo. As you know, for listeners, there’s also a free month. Go to the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. We’ve got but loads more time for personalized video with Matt Barnett and and you’re right. I mean, you see so much more, you know, written words. You know, that’s one Dement Well, all right, this is one dimensional too, but you can hear the person’s voice. You could see their expression when they say thank you. See their smile? It’s It’s so much more engaging than, uh than a hand written note in certain or even type you know, the word word word document on you.

[00:49:05.32] spk_3:
Show them any of the most powerful things which, which is hard to dio, is when you know, like we see people doing these videos like with kids and schools in Africa or they do it No wallowing like a wildlife center or they do it while that one the one camps with everyone about behind them. Ah, nde, You’re not just gonna shoot you like Look, look, this is this is this is the impact like check it out. You know, this is what’s happening so that that’s that’s that’s become a wow stuff. It is. It is hard because you’re always in their situations, but when you pull it off people just it compared to a leather like it’s like seeing is believing, you know,

[00:49:39.97] spk_0:
now does does the team at bon jour. Oh, that you’re the papa bear of Are they able to see all that? Can you see all the videos that people do?

[00:50:25.46] spk_3:
Eso accounts accounts of private? If we asked, So what we will do it, especially with non profit. So we personally like me and probably a few. The team members are pretty driven. We do the whole one sense. We talked about as much time as we can. We tend to get on calls and consulted held by non profits, get most system. So when when we do that is one thing we suggest is that we have permission. Can we come in and have a look on? You could use a few examples. And then what we could do is experts is kind of suggest otherwise. From what we’ve seen up to the user, Uh, obviously the only other thing is that call them privacy privacy reasons. Then myself and my CEO could do that. Otherwise it will, Private. It’s all off the record.

[00:50:49.16] spk_0:
Okay, Because I want to know if people are using this for, uh, you know, for prurient, uh, illicit in place of sexting. I’m gonna send you a I’m gonna send you a or Oh, yeah. Are you seeing any of that? The only thing we’ve

[00:50:50.07] spk_3:
seen is we have some swingers clubs.

[00:50:53.40] spk_0:
So what? Swingers clubs? Yeah. Alright, alright.

[00:50:56.28] spk_3:
However, however we talked of you. It’s not being used in that way. It’s being used as a lead generation, like business funnel. Let’s just look at it like, Well, that makes sense.

[00:51:12.46] spk_0:
So right. Okay. Ah, funnel. Okay. Again,

[00:51:13.10] spk_3:
again, again. Look like how we used during private, You know, of course, on users can choose if their recipients can share the videos. And non profits were, like, let let them share them. Because if they take it to him and say, Look what I got off the heart foundation, thanking me for my donation like that. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s awesome storytelling. But if you want to be used in privacy, then we could lock that down.

[00:51:39.26] spk_0:
Oh, yeah, These are right. Incredibly terrible. Yeah, yeah. Um and this is this is you know, this is also consistent with what I’ve had a lot of guests say, and I’ve said on this show many times that that in doing production that in doing video, uh, sincerity always trumps production values. You know, you don’t have to have a fancy Mike. You could do this. You could You could do this walking to your car. It doesn’t take fancy studio when it’s genuine. And sincere

[00:52:02.45] spk_3:
like like Abbott’s, like real life, you know, like like like Like, who do you trust more? The guy in the perfect tailored suits or the guy wearing a T shirt has got fun with enthusiasm, you know, like like shake your hand and hugs you. I’m gonna go with that guy every time, like it’s the same thing, you know?

[00:52:18.35] spk_0:
And are you seeing, uh, Mawr use of this during the pandemic? E mean people are so much more accustomed to seeing each other by video. Now are are you seeing a burst since, uh, since March?

[00:53:16.75] spk_3:
Yeah, like I think it’s helped. I think it’s helped in terms people overcoming you know, the Fear video, which I think comes from the idea that video has been the car medium of film for so long that you put on on on a pedestal. Now, realizing it’s it’s not that it’s just the same as having a coffee. So I think we’ve people using Zoom people getting a video calls. Mawr has obviously made people realize that actually videos easy on dso. There’s a mental pieces become over. I think there’s also a challenge that living in a bit more to disconnect environment the moment we’re struggling. Thio connect Obviously not with team members on my partners and do things like this, but with their customers as well. And so we’ve been adopted, like in that space and videos being more adopting that space to help keep those relationships going where you couldn’t. But you can’t have the coffee or or go to the conference today. You know,

[00:53:18.15] spk_0:
um, want o share a good client story, somebody that another one where someone used it successfully and saw an increase in gifts or volunteering. Whatever. Yeah, yeah, we just

[00:54:00.06] spk_3:
we just that given we just doing that with the Heart Foundation here in Australia, which is a large organization s made a lot of work in schools in the big A little school fundraising. So they did two things. Uh, they went out and they did what he said. They congratulated the Children who got the biggest fundraisers. So the whole team went out on just engaged with those high performing kids from organization directly, whereas normally they would always be kept a kind of arms on the other than it did in the way that where they were, where the kids were raising funds was through skipping competitions on trying to kind of crazy skipping competitions. And so, it turns out, quite your team on the heart foundation, our next level skippers, where they’re doing tricks and stunts. And so those team, we’re sending our videos through the kids in schools being like Okay, right, whoever you could do this and basically challenging them to kind of come with crazy stuff. And so, like, really engaging with again directly with kids rather than just the teachers, which ultimately they have been generated $45 from just one of the schools. I think the private previously with them $5000 because they got a LH the Children themselves so much more engaged that it became a real driver. Whereas there wasn’t one of those fundraising things you do at school. So it’s interesting again. Is that connection between the cause and the people doing the fundraising?

[00:54:55.94] spk_0:
You’re seeing Children, too? I mean, that’s a heart string. Yeah, Heartstring puller.

[00:54:57.64] spk_3:
Yeah, exactly. Um,

[00:55:00.54] spk_0:
um what else? What else should we be talking about? That I I haven’t asked you.

[00:56:32.93] spk_3:
I think like so. It’s just like beyond your personal video, but I think just the idea off personal. So the idea of personalization of scale, the idea of taking a little more time with customers like we haven’t here that way where we say automate process, but not relationships. But I think I think you take that into into any aspect you’re doing in terms of customer engagement or in terms of marketing on. So I think where on where you can, where you can start to personalize your experiences and your customer experience, like your your donors or your partners, or to your or anyone who engage in the organization, you are going to get better results. You know, I suggest you probably get a return on any of the extra time that you put in. So I think, you know, we start to come past the stage where you send the yearly update and you’re like, This is what the fund has done this year, and these impacts were made to yeah, as donors like, we want to know what our dollars are doing because we have so much choice because we’re being picked all the time to invest in different areas way do bounce around, especially my generation. So you look kind of like between e. Guess Young, young, um, young Corporates, young people making decent money, who have now, for the first time, I got my to spend on causes they’re passionate about. I’ve got on there’s good money to spend where we’re gonna put it. It’s gonna be hard to know. So it’s just that way you could pursuant experiences and you connect people with people like ultimately, If that happens, the decisions easier for the benefit of me. Because I go What I know these people. Therefore, I believe my money will go further here. That’s not obviously necessary. True, but that’s that’s how you feel. So I think, you know, the more we could do personalized customer experience, customer journeys. Being through video will be it from any other means on. There’s a lot of smart systems out there now that start to tell you more information about your donors so you could do that. I think the more you connect the end benefactor to the donor as well, it’s super important. You know, You see this doing on products now where if you buy products that are fundraising, you could look at it and it’ll tell you the journey of the dollar and where it goes, the more you could do that. Connect the dots, which in space technology is a lot easier. I would argue again, the mawr likely here you have a of keeping donors for no, not a year, but 10 15 2030 years.

[00:57:37.63] spk_0:
And based on how you make them feel, you know, there’s a lot of research that says people people are less likely to remember what you tell them, but they’re they’re very likely remember how you make them feel. So if you make you make them feel special by doing personalized special things, like notes or videos or, you know, connecting connecting them to their to the impact of their dollar, that that’s all that’s all feelings and that stuff is in the heart. Once, once we hold a cause in our heart, then our our brain will say, you know, go ahead and make a donation.

[00:59:25.42] spk_3:
Yeah, way give, because it makes us feel good. Like we’re satisfying human urging, you know of doing good. And have you looked at it, You know, from, uh, whether you’re, uh, wanna be a possible or negative about it. You’re like it. We’re doing it. We’re doing it for a personal reason. I’m doing it because it makes my dolphins go. I feel good, like I could get back eso you need trigger those on storytelling on connection does that. You know where things would have worked 10 years ago because now there are so many causes and so many systems, and so just just generally get the average person gets 65 notification today from emails and SMS. Everything else like How do you cut through that? Like it’s hard like everyone’s, You know, you’re not just competing against other nonprofits. You’re competing against every single person who is contacting this individual ornate, multiple times daily basis. So you need you know it’s not. It’s not whether you could do better than that. It’s not whether you can get the attention over another cause. It’s whether you could get attention over other businesses and everything because the dollars could go anywhere on That makes it incredibly hard. But I think with with with good causes, you have this massive benefit where you are like like like like you pull heart strings like no else can like you have these stories, you have these stories. You have these people, you have the good things of doing. Just how do you get that to the individual?

[00:59:28.02] spk_0:
Interesting when you say, you know you’re not only competing with other nonprofits, but also businesses. But also you’re competing with every app on the person’s phone that that for which they have notification set, you know, So that could be their stock. That could be their their their their stock trading account. Uh, it could be their bank. It could be their newspapers. You’re competing with every everything that’s tugging at their attention. But here, you know, you do something personalized, sincere, genuine, quick shot 45 seconds. And it’s it’s something unique in their day in their weak easily.

[01:01:14.31] spk_3:
Yeah, I think it s I think communities play a big part here, and this is well, so building an active private community for for everyone involved because that’s where conversation start to happen. Because I think there’s a There’s another piece I like RL interesting. Yeah, which I think most realizations don’t do the best job off. And this is around the advocacy side so often we will focus on on the new donors. And, like when on the next one, like it’s much easier to grow donations from your existing community was than his mom from new ones. I think the way to do this is to make U M. Into what I call super fans. Yeah, this applies to business. That’s the challenge. That’s everything else you want, people who are going to rave about you and talk about you. And to do that, you need to consistently engage them. I always think about with its about making lifetime. Dana is not not single donors. So if you’re not running an active community or if you’re running a community just like it’s not just about talking, it’s a two way peace. If you’re not making this active, I would challenging to look heavily at that because that’s where you can make your connections happen on the quiet to scale as well. Um, so I think a lot of times they don’t do a good enough job. This it tends to be a lot of one way Commons versus two ways on again. I look at that. I’m like this opportunity because most of us are not in many communities, we get lots of all my stuff we’re not want to in the community. You instantly start to cut through that because, you know, you get medications for my community and your prioritize those. Like if you know, if you’re if you’re small, if you’re starting up, it could be a WhatsApp group. It could be that simple, but looking for ways to cut through with something, that person is going to keep this a priority and know that whatever comes from that is one they’re gonna open.

[01:01:47.81] spk_0:
And that’s when you get to the stage where they start missing it. If they’re not hearing from you, it’s been a couple of days. There’s been a week or something. I haven’t, You know, I haven’t heard from this. You know this group where you know where they’ve been. So

[01:02:00.00] spk_3:
if that happens, it happens. You’ve done it.

[01:02:57.90] spk_0:
That’s the gold standard. Oh, yeah, that’s a that’s a gold standard. That’s Ah, that’s Ah, triple play. But I’m not very good at sports, but that’s Ah, that’s Ah, home touchdown. So, yeah, when they start missing you, um All right. All right. Went thio. I feel like way we’ve given, like, enormous motivation for why, why people should look a TTE not only personalized video, but just personalized action. Personalized engagement. You know, we talk so much about the community talking about sex segmentation, but this is segmentation to the smallest possible degree, the most segmented to the individual, not to the collect, not to a collective of of 50 or 100 or 5000 who are devoted to petition signing for for your cause, you know. But this is the individual. After they’ve signed, it’s it’s it’s hyper personalization, hyper segmentation, which is called personalization, I think.

[01:03:36.30] spk_3:
Yeah, yeah, I think in order to tackle this again. So my suggestion is it may seem overwhelming, but you need systems that are quick to do so They need to work out the time you put in. But you also need need need toe like bring in, bring in anyone involved in the cords. So talk about, for example, be take myself his involvement in the wildlife rescue. Face it to May. Would you mind thanking you? Don’t of a day like sure. Yeah, like so. Like use your use Anyone who’s volunteering like get him to help us. It’s like you have a I think it becomes easy If you could spread it amongst enough people. The other thing is obvious to say, segment out and go like not all donors are equal. Maybe in terms of like value their big in terms like the dollar valuables in terms of the influence and that kind of reach they have as well. We’re engaged. They asked, may be focused on those first start with those and then start being down. Um, yeah, the smart ways to do it. So like like anything start small. If it works and you essentially get return on investment much, I hate that term. Then then you could start to work out how to scale it more because it was working like Like it doesn’t matter like it will scale. It will pay for itself. Just take a small step, But don’t get too overwhelmed. Begin.

[01:05:16.99] spk_0:
All right, Matt Barnett, Papa bear a tw bon jour Oh cos at bon jour oh dot com And at Bonn Juro App. Thanks very much, Matt. Good to talk to you. Pleasure. Thank you. My pleasure. Next week, your annual report as a marketing tool. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you. Find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Beseeches Still good We’re holding on to that not losing beseech were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives Prospect to donor simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows 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 me next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.