You have to thank your planned giving donors and have a recognition society. But do you have to call it the legacy society? Plus, what do you do with the group? What’s the experience? Claire Meyerhoff is a planned giving marketing strategist.
How do you find pockets of wealth in the communities you serve? Maria Semple reveals her secrets. She’s our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder. (Originally aired on March 28, 2014).
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week one justice they blogged thank you all. Thank you for all of the amazing content that you do. We love your work end quote. Well, one justice i love your work. You’re bringing civil legal assistance to californians in need very important work without legal representation. What good our rights they’re at one hyphen, justice dot org’s and at one justice dot org’s. Congratulations, one justice, our listener of the week love you out there in california. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of ps, eh, phyllis? If i had to wrap my head around the idea that you missed today’s show auntie legacy society, you have to thank your plan giving donors and have a recognition society. But do you have to call it the legacy society? Plus what do you do with the group? What’s the experience. Claire meyerhoff is a planned e-giving marketing strategist and deep pockets. How do you find pockets of wealth in the communities that you serve? Maria simple reveals her. Secrets she’s, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder that originally aired on march twenty eighth. Twenty fourteen on tony’s take two with an i pad air responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com what a pleasure to welcome back to the studio are creative producer and ah plan giving marketing strategist krauz meyerhoff. Welcome back. Thanks, tony it’s. Great to be here again in the studio of it. You were last year for our oh two hundred fiftieth july show. He had music. We had skits. We had all kinds of radio x tragically duitz that was cool. Let’s. Just make sure people know that they could follow you on twitter at claire says. And in their very creative way that’s easy, that’s. Got someone else s okay, you but you use it an opportunity and i think it’s clever. So now my way around. Yeah. All right. Um planned giving legacy societies or recognition societies? Um what’s. What is it? Since your you do plan giving marketing? What? What is it that you think is unusual? Are unique about plan giving marketing? Why be a plan? Giving marketing strategist what’s special about that? Well, because really, when you are thinking about your donor’s overall and and putting them into groups or whatever plan giving really is on ly about marketing in a way, i mean, yes, plan giving is about structuring a trust and things like that, but let’s not forget that, but for the regular donor, what they see when they’re getting your newsletter when they see your animal report, when they’re on facebook or whatever, what they see in the course of the day is all marketing that might enticed them or interest them in making a plan gift if they see a donor story. For instance, in your newsletter that’s about someone else, who’s made a plan gift and there really happy about it, and they’re going to have a scholarship or something named after their family because they’re making this bequest and then turns the corner and says, perhaps you’d like to make a gift like this that’s marketing so it’s all about communicating. I like to call it plan e-giving communicating and marketing because it’s not just marketing, okay that’s due to me, i didn’t know you. Ah, including that in your and your your title and well, it’s. Not really. In a title, one more clinton community marketing, communications also promotions and outreach. I’ll say what instead of saying, like, what are you doing for your plan giving marketing to a client? Because that that sort of signals the thing like, oh, marketing that’s my marketing budget ni hyre in this big company and play, you know, do all this stuff instead, i might say to them, well, what are you doing for your plan? Giving out reach? How are you reaching your donors to talk to playing giving about them so it’s a little bit about outreach, it’s promotions, it’s, public relations, communications. All that really, before you do the marketing, all that other stuff is free. It’s free free claire’s whispering for expenses. Okay, everybody here, that’s okay, no marketing does not have to be expensive at all. In fact, i’m doing something. Ah, at the foundation center in november called five minute plan giving marketing. Rand. Yeah, and i’m full of information and news. Yeah, and a lot of ideas do not do not have to be expensive and can be done in. Really? Just five minutes. A little sidebar on a newsletter you know, brief mention at an event things like that now that’s not a saying that all planned giving marketing is done with elements that a lot of them and be done that because that quickly buckslip way were in your in your thing and there’s another one in your newsletter instead of saying, remember us in your will that’s like saying, have a nice day so instead in your newsletter say, are we in your will if we’re in? If were in your well, could you call and let us know it’s important? We’ll we’ll keep your request confidential, if you like or if you haven’t yet updated your will call us. We’ll give you the information you need. So to ask the question are we in your willis so much better than the remember us in your will? Okay, so that’s that’s a great tip that’s the easiest thing that any organization khun do right off the bat now when someone does inform the organization that they’ve included them in the will, then hopefully we have a recognition society for us. Why is plan give recognition society important? Well, it’s important for several reasons the first reason is that it’s a way to thank and acknowledge the person that has made this wonderful gift this future bequest, so by inviting them to join the special society or group or circle, you’re acknowledging their gift to something very important, and they’ll see it in the in the annual report or wherever. The other thing. Why it’s really important to have a legacy society or some sort of a plan giving recognition? Society is so that other people know about it and know that it that it exists. I heard it’s a marketing you can use your legacy society as a marketing, a little marketing platform or or something to encourage other people to do the same. I find a lot of organizations don’t think about planned giving a recognition group, even though they have recognition groups for donors at the thousand dollars level. One hundred dollars five. Yeah, whatever. Whatever is a major gift for you or whatever is the threshold? Usually there’s almost always won two thousand, but yeah, one hundred to fifty five thousand twenty five. They have all kinds of recognition for those. Yes, but they’re not thinking. Oh, plan. Giving recognition well, those people deserve recognition too. It’s really often an afterthought. And that is why so often the little recognition society is simply called the legacy society, because that’s as much thought as when it’s what went into it. Oh, we need to put that in our in our annual report. Here’s the legacy society here are the donor. Alright, since you’re making fun of that name now we can get i was going to ask you some other things, but we’ll get to them. We got twenty times were ah, the name the name, legacy society? Not not the best. Well, it’s not that it’s, not the best. It’s just it’s shows a sort of a lack of thought and and and if you’re already called the legacy society that’s, fine, maybe have a little co-branding a little something and something that you can do if you already have a quote, legacy, society and it’s called that you could just tack a little name onto it, for instance. So let’s say you’re a school and your your school stone that’s in the class ring let’s say it’s, a girls school and and it’s an amethyst and you could you could make it the amethyst legacy society. So you get still. Call it the legacy society, but give it a little a little something. Something a little special buy a little something something i like to see something that’s unique to the organization. What, like i have? Ah, client that has the belltower society. It’s, a school on the bell tower, is an iconic building s on their on their campus over brooklyn college. Yeah, smith college in massachusetts. They have the great court society because that’s it’s, the great court gate is this beautiful gate that when you first come to campus and it has something on it and everyone knows the great court gate and the gate is a nice thing, you know, it’s a gateway again grayce country. Where avery? Good. So they have the great court pin with with the gate a little bit of the gate on it. So that’s what? That’s for what they do the very first i think it was the very first plan giving society that i started when i was at st john’s university. It was called the macallan society that was named for a treasurer back in the late forties, early fifties era and that was exactly the people who we were trying to attract to do a planned gift for the university, and they knew this treasurer avery well, because used to give you a break, he was a priest, right? Have your break on tuition like back when tuition was like ten dollars, for a semester, you couldn’t do it all at once, he’d set you upon a plan is a great story didn’t include that story and you’re marketing his father, thomas macallan. Exactly, and everybody knew father macallan that’s awesome let’s go out for a break and when we come back, we’ll keep talking about the legacy society and some other super plan gift recognition. Stay with us, you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it, tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent let’s do some live listener love st louis, missouri, wilmington, north carolina and new jersey jersey you’re masked. I don’t know why there’s no, are you one of the bad guys in new jersey? When the bad people we can’t see what town you’re in, but you’re in new jersey. We know i’m from jersey, so i could make jersey jokes, okay? Um also canada, british columbia’s with us turkey? Welcome on that! I think we’ve had a turkey before, but uh, not too much. Columbia is with us. Welcome, columbia, and we’ve got some other live listeners abroad will get two of course, affiliate affections. If you are listening on one of our am and fm affiliate stations, whatever time, whatever, whatever slop, worrying and your station throughout the week affections out to you all our affiliate station listeners and we’re going to affiliate coming up in, i think i can two more weeks i’ll be able to announce a new affiliate in the pacific northwest that’s all i am permitted to say at this time, that’s all i can say and, of course, podcast pleasantries if you’re listening in the time shift pleasantries out to you, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing while you listen, washing dishes, driving pleasantries to you, our podcast listeners hyre off. Let’s. See? That’s oh, that’s. So we were talking about naming, um so it’s not yeah, so a good idea. If you have legacy society, maybe you can personalize it a little bit. That was your idea. You already have it. And you don’t want to really get rid of it or lorts or scare your board too much or scary organization too much and that they were going to make america new name. Just sort of you could just add something to your legacy society. So you could be the, you know, the oak tree, like personalized or something like that. Okay, um, what are you seeing among plan giving recognition patterns and non-profits it’s all over the board? Because this is this is what i do so let’s say, i’m working with a new organization. The first thing i do is i go find their annual report online, and i look in the back and i see what they have and sometimes it just says bequest donors and that’s all they have, they have no riel, quote, legacy society and some people have really robust really thought out legacy societies with a great name, and they have a lot of benefits, recognition benefits. So what? Kinds of what kinds of i love your earrings, by the way. Very sparkly. Thank you. I’m sorry. We’re not surprised by my very sparkly let’s not get carried away, but the sparkle let’s leave it at that. What do you see? What kind of benefits are accompanying legacy or recognition? Society is very important when you’re when you’re starting to build out your legacy. Society experience. Let’s say you’ve never had a legacy society and your building this out and it’s. Like what kind of things can you offer? People used to say thank you and usually it’s. Nice to offer some sort of a gift. So perhaps you have some nice framed prints or a beautiful blanket with the school logo on it or the organization’s logo. Like whatever you think you can offer. That’s something that’s. Very nice. So it’s, really all across the board to have a gift. Okay, interesting. Let me stop you there. Uh, sorry, but we’re having a conversation. That’s. Interesting. So i have a different theory and that i’m not too big on the let’s. Go big on the little gift. I like a little lapel pins, but you do little framed frame things, those air interesting, like frames prince or something? Well, for instance, i know i know the ronald reagan library foundation in california, when you go in their legacy society, they don’t they don’t say this. I don’t think on their web site or whatever, but after you let them know you’re in the will, they send you, like this beautiful coffee table book, like one hundred fifty dollars gorgeous coffee table book, and you just get that as a way to say thank you. And i think it’s a very sincere way to show your appreciation. So a lot of really good organizations have a nice gift that they send, and then you could have other benefits. So for instance, sometimes they have a yearly lunch or dinner and all the way up, tio i’ve seen colleges, i know a college and i think it’s, south carolina and i want to say the name offhand cause i may get it wrong, but i know of ah college in south carolina, and they have a lot of alumni that live nearby, and so they’ve made a benefit. You can have free parking. On campus, when you come to events, so you need to, like, call the office and get a sticker and you can use the athletic facility, you can use the gym and that’s of great value does a great values but doesn’t cost the organization anything isn’t that first morning, and very few people are going to use it. It’s, it’s like people, you know, they get it and a few people will use it, but but not that many. So whatever you might have that you can offer people. So for instance, i worked with pearl s buck international in pennsylvania and their own organization that you can, like, adopt a child in vietnam, pay something every month and adopt the child, but they also have this beautiful the pearl s buck historic home, so so they’ve offered to members of their new and i’ll tell you the name in the moment of their new organization, when you put them in the will you get you get lifetime free admission to the pearl s buck house, and you could you could transfer that if you live in california that’s okay, you can transfer that if your friends are coming. East or something, you can offer them that’s cubine lifetime admission to the pearl s buck historic home. So things that you already have and you can offer people it just it sounds good, frankly, it’s, like when you’re talking about it, it gives you something to talk about there’s one that i like again, no cost when you’re hosting an event of some type, have a v i p seating area for your recognition society members, your legacy, society members, whatever. Yes, by piece sitting, you know and you could say, yeah, right, exactly or, you know, premier seating and and exactly does a lot of especially schools have, like, a christmas concert or something that’s very popular, and people come to the christmas concert, older people, they love to have that that v i p seating that this a nice a nice benefit for them. Another thing i’ve seen some of my clients do is, uh, before a big event, they host a little reception. They’ve already got the venue that’s already paid for it and it just add on like a half an hour cocktail reception beforehand. Maybe it’s a meet and greet with the ceo before. The larger event where you’re not going to really get time with that person but it’s something something special small added on to something that’s bigger. And so the marginal cost of that is not very big, right? So at a college reunion, if you have a special event for people in your plan giving society and the president of the college comes and you have a nice little cocktail party and you get and you get one on one time with the president of the college that’s that’s definitely special, but the name i think is really is really important to come up with these dust with the pearl s buck. Well, this is i worked at this organization and all they had when it when i came on board was the visionary society and the only place they had it was in the annual report, and that was it. So you never saw it on the website or you never never saw it anywhere else, so they felt it was time to refresh. So the visionary society like visionary, you can’t really see it like what is it? And so instead what i’ve done is we created something. Called the camelia circle because pearl s buck, the author that everybody loves that’s part of this organization that was her favorite flower was the camelia and right next to her office in the historic home is a beautiful greenhouse filled with camille ia’s. So we’ve made a beautiful camelia circle pin and it’s the camelia circle rather than society, because i tend a lot not like to call them societies and everything else is, well, the society. So if you have ten different societies, well, your plan giving society is yet another one. But if you circle that’s something different, i could say a guild or a league or a circle there’s a lot of other things, things that you can say. Okay, cool. Um, there’s one that occurs to me. I have a client that’s, pretty small ship it’s a historical society. And they’re celebrating what’s called the abraham lincoln brigade, which is a bunch of men who from america, who volunteered to go fight in the against the fascists in the spanish civil war. And they became known as the abraham lincoln brigade. The spanish civil war is like nineteen, thirty six to thirty nine and some of these men went over, like three thousand them and this society’s perpetuating their legacy legacy these these soldiers in the war from the u s and they call it the haram a society on the haram a haram a means absolutely nothing. That’s what i love about this, it means absolutely nothing to anybody outside the organization, right? But that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter to people right in any organisation. Haram a was a big battle in spanish, they all notice of that know all about it, and they’re right, and everybody else out there on the outside has no idea, and it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference because it’s special for the organism did they have any little image ing with that cause? It’s nice like when you’re when you’re building the image that’s? Why, if if, if you name it after a person, it’s a little harder to build the image because what you going to put the person’s face on a pin? So i like to use like if you have a special tree or like maybe with this haram a bottle, maybe there’s like a battlefield, a little crest of two crossed guns. Or i don’t know. Okay, i’m gonna ask you don’t have something like that now. No, look at this. Okay, um but yeah, just making the point that doesn’t have to be universally recognised. Its what’s special to your organization, i think that’s yeah, but not too out there because sometimes it’s a little too out there. And i like to do something that, like the great court gate at smith college, you can make things with the great court game. Like you can have that on stationery. You could make a pin out of that it’s a thing. And so i like like the camelia with with pearl s buck. We made a beautiful camelia circle pin and then and that allows you also let’s say you have a new member of your camelia circle. You could have them visit thie greenhouse and talk to the guy that runs the green. You can take a photograph of them and then you could give her her pin in the greenhouse. And you’ve a wonderful photograph for your newsletter that’s. Why i love the pin so much it’s an opportunity, it’s a pr opportunity i find i find donors do like the pins and they wear them, they were them two events and they’re great out of them and they’re proud of them and open and aside from that, they give you something to talk about. So for instance, i do some work for smith college, so we mail a newsletter to existing members of the great court society and in it, i always put a little thing. You’re a picture of the pin, your great court pin. Would you like that? Have you lost your pin? Or would you like an extra pin? Give us a call and we’ll get it. We’ll give you another pen. Say it gives you a little something to talk about to engage your donors because that’s, what it’s all about it’s engaging people, giving them a reason to call you or a reason to send you a little email? Yes, i’ve lost my pin. I’d like a new pin, right? You don’t have a pen, then you can’t talk about it. Um all right. So let’s, let’s. Go, little brother, what else is, uh, what else do you like in plant e-giving marketing besides the recognition society, we got ourselves some more time. I kind of like what you talked about at the beginning about things that you do for free, and that seems to be what i love to do i’ve i’ve started to put together some content, hopefully that will become a book that is all about marketing that you, khun do yourselves. That doesn’t cost you anything that any organization khun d’oh and basically it starts with that thing in the newsletter that says, are we in your will? If we’re in your will or other estate plans, please give us a call even if you wish for your gift to remain anonymous. It’s important that you share this information with us covered these different reasons and that’s, you know that’s free, you can put that in your newsletter you can put that on a buckslip so there’s a lot of things that you could do for free. So i really like to help organisations, whether their teeny tiny or a huge organization are missing the boat sometimes on the good free stuff. Well, if you have a book coming than, uh, share, share something else that’s, easy and free. Well, keep in free my kind of cheap and free i’d like to call it internal pr internal public relations. So? So you want to do more with your with your plan giving you hope to get more bequest? So why not have a little let’s say you’re having? Ah, volunteer, you could have a little volunteered gathering these air like kind of like top people, they’ve been with your organization for a long time. They don’t work for you, but they’re volunteers and their longtime donors you could have a little pizza party on a certain afternoon and invite everyone to the pizza party and say, we have something great that we’d like to share with you. This would be really, really helpful, you know that sometimes people pass away and they leave organizations gifts in there will like that. That cat shelter down the street just got a request for five hundred thousand dollars. Wouldn’t it be great if we got a request like that? And if it goes, oh, yeah, that would be great. And then you just share this simple thing with them and you say here’s something that you can do that’s really, really easy the next time you hear someone say, oh gosh, i’ve been coming here for such a long time and i can only donate ten dollars, a year. I wish i could do more. Well, you have to do nice volunteer is listen for that information and come back to me and share with me that person’s name that’s all you have to dio soc look at what you’ve done there, it’s, great internal pr you’ve you’ve shared this information with a group of people that their prospects as well, these long time volunteers, but you’re not asking them for a gift. You’re just sharing this with them and you’re putting the, you know, the idea and they’re in their head and then you’re giving them a very, very easy way that they can help beyond the way that they’re helping. Right now, all they have to do is listen for this key phrase from a donor. Gosh, i wish i could do more because that’s someone that could potentially be a fantastic plan giving prospect, they can’t give you a lot of money right now, but they might have a retirement plan, life insurance, and they wish they could do more and they wish they could do more so that’s that’s really key? So that’s a little internal public relations thing that you can do doesn’t cost you anything except for maybe a couple pizzas. I love it because you’re most people would call it training, right? It’s not, but internal pr. Oh, it’s, internal pr, it’s and it’s. Not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. Another way to do internal pr is you go to that to the young woman that answers the phone at the front desk at your organization. She’s, twenty seven years old and you say no if you say, you know, kathy, if someone called you up and said, oh, you know, i’m thinking about i’m going to the lawyer and i want to update my will, what would you say to them and cathy? Michael, god, i don’t know, i’ve no idea i’d have to ask somebody. Well, instead, next time someone calls, you know, make sure you refer them to me because here at the organization, i’m the person that that would help them with that. So it’s that’s, another way to do an internal pr is just communicate to key staff members about who’s doing what with the plan giving and you get the word out and i love that you said the person who answers the phones receptionist or somebody like that because they’re they’re talking to donors all the time and sometimes opportunities arise, so just don’t go you don’t know where their right, but you just don’t know who the next person is going to be. That’s talking to a plant, giving potential donor. I’ve gone up to the t to the help desk at a hospital and a huge non-profit beautiful hospital where i live in north carolina, and i went up to the help desk in the volunteer and she’s got the pin on thirty years service, and i said, excuse me, i said, but if i were going to update my will and and include the hospital, i love the hospital, how would i go about doing that? And this woman i know i threw her off, but but not too far because she was she was savvy, and i’ve been around a long time and she said, well, i’m not exactly sure, but i’m i can point you to the person that would be able to tell you that’s perfect, yes, and she gave me the name for the development person a development that’s a home run. So see, she knew so that so the next step after that would be, you know, introduced her to who the plan giving director is. And then she knows, like, a new a new title at the right. But now that that’s that’s the outstanding i mean, that kind of outreach is ideal. Otherwise, that person might have been lost. Well, i don’t really know i’m sorry. I don’t know. I’ve never heard of that. Okay? Feeling hurted, like people have never been mike away and say you might go and say, ok, never mind, you know, let’s. Forget it. Right. Okay. All right. We have just got half a minute. So you want to give us one planned giving marketing tip? Whatever it is related to free, free for all. Well, another really inexpensive thing that you can do is you could. You could have some information on your website that has your request language, your tax i d and all that right. You probably have that. Have your i t person make a little vanity kind of earl fort. So say you’re a s p. C a, you know, in new york dot org’s you could have slash requests or slash plan giving or slash my will or something, and and you have rent that unlike a special little card you could make with on vista print or something or through your organisation, make a special little card and have your title on there your name and title you’re the development director than on the back of the card. You have this little girl, and so when you’re going around and doing your internal pr and you go to the lady at the front desk, you could give her that card and say, well, if someone calls, you can just give them this earl where here’s ten cards and if someone comes before you give him a card or figure out on a donor visit or you’re at it, you’re at a dog wash, you know thing for your a s p c a and the person says, i wish i could do more. You could you know, this is where you know this is. You could send your lawyer here on look hard, so inexpensive and love zoho effective lovett claire meyerhoff planned giving communications and marketing strategist you’ll find her on twitter at claire says c l a i r e as easy, thanks, claire martin. Thank you, tony. Great show. And thanks for being our creative producer as well. It’s it’s it’s an honor and i have it on my lincoln. Thank you very much. All that tony’s take two and deep pockets coming up first pursuing they’re here. Hillary sutton is brand journalist for pursuing in the studio from lynchburg, virginia. Welcome, hillary. Thanks, toni. Excited to be here. Cool. I’m glad you’re excited. Thank you, rob. Very glad to have you were talking about pursuing for weeks. Generous sponsor of the show. Thank you very much for that, i think that’s ah, i think it’s a perfect relationship. Yeah. We’re we’re so excited to be able to support a podcast that provides action oppcoll information to people every week. And it’s. Just really helpful. Absolutely. I mean, look at all the stuff claire shared. Right. Like a dozen things that you could go on. Start taking notes over here. You could start on monday, take the weekend off and start your plan giving marketing and recognition on, eh? Um okay. Interesting title you have pursuing brand journalist. Why is what what is? What is that brand journalist do? Yeah, great question. So i’m a part of our marking team and i get the express honor. Teo, help share the success stories of our clients we it’s really exciting when we get to do we get to come alongside our clients who have big dreams, big visions for changing the world. Really every organization marvin improving the environment. I mean in so many different ways. And so i just love teo, get teo it’s get to connect those dots of how we’re getting to come alongside those clients and and leave the world a better place. Really you’re helping tell the story of how pursuant is helping clients in whatever they’re trying to dance, right, make the world a better, much better place. Okay, cool brand journalist covered that innovative. Alright, um, so you know, you know very well that the audience here is small and midsize non-profits on dh pursuant to the reason i think it’s such an outstanding relationship is because there’s so much that pursuing does that small emissions shops, midsize shops can take advantage of like all the tools, you know, in ala carte tools and things just help amplify it. I mean, i talk about it every week, but, um what? Look, why? How is it that pursuing is always thinking about small and midsize? Sure, while we have a couple of different offerings specifically, our velocity and our billboard are both offerings that just help small and midsize fundraisers work smarter, not harder. We’re going. We’re going to talk a little about velocity because there’s a survey and that’s actually for like, uh, managing your fund-raising and fundraisers. Time against goal, right? Yes. It’s e-giving productivity tool for fund-raising. Exactly. It’s a prospect management system and it’s. Interesting. Because we actually developed in house because we have some gift officers in house and we developed it to make their jobs easier so they wouldn’t spend time, you know, doing the same things over and over again. It simplifies process. It was it was being used by pursuing concerns as they were helping client that’s, right? And so it’s. So cool. I like that. Yeah. Developed internally. And it was so helpful that it was somehow sure we thought we’ve got to share this. Exactly. Okay. Okay. Let’s see, also you mentioned billboard? Yes. Okay. Billboard is our tool that does marketing automation. So it’s it it it’s a fantastic tool to use, you know, at the year. And you don’t have time to send out those emails. Live particular year in giving him so billboard is a tool that could help automate that and automate your non-profit running across its really cross all marketing channels, right kind of helps you develop well, send the messages and then it also has analytics. So you know which channels or productive is that the best mobile is the best e mail? Is this one your social media platforms? You know, etcetera? Exactly. Let’s go back to velocity because there’s a survey that i am going to put on my video next week. So on today’s the ninth, ten eleven, twelve so many the twelfth is going to video. I’m going to talk about the survey and i’ll have a link to it. But velocity, you’re trying to get more information and people can win an ipad air. Yeah, exactly. We just want to hear from fundraisers about some of their pain points. S o we can make our product better to make it to serve fundraisers better. So in exchange for your time, you get entered to win and an ipad ipad and are better. I’ve had a rare yeah, and i i went through the survey. It takes like five minutes. I’d say five, six minutes elearning yeah, there you go. It it’ll help develop the tool. But important that mean the tool is already available now? Yeah. It’s. Just like it’s going to be like improving it. Yeah. Step to face two or something. Okay, cool. Hillary, thank you very much for coming around your way. You’re my pleasure. And thank you again for sponsoring non-profit radio. Happy to do it. The video that hillary and i are talking about the survey and the link will be on tony martignetti dot com by the time you’re hearing this and that’s tony’s take two for friday, ninth of october fortieth show of the year. Here is maria simple with deep pockets. Maria semple is with us. She is the prospect finder, the trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects. Now, she’s our doi end of dirt cheap and free ideas. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple welcome back from vacation, maria. Thanks, tony. Great to be back here with you. I’m glad you are. Where were you on vacation? We took the kids who are both in college. We took them on spring break and went down to riviera. Maya in mexico. Was this a selling vacation? I know you’re an avid sailor. No, it was land based, but it was wonderful. We did get out on a little catamaran to play that they had available at the resort, you know, to take out on your own. Just, you know, a smaller one. There this fun. Now we’re here and where your college kids thrilled about going on spring break with their mom and dad and sitting on the beach instead of being with their friends and drinking beers. Actually, they were they were just fine with it. And, yeah, we won’t address the other part of that. I’m sure if they’re below twenty one that i’m certainly don’t drink beers, right? Well, they they’re they’re of age. They put it that way. Okay. Okay. Um well, i’m glad you’re back. We’re talking about finding pockets of of affluence in communities. This this comes up in your practice, it does, it comes up a lot in, especially when i’m doing seminars or workshops in front of live groups, you’ve inevitably always have somebody raised their hand and say, g, we we really like to know a little bit more about our communities in terms of affluence. What what are the more affluent, zip zip codes? Um, and then, you know, what is philanthropy looking like in general amongst high net worth individuals? So i thought it might be kind of interesting for us to take some time and talk about what some of the resource is our that air available online to kind of examine, you know, both of those areas. Okay, before we go online, is there any chance of starting with your immediate internal resources, like you’re bored? You could could you start there, perhaps? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You could definitely start with your board. What? What i think is usually helpful, though, is if you very often, if if you goto your board and try and have a conversation at a board meeting or a development committee meeting and just kind of say, well, who do you know, give us the names of everyone, you know, you know, sometimes it’s better to kind of have maybe sort of almost a vetted list first to se gi these air, some people we’ve identified or these air some affluent zip codes we’ve identified in our region? Does anybody know any of these people? Or does anybody know anybody in these in these zip codes? Because then now you’re getting them to really focus in on some specific people are specific communities, and then, you know, versus them just trying to figure out who they know in their entire world or roll adex, okay, so we’re going to go online to try to generate thes resource is start t these resources to try to generate lists and, uh, give people names and communities and things like that, too, jog their memories. Yeah, i think i think that works at a little bit better for a lot of boards because a lot of people are a little bit more perhaps reserved. Or they say, well, you know, who is it that you want me to bring to? The table here, give me a little bit more parameter around that. Okay, well, you’re are dyin of dirt, cheap and free. So where should we get started with this? So, you know, the census pulls together a lot of great data about communities, and that really is the basis for a lot of these statistics that you can get regarding not only where income levels are and wealth, but how what the makeup is of the population. Right? So this could have implications not only for the fund-raising side of your non-profit, but also thinking about programs and services that you offer. And, you know, maybe you have certain services that are more geared toward females are more geared towards certain types of populations, maybe immigrants. So you would want to know how you know, what is our population, makeup and how well, with this programme are service you’ve made have a sense that this might be something that you want to offer at your non-profit but not knowing the exact make of of the community you you would probably be, you know, better off just kind of doing a little bit of research to see well, just what? Are the numbers of the people in that community that make up that population? Ok, how do we access the census data? So one source is directly from the census itself. It’s it’s called american fact finder. And the website is a fact finder to roman that’s, the numeral two thie arabic. We know that’s the arabic numerals, right. The arabic numerals, right. Fact finder to dot senses. Stop, gov. Um, so that is a pretty good place to start because what you can actually dio is you can put in your specific zip code that you would like to do a little bit of research on. And you can get information, for example, like the average adjusted gross income for that community versus the entire state. What charitable contribution deductions are in that zip code. So that could be kind of tito that’s. Very interesting. Yeah, it’ll. So i had gone in in prep preparation for this particular show today. I went in and put my own zip code in and saw that the average charitable contributions were three thousand sixty two dollars, right? So if you’re trying to think about where tio really started mining specific communities, it could be an interesting way to see if that how that community compares to other nearby communities, and you can also look at income income statistics. There you can look at income, you can look at average adjusted gross income, you can look att estimated median household income. Andi khun, look att house values as well. So i thought that was kind of interesting because a lot of people will say, well, g, you know it it seems to be that the communities where there might be hyre hyre home values could potentially then translate to higher income brackets and potentially hyre giving as well, yes, interesting. So you can you can play with these different variables of income and assets and charitable deductions average terrible reductions in the right zip code, for example, in my zip code. One thing that i found to be kind of interesting when i looked at the estimated median house value in in two thousand eleven as it was broken down by race, um, the asian community came out highest at just over five hundred seventy five thousand, the next highest level was the white population at four, sixty nine and changed so it was interesting to see how, how even they can break it down by race based on the information found and census data. Okay, and that’s all that fact finder to dot census dot gov, right and another site as well, which is it? City dash data dot com, where you can look at a lot of this broken down, but focusing first on the census site that i mentioned the fact finder site, you can download their data into excel spreadsheet, so i thought that was interesting, because then you can you know, if you if you needed to do any type of reporting at your in you can take those spreadsheets and share them with other people within your organization, be that, you know, staff or or bored, you can also sort you can also sort by different variables, right? Absolutely. And then they also had poverty, statistics and statistics around veterans. So if you were looking to try and figure out where the poverty stats where, you know, maybe you’re trying to develop programming for lower income children in your community or something like that, you can try and take a look at where those stats are also. Some non-profits are addressing the needs of veterans. And so you could try and determine what the numbers of veterans in our communities and trying to come up with programming for that too specific population. Okay, that’s a very good one. I love that one. Ah, yeah. All right. You mentioned city hyphen data. Dot com city data city data dot com there’s a hyphen in there? Absolutely. And i can put these on your facebook page, if you like after the show. Well, yeah, i’m going to do the takeaways and i’ll have a bunch of them. But you, khun, you can then add some or two, you’ll be able to add, add beyond what i what i put in the takeaways. Okay, okay. Terrific. So there again, you can search by zip code and again, you can look at the da’s adjusted gross income figures, charity contributions um, home values again broken down by race and so forth. And you know, you khun a lot of a data, you’ll you’ll note. It’s laid out a little bit differently. So i think what i would say to your listeners is checked. Both of them out. See what type of information it is that you want to pull out of this, um and see if if if the data is going to be useful for you. It’s presented a little bit differently on the two websites. But i have a feeling that the actual core of where all the data is coming from. It’s really? All from the census. Oh, interesting. Ok, same data differently presented. So use both. Lookit lookit. Both. Okay, absolutely. This is an example. You know, i love this example of ah, value that the government provides us through the through the census. Yeah. It’s all it’s all there, it’s free. And so why not take advantage of you know, all of this? All this work legwork somebody else has done for you. What else you got for us? So then i was beginning to think about, well, let’s, look, a philanthropy in general and the mindset, perhaps, of high net worth individuals and two interesting studies that are out there. One is by bank of america. They do a high net worth study. Ah, and the last one was done at the end of two thousand twelve. And another a source that i do want. To give some time to talk about is the chronicle of philanthropy because they did something in two thousand twelve called hyre how america gives you remember that and the make of america’s study, um, is quite lengthy, they do have an executive summaries well, and that girl is a bit longer. So but of course, if you if you just google the bank of america hi network study, you’ll get right to it as well. But what i thought was kind of interesting is that, you know, that they profile how the high net worth individuals are giving now. So where the state of giving wass and at that point in time when they did this study and also how they might be projected to give so i would really encourage the non-profits to take a look at that, especially if they’re looking to, you know, really increase their individual giving program amongst high net worth individuals just to kind of understand where the mind set is for these individuals, okay, so this is sort of after you’ve identified people that this isn’t really to identify pockets of affluence in your community, but how to deal with those affluent. Populations right? Why they why they give what motivates their giving? What motivates they’re getting right? So trying to trying to figure out where they’re giving, where, where might it be going? What is their mindset? So it’s one thing to be able to identify those pockets, but then how do you interact with them? How do you take that data and make it useful for you? Right? So one thing that i found interesting on on one of the pages of the report was that of that particular report was that the high net worth donors are increasing, they’re increasingly directing their gifts towards operating support. Ah, and this is something i get all the time. When i hear at my seminars, people will say, well, you know, the foundations and corporations they really want seem to really want to tie they’re giving to very specific program, nobody wants to fund operating support, but here in this report, they’re saying that they are open to the high net worth individuals are open to ah e-giving you contributions toward operating support. So i think that this is a huge opportunity for non-profits to focus up, because obviously these donors do. Understand about overhead. They understand that there has to be money for the lights and the heat, etcetera, and i think that you can easily direct some of your conversations to that. That sector. All right, we have to. We have to take a break for a couple minutes. Maria, when we come back, we’ll keep talking about these deep pockets, how to find them. We’ll talk about that chronicle of philanthropy survey, and i know that you have some others, so everybody stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti m a r t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Maria simple. I want to thank you for including a picture of me on your the prospect finder micro fiber cleaning cloth. Thank you. Like that. I do. I don’t know how i feel about my face being smeared across people’s monitors and smartphones, but but i think there’s a little picture of you and me in the studio, on the arm, on your cleaning cloth. Thank you very much. You’re very welcome. Very welcome. So i decided that sometimes that some of my speaking engagements i might be able to hand that out and be a nice little thing that people could keep and think about our faces for years to come. And i noticed, too. If i if i stretch it vertically, it makes me look hydrocephalus. Oh, my goodness, i haven’t tried there, and if you stretch it horizontally, then looks like i’ve gained about one hundred twenty five pounds. Can i send out some listener lovas? Well, three times? Well, because of your show, i was asked to go and speak to women in philanthropy of western massachusetts back in february, and they’re huge fans of your show. And so i just wanted to give a shout out to them and say hi, thank you very much with women in women in philanthropy, western mass, and they’ve invited me to come, but they’re booked until, like, next mayor april or something like that. Twenty fifteen not talking about this year. They’re booked until spring of next year sometime. So tired. Organized group. Yeah, i have time to make my reservations. Um okay. Let’s. Go back to our our deep pockets. Was there anything more you want to say about the bank of america study of high net worth philanthropy or we finished with that? No. You know, it’s very in depth. Really good projections. I found on pages sixty three to sixty five of the study of how they’re giving now and how they’re projected to give. So people are feeling a little overwhelmed with the study and they want to at least try and figure out where’s. What does this all mean for me? And where should i go with it? I would say they should focus on pages three to sixty five study that’s incredibly valuable, because and so is the fact that you said earlier there’s an executive summary, because if i was listening. And i heard sixty five pages in a survey. I think i’d move on to your next suggestion. But that’s, just me. But it is called the bank of america study of high net worth philanthropy. And as marie said, you khun, search for that and get it for free. What do we got over the chronicle of philanthropy? This how america gives thing. So what they did back in two thousand twelve, they, uh, they decided to make an entire map of the united states. You can put in your zip code and get a lot of data on where philanthropy is for those specific zip code. So i thought that was kind of interesting because, as you know, the chronicle is one of those resource is that a lot of people really rely on. Um so when i gone in, i put my zip code in. I took a look at they give a breakdown by total contributions. What the median contribution is. And then they also give you the median discretionary income. Um, andi give it as a percentage. They give you the percentage of income given, so i thought that was was pretty good. They give a breakdown as well by demographic. So do you just have an idea? You can look at a breakdown by age, race as well as education level of the population, just in case that was of interest to you. And they give a breakdown by income level of giving. So if you wanted to see, like, they break it down between the people who make between fifty, the study, basically start assuming on income level of at least fifty thousand. So fifty thousand to one hundred and one hundred, two hundred, two hundred and up and then all income levels help me understand how you would use all these sites. And i know there’s another one, one or two. We’re going to get to, but some claim gives you ah, project a task i need. How would you use all these different sites? You go to all of them. Or do you? You find some from some sites and other info from other sites. How do you approach this? Well, it really depends on what specific piece of information they want. Most of the time they’re giving me the name of an individual. Teo actually profile for them and other times they might come to me and say, well, you know, we’re interested in expanding and doing some proactive prospecting, you know, where are some of the more affluent neighborhoods that we should be looking to perhaps hold cultivation event? Um, sent mailers out, too, so they’re just trying to identify what are those pockets near them that they should be potentially targeting if they want to get into some proactive prospect and get some new names of people associated with their organization? Right? And if that’s your that’s, your charge, the ladder to find those pockets, how would you how would you approach that? So i would probably go teo, both fists chronicle of philanthropy study, as well as the census data, to try and identify where those hyre income levels are, and both of those locations where people are giving more so they be more of ah, i guess the more likelihood of success if they’re both approaching people with higher incomes and also are accustomed to giving hyre levels of money. Who okay, okay on and then, of course, you have to devise. You know what is going to be our plan if we want to? Go to that entire zip code. What? You know what? What are we going to do? Are we going to devise a mailer to go to all the households? There’s an every door direct program, for example, that the post office runs where you can target specific zip codes? Um, every every door direct, no shoot. Right? We’re out of time. Let’s. Hold that every door. Direct, let’s, let’s talk about that next time and unfortunately have to leave it there. So there are some other resource is that you have, which we will include you can add to the to the takeaway is that i do on the facebook page. Okay, sure. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Maria simple. The prospect finder at the prospect finder dot com. And on twitter at marie a simple thank you, maria. Thank you. Time for mohr live listener love lots of new live listen has joined us from carmel, indiana live listener love out to you especially and zoho in new wendorf, germany. Good dog also joined by inchon, korea anya haserot and hamamatsu japan konnichi wa also ten gin china still thinking of you that tragic explosion a few weeks ago threefold, weeks ago or so, still thinking of you, johnjn ni hao and also in india and i hope i’m saying it right live, listen love send there, too next week, a panel on stop pointing fingers at tech and hiring geeks with amy sample word. If you missed any part of today’s show finding on tony martignetti dot com, where in the world else would you go pursuant fund-raising tools for small and midsize non-profits you’ll raise barrels more money. I’m not talking about those tiny replicas you seon model railroad set ups on ping pong tables. I’m talking the sixty gallon models stacked in the musty barrel room of a winery filled with money pursuing dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and this music that you hear is by scott stein, thank you for that scottie with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Kayman you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way, way.