Tag Archives: prospect

Prospect Research Chat Transcript

GrantSpace logo and title of prospect research chat,  "What's in Your Donor Dossier?"On March 21, The Foundation Center hosted Maria Semple and me for “What’s in Your Donor Dossier?”, a web chat on prospect research.

Maria, The Prospect Finder, and a contributor to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, shared lots of free and low-fee research sites.

As I complained about her efficiency, I contributed my thoughts on what robust prospect research looks like and how important it is to your fundraising.

Many thanks to The Foundation Center and GrantSpace for hosting us! When it was over they asked, “Would you like to do another one?” I think they thought I had left the chat by then.

The webchat transcript is here.

GrantSpace logo and title of prospect research chat, "What's in Your Donor Dossier?"

Web Chat Hosted By The Foundation Center

Screen Shot 2013-03-18 at 12.33.55 PMThe Foundation Center is hosting Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, and me for a free web chat this Thursday the 21st at 2:30 eastern.

What’s in Your Donor Dossier?
The Foundation Center says we’ll talk about the critical pieces of data you should gather on prospective donors. “Our panelists discuss strategies and methods for developing a stellar donor dossier.”

Maria Semple is eminently qualified to answer your research questions. That’s why she’s a monthly contributor to my weekly Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. I like to surround myself with smart people and pick their brains for our listeners.

Which leaves me wondering why I was invited. Maybe for color commentary.

Here’s the place to register and send your questions in advance. As you put together questions for me, imagine pitching wiffle ball to a 4-year-old.

This is a free, live chat and text-only. Should be interesting for two people who meet on my audio podcast.

Actually, I have thoughts on prospect research after 16 years in fundraising. I promise to share what I’ve learned.

Many thanks to The Foundation Center for hosting!

I hope you’ll be with Maria and me on Thursday.

______

Update: Prospect Research Chat Transcript

 

Maria Semple

Nonprofit Radio, March 8, 2013: InteGREAT Communications And Marketing & PRI: Program Related Investments

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Lansing Associates logo
Diane Lansing: InteGREAT Communications And Marketing

Diane Lansing, president of Lansing Associates, has ideas for getting your communications and marketing in sync. Then she wants you to apply analytics so you know what works and what doesn’t, in the short- and long-term. Sounds simple. Are you doing it? Diane will get you started.

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: PRI: Program Related Investments

Our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder, Maria Semple, is with me to explain why foundations don’t only make grants. Some offer loans, loan guarantees, equity investments and other PRIs. How do you find these foundations? Listen to Maria. She’ll also have info on conferences you’ll want to pay attention to.

 


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Here is a link to the audio: 132: InteGREAT Communications And Marketing & PRI: Program Related Investments. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.

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Durney hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. What a coincidence that i found the show. I haven’t said that for a long time. I hope you’re with me last week i’d feel terrible if it came to my attention that you had missed press pause. Juliet funt is a consultant to fortune one hundred companies and a motivational business speaker. She wants you to make time in your life for white space, you’ll be less stressed, more creative, sleep better and be more productive. Your relationships will flourish. She has a kid’s version that we talked about also she’s, the daughter of candid cameras, allen funt and we shared a white space together also divine devices, desktops, laptops, tablets and handhelds. Scott koegler had tips for picking the right device to fit your budget, work style and personality. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news and our regular monthly tech contributor that was an archive feature, which means an oldie but a goodie this week integrate communications and marketing. Diane lansing, president of lansing associates, has ideas for getting your communications and marketing in sync. Then she wants you to apply analytics, so you know what works and what doesn’t in the short and long term? Sounds simple, but are you doing it? Diane will get you started. We’ll talk about all that and p r i it’s, not particle resistant influenza it’s, not public radio international and it’s, not personality related insomnia, no it’s programme related investments, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder maria simple is with me to explain why foundations don’t only make grants, some offer loans, loan guarantees, equity investments and other pr ise how do you find these foundations? That’s what we’re going to talk about? And she also has info on prospect research company princes that you’ll want to pay attention to between the guests. Antony’s take two it’s my blog’s this week is talk about gift annuities and that’s what i’ll do on take two my pleasure now to welcome diane lansing she’s, president of lansing associates in new york city. She has over thirty years of strategic marketing and communications experience. She started smiling when i began this introduction that’s lovely, she advises on how best to take advantage of new media to attract new donors and advocates to build loyalty and to provide value and information to donors and prospects. I’m glad that her practice and her expertise brings her to the studio. Diane lansing. Welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here this morning. Pleasure to have you. Communications and marketing should be in sync and we’ll talk about sinking them. But how are they different? What? Yeah. How do we distinguish thes? Often the marketing function is designed to think strategically about where we can go, what we can do to increase our our membership, our donor base art sponsorship and the communications people sometimes air left in the sort of functionary aspect of just printing materials or putting things up on a website that may not be is organized and is driven by the overall mission and purpose of the organization as well as its new directions. They could be a little bit sometimes behind the curve. I see less of it. Today is frankly, financial pressures are causing many organizations to combine the two and that’s good that’s. Good that’s. A good thing, because that now they’re all singing out. Same sheet of music. On the other hand, i also see organizations where these even combined functions are not is properly in sync with the organ, what the organization’s doing as they can be. What does that look like when they’re when they’re not sing? A really good example is ah major museum here in new york city has a wonderful gift shop that has absolutely no relation to the exhibits that are going on in the building. They just sell stuff branded with their their identity barely even though it’s ah it’s ah ah ah, i assume an outsource project, but whoever runs it doesn’t even take a look at what’s going on in the exhibit space that they could basically back end on so that it would increase their sales. What happens when the marketing let’s say they are two different people in charge of each of these two different areas? One is more senior than the other, like one maybe is a vice president and the other is a director. How do how does the director get the attention of the vice president and, well, the other the other way around? Wouldn’t it wouldn’t be trouble, but how does the lower echelon person get the attention and and buy-in of the of the more senior person oh, i think that this is a wonderful opportunity for someone who’s looking to advance their own career, come up with a good idea and show why it works. It’s a very unusual boss that won’t take advantage of that because it works to everybody’s advantage, and so then you may have to get buy-in from from above, you may have to, but none of the things what makes all of this whole these holder direction so interesting is that they’re basically free. This isn’t something you have to get a lot of people to sign on for because they’re expensive, the kind of things we’re talking about now tweaking communications that air you sent out by elektronik media using analytics cost virtually nothing, right? But the’s tweaks sometimes in organizations where there’s micromanagement from the board, the cookies that’s the worst. Where it’s the board which convenes, you know, once a quarter at best, but it could even be from the executive director ceo. I mean, how do we deal with those kinds of pressures from people who are above but not as skilled as us? I think the really good news is that the kind of things we’re talking about this morning, especially analytics, are a way to show to demonstrate to anyone peers, superiors, boardmember sze anybody, the growing effectiveness of new campaigns and new strategies and techniques that you’re using in your organization so you can not just you don’t have to diss present an idea that i think this would look really nice if we did this. You can say we pilot tested this last month and look it we did it method a got these results method b got those results plus twenty percent, so we’re suggesting we do more of method be okay if you can if you can back up your ideas with obviously with quantitative, exactly and next and that’s the beauty of analytics to that not for profit world big corporations used to try to quantify the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, which is not always easy to do. It’s not easy to tie brochures and mailers, and whatever into what happens to the sales, the ultimate sales at the end of the day. But now, with analytics, you, khun really track how many people are paying attention to you and then you could look at what happens to year enrollment, your donations, all of the factors that matter to your organization and not only can but ought to be, because there’s so money there’s so much i see happening in charities where it’s it’s a legend or it’s wives, tales or it’s, you know, it’s, just the conventional wisdom, but we’ve always done it this way, right? That’s it? Yeah, i mean, you see that i’m sure you see that in your practice all the time. Okay, do you find people then resistant or welcoming to the idea that we’re actually going to test and see whether your conventional wisdom is correct? I think it’s two points, what i see is that initially there’s a little resistance because people look at, oh, my goodness, people will be able to see that what i’m doing wasn’t as effective as we hoped. I don’t see it that way. What i suggest is doing things a couple of different ways to be able to show management you’re bored anybody that is concerned about your area, that this method produce better results than that one. What you’re using analytics for and all of the information. That you could gather is to help guide your choices and how you spend your time and your money. And when you do that everybody’s backing you, there’s no loser here, everybody wins duitz okay, i just have to make that case you didn’t. And that’s what analytics helps you do. Ok, well, we’ve been talking around analytics so much, right? So i get a sense of how we make the case internally. I mean, understand on dh what it looks like when marketing communications are in sync. Now, let’s apply some of are some of the analytics. What? Well, how do we decide what we should be measuring? What are what are key numbers? What are key numbers are the key numbers that you want to look at first? Well, they’re two basic areas that you should be checking one is if you’re using email blasts, which most organizations do do, regardless of what you’re using, what system or what company you use, whether it’s, your website, host, or whether it’s, an independent company like constant contact, they provide instant feedback on every day. How many people will look at your email? Looked at what you set out its called the click through rate the ctr for short, they will tell you very quickly what kind of response you got if you send something out to five hundred people and only fifty, open it up. That’s a good indication that you may need to change your subject line may need to change some way that you’re appealing to your audience. Subject line is interesting. I mean, you could there and it’s an easy way to test, right? Just do some simple a be testing on absolute varieties of subject line. Talk a little about the really indict first of all segments was not my idea. It’s a brilliant idea that i’ve heard it all. Thank you. One of the things that we can do now again that this frees you, khun segment your your audience by age by interest. Separate donors from members separate sponsors from donors so that you can send out various tweak to messages to different groups and you can identify what’s working in each one. Send them out on separate days and the track than the follow-up and the click through rate for each group. You can see how you effectively you’re reaching each group. With whatever you’re reaching them with, you can even pilot test a single group and sent to different message. It is to a small segment of that group day one day to see if one subject line got a better response than the other. If one was more attention grabbing than the other, that begins to help. You formulate the kind of things that are getting people’s attention. So they want to read what you sent them. All right, lots of variables that were juggling, and we’ll get a chance to talk about more those after we go away for a couple of minutes, diane lansing will stay with me, and i hope you do, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? Hi, i’m ricky keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant. If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s, six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improved your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s. The answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dahna time to send live listener love new york, new york, new bern, north carolina. Massapequa park, new york. Welcome, where’s. The united states of america does s so far that so that’s. What we’ve got in the in the u s of a and massapequa park. I know, i know. Massapequa park. Well, because it’s on the babylon line and i take that line to a client. So i listened to that recitation of ah, of cities. Seaford, massapequa, massapequa park, amityville co. Paige lindenhurst on babylon. I think so, your honor, i know you’re on that line. I think i think i got that right. But i know you for more than long, alan railroad. I used to have a friend who lived in massapequa park. We don’t think that the long alan town’s air represented only by railroad stations. How crass would that be for? For a centered new york self centered gross new yorkers to think we have. Ah, good live listener love abroad. Seoul, korea, seoul, korea on yo haserot and japan. We don’t know what city in japan, though, i guess japan konnichi wa back with diane lansing. And we’re talking about integrating communications and marketing, we have all these variables age maybe, but even without that subject line, purpose of the communication, all the different ways of wording, whether we’re going to use email or one of the maybe the social networks or we’re going to put something on our blogged i mean, we talked about i mean, how do you how do you how do you test all these different things? I mean, there’s there’s so many different combinations. Well, why don’t we take a real example? Let’s say your organization is going to have a fundraising event for all of your younger members? You’re going to have a fund run in the park for them, you could easily take a basic message about that, and you could tweak it for the kids who were going to sign up to do the running. Another message for their parents, which by encourage them to get a couple of other siblings involved or a couple of neighbors and friends. You could tweet the message further for all of your all your donors and another one for sponsors who are providing the t shirts and whatever each of them showing what this what? This organization what? Is about and what this event is for what it means for your organization, what it means for each of the groups that your tailoring your message to and then within each of those groups where we could have different, we can have different tests exactly. So for the kids, we can have test different ways of wording as well a subject line, something for the parents, right? You could do that depending if this is a big do, we don’t want to have all these things that too cumbersome and occasionally it’s worth taking, you know, ten or twenty of your members make a little separate group and do two different versions on day one and day two for just just this the donors and then do two different versions for the kids who might sign up on day one or day two. So before you go with a hole, the whole big announcement of this nationally for or citywide wolber bigger organization is you’ve got a sense of which subject line creates the buzz that gets people to open your me mail and then see what you’re doing and then in your email you, of course want tohave. You’re setting up on ongoing dialogue that hopefully people will follow through the event and its aftermath. So you’re getting various levels of excitement about the event itself, drawing more people in and one way you do that is you keep referring people to your website, where there’s more information that allows him to sign up online. You refer them to your social media, your facebook page, where there are photographs of people who are starting to prepare for the event, and then after the event again, you use all of these. Each of these various avenues can be used to direct people to other sites so they could get more photos of the iran and the winners at the end on the facebook page. There’s a wonderful big group shots of everybody on your website you get people used to being familiar with all the ways that they can basically link into what you do and who you are. The analytic tools will often tell you where someone came from. Exactly what what was that? Some of them called referring agent s o you know what you are l they came from or eso where they came from your block to your facebook page or maybe an event landing page to your facebook page or vice versa, you know, write exactly now some of these air a little bit, depending on where, how much analytics you want, the basic services are free, okay? The basic ones from google and your email blast systems are going to be free. They all provide that email blast systems like constant contact, contact chimp male male children, his chip male banana banana chip mail. I don’t know harry apes of area out of area b middle marketing and they’re all there and they are they’re all very good when you get into your website hosts our and also google, which is an other sorts of very good analytics. They all provide premium packages where a different levels of price points you could kind of move up the scale and get more and more detailed analytics. You could also get people in their organization who will work with you under outta hand hand basis. Most organizations, the not for profit world needs probably not too much of that. Okay, so you think you’re free stuff is going to give you all a lot of most the free stuff is wonderful just start with that you’re going toe, you can play with that and learn so much from that. How does all this feed into our marketing plan that we hopefully have in place? You’re actually, you should be looking at the kinds of results since you get and you should determine that, you know, those regular emails that we’ve been sending out really aren’t getting much attention, but the alerts that we send teo through a facebook our is in our organization is actually getting better, and then we’ll figure that out for the analytics, which we’re going talk a little about short term, we’ll get there, but how does this feed into your longer term marketing plan? Because what you’re really doing now is you’re not changing what the organization is going to do. You’re simply changing the ways and hopefully evolving the ways that you can most effectively reach each of your stakeholder groups by using information that you learn over time on who responds to what which kind of things engaged in the most that’s, where you’re going to spend your marketing time, that’s, where you’re going to spend the effort. In drafting content, organizing it and sometimes snail mail really is valuable most of the time that you may just find that some things get different response and that’s where you want to spend your budget dollars and your time. Okay, so then that so then those conclusions go into the marketing. Exactly. Okay, what we say is each year we learned last year that this that we did worked really well, so we’re anticipating in this coming year, we’re going to do more of that, and we’re going to cut back on our budget that we used to spend on thus and so, because it really wasn’t getting where we weren’t really getting our money’s worth from that, and then you take that information to the board and say exactly, we’re not squandering the money where our marketing budget is actually pretty, well sophisticated, right? We’ve learned and here’s what we’re here’s what we’re doing in reaction to what we learned exactly we’re targeting our every dollar in every minute of our time is effectively is we can based on everything we learn let’s digress a little more into the marketing plan because this is a big part of your your work? What else would just you know what else belongs in a marketing plan? Oh, my goodness. It’s hard to quantify in a single way because of the not for profit world is so darn big and it covered so many organizations, but i think the ah, everybody now is also scrambling for how do we go after scarce dollars? And we’re all seeing that a lot of people have tightened their wallet aunt since two thousand eight and even with things getting better, it’s not there, not loosening up quite a cz muchas i no, my clients would like to see them loosen up. You’re probably seeing the same thing in your client’s, tony, i think thie what i see is that just the ability to show the board that you were using this information and you’re being this intelligent was likely to open up some doors for you within the organization to use what you’re learning even more broadly than you have in the past. You’re finding ways to reach people that your earlier stuff just didn’t get through to. And i think the marketing plan really disney’s to quantify how you’re going to spend your time and your money. How are you integrating all of the avenues? You have to reach people, not only your current members, but now how can you build on that? To reach a larger audience of people who are not already involved with you? This frees up. Then once you learn how you reach your own people most effectively, this helps i challenge you and also helps direct you and how to spend your money to reach new public fired-up squiring new people. Exactly. Find out a lot of your prospects. Come from your blogged or your youtube channel thing and then direct than direct people there. And obviously, direct your efforts in that area in terms of acquisition requiring new in terms of acquiring new people, you can get your you can put out pitch to have all of you. If you’re finding that certain of these are our new and really interesting, you can put out a little pitch to all of your supporters, too. Bring a friend to an event or forward this to that’s. Another key thing both in all the e mail blast systems offer that they should, and you should take advantage of it. You should hyperlink to everything that that you do hyperlink to your website, hyperlink to your social media pages, and then all of those have an ability to forward share with there’s some whatever the wording is in the company that you’re using and encourage your members to do that. That’s you’re the best marketing tool you have people who already believe in you everything, i’m share it with their for exactly, and this is something again that we didn’t used to have the ability to do at all all but which all of these venues now open up for you for free, and then the individual person is talking to their friends, saying this cause means a lot to me, you know, check it out and and this fund run was come join me. This is a lot of fun. I went last year, it’s a blast, you’ve got personal referral combined with a message that you now know because you’ve tested it, you know, works. We’re talking about integrating your marketing in your communications. Diane lansing is president of lansing associates, which you’ll find at lansing l a n s i n g associates dot com lance is a ah is a weapon to spear lying again, lance a boil, but really that’s that’s gross. But lance is something else. As in a species disappear, it’s not a story fear point it is it’s a long it’s a long weapon of war. Yes, you didn’t. You don’t want to be in the wrong end of it is the idea. So you’re lansing, you’re out. Have you thought of this? I don’t know, lance. I’m obviously your name. You’re out lansing, new constituents. We’re not we’re not. We’re not killing them, but we’re just wounding them enough. No, we’re not even. We’re just lansing them to bring them in. We’re hooking him. Yeah. It’s a it’s. A targeted lance. Right. Talking to lansing event. All right. I actually did the entomology on my name, and they actually think it comes from something as pedestrian. Is that somebody had a a potato field? It was the shape of a lance point back in the netherlands. Yeah. It’s really built entomology. I like that word. Entomology way. Don’t say entomology, because that would be reasonably setting ants on dh critters. Ah, little crawly bugs. All right, let’s, go back to the analytics and we want to break down short term and long term. What is your what can we be studying? Short term. Okay, the short term thing is i say, when you do a little pilot test, say you do a little take a small number of your stakeholder groups, all of them together, or even just some of the key groups that you want to try and send a couple of variations to them on two different days and see what happens. That’s the short test and you find which kind of things are working, but begin to track over time over a year’s period. Look at which things one versus which things law and when the time of day exact day of the week, most people will it’s not there most of the time, wrong? No, no email system would tell you that the best time to send out any kind of a blast email is tuesday, wednesday, thursday. Ah, you will get a much hyre read rate then you will on a monday morning when people come into their office on dh look at this huge long list they don’t, you know you’re much more likely to just to get eliminated right off the bat. Okay, so much better to do your emails. And tuesday, wednesday thursday and friday’s people just don’t stop caring about their gone. Yeah, they’re off to the beach, but then, over time, keep start track your records look at the kinds of messages kind of subject lines that air grabbing people’s attention look att and clearly some events are automatically going to be a draw, bigger audience, your annual event, whatever that is, we’ll automatically draw much hyre click through rate than than just a normal announcement, but even you can track and see how different ways of word in your normal, just a little update what kinds of things pete people’s interests, what kinds of things they’re working for you and over time you’re going to get it if you track it and keep, you know, really record what you did. What? What was the loser this week? Which one? Which one won? Was there a material difference? You’re going to begin to see patterns of the ways that people are most attracted to your organization and what you’re trying to tell them. Okay on dh and longer term, longer term. Again, you just know bill down the cumulative experience of the short term things, okay? And all these variables i love playing with age and interests and subject and what channel we’re using, what what network, what outlet we’re using for different purposes all really very interesting, and the other side is don’t go nuts with us. I mean, if you’re an organization with, you know, two billion dollars budget that’s, something different, most not-for-profits we’re looking for general ideas here of what can be helpful to you, there’s no there’s a point where there’s kind of diminishing returns after at some point you khun spend so much time wrapped up in the technology that you kind of lose sight of you lose the forest for the trees, and so i’m all for analytics, but also use them wisely, but use them, use them, smarties them intelligently. All right, tell me what it is you love about the work that you’re doing for non-profits oh, i just i’ve been in this field for probably thirty something years, and i work across the fields, from social services and cultural to religious and civic organizations, and i just love working with the people who are as passionate as they are about the issues they care so much about, you know, it just it’s it’s firing to me every day, and how do you see that what you’re doing is helping them? Because particularly in this time of resource is being really strapped. I like that we’re helping them to find new ways to appeal to donors and help them open their wallets a little more and that’s the primary focus of what we do, okay, all for very important cause is absolutely right. Diane lansing is president of lansing associates in new york city, but she works around the country and again, you’ll find them at lansing associates dot com diane, thank you very much. Thank you. What a pleasure. We’re going to go away for a couple of minutes and when we come back it’s tony’s take too. I’ll talk a little about gift annuities. And then maria simple, our regular prospect research contributor joins me and we’ll talk about those pr ize particle resistant influenza. No provoc programme related investments. Stay with us. You didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink dink you’re listening to the talking alternative network get in sting are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Hi, i’m bill mcginley, president, ceo of the association for healthcare philanthropy. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Durney got more live listener love taipei, taiwan, kunming, china gone jal, china, shanghai and beijing, china to all of you. Ni hao and torrance, california joined us torrents welcome. Glad to see some california representation. There almost always is torrents. How are you doing out there? Tony’s? Take to my block this week is talk about gift annuities. Ah, this is really only for charities that offer that type of planned gift on the block. I have ways of opening the conversation about that that way of giving long term, um just to acquaint you with it, it’s something that is irrevocable dahna makes their gift and they get income back for life at a fixed rate and when they have died than what remains is a gift of cash to the to the charity that was sponsoring the charitable gift annuity program. So who do you talk to about thes usually you talk to people who are sixty five and over and within that age range, there are some clues that you listen for that could reveal a good prospect like i need mohr income or i’m supporting an adult child or i’m supporting a sibling because the income from a gift, annuity doesn’t have to go to the donor it usually does, but it doesn’t have to i’ve set them up where it was parents creating the gift annuity paying income too. The case i’m thinking of his daughter’s, three different daughters, so if you hear that someone is in need of income or they’re concerned about income, or maybe they’re concerned about income in the future in their retirement years, there’s a variation on the gift annuity that khun help that person also. So those air some of the clues and i have ah, little more about that on my block on the post called talk about gift annuities um, now that you have your specs, what do you start to say to them? And i have some examples of simple ways, plain language explain the features of a gift annuity so that people will understand them. And there’s a said more about that on my block at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday eighth of march, the tenth show of the year. We’re in double digits now already. My goodness, maria simple. Are you out there? I am here. I know you are marie simple is the prospect finder she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch now you can follow maria simple on twitter at maria simple. We’re talking this month about pr ise it’s not personality related insomnia, it is programme related investments. Maria, what are these things? So they’re very interesting tools that are being used by foundations to be able to help non-profits as well as social enterprises as well. So they are not completely limited e-giving on ly to the non-profits sector, but it’s a way for them to continue to support the sector. But there is a repayment of that money once you receive it from the foundation. So it’s not like an outright grant that a foundation makes which obviously does not get repaid. So this is an opportunity for them. Tio, do some additional mission investing, if you will in organizations. So this is much more entrepreneurial. I think so. Yes, absolutely. It is much more entrepreneurial. Many people really kind of look at it as a loan from the foundation. Very low interest. You know, one of the one of the basics really to them is that they have to be below market rates, so sometimes there there could be xero interest associated with it or very low in just associated with that particular loan. Ok? And i think these fall under the rubric to of social investment, social engagement, but in a financial way. That’s, right? That’s, right? So, you know, you know, like grant, they’re they’re made for charitable purposes, right? But unlike grants, they’re expected to be repaid, often with at least a modest financial gains, and they cannot be made for the primary purpose of financial gain. So again, they did no. The below market rate, for instance, right, has to be below market rate. And the foundation also has to make sure that they’re making that that p r i to an organization that really falls within their their overall mission and goals of the foundation. So it can’t be something that really falls outside of it at all. Okay, so you know your where was talking about prospect research? How are we going to find foundations that will do these types of alternative investments in your work? Well, actually, one of the best tools that i found to be able to research this is through the foundation center. So for your listeners, who might be subscribed to the foundation, direct directory online or have access to it at one of the either in new york or at one of the co operating collections, if you search that online database, uh, program related investments is actually one of the categories that you can actually search upon in that particular database. So it’s it’s, pretty useful t use that database for it. So in terms of what i’ve been able to come up with, i think that might be sort of the best and easiest in this time, because you can search on that key word. Okay, let’s, let’s explore the cooperating collections that air throughout the country. We’ve talked about them before, but its been many months just remind listeners what those are and and how they could find them. So you would really want to find out what closest one is tea, your non-profit organization. Geographically, you can go to the foundation center’s website, which is foundation center, dot or ge, and check out their cooperating collections. Link to find out where the closest one is teo to your facility and then and then you can use it for free, right? Yeah, yeah. You go on site to a cooperating collection. You can use it for free there. Uh, so, you know, you might save some significant money on prospect research by going, you know, making usually what i’ll say to non-profits is. Look, if you have zero dollars to spend on the foundation research making a point at least quarterly to visit that cooperating collection and spend some time there really researching that resource, they also have training now, right? Is that the case and all the cooperating collections? There’s training that’s free on how to use the foundation center tool. You know, it might vary from site to site in terms of what they have for training. But i can tell you this in order to become a foundation center. Cooperating collection, their own reference. Librarians have to be well versed on how to use the products there. So you could always get someone on one help. I’m sure from that reference library. Okay, even if it’s not formal training, right. Exactly. Exactly. We’re good. We’re going to say something else. No. Good. Okay, well, just that foundation center. I wonder why why they chose to spell it. C e n t e r and not c e n t r e i would have added a little cash, eh? I don’t know a little elegance if they’ve been foundation center cnt ari, but i don’t want to confuse listeners. They don’t spell it that way, just as a little panache to it, you know, like theater tr ee now, i want to tell you about another website real quick that i thought was really good to learn a little bit more about this whole arena. Really, it was it was great for me in terms of just general education, um, there’s a network of foundations that that are currently doing pr ise it also are considering getting into it and its mission investors dot or ge so they do have a database, but you have to be a member to search the database, so not so useful, but what they did have was a free webinar as well as downloadable slides that you could take a look at that really kind of goes threw a very nice overview of what this whole area is. So, you know, if you’re just looking for some general education about the arena of programme related investments and whether or not you might be a good fit to approach a foundation, i thought that website was really a good one, and i’ll make sure that i give that to your listeners on your social media outlets, okay, that’s, the lincoln and group and the facebook page. Why did you just say the girl one more time? Mission investors dot org’s. So m i s s i o n investors dot org’s. And then i did ask the foundation center. You know, you can often just get into a chat. What the fear listeners aren’t aware of that you can chat with pendant foundation center representatives online, so i wanted to kind of really hone in on well, what section of the irs? Nine ninety report would we even find these listed on? Right. So if you’re trying to figure out well, now the nine. Ninety of the foundation. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? You know what? What, paige, would they be? List non-cash actually gave me the exact page. That what one could find those on so they have it on. The details are located on part ten b and it’s actually entitled summary of programme related investments that’s outstanding that you could get that kind of support. Do you have to be a subscriber to the foundation center database to get that online chat support? No, you can just go online and ask away your questions so i knew that this was a general enough question that i could ask that, you know, didn’t involve, you know, getting into a paid database that they could at least point me in the direction for what page of the nine ninety this this information is housed on. So, you know, for those of you who maybe have nine nineties that you’ve been looking out of foundations, that is the particular area you want to look at on the nine ninety filing, okay? I just think it’s amazing that they were able to answer that question for you. Did they say what? Let us they say, let us research it. Well, we’ll e mail you back or did it come to you during the in the midst of the live chat? I just had a way couple minutes while they came up with the answer, and then they just chatted it back to me and they, you know very nicely. Email you a transcript of your chat. Excellent. Ok. That’s. An outstanding free resource. Excellent record. Is there another resource that you like? You know, you’re the doi end of dirt. Cheap and free resources. Eyes there. Another one you have for investigating these pr i foundations? Well, they did come out. The foundation center themselves came up with a pretty good report a couple of years ago. And it’s a little bit dated. It came out in twenty ten and so some of the data is from, you know, the mid to thousands, but they really give a nice example of who the largest pr i providers are. So they give foundation names how much money they invested that year. So, for example, you know, they give you those top twenty five. I was surprised to see that in two thousand six, two thousand seven, they did almost seven hundred thirty four million dollars buy-in programme. Related investments. And that was just the top twenty five on dh, can you? Give us a sample of what some of those top twenty five are the names that we’d recognise. Yes, some of them really are ford foundation, david and lucile, packard macarthur, bill and melinda gates, walton family. But see any casey foundation okay, all very big, very big, mainstream, well known foundations, right? Right? And i think really, they’re they’re they’re probably the ones that are actually sort of the trail blazers with this and really are taking the lead and other smaller foundations i think are kind of watching them and saying, you know, maybe this is something we consider doing as well. One of the things i didn’t mention is that when they make a programme related investments let’s say a foundation decides to do a million dollar pr i that counts toward their their five percent that they’re required to pay out. Okay, it does all right, even even though they’re getting some money back or they may or may not think that they can count it in there, you know, again, it has to make sure it’s all lies in their mission and etcetera, etcetera. But, you know, i thought that was that was pretty good. Tto learn about and that be good for non-profits to know going into this, okay, any other advice around pr prospect research? Now, i think that, you know, that’s just a really good general overview for you also, if anybody is a listener that is related in lobbying activities, that is the one area that they can’t, um, that they can’t get involved in, so they’re not allowed teo fundez anything having to do with any kind of lobbying? Okay, well, five oh one c three the one thing that you know non-profits you need to be aware of on dh five oh one see threes, which i think is most of the listeners can’t be involved in lobbying anyway, or only really, in very, very narrow ways, but not even not even in ways that that turned out to be defined as lobbying under the internal revenue code. But i talked with jean takagi and emily chan about that subject months ago. There are regular legal contributors were goingto go away for a couple of minutes, and when we come back, marie and i will continue talking not about pr ize, but about conferences that’ll be valuable in your prospect research. I want to send a little live listener love spring rove, pennsylvania jamaican, new york. Welcome, more more from the u s you guys were a little late. Try to try to check in on time next time hey to admonish listeners, but please, uh, try to check in and try to be on time. One o’clock is when it starts, but now live listener love out, tio, pennsylvania and new york there. Zurich, switzerland. Welcome and mexico city, mexico live, love, live. Listen, love to all of you. We’ll be back very shortly. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back and i’m getting a language lesson on our break. More live love tio zurich, switzerland. Guten abend. I hope i’m saying good evening now i know i’m saying good evening. Guten abend, mexico city, mexico. Holacracy. Cleveland, ohio. Thank you for joining us. Even you came in even later than spring rove, pennsylvania in jamaica, new york, cleveland. We start to show one one o’clock eastern. Tryto try to be timely. Please welcome cleveland, ohio. Welcome. Um okay, maria. Some some prospect research conferences now, let’s. Start with somebody though. Who’s. Not a professional prospect. Researcher. Maybe the maybe it’s, even the executive director or it’s someone who’s part of their time is spent in prospect research. Is it worth going to aa prospect research conference for people like that? You know, i think it might be actually i know that in my early years of doing prospect researches and focusing in this area, attending these conferences was really invaluable to may of and so they actually now include. For example, one of the conference is coming up in august for the association of professional researchers for advancement. Apra is known as actually have a new researchers symposium. That they’ve built into the conference, which is for people who have less than two years experience. So that would be great for a novice, a person who, you know, wants to get to know a little bit more about this whole thing. This whole area, especially that’s, one of the half they have to wear at theirjob, andi, even if okay. So even if they’re not a full time provoc but researcher that’s, right? That’s, right? Yeah, they get a lot of great information. And, you know, sometimes the best the best information has learned outside of sessions. Right? So interacting with other people, connecting with someone else that might be in a similar type organization as you are and really being able to exchange ideas of well, you know, how are you spending your time doing research? And what resources do you find valuable to subscribe to? What are you using for free? I just find that a lot of that learning goes out, goes on outside of sessions. I have a special warm spot in my heart for apra because the apra greater new york city chapter many years ago was the first place where i spoke. In public first public speaking about really about planned e-giving yeah, work, yeah, i don’t know how many years ago it was, i don’t know thirteen or something, but doing playing, giving for fifteen years somewhere around there on then and then that turned into speaking at the mid atlantic regional conference or mark on i spoke there once or twice, i might have done that, that one i think i did to mark conferences and that one’s happening today. I know mark is going on right now right now. Virginia so it’s too late for you don’t don’t try to join that one now, because if i think back, i know i disappointed, i thought, oh, i should affect this particular segment up. Tio january will know that there are other parts of the country marine let’s not be so geo centric. Exactly. So let’s, talk about appa unconference because they’re coming up in august. That is that’s the biggie, right? So that’s the biggest one and they bring in people even from other countries come to this one and that’s august seventh through tenth in baltimore, maryland okay, so that’s one that that people can kind of put on their calendars and they will have a tte the international conference. They will have the novice this not-for-profits don’t have the up new researchers symposium will be taking place there at that particular conference, so that seems to be pretty well set. Lots of information on apperance website share that girl with you now, and i will also put it on the on your social media. But it’s a p r a home dot org’s, apra home dot or ge? I think so obviously somebody some other organization must have gotten apurate dot or ge? I don’t know, i have a feeling i’ve not ever tried looking for that girl, but that must be what happened. I just have this one bookmarked, i wonder if that’s like anesthesiologists in puerto rico association or something that you never know somebody took ap pro dot org’s, but so don’t go toe tapper, dot, org’s, goto, aperol, apra, home dot, org’s okay and that’s, where you’ll find information about the international so that you know that one is definitely one to consider. And if you’ve not visited baltimore, maryland before a very nice area tio go visit in the waterfront and so forth. So a couple of others on the radar screen coming up in april up in cambridge, massachusetts, it’s the new england what they call nedra new england were doing officially known as development research association. So some of the apa chapters twenty seven of them across the country, some of them are really big and really kind of have their own, like mark, right? So they have their own conferences, so nedra does the same. They’re going to be april twenty ninth and thirtieth in cambridge, massachusetts, and that website is nedra and gdpr a dot org’s. But basically all of these also just be found on apurate website. Okay, anything that’s, not east coast. Come on, i’ve got a well listeners in torrance, colorado. Torrance, california. Okay, we’ve got cleveland, ohio came in california has one going on june twenty six twenty seven. I’m sorry. June twenty seventh and twenty eight in long beach. Okay on. And they’re known as cara the california researchers. So they’re having their you fudged on that a little bit. We don’t know what karen really stands for. It isthe going to the web site as we speak. California advancement researchers. Okay, there. We go, i don’t, you know, i’m keeping your e-giving your feet to the fire. I know for john had waiting for me, okay, so they’ve got their own event going on and, you know, find a chapter near you and just to find out what events i mean, some of them will have monthly meetings, are meeting every other month, the’s chapters. So i mean there’s, twenty seven of them across the country, so you can just always hook up with one of those chapters and see what regional learning opportunities there, maybe on that that’s where i actually first started speaking on this prospect research topic was at my own apra chapter, which existed in new jersey and no longer exists. All right, it’s, very fitting that way. The last one you gave. I was in california because gonzalez, california just joined us. Gonzalez. I hope they heard it. Gonzalez, welcome. Okay, we have to pretty much leave it there. Maria. Simple. I want to thank you very much for being on again. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Excellent vice excellent information. You’ll find maria at the prospect finder dot com, and on twitter your you’ll find her at maria simple by maria bye now. Next week, amy sample ward returns she’s, our social media scientist and regular contributor on that subject, and she’s, also the membership director of the non-profit technology network and ten this woman has covered it in another book, social change, any time, everywhere and there’s a good chance. We’re going to be talking about that for the full hour next week. Amy sample ward and she’s also at south by southwest right now in austin, texas, and she’ll have some some notes for us from south by southwest. We’re all over social media. You can’t make a click without sparkle a testa dura smacking your head hard into tony martignetti non-profit radio let’s pick one youtube you could get more on youtube. I have over ninety videos there. Most of them are interviews that have streamed on this show and a few of them. Are my standup comedy gigs so that’s all on my youtube channel, which is really tony martignetti some clown took tony martignetti before i got it to it, so i had to call myself, really? Tony martignetti i’m working on bumping him off, i think he’s in the boston area, if we have any boston listeners, ah, i’d appreciate some help we want to get that i want to get tony martignetti okay, thank you very much for being with me, though whatever social network we might be connected on besides youtube, itunes, facebook, twitter linked in four square pinterest slideshare i’m on all of those. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. 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Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect. No more it’s time. Join me, larry shop a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. 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Nonprofit Radio, February 22, 2013: Donor Retention & More Maria Sites

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Jay Love
Jay Love
Jay Love: Donor Retention

Jay Love is CEO of Bloomerang. We’ll talk about holding on to the donors you’ve got, because it’s much cheaper and easier to keep a donor than to replace one. He’s got strategies to help you.

 

 

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: More Maria Sites

Maria Semple, our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder, keeps up her reputation as doyenne of dirt cheap and free. This month she’ll review DonorSearch and ListSelect.

 
 


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No. Hello and welcome to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m your aptly named host it’s february twenty second. Oh, i very much hope that you were with me last week. I’d be aghast to hear that you had missed some raise money while some raise hell. I talked about women in philanthropy, with marshals to panic. She was founding editor in chief of contribute magazine and is the new media adviser to the new york university heimans center for philanthropy. We talked about limbaugh and koman leadership roles, traditional giving and how women organized themselves also, pinterest and slideshare amy sample ward returned she’s, our social media contributor and membership director of the non-profit technology network, and ten she shared how small and midsize non-profits khun reap definite value from these lesser known social sites. This week dahna retention j love is ceo of bloomerang we’ll talk about holding on to donors you’ve got because it’s much cheaper and easier to keep a donor than to replace one j has strategies for you. Also more maria sites maria simple, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder keeps up her reputation. As doi n of dirt cheap and free this munch this month, she’ll review donorsearch and list select between the guests on tony’s take two the irs publishes a list of charities that have lost tax exempt status each month, and in march, that list will be longer than it has been other months, and i’ll explain now i’m very pleased to welcome j love he’s, the ceo and co founder of bloomerang and senior vice president of avectra both companies serve the non-profit sector only with tools for fund-raising and communications. He was senior vice president of the arts and culture division at blackbaud. Before that, he was ceo and co founder of e tapestry jay’s, a member of the national board of the association of fund-raising professionals. And i’m very glad that his work brings him to the show. J love, welcome hey, thank you very much, tony it’s, good to be here this morning. It’s a pleasure to have you dahna retention. Jay, why is this important? Well, because it’s it’s continued to fall. The main source of the data that i’ve been referring to so often in the last year has been from the fund-raising effectiveness. Project, otherwise known as f d p that was a combined effort of the urban institute and the association of fund-raising professionals, and they’ve been doing this for the last five or six years and it’s the first time that data of this nature has come directly from the donor databases, so that they’re the charities that have the software that’s in used by the various vendors there now sharing the summary data and being able to tell from that summary data exactly what’s happening and retention of donors from one year to the next. And what it’s quite scary, and that that retention rate has dropped from the low fifties now to forty one percent in the most recent survey. Has it been dropping consistently through the five or six years that you’ve had this pair with a year or two that had held pretty steady? But overall, it’s dropped about ten or eleven percent since the time that the study has been an active let’s just reassure any charities that might be using software. You would certainly know if your data was going to be included, right? And it would have been anonymous ized and aggregated absolutely ill. It is summary, data and it’s part of the licensing with the vendors the very nice part about that is not only does it provide information that people can use, but many of the software vendors are allowing you to compare your results to the aggregate results. So you have a very good idea of how you’re comparing against the national average and like i said, let’s hope that your individual charity is doing better than losing six out of every ten donors from one year to the next because, you know, losing nearly sixty percent is a pretty scary proposition. It means that you have to be on a constant treadmill, bringing in a brand new first year donors and the retention rate for the first year donors is even worse in most cases that’s down in the twenties or thirties as far as three tension for those individuals and the next thing i was going to ask, what you just aren’t used answered it so thie retention rates are falling, which means attrition rates are rising and we’re now at fifty nine percent. We’re now fifty nine percent in the most recent study there and like i said it’s a trend we’ve got to turn around because, as we all know, just like the commercial world, existing customers or existing donors in this case are much easier to keep than bringing in brand new ones because the retention rate is at least a little bit hyre for those folks that have already been with you, do we know about how much this costs, how much it costs to acquire a new donor versus those organizations? Do you know that most people know that the cost to acquire a new donor is usually more than the money is received from that donor in the first year? You don’t get tau ah break even status until the second year in most cases and of course, there’s considerable time involved acquiring new donors versus thanking and keeping retaining existing donors. Yeah, and and there’s some basic things, tony, that people can dio, you know, one of things that we tried, teo, allow software packages to help people to realise is if a brand new donors in and it happens to be above the average doner level that you have, that might be a situation instead of sending out that tired old thank you letter that you might want to pick up the phone and call that person and thank them directly and get to know them a little bit, or try to set up that face to face meeting or get them to come take it to review facility or something, because if there’s a telephone contact the retention rate, doubles or triples and we’re going to get to a bunch of those factors that we know influence, retention. But jay, you’re your background is technology tapestry blackbaud now bloomerang and avectra is this strictly a technology problem or there’s a there’s a big donor? I mean, sorry, there’s a big personal factor to these to these relationships as well, very much so i don’t a relationship there is no different than any sort of a personal relationship, a friendship, and i know in some large organizations there those donors are people that you’re only meet via electronic communications or written communications in some way, shape or form. But even that, as we all know, if you had a pen pal, back when you were in high school, there were ways of building that relationship and taking it to the next. Level, even if it was only through written communications so that you can, you know, have that person on the other end of the receiving and feel like they’re more than just a specific there. There there actually are a person that’s connected to your organization into your mission and their money’s air going tio achieve something different than what they could’t someplace else with those dollars. But as well, technology has a role too. Oh, very much so it’s. Like so many things in life just being able to know what your retention rate iss tends to improve it. You know, i think of the old andrew carnegie story of going into one of this steel mill plants and asking the worker on the line how many of that particular widget or whatever that they made for the day and he took a piece of chalk and wrote it down on the floor and said, you know, twenty one and that was how money this guy did. A shift with the afternoon shift came in it too. Well, what’s that number on the floor, they so well, the big guy was here and they wrote down what they did. Well, that shift, they cross it off, and instead of twenty one, there was twenty five and this went on for weeks, until it was up over fifty, uh, to do that, and it was all because someone was noticing and actually saying, this is the number that we’re shooting for, that we’re trying to surpass, and then not long after that carnegie ah, lock down the steel mill on dh kept all the workers out, but that’s a different story, isn’t it that i was kind of humility at least started a foundation, right? Yes, he didn’t gave lot libraries and pools and lots of public spaces in the in the pittsburgh area, but it was a bit of a baronet. I want that to be any sort of ah, witness are a praise for their for his business practices. I heard quite cruel things came out of that i went to i went to carnegie mellon university, so i’ve heard those stories oh, very much so that haven’t. Yes, all right, so this is quite startling mean, we’re on ly retaining let’s round use round Numbers 16:40 were only retaining forty percent of our donors you’re get, i’m sure, you’re comfortable with the representativeness of the sample that this data is from, you know, just to give you a bit of an idea that this is based upon data coming for about thirty, two hundred charities that in the most recent time period raised just over two billion dollars and fund-raising dollars so it’s, you know, it’s it’s, a small percentage of the total of fund-raising world, but it is a very statistically relevant sample that’s being taken from that group. Now this is primarily focused, i think, what makes gives us so many legs, too it’s primarily focused on the small and medium sized non-profit there’s a few larger ones in there, but the vast majority of the non-profits that are in this represented sample are raising less than ten million dollars per year and most of our below five million. Okay, well and that’s the audience for this show, small and midsize charities jay, we’re going to take a break, and when we come back, you and i will talk a lot about some these factors that we know influence, retention and what charity’s khun due to increase their retention rate and i know you’ll stay. With us j and i hope everybody else does, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? Hi, i’m ricky keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant. If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s, six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s, the hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. J love is ceo and co founder of bloomerang and we’re talking about donorsearch retention this segment, j we know that there are a bunch of factors that either positively or negatively impact retention and there’s a lot of lessons that i think donors khun takeaway, i’m sorry charities khun takeaway from these factors, why don’t we? Why don’t we get started with actually some of them know that that, um charities don’t have a direct influence over, like, like the person’s giving, all right on recency. You know, i can’t break these factors into three categories, tony one based upon financial one based upon activities, and then a third one based upon communications. Okay. And if we take a look at the first one there, as you were alluding to is the financial aspect of it, there are certain things that you can tell that are moving that engagement level or that engagement needle up or down such things is have they made a donation in the last twelve months? Was that donation higher or lower than their previous wanted? They upgraded today downgrade did they make? Multiple donations did they did they support multiple causes or multiple funds within your organization so that they’re, you know, involved in in different ways? Are they doing something in the way of pledging or in a recurring gift mode? We know that someone that has signed a pledge card or that’s giving in a pledging our recurring basis, it’s much more likely to be retained from year to year to year than someone that is not did they come in knowing that they were giving to organization rather than supporting a runner in a race or something of that nature? Some those air, all factors that i think from the financial standpoint can move that needle upper down accordingly. Okay, now charities can have an influence and some of these for instance, you you mentioned earlier if, uh, if an office sees that a new donors gift is above the average, they should you’re suggesting reply with an above average acknowledgement and thank you exactly, you know, do something outside of the ordinary whether it’s pick up the phone, calling them, trying to get a meeting, or maybe a hand written note or a handwritten t s several of the boards that i serve on the first part of the board meeting that we do, each one of us writes out ten handwritten notes during the course of the board meeting to a donor that’s an above average first time donor-centric come in and take a tour of the facility, and you’re doing that in every board meeting you take time begin before every boy, every single board meeting there’s the i’m on the board of the local food bank here in indiana, on the larger food banks, and we have a, you know, sixty eight board meetings a year, and that is part of every board meeting i don’t suppose you’re in bloomington, indiana, with the company named bloomerang are you? Well, we’re actually in indianapolis, indiana way should meet sometime because i’m in indiana very often. Oh, wow, i didn’t realize that’s indianapolis in in carmel, i’m there there quite often. Um, good. So there are other things now you mentioned recurring donations that’s a very positive factor and you’re more likely to retain that donor than then someone who doesn’t do a recurring donation. So how can a charity go out of its way, then to think that recurring versus non recurring donor? Well, i don’t think it’s much as much thanking them in that situation, tony, is it isthe trying to see if you can talk somebody or ah, have them be interested in doing a recurring gift or pledge, letting them know that at the time of making their transaction would be nice to be able to support that critical part of our mission on ongoing time periods, so that if you set that up to do that it’s much more, ah, widely used around the rest the world in the united states, of being able to automatically deduct from a checking account or from a savings account, or even a credit card on a recurring basis. So instead of making let’s, say, a one time gift of, uh, two hundred forty dollars, maybe having twenty dollars, per month taken out with no stop date there, that becomes a way of really having long term retention for that individual, so that may be worth looking into for charities that are not offering that. And if you if you want a lot more information on that. My other podcast, which is for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals look back in the archive of that, you’ll find it on the final on itunes. You also find it on the chronicle of philanthropy website, and i had a guest there named mark, and they are see help ert h e l p arty, and he was an expert in e commerce and talked about online giving and recurring giving and how to set that up so you might look back at that fund-raising fundamentals podcast if you want more detail on how to inaugurate a recurring giving program the way the way j love is explaining, would you like to look at a couple of the other factors here? The activities in the communication once tony well, give me a chance now, jay, don’t don’t take over the show, we’re going to get there, you know the answer, it’s just for that know the answers a quick no, you’re you’re off, we’re i’m goingto have eleven minutes of dead air time now. I had planned to be with you, but i’m voting you off now. Of course. Yes, of course we’re going to talk about activities and communications. All right. What do you have? Under what? Do you have under activities? Well, let’s think about all the different activities that you can track that would be involved with especially and you mentioned with some of your previous broadcast some of the social media, but whether or not someone attends an event or whether they attend multiple events, have they taken a tour of the facility? Uh, those were times of thanks that that happened, but the one night that i think really growing in popularity is all the activities that surround the social media have they posted on your facebook wall, they become a friend? Do they say something about your non-profit with a particular hashtag and a tweet or on facebook or in a linkedin profile for that? Are they? Are they active in some way of promoting your non-profit to do that? And i often think about in the days before their non-profits new tohave like facebook pages and stuff like that, we’re, uh, a very active volunteer. I think it was the american cancer site or something like that turn around found out that there was somebody that already had twenty thousand, you know, people following them are liking them and facebook and they were able to help them bring that facebook page over to there usage. But all those factors, if you can follow those and there’s ways of very easily electronically doing that technology has taken us to a whole new levels where you can be aware of those factors. And it can actually become part of your sierra mere database, knowing that someone has said something about you and giving that a particular value and their engagement level. Now, see, r e m. Of course. We have talked about this on the show, but i want to caution you about george in jail, which i have on the show. See? R e m. I just explained cr m in case listeners may not know. Okay. That’s, constituent relationship management durney aram it’s it’s. A fancy name for a donor database. Okay. And we have had guests on talking about c r m but i like to keep listeners on keep everybody on the same on the same foundation. Um, i think the key difference being instead of just being in a database of pure donors and maybe prospective donors it’s everybody that the non-profit touch is in some way shape. Or form so maybe people that are affected by its mission. It maybe vendors it, maybe suppliers so it’s every single communication interaction that’s taking place indeed. And we have talked about that and some of the platforms that support it on the show. Let’s, let’s focus on some of the things that charity’s can have. The most direct impact on you mentioned earlier tour of the facility, and encouraging donors to do that if they’re especially if they happen to be an above average doner first time, but that’s something that and it’s also a positive when you get the person to do the tour, then that’s a positive attention factor that’s something that a charity khun directly have impact on by extending invitations exactly a standing invitation, but just thinking about what their communications are. Some donors have never heard from their charity except in the form of another request for a donation. It’s always someone reaching out with a hand versus sharing information. So think about it. Perhaps you could set up a communication schedule and actually get back to the person and say, this is how we’re doing. We’re tracking ourselves, and this is how well we’re achieving our mission. And one that’s that’s absolutely magical that i just wish everybody would do is just telling every donor but their money’s air doing what if you can specifically say that those dollars went to this particular activity or this particular fund? And this is what it’s doing? And even if it goes into a general fund, you can just say these air what your money’s are achieving force and just share that information without asking for another donation. People tend to feel very appreciated for that being the case. And and i guess a lot of my experience has come over the years, tony, of becoming much more of a donor myself. And then i used to run an interesting experiment adi tapestry and bloomerang, where i would ask the new employees to take fifty dollars, that we would provide him fifty dollars, and say go out and make five or ten donations to five or ten different charities, and come back to me in three months and let me know who build a relationship with you and who did not. Excellent att those low levels. And what what did you find? Oh, uh, it was there were some absolutely marquis organizations that my employees would stumble upon that even for a five dollar gift, right, they would build a relationship. And what was ironic? Some of my employees are still lifelong donors to those organizations after making that small gift that was given to them to make on behalf of the company. That’s terrific that’s great! Listen, yeah, i just it was remarkable how you do it and i told him to try to mix. I said pick between a few national organisations and a few local organizations just to see what’s going on there because i honestly believe any small non-profit i know a lot of your listeners are in that category, tony. All they have to do is try that express themselves, take one hundred dollars and go make ten, ten dollar gifts or twenty five dollar gift to some national organizations and then just copy what those groups are doing. Find out which ones make them feel the best, and start building that into their own processes that they’re doing it. The local charity. Excellent, that za terrific suggestion in a great use, i think of one hundred dollars you khun khun! Survey, i think survey twenty charities for one hundred bucks, right? I mean, you get to do your own little, many mba, your research project for one hundred or two hundred dollars, and because you get to see every type of communication and i would mail some in, and i would do some electronically and see what the difference is listeners may want teo, listen back to some of the three, four months siri’s that i had with amy sample ward are regular social media contributor about riel engagement using the online networks because a lot of what jay talked about posting on the facebook wall replying to a tweet, etcetera, there’s, their real engagement strategies. And amy and i talked about that over four months of her being on once a month. How to really engage through the through the the social media sites. There’s also things just that people can report to the charity like if they if they keep their communication preferences current exactly things like that in the communication area, if you are able to. If your email system and your communication system is tied into your database, you can check real quickly. Does someone open? My e mails i sent to them are they clicking through to a link senate to read further on the stories? Ah, very important one are they forwarding it on to other people? And, you know, are they lying that you can get all that reported back to you? And it could be part of the data base that you can see, and then you hit upon a real important one there? If someone has taken the time to let you know that their address has changed, either their electronic email address or their mailing address has changed. Boy that’s a very special person you want to put a big red gold star something on that? Because that person, if they’ve taken the time to let you know that their address has changed is is probably four to five times more likely to become a major donor or a legacy donor to your organization in the long run, because they care that’s, they’ve done far out of the ordinary what anybody else would dio that’s so interesting because it’s it’s purely ministerial, they filled out a reply card with an updated phone number or address or email address. What can a charity? Do i mean, should there be a thanks for keeping current with us? I mean, because typically now i think the most charities doing nothing, that it goes to the database administrator, the donor services team, the database gets updated and then that’s it. What could we be doing? So i think that record person gave mark that this is someone who took the time out of the ordinary to do that, and that should be made to the attention of either a gift officer or fund-raising person or a plan giving person so that they can reach out and just try to get to know that person. Because if you combine the two, if that’s someone that’s been eh, multiyear donor, even at a small level, and has let you know that ah, and many of you out there i know have read the book the millionaire next door. That may be a good chance that that person falls into that category and could be a very, very substantial legacy donorsearch sometime down the road for your organization here we have just a few minutes left. Let’s talk about your the communications factors that we’re aware of. That we that we haven’t talked about yet, what are some of those that possibly a little bit of the people that have, you know, that opened up your emails and different things of that nature? Another big communication factor is if you can find out who has visited your website and who has downloaded information, i think every non-profit website should give people reasons to come back. That means that there’s got to be new content on there. Ah, and that could be something as simple as block post from the executive director or from other people within the organization are case studies or case histories, but i always love if you make available documents to download. This is this is a document that tells you about our mission that tells you about our performance metrics, what we’ve been able to do to achieve our mission. If there are pds and different types of documents in background information, annual reports, quarterly reports thinks that nature people love that, download them and look at them, particularly folks, that aaron, that the higher level of donors categories to do that, so being able to track those communication activities and then being wired into your front desk or your receptionist, anybody that calls your organization that should always be marked in the database to know that this person has reached out and actually dialed our organization, whether was asking for information or giving us information or something of that nature, those are people that are communicating with you and that’s half the battle. Yes, these air excellent on dh, very simple strategies. Really j we have just about a minute left. I have to ask you, what is it you love about the work that you’re doing, being able to help all size non-profits do their job better because if you could, i’d have hanging on my wall, something that my daughter created for me when she was in the elementary school saying that my dad works helping further missions of non-profits and i still have that hanging in my wall today, and it will always be part of my life, i think. J, thank you very much for being a guest. You’re welcome. Thank you, tony. My pleasure. J love is ceo and co founder of bloomerang, which you’ll find at bloomerang dot co real pleasure. Thank you very much, jay. Thank you very much money. But when we return, it’s tony’s, take two and then maria simple mohr, maria sites. Stay with me, e-giving. Anything tooting, getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. Cubine are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? 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Lively conversation. Top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m janna agger’s, senior vice president, products and marketing from blackbaud. Yeah, hi there, it’s time for tony’s take due at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. I wish i could send live listener love today, but we’re pre recorded, so i cannot do that. I know you’re out there live listeners and i do love you, but i just don’t know where exactly you are this week. My block this week is expect expanded i arrest revocation list in march. Since june two thousand eleven, the irs has released a monthly list of charities whose tax exempt status has been revoked because they didn’t file the annual form nine, ninety or one of its cousins next month’s list march will be larger than usual because the irs is changing the admission standard for getting on the list. It’s not it’s, not like college. This is it’s getting easier to get onto this list not like colleges. Starting next month. Charities, they’re going to get a one month notice that they’re facing revocation and up until now you didn’t get on the list until you were already had been revoked for six months, so you can see next month is going to be a seven month catch up all this. All the ones that are leading up to six months, plus the ones that are one month away from revocation and there’s a lot more information about that on my blogged, including a link to get your tax exempt status reinstated. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to be on this revocation list, my blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, february twenty second, the eighth show of the year. You know maria simple she’s, a prospect, find her she’s, a regular prospect research contributor she’s our doi n of dirt cheap and free resource is she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research? Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now exclamation mark and you can follow maria on twitter at maria simple fremery a simple welcome back. Hey there, tony, how are you today? I’m doing very well, thank you. Good to have you back. Thank you. You have our doyin has two, two sites why don’t you just give a little overview of what we’re talking about this week? So this week i’m talking about two. Sites that have both a free and a fee based component to them so one will help you both with your reactive and proactive prospect research, which we’ve talked about the house in terms of lives buy-in sorry, no, yes, we’ve definitely talked about proactive and reacting, i would know that’s beyond jargon jail. Now we’re way past that, okay? And then then, you know, and then the other one is really about proactively trying to seek a new new prospects. I’m constantly approached by non-profits that say, you know, we really feel like we’ve tapped out our current donorsearch list and, you know, we’ve done the research and so forth on our list, but we just need to get some new names into the pipeline. So came across an interesting product that i thought might be helpful to at least discuss on the show. Okay, on the first one of these is donorsearch donorsearch yeah, so this is a company that does in depth prospect research, so they are there’s a number of competitors out there that do this on dh donorsearch is based in maryland, and they have they have both a c and a a free product. So i thought we’d start off, at least by talking about the free product first, if you want to do that, what’s the earl for donorsearch first. Well, it’s donorsearch dot net, however, for the free piece. It’s donorsearch lead dot net flash integrated search. Okay, so i’ll make sure that we get that up on to the lincoln. And first yeah, why don’t we do that for both of these sites? Okay, so let’s talk about the free part first for us. Donorsearch so for the free part, you would put in an individual’s name, this is under the assumption that you have maybe an event that you’ve had or maybe a new donor prospect name has been brought to your attention, and you want to do some in depth research on them. Or maybe you have an upcoming cultivation event, and you’d like to know about person in advance of the event so you can put in there their name, whatever you know about them already there named contact info. If you happen to know the company they’re affiliated with, you can put that in there as well and then hit the search button and what it will. Do is it won’t show you the search results on the screen, but it will email you basically, ah, profile of that individual. So it’s really, you know, a quick and easy way to get some vast information on an individual if you’re not already subscribed to a service that would be able to do that for you. So you’re doing this one person at a time, right? That’s, right, it’s one person at a time and you know that where, you know the upgrade to the sea bass portion would be useful is if you’re looking to screen, you know, a lot of names at once it’s going to give you that, you know that capacity, but also they have under the sea bass hold on, i want to i want to stick with the free for the free portion for a couple of a couple seconds more. Is there any limit to the number of searches that you can do on the free? So, no, so if you’ve got the capacity or a gn intern or someone willing to sit there and just plunking a bunch of names and and monitor those profiles coming back through e mails. And and certainly that can be done ok? And how robust are the profiles that you get back? What do they look like? So they cross check the types of databases that would give you both a philanthropic data, but also, you know, the traditional sort of wealth databases, so they’ll give you information about both charitable and political e-giving um and it will give you information about property records, dunn and bradstreet types of reports if they happen to be a corporate insider. Um, political donations, i think i mentioned that if they happen to be in who’s who the marquis who’s who’d database there, their biography will come up there also, if they’re connected to a foundation when their director on a board of directors on a foundation, they’ll come up in the guide star report. So there are, you know, a number of touchpoint that are very useful for you to know about, you know, and the thing i always tell non-profits so it’s really, you know, if you if this is for a major gift, you really don’t want to stop, no matter what company you’re using to get these quick profiles from i would never just stop that, you know, try and go a little bit more in depth look for articles in the newspapers and, you know, whatever else you can find out on the internet free or fee based resource is so i think this is a great starting point. Certainly if you have an event coming up or post event, you want to know some more information about an individual, i think it’s a great place to start it sounds like it’s it’s a pretty, pretty robust profile for for free. Yeah, yeah, it really is. It really is. So, you know, it’s definitely worth looking into. So again, if if you want that that website its donor lee dot net forward slash integrated search ok? And how about there a fee based service so they see the service is at the website donorsearch dot net, and already there’s been some information there about the various products they have, as well as their online screening tool. So, you know, if you’re a non-profit or maybe you’ve just taken over an organization, um, that has, you know, somewhat of a mass of a database that’s never been screened, and you’re new to the job and you’re just not sure g, you know, i’ve got to figure out a way to prioritize these folks a bit, you know, you might want to consider a screening through donorsearch or even, you know, some of the competitors companies out there, but, you know, donorsearch does provide screening services well, okay, do you get a more complete profile if you subscribe versus the free report that you get on donors? Yeah, thie sea based reports, the ones that you would get really as part of a screening would include analytics and what they called predictive modeling to try and figure out, you know, it’ll give you some idea about the person’s capacity, and usually when you have a full screening done, you know, your prospects are kind of raided for you, you know? So you’ll know which one’s elevator to the top as being perhaps the ones you want to focus on first. Okay, so you get something that’s similar to a screening, but you don’t have to buy their screening service, right? I mean, if you want to, well, you won’t have the actual predictive modeling and analytics through the free search, you know you have a batch of names i would, i would really suggest you if you’ve got a few hundred names or a few thousand names that you consider doing it through the sea bass portion. Renee offer, right? But i’m trying to get out. If you do the fee based, are you subscribing to their screening service? Or you can still get individual reports that have the predictive modeling in them? Yeah, you know, when these companies offered screenings generally, you also have access to the database afterward, usually for about a year. So this is definitely something to consider, and then i noticed on their website that they would offer a free screening of two hundred current records to kind of test their full product. Um, so folks are interested in taking them up on that particular offer they can go to donorsearch dot net and check out the information it’s right on their home page. Okay, i’m trying to i’m trying to get at one thing. If you’re subscribing to the fee based service you’re paying for it is that on ly a screening option, like in aggregate? Or can you still do searches of one or five or one? Hundred individuals still do searches afterward of you, no additional names. If they come forward, you’ll have that one off. I’ll go in on dh. Can you give listeners a sense of what the fees are? You know, i really don’t like to get into that type of conversation because sometimes these companies, you know, they change and, you know, this is a recorded show, tony, so i don’t want to really get into that because somebody might be listening to three, five years down the line on ice helps on dh. So certainly, you know, product pricing can change, so i think it’s really best for them, tio maybe just take them up on that free two hundred name offer where at least take a look at these free, integrated search tool that they have on day. If it looks like it’s useful to them, you know, they get into a conversation directly with folks donorsearch okay, i’ve been admonished by maria. Simple. I never. I never said that before. Okay, um, so you had you had talked about this as being a way of generating new prospects? Well, actually, the other tool that’s thay this is really this is really donorsearch is for existing names that you already know, right? Right? So this would be for, you know, screening and so forth, so, you know, definitely if they want to take a look at, you know, integrated search on a free bases, they can take a look at what the output looks like i got you okay? And i liked your suggestion of looking at people after an event, maybe it’s someone came to your event because they were invited by by someone who you do know, and now you’d like to find out more about this, this new person, ways to engage them, which the first segment was very much about today on dh you can use donorsearch to do that, i like that suggestion. Yeah, absolutely. I would suggest that to organizations especially if they’re having hyre cultivation events or even you know, we’ve we’ve you’ve probably talked on your show about these ask events where people specifically come and know that they will be asked to donate well, it might be might be kind of good to know in advance some information about those folks, maybe even advance troop even better. Ok, what’s what’s list select about that’s your next one so listselect is, uh, is by a company the company behind this is called anchor computer company, and they were they were actually started back in the seventies, and what they’ve done is they’ve come out with this product called listselect that could be useful both in for-profit and non-profit world, so it was originally designed for general target marketing, and so it has the names and addresses of close to ninety percent of the u s adult population and it’s compiled from public records and united states postal service data, and then what they do is they overlay it with demographic interest type categories. So i’ve gone in and i, you know, i’ve done a little bit of playing around just to give you an idea of what this looks like so you can actually run your searches just to kind of see, with numbers of prospects might look like, and then you don’t pay for the list until you decide this looks like a list that could be useful to you, um, and it’s. Uh, a list, a rental. I don’t know if you’ve talked about that on your show in the past. So you can either rent this list for a one time use or for a one year basis. Okay, we’re going to go away for a minute. And when we come back, you can talk a little about lister mental, because i don’t think it’s something that i have covered. And we’ll talk more about listselect with maria. Simple. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Durney i’m talking with maria simple, the strict taskmaster who put me in my place about fees. We’re going talk about fees anymore att least not in dollar terms will certainly let you know when something is fee based. Um, so what’s the fee for listselect now i’m getting well, actually, i did run a couple of just, uh ah searches that i thought would be kind of fun just to kind of see what the costs might be it’s very evident when you run a search so it’s, very clear up front what you’d be paying for that list, you know, before you, actually so they tell you, and so you can change the parameters, tio, what you’re looking for and really play around with it till it gets to a point where you feel like this is a new four doble list, andi something that, you know, would be useful for your organization, okay? In a minute, we’re gonna talk about list rental, but but do you know what the output is going to look like? What? What? Uh, information, you’re going to get about each person before you have to pay for the list? Yes, i’m told that. You get a first name, last name, address, phone number and in some cases, email addresses as well. Okay. Oh, really? So, it’s, just basic contact information. This is not the complete profile like donorsearch does that’s correct? That’s correct. So this would really be used for true proactive prospecting. You know what you think that you would hear in a sales world of, you know, getting more names, more leads into the funnel. So people who might have a certain affinity on do you know? So we could talk about what some of these parameters are way when we get further into the conversation. Okay, but let’s, talk about let’s rental. Now you’re just you’re renting this list. How does that work for you? So you now let me just set it up. You now have the contact information for these people. Email address? I guess. So you have. What does it mean that you’re renting the list? Well, i i think you get the full snail mail, ok? Yeah, and phone numbers. So you can decide that you need that list for a one time usage. So maybe you’re you’re going to send out some sort of a postcard campaign or targeted mailing some sort or targeted calling phone calling campaign? You know, i wouldn’t, you know, being as i also do email marketing as one of my businesses, i’m very sensitive to email acquisition, i wouldn’t necessarily advocate buying or renting email addresses and then putting them into your database and e mailing out i could get you into trouble with your email service provider because it’s, because it’s unwanted and it’s spam is that could be construed as spam. So i’m just very sensitive to that. I think it would be better to use these list, really? For snail mail and phone call purposes, okay? And what does it mean that you’re you’re renting the list? So you actually then don’t own only information? It truly is just a rental on, so, you know they have, i guess, it’s one see if you’re going to rent it as a one time basis and probably a slightly higher fee. If you need to have that list accessible to you, maybe you plan to do, you know, quarterly mailings to the list or something like that? He would need the rental for the whole year, so you’re going to pay maur if you do want to put that information into your donordigital base, i would think so, yeah, ok, interesting, i think. Okay, so you you mentioned talking about a little talking about the parameters of what you’re what the output is going to be, right? So i just don’t like a couple of quick search is just to kind of see, all right, well, if i were, you know, a non-profit executive, what might some of the fields of information be interesting to me so you could do a geographic search and then, you know, break it down further by certain points of demographic. So i had done just a sample search to see well, i’m interested in people who would have an income over two hundred fifty thousand dollars based in new jersey, who are also classified what they call mail order donors i think in our world, in the nonprofit world, we would call that, you know, male appeal donors, and it turned out that there were there was a total household account of just over fourteen thousand names close to fourteen thousand five hundred, and that costs came out to about in the four hundred fifty dollars. Okay, so that was you know what that parameter came up with our center decided to so these are thes air search these air inputs that you’re that you’re trying to narrow your list by our lorts yeah. All right, well, what if i were a non-profit executive with some sort of an animal welfare agency? I might be interested in trying to target people who have self identified as liking cats and dogs right on. Then i decided, well, i might be very geographically focused, and i wouldn’t necessarily need the entire state, so i thought, well, let’s, see what the costs would be if i were to look at maybe two counties in new jersey, morris and somerset counties for people interested in cats and dogs turned out it came up to nine hundred eighty as the household count on that on that costs turned out to be one hundred fifty dollars. Now, how did you specify cats and dogs? There’s a open field where you can have a word interest category interest, there’s like a main interest. So when you’re when you’re looking at the main interests, you can look at things like arts. And entertainment. Uh, babies, children, uh, education just tryingto slipping through here, some of the ones that would be of interest to non-profits outdoor enthusiast, uh, photography, religion. Um, and then they had what they call us sub interest category. You can really drill down even further. And that’s where i got into looking for people who were interested in dogs and cats, for example, i see. Okay, that’s that could be you could have some fun with the subcategories studio going to break it down by ethnicity. Gender. Maria, how do you find all these free and a fee based? How do you how do you how do you find all these new resource is? Well, you know, usually they’re not sometimes they find may and this actually happens to be a situation where rick hilary from from the company reached out to me through lincoln. And, you know, we’ve talked about the power of lincoln for so here was a situation where he brought this particular product, my attention, and we’ve had several converse stations and back and forth about it. And, you know, i took a look at the test because you can actually just kind of play around with it as i did without paying anything at all. Okay, so that that website you want me to give you that? Yes, give it, but we’ll also put it on facebook and linkedin, right? Sure, though, that website is demographics, research, dot com okay, and what’s the earl for listselect uh, that that’s that’s where the starting point is that’s you there? Yeah, they actually give you ah! Pdf that kind of walk you through, how to use it. And they also give you the log in credentials so that you can log in and try and play around with it a bit way have to stop. We have to stop there, maria simple. You know her she’s, the prospect finder, and you’ll find her website at the prospect finder dot com. You’ll find her on twitter at maria simple, and you’ll find the two of us together. We’re going to be doing a chat and online chat hosted by the foundation center on march twenty first about prospect research it’s a two p, m eastern and my burning question is why i’m invited i don’t know they between the two of us, they think we’re both prospect research experts but between you and me, we know that you are. I’ll be there, tio, i’ll do color commentary or something. I don’t know we’re hearing me on, okay, but you can. I have a i have a couple things to contribute, but not as much as you, but you’ll find information about that on the foundation with center website it’s. March twenty first, two p m eastern. Thanks for being a guest, maria, thank you always a pleasure. Next week, juliet fund had more white space to your life she’s, a consultant and speaker, and she also is the daughter of candid cameras allen funt that’ll be fun. Also, scott koegler is back next week. He’s, our technology contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news. We’re all over the social web. You can’t make a click without smacking your head into tony martignetti non-profit radio, by the way, smacking your head in italian is sparkle a testa i learned that when i was in venice asking for directions to a bar once and someone said, sparkle a testa your head on the wall and then turn and make a left and there’s harry’s bar so it stayed with me, um, pinterest, slideshare even before last week, by the way, we were on pinterest in slideshare, itunes, facebook, youtube, twitter, linkedin, foursquare, wherever we’re connected, i thank you very much for being connected wherever it is that i see you. Thank you. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, and the social shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one to two p, m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. I didn’t think you did a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. Take it good! Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications? Then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com we look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me. Larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage. Tuesday night nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio, dot com every tower is a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights, nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Dahna

Nonprofit Radio for October 19, 2012: Leadership & LinkedIn News

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Norman Olshansky
Norman Olshansky: Leadership

Norm Olshansky, consultant and co-editor of “You and Your Nonprofit” shares his advice on nonprofit leadership. His premise is, “Everything starts with leadership.”

 

 

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: LinkedIn News

Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder and our prospect research contributor has two new offerings from LinkedIn. BoardConnect helps you find the right people to serve as board members and Reasons2Call reveals touch points for making contact with the people you want to talk to.

 

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

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Here is a link to the audio podcast: 114: Leadership & LinkedIn News. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get it automatically.
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host and today’s friday, october nineteenth. Oh, i very much hope that you were with me last week. It would cause me pain and distress if i learned that you had missed last week’s show, which was your end campaign clearness from the blackbaud conference b be gone earlier this month in maryland, the conversation was with a panel, and they revealed tips for your year end campaign also compensation clarity. Jean takagi and emily chan, our legal team, were with me to explain how you determine what’s reasonable compensation for executives. What happens if the camp is excessive and what’s that automatic penalty that kicks in if you don’t disclose benefits? Plus we did our board role play, you’ll recall, i believe i stormed out of that meeting uh, this week leadership normal sanski, consultant and co editor of you and your non-profit shares his advice on non-profit leadership, his premises everything starts with leadership and linked in news. Maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, has two new offerings from lincoln board connect. Helps you find the right people to serve as board members, and reasons to call reveals touchpoint ce for making contact with the people you want to talk to. Between the guests on tony’s, take to my blogged this week is the modest are more generous. If you’re on twitter while you’re listening, then you can join the conversation using our hashtag non-profit radio. We take a break and when we return, i’ll be joined by normal sanski and we’re going to talk about leadership. Stay with me. You couldn’t do anything, including getting thinking, you’re listening to the talking alternative network, get in. Nothing. Cubine joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city. In pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller, emotional freedom, and greg brady will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve? Save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot or or a nj dot net. Hi, i’m donna, and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. Will answer your questions on divorce, family, court, co, parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more. Dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever. Join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Well. Welcome back. This is big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. But you knew that joining me now is normal. Sanski he’s, the president of n f p consulting resource is he’s, also a senior consultant with the bob carter companies. His clients over many years have included botanical garden, national membership associations, religious organizations, hospitals, public and private schools, museums and arts organizations. Norma’s joining me from sarasota, florida norm. Welcome. Well, thank you. Nice to be with you, tony it’s. A pleasure to have you. Thank you were talking about leadership on dino. You start with the premise that everything starts with leadership. Let’s, start very general and have you tell me what is a good leader in your mind? Well, obviously, when we’re talking about non-profits a good leader, and when i say leader, i mean either volunteers or staff, uh, the key is obviously a commitment and passion for the mission. I mean, it all starts with that. And then it it’s a question of of people who are serious about the business of non-profits there’s some but there’s a whole lot of, uh, skill and science related to non-profits but there’s also the art the relationships of uh, that are involved in a successful non-profit so having a combination of both people who are willing to take some risk, but also who are creative, who can establish and bring in additional people who are passionate about the organization and it could bring resource is and talents that are necessary to be successful. And i love that you start with the commitment and passion, but obviously that’s not sufficient that’s it’s necessary, but not sufficient many, uh, organization that had very committed and passionate people who knew about the mission failed because they don’t have the skill and the knowledge of the relationships, the influence or the leadership necessary toe taken organization to ah level, where could be sustainable? And this is a business you mentioned being serious about the business. You do have to have a business sense and run run this organization like one. You know, a lot of people don’t realize that talk about non-profits but not profits are corporations non-profit is a status of the i r s but when you talk about a corporation, any business to be successful has tohave the components and the plans and the leadership. Behind it that they’re going to make things happen and, you know, so marketing is as important to fund-raising and, uh uh, financial development and budgeting, all of those things that businesses have to deal with are the same that non-profits have to deal with. I think people get a stark surprise when they learned that the first step to creating their new charity is incorporating in the state that they want to be in that just to just reinforce your point. This is a corporation it’s, a not for profit corporation, and you have to incorporate and there’s your first your first introduction if you hadn’t realized that, uh, this is going to be a business, you know, and you will know and have written about extensively, there are regulations that govern corporations and their specific regulations that govern non-profit organizations. Yes, i’ve heard rumors to that effect. I do a lot of work around charity registration, that’s one narrow small compliance area for charities um, and there were many of the state and federal level, so the so the sense of being a business i think is is shocking to a lot of people who come into a a new charity with that passion and motivation for helping people but they they don’t realize what they’re into for the long term and in its agriff it aggregate the non-profit sector is one of the largest corporate sectors in america. When you look at total assets, total income, total number of employees um after retail and manufacturing, the non-profits sector is the third largest in the nation. Interesting, excellent. Okay, so let’s broaden little bit. We don’t because we don’t want to talk just about people who are starting a charity. So leadership, as you said, of course, staff or volunteer. But with staff, this could be well, even volunteers. This could be leadership at any level, right? We’re not just talking about the executive director and the chair of the board. No. Leadership is key at all levels. From your receptionist to the person who answers the phone to the people who were involved in strategic planning, uh, from top to bottom. Everybody needs to contribute their leadership capabilities for an organisation to be successful. Interesting. You mentioned even the, uh, the receptionist? Absolutely. Absolutely. The receptionist is usually the first contact that a person has with an organization, whether it be a client, oh, a member or a donor. And if that if that contact is not one that is receptive and, uh, customer friendly and doner makes into account all sorts of dona relationships, then you’re starting off on on, ah, negative to begin with. So, uh, everybody needs to do their jobs well, understand how they fit into the overall organization and the importance that they play towards the success of the organization going forward way. We’re going to take a break, of course, normal. Sanski stays with me. We’re going to have a chance to talk more about these volunteer. I’m sorry about the leadership topics and get into some recruitment and and relationship building in succession topics all around the book that he co edited, yu and yur non-profit stay with us talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam lebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology, no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business, it’s, provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to go what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about so gain special access to the ivory tower? Listen to me very sharp, your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio, dot com. Every tower is a great place to visit both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com shit. Welcome back, big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent um, norm let’s talk a little about the the art of leadership that you mentioned not only the business side but the art what’s involved there. Well, clearly part of the role of a leader, a true leader is to be able to motivate others and motivating others means setting and being a good role model, being a good listener, being a person that allows others to bring to the table their talents and skills and knowledge and fuel ownership to the overall venture. So a true leader is somebody whether it’s, a staff leader or volunteer leader, is someone who engages others who is a role model, who’s says follow me because i’m willing to do anything i’m asking of you, uh, who sets the bar high expectations high and is a, uh a gung ho uh, passionate about the organization. So, uh, when we talk about people who have influence people who are charismatic, they’re your best best leaders in an organization if they also know how to relate to people and engage people in a positive way. Let’s, apply some of this too, recruiting you might. Be recruiting staff or you might be recruiting volunteer leaders. What are what are some what? Some of the actual tips you know that we can we can convey the listeners around recruiting the best people for your for your organization? Well, there’s so many, many things to consider and as as we mentioned in the book that’s put out by charity channel press, when you’re looking at, uh, recruiting leaders, you’re looking at both sides of the equation, people that are going to bring skills or re sources that are needed for the organization and people who could be team players, people who care passionately about what you’re doing and people who are, uh, going to keep the interests of the organization above their self interests. Now, how do we recruit to find those attributes? Well, typically, volunteers are engaged in an organization at all different levels and based on the way they perform in their entry level rolls, uh, people then are elevated into positions of more responsibility in terms of professional staff. You’re looking for people that have a particular skill set that you need, whether that be in the back office or whether that be in fund-raising whether that be in operations or service delivery um, and then people who fit into the culture of the organization too often way neglect the fact that every organization has its own history and background and, uh, relationships that have existed over ah short or long period of time and bringing people in who don’t fit into that culture can be problematic, so personality becomes a critical factor over the buggles. So are we basing a lot of our recruitment on on instinct then as we ascertained somebody’s personality while we’re talking to them? Yeah, it’s some of it is instinct of people who’ve been around a long time, and i’ve been involved in human resource is develop uh uh, the instincts, but the instincts or developed based on science, for instance, you don’t want somebody who is always in need of socializing and as always, needs to be around people in whatever to be sitting in front of a computer all day. Likewise, you don’t want somebody who is that academic focus type of intellectual, um, to be the one who’s going to be in your sales force or marketing or, um, uh fund-raising areas so personality is as much as important as looking at the actual skills set that someone brings to a job all right, i have had a couple of guests on who, when they’re interviewing people liketo recommended asking about impact, much the way donors air looking for organizational impact. What impact did you have in a difficult situation and listen to stories about how they dealt with people? Dealt with a difficult situation may be difficult person and what the what the outcome was there there you no good interviewers can develop scenarios where they can see how well people handle themselves on their feet thinking quick, but also how open people are, because a lot of people, um, will in an interview especially they want to project the best possible scenario for their own employment and chances of getting that job. And, uh, if they’re not, if you don’t find, uh, the humanness of a person, the ability to recognize what they don’t know, they’re our willingness to acknowledge some of the things that they’ve they have not been as successful with. Yes, you know way all have our strengths and weaknesses and it’s so important in a work environment that you have the type of employees that could be very upfront and candid and and have a lot of self awareness as to what their skillsets are what they need to learn more about and the like. So, that’s, what you really want a probe in an interview to see how comfortable people are and knowing that interviews or stressful situation. So part of what you’re doing is seeing how people handle stress schnoll once you have recruited the types of staff and volunteers that that you’re aspiring to, you need to keep them motivated about their work, and i think that’s a lot of leadership also there made their difficult times there’s going to be fun times there’s going to be tensions? Ah, leadership a leader needs to manage in all these different environments. Yes, and a good a good leader any good professional, in fact, eyes always looking for additional knowledge. Uh, additional resource is, uh, how to do there roll their job better. Um so organizations that encourage, uh, training and in service and education and opportunities, tto learn are the organizations that are the most sustainable and successful one of the things that we’ve learned in human resource is that job satisfaction is not as highly related to compensation as it is to people feeling that their position and an organization is recognized, that job that they’re doing is meaningful and that they’re given opportunities to grow and learn in their roles. Yes, that’d be a volunteer work staff. Yes, and i’ve seen survey results or study results about that in the popular press again, that job satisfaction doesn’t come primarily from compensation, but from feeling of feeling, of belonging and membership and commitment that that the person feels for the organization and that knowing that the leadership feels toward them. One of the biggest problems i see is that non-profits too often are are so heavily focused on problem solving that they forget to celebrate their successes and, uh, encourage others, uh, to recognize everyone’s participation and involvement in an organization on dh their role in that success, it’s, not just the board chair and the ceo that are responsible and should be recognized for the success of an organization you mentioned education and training, but in bad times recession or just lean times for an organisation, irrespective of what’s happening in the macro economy, those are things that tend to get cut pretty quickly conference spending bringing consultants for in for training things like that tend to go get cut pretty quick. Well, that that is true, and it is a challenge, but like with anything in the nonprofit world, challenges can be overcome. There are many non-profit resource centers and, uh, universities that offer free workshops, there are opportunities through professional organizations in the light to get mentors for staff. There are opportunities even for a portion of every board meeting in tow have, uh, learning experiences. So the problem is that organizations that are not strategic are not going to be as success was they could be, and part of being strategic is thinking forward, how am i going to help develop my staff and volunteers so that they’re going to be able to take on the challenges that we’re going to be facing going forward? And if you’re not thinking ahead and only thinking about putting out fires? It’s ah, problem and that’s a challenge in this economy because so many organizations are struggling economically, so you have to think smart, act smart and use your resource is carefully, it all falls. To the little falls to the leader. I mean, for the organization to be strategic, the leadership needs to be right. But after buy-in throughout the organization on what that vision is and what that plan is. Yes. Okay, yeah, you know? Right. Yeah. I’m gonna correct myself. It doesn’t all fall to the leadership, but it all starts with the leadership. Exactly. Okay, that’s, that was how we started the whole conversation today. And that is everything starts with leadership. Andi, we’re going to continue the conversation. I just want to remind listeners normal. Sanski is a consultant and co editor of you and your non-profit published by charity channel press. Norm let’s talk a little about succession that we’ve recruited in. Hopefully retained good volunteers and good staff succession planning. And you want one of the articles in the store in the in the book is your own article on succession planning around volunteers. This is a critical, uh, um, teacher or component or requirement of non-profits to be successful. Uh, we mentioned earlier how important culture is and the history of an organisation and having people who understand that history and you have the experience is so if you do not have a good succession plan, you are of setting yourself up for dramatic changes every time. There’s a change of leadership, whether that be volunteer leadership or, uh, staff leadership. So having a succession plan, knowing what you would do in a scenario where a person leaves or persons term expires, uh, those things need to be thought out. Uh, we usually recommend that, uh, with the lay leadership that you have clear, um, succession in terms of if you have vice presidents, that there’s an expectation that the vice president or if you have multiple vice president’s, one of those vice presidents is being groomed to be the next chair of the board with staff that there’s cross training so that you always want to be aware of the mack truck we call it effect where if a key staff person is, is unfortunately in an automobile accident and is out for months or leaves uh, the organization that you’re not completely vulnerable, that you have others who understand what their job was. I could step in and help with that. So succession planning is critical. The other thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that when you’re involved with non-profits, we talked about the passion and commitment to the mission. Well, it’s also key what happens when people move through that succession plan and say someone was the board chair and now they’re no longer board chair? Well, they’ve been involved the years in a very intense way, and if they’re completely cut off, you could lose a very experienced leader. So how you work with prior leadership and how you help people with that transition is very important, too, in the article in the book goes into a lot of the issues related to succession planning the structures for that in the light. They’re also articles on my blogged specifically related to this issue and you block is that n f p consulting dot com uh n f consulting dot blogged spot dot com that’s, the block post okay, and the other is the actual consulting practice. Okay, i want to flush out a little more the the volunteer leadership succession because you do suggest that the past chair be active. Obviously the current chair is, and then also as you said, the vice president of one of the vice president is chair elect, don’t you now have three share people vying for leadership? Um, not if the rolls and the culture of the organization are very clear is to the responsibilities of leadership, and i can’t tell you how many times i’ve gone into organizations and found that they did not have clear job descriptions for each of the positions. Oh, job now, does that belong in the board’s by-laws, or is that elsewhere? No. That’s. Ah, separate separate item. You know, the by-laws usually have a very brief description of responsibilities of officers, but, um, uh, more complete, uh, job description. Just a cz you would have for employees. Should be for every one of the officers and board members of the organization where you have, what is their responsibilities? How much time is expected of them? Are they expected to make a contribution or to solicit funds? What are the events or programs that they should be participating in? Ah, what sub committees or task forces, um, are their expectations that they serve on all of those things? Should be outlined in a job description for volunteer leadership. Justice he would stab. Okay, andi, we have just a couple of minutes left, and i want you to share what your thoughts are around what, what it is that you love about it leadership topics and motivating leaders. Well, one of the things is a consultant is so very special is when you, khun trance, for the skills and knowledge you’ve experienced over ah, whole career to an organization where they are able to then go forward using those skills and no longer be dependent on the consultant. Uh, so really uh, uh, consultant and the wonderful way that i love working with leadership is you always start where people are at their never all at the same place, and once you assess where they’re at, then taking them forward to where they can be and helping them to have a vision of what’s possible eyes what’s very exciting because i’ve never met anybody in a non profit organization that didn’t have good intentions, but a lot of people in non-profits have no clue as to how to implement successfully their good intentions. And in just about thirty seconds we have left it’s got to be very gratifying to help someone achieve their full potential as a leader, no. Question. No question about that, and also so many people have helped me through. My career is just great to be able to give back whether it be susan consulting or publishing that’s, the joy of being what i would call a senior professional in the field. Normal. Sanski is a consultant and co editor of u n yur non-profit, published by charity channel press. He’s, president of an f p consulting resource is normal. One. Thank you very much for being a guest, my pleasure, and thank you for having my pleasures. Well, thank you, norm. Now we take a break when we return. It’s tony’s, take two and then maria simple, linked in news. Stay with me, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city. In pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller, emotional freedom, and greg brady will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve? Save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot order or a nj dot net. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Buy-in if you have big ideas but an average budget, tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio for ideas you can use. I do. I’m dr. Robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Hi there, tony’s. Take two my block this week is the modest are more generous this’s known to a lot of people, but i just felt like paying attention to it this week because i’ve seen some recent press around it, especially around the chronicle of in the chronicle of philanthropy. Um, the research that consistently shows that people of modest means give a higher percentage of their income, then the wealthy do, i think that’s very interesting. And so at the macro level, not surprising, poorer communities don’t need a higher percentage of their income, then then wealthier communities. We find that across the south states in the south are typically maur generous as a percentage of income than, say, the northeastern states. And so that creates us curious generosity, divide and on my block this week i have links teo articles by the chronicle of philanthropy on this, and they also have an interactive graphic showing generosity throughout the country and that’s all on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, the nineteenth of october forty fourth show of the year with me now, as she is every month, maria simple maria, how you doing out there? I’m doing great. Thanks for having me back. Always a pleasure. Maria simple is our prospect research contributor she’s the prospect finder. You’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com. Her book is find your maria. Remind me what the name of your book is panning for gold panning for gold dahna prospects finding your best donor prospects now, thank you. I’m sorry. You have some have some linked in news for us. A couple of new offerings from linkedin. Yes. So one is directly from lengthen, and the other one comes from an approved development partner with linked in. So i thought these were both two really interesting developments that could be very, very useful for non-profits and we might want to, you know, give them a little time and highlight them and show people how they can use them, especially since they’re free. Okay, i love it. You always come with free on very low cost resource is outstanding that i’m always good for that you’re very well known for that. So let’s, start with the one that’s directly from lincoln that is bored. Connect that’s, correct board connect just launched. In the last couple of weeks, lincoln gave some announcements about it, and they have a website set up where people can learn more information and i’ll make sure i share that on your facebook page. But it’s non-profit and the linked in group two don’t forget the link down it’s right that way talking about lengthen your going to everything on facebook so the page that people can look for this is non-profits dot lincoln dot com and so basically at a high level overviewing let me give you an idea what it is. It is, uh, access to what they call their talent finder tool on it is a premium account level, and so it has a thousand dollar value, which is a kn annual value the thousand dollars subscription that can be obtained for free by one person at the non-profit um, so you really didn’t need to figure out who that one person is going to be that’s going to have access to this and let me tell you what with the tool can do, and then you might be able to envision you know, who would be the best connector at your non-profit you noto have this tool so basically it enables you to really look for board members, and i’m sure that tool can be used in other ways. But it’s really meant to help you find boardmember zina very systematic tearaway instead of sitting around at a board meeting and saying, well, who do we know that can help fill this gap? Let’s say you have a gap, you need somebody and maybe the financial services or accounting field, and you really would like to have that expertise on your board you can use it will give you expanded search capacity, uh, on your advanced search page of lengthen and we’ve talked about that the usefulness before of that page, but now it’s going to give you access to more search field so you’ll be able to really find to search the other great feature that it has is twenty five in males a month are included. So have we talked about in they’ll know we haven’t esso let’s? No, i don’t think so. We haven’t, so no, that is a way to connect directly to someone and send them just as it says in in mail and email, basically within the lincoln. Space ah, and you get up to twenty five per month. And they say that if you don’t get it sponte back from the person within seven days, you kind of get a credit back-up one typically you have to you have to have linked in pro in order to use in male. Don’t you that’s correct. So that that’s? Why? For for one and non-profit one person connected to the non-profit soak to really? I’ve talked to it. Some of my other colleagues who are you know who love linked in a cz well, you may from heart is talking about them before jerry tangle and mark help they were goes on the show. There were panelists with you one time that’s right that’s, right? And we really think that in order for this to really work well, the person who has this access should have at least three hundred fifty connections of their own and way think that the magic will really happen really at five hundred and up. So think through who at at your your non-profit would have that level of connections. Um, you might want to give the access to perhaps at the boardmember who? Might be better connected on lengthen uh, maybe the person in charge of your board, croup, mint committee or something like that. But it will give you access to this talent. Find your tool they have with bored connect there going to be providing some additional educational webcasts, and they have a group that they’ve started within lengthen called the board connect group. So you’ll be able to have a pierre network who are using this tool effectively. Ok, let’s, talk a little more about the details of it. How do we how do we go about using it? So as i said, you really access it through the talent. Find your tools through the advanced search page and having those more advanced search filters. You’re going to be able to also see expanded profiles of people who are outside your network. And maria let’s, just stop the advanced search tool. That’s was that’s in the upper right corner. Yes, that’s in the upper right corner. So you have a search box which would appear on your home page of lincoln. Just to the right of that. There is a clickable links called advanced search that that’s what you want? To click onto, and then many more, many more fields will open up for you, but only the person who’s authorized to use the talent finder tool. Well, anybody can it can access advance, right? Right. However, having the talent find your tool will get you more fields to search on. Okay, right, you’ll see you’ll see an expanded page over what everybody else was using donorsearch let’s say you’re really only interested in connecting with people who have maybe a title of cfo within a certain radius, but also you want to make sure that they’re within fortune five hundred companies or they have a minimum of two hundred employees, so you can really start filtering out and really coming up with a very concise list. Um, actually, jerry, just jerry stengel just did this very effectively for aboard the cheese on in in manhattan, and she blogged about it. Um, i don’t know if you’re familiar with beth cantor. She blogged about it. I’m beth cantor’s blogged on september twenty fourth, so that might be something people want to refer to cause she actually kind of goes about outlining how she used this tool her sir self to find some people who have a perfect match for for the board and she’s in conversation with several of those people right now. Excellent. All right, so jerry stengel blogged on beth cantor’s, a guest blogger on beth cantor was spelled k way also kind of highlighted. You know how jerry used this particular tool on a web in or that we recorded on october second, which is actually linked to that webinars also accessible there on the blog’s link. So on the best i mean, on the breast cam trying to, you know, let people know in a in a variety of mediums help. How can use okay, now what you mean the link to the webinar is on the best cancer blogger. Yes, you can also get you could get to it from jerry’s website venture near dot com, but you can also get to it from from that original block post that came out on a september twenty four. Okay, beth cantor is k and tr and the jerry stengel blogged where you can also find this is his venture near and that’s venture and e r dot com as if you’re a pioneer, but not that you’re near adventure, as in close to adventure ventured here like pioneer ok, so what has your own experience been? We’re talking about everybody else in the world what’s your own experience, but i was playing around with it for a little bit. I wanted to see, you know what would be, you know, the advantage of having all those additional search features and, you know, it really does greatly narrowed the pool, and you can really get a very nicely refined list of potential prospects that you want to reach out. Tio so really it’s been developed for, you know, trying to find talent, you know, for individuals that would be great. Boardmember cz individuals, that would be potentially great to be working for your organization, but also, you know, i like the fact that they have you can set up the searches, and then you can set up a ten search alert. So normally with a free linkedin account, you can set up three saved searches, but this will give you the capacity to save up to ten so you’re you’re saving your search criteria and then as someone new joins, link dane or changes their profile and becomes ah, search result for you. Then you find out automatically. Yes, yes. Lincoln will push the information to you. And you can decide to have that a search alert set up, say, to push the info to you once a week, if you like or, you know, daily. So it’s, really your choice on dh? I think that that could be particularly useful feature as well, you know, especially for non-profits that are in in a mode of really needing to revamp their board or they have a certain number of slots they feel they really would like to fill it’s a great way for you to set up the searches and have lengthened just pushed the information to you. Okay? And that’s all the talent finder tool in linked in which you’ll find through, give the earl again for getting started. Non-profit dot linkin dot com okay, cool. Yeah, they give a nice little overview, you know, tutorial, etcetera and what’s. Really kind of cool, too. If they give you fly that you can share with your board at an upcoming board meeting to really help educate them. How lengthen can help with with board recruitment. And so forth. So they really have thought it through in terms of how it can be useful for you is a non-profit professional. But how can you then share this message with your own board on? I love that you recommend that it could be a volunteer who you are, who you choose. Tio, have the special account that’s, right? That’s, right? I mean, the non-profit will need to go through, you know, supplying i believe their e i n tax number. Right there must be someone you know verified non-profit and force that’s getting this this access because it is, you know, with thousand dollar value, the annual value. So i think it’s fantastic that they’re making this available for the non-profit community at this level. It’s going to take boyd recruitment to a whole other level. Interesting. Okay, we’re going to take a break, and of course maria stays stays with me, and when we come back, we’ll we’ll see if there’s anything more to say about board connect and then we’ll talk about the other tool. That’s linked delinked in reasons to call stay with us. Talking. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com how’s your game want to improve your performance, focus and motivation? Then you need a spire athletic consulting stop, second guessing yourself. Move your game to the next level, bring back the fun of the sport, help your child build confidence and self esteem through sports. Contact dale it, aspire, athletic, insulting for a free fifteen minute power session to get unstuck. Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Maria simple is the prospect finder and she’s with me till the end of the show, maria, anything else that you wanted to wrap up about board connect that we didn’t say no, i think that, you know, if they visit that website, they will be able to get tons of great information there and overview and again, the slides that they might want to share with their board are located right there on that site. Okay, that’s valuable to yeah, you’re right sharing this with your volunteered leadership in with pre prepared slides. Very cool, yeah, reasons to call what’s that about so reasons to call recently came to my attention. I’ve been in contact with the developer this tool, his name is jeremy condi, and he is ceo of a company called depths mine software you what they’ve done is they’ve come up with this product that will allow you to sink your lengthen contacts and it’s looking for pieces of information related to feel sort of untilled out on a person’s profile, such as if they filled in their birthday information their company info anniversaries if people have posted that on their own lincoln profiles um and then it will actually bring to your attention and email you upcoming birthdays that you might have in your in your database of people, that you’re connected teo on lincoln but what’s cool is that you could also add new contacts into the system of people who are not on lengthen. So let’s say you have you no other family, friends, etcetera, contacts who just aren’t using the lengthen product you can still use this reasons to call and its reasons to the numeral too reasons to call dot com um, so i’ve been i’ve been using it for the last couple of weeks, and it’s been emailing me is the upcoming birthdays, birthdays today so it’s an opportunity for you to have a touchpoint with someone, right? And i remember, i guess it was on october fifth you had andrian nuremberg on your show, and she was talking about the importance of staying in touch with people understanding their preferred sensitive communication. So there’s a note field where you you can add that right in i recall andrea e-giving the tip of understanding to somebody like to be contacted by email, text, phone so you can kind of just pump that right into the notes section so that when it does come time to wish that person happy anniversary her happy birthday, or maybe their favorite sports team just did really well, you can. You can reach out to them through their preferred method of communication. Okay. Yeah, well, i appreciate your look, maria. Simple paying so much attention to the show. She remembers andrea nierenberg october fifth. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Well, you know, it’s interesting. Because both andrea and on jeremy have referred back and my conversations with him in the past to dale carnegie and developing deep relationship showing you care about the other person. And isn’t that what really were doing and fund-raising and cultivating relationships? Really? Not only you personally with an individual, but with your institution. Andrea used to be a dale carnegie instructor, and i was so taken by all the advice that she had that i’m going to have her back. It’s already scheduled for november. One of the november shows. So, andrew’s, andrew’s going to turn and talk? I wanna ask her about dale carnegie. Um, but okay, so reasons to call. So it sounds like some of what they’re doing. Not all but some what they’re doing is similar to what facebook does when it lets, you know that someone’s birthday is, is this week or today, right? But, you know, on facebook you might not be connected to all of these professional colleagues, right? I mean, i know i’m not i’m not connected to people that i know professionally, my my lincoln connections are actually much more extensive than my facebook connections, nor and so the fact that, you know, of course somebody would have to have this on their profile. So, tony, if i wanted to reach out to you and wish you a happy birthday, um, you would have to have that field without your linkedin profile in order for this information to get pushed to me that you’ve got a birthday, okay, right? So you don’t have to ask you don’t ask for no, i’m looking here, for example, at my dashboard right now on reasons to call and it’s giving me people who have birthdays in the next seven days. I’ve got four people i can reach out to from my network, it’s breaking it down birthdays within a month and beyond. So really, really cool tool, you know, as a touchpoint opportunity with someone? Yeah, sort of ah consolidated anniversary birthday book, but but you mentioned also sports if your sports teams do well, is there a field in lincoln where people put their sports? You know, some people feel i haven’t seen people filling out too much in terms of particular sport teams, but they have filled out under the hobbies section of their linked in profile say they like hockey or skiing or tennis, so i’m actually getting on the particular news section. For example, i can look at your con my contacts, interests, breaking news related to my contacts, interest so i’ve got some contacts who have talked about cycling. I’m looking at here on my dashboard october ninth they’re talking about, uh, cycling road tour beijing classifications blackbaud law. So i mean, if there were and then it will tell me which of my contacts have cycling as something that they’ve noted on their profiles. So, hey, you know, if this is something i know that’s interesting to them, i might send them this particle about cycling and you know the results for sure here, right? Right. Excellent reasons the number to call dot com way reasons to call dot com on we have just about thirty seconds. This is still in beta. Is it available to everybody? It is available to everybody right now, okay, could go ahead and think up there. They’re linked in contacts ah and it’s free to use. And i’m told by jeremy that you know he’s hoping to keep this a free tool for people to use. So again, you know, in our world of relationship building, i think it could be particularly useful. You’ll find maria simple at the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects now and of course, she’s, our regular prospect research contributor maria, thanks so much for your for being on again and for your excellent advice this month. Thanks so much. My pleasure also, of course, my thanks to normal sanski next week, another interview from the bb con conference where i was earlier this month, but i haven’t decided which one yet we have to do these things delicately and scott koegler will be with me next week. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news and our tech contributor what is he gonna have? I also don’t know that he hasn’t, he hasn’t told me yet, but if you’re in arlington group, then you will know before the show. So, by the way, have you joined the linked in group washington, d c is in peoria, illinois, south carolina, pakistan, all members of linked in group. What about you? You can continue the conversation with my guests there on linkedin. We’re jumping right now, tio the fact that the show’s creative producer is claire meyerhoff and sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I very much hope you’ll be with me next friday, once, two p m eastern. We’re always on talking alternative broadcasting, which is that talking alternative dot com. I didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving nothing. Cubine hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Don’t. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Oh, this is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. 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