Tag Archives: prospect

Let’s Help Kelly, For Pete’s Sake

Photo courtesy of LiminalMike on Flickr.

Kelly Pierce-Bulger posted a comment to my blog post “Separate The Pits From The Juice” in the MojaLink group on LinkedIn.* I love her question because it’s very basic, very simple, and something many, many small and mid-size nonprofit fundraisers struggle with: how should I allocate my time?

MojaLink’s 45,639 members had nothing to say. Not a single comment. Maybe we can help Kelly out, and thousands of others who are similarly frustrated.

Here’s her question from LinkedIn:

It’s definitely true that development people need to use their time as productively as possible, but this is easier said than done! Do you have any advice for someone who is the only development staff member of a small nonprofit and struggling to determine what the best use of her time is? (between connecting with existing donors, prospect research, grant research and writing, corporate sponsorship research (and hopefully one day actual corporate sponsorships), and a growing online fundraising presence, not to mention various admin. and volunteer management tasks).

I’ll start with the first comment. I hope you will help Kelly, too.

(* For the LinkedIn.com links you’ll have to have a LinkedIn account and be logged in to see those links.)

Nonprofit Radio for October 14, 2011: Giving Beyond The Check: Non-Cash Giving & Proactive Prospect Research

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Michael King
Michael King: Giving Beyond The Check: Non-Cash Giving

Recorded at the National Conference on Philanthropic Planning last week in San Antonio, Michael King of the National Christian Foundation shares the processes for closing gifts of unusual assets like collectibles, real estate and intellectual property.

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: Proactive Prospect Research

Regular contributor, Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, follows-up on her last spot by going into greater detail on making your small shop prospect research proactive.

 

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Here is a link to the podcast: 063: Non-Cash Giving
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Dahna welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio for october fourteenth, two thousand eleven your aptly named host. This show is all about and always will be about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I hope you were with me last week when it was excel in email execution. My first guest was dave pulis, ceo and chief consultant at granite partners, and he shared five elements of effective email marketing and had tips for list hygiene. I hope your list is practicing safely and then claire meyerhoff, editorial director at the plan giving company and principal of the plant e-giving agency, revealed how to write for email fund-raising so that your message gets opened, read and respond to do this week e-giving beyond the czech non-cash e-giving recorded at the national conference on philanthropic planning last week in san antonio, michael king of the national christian foundation shares the process for closing gift of unusual assets like collectibles, real estate and intellectual property. Then i’ll be joined by maria semple are regular prospect research contributor she’s, the prospect finder and she’s going to follow up on her last time on the show last month by going into greater detail on making your small shop prospect research proactive, and that segment is proactive. Prospect research between the segments. Tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. The national conference on philanthropic planning, where i was in san antonio last week, i’ll say a little about that, and this week’s block post separate the juice from the pits. A juicer at a restaurant got me thinking about fund-raising i’ll talk about that. We’re live tweeting this show as we always do. The hashtag is non-profit radio all one word to join the conversation with us on twitter. Right now, we take a break, and when we return, it’ll be e-giving beyond the czech non-cash e-giving stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. 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 pompel welcome back, it’s, time now for my pre recorded interview with michael king, taken from the national conference on philanthropic planning, where i was just last week, talking about giving beyond the czech non-cash e-giving and here’s. That interview. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the national conference on philanthropic planning in san antonio, texas, were on the river walk in san antonio. And my guest right now is michael king, with the national christian foundation in alphabet of georgia. His seminar topic is giving beyond the check launching generosity with non-cash e-giving michael. Welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Good to be here. A pleasure to have you. You you point out something interesting in your seminar description that most gif ts are cash but that’s not most of the assets that people hold. Why don’t you describe those numbers? Stores? Yeah. It’s. Very interesting. If you look at all of the charitable giving that is done in our country each year about three hundred billion over eighty percent of that giving is simply done in the form of cash. And of the remaining twenty percent. A lot of that is given in the form of maybe marketable securities war, household goods that are dropped off at the salvation army, your goodwill. And yet if you look at the composition of wealth in the nation, cash represents less than ten percent of what people own go. And so there’s this small pond that everyone is kind of fishing out of when there’s this ocean of additional opportunity that oftentimes just doesn’t come on to the radar screen of most charity he’s or donors or advisors. Now can non-cash gif ts be appropriate for small and midsize charities? It can be absolute, even in some of the, you know, the smallest charities that exist in local communities. It’s not unusual for them, tow have at least some, you know, wealthy, influential folks that might serve on their board or support their organization. A lot of ah gifting in this area that is that that could be a great opportunity is closely held business interests. And so even for some organizations that hold annual events, you know, oftentimes they’ll have businesses that will sponsor those events. And so right, there is a source of potential opportunity or folks that maybe interested for receptive e-giving interest in their business and probably have never even contemplated. And what about those again for the small midsize shop, the complexity? How would we’ll deal with some of the exact, you know, different types of assets, but sure, just generally these do require some expertise. How it’s too small a midsize shop to do about that? Yeah, that’s a good point, and i would even say there’s, no question there’s significant complexity to gifts of these these assets there can be no technical complexities, rial challenges in terms of liability that an organization might be subject to, so not only with small and midsize organizations, but even a lot of large organizations simply lack the manpower, expertise, knowledge to really facilitate these gifts in a meaningful way from my experience, there’s really only a handful of organizations that have a deep expertise in this realm, but a number of them are organized in such a way, often times they use a donor advised funds platform because some of the greatest benefits are able to be secured by that type of a structure. And so they do a lot of work with small, medium sized large organizations basically serving as a middleman so that those organizations don’t have to secure the full breath of that knowledge and expertise. Ok, but if they see opportunities, they can partner with some of these other organisations that will do much of that work while still directing those ultimate proceeds to that particular charity, how does the donor advised funds? Work? Well, the donor advised fundez in the context of charitable entities generally is probably the newest concept. Even though it’s been around since the nineteen twenties, it really wasn’t until the nineties, when the donor advised fund really kind of took off. People became very familiar with it. Much of that was facilitated by fidelity mutual fund company and so as more and more people have experienced this it’s really become one on opportunity for individuals with more modest means tohave, a charitable entity somewhat similar, very similar to a private foundation, without all the headaches and and hassles of dealing with a lot of the rules that apply there. But then, even for wealthy families, we have more and more families that are using the donor advised funds has an enhanced alternatives to a private foundation, michael white. Why is the donor advised funds more suitable for these types of non-cash gifts that we’re talking about yet, particularly when we’re dealing with non-cash assets? The nature of the charitable entity is of critical importance, and the reason for that is the deduction limitations that apply to a private foundation versus a public charity status like a donor advised funds sponsor. And so if you were to give appreciated assets other than marketable securities to a private foundation, the givers deduction would be limited to the lesser of the fair market value or basis. And so, therefore, if you have a business interest or a realist, a piece of real estate that was highly appreciated or depreciated for time. Jack purposes, you would only get a deduction for whatever basis you had on that basis is generally the caught your tax cost. It could be different if you earned it. If you got the asset through. Ah, requesting a will, but it’s, generally your tax cost in the in the asset, right, that’s correct. So you could end up. Your point is you can end up with a deduction that would be much lower then the fair market value. I mean, you’re much, much lower. Exactly. So take the take the situation, tony of a privately owned business. No, probably the common scenario is if a business is successful, it probably started in somebody’s garage or with moderate means and has little to no basis at all. So in those context, a private foundation is wholly ineffective in making gifts of that nature. But a donor advised funds or other public charity status entity will receive a full, fair market value deduction. And i think this distinction between this these these two entities is why so many opportunities in this realm are missed is because typically when somebody’s working charity or in advisors working with a wealthy family on they have a generous heart almost by default. We all think, oh, they need a private foundation. And if we’re working in the context of a private foundation, generally, these types of assets just aren’t appropriate. They won’t really leverage the tax benefits that they can if we’re using a donor advised funds or another five public charity status organization. So then a savvy gift planner at at a charity would recommend the donor advised funds over the private foundation for the reasons you describe it e-giving ending, ending the ending, the ending, you’re listening to the talking, alternate network, things getting thinking. Cubine 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. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics. Politically expressed buy-in, montgomery, taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m christine cronin, president of n y charities. Dahna you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Durney are there other vehicles methods of of giving that are not directly to the charity that are that are more suitable for these types of assets? I would say. Generally, the structure of the donor advised funds provides the greatest flexibility. But even in the context of business interest in real estate, they can certainly be combined with split interest arrangements like charitable remainder trust, charitable gift annuities, charitable lead trusts, the complexity in that context mounts. But there could be some real advantages to incorporating those split interest arrangements in conjunction with non-cash assets as well. Okay, is a is a small or mid size shop likely tto find maybe expertise that could help with this on their board? Oh, and or let me put it differently, cause that’s obviously gonna vary by board aboard that’s, not that’s. Not well put what types of expertise might be required if if that that the charity would need if if the donor wasn’t interested in a donor, advised funds or for whatever reason, it wasn’t going to pursue that route. What types of expertise are needed? Yeah, the, you know, certainly a competent charitable in a state planning attorney and a very competent now. Is that for the representing the charity or you mean represented donor or one on each side? Yeah, i mean, theoretically, you could have one on each side, but to have somebody with just that the general knowledge to teo be ableto lay out a road map of hay here, the different issues we need to think through here the different structure and planning opportunities. It’s generally going tto be helpful toe have somebody with some fairly deep knowledge. From a technical standpoint, you did mention the board, and certainly the board can be ineffective. Resource, probably more so from the standpoint of identifying opportunities. Ok, ok, other expertise besides the person well steeped in the internal revenue code, who understands the implications of charitable giving? Yeah, not really. I mean on, especially if you if if you’re partnering with one of these organizations that does work in this area donorsearch vise fun platter, they typically have a pretty pretty significant breath of expertise. They’ll have accountants. Attorneys, though, of course, have the administrative folks that manage and maintain the donor advised funds platform. Yeah, i was thinking more of the charity that has a donor that doesn’t want to go, the donor advised funds away can’t go because you can’t afford or is not just doesn’t want to do the private foundation. What sort of what infrastructure does the charity need to have in place in terms of expertise before they can start talking to donors about these non-cash gift? Well, yeah, that’s a good question. Yeah, they certainly would benefit from having on the charity side on attorney your accountant well versed in these issues because the reality is those organizations, if they’re a standard five oh one c three public charity can take these assets in his well, so they don’t have the negative tax implications that the private foundation does, so they could certainly take these assets in themselves. They have the benefits that they be ableto provide to the families that they work with, and then it really would just be a matter of them being educated enough to be able to articulate the opportunities to the families that they’re working with. And then clearly those families are going to need to be represented also correct, these are very complex a cz you’ve mentioned transactions that khun involve the internal revenue code. Very d deeply, the person’s a state plan, et cetera. All right, yeah. So particularly in these in this type of planning, we always highly, highly encourage families to really involve their advisor team because of the complexity of those issues. And, you know, even if you have, ah charity that knows the family very well because of the technical issues that arise here, you know, there may be aspects of their business minute details that you know, they’re just not going to know that their attorney accountant might know, but it could be very important to the overall planning. What’s your advice about bringing in family members, let’s assume it’s, a husband and wife couple, they’re in their seventies. What about bringing in the children in that example, but could be other family members in a different example? Yeah, i think. It’s it’s, it’s i think it’s always great to involve children, grandchildren in charitable planning and endeavours to the greatest extent possible now, interestingly, when particularly when we’re dealing with family owned businesses. There’s a lot of planning that takes place in this charitable context that also involves succession planning within the family, so we will create structures. Where somebody might give interest in their business. Oh, and then ultimately, at some point, those interests are purchased from the children or a trust for their benefit and really serve as a mechanism or a component of the families ofthe overall succession plan, and by doing that, we can leverage not only family wealth transfer but charitable benefits as well. Aren’t we also minimizing the likelihood of any kind of a challenge to the gift if we if we inform and bring in other family members, so this is not a surprise to them, it can be depending on, you know, the the owner’s involved with a particular asset or business, even if they’re not family members. You know, if a charity all of a sudden becomes a shareholder in a business that can have impact and and raise issues for other shareholders, typically they’re not significant issues. I mean, generally speaking, the charity just simply becomes an additional shareholder to the organization. A lot of times, the family business is that we’re working with maybe owned holy in the family, just mom or dad or maybe some of the kids, but particularly when you get outside of that. And you might have nonreligious shareholders. They need to be aware of those implications and don’t always have the same objectives. So sometimes planning that might work well in a family contacts might not be applicable for somebody that has a business and they own it with non family. Were non related members let’s shift focus a little bit to the my voice is cracked sixteen years old to the er with a lot of gray hair to the different types of assets. What? Aside from cash and then appreciated securities or stock? What? What do we see as the the next or the most popular type of gift outside those arenas? Yeah, well, i think if you look at the three largest asset types in terms of the wealth composition in our country, they would be marketable securities, privately owned businesses in real estate, so that’s going to comprise the vast majority of wealth in the country. But there’s also lots of other types of assets. Intellectual property, collectibles, life insurance, oil and gas interests. Individual retirement accounts, there’s a lot of different assets that can provide leverage tax benefits as opposed to giving simply in the form of cash. In fact, a lot of times tony will say that there’s a lot of families that if they give chaired, give charitably in their generous, we suggest to them that it’s possible they should never make another cash gift in their life because these other asset type gifts non-cash asset yes, generally provide leverage, benefits. And so, as opposed to just simply capturing a charitable deduction, we might be able to get not only a charitable deduction, but we might be able to avoid capital gains tax. We might be able to secure income from that asset that will be exempt from tax so there’s typically kind of double or even triple benefits that can be captured with these other non-cash assets. So the families have a lot of those assets we say hey, yousa donor advised funds and use that as a storehouse so that you’re able to use these other assets when they’re converted to cash. Then give the cash out of the donor advised funds because you’re always able to leverage typically the tax benefits in that context. Let’s, look at the intellectual property gift. What are what are concerns there, let’s? Just say hypothetically, a donor comes in. She has authored some textbooks. Let’s say she has some physical books. Maybe she has let’s say a thousand books. She wants to give the books about that. Make it a school. So there’s some use for that and then. But then also she wants to give the intellectual property rights or copyright and whatever flows from that. What? What? What? What is the charity? Start asking? Where does it begin with that? To get that conversation started? Yeah, it’s. Interesting. Because there are numerous types of intellectual property patents, copyrights, trademarks, even things that we might not typically think of as an asset, like a process or a nohow that would fall into this category. So you specifically mentioned copyrights? Copyrights are kind of an interesting thing because there’s a unique rule that says, if you actually created the copyright, you are the author. You’re not going to be able to secure a charitable deduction for that just part of the rules. Now, if i had a copyright that i purchased from somebody else and all of a sudden it’s worth a lot of money, i purr argast you know the song writes of the beatles and then it appreciated in value, and i gave that away. I could secure a full, fair market value deduction so typically in a copyright situation, whether with an author or perhaps a musician, the primary objective or benefit there is once that asset is gifted, the royalty income that is produced from that asset escapes taxation with respect to the charity completely. So think about, you know, a major author, somebody that sold a book and is literally made multiple millions of dollars from that book if they’re in a position where they say, gee, i really don’t need all this income, they could give all or a portion of the copyright to that book, and then the royalty income that is then collected would go pro radha to the charity, and all of that income would escape taxation completely. Okay. And there’s still no deduction for the author who is the creator of the work? Correct for the continuing royalties? Yes. That’s correct. There’s there’s. No additional deduction now, let’s, let’s. Shift to a patent situation. Let’s say there’s something that somebody was able to patton the rules that apply there are that upon initial gift of that. Asset, the deduction that the giver will receive will be the lesser of fair market value or basis. Okay, we hear that again said that before you now there’s a special rule, though, that says for the next ten years you may be able to secure additional charitable deductions based on the royalty income that the charity actually receives. Oh, so different fromthe copyright example, we just had exactly. Yeah, and the reason they did this, tony, was they had i guess there were some people that were giving intellectual property rights that at least theoretically had some value, so they were getting a charitable deduction, but they weren’t really generating any income or usable cash that the charity could use. So they changed the rules and said, we’re not going to give you a big deduction up front. But if it is an asset that does, in fact, produce cash and benefits, charity will allow you charitable deductions for future years based on that, that income stream that the charity receives and the structure is kind of a sliding scale. So for the first two years, whatever the royalty income was that was collected, the giver would get one. Hundred percent deduction for that. Okay, and then it go ninety percent nineteen, seventy until it fades away. Okay. Okay. And the charity? Of course, khun still continue to get the royalty income for decades. It’s just that there won’t be a deduction for the donor. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and i think in some context, you know, you think about some of the top authors out there. I’m not sure a lot of people completely understand or know how much revenue is generated from some of these books, but like the second best selling book of all time after the bible is rick warren’s a purpose driven life or the purpose driven life that book generated over fifty million dollars in royalty income and, you know, some of the political books barack obama, sarah palin oftentimes those books generated as much as ten million dollars or more in revenue, so you could see that if somebody has somebody someone that says g i don’t i don’t need all of that. I don’t need all that tend this kind of a windfall. I never dreamed that i’d write a book in it have this windfall there’s some phenomenal opportunities to really benefit charitable organizations in an incredible way. I think you said earlier that donor could give a portion of the royalties. Correct. Is that right? Okay. Yeah. There’s an issue there that you have to be very careful about. Because there’s a roller concept referred to as the partial interest rules, which basically says, if you give just a part of an asset that you own, you’re not going to get a charitable deduction, you have to give the entire interest and that can come into play here if somebody were to say, hey, i have this patent i want to retain the patent, but i want to give to charity a royalty stream. You can’t do that and secure charitable deduction. You would have to give a portion of both the patent itself, along with the royalty income that attach is to that. But even that portion is sufficient. Yes. Yeah. Sounds to me like the portion would be partial. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s. A bit confusing. Really? Get into some technicalities here, but you’re able to give an undivided interest of the hole. So if you give a twenty percent interest in both the patent and the associate id royalty string that doesn’t run afoul of these partial interest rules, although typically we would think justin regular definitions that, well, that’s a partial interests. But for purposes of the tax code, partial interest is not defined in a way that would include that type of construction. We’re seeing a very good example of what we talked about earlier in terms of the charity being properly advised with someone who has this knowledge and expertise because to the layperson, twenty percent is partial, right? It’s. Exactly. Right. Okay, but it’s not in the internal revenue code. And so when you have that need for expertise, we have just about a minute left. Or so we got into a lot of detail about intellectual property. Uh, if someone is approached about closely held business interest, really, as i said, just about a minute. What? What do they need to do? Tow? Just continue that conversation. What are they thinking about? The threshold? Yeah. There’s. Really? Two context. Big picture context. Where opportunities air created with a closely held business interest one is, if they’re expecting a sail on the near term horizon, they would simply give a portion of that. Business before the sale occurs, and therefore, in addition to getting the charitable deduction, they would also be able to avoid or at least reduced dramatically, the capital gains tax that would otherwise apply upon sale. So that’s one context the other contacts is when there isn’t a sail on the horizon, they want to give a business interest, and it may be held for years. There are opportunities there to give relatively small interests in the business on an annual basis to maximize the annual charitable deductions. So in other words, they capture significant tax benefits but are only e-giving small interest in their business. A lot of families will do this every year. The deduction thresholds under our tax code, our extraordinarily generous all of us could give up the fifty percent of our income in the form of cash and get a deduction. And if we’re dealing with a non-cash asset, we could deduct up to thirty percent of our income, but most people come not even close to capturing those full benefits, so lots of opportunities in that context, we have to leave it there. Michael king is with the national christian foundation in alphabet a georgia michael’s. A pleasure having you as a guest. Thanks, tony. Good to be here, my privilege. We’ve been talking about giving beyond the czech launching generosity with non-cash e-giving, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the national conference on philanthropic planning in san antonio two thousand eleven. That was my pre recorded interview with michael king, my thanks to him and the folks at the national conference on philanthropic planning. Right now, we’re going to take a break, then tony’s, take two and after that proactive prospect research with maria simple, so stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics. Politically expressed buy-in, montgomery, taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com 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 needs 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, stopped by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. 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 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 oh! Dahna hi there. Welcome back. Time for tony’s. Take two. Always at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. So, as you heard in the first segment, i was in san antonio last week for the national conference on philanthropic planning. Recorded eighteen interviews in the two days that we were on the exhibit hall floor. There was a lot of buzz got a lot of buzz around the show and people would stop and watch the interviews. I was doing them, but i got a lot of great content for the show, and i’ll be playing those over the next coming months. Those eighteen interviews. My thanks to the conference organizers that worked out very well for for us and for the show. I think for them, i mean, and for the show and my block post this week is separate the juice from the pits. I was looking at a juicer in a restaurant here in the city a while ago, and it just got me thinking about, um, separating valuable work and necessary things that we have to do from the distractions that we can either take on ourselves or have foisted on us. And it got me. Thinking about fundraisers doing that so fundraisers, if you are engaged in things that you think are a distraction from your principal job and the things you hopefully enjoyed doing the most, which is meeting people, then take a look at those things that distracting you critically and try to get out from underneath a mme i’m thinking it might be administrative responsibilities that a boy a boss gives you that aren’t directly related to fund-raising could also be professional association, that committee work that you take on. Um, look at these things critically and see if there really supporting you in your primary job and if they’re not. If you feel like they’re keeping you away from that or distraction, try teo extricate yourself from them so that you can spend more time doing the things that you really love and that are your primary responsibility. And that is my block post this week again, the post is separate the juice from the pits, my blog’s that m p g a d v dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, october fourteenth. Very pleased now tohave back-up maria semple maria is the prospect finder you’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com and she’s, the author of panning for gold hae networth prospects. Now, maria, welcome. Good to have you back. Thanks, county. Thanks for having me, it’s. A pleasure as always. S so we’re talking about proactive prospect research following up on what we talked about last month for small shops. Why is it just remind people why is it better to be proactive than just reactive? Well, if you could set aside some time in your development cycle, maybe some laws or even if you could get a disciplined is putting some time on the calendar at least once a month to do some proactive prospecting. It will continually generate a new pool of people. I guess in a sales world they would call it, you know, filling your funnel with prospects. And so if you could kind of have that mindset is always being in a mode of trying to connect with new people. It was going to help your your non-profit organization tremendously. As with any initiative, that’s knew we look to the board initial t get started. Is that right? I think that would be a good idea if you can harness your boardmember to bring to the table perhaps three new names to start on. We’re talking about people who could be potentially major gift prospects for the organisation, right and that’s, however, they define major e-giving right, exactly, and that does very greatly non-profits provoc some places that maybe a thousand dollars in other places that maybe twenty five thousand, right, exactly. Okay, so we’re asking each boardmember for two to three people is that if they can bring those names to the table and then you can research them a little bit further and then devised some sort of perhaps the cultivation event to start engaging some of these additional people for your non-profit so this is a way to involve board members in the development cycle, even if they’re not directly involved in the ask if they can at least get involved in the identification phase of the development cycle, that would be really helpful for you. Okay, wait delegating this to a specific committee on the board, or we’re asking the board at large well, again here, it depends on the size of the non-profit if you have a separate development committee, that would be great to delegate that taft to them, but if you don’t have the committee, i would involve the entire board having them understand that. You know, the goal here is to increase the major gift pool of prospect, okay? And you suggested that then there then be some kind of a follow-up event to invite new people, i presume we could ask a boardmember tau host that event or we could do something different? Yes, you could definitely have it at a boardmember home, or you could have it at your non-profit organization again here, depending on the type of non-profit you have, if you have something going on at your organization that you really want to showcase, maybe you have a stellar charter school or daycare center, so we might make sense to have more of a breakfast type event prior to the opening of the location. And then once the location is spilling over into the time slot, perhaps when the location is open so that you can then give people some guided tours through the facility and they can get a real sense of what this places like when it’s buzzing with kids, you know, so it really depends on the non-profit but it works really well to have a small, intimate gathering in a boardmember homos well and remember it’s a cultivation event, it’s not an ask event. So the ask does not happen at the event you’re there to inform latto really, you know, come across with the passion for the organization on keep it to the time slot that you have indicated to people that the event will take place when you talk to boards about this, what do you asking them to look for him? And i understand it’s ah, major give prospect. But how did they how did the board members individually try toe identify the right people. Teo, get there there two or three each? Okay, well, if they don’t personally know some people who fall into that category, they maybe only several degrees separated away from some of those people. One way would be for them to kind of be your ambassadors in helping you to continually can the newspapers, for example, of the who’s who in your community who’s getting involved in other large non-profits who is committed to perhaps some similar types of non-profits and whether they’re subscribing to the hard copy of the newspapers, or they’re assisting you by doing some targeted searches, your local libraries will have access to your local papers and a search functionality of art to search the archives and and toe look at daily copies of the newspapers online, so if they’re willing to at least get involved in that, or perhaps be willing to help you by setting up some google alert regarding where your community might be coming up named on specific pages of google websites and so forth, that might be really helpful to you in terms of trying to bring new names a light yes, so you can delegate some of what you might think you have to do you as the executive director or the development director might feel that you have to take on some of this could be delegated teo to some board members? Absolutely, especially if you have a boardmember who is really internet savvy? This would be a great task to delegate to them. This is going to be something that they’re going to be seeing feeling very comfortable about doing it’s going to be something very simple, they’ll understand what it is. You’re looking for and they will, people altum just really simply set up these types of searches for themselves and it’s going to help you in killing your prospect pipeline let’s talk a little about actually approaching the people, so now let’s, take a step back, let’s go to the board members, the people that they know personally, so not yet looking at newspapers or other publications, but the people they know personally, what do you train board members to say to the people that they want to invite to the types of events for talking about? First of all, i think that the passion and commitment for their organization must really come through, so they are ambassadors for the non-profit so their enthusiasm, their reasons for joining your organization and being committed to it and hopefully by the way committed is not only in time that money as well, so they shouldn’t be asking somebody to come to the table and learn more about the organization if they haven’t financially commited at whatever level they’re able to do for that organization so they may approach them by saying, you know what? I have this organization i’m involved with you. May have heard me talk about it. X, y. Z non-profit i’m really committed to this organization. You and i have talked in the past about how important it is to solve this specific problem in our communities. I’d love for you to come out and learn a little bit more about what we’re doing to solve this problem and see if it resonates with you, there won’t be an ass. We will not ask you for money that evening, but we’d like for you to just take some time out of your scheduled to come out and learn more, and you have to recognize to that this is often an exchange, some people we’ll invite their friends to the organizations that there supporting and then the expectation is that those friends air probably going to do the same. So as an executive director of darryl development director, you understand, understand that you’re not asking somebody to do something that isn’t that isn’t all that common, right? It’s probably already being asked of the boardmember, you know, on the other side as you just presented, so yeah, absolutely there these people are probably very accustomed to attending events that their friends have invited them to, um what about so now? Going beyond what you were starting refer to local newspapers, you might look at who other charities are cultivating and working with in those in those newspapers. Yeah, so you might if you are a a local organization. Let’s say, your your mission is health care related, but you see, or perhaps a small local community health center, it might be interesting to take a look at who some of the major donors are supporting the larger regional hospitals in the area and other health, larger health initiatives. If you have any major presence of cancer societies or association heart association, american heart association, so something like that might be useful for you as well. You can do that by prospecting the websites of those organizations or calling them for their annual report. Um, there are some sea bass resource is that do compile thiss type of information. All name two of them off the top of my head nose and see a we’ve talked about that one before knows, and then also i wave dot com has a list of donors that air captain. All this information, though, is really pulled from annual report, so if you are very localized in your mission and your geographic scope, that might be overkill, but if you’re you know, you could just contact the local non-profits directly to try and compiled some of those nameless and in just a minute or so that we have left before a break, how would the organization contact these types of people who we don’t have a relationship with what we found the ways you’re describing, best thing would be to bring those names to the light of the board members again here the ambassador is your organization. So before any direct outreach is made, see if there’s any way to get a warm introduction to any of these individuals, um and lengthen might even be a tool to help you in that regard. To find out how many degrees you may be separated from someone or see, the board is willing to run some of these names through their own lincoln accounts to see how many degrees they may be separated. So that’s a terrific tool for you to use and it’s a free tool. Your suggestion about asking boardmember xyz that’s sounds like literally you give them a list of names of potential prospects that that the organization has found and asking, what do you know them? Do you know anybody who knows them, that kind of thing, right? You’re proactively bringing names to the table that they should be littering as away. You know, how can we gain entree to these individuals? These are people who care about this particular cause in our community. Is there any way we can? What is the path to this individual? Is there any way you can help lead us there? We have to take a break. I’m talking to maria simple, the prospect finder, and after this break, we’ll continue. So 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 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 huntress people be better business people. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. They get 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 friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcast do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing effort. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile market. Their motto is we do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com talking. 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 panna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Welcome back and we’re talking to the prospect finder maria simple, our regular prospect research contributor samaria we’ve identified these people what’s the what’s the best way to start tio reach out to them should it be the people who we don’t have close relationships with by letter or by phone call or yeah, you might want to make sure that you at least add them into your database, so they start getting invitations to upcoming events that you might be hosting. Um, if you have, uh, if you have some way reaching out to them individually again here, you know, if you’re short staffed that’s going to be very difficult to be able to do, but at the very minimum, if you can at least get maybe even an intern to help start, get gathering information and even looking up their addresses on something like a four one one dot com or switchboard dot com free directory. Also, there are directories that you can look up information related to property assessments. So of course, there you’ll be able to get the name and address of individuals who live in your specific towns. So there are some free sites to go to to get that information as well. If you’re having trouble getting address, what are what are a couple of those free from one of the areas and this is probably available in most states here in new jersey, where i’m based use website called my central jersey dot com, which is actually a compilation of several newspapers in the state, and they have a link on their website called data universe and within data universities brought together a bunch of different public records. Database is one of them have to do with property records, so that is a really neat way to get into the property. Record databases it’s really easy to search you. You start with the county and then focus it down by town. And then you can either input the name of the street or in put the name of an individual auntie where their addresses in that specific town so that’s a free resource for you to be able to use it sounds like this prospect review work is something that’s ongoing. We don’t just do it once a year or something, right? I would recommend that they that they do it on going. As well on dh, you know, want one area that i did want to focus on today as well. Tony is not to overlook the successful business owners in the community, and here there are some very easy ways to be able to track what’s going on with successful businesses. And unfortunately, the press these days seems to really focus so much on the negative. How much is not going well in in thie economy to business markets, etcetera. But there are some companies that are doing okay, so if you are able to track and get subscriptions to or at least access daily online, the business publication that covers your state here in new jersey, it’s uh, nj biz new york city has crane’s new york. So whatever that business publication is that covers your state subscribed to it, and i even get daily alert from nj dot com that pushes information out to me on a daily basis of what’s going on. You need to get into a mindset of keeping up with what’s going on in the community. I don’t know how many of your listeners have read the millionaire next store, but a lot of the people that are profiled in that book are successful, self made business owners. So for those of you who have non-profit boards that really want to focus on let’s, just reach out to the big local corporations in the area. I’m not saying don’t do that, but it might be just as easy or easier to focus on where are the overlooked, successful business owners that are in businesses that are not getting a lot of press but yet are very successful. So the millionaire next store is really great for helping you identify what some of those businesses might look like. Um, also, publications such as nj biz will compile annually what they call their book of list and again all the business major business publications do this. This book of lists will profile for you, say, the top fifty accounting firms engineering firms. You know all these different sectors and gives you contact information. Full contact info who’s. Running the company, etcetera. There is very little distinction between who’s running the company. You know, the business owner on these private businesses and the business themselves. So your approach might either be to the business or to the individual. But either way, you’re really getting to the same person you mentioned the alerts that nj biz offers and you’ve mentioned earlier today and another times to the google alerts. I mean, these are all great free resource is that used to be what we would call clipping services, right? Absolutely, absolutely, i have free alert set up through google, so that information is pushed to me on a daily basis. So for example, i’m really interested in keeping up with what is going on in the prospect, a research arena. I’m also very interested in knowing what’s going on in the high network arena, so i actually have google alerts set up on the phrase prospect research on the phrase hi network, google goes out daily minds the internet for where those phrases are mentioned on websites or blog’s or news articles, etcetera magazines pushes the links to me, and then i can peruse them very quickly and determine which ones of those are very interesting for me to take a look at more and more in depth, so again, it it enables you to put something on autopilot whenever you have that chance to do that, please do. It just in the minute or so that we have left before we have to wrap up. There are ways of looking for family foundations that may be local to the community also, right? Right? Absolutely. So there are free resources and fi based resources to be able to do this. You can do it through your local foundation center. Cooperating collection. You’ll have the database available there. Ah, foundation search dot com is a sea bass to resource for you to be able to do this as well. And guide star guidestar dot org’s. So if you have your own non-profit listed with guide star, you could have access to their premium level of searching for free. Actually, if you help to maintain your own non-profits dahna status and presence on guide star so it has a double benefit there. So there are definitely some ways for you to start prospecting for family foundations, the’s air people taking philanthropy to another level on i highly recommend that you consider looking at this pool of individuals. Well, maria semple is our regular prospect research contributor. You will find her at the prospect finder dot com she’s also the author of panning for gold find high net worth prospects now she’ll be with us again next month. Maria, thank you very much. Thank you again for having me, tony. Always upleaf. Thank you. You always a pleasure. Bye. Now. I want to thank maria semple. And also thank michael king and the folks at national conference on philanthropic planning for all their accommodations when we were on the exhibit floor at their conference in san antonio last week. Next week. So you want to be a consultant guest, hank goldstein and i talked about the ins and outs the ups and downs of making a career move to non-profit consultant. And we’ll have jonah helper and ari team in in the studio with me to talk about next year’s or this year’s. Sorry. This year’s next-gen charity conference it’s next month in november. There the conference co founders and this show is a media sponsor for the conference. Keep up with what’s coming up for pete’s sake. Please sign a province. Cider email alerts go to the facebook page. You know where to find facebook, then just searched the name of this show. 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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 the isaac tower radio program 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 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. That’s ivory tower radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. Do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? 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Separate The Juice From The Pits

The juicer at Organique.
I saw this juicer in action at Organique, a restaurant I like on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. It got me thinking about fundraising. You have to separate the juice from the pits. Distinguish between the valuable and necessary, and the time suck.

I say all this as someone who cares deeply about relationships. I think often about the relationships in my personal and professional life. I’m developing a new keynote on building and maintaining relationships that pulls in my stand-up comedy. The most important thing in my life is people, and my relationships with them.

You have to be smart about which relationships you spend the most time cultivating and nurturing. Be judicious with your time.

The first place this applies is with your prospects. Every prospect deserves as much time as you can devote to them, until your gut tells you they aren’t serious about a gift. You might hear it directly from the person, but that often comes after you could have figured it out yourself.

Likewise, if colleagues urge you to give up on someone, and your gut tells you there’s real potential, stick with it. Intuition is a wonderful gift. Trust it. I like this blog post on the subject, by Renita Kalhorn.

Then look where you spend time that isn’t directly related to fundraising. You may be burdened by administrative responsibilities or active in professional association committees. Do these really, truly help you raise money? Talk with your boss about reassigning administrative duties. Can you get the benefits of association membership–education and networking–without being on a committee? Committee work takes a heck of a lot of time. I said something about this in a post from March.

Do you wish you had more time for direct fundraising? You won’t find it. We never “find the time.” You have to make it.

You’ve got your own distractions that are more pits than juice. Do what you can to relieve yourself of them and spend your valuable time fundraising.

Nonprofit Radio for September 30, 2011: Engaging Employees & PR2: Prospect Research, Proactive or Reactive

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

DeShele Dorsey
DeShele Dorsey: Engaging Employees

Corporate employees can make gifts to your nonprofit, but they can do a lot more for you. DeShele Dorsey, senior managing director for corporate social engagement at Changing Our World, shares smart ideas on soliciting and closing companies for mentoring, pro bono service, board membership, service sabbaticals, loaned executives and more.
 

 

 

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: PR2: Prospect Research, Proactive or Reactive

Regular contributor, Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, explains the differences between the two ways to do your research, and how to determine which is right for your shop.

 

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

Here is a link to the podcast: 061: Engaging Employees & PR2: Prospect Research, Proactive or Reactive


Every Friday from 1 to 2pm ET.

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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Metoo hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio we were always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host last week, our big ideas were prospect research on women donors and learning lobbying limitations for the women donorsearch mint. Samantha cohen of the american civil liberties union was with me and she revealed, had a reveal the giving potential for your female prospects that’s often hidden, and that was the last of my pre recorded interviews from the association of fund-raising professionals, new york city chapter fund-raising day last june and the second segment was learning lobbying limitations, with our legal contributors, jean takagi and emily chan, there with me every month and last week they explained the limitations on lobbying by non-profits what activities are lobbying? How much of it can you do and how do you report it this week? We’re engaging employees. Corporate employees can make gifts to your non-profit, of course, but they can go a lot further as well. Deshele dorsey, senior managing director for corporate social engagement at changing our world, will share her smart ideas on soliciting and closing companies for mentoring probono service boardmember ship service sabbaticals, loaned executives and a lot more and then pr to prospect research. Proactive or reactive. Our regular contributor, maria simple, the prospect finder. We’ll always find it. The prospect finder dot com will explain the differences between the two ways to do your research and how to determine which is right for you, proactive or reactive. Between the segments on tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. Have you ever done a favor for someone and then felt that they let you down in some way? I’m going to talk about my block post this week, which is i’ll pick your brain and drop your list. We’re going to take a break, and when we return, then i’ll be joined by the shell dorsey and we’re going to talk about engaging employees, but i want to let you know we’re live tweeting. This show used the hashtag non-profit radio, and you can join the conversation on twitter and stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two nine six four three five zero two for a free counsel section. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Oppcoll 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. Metoo welcome back to the show. I’m joined now by deshele dorsey, and we’re going to talk about engaging employees deshele is senior managing director for corporate social engagement at changing our world of fund-raising consulting company she previously worked for t c c group, where she provided a variety of consulting services to corporate citizenship programs and nonprofit organizations her clients, they’re included prudential, the gap foundation and henry street settlement in new york city. She’s, based in atlanta, georgia, and i’m very pleased to welcome the shell dorsey to the show hyre deshele hi, how are you? I’m doing very well welcome, thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. I want to remind listeners that we are live tweeting the show use the hashtag non-profit radio to join us on twitter deshele we’re talking about employee engagement, but individuals make up the largest portion of total giving, so why should non-profits be looking at companies, corporations? Well, corporations are committed to being good citizens in their community, which essentially means they want to be actively engaged in helping to address issues that not only would directly affect their employees but affect the places where they have operations. So it’s a nice opportunity for corporations to play, play a significant role in making sure where they operate are vibrant and lively. And do you know what what portion of total giving is from corporations? Yeah, it’s generally about ten, twelve percent, i believe a total getting every year and certainly that fluctuates, but his brain pretty consistently at that level. So, tony, you’re absolutely right. The majority of cash contributions in particular, come from individuals. Corporations do make a significant investment as well. Okay, yeah, and ten or twelve percent, i mean, that’s nothing to laugh at, so on it can go beyond ways that a lot of individuals khun give and that’s what we’re here to talk about. So we’re talking about employees in cos i mean, cos there are encouraging or maybe even creating incentives for their employees to be engaged with non-profits yes, absolutely there’s a variety of different ways that boy, you can get involved, and i think what most non-profits are familiar with this, certainly just the general assistance that a non-profit might have some common sort of community based activities such as, you know, going to your local food bank and helping pack pack four words stock shelves or maybe cleaning up a local park, but there are a variety of other ways that companies have looked to incentivize their employees to get out there. You know they have matching gift programs, sometimes employees, they’re just super busy, and maybe they can’t go out in the community. But imagine gift provides an opportunity for employees to give some resource is and double that gift because the company would match that contribution, right? Okay, and that’s on the fund-raising side and we want to go, we want to go beyond fund-raising and in fact, i pulled our listeners before the show and asked, what are your corporate solicitations limited to financial gifts and sponsorships and a hundred people? One hundred percent of people who answered said, no, we go broader than finance just financial gif ts s o we want and we want to talk about the broader stuff. So what are some of the other ways? And then we’ll go into detail on on a bunch of them that that people can employees khun b might be engaged beyond fund-raising and now that’s really great to hear that non-profits are actually exploring all the alternative ways that they can get support from a company, some of the more common ways would be bored service. A lot of companies will look to place their typically their senior managers in some of their hyre level executives on board and serving in leadership roles on those boards, some of the other things that have come to fruition more recently over the past two years, or things like probono service or skills, baseball and hearing. And this is a little bit different than a typical, you know, paint a school cafeteria project, you really looking at opportunities where you can take the employees skills and apply it to a challenge, one issue that a non-profit might have. So for example, you know, if a company sorry non-profit needed help with their human resource is activities and building out, you know, a talent management program, then the company has those skills, and they can apply them to the non-profit so this is sort of the company seeing the its its employees as assets beyond the contribution that making the workplace but but seeing them as assets for charitable giving, using their talents absolutely and there’s more and more of that happening, we see a lot of work being done in the environmental space in that regard. So you know, a company that might have skills on logistics, transportation can help a company, you know, helping non-profit think through how to be more efficient in their processes, for example, or thinking through how they might better use water that’s a part of their mission. When you look at sort of food related organizations so there’s a variety of ways that companies are doing it, the probono pieces, something that’s exploding pretty significantly, but it’s also harder, harder type of product to implement because that there’s more owners on the non-profit to be engaged, and we have just a minute before our first break deshele just how would a non-profit identify the companies that it should be targeting are soliciting? Well, i think there’s a couple of things one of you want to look at what your mission is and how that might online with the company, and then you certainly want to explore companies are much more transparent than they have been in the past about the ways in which they use their volunteers or their their corporate volunteers. And so they can go to their web sites often, and see listings of the variety of ways in which employees can be activated in the community. Okay, and it might also be based on location to write. You wanna look where what’s local to you, because we’re not talking about just big companies doing doing this social engagement, okay, we’re going to talk more about that. After the break. We’ll pick it up there would take this break, and then, of course, deshele dorsey will stay with me. We’ll keep talking about engaging corporate employees. E-giving anything shooting, getting depicting duitz duitz you’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving e-giving you could 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. Hi, this’s, psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative that calm mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free second reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively conversation. Top trends, sound advice, that’s. Tony martignetti, yeah, that’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio, where live tweeting used the hashtag non-profit radio if you have a question for deshele door so you could also call eight seven seven for a tow for one two oh, i don’t know the phone seems so nineteen, seventy seven we have we have the hashtag use the hashtag for pete’s sake the phone seems so june okay deshele dorsey, right before the break, we were talking about small companies being involved in this i mean, so they’re also seeing there their employees as as assets for charitable giving, right? This is not only for, you know, ibm and google. Absolutely, and i would even venture to guess in many cases, because the smaller companies may not have the sort of cash resource is that a larger company might have, they would even be more apt to sort of offer their employees so you have law offices, you might have local facilities, you know, small mom and pop, you know, chain stores and things of that nature who would be more than happy to get involved and be a part of what non-profits air doing in the community and leveraging their place. They get engaged and another way i think teo learn about what’s happening with corporate engagement this way is through ah, a volunteer counsel in the area, and i know i’m going to ask you what, what that is, but i just want to pull give you the answers to our pre show poll, which were, you know, i asked, do you have a corporate volunteer counsel in your area? Yes or no? And then the third answer was what everyone chose. I better listen to the show because i don’t know what that is so deshele what is a corporate volunteer council? Well, the council’s really were set up through a lot of the work that companies were doing in partnership with the points of light institute, which i’m sure many of your listeners know emerged a while back with with hands on network and essentially, these are coalitions where companies are paying a membership to be a part of ah, conglomerate of their peers who want to get together and talk about that practices think about ways that they can be more strategic and support, and also champion corporate volunteerism and just support other civic activities and the way in which a non-profit can be used four to a council like that is really to keep those members informed about what’s going on in the community and how they could use volunteers helping maybe even tow, offer inside and suggestions on how they might work better in particular cause areas that are important to that communities. How could a non-profit find out if there is such a council in their community? The best way to find out is to leverage information that would be available on on the hands on network website. And if you go through there, there is actually a link that shows you where the corporate volunteer councils are, okay. And what about a local chambers of commerce? Could they be a good a good way of engaging with the corporate community? Yeah, i think what would be useful in terms of the chambers is that there are many events that are open to the public where corporations are actively involved in are sponsoring those events. So if you know local non-profits are looking for ways to network with company corporate executives than those air really great programs that happen on a regular basis where? You could just get out and network because sometimes it’s really about a matter of having that relationship that will help you to open doors, the opportunities that maybe in companies, whether they’re big or small and that’s a great resource to use as well. Okay, so we have the hands on network, the local chambers of commerce. Are there any other web based resources for matching companies with non-profits yeah, there’s, a lot of great resource is online, and a couple that i would recommend volunteermatch dot or you can go there and see what kind of activities are available idealised artwork is another option, there’s a couple others, i would look at served dot gov, which also has a number of initiatives that they’ve sponsored with companies and the other was all for good. And the thing to keep in mind that non-profit should understand is that the a lot of these websites are populated into management system that the corporations will use to help provide a sort of gateway for their employees to learn about volunteer opportunities so non-profits that are listening to your show should definitely check out the sides and think about posting the opportunities. That they have available, whether that’s for general volunteering or something more significant, like the skills base that we discussed earlier, then after the charity has identified the company’s based on mission match or locality, or where employees air based from that company. Um, how do you then approach? How do you start your solicitation? Yeah, that’s a really good question, and every company is going to be a little bit different. And i would love to say that there’s like, easy, a magic bullet in getting that. But sometimes, if if they’re retail based company, it might be going into that local store and approaching the manager there no that’s applicable for a lot of places, like a target or, you know, our kroger or a walmart for that, for that sake, the other is that a lot of local areas will have what they call internal volunteer committees. And so hopefully there’s information that might be on the website that will help you figure out how teo contact someone on that committee, and then they would then in turn, brings the opportunities in house. The other things that your listeners could consider is that many companies offer what? They called days of service and assuming that there is an opportunity or a match between what the company wants to do and the mission of the non-profit then there may be weighted submit information that would perhaps make them eligible to be considered for a day or a week or a month of service activity that company would host, and if in the first example you gave, you know, just really walking into a local store target or something similar, just maybe something that is like you said earlier, mom and pop, you’re it may be an easier ask solicitation because you’re not asking for money, which probably a lot of non-profits air doing, but you’re asking for sharing of expertise? Absolutely, you know, it’s it’s certainly an equally important ask and what’s relevant for the non-profit is to make sure when they are prepared to go in front of the company, as i mentioned before, that they’ve done their homework, they really understand what the goals and objectives of the companies, but also that they’ve clearly defined what it is they’re looking for and having corporate volunteers activate because that is one of the tension points that a lot of companies experience, but also making sure that the non-profit has given sufficiently time to help develop in shape what the project might be so both entities can be successful in the process. My guest is deshele dorsey and she’s, a senior managing director for corporate social engagement at changing our world of fund-raising consulting company were talking about engaging corporate employees, all right, so deshele we’ve we’ve identified, you know, howto pick the right cos to approach and how to start that approach let’s talk about it in detail some of the ways that we can actually get company employees involved board service is probably one of the easiest ones and most commonly understood, right? Yes, absolutely. And really, what you’re looking for here is your board has responsibility with the non-profit really govern and make sure that the mission is being met and you may have particular needs whether that around finance, whether that’s around organisational development or maybe you just need someone that has a really has a really good network, and you want an opportunity to kind of broad and your donor-centric you don’t want to be abusing your board members in that way, but most most poor members and really sad ones understand that when they come to a non-profit part of their responsibilities to help with fund-raising and so that is a definite opportunity that can be pursued with, and we’ve had plenty of guests on the show that have have talked about what’s appropriate in inboard engagement in terms of fund-raising and friendraising and other things so that’s why i think boards service is probably the first thing that comes to mind when we think about engaging corporate employees, but but for maybe the smaller company, the or the bigger companies doesn’t have people to devote to that kind of time commitment. There are lesser ways, smaller time commitment ways, but still valuable ways that companies can share their their employees expertise, absolutely. And you see this manifesting in a couple of ways, sometimes time’s, a company made offer just time with some of their middle managers in your executive to do mentoring and coaching with with non-profit executives and we’ve seen that great work come to fruition through leadership development program that a company like american express had in other instances you could have your executives loaned out to a non-profit for duration of time and this is called what we what we say is loaned executive and you may say, you know what? We really would like to help have someone on board to help us transition through this change. Our ceo has left the non-profit and now we really want to have someone in either to mentor that person orto help facilitate the organization, moving in another direction alone, executives to come in and be with you for a year, maybe two years and there, you know, and eventually lend out, went out from the company non-profit on dh, then you wait, okay, so let me stop you. Deshele so so for a period of a year or two there cos they’re willing to pay the salary of the executive and have them work in the non-profit day in, day out? Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes they’re shorter durations, obviously that that’s a huge commitment, but this is really designed for individuals who are emerging leaders because the companies could see it as a development opportunity. But also this is a good way for for non-profits think about engaging retirees, people who are leaving the work for us full time. And they’re still looking to be actively engaged, and the company might help to facilitate that person being part of the non-profit okay, excellent, yeah, please go ahead, continue. Um, and i was just going to say the other is obviously the skills based and again, that is really focused on a very specific in country of khan concentrated project for a shorter period of time typically wouldn’t necessarily take a whole year, but in that instance, you might get a whole team of people that are coming in but say you want to revamp your system, for example, about those that those individuals will come in to work with you on a regular basis. It’s almost like having a consultant come in, but what you’ve done is in exchange for having to pay a fee for that you’re actually getting the company lindell’s skills for you. So, like, the so the employees there sort of taking a sabbatical, maybe for a couple of months or something like that to do a discreet project like that? Um, it can be a formal sabbatical as and they’re taking full time often in most cases it’s really that they’re dedicating some portion. Of their work week be with the non-profit and helping them over a duration of time so it could be they’re dedicating a day or two a week to that non-profit and they’re still working there full time job, but they’re sort of set aside this time to do this probono project or maybe they’re just doing in after hours they’re doing it on some of their free time as well and facilitating that. But the the goal is you created a really concrete projects for this team of employees to work on, and they’re going to support you for whatever duration of time is necessary to complete that product. Okay, excellent. And then maybe something a little less formal, but suppose a non-profit just feels they’re a little that could use a little expertise, just like a couple of hours a week in a certain area, maybe it’s communications or marketing or i mean, it could be anything i imagine that kind of lesser commitment is possible too, right? Yeah, and i think a lot of companies would still see that as part of a way that they could lend the skills of their employees there to a non-profit and helping to support their, you know, growth and development. Um and it really will depend just what the company’s willing to do skills base is a new area of growth fur company so many are learning and figuring out how to set these up and howto work appropriately with non-profits and the time frame can sort of be negotiated, depending on the relationship you have with that particular company. No. Ok, so these air excellent evidence that i think a lot of non-profits don’t think of i think they just think of the corporate sponsorship on dh many think stop there s o these air these excellent ideas, thank you. I wantto spend a little time on employee e-giving just in the future, a couple of minutes that we have left and i was monitoring the small or engaged in really in the small non-profit put that on twitter and the hashtag is sm and pee chat it’s run by pamela grow and mark pittman on dh they were talking today about employees e-giving in terms of monthly monthly giving, um, and i wanted to share something that came from there from that chat that small non-profit shot that the the most common gift is roughly ten dollars, per pay period, and that came from someone named at philanthropy inc. Deshele is that? Is that about what you see that’s sort of an average gift? Ten dollars per pay period? Yeah, when you’re when you have companies who are engaged in what we often call federated campaigns, the most common one being united way, you will have employees who make a commitment to pledge some dollar amount and take a small portion of that out of their paychecks over an extended period of time, and that just makes it easier for the donor to be able to make that contribution instead of having to, you know, in some ways, write a big check all at once. Yeah, about ten dollars is probably right, and i would imagine, you know, with the recession, it will probably stay at about that level people are, you know, we’re getting back on their feet, okay? And the thie advice for soliciting that type of a gift from from your prospects there was there was a sort of a consensus on the small non-profit chat, and it was summarized by at pamela grow that it’s best to do a dedicated appeal to the audience, dedicate appeal for monthly sustaining gift’s rather than make it part of a broader appeal? What’s your sense of that? Yeah, no, i think that is absolutely fair and the reason that that’s important for non-profits understand is because individuals really wantto have a better sense in a transparent way of what their individual dollar is going to do. So if you’re offering the donor hyre thie opportunity to say, i’m going to invest, my resource is and i know whatever dollar amount i gave is really going to go to help support this local tutoring program that’s my community that’s a little bit different, andi is a lot more tangible, and they can see the value of their contribution more directly a lot of non-profits has done a really great job of saying if you donate x number of dollars, it translates into, you know, this many hours of tutoring, for example, that makes the donors feel really good and they can they can communicate even and share the passion and enthusiasm they have about working with your organization, they can tie it to something tangible, and they’re also seem to be a sense that the donors often increase their their monthly giving. Yeah, i think, as as thie donor, to know your organization much better has a better appreciation for what you’re trying to accomplish and also that the non-profit has taken the initiative to engage the donor beyond the gift. So whether that’s inviting them to special event that’s applicable or, you know, communicating with them through a newsletter and some of the online platforms that we have now, the donor’s affinity will certainly increase, and as a result of that, they’re likely to consider giving a greater good. My guests have been deshele dorsey, senior managing director for corporate social engagement, a changing our world deshele thank you very much, thank you so much, it’s been a real pleasure, and i also want to thank everybody who was on the small non-profit jet run by at pamela grow and at mark a pittman today, we tried to join those small non-profit chats when we can and when the topics are are consistent across their chat and my show after this break, it’ll be tony’s take two and then i’ll be with maria simple and we’ll talk. About proactive versus reactive prospect research. So stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna are you feeling overwhelmed and the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com 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 needs 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 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 welcome back to the show, it’s, time for tony’s take two, which is always roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. My block post this week is i’ll pick your brain and drop your list that comes from something that’s happened pretty recently past couple months, i guess, where i helped out to people with fund-raising advice fund-raising advice for one, and then the other was arranging a fund-raising internship with a with a former client for a second person, and and then they subscribed from my email list. Unsubscribes and, you know, i thought it’s not really a huge deal let’s face it, there are much bigger things teo concern ourselves with them whether somebody is getting our weekly emails, but i just thought, you know, that seems kind of ungrateful after i had helped them both with pretty substantial time commitments, like maybe is an hour and a half for each of them if you put it all together and then they unsubscribes so was i was i being unreasonable? I don’t know. I mean, i don’t i certainly don’t help people with a quid pro quo in mind. I’m never looking for you know, i helped you. So now what you gonna do for me in the next six weeks, or wherever? But it just seemed a little weird to me, actually, so i wondered if i’m being unreasonable or hypersensitive, and so that’s. What i asked in the block post, and i got a bunch of comments, and i’d appreciate your opinion of that, or or your or maybe another story. Maybe you’ve got something similar. I’m interested in your take on the whole subject and that’s, my block post this week, which you’ll find at mpg a d v dot com, and that is tony’s. Take two for friday, september thirtieth with me, now, is maria simple, um, ria. Maria symbol. Very simple is the prospect finder durney hyre maria, would you put me on hold now? I had you on mute at my end, so you wouldn’t hear me making noise. Well, that’s all right, i’m glad we didn’t hear those odd noises, but but then ewan muted. Okay, maria simple is the prospect finder. You’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com. And we’re talking this week with our regular prospect research contributor about proactive versus reactive research. Maria, what is reactive research? Okay, so reactive research is when a nonprofit organization has the name of an individual say that they know they’re going to approach, and then they decide. Well, what i’d like to do is research that individual a little bit more before i make an approach to them. And then, um, i asked him for a gift, so that would be unknown individual. And you’re going to be looking for information on them. Okay, so that would be reactive research. You already have the name of someone, and you want to just find out more information on them. Okay, um, and what is proactive than so proactive research is when a non-profit, perhaps their staff and and or their development committee eyes sitting around saying g, you know, we feel like we’ve exhausted all of our current donors think about looking outside of our current donor is and tryingto identify some more individuals who can donate to us either individuals, foundations, corporations, whatever the category is, but they want to broad in their base of support, so they proactively go out and try and find additional people who might be interested in there cause because they might be donating to other similar interests self, and we’ll find out howto uncover those additional people. In the pre show survey, i asked which best describes your prospect research in your shop? Is it mostly proactive or mostly reactive? And everyone said that they were mostly reactive, just researching the people that they already know so let’s try to encourage people, perhaps to be a little more proactive, but if you’re a small shop, maybe that’s not really possible, right? Well, the thing is this, tony, you have opportunity there are going to be sort of natural low for any staff of a non-profit whatever the size is so you want to take advantage of, perhaps. Those known lo period for you, when you’re not really ramping up for an event, for example, when you have the opportunity to perhaps sit back and take a look at the big picture, you know and say, all right, what can what else can we be doing to look for additional donors for our non-profit so it definitely can be done, but what i would say is they should build it in and put it on the calendar. You mean the calendar, like they would put on a calendar on events, teo, cultivation of aunt or any of the other type of event they might be having make sure that they build in some time to be able to sit back and proactively think about how to expand their donor base. Okay, so actually so callin during time for prospect research that’s what you mean, yeah, to proactively be able to do it? Because the reactive research, whether even if they’re just going to google and no further, they’re probably at least doing that, right? So they have a meeting with somebody or a company, and i would hope that they are, at minimum, looking at google to find out the more information prior to that business meeting. And then if you are limited to the reactive research there are you can certainly go beyond google looking at the names that you already know. Oh, yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of free web sites as well. A fee based. I actually have a going beyond google for download document. Right on my web site on the resource is page so that’s free for the taking and there and available. So there are definitely resource is that can help you. And if you’re not able to look at your database and trying to determine who to research in the database, then there are companies that will screen it for you so that the names could be elevated. Okay, but those air always fee based services, right? Okay, what might you be looking for within your own data if you’re going to do this on your own to determine who you should be paying more attention to? What i think they can do is take a look at the longevity, how long the donor has been contributing to them, even if it has been a very consistent amount of dollars over. A long period of time and, you know, long period of time varies, you know, for the non-profit but i would say somebody’s been giving to you for a ten year period, and they’re consistent about it. The text seems to come in every year at the same time that somebody who’s made a commitment here. Non-profit and you are somewhere in their fearful answer bait. So longevity of gift size of gift matters. And also if somebody just happens to send you a check for an amount that is way out of the range of their normal e-giving that’s a flag as well for you to think about researching them a little further and cultivate that relationship, okay? And this is all with an eye toward perhaps elevating their giving. Is that right? Yes. That’s. Right. You want to take a look at doing this type of research so that you are taking people that are currently tied into you in some way, shape or form they’ve bought into your mission. They love your non-profit they’re committed to you on dh. You want to think about how to engage them further and elevate their giving? Okay? And you identify. That commitment, a cz you were describing based on their giving history, right? Absolutely. And, you know, let’s not forget people who are longtime volunteers for the organization because there are people who, i guess, unfortunately have the mindset of, well, i give my time to your organization, therefore, i don’t need to give my money on day, maybe give giving their money elsewhere so it might be kind of interest, i think, to take a look at some of those very, very committed volunteers who are giving of their time, but not money and researching. Well, what are they doing in the community in terms of money? And is there some way we could further the conversation so that we can be included in there monetary philanthropy and not just giving of their time? It occurs to me that the research we do when we’re looking for planned e-giving prospects is all reactive because you can’t bring someone new to the organization and then and then expect them to be a plan giving prospect and asking them to include the organization in their will or some other state plan when they’re just brand new to the organization, so we’re always doing, i never i never really i never described in this way, but looking for plan giving prospect for always doing reactive research that’s, right? You’re always reactively taking a look at people committed to the non-profit and you’re probably looking for all those same signs that i would be looking for, you know, that longevity of gift size of gift again, just looking to elevate them to perhaps a larger gift or as you just mentioned, maybe they’re absolutely right before a planned gift at this time or at least to be thinking about that conversation. And the key thing about looking for those plan giving prospects is when you’re looking at the donor’s longevity, as you were describing maria, the consistency of giving you don’t want to ignore the smaller gift, even if someone’s been giving ten dollars, a year, and if they’ve been doing that for a decade or more, you know, seven out of the past ten years or eight, fifteen or eighteen of the past twenty years that makes them a great plan to giving prospect, i think it could make an excellent plan giving provoc fect yes, absolutely, you know? And as i mentioned there are just some very inexpensive free resource is that you can go to to just find out a little bit more about that prospect, just to see if you can elevate that conversation to that point and s so let’s. Then now go beyond the reactive into the into the proactive. So hopefully this is ah, smaller non-profit that finds its slow time and sets time aside for prospect research or it’s a bigger shop. And they have the resources to do more proactive going outside the database research. How would they get started? I think one of the things that they can do is take a look at the other non-profits in the community who might be garnering some of the larger gift. Especially if that non-profit is somewhat similarly related. Admission. Teo, you so, as an example, if you have a women’s health and counseling center and they are interested in expanding their donor base, they might take a look at who’s giving to the local cancer societies, the local harder association, the local hospital. Anything having to do with health related mission. Okay, maria, we have to take a break. We’re going to continue this. Exact topic about ah, carrying on your proactive research with maria semple are regular prospect research contributor. After this break, so 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 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 hunters. People be better business people. Dahna oppcoll 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 friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing efforts. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is we do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com talking call. If you have big ideas and an average budget to tony martin, any non-profit radio we dio. I’m jonah helper, nari team in co founders of next-gen charity welcome back. We’re live tweeting use the hash tag non-profit radio i want to thank fundraiser beth and at fund-raising bethan at dominique de jones for joining us on the live twitter chat. I’m with maria simple and she is our regular prospect research contributor. We’re talking about doing proactive versus reactive research, so maria let’s just continue in going proactive, trying to find people outside your database and acquire new donors. Your advice is right before the break was toe look for non-profits that are maybe similar in mission and see who’s giving there. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, during the break i was also thinking about another excellent free tool that we all have available to us is linked in, and they’re for example, you might be able to find people who are interested and easily connected to okay for explaining to them what your organization is about and so on and so forth. You and you and i talked about your interested in urine, anand immel welfare non-profit and you would like to connect with more people in your community who are interested in animals and pets, etcetera, so you can go and do a key word. Search on the advanced search page of lengthen log into your account, go to the advanced search page um and find group right. Would that have on interest in animals and you’ll find quite a number of them. So there’ll be people from all walks of life who are keenly interested in animals. You can also go to the keyword field and look for people in a specific geographic region who might have the word animal somewhere in their profile listed. So you know something like that can be very, very helpful in expo being your daughter donordigital base or your volunteer or board based and again it’s free and i love that little of detail. Thank you very much. That’s i think most helpful toe listeners. Another way of finding out who gives to organizations is just by getting their annual report. Yes, absolutely. And sometimes those annual reports are available right online in a pdf downloadable format so you can take a look at those annual reports and try and determine who’s giving. You’re not going to get an exact dollar level, you know is most daniel reports might list somebody giving it the silver bronze gold level. Platinum, etcetera, but you’ll have at least an idea of the range of where somebody is giving. So definitely, i look att annual reports of non-profits whether i’m doing reactive research or pro active research so absolutely could be useful in both in both cases and if it’s not available on the web, you can always just contact a non-profit and asked him to mail you a printed copy, right? Yes. That’s right old school. Just like the phone. So joon, old mail phone. We don’t need these things dispense with this. I don’t believe that. Just joking. So there are also some online resource. Is that you like? There are. There are several bass resource is that i like you think for a proactive research. Would you like me to mention if you’ll please detail? One century source might be wealth engine. They actually have a prospect generator tool that you can utilize with their particular service. I like i wave dot com i w a v dot com. They also have the capacity to do some pro active research. They have donor-centric sample where you can put in the name of a specific non-profit or type of non-profit. And lists of donors who gives to those non-profits will will be generated for for you. And you know, you would have to parse the data so that it’s suitable to your particular geography. But, you know, it’s it’s definitely doable news resource is and that’s, something you could do for free. You can go to your the library website dahna and log in using your library. Barcode you know, we’ve talked about that before in previous show using the local library. Yes, yeah, absolutely. So you can tap into the local news. There were statewide news resource is for free through your library link, and then be able to do some research on people who are, you know, named is the who’s who in the community people being honored things of that nature on and perhaps find more people who are interested in your theme newspaper like the u s mail in the phone. These things still exists. Yes, and they’re not expensive. Used them for pete’s sake. I mean, they’re so you know, i don’t know they’re so under thought off is what i’m trying to think of. What about that could even be local foundations right in a in a community may be local family foundations or something. Yeah, so what? You might want to consider doing iss every non-profit organization has the capacity to search a source called guide store, and they can search on their advanced search level, actually for free. Tony ok, a thousand dollar level of service that non-profits concert for free, they’ve agreed to maintain their own non-profit data, which is a win win all around, right? You’re getting a better story about out about your own non-profit and then you also have access to their premium level of search. You and i talked about that that what you would hopefully do is go in and identify more family foundations in your geographic community. Okay, you put in a zip code, you can go out, i believe, about a hundred mile radius from your zip code search for those family found foundations. These are people that have decided they’re going to take philanthropy to a new level, and they’re getting serious about it, and they have decided that they’re going to form a family foundation to filter their giving. Those are excellent prospects to go after pro, actively researching what i usually suggest to a non-profit once you have that list let’s say you identify one hundred new family foundations in your community that you serve that you didn’t realize existed. Take a look at the trustees of that foundation. Circulate the names of those trustees with your board wave your key volunteers. See if anybody has a connection to any of those people trying to make it more of a warm introduction as opposed to a cold introductions. Marie, we have just a minute left before we have to stop. What about business? Resource is like business publications or the chambers of commerce. Chambers of commerce. Their excellent. Most of them will have their membership directory searchable online. Also again, through your library link, you confined businesses. Uh, tailoring your search on a resource called reference yusa. You’ll be able to find businesses and business owners through that particular resource. So i think those could be excellent sources. And not every business is doing terribly these days. So try and take a look at what is doing well and focus your efforts there. Great detail. Thank you very much. Maria. Welcome. Maria simple is the prospect finder you’ll find her at. The prospect finder dot com she’s, our regular monthly prospect research contributor she’s, also the author of panning for gold, find your best donorsearch prospects now been a pleasure having maria on i also want to thank deshele dorsey from changing our world for being a guest today next week. I don’t know it’s gonna be a show from the archives? I haven’t chosen it yet, but there’s a way that you can find out you don’t have to wait until next friday at one p m eastern. When the show starts, you can sign up for our show alert duitz and you could do that on our facebook page. You know where facebook is, then just searched the name of this show and there’s a link there. 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Nonprofit Radio for September 23, 2011: Research On Women Donors & Learning Lobbying Lessons

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Interviewing Samantha Cohen at Fundraising Day NY 2011
Samantha Cohen: Research On Women Donors

Recorded at the Fund Raising Day conference in June, Samantha Cohen of the American Civil Liberties Union reveals how to reveal the giving potential for your female prospects that is often hidden.
 

 

 

Gene Takagi and Emily Chan
Gene Takagi & Emily Chan: Learning Lobbying Lessons

Are you anxious to comment on the proposed Jobs Act? Our legal contributors Gene Takagi and Emily Chan explain the limitations on lobbying by charities. What activities are lobbying? How much can you do? And how do you report it?

 

Here is a link to the podcast: 060: Research on Women Donors & Learning Lobbying Limitations


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Here is a link to the podcast: 060: Research on Women Donors & Learning Lobbying Limitations
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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host and it’s friday, september twenty third, two thousand eleven i certainly hope you were with me last week when we talked about learning office lease lessons. First we talked through the walk through how do you find the best space and use different spaces to strategically head into your lease negotiations? My guest was george grace, who has done this work for dozens of non-profits then what least terms do you need to be careful about? And what are the negotiating points? I was joined by attorney robert j smith and kate piela, executive director of dance new amsterdam, and we talked through the dance companies less than desirable lease to bring out lessons to help you get the best lease next time this week, it’s prospect research on women donors recorded at the fund-raising day conference in june. Samantha cohen of the american civil liberties union is going to reveal how tow reveal reveal how to reveal wth e-giving potential for your female prospects that is often hidden and learning lobbying limitations are legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan explained the limitations on lobbying by non-profits what activities are lobbying, how much can you do, and how do you report all that on tony’s, take two in between the segments, thinking is underrated. My block post this week, the aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. We’re going to take a break. I hope you’ll stay with us and then prospect research on women donors. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s a lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, are 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. Hi there and welcome back right now i have a pre recorded segment for you from june at fund-raising day in new york, we talked with samantha cohen of the american civil liberties union about prospect research on women donors hears that pre recorded sessions welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven at the marriott marquis in new york city. My guest right now is samantha cohen. She is director of principal giving at the american civil liberties union. Samantha welcome, welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you samantha’s topic is prospect researchers research on women donors how to research female donors and out of female research female, major and planned e-giving donors what is the importance of females in individual giving? Let’s start with that, samantha. Well, i think it’s very important to realize that women are outliving man, and at the end of the day, the wealth transfer is going from the man to the women. So a large proportion of e-giving will be directed by webbing, women, both outright and very much a steak gaps. Is it often hard to find the what the wealth of women? Is it often? In the husband’s name now the deceased husband’s name or is that a problem? That certainly can be a problem, but you can you can find some of the resources. I think the key with the research is to pay very close attention to the holistic picture when you’re doing a profile, not just looking at the particular name on the real estate records, but looking at all of the real estate records, looking at the names on the e-giving history when you could look at it as a whole, you get a much better sense of what the individual. Okay, so you’re advocating holistic prospect research? Absolutely okay, not only looking at the financial records you’re you’re part of the workshop was really about using the prospect research to on on women to best advantage, but what do you as a gift officer? What do you like to see as the product that’s that comes from the prospect researcher? So i am very dependent on prospect research. Sure, i am certainly interested in the wealth indicators i’m looking at the estimated wealth capacity, the gift capacity, but i am as interested in the indicators that tell me about e-giving. Priorities. So i’ll give you a very good example. We had a fabulous case study that i talked about today, and the research showed some great wealth. All of the real estate was in the husband’s name, all of the giving history was in both of their names and e-giving seemed to be to certain extent schizophrenic it seemed to be all too human and health services and education for half the guests, and the other half of the gifts were women’s rights and reproductive rights, and that didn’t make sense holistically. So i use that to drive a lot of questions, asking the couple individually what their priorities were came to find out the only thing they shared wass thie, my organization, and that, in fact, we were their single biggest shared priority, which, when i looked at their other giving based on research, were five figure gives suggested to me that there was a seven figure gift for us so that’s a great example of your talking about researching female prospects, but again, holistic approach. You have to be talking to the husband as well, if he’s still living? Absolutely, absolutely. What about other family? Are you often? Involved bringing in other family members aside from the spouse, we are very involved in doing multigenerational giving, and we actually talk sometimes two, three and four generations of families and it’s very interesting that families, when we’re dealing with wealth at the top one percent top ten percent that those families often erm having formal meetings, formal discussions and learning about who the power players are within those discussions within those families is incredibly valuable. We had done on older, older child, for instance, very influential to the mother and father. Absolutely. We had done some research and found that the man was in the health insurance business very, very wealthy. All of the money was his, and he had generated it. But in conversations with him came to find out that the family, he, his wife and the children make the decisions as a family, but that it’s, very democratic and the women in the family actually usually out vote the math. So instead of continuing to meet with him alone, i asked if i could come and meet with the women. So the role of women is not only because greater longevity no, not at all, they’re making a lot of the decision now you said you are very interested in the wealth indicators. What do you like? Sort of specifically like to see from prospect research in as you’re preparing? I want to see if there is political gether. If there is political giving, i’m looking not just amount, but who and what they’re giving it to. I want to see real estate, i want to see a publicly traded company information i’m also interested in news articles about why companies were founded as particularly valuable when i’m dealing with a woman and she has owned and founded her own company, finding out more about why she created that company and they’re often profiles business journals and community journals. That information could be very directive into how these in having these conversations is there. Is there value in? Well, clearly there is value in the financial information. Are you reluctant to meet with someone before you have some prospect research on them? What’s your what’s, your personal pride election that way so i want to have something i want to know some of what i’m going into, but i’m not going to have the lack of that information stop me from meeting. So with some people, you confined very little and some you confined, nothing is not going to stop me from having the meeting. There is nothing more powerful than standing face to face with someone and asking the questions, that thing. The thing you’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving thank you. Good. 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 hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. And how important do you find the meeting to be in feeding back to prospect research? I think that’s something that has been missing a lot in the business there’s a lot of push out of information from research officers are not very good at sharing it back. We tend to like to do a full circle, so i’ll come back and say, i heard that they were very involved, maybe in a different country, maybe in a different state. Can we do some research there? I’ll bring that back, our researcher will do more information, and it becomes his fabulous feedback loop that includes the donor that just creates this beautiful fall fall because there’s there’s nothing better than sitting with someone right over a meal for an hour, hour and a half or in their office for thirty minutes that i’ve always thought that’s the incredibly valuable prospect research you’re finding out wealth of information you find out more than you ever can from the database, and it sounds like you’re using the written material when you do have it to inform the questions that you’re going to ask, right? I mean, you’re you’re running the meeting? Absolutely. Talk a little about running them, running the prospect meeting for us. So for me, for the meeting, i don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about mission or about the organization. I already know the organization, they often know the organization and with our members, they’ve known it probably longer and better than i ever could. So i want to know about that. I want to ask questions like, how do you make your philanthropic decisions? Why do you give to us? Why did you first give to us? Do you and your husband make the same decision to have the same have the same priorities? Those of the questions i want to ask and learn about when do you make your decisions? I wanted to drill down and find out, are they ultimately are their assets that they can give that we couldn’t find? Have they considered including real estate, how they concluded considered including in a state gift? So i normally spend probably two thirds of the meeting asking those sorts of questions, finding out a lot more about what they do, why they do it, and then i’m going to make a solicitation, i don’t like meeting without making the ass outstanding gift officer. Of course, you mentioned the hard to find assets. What kinds of questions do you ask to try to find out about what’s? Not so public. So one of the things that we’re seeing a lot of now as the economy is starting to finally take up is an increase in pose cos they’re starting to go public again. Let’s, identify that now. Tony martignetti non-profit radio we have george in jail. I would hate for you to be subjected. Jog, jail, right? I don’t have my keys. I sometimes have warden. I don’t have them. So just define aipo for people. So when i po it’s, an initial public offering and it’s when a private company is listed on a public exchange, the dow jones, the nasdaq on a public exchange so the public can invest in it, brings in a huge influx of cash to the business and becomes often a liquidity event on opportunity for the owner before the company was private to get some of their investment out. Okay. And though so, there could be some significant tax benefits that can be syntax considerations if you think of it as a year in which you have more money. What do you do with that money? So so how do you how do you get to dahna? Well, you would know, i guess, from the research that they do own a privately held business, i will and that’s normally about all i know. Okay, so how do you go from there? I will ask questions about how the business is doing. What’s going on with the business from research, i will also often see an uptick in marketing material. So all of a sudden, there are more news articles on the business, there’s, more press and there’s no reason why, after ten years in business, they should be in every business journal for the last six months. It’s suggest to me they’re trying to build their brand and something is going on, so i’ll actually ask about that. And then at that point, someone could often say, well, we’re on the verge of going public, and then i can have a whole different conversation you want to give stock now, do you want to give stock after there’s a whole different conversation? So i’m looking for information. To know where the business is. Conversely, it could also be looking tio here that someone is divesting themselves of a private business. They’re retiring, they’re going to give it to their kids, that’s a whole different liquidity event. So i’m looking for those and that’s information that i confined sometimes for research, but much more from the conversations that’s an outstanding example of using the research to go much, much deeper in your meeting this’s tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the fund-raising fund-raising day two thousand eleven with samantha cohen, director of principle you have the right principle giving at the american civil liberties union, and we’re talking about prospect research for females with female prospects and using that using that research wisely, i’ll ask you sort of ah, you know, softball question, what else would you like to say about using the valuable research? I think that we need to use the research we have. We need to be careful. We need to be analytical in that research, but we can’t depend solely on recent okay, lack of research shouldn’t stop you from getting out the door. That’s right on. How much of your time would you say you spend out of the office not nearly enough, but i would like to be out of the office at least seventy five percent of the time. Okay? And what is it that keeps you in when you’d like to be out or if you if you don’t want to say that so much, what strategies do you have for getting more time out of the office in with donors and prospects? How do you minimize that office? Time to get you more out a targeted portfolio, so really weeding out the prospects in the in the portfolio that aren’t going to produce. So i’m doing a lot more qualifying meetings to look at people to figure out know this person is not going to be a major donor, and i’m removing them from the portfolio so that my portfolio is becoming much more targeted, which allows me to spend more time with fewer people, produce better results, okay? And as you’re as your meeting with those better prospects, let’s, go back to the cycle ing back of information to the prospect research team. You use a call report for that if you have a sit down what’s the what’s the mechanism for getting that information back to prospect research. So the formal mechanism is a contact report that i write within twenty four hours of the meeting meeting think memory things get lost, so i write it down very quickly. I get that into our database very quickly, and then i’ll often go and sit down with our prospect researcher when i’ve had a particularly illuminating meeting and share with her the types of things you wouldn’t necessarily put into writing. Yes, okay, and might that conversation include people that the person knows who? Maybe a c l u knows or doesn’t know your prospect knows them absolutely connectors and new prospects are things that regularly come up in our durney meetings that we share not just one on one with our prospect researchers, but as a major gifts team, we often have conversations about that and you’re your portfolio what’s the what’s, the age range of your portfolio. I have donors in their twenties, i have donors in their nineties, so we are full, full across the board are average, doner is in their sixties, but the age of our large donors is quickly decreasing, so we’re getting over forties and fifties, it has as much to do with our targeting and multi generational conversations. Is anything else? Okay? The conversations, the meetings that you have with women let’s, let’s focus on women that’s the subject of your seminar women in their eighties nineties how do you how do you talk about there? Differed or plant e-giving how do you open that conversation with them? So when somebody reaches their eighties and nineties, they’ve often already got their plans sorted out. So it’s a little late to be asking to be included in someone’s estate, although we certainly wouldn’t shy away from making the ask it is a little late, but if we if we talk about people women in there, maybe a little younger in their sixties and seventies, we’re talking about a similar generation. I’m often asking questions about what they want to leave behind as a legacy, and i’m asking questions about do they want their gifts and their legacy to reflect the life that the woman maybe shared with her husband? Is it about honoring his memory? Is it about honoring him or, as we often find, once the husband passes away, the woman has a different focus and wants to make gifts that matter. So asking about priorities and legacy and what they what message they want to leave behind to their families into the world that’s often what the conversation is about how do you manage it if you’re in that situation the husband has recently, he passed. Well, let me ask, is most of your portfolio women, or is there another proportion? I would say it’s probably sixty five percent women, okay, they’re slightly slightly when you’re when you’re dealing with a man or a woman whose spouses recently deceased, and you suspect that it was the spouse who was the primary giver, my mary-jo donorsearch too american civil liberties union. How do you approach that surviving spouse? Wait, i think the most important thing is we do approach them, we don’t assume because the spouse who was the instigator of the e-giving has deceased, we don’t see him that e-giving can’t continue, and i think that’s a very key point, you don’t just let people go away exactly, and we don’t leave them alone for months and years on end. Obviously you need to be respectful and not be there the next week, but we want to let them know that we’re still they are and that we still care and we’re still interested in them and so we try to have a meeting pretty quickly, and often it becomes a nostalgia conversation about this, about the husband, about why he gave, which will allow us to talk about what do you share those some of those same values? Are you as interested as your husband wass in civil liberties? That conversation can lead us while my husband was interested in a particular area, but i’m more interested in this area of your work, so we can recon target our messaging that’s good that’s a home run. They’re still interest in your work. Just a different part of it. Absolutely or we may find they may not be interested at all, at which point we can talk about the possibility of a gift in memory of they’re loved their loved one. Alright, so still keeping the door open until they absolutely say no more, no more giving to your organization, but it’s it’s nass ity tour you don’t really give up until you actually shown the door. How many years do you have in individual giving? I’ve been doing individual giving for fifteen years. Shows senior out senior senior gift officer c o l c a c l u is lucky to have you, samantha. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven. I’ve been with samantha cohen. She is director of principle e-giving yes, at the american civil liberties union and samantha, i want to thank you very much for being a guest was a pleasure. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much. That was my pre recorded segment from june fund-raising day here in new york city. Right now, we’ll take a break, then, after the break, it’s, tony’s, take two, and then after that, learning, lobbying limitations with our regular legal contributors, so stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Yes. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business or 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 needs 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. 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 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 hello there. Welcome back, it’s. Time for tony’s. Take two. My block post this week is thinking is underrated back in what for me were dark days when i was a lawyer practicing law i usedto have to account for my time in six minute increments tenths of an hour and there were lots of billing codes for things like court appearances and drafting motion for summary judgment and responding to motion to dismiss and telephone conferences. But there was never a billing code four thinking about your case, and i always thought that a lawyer’s best contribution to a client’s situation, which is usually a problem situation not always, but usually would be thinking, i’ve spent my time thinking about your case strategically and the attorneys who were involved in the other parties that are involved and your needs. And but there was never a billing code for thinking, so my day’s got much brighter because i only practiced law for about two years. And now, in the brighter sonny your days, i do a lot of thinking, and i don’t have to account for my time anymore in increments of six minutes and that’s what the block post? Is all about encouraging you to think just spend time thinking actively consciously about things that are moving and important to you, whether their personal or professional. In the blood post, i mentioned a lot of things just as examples that i spend time thinking of an and that i spend a lot of time on vacation and also on the subways, actively just giving thought to things in my life and that’s. What the block post thinking is underrated is about encouraging you to do the same, and that is tony’s take two for friday, september twenty third, two thousand eleven want to welcome jean takagi and emily chan are regular legal contributors. Jean takagi is principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg at non-profit law blogged dot com. Emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage, the principal contributor to the no non-profit law blawg, gene and emily. Welcome back. I think it’s a pleasure to have you. We’re talking this week about lobbying limitations. So what? Gene are some of the activities that could constitutent lobbying just so people are are conscious of what they might be doing that could become lobbying great question tony and way to think about a lot of wealth, so jobs loving is essentially attempting to influence legislation and the activities that might constitute lobbying our writing legislation, trying to meet with legislators or legislative bodies and influence how they might act on a proposed bill and things of that that nature. We might do that with a ballot measure and go out to the people or talkto our members or the public and tell them to contact their legislatures about specific bill constitutent ok, and can also include the use of social media and blogging. Absolutely, tony, great point, so blogging is just on dh social media use is just another way to communicate, and if you’re communicating to legislative bodies or legislators, legislators better have have their own social media sites or have their own blog’s and websites, and many of them do that khun b lobbying and if you are getting your members or you’re encouraging the public to engage in the same types of activities to influence legislation and contact legislators, that could all be lobbying using social media and blog’s and twitter and facebook and all the rats, okay, so i want to come back to social media in a few minutes after we’ve talked about some of the some more details because that’s that’s really interesting and also the point of the possibility of someone posting on non-profits site and whether that might be considered lobbying, but i think we need to do a little detail work first, and emily, there are laws, there are no, they’re not laws yet there are bills and acts under consideration now that non-profits might be interested in commenting on one way or another, right? Yes, tony so loving is getting some renewed or re energized attention as of late because of some things that were seeing on both the federal and state level recently on the federal level, there was the budget control act that was fined and that’s calling for one point five trillion dollars cut decided by that twelve person bipartisan committee, and certainly there are many non-profits better concern that they’ll be at the chopping block with that cut. Additionally, we just saw the proposed job will act. I’m spoken about which will limit the charitable deduction for certain we’ll be individuals, and then on the state level, we’ve seen some pushback in massachusetts. The attorney general earlier this year tried to propose legislation that would require prior approval by the attorney general’s office before non-profit could compensate executives, but these are the types of legislation that non-profits may want teo voice an opinion on or put out communications that reflect the view on that, encourage others to contact legislators or for themselves to go ahead and do that as well. Right? So we’re not just talking about federal law, but also and any state initiatives that could impact non-profits and that they might want to comment on and emily so how do we decide how much lobbying a non-profit can do? So in the internal revenue code for public charities under five, oh, one, seat three, it says god, public charities cannot engage in more than an insubstantial amount of lobbying and the default test for that is really all facts and circumstances. The irs will look at everything, including the time spent the resource is such expenditures on decide whether the organization has now stepped over that line into substantial lobbying activity that really leaves many organizations uncertain and scared in many. Ways, because there is no strict percentage or limit on that. So what organizations can do is elect to be measured by something called an expenditure test, which is under section five a one eighth of the internal revenue code. And unlike the people in this one, is measured only on expenditures. So it really gives organizations a better gauge as how to measure their own lobbying limits within compliance with the law. Okay, holy cow. All right, so that’s a ton of stuff. So? So you have to do lobbying that’s? Well, i shouldn’t say less than substantial because that’s not what’s in the code. So you have to do lobbying, that’s insubstantial or or less if you’re a five a one c three. Right? Okay. Cancel amount of total activities. Another way too. Wait, i’m sorry. Say that one more time in a substantial amount of total activities. Ok? And so then there are two different tests you’re saying to measure whether you’re you’re meeting that threshold or your or your exceeding it, right? Is that that’s standard? I should say that standard or you’re exceeding it. Is that right? Yes. That’s correct. The default. Substantial part. Okay. There’s the expenditure testament organizations can elect to be measured by filing a one page form. Okay, before we go into too much detail. So let’s talk about the substantial part test you say substantial, substantial part of what substantial part as activities. So it goes back to the language and five oh one c three and saying that organization can army engaged in an insubstantial amount of lobbying and there’s no exact equation as to how the irs will do this, it will just look at all facts and circumstances. Okay? And you said that this is the default test. So careful around jargon jail, because for lawyers, default is very clear. But for others may not necessarily be. That means that everybody’s covered by this test, unless they choose the other one, right? Yes. That’s correct. And then that’s, when they would file a form form fifty seven sixty eight and elect into the expenditure. Okay. And jean, let me turn to you and ask when should a non-profit or what types of non-profits should try tio or should apply to be under the expenditure test. Well, it’s going to be most non-profits tony that are going to be benefiting from from falling under that test. The five oh one h expenditure test really works out for all charities, particularly if their annual budgets are under seventeen million dollars a year. And i would think that that’s going to cover most of the people listening, okay, organization and how do you come up with that number? What is that? But under the substantial part test that emily was talking about again, if you don’t do anything, and that’s how the irs is going to look at your lobbying and they look at everything assembly was talking about and the general rule of thumb that people use that professionals use and trying to give guidance. Tio non-profits is saying that well, there is an old court case that five percent of your organizations, time and effort spent on lobbying. That’s not substantial. So it’s okay to do up to that amount, but anything over them that we’re not really sure of. So if we took a look at five percent that’s that’s going to be not a lot of money for a small charity for, you know, a million dollar charity we’re talking about a cz little as a five thousand dollars when we go into the expenditure test, their specific limits that we know we would need teo comply with in order to stay under that threshold, and the limits are pretty generous. Tony twenty percent of your first five hundred thousand dollars in expenditures in furtherance of your mission would be insubstantial. So that’s one hundred thousand of your first five hundred thousand dollars that you spend would be insubstantial fifteen percent of the next five hundred thousand ten percent of the next five percent of the next. It ends up being tapped at one million dollars. So when we look at that one million dollar mark, and then we go back to the substantial part, tess, we know that at about seventeen million dollars that’s when the substantial part tests and expenditure test looks to be fairly, even if we’re just looking at that five percent mark as the rule of fun rule of thumb with substantial part test okay, biggest benefit of the bible in h expenditure tests for most smaller non-profits tony is that all volunteer time spent on lobbying doesn’t count of lobbying? Volunteer time doesn’t spend doesn’t count, so so you can have lots of volunteers going out and knocking on lots of doors or leafleting and doing things, and none of that time counts. None of the expense of that time counts toward the calculation. Well, none of the volunteers time town on that calculations are only expenditures. That you might have in that equation would be factoring what staff time that you might be paying for to organize the volunteers and maybe some printing materials. But for low cost or no cost lobbying measures, the five of one age expenditure test is of great benefit. Okay, we’re going to take a break, and my voice just cracked like i’m fourteen years old, and when we return, we’re going continue learning, lobbying limitations. This is excellent detail to 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 hunters. People be better business people. Dahna 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 do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing effort. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com talking. Lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. Welcome back to the show i’m with our regular legal contributors, jean takagi and emily chan. We’re talking about lobbying limitations. Gene, you mentioned that where this five percent is based on an old case. So how come it’s ok to rely on this old case? Because we don’t have anything else, tony so we don’t really have anything else to rely on. There may be some private letter rulings, but theres so specifics with facts and circumstance is that they don’t really touch on an overall level anymore. So all we have is that old court case that’s at five percent of time and resource is that that was insubstantial and okay, okay, and you invoked a lot of mathematics. You know, i went to law school because i’m poor at math, so but i was able to follow your explanation, but that’s about as far as i can go, so don’t bring in any algebra or anything. Just keep it tio addition and subtraction. Andi, i’ll be okay. So and what is the form that non-profit uses to elect the the more advantageous one that’s for small non-profits the five oh one h test it’s form fifty seven. Sixty eight and has emily mentioned one page form super easy to fill out one of the easiest forms that the irs has? Okay, fifty seven, sixty eight there’s no t on the end of that it’s not fifty seven. Sixty eighty no tony from from the earned income was that elearning yeah, i like the tee form. See if you can find some more of those that have a tv in them. Okay? And then let’s just based our conversations on those. So so we have to do research. Well, you do find all the forms and have teas, and then we’ll talk about that that’ll be the subject for future future shows that you’re on so let’s see, emily, how do we oh, so let’s, talk a little about social media now, okay, so now we know the two different tests. So emily suppose somebody posts puts a block post aren’t just comments on a block and a non-profit advocating, you know, opposition to the charitable deduction limitation that you were that you mentioned earlier. Does that fall under lobbying? Tony it’s really going to depend it’s going to depend on the facts and circumstances around that situation? Social media is certainly a place where the risk is there, um, and it really is going to fall on how the organisation is monitoring its own social media. So, for example, what kind of user agreements it has if it has a moderation policy, the dance that an organization takes on the way that they control their own platform is going to possibly affect whether the irs decides to say that that’s lobbying and challenge them and as well how courts are going to interpret the factions. There’s actually a really good resource that recently came out from alliance for justice called influencing public policy in the digital age. And it’s, a resource precisely on social media and a lobbying an election related activities. Ok, is that alliance for justice dot org’s? Do you know it isn’t free and it came out okay. Okay. It’s. Always troubling when you know when you when you guys say and i think this related to earned income also it depends on the facts and circumstances. That’s, it’s, it’s. So nebulous though, hyre. And you also said emily it it depends on the way the non-profit is monitoring their blawg. What do you mean there and could you could talk a little bit louder for us, too. There are different schools of thought as teo, how organizations should approach monitoring their own platform. So on one hand, organizations can decide to have moderating policies where they say they will take down information, not violate their community by lines of their terms. And if something were to happen, such as lobbying by a user who came on, you know, they may be able to show good faith, but at the same time they take on that responsability and apparently the administrative burden of monitoring that forum. On the other hand, there are organizations that choose not to moderate the forms, and they just put out a disclaimer that they don’t moderate it. They don’t stand behind necessarily what’s being put on there and it’s not a reflection of the organization. While that does take away some of that burden, then of going through in filtering the comments, it may be more difficult than to show that they are taking the responsibility to ensure that they’re not engaging in substantial amounts of lobbying lobbying, and it also creates a bigger risk that then, you know the free for all on their forum for whoever comes across it and whatever they want right there, you can’t just say we don’t monitor it and it’s not the opinion of of our non-profit that’s not going to be good enough? You can say that, but there is a question as to what position that puts you in certainly the law and the irs. They’re trying to catch up with these new avenues of social media and how to apply these very traditional rules to these new forms of media that, you know, create opportunities that weren’t previously available. Yeah, the laws are not keeping up with the changing digital landscape, certainly let’s. See so jean, did you find any there’s tea forms? Gene on the break, by the way, looking way had a two minute break it and i thought you come up with half a dozen by them. So there must be a reporting mechanism. If we’re concerned about the substantiality of lobbying activity, there must be some way that non-profit have to report backto irs. Absolutely so the form nine ninety is their annual information returns and whether you form filed the form nine, ninety or the nine ninety easy version you have to file a schedule c, which reports all of your lobbying activity and there’s two ways to report it. So if you are under that substantial part test, you didn’t do that that five o n h election and you fall into the substantial part test. You have to last her a lot of questions about whether used volunteers and what other resource is air being used for lobbying? But if you file that five o one h election, as i recommended for most organizations, especially smaller organizations, then you just record your expenditures and on the social media issue that really works out to your benefit as well, tony, because how much money did it cost to lobby when he just got a comment back from somebody that put in a lobbying position? It might have cost you almost nothing, right? So then you don’t worry about it so much if you paid that election and we’re talking here about the tax implications. But there is another federal requirement around lobbying activities to reaching that’s, right? So if you’re gonna be live ing on federal issues, you may also have to look at the registration and reporting requirements in the lobbying disclosure act, and those can be fairly complicated, but those air outside of sort of the tax requirements of around lobbying and you’ve got to talk with attorneys who understand the lobbying disclosure act on the federal level and possibly if you’re looking at state level issues or local level issues, you’ve got additional registration reporting with state and local authorities as well. Okay, so, uh, substantial, and what about the let’s? Say the pastor? This comes up in new york, a lot of pastor on a pulpit around election time on dh he or she is advocating for either one of the one of the ballot initiatives for against or for or against a candidate. Jean how does that fall into what we’re talking about? Well, when they’re talking about a ballot initiative, then we’re talking about a form of lobbying. So in the case of a pastor preaching to his congregation or even to the broader community we’re talking about typically grassroots flopping, which is lobbying where you’re going out to the people and telling them how to vote or tell their legislatures on how to vote sametz i’m going to actually back-up one step, however, if the people on a ballot initiative, if it the people themselves of the lawmakers and not the legislators, legislative bodies, then that would be called direct lobbying because you’re going directly to the people who make the law the people themselves. Well, but if you’re on the if you’re on the pulpit, you’re talking teo anaugh audience of congregants, and they’re all voters. What is that then? It’s still lobbying? So if you’re if you’re got a position on the law and telling them how to vote on the law, it would be lobbying the one thing that you mentioned that might be a segway for another show tony is, is when pastor on the pulpit start telling you who to elect for public office. Okay, now we’re talking about candidates, not issues, right? Okay? And in that case now we’ve got an election hearing activity and five a onesie three organizations, including churches, are prohibited from engaging in that type of political activity where they’re endorsing a candidate. Okay, that does sound very good. Why don’t we talk about that next month? Because there’s an election in november so we can talk about election earing and the limitations around that in october has that sound sounds perfect and, well, look way need that. Yeah, yeah. The subject is off the table if there’s no tea forme because tony form. So forget about it. You know we’ll do election next time. That’s. Emily chan and jean takagi emily gene, thank you very much. My pleasure, gene is principal of neo, the non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. And emily chan is an attorney at neo. I want to thank both of them and also my first guest, samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union and all the very thoughtful people at fund-raising day who enabled us to have that booth on the exhibit floor to do the interview with samantha and and a bunch of others. Those interviews have been playing for the past couple months next week. It’s employee engagement deshele dorsey from changing our world is with me to talk about how your non-profit khun gained from company programs in giving, volunteering, mentoring and even loaning executives and also our regular prospect, researcher contributor maria simple, the prospect finder will be with me as well next week. You can keep up with what’s coming up! Sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page, facebook, dot com and then the name of this show and if you like the show, please click that like button and become a fan. You can always listen live or archive you’ve been live archive you will find us on itunes. You can subscribe there listen any time on the device of your choice at non-profit radio dot net on twitter you can follow me are hashtag is non-profit radio so follow me at anytime and during the show. That’s the hashtag to use use it wisely and use it indiscriminately, too. Our creative producer is tony martignetti of tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff. Our line producer is sam liebowitz and he’s, also the owner of talking alternative broadcasting. Our social media is done by regina walton of organic social media. I hope you will be with me next friday one to two p m eastern here at talking alternative broadcasting, which is always at talking alternative dot com. 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