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Nonprofit Radio for February 19, 2024: Frustrations & Opportunities With Jay Frost

 

Jay FrostFrustrations & Opportunities With Jay Frost

Jay returns to share his reflections on four decades in the nonprofit community. There are things he’d like to see us doing better, that the sector has been talking about for many years. But they haven’t changed much. Yet he remains optimistic, so he recognizes the brighter future that’s possible if we practice more of what we preach. Jay is on LinkedIn.

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. We have a new sponsor. Welcome. Virtuous to the nonprofit radio family. So glad to have you. I’m grateful for your sponsorship. Welcome. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of irises if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s going on this week? Hey, Tony, we’ve got frustrations and opportunities. Jay Frost returns to share his reflections on four decades in the nonprofit community. There are things he’d like to see us doing better that the sector has been talking about for many years, but they haven’t changed much yet. He remains optimistic so he recognizes the brighter future. That’s possible if we practice more of what we preach on Tonys take two last chance were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supports, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org. Thank you again for your new sponsorship. Virtuous. Welcome. Anyway, here is frustrations and opportunities. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome Jay Frost back to nonprofit radio. Jay has worked in the nonprofit community since 1985. That’s 39 years. Let’s call it 40 years between friends. He’s been a grant writer, fundraiser service provider and now he’s a consultant and content creator. You’ll find Jay on linkedin and he hosts Donor Searches Philanthropy. Masterminds series. Welcome back, Jay. It’s good to see you. It is always great to see you, Tony. We talk a lot on the Masterminds series. You’ve hosted me there probably by mistake or, or you had last minute cancellations. Uh I don’t know, three or four times. I’ve been on a bunch of times. I think you’re a popular guy. I, I like to draw a crowd. I, I like to think I draw a crowd but, but we’re focused on you today. The crowd that you draw, the thinking that you have the wisdom of let’s call it 40 years, 40 years in philanthropy. What does that feel like? What does it feel like to have done something? 40 years? Who, when you say the number over and over and now so far it’s 100 and 20. Uh I I it, it uh it, it really, it really makes me feel old Tony. So, thank you. Um But, ok, so there’s a line from Mary Oliver that I want to quote because it’s what I’m thinking about a lot, which is that, um, when it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I’ve made of my life something particular and real. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world. So that’s what I’m thinking about these days. And, uh, and it’s a good place to think about it. Right. I mean, we have a lot of fun in our world, especially when I’m hanging out with, with a friend like you. Um, but it’s serious stuff too. And when you say 40 years, 40 years, 40 years, the first thing I think of is, oh, my gosh. I’m just getting started for, well, first of all, it’s not additive. So it’s, it’s not 100 and 20. So, uh, it was, it was keep you with your 40. Let’s not get carried away. Don’t get a big hit. Um, no, but, you know, uh, well, I like the, I like the idea of not, not simply visiting our world. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Um, what was your very, very, very first job? Was it the grant writing job or? Very, very, very first job in, in nonprofits? Oh, my gosh. Ok. So, first I wanted to be in the film business. I went out to LA. I lived in a garage. I didn’t have a car. I took buses, you know, you don’t do any of that in L A and I did all those things and that’s why I left. So I was there for a brief time, came back tail between my legs to Washington DC where my parents then had, had uh moved and I was introduced to a person at the National Endowment for the Arts. And very quickly, somehow miraculously got a job there as what was called a floater, which is back when people typed stuff and printed stuff, I was running around just doing all those odd jobs at the National Endowment for the Arts. And it was the dream for me because I was raised to study poetry and music and all these other things. So the ne A it was the citadel of all those things. And so very quickly, I, I had the opportunity to work in the inter arts program which was very interesting and controversial place. What program inter arts which is introduced plenty of arts work and um lots of controversy there. And then I worked at the literature program which also had a share of controversy, but that’s where I had a chance to as a 24 year old identify poets who would then be reviewing manuscripts from all the people, writing poetry and fiction and so forth around the country to review it and make investments in writers. I mean, it was, that was my first job. I was 24 I had $2 million in grants responsibility but, but uh I was not making the decisions. I was administering that work. But still, since nobody else really knew a heck of a lot about poetry then or now it meant that I got to be in this candy store of being with people who cared about words and their, and their impact. And that was 1985. That was, yeah, I was, I got there at 85. I was there through just a brief time through 87. Yeah. What happened in what, what happened in uh Hollywood, Los Angeles filmmaking? Oh man. Uh well, you know, you can only live so long on patty melt sandwiches served to you from behind a plexiglass screen for cash um working across in the Kit Kat Club in a theater that’s closed most of the time. Uh I I that was, that was my life, you know, occasionally getting into 50 bucks in the Kit Kat Club. You could have been a, oh my God, you could have been a floater instead of a floater. It could have been many things on that street with Santa Monica Boulevard in the eighties. Yeah, it was an interesting place. Um Alright, but it didn’t go, it just you didn’t take off. No, I did not take off. I had the opportunity to write some uh some scripts for things that probably didn’t need the scripts. Um and I decided not to do that over Christmas vacation. Looking in the mirror. Um, and then was able to rededicate myself to things that have, you know, aesthetic value. I see. All right. Oh, this sounds like a conversation that we should continue over a beer at a conference, uh, on a, on a Friday night. All right. All right. But, yeah, it’s fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so let’s turn to, uh, your thinking. I mean, I, I invited you on to, to share your thoughts about our, our community. You have 40 years to reflect over. You’ve seen the things we’ve emphasized over 40 years, the things we’ve accomplished not accomplished. What uh what strikes you first? Wow. It’s a lot of it that occurs to me first are the kinds of things that you and I have chatted about um over the transom every time we’ve, we’ve talked a lot of the petty frustrations that kind of, you know, gnaw at you. Um The things that we laugh over such as uh such as, you know, um why don’t organizations we know, do the things that they should do that are relatively easy to do um such as, uh you know, send out a personal thank you note once in a while. And then we get into all these debates about whether or not people should write thank you notes, whether they’re vestiges of the past, whether they’re too elitist, there are other terms that are less polite for doing this kind of thing. But the, but the thing that really drives me bananas about all that is that it focuses on a tiny, tiny sliver of activity. Uh instead of thinking about the whole, where we can say, what is it that we’re here to do? What is it we’re trying to address what are the best ways of engaging with people who believe in the same things we do, making sure so that they know that we see them, that we hear them, that we know that they’re human and they’re valuable and then we truly partner with them to get things done. Instead, we’ve divided all this stuff up and these little uh actions and then half the time we ignore some of those things to do and I’ve been guilty of it too. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that that I haven’t failed at almost everything because I have. But rather that once we learn these things, I’d like to think that we could put some of them into practice. And I have seen best practices over 40 years. So if we could just pull them together, sort of like our own little mini Bible and actually practice that stuff. I think we could have better partnerships, better friendships and be better trusted and then have better results. Let, let’s take off a few of the things that uh you’re talking about these, these small things that uh accumulate into better, better relationships. What you’re saying, stronger relationships, longer, more devoted donors pick off a few things that pick you off. Yeah, I took some notes so I wouldn’t forget. Um So what are these are so reverential to you? So I have to take notes to you that you have to write them down to remember. Ok, there are two levels here. So what we’re talking about first actually are kind of the appetizers of a conversation like this. They’re the annoyances, right? So those are the things we mess up that we can control for if we thought they were important. So it’s treating donors like ATM machines. This has become a common phrase now. Uh But uh but I think I’ve been saying it for a long time, I’m sure you have to and it’s not just because we see other people doing it and we say tis tis you should do what I say and not what I do. No, it’s because as donors, we experience this, we wonder what in the world is going on here. We make it donation and then we don’t hear from anybody or we get a digital receipt and they think that’s enough. It’s never enough. So uh just one practical example. And I think I’ve told you this before. Um off offline is that I started giving to an organization that this was two years ago now. So it was in the middle of the pandemic uh based on a book and a movie that I thought was just so powerful emotionally wrenching. And so I won’t mention the name of the organization because what I’m about to say suggests that they, that they are not taking care of their donors. And I’m hoping that what I’m going to tell you is isolated, although I fear it’s not. And I know it’s also true for many organizations that is it. I saw this powerful story. I’m really engaged. It’s a way to help people who are getting out of the prison, industrial complex. It is a big deal. We have more prisoners in this country than anywhere else on earth. And so, uh what do we do for these people when they get out? Well, pretty much nothing. Their life is almost over unless they’re lucky or they happen to live in a state with a program for that. I mean, it’s just awful on every level. So, wouldn’t it be great to help out? So I start giving an amount every month, which for me was a fair amount every month. Um And, and even though it’s not a lot of money, I knew it was probably putting in the top like five or 10% of donor pool just because of the stuff we know from fundraising. And so they keep, you know, sending me the kind of the notes uh via email that say dear friend. So I made a point of calling at one point just to say, you know, I’m doing this. They didn’t call me back and then at the end of the year I stopped giving, I thought, well, let’s see what happens. Not because I don’t care. But I was hoping that this would be kind of jarring and they do something and then I’d have a discussion not trying to get business, just trying to say, hey, I’m not special. There must be a lot of people like me silence every once in a while. I’ll get a note from the organization saying, dear friend asking me to give, not even mentioning my past giving. Now this all sounds pretty petty on my part. But the reason I’m mentioning it is because I think it’s just emblematic of a larger problem. Um On the one hand, we don’t have a lot of time in this world, fundraisers just don’t have a lot of time. We’re, we’re, you know, we got a lot to do, we aren’t particularly well paid to do it and we’re doing it out of love. All of those things are true. We don’t often have a lot of support staff. We don’t have a lot of great resources. It’s all true. But then there’s what we do with our time. And if there’s not, I don’t know that there’s anything more important than saying to people who believe in the same things we do that I see you and you’re important and this is important to do together. And I, and I know that organizations can do it and they’ve done it very well in some places, but somehow in the nonprofit industrial complex, we’ve forgotten a little bit of that. And I’m not sure that some of the new technology is, is helping us to become more human. I think sometimes it just relieves us of this nagging responsibility to, to have those little personal engagements that make this work so personally rewarding and so financially successful. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in-person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk, the smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data, entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try Donor Box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to frustrations and opportunities. Well, the promise of artificial intelligence is that it’s going to free us up for, for all the things that you’re talking about. So we’re gonna be better to our donors because we’re gonna relieve ourselves of the mundane writing tasks. Uh I think it’s mostly right. I’m gonna use that as the example. That’s what I see the most, you know, the the writing tasks, whether it’s annual report or a 200 word article or whatever, you know, and that’s gonna, the promise is that it’s going to give us time for the, for the human relationships and in my, uh, now we’re on Tony Martignetti s frustrations that, that sounds familiar. It’s a good show. I, I think the, I think the smartphone was supposed to do that for us too. Yeah. And I wonder if the telephone was supposed to have done that in the, I don’t know, 19 tens or I might be off on when, when that was became a widespread technology. But I think I’ve heard this promise before that we’re going to have more time for other activities and, uh, the promise hasn’t been realized in my mind. Right. Yeah. No, I, not only do I agree with you but I think it’s, it’s going back to what I was trying to get to, which is that this is a symptom of a larger issue and the technology it is, seems like a patch on this big tire that we’ve created to try and drive down this road of social change and, and it’s good. I mean, I, I’m all about tech because tech is, is awesome and we really can use it for good. Um, but at the same time if we’re using it as a patch to just keep driving down the same road in the same ways, it doesn’t necessarily serve the purpose. Um, so I’d like to think that if we can go back to what it is that’s supposed to be guiding us. What is the principle behind this work? You know, keep that in mind all the time, keep it up on our wall and look at it all the time. Then hopefully we’ll be doing the more human things. Um There’s a book written years ago by Robert Putnam, you know, Bowling Alone. And the reason I’m mentioning it here is because this concept about uh this kind of fracturing of society where we don’t know each other as well has been potentially exacerbated by some of these technologies, not because of the technologies themselves, but how we use them to avoid actual interaction with one another. And I think that the nonprofit sector and fundraisers specifically not only have potentially a responsibility to do something about that, but it’s more of an opportunity to do something about it that we could decide every time we employ a technology or a technique um that we can use that in order to get closer to people instead of just to mechanize and uh efficient and make more efficient our work because I know what we’re trying to do is get more money. But what we really need to do is build stronger connections in order to get that money, be mindful of your use of the technology. I mean, if, if, if it does, in fact, if artificial intelligence does, in fact relieve you from the, the drudgery of writing your annual report then what are you gonna do with those extra 15 hours that you saved? Because nobody’s gonna tap you on the shoulder and say you’ve got 15 free hours. Now, what are you, how are you going to use the time that the A I saved you? You’re, you’re boasting over coffee. Whoa, the writing, the annual report was so easy this year? Ok. What did you do with the quote surplus time that the, the A I uh allowed you? Did you, did you make more donor calls? Did you have more donor meetings? Did you write more handwrit notes? Did you uh pick up the phone to somebody you haven’t talked to in a, in a while? And this implication, this leads over into the personal too, not only the professional, but you and I are talking about fundraising and fundraisers. So I’ll, I’ll keep it there but use that time consciously if you feel A I is or some other technology has relieved you of a burden. How do you use the new time that, that you used to uh devote to that burden? But, but we kind of forget then about those other things that we can do because if we’re all then trained to engage with one another in these almost mechanized ways like by text and I use text all the time like we all do. But if, then that’s what we’re used to. How comfortable does it feel to just call somebody. So every once in a while I’ll do this, I’ll just grab a number on my phone of somebody I haven’t talked to for a long time and just call them up. And it’s almost shocking because we’re all now so used to communicating in this other way that to do that other thing, sometimes it can be refreshing but sometimes it can be off putting because we’re not accustomed to it. And I, and I, and if that’s true in the personal world, I know it’s also true in this professional world, you, you feel like it’s off putting, I find it more refreshing, then off putting it, you can mean off putting to yourself or to the person receiving the call to the person, receiving the call. And I’m not suggesting we don’t call. I’m saying the opposite. I’m just saying that I think people have become used to a certain kind of thing. And so this new thing, some people do find it refreshing like you and I do. But other people just, they don’t know what make of it. Like, why is this happening? Why is this thing happening? We have to do that. We have to break up that thing and, and do those things to, to engage with people in these ways to make it more human. I, I think my experience is, you know, I I’m working in Planned Giving. So I’m usually talking to people who are 70 80 90. And there’s one woman who’s 100 and one and one who was 100 until she died recently, they grew up with handwrit notes and then they had decades and decades of phone conversations before we went virtual that many decades, like 4050 decades of, oh, no, 40 or 50 years of, uh, phone calls. So to them, uh, a phone call is very thoughtful. A handwrit note is even more thoughtful as the recipients of those. And I, you know, I, I think, um, I think when you do more than what’s typical, I think it’s more refreshing to the recipient than it is off putting. So I guess I’m pushing back a little bit. You know, I, I would and I know you’re not discouraging folks from doing the extra, you know, look, customer service is, um, I have a recurring show that I, uh, replay called Zombie Loyalists with a, a marketing and, uh, pr guy named Peter Shankman and he says, well, he said years ago when he was first on the show and I’ve replayed it many times since then, you know, the average, but it remains true, the standard of customer service is crap. So if you could just be a little above crap, you’re setting yourself apart. So just don’t, just don’t do crap. Yeah, I absolutely agree. You know, whatever it looks, whatever, taking an extra step looks like for you and your donors do it because you’ve got this, uh a surplus time theoretically from the, from the, from the technologies that we, that are, that are saving us so much. But if you do find you have extra time, um, use it, you know, use it consciously. That’s, that’s kind of what I was getting to is, you know, conscious use of time. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I use off putting that as the way I feel about it but as how some people react even to the idea of doing it. Um It’s, it’s funny though because in talking about these things and you, you’re going through the idea about people who were used to handwrit notes of a certain age than people used to phone calls. And if you talk to people who are maybe of the successive generation, they might say, well, we don’t do these things or people in this age group, they make assumptions, they don’t do these things. But in fact, if we go on to Twitch right now and we see a Twitch streamer who’s raising money for, you know, pick your cause, it might be Saint Judes. It might be something we know as well. What are they doing? They’re engaging with people live right now. They’re talking to them. They’re, they’re um they’re doing that through the chat. They’re engaging with people in a meeting that makes sense for them today. But the reason why I mentioned this is, it’s not about the tech that’s just today’s tech, they’re really engaging with people so anything we can do to properly engage with people, uh, I think is that is exactly what we should be doing. And I, and I, and once again I don’t think it is off-putting. I just think that’s the objection. I think what we really need to do is bring things up a little to, to be better than the boring to go back to your point. Yeah. Oh, I see. You’re, you’re concerned. Yeah, I see what you’re expressing that people might be put off. No, I think people will be uh elated. You know, I write a lot of handwrit notes and not surprising that I get a fair amount of handwrit notes back. But again, I’m writing to older folks. 70 plus, it’s time for Tony’s steak to do. Thank you, Kate. This is the last Chance for Planned Giving Accelerator. The last few weeks. The class starts in early March. If Planned Giving is on your to do list, you wanna launch it. Your board has talked about it. You’ve been thinking about it. I can help you in Planned Giving Accelerator Guide. You step by step week after week, how to launch Planned Giving at your nonprofit. Of course, there’s the incredible peer support too. Besides what you learned from me. Lots of cross talk. We, we set this up as zoom meetings, not webinars, so you can talk to each other. Folks get to know each other. Share successes, frustrations uh help each other. That, that part has been much more uh than I than I expected the, the, the peer support. So there’s all that if you’re interested, the info is at Planned Giving accelerator.com. If you use code nonprofit Radio, 1500 you can claim $1500 off the tuition. It’s all at Planned Giving accelerator.com and that is Tony take two. Hey, I hope people join in the class. Thank you. We’ve got just about a butt load more time. Let’s return to frustrations and opportunities with Jay Frost. What you’re espousing is be relational, not transactional, but that’s something that we’ve been talking about for 20 years. Donor centric. How long about 15 years we’ve been talking about being donor centric. Do you feel like we’ve improved? II I, I’m not experiencing it when you give, when you leave the prison. The prison charity is, hasn’t heard about donor centrism or hasn’t put it into practice. I think that’s it. I think that they haven’t put it into practice. I mean, we have had a really important discussion about whether or not organizations are community centric or not. And I think that’s a valid and important conversation, whether the organizations themselves are accurately representing the needs and interests of the community by having people within the community uh on the board and engaged in the activity and engaged in the fundraising and all these things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the organization, uh, shouldn’t do these things we’ve been talking about, shouldn’t have a note written to somebody. Shouldn’t pick up the phone and just say I appreciate so much that you care about the same things and what can we do to, you know, to make sure that you have the information you need to keep being involved. These, I think these things work well together. So I understand why we’ve had this discussion. I don’t understand. It sounds like you don’t understand it either is why when we’ve been talking about these things for so many years, whether it’s about donor Centricity, whether it’s about actively engaging the community that we end up in the same place of not doing it, of sending a digital receipt of not just finding whatever the current version of picking up the phone is. And here’s the reason why I think this really matters. I, I think it’s much more than just whether or not we’re going to hit this year’s retention figures and make this quarter’s goals. That’s important. All of that is important. But what’s far more important is that it’s about building relationships of trust that’s fundamental to major gifts, that world that I spend some time in. It’s obviously important to plan gifts, which you spend so much time in. But, and there’s so much revenue there that that’s important, but far more important if people don’t trust our organizations as a whole. And the Edelman Trust survey shows that nonprofits are also seeing declining uh faith in, in our organizations. If people don’t trust our organizations as a whole, then that means they won’t start, they won’t come on the on ramp to supporting us as volunteers, as, as employees, as board members, as contributors. And if they won’t, then we can’t meet the big challenges of our time. So these little things that we choose not to do either because we think we’re too busy or because they’re not important. End up having a direct correlation to whether or not people trust our organizations to take on the biggest challenges of our time. And these are existential. I mean, if, if we can’t get anybody to trust uh the government um or major institutions about issues like climate change, why should they trust, you know XYZ organization either if, if they are engaged with us that we haven’t asked them to volunteer, we haven’t invited them to sit down and have a discussion in the local community. We haven’t invited them to invest. And if they’re not really engaged with us, why in the world should they listen to us about why we need to make sure that we don’t go above 1.5 °C, which we just hit, we just hit this week, the thing that we were supposed to avoid for, for decades, just like for decades we’ve been talking about. Write a Thank you note. It’s, it’s almost parallel to see the decline in trust, the decline in generosity and ultimately the decline, our ability to address existential challenges and we have the ability as fundraisers to do little things to achieve great things just by building these bonds. That’s a terrific sort of segue to, you know, what we can do. And we’ve, we’ve toyed with this, uh uh while we’ve been talking, but we keep saying, don’t do this or do the other instead. But, um yeah, I, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m with you. These, these small, these small things, small tasks lead to bigger uh either trust or a lack of trust if you’re not doing them, which impinges our ability to uh stop hunger and homelessness and, and reverse climate change and, and save whales and animals from kill shelters and domestic violence victims, survivors and all, you know, all of it and, and the arts education that, yeah. So, all right. So we have the ability to write the ship. It’s just, you know, we haven’t done it. We’ve been talking about it for decades. I’ve only been in philanthropies for 27 years. It got me beat by, by 1312 or 13. Um 12 or 13. Yeah. Right. 12 or 13. I don’t wanna overstate the case. Um But you know, but, you know, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not seeing big uh I’m not seeing big impacts. I’m not seeing big outcomes, outcomes is really what we want to be measuring. So, but that doesn’t mean we stop talking. That doesn’t mean we stop trying. No. And I, I wonder if maybe the, the thing is that we need to give people a bigger goal. Um, I mean, climate change is a pretty, pretty large, pretty existential goal. Right. But that’s, that’s too big too. Right. I mean, an individual or even in an organization, probably many people and many organizations don’t feel like they can do a heck of a lot to make a change to something like that. Um They can do the little things but they can’t do the big things. But maybe there are, there’s a, there’s something in the middle that ties together the work that we do in our world of, you know, um fundraising, for example, and philanthropy together uh with um uh with that bigger, bigger existential um question and, and I wonder if it’s stuff like um determining how we work with other organizations to build trust, you know, consolidating and coordinating our efforts so that instead of everybody forming another nonprofit. Um No, well, maybe we find a way to bring these nonprofits together, not just out of financial distress, which is where we typically go with mergers, but out of AAA true desire to share power, to share resources and to achieve greater things, bigger goals, bigger impacts, you know, through consolidation and cooperation’s, that’s one and that’s a bigger goal that I, I think is also attainable. And um it, something it’s a little easier to sort of imagine rather than how am I going to make sure that the ocean water levels don’t rise too high in the Carolinas. Um, you know, but it does lead there, I mean, if we can get people to work together as organizations instead of all being separate entities, then maybe it’s going to be a little easier to communicate to the public about the importance of taking actions to lobby the government, which is another thing that we can do that we don’t do because we’re so fearful that if we lobby that it’s going to run afoul of the law and that also we won’t be able to receive all the donations we want. So lobbying is one and then we can do things like um ensure that we are partnering with the kinds of supporters who also best represent our values. So we’re not just going for whatever money is out there, but we have big audacious goals supported by larger consolidated and cooper entities in pursuit of these bigger goals, supported by people who are willing to make big investments towards those goals. So not just trying to get uh a few dollars together for a small thing, but bringing more actors together with bigger support from well aligned actors for bigger things. The first one you mentioned the partnerships and those are all valuable uh the the partnerships with other organizations. That’s something I feel that the community, the sector is doing better. I remember um grant making foundations focusing on uh on, on collaborations and, and I think that that made a difference. Um II, I do still hear that there’s, you know, fear about, well, you know, we don’t, we don’t really know what a partnership looks like, you know, is it just a memorandum of understanding or are we doing events together or, or grassroots activities together like uh an advocacy day on Capitol Hill or, or in the State Capitol or whatever? Uh you know, what, what does it look like? And, or our, our board is, is uncertain about working too closely because it kind of suggests that we can’t do the work ourselves. You know, I’ve heard some of these arguments against the, the, the, the partnership ideas, but I do still think we are further along in working collaboratively than we were like 10 years ago. You, you may be right about that. Uh But I do on my end in the consulting work that I do still see so many emerging organizations all the time. They’re popping up like, like weeds or maybe dandelions. I mean, something prettier than weeds. But they, but the problem is that they still are thinking I need to do this alone. And I, and I, and I don’t see the trouble there. I pardon my interruption, but you’re accustomed to it, you know. You know, I, I do that all the time and the, the trouble there is, you know, these are folks new to the sector. So like, you know, they have passion about something. It may have, may be an event that a AAA trauma in their life that they want to create a, an advocacy cause around, you know, but, but they jump in, I mean, their first thought is I want to start a nonprofit or maybe, you know, maybe the first thing is they do a uh a fundraiser, you know, on one of the platforms or something. And then they say, oh, you know, we made $1500. Well, you know, maybe I’ll start a nonprofit, you know, so they, they’re not acquainted with the sector. They don’t, they don’t know what they’re jumping into. And by the time they start to meet the partners, you know, they’re, they’re already incorporated for three years and they’re raising, you know, now, $5000 a year and they’re flailing. But, but they got in with all with passion, which is necessary but not sufficient. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world. And in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the Needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising, puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now back to frustrations and opportunities. It’s, it’s uh it’s hard to watch because you want to take people’s, you know, all that, all that energy and passion that they have and, and help them to achieve that result that they, they say that they want to see in the world. Um At the same time, they’re never going to, it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to hit the scale that they want. What is it? Three quarters, three quarters of all nonprofits uh annual revenue under, isn’t it three quarters under $75,000 or something like that? But, but I, I don’t know, have, have you ever had these conversations with folks who just reach out to you because you’re in the sector and you’re well known and they want to start a nonprofit and they’re like, pick your brain. I, I, I’ve, I’ve had a lot of those pick your brain kind of conversations and the folks are resistant to the idea of donating to an existing cause. That’s, that’s already doing the work they’re talking about or volunteering with it or, or uh just approaching them about how can I help somehow if, if you don’t know what the structure looks like, just they, they feel like they have to do it themselves. It’s, it’s not that the existing organizations are not sufficient. But, yeah, but they’ve already, but they may have already scaled. They’re certainly more scaled than your non-existent organization. They’re, they’re, they’re way beyond where you are now, but folks are, are resistant to that line of thinking. They, they’re just so motivated. They don’t really want to hear the reach out to the existing community versus incorporating and taking on management of a, of a nonprofit corporation. You, you really don’t know what you’re getting into. So this is, this is one of the questions that I have for myself. It rattles around in my head all the time. How much of that is the result of the way we have kind of trained the community to understand how they can engage with the existing organization. I, I mean, some of there are going to be some people who tomorrow want to start their own organization and that’s just the way it’s gonna be, but it could be that they aren’t even aware of how they could be involved with another organization. So let’s take this down to the very, you know, practical kind of fundraising stuff that we do all the time. If we look at many organizations, websites, it’s very difficult in most cases to find out how to volunteer and sometimes volunteering is not only difficult to understand within the website, but there might be barriers to it. Um And those barriers are sometimes practical on the inside. But what it means externally is if you’re the person who says I really need to help the kids in my community um with an after school program. Uh And you don’t know any, any of the programs that are existing right now. Well, maybe that’s a bit of your own personal ignorance, maybe you can do more research, but it could be also that the organization already performing that role, or more likely several organizations have not found a way to bring everybody with that passion in. So I don’t mean to blame us for not being sufficient in our marketing, but I do think that we can open the doors wider to people who share our values and our passions than we have done. And we can certainly do it even in very simple, practical ways that fundraisers have some degree of control over like our websites, our Facebook pages, other places where we are acting as an acquisition tool. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s a way that we can say you don’t need to in indirectly say you don’t need to start your own thing. We’ve already got a thing here. We value you. That’s why we’ve already invited you to participate in this and that and the other thing and to give. So why don’t you come on in and work with us and that work may be as a volunteer, it may be as a advisory board member. It may be as some kind of community event or organizational um activity person, but I’m not sure that we’re doing that job very well. And in fact, if anything, I think that we have in our efforts to streamline our operations once again, um we have narrowed the portal through which people can discover and engage with us so they can find their passions through our organizations instead of coming up with 10,000 other competing organizations. I mean, let’s put it another way. 1.6 million organizations in the United States is just too many, it’s just too many. Some of that is uh the, the, the accessibility, you know, volunteering with us could look like two hours a week. I, I it could look like just a few hours a month, you know, or you, sometimes you see volunteer options but, you know, it’s not, I, I don’t, I don’t know, you, you sounds like you’ve, you’ve spent more time thinking about it and, and looking at them. Um II I, I’m thinking about, you know, volunteering. We, what does it look like? I mean, define, define what folks could do as a, as a volunteer. I mean, I think a lot of people would like to enter as a volunteer and then may very well become donors when they see the, the good work that you’re doing and they’re helping do it firsthand. They’re doing it with you firsthand. Um All right, Jay. Um what else? Now, what else? Uh What, what else would you opportunities on the opportunity side? Well, we also talked about the importance of, of coming up with advocacy um of making sure that uh we are taking a more pronounced role and discussing the issues that are important to us. And that might go a little bit beyond just a statement of our mission, our immediate mission. Uh maybe we once again get together with other organizations and say that this is our common platform, the thing that we all need to do together. So if we’re working with Children, there are lots of organizations working with Children and we need lots of them. Uh Maybe we don’t need as many as there are. I don’t know, but we do need a lot of people out there working with kids, but together, they probably have some common threads and if they worked together, I would think that they could also have more um more weight in lobbying their state legislatures. Um and, and their, their congressional representatives, um the federal government for more aid to Children um in various forms, whether it’s for head start programs or for after school programs. What have you. So in other words, we don’t have to have tons of organizations trying to fight over small amounts of money, kind of that scarcity principle, but instead coming together uh in pursuit of larger goals and then lobbying together uh to make sure that there are more resources available to address these common needs. So I think that advocacy is something that we don’t pursue as well as we could. Um And, and we could, we could do it in a more concerted and um, and successful way uh advocacy days in Washington or in state legislatures are a great example of this, but they’re usually done by individual organizations rather than by a group. Um, and so that’s one more way that I think that we could find common causes together and work together for, uh, a more, more successful outcomes, an advocacy day. I mean, I see that as perfect, uh, fertile ground for partnering, you, you’d rather have six busloads of people than one or a half and one of the organizations may have other organizations are gonna have relationships that you don’t have with, with staffs and, and this could be like we both said, Washington or at the state level. Um, I, I don’t know, I see that as ripe opportunities for, for partnering door knocking campaigns. The same thing. We, we’d rather have hundreds of people than a dozen. And I would think that would be easier if we’re working with a coalition of them. I mean, that’s, that’s definitely what happens in a political campaign. And there are some things that political campaigns do well and some things that they, they don’t, they’re much more transactional, but there are some things they do well that we can learn from and we can uh make sure that we employ those same tools and, and techniques and approaches to reach more people, get them more engaged. You had a, a dalliance with uh political campaigns. You were, you were considering running for uh for the US House at one point. I remember years ago, years ago, I never, I never jumped into the, into the, you were considering, I admire that you were thinking about it. You were serious enough that you, you publicize it to some of us, some. Well, I, I was involved at the state level with uh with the Democratic Party. Um And uh so uh was involved as a finance chair for our congressional district and doing other activities like that. Um There’s also a history of politics in my family on both sides of the aisle, uh especially with advertising and marketing, interestingly enough and in, in, in that world, what I find really interesting is advocating for ideas. So it’s not just, it’s not just the politicking over the bills, but it’s also saying that this is what’s important to us. Let’s fight for it together. Um And I, I think if there’s a kind of a through line in all this discussion, it might seem like we’re bouncing around a little bit. Uh But for me, it’s that if, if we can figure out what it is that we’re pursuing and then find out what our common interests are and common pursuits, then we should be able to attract more people to that together, um, to work on those things and more resources to, to accomplish those things. That’s certainly true in politics. And I believe it’s true in the nonprofit sector. Um, and if there’s something that, uh, that has driven me kind of crazy in the last few years, it’s this almost disaggregation. It’s this breakup we’ve had um that uh that I think that, that fundraising in part can help to fix. Um that instead of uh finding the way to divide up the population into a million different conversations, we can find common conversations and invite people to have those with us. Um instead of fighting over red and blue and, and so forth, whether it’s political or, or sports teams or our approaches to fundraising, um Instead we can find what it is, the majority of us need to do together in order to achieve these common objectives. Um So, yeah, uh politics in some ways is very appealing to me. Um What has been most uh um uh disturbing about politics is also in some ways reflected in the nonprofit sector, we may not have the same kinds of fights here in the nonprofit world that we do in politics. Thank God for that. Um But I do think that sometimes uh we, we get involved in these little uh rivalries over ideas when in fact, some things are, are pretty simple and direct, like sitting down with people across the table and listening to them first, um showing them that we heard them and then invite them to participate equally with us in achieving a mutual, you know, mutually desired result. And I know that in earnest, most of us feel that we are doing that. We are working hard to do that in this sector, but especially in some of the ways we’ve talked about so far today. Um I think we can do better. I think that’s an a, a fine place to stop if uh if, if you’re comfortable with that. Yeah. Is there? No, I need you to work with. I was kind of all over the place. No, no, you, you were restrained, right? All right. I think you like. That’s uh those are, those are excellent parting words and we, we, we can do better and we’ve got existential challenges that are at stake back to J Frost. Oh, thank you. Um Yeah. And we had a, you know, I should have given you a little more space for humor, Tony because this wasn’t the laugh fest. It usually is with you. That’s the only problem. Well, that’s when I’m, when I’m the centerpiece. It’s, it’s more uplifting. No, you were quite uplifting. Maybe. Uh maybe I wouldn’t go so far as to say jovial. But uh you’re uplifting, uplifting. All right. He’s Jay Frost. He hosts the, uh, you do this a couple of times a week, right? The Donor Search philanthropy Masterminds series. You do one a week or a couple of week, 22 per week, plus one podcast per week for 46 weeks. This year, I’m giving myself a little vacation. All right. Let’s not get too slack. 46 444 weeks of vacation. 4 to 4 to 6 weeks of vacation. Um, You’ll find him on linkedin and you’ll find him at the uh philanthropy Masterminds series, which is he’s the host and donor search is the sponsor of the, of the series. Thank you, Jay. Thank you for uh Thank you for opening up. Thank you to really, really appreciate it next week. Publish your book, Thought Leader. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com or sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving, virtuous.org. Welcome again. Virtuous. Thanks so much. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Marinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week. For nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for March 15, 2021: Relationships With Funders

My Guest:

Shavonn Richardson: Relationships With Funders
There’s too much transactionalism and not enough relationship building between nonprofits and their institutional funders. Are you a transactionalist? Do you want to walk toward the light of relationship fundraising with foundations and corporations? Shavonn Richardson can show you the path. She’s CEO of Think and Ink Grant Consulting.

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:00:13.94] spk_3:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big

[00:01:56.24] spk_1:
non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of African trypanosomiasis if you bit me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Relationships with Funders. There’s too Much Transactional is, um, and not enough relationship building between nonprofits and their institutional funders. Are you a transactional ist? Do you want to walk toward the light of relationship fundraising with foundations and corporations? She, even Richardson, can help you. She’s CEO of Think and Ink Grant Consulting, tony State, too. Podcast pleasantries, reduction. We’re sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o. I’m very pleased to welcome shaven Richardson to the show. She is founder and CEO of Think and Ink Grant Consulting. She worked as a program manager for a corporate funder, deploying over a million dollars in grants and sponsorships to Atlanta nonprofits. Now she gets grants for her clients and has successfully leveraged over $25 million in funding. She’s a Forbes thought leader and serves on the board of directors for the Grant Professionals Association. She’s at Shavon Richardson and her company is at Think and Inc grants dot com. Welcome to nonprofit radio Shabaan.

[00:01:57.78] spk_0:
Thank you, Tony. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:02.04] spk_1:
Absolutely. It’s a pleasure. Do you know the shaven Richardson who stole your name from Twitter before you before? I

[00:02:08.81] spk_0:
wish I could hunt her down and get her her Twitter tag. Yeah, that would be more convenient for sure. You

[00:02:17.04] spk_1:
haven’t. You have not threatened

[00:02:18.09] spk_0:
her? Not yet. Not yet. But if you find her, let me know.

[00:02:21.14] spk_1:
Okay, well, we know how to find her on Twitter. She’s Ron Rich. Uh, we don’t like her Shiban Richeson

[00:02:28.70] spk_0:
on

[00:02:36.64] spk_1:
Twitter. So you have the, uh, background of being a program manager. You are concerned that and I obviously you saw this as a program manager that folks are are to transactional, right? They submit these blind applications they don’t have relationships with with program managers like you. You wanna like you used to be. You want to turn that around?

[00:03:20.44] spk_0:
Yes. Yes, yes. I was a program manager at Bank of America Foundation. Oversaw a lot of the, um, grants that came in and sponsorships that would come in. Reviewed applications, build relationships with non profits. And I think my biggest pet peeve was, um, someone committee what we call a cold application without any outreach to our office or any connection or we knew anything about.

[00:03:25.44] spk_1:
So even with Bank of America, we can we can have we can. We can establish a relationship with a person at Bank of America

[00:03:32.19] spk_0:
Foundation that it is doable.

[00:03:36.64] spk_1:
Okay, all right. And I presume the folks with the relationships have a better shot of getting funded, right?

[00:04:11.94] spk_0:
Why are they overall, just in general? We’re talking about any funder, right, whether it’s a corporate funder or a family foundation or any sort of private foundation, the more they know about you and more about your nonprofit organization and more about the really valuable work that you’re doing. Um, they’re more. They’re in a position to make a determination whether they want to invest in support, that the work you do. So it’s all a part of getting to know you. You’re getting to know them and making sure that there’s an appropriate match,

[00:04:40.84] spk_1:
because the program manager is basically an advocate for your grant application, right? If they believe in it, then they have to bring it up. Obviously, it’s certainly a Bank of America, you know, to bring things up to folks, folks above to to get approved funding. So, like, aren’t you? Isn’t the program manager basically the advocate for the grants that that, uh, he or she believes in?

[00:05:25.34] spk_0:
Yeah, well, you know, they can be an advocate, right? It just really depends, because every fund is different, right? So, you know, some funders will have the program managers make the decision as a group as to who gets funding. Sometimes the program managers are in a position to kind of gather all the applicants, maybe writing a summary, uh, what the program is, and then maybe boarding it to a board of directors or a committee or a group of non profit leaders that are responsible for actually making the decision. But either way, a program manager is involved in the process. Um, and the more they know about you, the more that you know, there might be some opportunities for them to be an advocate if it’s appropriate.

[00:05:41.74] spk_1:
Okay, So if we’re thinking about, uh, let’s start with the corporate since you were on the corporate side and then we’ll talk. We’ll talk about foundations to, um, But let’s start with the corporate side. How do you? Well, I guess it starts with research. You’ve got to make sure you’re talking to a corporation that funds the type of work that you do in the area where you are, right. So it starts with good research,

[00:06:58.04] spk_0:
especially research, you know, especially large funders, large corporate funders to get a lot of emails and calls from everyone right about different things. But if you just start with going to their website and learning more about, they’re giving priorities. Every corporate funder has given priorities or their focus areas on their website. You want to make sure that the work that you’re doing is in line with one of those focus areas so that you’re not reaching out to a funny to say, Hey, do you support this really cool thing that I’m doing when it’s already very clear on their website that they do or they don’t all the times they’ll have, like a little survey of yes or no questions to see if you’ll be eligible to apply, so that’s that’s the first step. The next step would be kind of, um, the outreach, right? Some will say, Hey, we don’t have the capacity entertained phone calls. If you want to engage with us, please send in a l O I, which in our industry is considered a letter of intent or a lot of interest. So that’s just a quick summary of your program for them to get to know you. Others have just a general inbox, um, email that you’ll find on their website. If you have questions, you know, here is a way to contact us. So those are kind of like the first ways to start connecting with a potential corporate funder and build a relationship.

[00:07:11.57] spk_1:
If there one that’s willing to take calls, you, uh, you pick up the phone and what do you say?

[00:07:18.84] spk_0:
Well, I say they were at least I can say, at least for our clients that it’s a very strategic conversation we actually plan. Yeah, just don’t pick up the phone calls. They take calls school. I mean,

[00:07:33.94] spk_1:
let me chat them up about my work. Okay, So what do you think What are you planning before you before you do pick up the phone?

[00:09:00.44] spk_0:
Yeah. So if everybody gets on the phone, it’s always good to have at least one or two people that you’ve connected with, um, as far as their contact information. Right? Because folks leave, folks come and go all the time. So the one person that you’ve connected with, if they leave, then you’re you’re kind of out of luck. So it’s good to have, you know, to contact, right? Um, if you reach out via telephone to arrange some time on someone’s calendar or via email, I would always say limited to 15 minutes, right? They’re busy people. And in that 15 minutes, you have a clear understanding of what you’re talking about. Oftentimes with our clients, these unscripted conversations that we plan, we’re not scripted word for word. But we do have a strategy as far as what we want our clients to share during those conversations and really stick to it. Um, in the end, leave a few minutes for any questions. Um, always end with a like a follow up like, Hey, you know, how can we stay connected? Is it okay if I, you know, seeing you a letter from a person we just recently helped, or how can we stay connected and and And that’s a start, right? And to keep it a warm connection, right? Figure out ways to keep them engaged, to always keep my breast of the work that you’re doing. And I think the key point is to do this regardless. If there is a pending grant deadline, do this when there’s no grant deadline, right?

[00:09:28.64] spk_1:
I was gonna ask about that. Okay, So there’s no, there’s no even grant deadline yet. You’re just opening the channel before so that you’ve you’ve made the point in a couple of your blog posts or videos that, you know, don’t wait until two weeks before a deadline. You try to open a conversation, you’ve you set yourself up like maybe not definitely for failure, but you’ve You’ve made it a lot harder on everybody. So So this is before there isn’t even a day before There’s even a deadline posted.

[00:09:48.24] spk_0:
Exactly. And you know, sometimes if you do this work without a deadline, sometimes when a grant does come down the pipeline, don’t reach out to you and they’ll say, Hey, you know, we’ve been talking for the last six months. I think this is a good opportunity for you. Check it out and they’ll just forge you an opportunity. And that’s that’s even better, right? Because that means that your top of mind for them,

[00:11:03.44] spk_1:
it’s time for a break. Turn to communications. You know, the relationships that turn to has. These are examples. Examples. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Those are the biggest. They have others, and they’ll make others others where you belong, where they can help place you so that when there’s a news hook that you belong in, they know who to call. They’ve got the relationships relationships. That’s how you get yourself positioned in the media that you want when you want it there at turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to relationships with funders. You see the symmetry here you see, you see how it’s all connected with the relationship theme transcending. It’s resplendent with relationships. Unbelievable. So in that phone call or in these series of calls, as you’re keeping in touch with them, you’re trying to show them how your work aligns with their funding priorities. I mean, especially in that first. Like you said, a 15 minute phone call. You’re trying to hook them into what you do and how it overlaps with what they fund, right?

[00:11:19.94] spk_0:
Exactly. And I think when people go wrong is that they just they’re just so excited just to share all the work that they’re doing and they make it about them. But you know, these social, corporate friends, this is not altruistic. Giving is like it’s a reason why they’re investing in you is because you’re aligning with what they need to do. So always to keep the funder in mind and making sure that you are aligning to what they are looking for.

[00:11:46.94] spk_1:
And then over time, as you’re keeping in touch, is it okay to email them when you maybe have a big success? Or I don’t know, uh, email them announcements. Maybe about a couple of new board members. I mean, is that kind of stuff appropriate? Is that is that a good way to be keeping in touch with them?

[00:12:00.54] spk_0:
Exactly. Right. Exactly right. Press releases, uh, update new things that are happening. That’s always good to kind of keep them in loop. I discourage people from including them on your mass newsletter distribution list. Um, that’s a big no, no, definitely any personalized communication. If you want to extract information from your newsletter, that’s fine. But let it be personal. Let it be from the executive director. Uh, I know I personally have small when I’ve received stuff in the mail. Like I’ve received pictures of those that we’ve helped with a little handwritten letter in crayon. Hi. Thank you so much for the grant. That’s a tear jerker. And a lot of times I would put them up in my office. I was just going to say

[00:12:43.05] spk_1:
that. I bet you put them up

[00:12:44.01] spk_0:
in your office. I put my office

[00:12:45.78] spk_1:
crayon letters from, like, a seven or eight year old.

[00:12:50.24] spk_0:
Yeah, put them up in my office and, you know, there you go There on my mind. 3 65. So, um, getting something in the mail, you know who gets stuff in the mail anymore, right? So it would stand out. I’d say, Wow, it’s a package on my desk. What is that? And it really made a difference. So anyway, that you can engage them, whether mailing something or be email not too often, but when you really feel like there’s something significant that you’d like to share,

[00:13:50.94] spk_1:
so it’s not really that uncommon. I mean, it’s not really that different than keeping in touch with individual donors, you know? All right, So you’re saying you know, you wouldn’t include them on your in your e newsletter mail list? Okay, that’s that’s an exception. But you know, your major donors, like you’re inside individual donors, you keep in touch with them. You build relationships with them for when the time comes that you are going to be asking them. I mean, these are all strategic relationships. They’re not like you said. They’re not altruistic. Uh, you know, there’s a purpose behind these, but it sounds parallel to individual relationship building.

[00:13:54.74] spk_0:
It is okay. It is very parallel, and it’s so odd. I know I know a lot of fun reasons that are like, really good at engaging with individual donors, and I tell them like that that’s just not my jam. And then I think about it like, but there’s really a lot of like you could really apply to say, strategy. So that doesn’t mean that, uh, you know, it’s it’s necessarily a difficult thing. It’s just you just have to do it right? Like how it with a strategy and apply it

[00:15:11.54] spk_1:
because even Bank of America is made of people. Yeah, right. I mean, you’re you’re a person. You have feelings you like to be kept in touch with. You know, you like to get warm, soft, fuzzy, You know, things in the mail, like you’re saying so. You know, even Bank of America is made of people, so connect, connect on a personal level. All right. All right. So then let’s just follow that that relationship through a little bit. So now let’s suppose there is a grant application deadline Now it’s I don’t know how. How far in advance do we find out about these things? Like, three months or six months? Random varies. Okay. All right. So you find out now there’s an application. Three months, three months. You’ve got three months, but you’ve got a relationship with the with the company. Um, what do you do? You pick up the phone and say, Well, you know, can I apply or do you You just apply or you can leverage. How do you leverage your relationship?

[00:15:14.20] spk_0:
You pick up the phone, you send an email. Hi, Sally. We just saw that you guys have in our p available or a great opportunity available. And it’s due in June. Whatever. Whatever. We’re definitely interested in applying. This is the program that we’re looking for funding for. What do you think? Do you think this would be a good fit? Thank you so much for your time. I know your time is super, super precious, and you’re super busy. But thank you for your time. And any insight that you can provide will be very helpful.

[00:16:06.54] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um and then you go ahead. I mean, you got to follow. You gotta follow all the details. You make the point somewhere that if it says font size 12 and you do font size 11.5, you’re putting yourself at risk. Exactly. Okay. And then your work, of course, is preparing. You know, you gotta get budgets and referrals, and you gotta You gotta follow the follow all the guidelines.

[00:16:28.04] spk_0:
Yeah, well, a lot of our work, we’re unique at thinking and great consulting because we cover all aspects of great seeking from beginning to end. Uh, we do the nonprofit consulting to strengthen your organization, so you submit a strong proposal. We do, the research will go and find a good opportunities Will do the actual writing what you’re referring to. And we actually do the evaluation support. So we’ll evaluate the program. Um, at the end of the program, a lot of nonprofit leaders have to form four different relationships just to get all of that done. Um, but our team actually has people on staff to do all of those things, So we make it really easy for nonprofit leaders.

[00:16:52.04] spk_1:
We were talking about grants, grant application, But how do how does it vary if it’s if it’s sponsorship,

[00:18:04.34] spk_0:
uh, sponsorships? It’s And it’s weird because it’s changing with sponsorships. Before, It used to be just a marketing spin, right? It was awareness, and I’m talking about corporate funders. It was just bringing awareness to a brand, right, Um and it was tied to kind of like, you know how many people are going to see us and you know, the quality of the target market that we’re engaging and all that and I find that, like, sponsorships are getting more like grants now, like they want impact. They want, um, outcomes and objectives and all of that. So they’re kind of like a hybrid, so to say. But grants are definitely just, um, very structured. Just the classic K. You know, what is your mission? What is your program? What is your budget? What you’re hoping to achieve? How are you going to measure success? The application for a sponsorship, I would say, would most likely and again these lines are blurring, not be as intensive, although they do vary by thunder. Um, but, um, yeah, so I would say that they, for the most part not as intensive. But I find them getting a little more intense as far as asking very similar related questions.

[00:18:17.34] spk_1:
Are you seeing a lot of companies that want employee engagement as a part of sponsorship agreements?

[00:19:12.94] spk_0:
Absolutely. So the employee engagement pieces key and what that looks like is having employees opportunities for employees to come out and volunteer with a non profit organization. Or sometimes it’s the exact opposite. There’s some corporate funders that won’t even give to your nonprofit if it isn’t recommended by an employee or former employee is not, you know, um, active on the board or volunteering, or that they will see kind of employee recommendations before they give or give a preference. Or sometimes they’ll even be a question. They’re like, Do you have some of our employees that are engaging with your nonprofit like, What is their role? And a lot of those questions are optional, but some, um, won’t even give unless it’s like referred to employees. So employing instrument is key. And I think a lot of nonprofits overlooked at because that is something that corporate funders value. But sometimes nonprofits don’t always have the capacity to engage

[00:19:46.34] spk_1:
right, You know, if it’s a sizable company, I mean, they want maybe hundreds of employees engaging in a volunteer capacity or like I’ve heard of, you know, maybe stuffing backpacks or, uh, if it’s, uh, it’s a soup kitchen or something, you know, then then there’s ability for cooking and serving and an administrative work as well. But it could be like you’re saying. I mean, it could be a capacity thing like you just you may not have the capacity to manage the number of employees that they want to have volunteering.

[00:19:56.84] spk_0:
Exactly, because, I mean, you need a volunteer manager. You need to you know, it has to be a good experience for the corporate sponsor.

[00:20:28.84] spk_1:
All right, So you you got to manage capacity to think about what’s appropriate. But on the other hand, you know, it could be a small It might be a small local company where, you know, maybe they just have, like, 20 employees, and they want to send half of them, you know, once a month to spend five hours or something. So maybe you can Maybe you can accommodate 10 employees for five hours twice a month. Okay. Think about. All right. Um, what do you What do you say you mentioned the l. A y. The letter of inquiry or interest? What do you What are you saying in an l O I

[00:21:37.64] spk_0:
so L o I, um some some funders will give specific instructions on how to respond. It’s almost like a mini grant, right? Um, others are just kind of open ended. Like, hey, just send us an l o I. And so for the open ended alloys, usually it’s just a brief summary of your organization when I say brief, I mean brief. It is not. A whole historical layout of your organization is very brief just to give them some contacts for you to start talking about your actual program. So once you give a brief overview of your organization, give a brief overview of the project very succinctly and talk about how your project can potentially in line with a lot of the great work that, um, the funder is doing. Depending on who the front er is. You know, you may want to end it with, you know something to to make you stand out or really aligned with what the fund is looking for. But in essence, that is what l. Y looks like.

[00:23:39.04] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s Take two podcast pleasantries. I’m enjoying sending the podcast pleasantries, which at times have been podcast pleasantries. But they’re not today. These are the ones that have survived the pleasantries because, you know, it makes me nostalgic for the studio days when there were live listener love, affiliate affections and podcast pleasantries. Yes, the Studio days with Sam the podcast pleasantries are the only ones that survived. Uh, the other audiences, uh, Well, I cast off. It’s not that they not that they departed. I cast them off the podcast pleasantries. And I mean the affiliate affections and the live listener love in that order. So I’m I took the initiative. And what remains is our biggest audience. The podcast audience. You? Yes. You listening right this minute. I’m sending pleasantries to you. I’m grateful you’re a listener. How much plainer can I make it? And I don’t know. Yeah, I’m enjoying sending these podcasts pleasantries. They may end. I’m not sure. I’m not sure when the podcast pleasantries will end. Let’s just Let’s just go with it. See how it feels. Weak, Too weak. I think that’s the the best strategy not to make any commitments, long term or otherwise. Pleasantries to you, our podcast, listeners. Thanks for being with me. That is. Tony, take two. We’ve got Boo Koo, but loads more time for relationships with funders with shaven Richardson. Let’s go back to where you You are submitted your grant application. Now you’re waiting. Mhm. Mm. Can you leverage your relationship that you that you have with the with the funders to ask? How was it received? How does it. Look, What am I? What are our chances Look like, What can you do after you’ve submitted the application? Hopefully by the deadline. If you didn’t make it by the deadline, you’re

[00:24:31.74] spk_0:
out, right? Yeah, exactly. They hold fast to the deadline. I would say. I mean, this is very a really difficult question to answer, because while an application is being reviewed, you don’t want the appearance that you’re trying to sway a prog program. Managers mind or influence it while it’s pending. So oftentimes, um, if you check in, they won’t respond because they’ll say we’ll get back to you after X y z deadline. And that’s it. So for some, it’s it’s sitting. Wait, Um, if you’re fortunate to have some type of in and get some insight, then that that that’s just pure fortune because you definitely want to have the appearance that you’re trying to influence or get a ahead while they’re in the process of reviewing applications.

[00:24:45.92] spk_1:
Okay, so the decision is supposed to be made based strictly on the application

[00:25:14.14] spk_0:
at that point. Yeah, because, you know, it’s it’s a competitive thing, right? So, you know, you can ask all the questions you want prior to submitting, right? Build all the relationships you want. Um, once that deadline hits, they have all the applications in, um, they’re in the process of reviewing the applications, so you almost have to allow that to go. But if you do find someone that says, Hey, I was in the room and it gave great feedback or with the face to it, like that’s just that’s just a blessing, because that that definitely doesn’t happen.

[00:25:45.74] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. So don’t don’t don’t overreach like then you’re then you’re taking advantage of the relationship, and that’s obviously a negative. Okay, um but it sounds like you would encourage folks to to definitely be in touch during the application process while you’re if you’re not sure about what, How to answer a question or, you know, as you’re preparing the application, it’s it’s fine to be in touch,

[00:26:20.74] spk_0:
of course, and I would even take it a step further. I would even say, Don’t submit an application if you have not had some type of outreach or connection with someone in the office. I mean, really like like we call it submitting a cold app, just submitting it blind you’ve never had a conversation with anyone in the office, there’s no connection. The most likely look at you and they say, Well, who is this person? All right, Well, maybe we want to prove it now because we need to get to know them better. Maybe they will reapply, and we’ll consider it then. So I would definitely say before you even think about submitting an application to have some type of connection, some type of outreach with the thunder. First,

[00:26:38.04] spk_1:
let’s switch to the the private foundation side. Is it very different relationship

[00:27:59.94] spk_0:
wise? I think it’s the same relationship wise. I think access and capacity is different. Uh, there’s some foundations that have, um, our all volunteer led. They don’t have paid staff, right, So you may not be able to get someone on the phone to talk to. They may have board meetings once a quarter, Um, and you just have to submit and wait till they meet, right? And so the capacity is limited, But then you have other foundations that are very, very friendly and very open to talking to people and encourage the outreach and have the time and the resources available so It depends on capacity. I know that covid and working from home change things a little bit as far as capacity. Uh, you know, before we might have been able to get, um, folks on the phone when they were in the office. But now that their home, it’s like, um, they have a bigger workload now because of shifts in, you know, staffing and different things that have changed. So getting someone on the phone might be harder, because now they have so many applications to manage, right? Because every nonprofit needs money, especially now in the middle of a pandemic. So, you know, maybe when they were in the office, people endemic, they might have had some time to have a conversation with you. But now that they’re working from home, they might be down a staff member. They have more applications. Their capacity may not be the same.

[00:28:20.04] spk_1:
All right, so yeah, I guess you would start with the website to try to figure out whether they accept calls, right? And inquiries by phone, like you were saying on the corporate side. But after that, just I mean, if if the website doesn’t really say, just reach out and try and see what see what happens.

[00:29:23.14] spk_0:
Yeah, and I will also say not to to make it more complicated. There’s some foundations out there that don’t have websites. No way to connect with them. Um, you might get a phone number, right? Like there’s foundations that don’t have websites. And so that’s why sometimes beyond just your normal a Google search. Um, sometimes I will say, you know, go to a great writing firm or nonprofit consulting firm. And if they’re willing to do some research for you, um, go that route because I know we have, you know, just relationships with funders and people who worked with that don’t have websites. But we have, you know, the connection there and were able to kind of, like, you know, make an introduction or do something, and we have our ways of finding out who sits on the board and you know how to make those connections. And so, you know, try to do as much as you can on your own. But I would always say, like if you need help, like, don’t be afraid to kind of reach out for help, especially if it’s one time support, right to get of insight on opportunities are available out there and the relationships that you need to build.

[00:29:54.74] spk_1:
Okay, Yeah. A foundation that doesn’t have a website. Sounds pretty closed. I mean, they’re not even They’re not even telling publicly what their funding priorities are. So you have to drill down and do research. What about the, um Well, it used to be the foundation center. Now, is it candid the the, uh, the service that they have, which is a subscription service for grants for foundation research? Yeah, F c. I forget what it used to be called FC Something

[00:29:58.78] spk_0:
etcetera online

[00:30:08.24] spk_1:
foundation center online is that? I mean, I know, I know listeners have to subscribe to it, but is that a valuable, um, research tool?

[00:30:15.94] spk_0:
Absolutely. A lot of those those foundations. Um, some are have websites, some don’t. Right. Um and so using as a resource, you can always pull up the funders they linked to nine nineties. So you’ll see an address and a phone number and a list of board directors. And there’s a lot of insightful information, so that’s definitely a good resource.

[00:30:42.34] spk_1:
What about on the federal funder side talking about a federal agency. What’s the relationship building like potential there?

[00:30:48.34] spk_0:
Yes, that’s a good question. So it’s kind of different, right? It’s not as, um personal as far as sending emails. Hey, this is what we’re doing. It’s more informational. And so every foe. And that’s the opportunity announcements for federal grants, mainly. Yeah, we

[00:31:08.73] spk_1:
have. Sorry. What the heck is a PFOA

[00:32:25.64] spk_0:
federal opportunity announcement? You’ll hear it reference that you’ll also hear RFP but this RFP saying for I don’t know. Sorry, guys. Yes. Okay, so, um, so with that, you will always see a list of everything you need for the grant. What to include? How to submit. Um, and usually will have multiple documents sometimes. Um, if you go to their website, you’ll see frequently asked questions. Always attend. The webinar always have the opportunity to ask questions during the webinar if you didn’t attend a lot of times to have replaced. So it’s good to attend that first. And I say this because they always have a contact of a person to reach out to. If you have questions, you want to be able to reach out to that person. If you have questions but asking questions in a way that you’re kind of sharing more information about what you all are doing and building a relationship that way, like having a person that you can go to to ask questions. The reason why I heavily recommend reading the RFE in its entirety and listening to the Webinar because you do not want to ask questions that have already been answered. I don’t like that they don’t like that. You’re not demonstrating that you’re listening or paying attention or doing anything right. So having that person that you can ask questions is away. I mean, I don’t want to use the relationship, but it’s a way that so that they know that you’re serious, right?

[00:32:45.14] spk_1:
It’s a more professional. It’s more. I mean, these are all professional relationship, but this one’s a little more arms length.

[00:32:46.94] spk_0:
Yeah, more arms lane.

[00:32:48.64] spk_1:
Okay.

[00:32:49.23] spk_0:
Yeah, no sending. You know, emails of the latest updates. Like, you know, none of that. Nothing in the mail like it’s a professional relationship for sure.

[00:33:26.14] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um let’s see what happens when, uh, when you get turned down? Suppose you have the Suppose you have the relationship. I don’t care whether it’s corporate or private or federal, well, federal. You have some kind of relationship, but whatever you get turned down, But you do know somebody at the at the thunder you’re you call sobbing, you’re not sobbing, but you’re disappointed. You know what? What do you What do you recommend when you get the rejection?

[00:34:15.04] spk_0:
Yeah, well, you know being rejected is never easy. It’s often disappointing. I say that that that’s an opportunity to position yourself for your next wind, right? Um, I always ask for feedback on the application and some things that we could do better to strengthen application next time. I think that’s very invaluable to get that sort of insight and be able to resubmit. But taking consideration, the insight that was shared and also just, um, keep on applying for other grants. And I’m going to speak to the emotional piece because I think sometimes it discourages nonprofit leaders to a point where they lose their steam right, and they don’t want to keep applying. But I will say rejections do happen. Um, keep applying to the next great opportunity, see it as a learning lesson and see it’s an opportunity for the funding to get to know you better, and for you to get to know the funder better and just be more aligned with what they’re looking for.

[00:34:39.34] spk_1:
Okay, so it’s it’s good to reach out and get the feedback.

[00:35:52.54] spk_0:
I’m not. And with federal grants, I’m just going to add this. Um oftentimes, reviewer, um, well, provide comments on the proposal and know that you can always ask for those comments. Okay. And that’s feedback as well. So that’s how you get feedback for a federal grant for foundation grant. It’s Hello. We received the decline letter. Would love to get any feedback that you can provide to improve our chances for applying in the future or to be better line now. You may not always get a response because, especially with corporate funders, um, you know, they don’t ever want to put it out there like they’re giving one non profit and advantage over another. So sometimes they may just say if they do reply, they’ll say, Um, yeah, you know, you didn’t make it. You know, here’s the link if you want to apply it in the future, and so if you don’t get a response, don’t be surprised, but definitely try to get some insight. Okay?

[00:35:53.54] spk_1:
And you might have that relationship. Is it okay to pick up the phone to the person that you have the relationship with and ask them? That’s not overreaching it?

[00:36:05.03] spk_0:
Not at that point. It’s already been decisioned. Okay, Okay.

[00:36:08.33] spk_1:
What do you want to spend a little time talking about? I’ve been asking all the questions. What? What do you think? Relationship building wise. Haven’t we talked about that? You want listeners to know?

[00:37:10.43] spk_0:
I just want to emphasize the importance of doing. And I know that nonprofit leaders, executive directors, those that sits on sit on boards your time is stretched and we understand that, and we know it and there’s so many competing priorities. But I do recommend for nonprofit organizations to have a relationship building strategy. The top 20% of the folks on your list that you want to reach out to this year and focus on that 20% have a strategy in place. And it’s not only just calling and emailing, but also engaging in person when we’re able to write in the community right? That’s another way to build relationships and have those authentic connection. So I know it’s definitely sometimes not easy because there’s so many responsibilities. But it is definitely, definitely important. And it will take you much further than what you think.

[00:37:17.83] spk_1:
You practice yoga, right? Do does your Does your yoga practice inform your work? Is that impact your your work?

[00:37:48.73] spk_0:
I will say it keeps me ballots, right? Like I think everyone and I encourage nonprofit leaders and business owners alike to find something that keeps you balance. Because writing France, uh, is sometimes can be really stressful, right? It’s It’s a high pressure, deadline driven industry. Very cerebral. I’m fortunate I’m an introvert. So this this works very well for me, right? I am. I’m in the right profession for sure. Sound

[00:37:57.66] spk_1:
like an introvert?

[00:38:03.42] spk_0:
I don’t. I am. I am an extroverted introvert. That

[00:38:15.82] spk_1:
sounds a little a little oxymoronic. What is an extroverted introvert? You are one. But how do you It depends on the setting. Is that like you? If there’s a microphone in front of you, then you’re an extrovert. But if you’re at a party, you’re an introvert. What? How does that work?

[00:39:06.82] spk_0:
Well, what it is if you’re an introverted person you refuel yourself by doing introverted activities. So if it’s being by yourself or reading and writing, that’s what you reveal yourself. And then when you do extroverted activities, it drains you right. You feel like you have to kind of come back to your reading and writing to refill yourself. Extroverts are the exact opposite. They reveal themselves by interacting with people and talking and began doing things. And then if they’re doing something that’s like, quiet and reading a book, it drains them. So you really have to identify what drains you and what feels you and I know being introvert fuels me, and I do like doing extroverted things. But when I do them, I am completely a exhausted. If I’m speaking somewhere, I have to plan, uh, the next morning to just decompress and do some yoga and some introverted activities to kind of re fuel myself. Before I kind of get back in the mix of things

[00:39:20.82] spk_1:
you ride horses to.

[00:39:22.75] spk_0:
I do

[00:39:24.72] spk_1:
so that’s another. I guess that’s an introverted active right. That’s a solo. I mean, you could be just one of the person or something, but that’s pretty much a solo activity is,

[00:39:43.22] spk_0:
you know, and I look at the things that I do like to do, and they tend to be so activities. It’s just This is very strange, although I I like people. I have a great team, were really well connected. But I do know that I enjoy horseback riding and yoga and doing things like that.

[00:39:47.22] spk_1:
All right, the extroverted introvert. I understand now. It’s what you get, which you derive their energy from exactly. Okay, so now you’re exhausted talking

[00:40:06.41] spk_0:
to me for a No, I’m good. I think this was This was good. This is a nice balance for me. I think. You know, if I was doing a keynote somewhere, I’d be totally exhausted. That’s different. Yeah,

[00:40:09.13] spk_1:
non profit radio is not exhausting. No,

[00:40:11.36] spk_0:
no, it’s good.

[00:41:05.21] spk_1:
Thank you, Stephen. Thanks very much for having us. Sheldon Richardson. She’s at Shavon Richardson, and the company is at Think and Inc grants dot com Next week, Jeanne Takagi returns with Build Your best Better board, Bud. Maybe we’ll leave out the bud. That’s sexist. Keep that. Keep the butt out. It’ll just be build your best Better Board and Jeanne Takagi, always a pleasure to have him look forward to that. That’s your next week’s show. All right, if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows Social Media

[00:41:08.33] spk_3:
is by Susan Chavez

[00:41:09.70] spk_0:
Mark Silverman

[00:41:17.31] spk_3:
is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty, be with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go

[00:41:38.31] spk_1:
out and be great. Mm, yeah.

Nonprofit Radio for February 14, 2020: Relationship Fundraising

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My Guest:

Adrian Sargeant: Relationship Fundraising
There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian Sargeant is chief executive of The Philanthropy Centre. (Originally aired March 18, 2016)

 

 

 

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[00:00:13.54] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti

[00:00:31.34] spk_3:
non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% on her aptly named host, Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope that you and your Valentine or Valentine’s may have multiple. Let’s not go into detail. Are enjoying time together I don’t know together, or at least corresponding together to share your affinity and Valentine’s wishes with each other. Um, I remember. I remember in elementary school this is probably kindergarten or first grade E. I think everybody’s done this. We used to make the little Valentine’s Day cards, and you had you did one card for everybody in your little class. And as I look back on that now, I think that is repugnant, forced like this kindergarten coercion that you have to be Valentine’s with everybody in the class. I hated the

[00:01:05.61] spk_2:
kids in my class is I

[00:02:47.55] spk_3:
Look back now They were They were unrequited. Uh uh. I don’t want to say unrequited loves because we’re talking about kindergarten, unrequited crushes. Yeah, and bullies and geeks who reminded me of myself while I was I was trying to be kindergarten. Cool, of course. So these kids drove me crazy and I have to do a card for each one of these little kids. I should’ve put arsenic in or something. What’s that? White powder? Everybody. Males, I forget what that is. Anthrax, I should put it. I should be interactive. Those kindergarten cards just so big deal. Happy Valentine’s Day. All right, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into cardio megally if you swelled my heart with how much you’re looking forward to today’s show relationship. Fundraising. What else? There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what the social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage. Adrian Sergeant was a professor at Plymouth University and directed its Center for Sustainable Philanthropy that originally aired on March 18th 2016 on Tony’s Take two planned giving relationships. What else were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers regular cps dot com But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO Adrian Sergeant is now chief executive of the Philanthropy Center, a consultancy in the UK Philanthropy Hyphen Center Dot or GE, with the English speaking um Spelling the English spelling, I should say of Center, Very sophisticated. Here is personalized philanthropy.

[00:03:42.59] spk_2:
It’s my pleasure to welcome Professor Adrian Sergeant to the show. He’s professor of fundraising at Plymouth University and director of the Center for Sustainable Philanthropy. There he used to hold the Hartsook chair in fundraising at the Lily Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. Fact, he’s calling today from Bloomington. He’s a prolific author, researcher and presenter. If you go to the Center for Sustainable Philanthropy website, you will get bored scrolling down his list of books, papers, articles and presentations. Center, by the way, is C E N T R e. We have, ah, snooty English university there. Plymouth. He’s at Adrian Sergeant, and his last name is spelled like the military rank. Welcome, doctor, Professor. Edgy and Sergeant.

[00:03:58.14] spk_0:
Well, thanks.

[00:04:00.47] spk_2:
Pleasure. Welcome from from Bloomington, Indiana. How is it there?

[00:04:05.04] spk_4:
It’s a lovely spring day here, and

[00:04:07.43] spk_0:
I’m looking at into blue skies in sometime, which

[00:04:12.63] spk_2:
is not. Not always the case in the UK either.

[00:04:19.35] spk_0:
Uh, no, Certainly not in my part of the UK. Everything you hear about British rain and British weather is pretty much true. My region.

[00:04:23.61] spk_2:
I see. What region where his Plymouth

[00:04:26.71] spk_0:
Thomas is right down in the southwest tip of the country on its claim to fame, I suppose, for your audience is that it’s where the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from

[00:04:36.42] spk_4:
years ago. The Mayflower left from the steps of the barbeque in the area in the city. A plumber.

[00:04:54.89] spk_2:
Oh, excellent. Okay, that’s interesting. Oh, and then Plymouth. Then we have Plymouth Rock on the US side. So? So that was a very symmetric trip. I never knew that. Total symmetry ever

[00:04:56.16] spk_4:
visit. You can actually see the steps that

[00:05:04.10] spk_0:
the Pilgrim Fathers used Thio aboard the main fire before they set bail on that. That point Very epic journey.

[00:05:06.15] spk_2:
Yeah, of course. I I guess they called it Plymouth Rock Thio make it symmetric. So it’s not like it was named. It wasn’t named Plymouth Rock when they landed on it. I don’t want people to think that that’s what I was assuming that it was named Plymouth Rock when they landed. I don’t believe it was, um okay. Oh, very cool. Interesting. Thank you. Um, all right. Relationship fundraising. Adrian, it’s okay if I call you Adrian, right?

[00:05:29.41] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:05:37.64] spk_2:
Okay. I don’t get Doctor, you know, you’re not calling on me for questions or anything. So Dr a professor. Okay, Adrian, um, what’s the current state of this? I gather it’s not what it ought to be.

[00:05:59.63] spk_0:
No, sadly, the quality of relationship fundraising automatically in the States but around the world is not in a particularly happy space right now on the reason I say that is because he’s now got quite a lot of data on the pattern that dona retention and loyalty that we’re able to generate. And obviously the whole thrust of relationship fundraising is that you want to build longer term, mutually satisfying relationships and supported

[00:06:11.90] spk_2:
yes,

[00:06:25.50] spk_0:
and all the evidence that the moment is that it’s going in entirely the opposite direction we lose. Typically in the States, we lose around 70% of our supporters between the first and the second donation, and then probably around 30% of them year on year thereafter. Well, you try running a business.

[00:06:52.33] spk_2:
Yeah, I’ve had other guests on Quote that exact same statistic, and I don’t understand how this can be because there is so much talk about donor centric donor centrism and we have to listen to our donors and pay attention to their needs and put them in the center. Why Why? Why is this not working? There’s so much talk about it. Why are we not doing it?

[00:07:21.34] spk_0:
I think there are only two reasons for that. One is that often when I talk about loyalty and retention in the sense that kind of preaching to acquire a lot of fundraisers know what they should be doing or could be doing. But they don’t always necessarily get the stain level of investment from the board that they’re looking for on it could be oftentimes quite able to push that level of change through The second reason I think is on. We might talk more about this, but I think one of the problems we have in fundraising is that it’s one of the few professions, in fact, probably the only profession you enjoin

[00:07:38.08] spk_4:
without actually meeting to know anything. Good luck, you know, going to see a dentist

[00:08:03.91] spk_0:
to have studied or doctor that had studied or even employing a plumber who hasn’t studied. It’s important. I think, that fundraisers they’re exposed when they come into the profession to a body of knowledge. Then it’s agreed that this is what you need to know. If you’re going to be a successful, competent, calm razor on that, then organizations would employ people who had demonstrably, you know, got that body of knowledge because we don’t have that right now because we don’t value it. Oftentimes people end up in fundraising rolls where they’re really having to discover things that we already know.

[00:08:34.77] spk_2:
Yeah, now are we getting better? I mean, there are programs. There are degree programs and including at Plymouth University and the ones I can think of in the US at New York University and Columbia. Um, I think Fordham and those are only New York’s those ones. The ads that I get New York City. Those are only New York City. So there are more programs. Are we? Are we starting to recognize the value of a professional pressure, professionally trained fundraising force?

[00:08:45.43] spk_4:
I think

[00:08:46.92] spk_2:
for now

[00:08:47.34] spk_0:
that

[00:08:47.63] spk_2:
No, no, no, we’re not some

[00:09:17.61] spk_0:
of the some of the programs are varying quality. I mean, there are some good ones, obviously, that one come on by you. And there’s one of Mary’s in Minnesota and I could go on. But the sweet spot for fundraising education is where you got a blend delivery by practitioners and academics so that you get some of the emerging science of doing a behavior that impacts on what people Noah’s. Well, sadly, I think some programs are run entirely by practitioners. So you’re gonna get 1/2 of the equation there on what you’ll get, obviously, their you know, their background in their experience, which obviously has a place. But that’s not the same as being exposed to the modern research findings. That example on social psychology we’re gonna talk about that, could be informing what they do.

[00:09:38.26] spk_2:
Yeah, yeah, you end up with more of the conventional wisdom.

[00:10:02.69] spk_0:
Yeah, we’ve got a You know, I’ve mentioned we’ve got a problem with attention right now. What I didn’t say is that actually getting worse. I’ve just completed a very large scale study in England of six million boner records. We’ve looked at people recruited way back in 2000 and compared them with people recruited in 2010 on their substantively less loyal now. So not only we got very leaky bucket, but that bucket is getting weaker by the day.

[00:10:15.01] spk_2:
Okay, that’s Ah, that’s pretty positive motivation in enthusiastic motivation. Let’s Ah, let’s go out for a break. Adrian and I are gonna continue talking. Of course, we’ve got what What drives donor loyalty and how do you measure it? And the stages of the fundraising relationship? Stay with us.

[00:11:05.39] spk_3:
It’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As the CPS, for God’s sake. So we know what they do, right? Help with your nine nineties help with your audit. Um, we all are acquainted with what certified public accountants do. So do you need to make a change? Take a look at Wagner. You know, the, um, partner, You know, one of the partners who will be on the show Actually, next week, you each to him, um, started wegner-C.P.As dot com Talk to eat, see if their c p a firm can fit what you need from a c. P a wegner-C.P.As dot com Now back to relationship fundraising.

[00:11:08.60] spk_2:
Adrian, let’s jump in and explore what what it is that we know will drive the donor loyalty that we’re trying to reverse the trend of,

[00:12:13.03] spk_0:
Well, the fact is really quite similar to any relationship that somebody might have with an organization. So there’s a lot of learning that we can take from the commercial world that we find it equally relevant to the non profit space on. My guess is that many of your listeners will have the car service recently or they stayed in a hotel or they used the service online. That probably they’ve been asked at some point, tell us what you think of the service has satisfied. Were you with the quality of that experience on these kind of satisfaction that is, in a sense, kind of quite ubiquitous. I think they re home. They’re Big Quintus is because there’s a huge link between her status side somebody with the court in service. There was the on their level of loyalty on people who are very status by six times more likely to come back and purchase again on average, people who just

[00:12:18.14] spk_4:
satisfied. So there’s, um, active behavioral difference on the

[00:12:30.59] spk_0:
extreme of the scale, right? So the goal needs to be for our organizations to get people to the point where they’re very satisfied, actually with the way they’re treated as a donor. Now, the last one I make here is that the multiple in our world

[00:12:43.22] spk_4:
isn’t as big as it is in the trading context. Trading world very satisfied, equates to six times more likely to come back again in

[00:12:59.29] spk_0:
our world doneness. You say they’re very satisfied that the cause your service provided by the fundraising team are twice as likely to be giving a year, then thin people who say they’re just satisfied. So it’s been a massive factor, but the multiple isn’t quite as big as it might be in other contexts.

[00:13:03.72] spk_2:
Okay, um, any any thoughts? Why, that is why I don’t How come we only get 1/3 of the the likelihood of returning the compared to the corporate world?

[00:13:39.26] spk_0:
Well, I think there’s a range of other factors that player in our space that also have an impact on loyalty and retention satisfactions an important one on one of the things I like to do it folks, that conference isn’t tease and then right in the satisfaction is a major driver of donor loyalty which in terms of which in turn, is a major driver of the value of the fundraising database. So how many people actually measure it? Then on if you’re lucky in a room of 200 people, you might get one hand

[00:13:43.69] spk_2:
goes on, then

[00:14:03.46] spk_0:
you are people well out of those folks you know who’s actually remunerated, how good they make their donuts feel on Duh. You won’t find any hands that go with that point that we don’t take that factor seriously enough. But then there are other things that creep in in our world the trust in the organization that some of your listeners might

[00:14:06.60] spk_4:
be thinking God havens talking about satisfaction with a court

[00:14:10.17] spk_0:
service provided by the fundraising team. But what about all that really great stuff we do with beneficiaries? Surely that’s gotta count for something

[00:14:15.32] spk_2:
in terms

[00:14:40.30] spk_0:
of retention and loyalty, right difference that we make Andi that’s true. But for most donors, unless they’re major donors, the mechanism for that it’s trust. If I’m a major donor and I’ve given you five million to put up a building, in a sense, I don’t need to trust you because I can see the building up. Right. But if I’ve given you $50 to help starving child, that I really have to trust that you say you do exactly what you told me you’re going to do with that resource.

[00:14:46.78] spk_2:
Eso

[00:14:47.42] spk_0:
trust for the vast majority of our donors is a big driving factor in terms of lost in the

[00:14:59.49] spk_2:
Okay. Okay, Um and, uh, you know, these sound very much like, not only, you know, relationship factors in a commercial sense, but also in a personal sense. They are our friends and our parents. No loved ones.

[00:15:33.80] spk_0:
Yeah, a lot of these relationship variables are just as relevant toe all human relationships. Originally, this study of things like satisfaction, trust and commitment all came out something called relationship marketing on what that was trying to do is to take ideas from human relationships on applying. In that case, thio the relationships that businesses have the customers on at the core of a ll. The relationship that we have of the emotions of satisfaction, commitment and trust.

[00:15:40.64] spk_2:
No. Anything you want to tease out about commitment? We spent little time with satisfaction and trust anything more. You want to say about commitment?

[00:15:50.89] spk_0:
Yeah, commitment is one of the really big drivers of loyalty on dhe. Usually that comes out stronger than thin. The others I’ve mentioned

[00:15:56.90] spk_2:
on

[00:16:37.79] spk_0:
what that is is a really burning passion to be the mission of the organization achieved. And you can imagine that people who are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer tend to support charities that do that and for extended periods of time. But that real passion to see the mission achieved is one of the really big drivers of loyalty and retention on. So the question, I suppose, then, is well, I had you build commitment. Then again, we know from research Quite a few things helped build commitment that wanted the risk. So if you’re running a shelter for homeless poke and I’m a donut, the organization and I believe that by canceling my gift today, somebody, somewhere is gonna be without a bed.

[00:16:42.95] spk_4:
Tonight I am a bunch

[00:17:16.68] spk_0:
more likely to continue to support that shelter s O. That element that I see a risk in canceling will help drive commitment. So too, will a personal connection. You know, if my life had been touched, my breast cancer, because I had lost a loved one to it. You can imagine that I’d be pretty fired up about finding a cure for that being committed to those sorts of organizations on then. Also, it worthy of note is something I call multiple engagements, and there’s a micro on a macro level to that. The macro level is that people who are donors and campaigners and service users and volunteers and

[00:17:24.21] spk_4:
and wait,

[00:17:25.49] spk_0:
let me get that and

[00:17:26.26] spk_2:
you

[00:17:52.26] spk_0:
get a whopping back, more loyalty and in the micro level is every time you have a two way interaction where there’s a little bit of cognition that takes place, maybe the organization asking your question, What would you like to receive? What do you think about this? How many times do you want to hear from last year? Do you want to get news? Whatever it might be every time you have that to a interaction with water, you get a little teeny, tiny bit more loyalty. And, of course, in the digital space, it’s now by easy toe have those little, many interactions with people, and it’s really worthwhile because ultimately it drives behavior.

[00:18:01.20] spk_2:
Excellent. Now there’s research supporting all this right

[00:18:05.44] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:06.45] spk_2:
I’ve

[00:18:26.34] spk_0:
bean doing work in the not profit space for the best part of 20 years. Now on. We’ve done large scale survey work with probably a couple 100,000 donors here in the States now getting on for two million donors in Europe, tracking the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, trust and then behaviors of interest. Like like you giving next year with assembly of upgrade on even actually leaving a bequest to the organization.

[00:18:39.14] spk_2:
What about that? That’s a significant How is that a significant factor?

[00:18:46.04] spk_0:
Well, one of the big drivers off the single biggest driver, I’d say, Really, the likelihood that somebody will leave a bequest. The nonprofit organization is how long they’ve been supporting

[00:18:57.92] spk_2:
it, Yes,

[00:19:13.50] spk_0:
on and typically find working with clients. I’ll say, you know, we’re gonna have a request program that is, forget all the complicated plan giving vehicles, but just right, asking somebody to remember a charity with a gift in their will or estate documents, then the single to get indicators of willingness to do that is how long people have been. Giving Onda anytime over three years actually is a pretty good indicator that that person cares about you is committed to the cause and therefore will at least give some consideration to that request. So surprise, Surprise. You know, commitment is a pretty big indicator of the likelihood of doing that.

[00:20:15.74] spk_2:
Okay, Yeah. I don’t know if you know that, but know this, but I do plan to giving fundraising consulting, and that’s where we’re always looking for the best potential bequest donors is who are the most committed loyal donors. And, uh, I didn’t know that a CE feu is three years. Could be could be a positive factor, But I’m always looking for Some organizations are easily, you know, decades older, sometimes sometimes even 100 years old. Couple of the universities have worked. So you know, if people have been giving 2030 years or 25 of the past 30 years, they’re, ah, enormously good potential donor for ah, for bequest or some of the other plan gifts to Yeah,

[00:20:39.88] spk_0:
Yeah, I I’d agree wholeheartedly with that it And it’s amazing how very few organizations even bothered to ask for a bequest on if they do. How many organizations think that somehow people will be inspired by the mechanics of death and dying some of the communications regenerate. Thank you. Just

[00:20:43.20] spk_4:
thank you. Make

[00:20:44.23] spk_0:
a will and

[00:20:45.06] spk_5:
you

[00:21:14.01] spk_0:
may change your will. And then the mechanics of the plan giving vehicles were actually You want somebody to give You want to inspire them with a vision of what the future could look like? That people are inherently more positive about the future on so good. Positive messages about what the world might look like that evoke a little bit of emotion are actually a lot more useful in that quest space than technical brochures about how you die miserable.

[00:21:24.01] spk_2:
Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that digression. But it’s it’s what I spend my time doing when I’m not when I’m not done. Non profit radio. Very interesting to going back to the There’s little micro engagements you get. You get a little uptick. You said of of, ah, commitment went with just these small engagement.

[00:22:15.18] spk_0:
Yeah. Um, if you if you would follow my knife on you woulda measure, let’s say satisfaction and commitment. And you sent out a little survey to a sample of your dignity. Our guarantee. If you tracked that sample of people over time, you’ll find that they’re a little, teeny, tiny, bit more loyal than the balance of the database. And that’s the administration of this little bit of cognition. You’ve got a communication from the Red Cross, Let’s say and you think that’s right. I got a relationship with the Red Cross. I’ll go back to them at all. Well, that’s a relationship with the American Cancer Society. Oh, that’s right. Every time you get that little bit of interaction, you get a little bit more loyalty questionnaire getting people to take other actions on your behalf that aren’t related to fundraising. Getting them to participate in an event that you’re doing online are tuning into a podcast or tell us what you think. All of those things are really smart in terms of loyalty. Because every time you have that interaction punch up just a little bit, how loyal these individuals are

[00:22:38.39] spk_2:
not standing. Love this. Okay, um, we need to be able to measure donor loyalty. How Ah, what are what are the metrics?

[00:22:50.00] spk_0:
Uh, well, one of the one of the big issues we’ve got in our sector right now is the metrics are, well, frankly wrong on to be even more blunt about it. I think a lot of our non profit boards need to be taken at Inspector.

[00:23:10.02] spk_2:
Is that a bare bottom spanking or they keep their pants. They keep their pants up. Is it Is a parrot a bare bottom spank with a paddle? Or is this a bare handed?

[00:23:15.19] spk_0:
I think it depends on the degree,

[00:23:21.48] spk_2:
a degree of readiness you want to achieve. Okay,

[00:23:31.37] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, why did I say that? Well, because oftentimes people who serve on non profit boards are actually quite bright. Oftentimes they had very successful business careers, and that’s one of the reasons that they’re there because they’re plugging in their advice as well. On it’s almost as if they part their bring that side the boardroom before they go through and into the meeting.

[00:23:43.69] spk_4:
Because in the

[00:24:42.74] spk_0:
commercial space, they know very well the measure customer lifetime value and they understand what that is. And I understand why it’s important they understand to the merits of measuring the things that drive customer lifetime value. So that’s why you get the satisfaction. So people measuring commitment and saw you walk through into the non profit boardroom and suddenly somehow all of that knowledge and understanding they had get forgot on. The only metrics we’re interested in is how much raised this part year or month. How many did you attract? Andi, you know, don’t start the metric that short term thinking doesn’t help you think about the lifetime value of your database and you And that was fundraising. That sub optimal. What you end up with this fundraising that is content to recruiting donors on, then lose 70% of them between the first and the second donation. That complete kind of focus on short term measures get people to the point where all they do is chase the short term measures. So we’re going to continue to try and find you Don’t.

[00:24:53.67] spk_2:
No, you don’t.

[00:24:55.12] spk_4:
We’re gonna continue

[00:25:18.04] spk_0:
to try and maximize how much money we could get those spokes. Actually, what we need to do is to take a step back and say, you know, maybe we should be measuring the things with Dr Longer Term or Lifetime Dahlia on beginning to reward our fundraising with the quality of the relationships that they build. Ronda van, you know, the dollars and cents that they raised yet today,

[00:25:22.31] spk_2:
okay.

[00:25:35.58] spk_0:
And immediately you do that, you get a huge change in culture because suddenly what people are interested in doing is building relationships, not having that sort of burn and turn way, haven’t

[00:25:44.95] spk_2:
you? Must have a lot of examples of what we should specifically be measuring in our our fundraisers?

[00:26:01.29] spk_0:
Well, I would if it were me. I would be using some of the same things that the commercial world have been using for 20 years, so I would measure satisfaction commitment on trust. Andi, you know there are measurement scales to doing that. It’s a little survey. You track how people feel

[00:26:22.94] spk_4:
on. If you do that, it’s the It’s the margin of those measures that makes the difference. Remember, I talked earlier about the percentage of people who were very satisfied, very satisfied. That’s the important bit. It’s the extremes of those scales and changes in that that make the difference on the

[00:27:24.83] spk_0:
good news is that even small improvements in loyalty in the here and now translate to a whopping improvements in the lifetime value of the fundraising database. So if I can improve the level of retention by 10% in the here and now, I can increase the last time value of hundreds in database by over 50%. Why? Because the effect compounds over time. So if you’ve got more donors left at the end of this year, you’re gonna have even more the following year. And even more than you know the year after that. For many organizations, that’s not the end of the story either, because most organizations lose money on donor acquisition just to go out and keep finding lots of donors to replace the one we lost that he knew a lot of money on. If you factor that into my equation, my little improvement in loyalty in the here and now of 10% would improve the lifetime, deliver hundreds in database for anything up to 100%. You

[00:27:25.02] spk_4:
can make

[00:27:25.54] spk_2:
a huge

[00:27:26.40] spk_5:
just

[00:27:28.03] spk_0:
by having little improvement in loyalty and hearing that.

[00:27:52.10] spk_2:
All right, um, I wonder if we can drill down to ah, more micro level in terms of the measurement of the performance of our our fundraising staff. Um, are there are there individual metrics and me in terms of how how they have moved donors from one stage to the other or, you know, in terms of the the actual performance of the fund raisers themselves or their metrics there.

[00:28:31.04] spk_0:
I think, I think, the answer, that question. We depend on the form of fundraising that you’re looking at on. So the metrics will be different depending on when it was dark. Don’t nail dot response or someone like Major Get Andi made. You get officers that remunerated to for the amount of money that they raised. But they’re also remunerated for the amount of time it’s been in front of clients. The member of proposals they made the number of recognition events there. Kendall. All of those good things. Um, but one of

[00:28:49.59] spk_4:
the things I think it can be shared a causal. The forms of fundraising is have a good do we make our donuts field today on measuring that that quality of the relationship, And that does come back again. The satisfaction commitment on dhe trust in the dark spot space. I would also be saying, you know, we should be taking decisions about

[00:28:55.77] spk_0:
investments on the basis off

[00:29:28.04] spk_4:
donor lifetime value on DDE. What that means in your complaining the issues that if we’re going to invest in an acquisition campaign we’re no gonna assess that campaign is a success simply because we bought in 200 donors on a lot of 100 donors because it may be that most people were recruited, won’t come back and give again right that we’ve gone with the other alternative campaign. We could have run, you know, we only recruited in 100 donors, but actually, most of those people stayed giving for the next five years. So taking

[00:29:53.24] spk_0:
longer term decisions based on that lifetime value, I think is really smart and even in small organizations that may behind a little difficult to do some of that matter. Maybe because they’re working on, even like a simple Excel database or something, they can still be looking at things like Retention Lee on beginning to shift the focus of the way in which the team is remunerated to the level of loyalty that’s engendered now. If you can also measure the things that drive loyalty, that’s great. But if you can’t, then the starting point for me is at least to get a sense of the health of that program and the health of relationships that just by you know, the numbers of people who were still actively engaged in court.

[00:30:24.90] spk_2:
Agent. I love the idea of measuring how donors feel of, um all right, we’re gonna come back. I need you to hang out for a couple of minutes while I do a little business. Don’t go anywhere, Adrian. Just Ah, just, uh, just keep listening.

[00:32:09.45] spk_3:
We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain Software Quote We’ve been very happy with Cougar Mountain. It’s rare to encounter a problem with software, but they are always there to help walk me through it. End quote. That’s Sally Hancock in Altuna, Pennsylvania. More raves about their customer service. Don’t take it from me. Take it from the ticket from the customers. The user’s You got it. They have a free 60 day trial, which you will find on the listener landing page at now. It’s time for Tony’s Take two and your planned giving relationships. Yes, the thing I like most about planned giving. It’s the relationships and being a consultant, I have a lot fewer of these donor relationships than I did in the ah back in the years when I was director of planned giving. But there are still some and and instead of having them and enjoying them personally. I sort of enjoy Maur a greater proportion of them by Karius Lee by coaching clients, helping them to build these plant giving donor and potential donor relationships. You know, these were talking about America’s elders, and they have stories that are touching and scary. Um, historical, Uh, you know, it’s a They have a different perspective because it’s different generation and you can you can just you can learn so much. They’re in a different phase of their life. They’re more relaxed. Mostly, um, it’s, uh, yeah, the relationships. It’s very touching, part of a plan giving program, and I go in even more detail. And I’ve got a story or two on the video, which you will find at tony-martignetti dot com about planned giving relationships. And that is Tony’s Take two. Now back to relationship fundraising.

[00:35:00.59] spk_2:
I gotta send live listener love. I want to shout you out by city and state, but Sam here is having board the back end problems or something more talk about spanking or in the back end again. Um, we can’t see you by city and state, so I know that you’re out there New York, New York. ST Louis, Missouri Boston, Massachusetts New Bern, North Carolina, California I know there’s somebody in California listening, probably San Francisco, but I know there’s a California listener. Those are the live Listen, love people the loyal live a look that loyal, live listener live. Um, that I know her out there love, of course, to all the current live listeners and going abroad. I know there are listeners right now in Tokyo. Konnichiwa, I know we have listeners in China and Taiwan because we always do Ni Hao And I know that South Korea is checking in because it does week after week on Yo Hoss, I Oh, now, in case we are ah, in ah, in Mexico, we’ve had listeners in Mexico. Buenas today’s The Czech Republic occasionally does check in Dobre den Germany. We occasionally get Germany. Guten tag. Okay, I think that covers Ah, the most frequent live listeners. Sorry, we can’t do you No city and state as usual. We will get this back end problem slapped and slapped. Ah, and fixed by next week. Gotta send podcast pleasantries. Never forget the podcast listeners, Whatever it is you’re doing painting your house washing your dishes at whatever time you’re listening. Whatever activity, whatever device, over 10,000 of you so grateful pleasantries to the many podcast listeners and affiliate affections to our multiple multiple AM and FM stations throughout the country. Listeners from the Finger Lakes in New York to Salem, Oregon, and lots of states in between affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners. Okay, Adrian. Sergeant, thank you so much for holding on. I have Thio have to acknowledge all our all our listeners of whatever ilk and variety they come. They all get a special shout out. So thank you for your patients. Um, we have ah, I love these measures, but we gotta move on. Let’s let’s talk about the different stages. You’ve identified stages of the donor relationship and there are different strategies appropriate for each. First just please just lay out the but the, um, the stages are, and then we’ll come back and revisit.

[00:35:37.96] spk_0:
Well, there’s an awareness stays where people become aware of the organization. For the first time on exploration plays, people begin to kind of extra what the relationship might might mean for them on. Then you’re kind of deeper into the relationship where there begins to be an element of commitment. And then eventually, over time, you know, some relationships will come to an end. Of course not. Everybody’s gonna continue giving for forever. But what we don’t know how you treat different points in that journey can make a very big difference. Unsurprisingly, how loyal?

[00:35:42.01] spk_2:
Yes, and especially knowing that these micro engagements make a difference in loyalty. I going back to that because I admire it so much. I love it. Um, okay, we have a few minutes we can spend, you know, on each of the stages. But help us with awareness what’s going on? And what should we be doing to give our donors what they’re seeking at that stage?

[00:36:12.32] spk_0:
Well, at this point, I suppose we’re talking about people who haven’t given for the organization before. So we’re talking about individuals that you’re trying to list it, too. Get them to make a contribution for the first

[00:36:19.24] spk_4:
time on one of the things I say about fundraising in

[00:36:44.67] spk_0:
generally that some of what we generate is is really bland on. If you want to get people to give, you want them to give reasonable sums of money have to make him feel something. Logic leap to conclusions. Emotion leads the action on fundraisers. Don’t want conclusions. Progress this far in large one people take action.

[00:36:47.53] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:36:48.02] spk_4:
And so you’ve

[00:37:14.00] spk_0:
got to get people to feel something you’re gonna stimulate them to give to your organization on dhe. Too many particular kind of Sunday letters in this country. You know, a bland three or four paragraphs might inspire somebody was on the cusp of making a gift. Could, you know that’s not gonna happen. You’ve got to generate materials that Helen emotional story

[00:37:18.46] spk_2:
and telling

[00:37:19.42] spk_0:
a stipulate that all important.

[00:37:22.33] spk_2:
Okay, okay. Emotion. Um, it’s very intuitive, but we still see a lot of ah, bad practice out there.

[00:38:10.51] spk_0:
Yeah, way. Still see a lot of those very bland one page letters signed by the chief executive, maybe even a picture of the chief executive when Actually, there’s a lot to say around the nature of the cause that could be compelling. I’ll give you one example of a pact that’s doing the rankings again. It’s been around for years, But Amnesty International, they sent out a flat pain attached to a piece of card with a picture of somebody whose eyes have been gouged at on the strap line effectively says, What you hold in your hand is an instrument of torture when you read to your horror that actually why this person’s eyes against that is because some somebody somewhere in the world used the pain on this youngster Thio get guided either. And it’s horrible when

[00:38:23.39] spk_4:
you when

[00:38:38.46] spk_0:
you read it and you’re outraged. And of course, the pen can also be a mechanism for doing something about it. On immediately, I get youto feel the anger or feel the compassion for that child I talked you into the court was you understand why what I do is important at that point. And are you more likely to respond and make a gift? Of course.

[00:38:47.75] spk_5:
On you know, there

[00:38:48.92] spk_0:
are lots of other examples we could talk

[00:38:50.30] spk_2:
about. That solution

[00:38:51.55] spk_0:
is absolutely critical to getting people to get for the first time.

[00:39:01.27] spk_2:
That’s a brilliant one. Well done. Ah, Amnesty Bravo. I give you

[00:39:29.87] spk_0:
one other from kidney research in the UK. Um, there was a cent a pack that told the story of a little girl who has kidney disease on very likely won’t won’t live for many years. On the letter that was contained with the picture of this little girl was actually a letter from her kidney. Two little Katie apologizing for the fact that you know the kidney is not able to do its job

[00:39:32.83] spk_2:
and heart

[00:39:33.64] spk_0:
rending little

[00:39:34.22] spk_5:
store.

[00:39:56.08] spk_0:
But, you know, when you read it, you’ve given a real strong connection to that little girl, and you feel the heartbreak that her parents must be going through and immediately you do that. If you’ve got kids yourself, you get that lump in your throat when you think my goodness, you know I have to do something about that because that’s horrible. I don’t want the little girls like Katie not be heard, not be able to have the operation in the care they need.

[00:40:01.96] spk_2:
My okay. Uh, very touching. Let’s go to AA exploration. What’s happening there?

[00:42:35.84] spk_0:
Well, at that point in the relationship that they’re kind of getting to know you stage that’s taking place. Andi, I noticed now that there are a number of charities playing very creatively with three D communications s o, you see people less in the U. S. But another part of the world Act on shopping malls and high streets with three D headsets so that people can experience what it’s like to be in a school in Botswana, what it’s like to be in a hospital in northern Nigeria or wherever it might be in the world. So you can sort of transport people away for a few moments to be able to see the work that’s being done on the ground. I think those things are quite powerful here in states of one international aid organization that does that great powerfully with trailers, and it’ll take a trailer to a community. Then you can go inside that trailer and you can walk around a school in the developing world, and you can see the country experiences of those kids having so thinking in a very creative Ryan back. Taking people inside the cause, I think is really important don’t necessarily need to involve the latest technology. Certainly video pictures that take you into that world, I think very important on The other thing I would say at this point, is that you might begin to creep some choice in to the kind of relationship that you’re having with individuals I used to. When I was teaching this 20 years ago, I’d say, Well, it’s awful People choice from day one. So you you allow people to choose whether they want a hard copy newsletter Oh, our digital newsletter or no newsletter, but appeals or whatever since realized that it’s smarter to wait just a little bit until people get into the relationship so that they can take smarter decisions about actually what they want. Because if you ask me from Day One Adrian, do you want a newsletter? Then a green is almost certainly gonna say no, right, because newsletters sound boring, and I’m probably not gonna want that. But if you wait four or five months into the relationship, how regular newsletter? And actually I’ve realized that this is really quite moving or you know, the information that there is compelling and uninterested. Then I’m all like it say no. Actually, I’ll continue to receive So giving people a little bit of choice of the communications is a smart thing to do in relationship fundraising

[00:42:41.70] spk_2:
ago.

[00:42:42.22] spk_4:
But I

[00:42:51.20] spk_0:
would begin to creep that Emma’s. The relationship begins to develop over time, and I’d allow people to identify the kinds of things they want in the frequency.

[00:43:12.38] spk_2:
Okay, we’re gonna go out for a break. I have to mention then that the people who attended your early programs did not get the got screwed it better. Better to come to a later Adrian Sergeant presentation or Webinar. If you were doing Webinars back then, probably not know. 20 years ago, there was no there was no web. But But you get checked the guy out now because he’s learned from his own his own research. All right,

[00:43:19.01] spk_0:
Probably by the time I know exactly what I’m talking.

[00:43:23.65] spk_2:
Yes, that’ll be brilliant. Okay, there’s gonna be a gonna be a nursing home. It’s gonna get great great pro bono advice from you. Okay, let’s go out for a break. Adri and I will talk about the next stage commitment. And then we also talk about next steps for you and for Adrian’s research. Stay with us.

[00:44:13.09] spk_3:
It’s time for our last break. Relationships. Do you want journalists to know you so that when news breaks, they call you for the expertise they know that you’ve got turn to is former journalists, including for the Chronicle of Philanthropy. They know how to build relationships with journalists and get all the media to heart you right? That’s how you get great coverage when it matters. When the news breaks, you want to be called, or at least have your calls taken. They’re a turn hyphen to DOT CEO. We’ve got butt loads. More time for relationship fundraising.

[00:44:48.41] spk_2:
Um, I won’t let you know that you can get this research at pursuant dot com slash relationship fundraising pursuant dot com slash relationship fundraising pursuant is one of the funders of this research and thankfully, through their sponsorship, I met Adrian. And, uh, we’re getting this enormously wonderful value on today’s show. So thank you. Pursuant. Thank you, Adrian. Welcome, pleasure. All right, let’s go to Ah, now we just have, like, five or six minutes left. So we need to be a little efficient without time. The next stage commitment. What’s what’s happening there?

[00:45:02.81] spk_4:
Well, in commitment, you’re really beginning then to build up that strong relationship bond with the supporter.

[00:45:08.35] spk_0:
One of the things I would be doing much earlier on at the point

[00:45:11.52] spk_4:
of acquisition, actually to gather information about the sorts of things that the individual is interested in. If you’ve got a nonprofit that has four or five different kinds of program, or I think that is going on. I’d be asking them early on in the relationship which of those things they’re particularly interested in? Because if I do nothing

[00:45:27.25] spk_0:
else that I’m gonna make sure that when I’ve got something going on in one of those spaces that

[00:45:41.94] spk_4:
they’re interested in, that they know about it and have the opportunity reported being respectful of people’s interests, I think is a particularly kind of key thing and building that commitment.

[00:45:43.48] spk_2:
Okay. And that on bat comes back to some of what you were saying about giving people a choice.

[00:45:54.08] spk_4:
Yeah, if you understand why people are supporting the organization that you know that that’s a powerful thing you can then use to shake the communication where they’re gonna follow.

[00:46:16.68] spk_2:
Okay, By the way, I created a false sense of urgency, but not deliberately. When I said five or six minutes, I was alone. We have more like nine minutes left, so don’t you have an extra three minutes. So take a nap and ah, and then we’ll pick up after a three minute nap. No, um what else we got You can laugh openly, so I should hope you Please weigh. Need somebody to be laughing,

[00:46:22.77] spk_4:
thinking that my students would probably appreciate

[00:46:30.40] spk_2:
you pass that on to them, but do it at the end of the class. Do it at the very end of the class. Um,

[00:46:35.39] spk_4:
yeah.

[00:46:40.95] spk_2:
Okay, um, anymore. Yeah, yeah.

[00:46:53.48] spk_4:
If I pick up on on the nation of commitment, I think one of the other things that people possibly don’t realize that came through from my report is that the value that donors get from the

[00:47:06.36] spk_0:
relationship shifts a bit of the relationship deepens. So initially, when you’ve got that really powerful emotional packed communication that you’re not gonna use, people are really interested in the impact on the beneficiary write all about. Did you do what you said you were gonna do

[00:47:24.93] spk_4:
and have no impact on that child’s life? Well, as the relationship deepens, the donor becomes at least as much concerned about what impact on the child. I mean, for my sense of who I am

[00:47:29.88] spk_2:
on.

[00:47:35.07] spk_4:
I think you know what we’re talking about. Then it’s something that psychologists call identity, and I think that’s gonna be the next big thing in fundraising because

[00:47:42.94] spk_0:
it’s a little different from understanding the motives that people have for supporting it. The motives for supporting little Katie

[00:47:48.57] spk_4:
and her kidney operation example. Identity is a bit different. Instead

[00:47:50.59] spk_0:
of what motivated used to support the organization. That stage you’re asking, what are people saying about themselves when they give? So what kind of person are they saying they are when they support

[00:48:05.83] spk_2:
my non profit Adrian York? Let

[00:48:05.97] spk_4:
me understand that

[00:48:07.45] spk_0:
we can begin to shape our communication to make them feel good about that being that kind of

[00:48:48.80] spk_2:
Gen Shang, your colleague at the Center for Sustainable Philanthropy, C E N T R E was on was on non profit radio talking about something that this makes me think of, Um, she had research from public radio when people would call in to public radio to make a gift. They were greeted with something along the lines of thank you for being a kind supporter or a loyal supporter or a generous supporter, and she had different adjectives and and tested different adjectives against outcomes and particularly among women. The right adjectives would increase the the women’s giving through through these phone calls. Does that sound familiar to you?

[00:48:58.47] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. And what you’re talking about there, of course, is one kind of identity. You’re talking about moral identity.

[00:49:04.53] spk_2:
Okay,

[00:49:11.25] spk_0:
so, you know, a lot of giving might be because I’m saying Adrian is a moral person. I might also

[00:49:11.83] spk_4:
be saying I’m a father. I’m a parent. I’m a cancer survivor. I’m a patriot. I’m

[00:49:21.38] spk_0:
a liberal I’ma environmentalist. I’ma, i’ma i’ma. And when you understand the identity that’s being articulated, then you make people feel good about that, right? Because if they’re gonna give, when they’re that kind of person, let’s Let’s tell them it’s good to be that kind of person and give him the kind of content that really reinforces that I don’t see it makes him feel good.

[00:49:37.85] spk_2:
Yeah.

[00:49:38.31] spk_0:
Remember we said earlier in this conversation, I think one

[00:49:40.77] spk_4:
of the things we need to

[00:50:27.43] spk_0:
do moving forward if toe worry about hitting the need of our beneficiaries so sure that we could be at least is concerned with how good we made our donors feel today on one of the keys to unlocking that is to understand what they’re saying about themselves when they give to our organization and what that support of us really means to their sense of who they are. And I was saying that the relationship deepens people away to what that really means for them and who they are. On dhe, we start to be looking for a relationship. So the time to meet some of our higher order needs. And by that I mean connected personal growth, self fulfillment,

[00:50:28.51] spk_2:
Yes,

[00:50:52.96] spk_0:
what has my support, my five years support of your non profit organization, say about my personal growth and had connected? I am with people that are important to me where I am incomes of myself fulfill it. If we start to think about right, that’s where our longer term supporters are. Maybe we can help them make some of those reflections on feeling better about their support of our organization is actually where we communicate across more than any other sex. Er, we should really be concerned with maximizing how good we can make our supporters feel.

[00:51:11.60] spk_2:
Okay, Adrian, I I have to stop our our substance because we gotta move to next steps and we just have a couple of minutes left, and I want to get to both parts of this. So what can a non profit do with this wealth of information?

[00:51:39.28] spk_0:
Well, if you visit if they visit the pursuant website, they’ll be out of download a copy off. There are really two key volumes to the to the research. One is lessons from relationship marketing. One is lessons from social psychology on. They could trial some of those ideas for themselves and their fundraising. So that’s the most obvious thing that folk might be to do at the end of the court. Go to the website, have a report, anything there?

[00:51:50.51] spk_2:
Okay, and again that it’s pursuant dot com slash relationship fundraising. That’s where you’ll find the four volumes. But Adrian, you’re recommending the 1st 2 as being most valuable. Sounds like,

[00:52:02.01] spk_0:
uh, that they’ve certainly covered most of material we talked about today,

[00:52:05.94] spk_4:
okay, and there’s

[00:52:09.87] spk_0:
a lot of other ideas from social psychology. The other thing that might like to do if they’re in an organization that of a reasonable size, we’re planning on doing a serious of field experiments over the next two years.

[00:52:20.70] spk_2:
Yes,

[00:52:37.59] spk_0:
we’ll work with a number of non profit partners on blitz there. Don’t find it too. 1/2 would continue to get the communications that they get now. The other half would get communications that bean tweaked in some way to help build up relations.

[00:52:39.91] spk_2:
OK, very quickly. What type of organization are you looking for?

[00:53:04.72] spk_0:
We’re looking for organizations that have groups have donors that are above 600 people s. So we’re not looking for organizations that are necessarily massive that we’re looking for. Organizations that have a reasonable number of donors in each of the segments they want to study on will be willing to work with a bearing the cost of doing those experiment.

[00:53:07.43] spk_2:
Okay,

[00:53:07.76] spk_0:
we’ll get the impact of that relationship approach on money raised on how good people feel.

[00:53:13.36] spk_2:
Okay. Oh, excellent. Getting to the feelings. Uh, what’s your email address? If people would like to submit their organization or talk to you more about being on in the research,

[00:53:31.63] spk_0:
it’s a green dot sergeant a d r i n dot s a r g e a n t at Plymouth y m o u t h don’t a c don’t you Kay?

[00:53:42.26] spk_2:
Excellent. Adrian, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much. So much valuable information thank you. Cheers.

[00:54:03.42] spk_3:
Next week, you’ll each tomb returns with how to select your auditor, and Jean Takagi will be with us in the studio. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As Guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com Bye, Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for your non profit. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. A creative producers.

[00:55:15.64] spk_1:
Claire Meyerhoff Sam Liebowitz is the line producer. Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this cool music is by Scotts. Dine with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day, huh?

Nonprofit Radio for November 10, 2017: Relationship Fundraising

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My Guest:

Adrian Sargeant: Relationship Fundraising

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donors expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian Sargeant is a professor at Plymouth University and directs its Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy. (Originally aired March 18, 2016)

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into larrin, jim frak, sis, if you obstructed me with the idea that you missed today’s show relationship fund-raising there’s a lot of conventional wisdom about how to be donor-centric and build strong relationships. But what does social psychology research tell us about how to achieve these and what your donor’s expect from you at each relationship stage? Adrian sergeant is a professor at plymouth university and directs its center for sustainable philanthropy. This originally aired march eighteenth. Twenty sixteen on tony’s steak, too, promote the rollover, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant and by wagner cpas guiding you beyond the numbers regular sepa is dot com you’re not a business, you’re non-profit stoploss accounting software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com tell us they’re turning payment processing into passive revenue streams. Tony dot, m a slash tony tell us here is adrian, sergeant with relationship fund-raising it’s. My pleasure to welcome professor adrian, sergeant to the show he’s. Professor of fund-raising at plymouth university and director of the center for sustainable philanthropy. There. He used to hold the hartsook chair in fund-raising at the lily family school of philanthropy at indiana university. Fact he’s calling today from bloomington he’s, a prolific author, researcher and presenter. If you go to the center for sustainable philanthropy website, you will get bored scrolling down his list of books, papers, articles and presentations. Center, by the way, is c e n t r e we have ah so snooty english university there. Plymouth he’s at adrian sergeant and his last name is spelled like the military rank. Welcome, doctor. Professor. Agent sergeant. Well, thanks. Pleasure. Welcome from from bloomington, indiana. How is it there? It’s worth a lovely spring day here. And i’m looking at into blue skies in some time which and it’s not not always the case in the u k either. No, certainly not. In my part of the uk, everything you hear about british rain and british weather is pretty much true of my region. I see. What reason? Where is plymouth? Thomas is right down in the southwest tip of the country on dit came to say my pose for your audience is that it’s where the pilgrim fathers set sail from years ago? The mayflower left from the steps of the barbeque in the area in the city of plymouth. Oh, excellent. Okay. That’s. Interesting. No, and then plymouth. Then we have plymouth rock on the us side, so yeah. So that was a very symmetric trip. I never knew that total symmetry ever visit. You could actually see the steps that the pilgrim fathers used teo to board the mayflower before they set bail on that. Well, that point. Very epic journey. Yeah, of course. I i guess they called it plymouth rock teo to make it symmetric. So it’s. Not like it was named. It wasn’t named plymouth rock when they landed on it. I don’t want people to think that that’s what? I was assuming that it was named plymouth rock when they landed. I don’t believe it was okay. Very cool. Interesting. Thank you. Um all right. Relationship fund-raising adrian it’s. Okay, if i call you adrian, right? Yeah. Okay. I don’t get doctor. You know, you’re not calling on me for questions or anything. So doctor, a professor. Okay. Adrian what’s. The current state of this, i gather it’s not what it ought to be. No, sadly, the quality of relationship fund-raising what not ugly in the states but around the world is not in a particularly happy space right now onda reason i say that is because you’ve now got quite a lot of data on, um, the pattern that dahna retention and loyalty that we’re able to generate, and obviously the whole, the whole thrust of relationship fund-raising is that you want to build a longer term, mutually satisfying relationships and supported yes, and all the evidence that the moment is that it’s going in entirely opposite direction we lose. Typically in the states, we lose around seventy percent of our supporters between the first and the second donation and then probably around two, thirty percent of them year on year thereafter. Well, you try running a business with that. Yeah, i’ve had other guests on, quote, that exact same statistic, and i don’t understand how this khun b because there is so much talk about donor-centric donor-centric ism, and we have to listen to our donors and pay attention to their needs and put them in the center. Why? Why, why? Why is this not working there’s so much talk about it, why are we not doing it? I think they’re pulling two two reasons for that one is that often when i talk about dahna lorts him attention in the sense that kind of preaching to acquire a lot of fundraisers know what they should be doing or could be doing, but they don’t always necessarily get the stain level of investment from the board that they’re looking for on it could be oftentimes quite able to push that level of change through the second reason i think is on. We might talk more about this, but i think one of the problems we have in fund-raising is that it’s, one of the few professions it’s probably the only profession you’ve been join without actually meeting to know anything. Good luck, you know you’re going to see adventures to have studied or doctor that had studied or even employing a plumber who hasn’t studied it’s important? I think that fund-raising they’re exposed when they come into the profession to a body of knowledge. Then it’s agreed that this is what you need to know if you’re going to be a successful, competent fund-raising on that, then organizations would employ people who had demonstrably, you know, got that body of knowledge because we don’t have that right now because we don’t value it. Oftentimes people end up in fund-raising roles where they’re really having to discover things that we already know for the first time. Yeah. Now, are we getting better? I mean, there are programs. There are degree programs and including at plymouth university and the ones i can think of in the us at new york university and columbia. I think fordham and those are only new york’s. You know, those ones? The ads that i get new york city, those only new york city. So there are more programs, are we? Are we starting to recognize the value of a professional pressure? Especially trained fund-raising force? I think for now that you know we’re not some of the some of the programs are burying quality. I mean, there are some good ones. Always see that there’s one come on by you and there’s, one of seminaries in minnesota. And, you know, i could go on. But the sweet spot for fund-raising education is what you got a blend of delivery by practitioners and academics so that you get some of the emerging science of dona behavior that impacts on what people know as well. Sadly, i think some programs are run entirely by practitioners, so you only get one half of the equation there on what you’ll get, obviously their, you know, their background in their experience, which obviously has a place but that’s not the same as being exposed to the modern research findings that, for example, on social psychology we’ll talk about that could be informing what they do. Yeah, yeah, you know, you end up with more of the conventional wisdom. Yeah, we’ve got a you know, i’ve mentioned we’ve got a problem with attention right now what i didn’t say is there’s actually getting worse? I’ve just completed a very large scale study in england of six million dahna records on, we’ve looked at people recruited way back in two thousand and compared them with people recruited in two thousand ten on their substantially less loyal now, so no only we’ve got very leaky bucket, but that bucket is getting weaker by the day. Okay, uh, that’s ah, that’s pretty positive. Motivation and enthusiastic motivation let’s, let’s, go out for a break. Adrian and i are going to continue talking. Of course we’ve got what? What drives donorsearch multi and how do you measure it? And the stages of the fund-raising relationship? Stay with us, it’s time for a break pursuant, they’ll help you bring new donors to your work. They’ve got a new content paper on donor acquisition it’s the art and science of acquisition i hope you watched their webinar on finding the hidden gems looking among your existing donors, so you covered that now, it’s getting new donors this paper covers strategies that work from successful acquisition campaigns, and really, this is a campaign you want to think about acquisition as a campaign for new donors, plus the numbers pursuing his data driven, you know that. So what metrics should you be paying attention to? How do you know whether your campaign is succeeding? If you need to pivot pursuing has a landing page exclusively for non-profit radio listeners, you know this and that’s where you’ll find this content paper, it is the art and science of acquisition and that landing pages at tony dot m a slash pursuant capital p now back to adrian, sergeant talking relationship fund-raising adrian let’s jump in and explore what what it is that we know we’ll drive the donor loyalty that we’re trying to reverse the trend of, well, the fact of ah, really quite similar to any relationship that somebody might have with an organization so there’s a lot of learning that we can take from the commercial world that we find it equally relevant the non-profit space, andi, my guess is that many of your listeners will have had the car service recently, or they stayed in a hotel or they used the service online that probably they’ve been asked at some point tell us what you think of the service has satisfied were you with the quality of that experience on these kind of satisfaction that is, in a sense, kind of quite ubiquitous? I think the’s day on re homeless ubiquitous is because there’s a huge link between her status side somebody with the court in service they receive on their level of loyalty on people who are very status by are six times more likely to come back and purchase again on average than people who just satisfied so there’s um, active behavioral, different on the extreme of the scale, right? So the goal needs to be for our organizations to get people to the point where they’re very satisfied, actually with the way that they’re treated as a donor. Now the last one i make here is that the multiple in our world isn’t as big as it is in the trading context. Duitz and trading world, very satisfied equates to six times more likely to come back again in our world don’t say they’re very satisfied, but the cause your service provided by the fund-raising to you are twice as likely to be giving a year, then thin people who say they’re just satisfied. So it’s been a massive factor, but the multiple isn’t quite as big as it might be in other contexts. Okay, um, any any thoughts? Why? That is why i don’t? How come we only get one third of the the likelihood of returning that compared to the corporate world? Well, i think there’s a range of other factors that player in our space that also have an impact on loyalty and retention satisfactions an important one on one of the things i like to do is focus unconference isn’t easy, and then right in the satisfaction is this is a major driver of dahna loyalty, which in terms of which in turn, is a major driver of the value of fund-raising database. So how many people actually measure it then on, if you’re lucky in a room of two hundred people, you might get one hand god, and then you are people well out of those folks, you know, who’s actually remunerated how good they make their donuts real. Andi, you won’t find any hands that go with that point, so we don’t take that factor seriously enough. But then there are other things that creeping in our world, the trust in the organization some of your listeners might be thinking got agents talking about satisfaction with across your service provided by the fund-raising team. But what about all that really great stuff we do with beneficiaries? You know, surely that’s gotta count for something incense of retention and loyalty writhe difference that we make it on dh that’s, true, but for most donors, unless they’re major donors, the mechanism for that it’s trust if i’m a major donor and i’ve given you five million to put up a building in a sense, i don’t need to trust you because i can see the building up, right? But if i’ve given you fifty dollars to help starving child that i really have to trust that you say that you do exactly what you’ve told me you’re going to do with that resource. S o trust for the vast majority of our donors is a big driving factor in terms of lorts potential. Okay, okay. Um, and, you know, these sound very much like not only, you know, relationship factors in a commercial sense, but also in a personal sense, they are our friends and our parents, no loved ones. Yeah, a lot of these relationship variables are just as relevant toe all human relationships. I mean, originally this study of things like satisfaction, trust and commitment all came out in something called relationship marketing. What that was trying to do is to take ideas from human relationships on apply in that case, teo relationships, that businesses have customers. And at the core of all the relationships that we have of these notions of satisfaction, commitment and trust, no anything. You want to tease out about commitment? We spent little time with satisfaction. Trust anything more you want to say about commitment? Yeah, it is that one of the really big tribal loyalty on beauty that comes out stronger than thin. The others i’ve mentioned on what that is is a really burning passion to see the mission of the organization achieved. And you can imagine that, you know, people who are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer, you know, tend to support charities that do that on dh for extended periods of time. But that really passion to see the mission achieved eyes one of the really big drivers of lorts in retention, andi. So the question, i suppose then, is well, i had you build commitment then and again, we know from research quite a few things help build commitment that one is at risk. So if you’re running a shelter for homeless folk and i’m a donut, the organization and i believe that by canceling my gift today, somebody somewhere is going to be without bed tonight. I am a bunch more likely to continue to support that shelter. S o that element that i see, a risk in canceling will help drive commitment. So too will a personal connection. You know, if my life has been touched by breast cancer because i had lost a loved one to it, you can imagine that i’d be pretty fired-up about finding a cure for that being committed to those sorts of organizations andan also it worthy of note, is some thing i called multiple engagements and there’s a micro on a macro level. To that, the macro level is that people who are donors and campaigners and service users and volunteers, and and wait till we get there and you get a whopping more loyalty. And then the micro level is every time you have a two way interaction where there’s a little bit of cognition that takes place, maybe the organizations asking your question, what would you like to receive? What do you think about this? How many times do you want to hear from us here? Do you want to get news? Whatever it might be. Every time you have to weigh interaction with a quarter, you get a little teeny tiny bit more loyalty. And, of course, in the digital space it’s now by easy toe have those little, many interactions with people and it’s really worthwhile because it drives behave excellent now there’s research supporting all this, right? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve bean doing work in the non-profit space for the best part of twenty years now on dh we’ve done in a large scale survey work with probably a couple hundred thousand donors here in the states now getting on for two million donors in europe, tracking the relationship between satisfaction, commitment, trust and then behaviors of interest like like who e-giving next year with assembly of upgrade on even actually leaving a bequest to the organization? What about that that’s a significant how is that a significant factor? Well, one of the big drivers off, in fact, the single biggest driver i’d say really the likelihood that somebody will leave a big quest for nonprofit organization is how long they’ve been supporting it. Yes, on and typically, if i’m working with clients, i’ll say, you know, we’re gonna have a request program that is you forget all the complicated plan giving vehicles, but just right asking somebody to remember a charity with a gift in their will or a state document. Then the single beget indicators of willingness to do that is how long people have been giving onda anytime we were three years actually is a pretty good indicator that that person cares about you is committed to the cause and therefore will at least give some consideration to that request. So surprise, surprise, you know, commitment is a pretty big indication of the likelihood of doing that, okay? Yeah, i don’t know if you know that, but i know this, but i do plan to giving fund-raising consulting, um and that’s, where we’re always looking for the best potential bequest donors is who are the most committed, loyal donors, and i didn’t know that a ce feu is three years can be can be a positive factor, but i’m always looking for some organizations are easily, you know, decades older sometimes sometimes even one hundred years old couple of the university’s i’ve worked, so you know, if people have been giving twenty, thirty years or twenty five of the past thirty years, they’re enormously good potential donor for ah for bequest or some of the other plan gives to know, yeah, i i’d agree wholeheartedly with at it and it’s amazing how very few organizations even bothered to ask for a request on if they do, how many organizations think that somehow people will be inspired by the mechanics of death and dying? Some of the communications we generate trying it’s just how you make a will and you may change your will. And then the mechanics of the plan giving vehicles well, actually, you want somebody to give you you want to inspire them with a vision of what the future could look like, that people are inherently more positive about the future on so good, positive messages about what the world might look like that evoke a little bit of emotion are actually a lot more useful in that quest. Space non-technical brochures about you know how you die. I mean that’s. Just miserable. Okay, thank you for that little digression. But it’s it’s what? I spend my time doing when i’m not when i’m not done non-profit radio. Very interesting to going back to the little micro engagements you get. You get a little uptick you said of of ah commitment when with just these small engagement. Yeah, if you if you would follow my knife. On dh, you would’ve measure let’s, say, satisfaction and commitment, and you sent out a little survey to a sample of your darkness, our guarantee. If you tracked that sample of people over time, you’ll find that they’re a little teeny tiny bit more loyal than the balance of the database on that administration of this little bit of cognition, you’ve got a communication from the red cross, let’s say, and you think, oh, yeah, that’s right? I got a relationship with the red cross. I’ll go back to them and all. Well, that’s kind of a relationship with the american cancer society all that’s, right? Every time you get that little bit of interaction, you get a little bit more loyalty questionnaire getting people to take other actions on your behalf that aren’t related to fund-raising getting them to participate in an event that you’re doing online are tuning in to a podcast or tell us what you think. You know, all of those things are really smart in terms of loyalty because every time we have that interaction punch up just a little bit how loyal these individuals are outstanding love this. Okay, um, we need to be able to measure dahna loyalty how, how? What are what are the metrics? Uh, well, one of the one of the big issues we’ve got in our sector right now is the metrics are, well, frankly wrong aunt to be even more blunt about it. I think a lot of our non-profit boards need to be taken out in space eyes that a bare bottom spanking or they keep the pants, they keep their pants up. Isn’t this america bare bottoms bank with a paddle? Or is this a bare handed? Yeah, i think it probably depends on the degree of a degree of redness you want to achieve. Okay, yeah, i mean, why did i say that? Well, because oftentimes people who serve on non-profit boards are actually quite bright. Oftentimes they had very successful business careers and that’s one of the reasons that they’re there because they’re plugging in their advice as well. Andi it’s, almost as if they part their brains outside the boardroom before they go through and into the meeting. Because in the commercial space, they know very well the measure customer, lifetime value and they understand what that is, and i understand why it’s important, they understand to the merits of measuring the things that dry customer lifetime value so that’s, why you get the satisfaction so that even people measuring commitment and so on we’ll walk through into the non-profit boardroom and suddenly somehow all of that knowledge and understanding they had get forgot on the only metrics we’re interested in is how much raised with part year or month having you don’t do it attracts andi, you know, don’t start the metric that short term thinking it doesn’t help you think about the lifetime value of your database and you, and that was fund-raising suboptimal what you end up with this fund-raising that its content to recruiting donors on then lose seventy percent of them between that first and the second donation, but that complete kind of focus on short term measures get people to the point where all they do is chase their short term asian. So we’re going to continue trying to find you don’t no, you don’t we’re gonna continue to try and maximize damage money we get out of the spokes. Actually, what we need to do is to take a step back and say, you know, affection. Maybe we should be measuring the things with dr longer term or lifetime. Dahlia and beginning to reward our fund-raising with the quality of the relationships that they build. Ron avam, you know, the dollars and cents that they raised today, okay? And immediately you do that. You get a huge changing culture because suddenly what people are interested in doing is building relationships. No, um, just having that sort of burn and turn, waseem, have another to write. Now. Now, all right, you must have a lot of examples of what we should specifically be measuring in our fundraisers. Uh, well, i would if it were me, i would be using some of the same things that the commercial world have been using for twenty years. So i would measure satisfaction. Commitment on trust on dh. You know, there are measurements girl to doing that. It’s a little survey. You track how how people feel on dh if you do that, it’s the it’s, the margin of those measures that makes the difference. Remember, i talked earlier about the percentage of people who were very satisfied, very satisfied business. That’s the important thing latto it’s the extremes of those scales and changes in that that make the difference on the good news. Is that even small improvements in loyalty in the here and now translate a whopping improvements in the lifetime value with fund-raising database? So if i can improve the level of retention by little, ten percent in the here and now, i can increase the last time value of fund-raising database by over fifty percent. Why? Because they affect compounds overtime. So if you’ve got more donors left at the end of this year, you’re gonna have even more the following year and even more than you know, the year after that, you know, for many organizations that’s not the end of the story either because most organisations lose money on bonem acquisition it’s tio keep finding lots of donors to replace the one we lost. Of course, that he knew a lot of money on if you cracked that into my equation, my little improvement in loyalty in the here and now of ten percent would improve the lifetime value but fund-raising database for anything up to one hundred percent. You can make a huge just by having little improvements and loyalty and hearing that. All right, um, i wonder if weaken drill down to ah, amore micro level. In terms of the the measurement of the performance of our our fund-raising staff. Are there? Are there individual metrics? I mean, in terms of how, how they have moved donors from one stage to the other or, you know, in terms of the the actual performance of the fund raisers themselves or their metrics there? I think i think the answer to that question depends on the form of fund-raising that you’re looking at, okay, um, and so the metrics will be different depending on what it was dark, dark now dot response or someone that made you get andi, you make you give officers a remunerated too, for the amount of money that they raised, but they’re also remunerated for the amount of time they spend in front of clients remember proposals they made the number of recognition events there, kendall, all of those good things, but one of the things i think you know, it can be shared a causal the forms of fund-raising is good. Do we make our donors feel today on dh measuring that that quality of the relationship and that does come back again? The satisfaction, commitment on trust in the darkness of space? I would also be saying, you know, we should be taking decisions about investments on the basis ofthe donor lifetime value, andi what that means in your complaining that issues that if we’re going to invest in an acquisition campaign, we’re no goingto assess that campaign is a success simply because we bought in two hundred, donors are not one hundred donorsearch because it may be that most people were recruited won’t come back and give again, right? We’ve gone with the other alternative campaign we could have run, you know, we only recruited in one hundred donors, but actually most of those people stayed giving for the next five years, so taking longer term decisions based on that lifetime value, i think, is really smart and even in small organizations that made behind a little difficult to do some of that math, maybe because they’re working on even like a simple excel database or something, they could still be looking at things like retention lee on beginning to shift the focus of the way in which the team is remunerated to the level of loyalty that in general now, if you can also measure the things that drive loyalty that’s great, but if you can’t, then the starting point for me is at least to get a sense of the health of that program and the health of relationships that just by, you know, the numbers of people who were still actively engaged. Portal no, agent, i love the idea of measuring how donors feel of, um alright were going to come back. I need you to hang out for a couple minutes while i do a little business. Don’t go anywhere he drink just just dahna just keep listening. Um mohr with adrian, sergeant coming up first. Wagner, c p a’s they really do go way beyond the numbers. All these resource is that they have the webinars. They’re all archived so you can watch ah blawg seminars. If you happen to be near milwaukee, where wagner is based, you go the life seminars, but of course they’re outstanding wherever you are in the country, on the guides, the guides? Yes, the guides that’s where all the templates and the sample policies are there’s a couple of dozen of them, each one specifically for non-profits they’ve got basic accounting procedures manual. Now again, basics is not going to get you through the c p a exam. But if you want to know some basics of what you should be doing around accounting you can check that ethical conduct for your board members. Jean takagi is often talking about boardmember responsibilities, you know, that they need to act ethically, ethically toward your organization, what they’re doing in their private lives. We don’t even don’t want to think about it, it doesn’t matter, but in their dealings with you, you want to lay out what ethical conduct means and define it for them in writing, so they’re wagner has a sample policy statement on that for you, they go way beyond the numbers. The epa is very generous. You can browse the collection at wagner cps dot com just click resource is apolo software? You’re a non-profit you’ve heard rumors to this effect, but you’re using accounting software made for a business. I never really did think about this until hapless became a sponsor was never in my ken. Now it is. You need accounting software made for non-profits because you are one, so don’t waste your time using business accounting software. It’s not designed for you in managing your books your non-profit appaloosa counting is designed for non-profits easy, affordable non-profit wizard. Dot com and you know why i’m not sending you to apple owes because they’re checking their tracking the clicks at non-profit wizard dot com so go there, please check it out now. Tony steak too. My latest video is promote the ira rollover this’s, an outstanding gift for end of year. It only applies for people who are seventeen and a half and over. The marketing is easy, though, because it’s it’s becoming popular because it’s been around for over a year. Now, the charitable ira roll over, it helps donors because it counts toward their required minimum distribution, and a lot of people who are older over seventy and a half have ah hyre required minimum distribution than they want, but they have to take it. Otherwise you get penalized if they don’t take it, they get penalized. Think it’s fifty percent uh, maybe ten percent, but anyway, there’s a penalty. So this counts toward their required minimum distribution this gift to you, but they don’t get taxed on it for federal income tax purposes. So instead of it coming to them and them being taxed and accounting toward the distribution, it goes to you, it’s not taxed. For federal income tax, and it counts toward their minimum distribution. Okay, the video is at tony martignetti dot com. Check out this. This this really can’t help you the ira roll over for end of year. And that is tony. Take two. And here is adrian, sergeant continuing with relationship fund-raising i gotta send live listener love. I want to shout you out by city and state, but sam here is having board back end problems, something more talk about spanking or in the back end again. Um, we can’t see you by city and state, so i know that you’re out there. New york, new york st louis, missouri, boston, massachusetts, new bern, north carolina, california. I know there’s, somebody in california listening, probably san francisco. But i know there’s a california listener. Those are the live lister love people, the loyal, live look that loyal, live listener loved that i know are out there. Love, of course toe all the current live listeners and going abroad. I know there are listeners right now in tokyo monisha while i know we have listeners in china and taiwan because we always do ni hao and i know that south korea is checking in because it does week after week, anya haserot now, in case we are ah, in in mexico, we’ve had listeners in mexico with no star days. The czech republic occasionally does check in dobre den, germany, we can’t get germany guten tag, okay, i think that covers the most frequent live listeners. Sorry, we can’t do you no city and state as usual, we will get this back end problem slapped and slapped ah and fixed by next week. I gotta send podcast pleasantries never forget the podcast listeners, whatever it is you’re doing painting your house, washing your dishes at whatever time you’re listening. Whatever activity whatever device over ten thousand of you so grateful pleasantries to the many podcast listeners and affiliate affections to our multiple multiple am and fm stations throughout the country. Listeners from the finger lakes in new york. Two salome, oregon and lots of states in between affiliate affections to our many affiliate listeners. Ok, adrian, sergeant, thank you so much for for holding on. I have tio have to acknowledge all of all our listeners of whatever ilk in variety they come, they all get a special shout out. So thank you for your for your patients. Um, we have ah, i love these measures, but we gotta move on. Let’s, let’s talk about the different stages. You’ve identified stages of the donor relationship, and there were different strategies appropriate for each first. Just please just lay out the but what the the stages are, and then we’ll come back and revisit. Well, there’s a unawareness say’s where people become aware of the organization for the first time on exploration plays people begin to kind of extraordinary. That relationship might might mean for them on then you’re kind of deeper into the relationship where there begins to be an element of commitment. And then eventually, over time, you know, some relationships will come to an end. Of course not. Everybody’s going to continue giving for forever. But what we do know is how you treat those different points in that journey can make a very big difference. Unsurprisingly, how loyal folks turn yes. And especially knowing that these micro engagements make a difference in loyalty. I going back to that because i admire it so much. I love it. Okay, we have a few minutes. We can spend you. Know, on each of the stages, we’ll help us with awareness what’s going on and what should we be doing to give our donors what they’re seeking at that stage? Well, at this point, i suppose we’re talking about people who haven’t given to the organization before, so we’re talking about individuals that you’re trying to solicit, too get them to make a contribution for the first time on dh one of things i care about fund-raising in general is that some of what we generate is is really bland. Um, on dh if you want to get people to give and you want them to give reasonable sums of money has to make you feel something. Logic, leap to conclusions, emotion leads the action on dh fund-raising don’t want conclusions provoc greatest buy-in large one people take action, yes, and you’ve gotta get latto feel something if you’re going to stimulate them to give to your organization on dh, too many particular kind of somebody’s letters in this country, you know, a bland three or four paragraphs in-kind all of my fire, somebody was on the cusp of making again could you know, that’s not gonna happen? You’ve gotta generate materials that tellem emotional story and telling a lie like that. All important first. Okay. Okay. Emotion. It’s. Very intuitive. But we still see a lot of bad practice out there. Yeah, way. Still see a lot of those sort of very bland one page letters signed by the chief executive. Maybe even the picture of the chief executive. When actually there’s a lot to say around the nature of the cause. That could be compelling. I give you one example of a pact. That’s doing the reins again has been around for years, but amnesty international, they sense that a flat pain, um, catch a piece of card with a picture of somebody whose eyes have been gouged. Eight on the strap line effectively says what you hold in your hand is an instrument of torture when you read to your horror that actually why this person’s eyes against that is because some somebody somewhere in the world used the pen on this youngster. Teo, get guy just either and it’s horrible. And you knew when you read it and you’re outraged. And of course, the pen can also be a mechanism for doing something about it on immediately, i get youto feel the anger or feel the compassion for that child. I talked you into the cause. You understand why what i do is important at that point. And are you more likely to respond and make a gift? Of course you are on. You know, there are lots of other examples we could talk about that solution if absolutely critical to getting people to get for the first time. That’s a brilliant one. Well, well done. The amnesty, brother. I give you one other from kidney research in the uk. Um, there was a senator pack that told the story of a little girl who has kidney disease on very likely won’t won’t live for many years on the letter that was contained with the picture of this little girl was actually a letter from her kidney. Two little katie apologizing for the fact that, uh, you know, the kidney is not able to do its job and rending little story, but, you know, when you read it, you have given a really strong connection to that little girl, and you feel the heartbreak that her parents must be going through, and immediately you do that. If you’ve got kids yourself, you know, you get that lump in your throat when you think, well, goodness, you know, i have to do something about that because that’s horrible. I don’t want little girls like katie to not be heard. I will be able to have the operation the care they need. My okay, uh, look, very touching. Let’s. Go to aa exploration what’s happening there? Well, at that point in the relationship that they’re kind of getting to know you stage that was taking place. Andi, i notice now that there are a number of chances playing very creatively with three d communications. So you see people less in the us, but in other parts of the world, out on shopping malls and high streets with three d headset so that people can experience what it’s like to be in a school in botswana. What it’s like to be in a hospital in northern nigeria or wherever it might be in the world. So you can sort of transport people away for a few moments to be able to see the work that’s being done on the ground. And i think those things are quite powerful. I’m here in st pete’s, one international aid organization that does that very powerfully with trailers and it’ll take a trailer to a community, then you can go inside that trailer and you can walk around a school in the developing world, and you can see the kind of experiences of those kids for having so thinking in a very creative way back, taking people inside the cause. I think it is really important don’t necessarily need to involve the latest technology. They certainly video pictures that take you into that world, i think, very important on the other thing i would say at this point is that you might begin to creep some choice in to the kind of relationship that you’re having with individuals i i used to when i was teaching this twenty years ago, i’d say, well, it’s, awful people choice from day one so you you allow people to choose whether they want a hardcopy newsletter. Oh, our digital newsletter or no newsletter, but just appeals or whatever since realized that it’s smarter to wait just a little bit until people get into the relationship so that they could take smarter decisions about actually what they want? Because if you ask me from day one, adrian, do you want a newsletter, then? Adrian is almost certainly going to say no, right? Because newsletters sound boring, and i’m probably not gonna want that, but if you wait, you know, for five months into the relationship, i’ve read your newsletter and actually i realized that this is really quite moving or, you know, the information that there is compelling and i’m interested, then i’m all like it say, no, actually, i’ll continue to receive that. So giving people a little bit of choice of the communications is a smart thing to do in relationship fund-raising but i would begin to create that image. The relationship begins to develop over time, and i don’t like people toe, you know, identify the times of things they want in the frequency, okay, we’re going to go out for a break. I have to mention then that so the people who attended your early programs, i did not get the they got screwed. It better be better to come to a later adrian sergeant presentation or webinar if you were doing webinars back then probably not know. Twenty years ago there was no, there was no web, but but you get checked the guy out now because he’s learned from his own his own research. All right, probably, but probably by the time i know exactly what i’m talking. Yes, that’ll be brilliant. Okay, there’s going to be oh, it’s gonna be a nursing home. It’s going to get great. Great probono advice from you. Ok, let’s, go out for a break. Adri and i will talk about the next stage commitment. And then we also going to talk about next steps for you and for adrian’s research. Stay with us. You got to take a break. Tell us credit card and payment processing. How about a passive residual revenue stream that pays you each month? For that? You need to check out, tell us payment processing, because as one of their partner non-profits, you get fifty percent of every dollar that tello’s gets, so half of what they earn from the businesses you refer goes back to you and they’re doing you and more than that, just for non-profit radio listeners this is only for listeners. If you refer a business and tell us looks over their processing fees and cannot save them any money, tell us we’ll pay you two hundred fifty dollars so you can’t lose on dh, presumably if tellers can save them processing dollars in their fees, then the person the company would sign up with tello’s and you’ll be getting fifty percent of every dollar tell us earns from them. So really either way, you’re going to win and odds are tell us can bring those fees down for them and these people going to sign up. So what kind of businesses are we talking about? You want? Think about boardmember owned businesses? Local merchants could be large or small doesn’t matter if they’re supporting your work. They love your work. Restaurants, dealerships, storefronts of any kind, independent artist, your family members check this all out. Think about all those businesses. Go to tony dot m a slash tony tell us the residual income is yours now. Back to adrian, sergeant. Too close relationship fund-raising i won’t let you know that you can get this research at pursuant. Dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising pursuing is one of the funders of this research, and thankfully, through their sponsorship, i met adrian. And we’re getting this enormously wonderful value on today’s show, so thank you pursuing thank you, adrian. Uh, welcome pleasure. All right, let’s go to aa now, we just have, like, five or six minutes left, so we need to be a little efficient without time. The next stage commitment what’s what’s happening there? Well, in commitment you’re really beginning then, teo buildup, that strong relationship bond with supporter one of the things i would be doing much earlier on at the point of acquisition, actually, to gather information about the sorts of things that the individual is interested in if you’ve got a non-profit that has four or five different kinds of program or things that are going on, i’d be asking them early on in the relationship which of those things they’re particularly interested in because if i do nothing else, but i’m going to make sure that when i’ve got something going on in one of those spaces that they’re interested in, that they know about it and have the opportunity to report it, they’re being respectful of people’s interests, i think, is a particularly kind of key thing in building that commitment, okay? And that on bat comes back to some of what you were saying about giving people a choice. Yeah, if you understand why people are supporting the organization that you know that that’s, that’s, a powerful thing, you can then use to shake the communication going. Okay, by the way, i created a false sense of urgency, but not deliberately. When i said five or six minutes, i was alone. We have more like nine minutes left, so don’t yeah, extra three minutes. So take a nap, and, uh, and then we’ll pick up after a three minute nap. No. What else we got? You can laugh openly, so i should hope you would please way need somebody to be laughing thinking that my students would probably appreciate that. Thank you. Pass that on to them, but do it at the end of the class doing it’s a very end of the class, okay? I mean, any more, you’re not good if i pick up on on the notion of commitment, i think one of the other things that the people possibly don’t realize and that came through from from our report is the the value that don’t get from the relationship shifts. A bit of the relationship deepens. So initially, when you’ve got that really powerful, emotional, packed communication that you’re not going to use, people are really interested in the impact on the beneficiary write all about did you do what you said you were going to do and have the impact on that child’s life? Well, as the relationship deepens, the donor becomes at least as much concerned about water impact on the child. I mean, from my sense of who i am on, and i think you know what we’re talking about them is something psychologists. Call identity and i think that’s going to be the next big thing in fund-raising because it’s a little different from understanding the motives that people have for supporting you, you know, the motives for supporting little katie and her kidney operation, for example, identity is a bit different instead of what motivated used to support the organization that stays you’re asking, what are people saying about themselves when they give? So what kind of person are they saying they are when they support my non-profit adrian, new york let me understand that we can begin to shape our communication to make them feel good about that being that kind of person. Gen shang, your colleague at the center for sustainable philanthropy cnt ari was on was on non-profit radio talking about something that this makes me think of she had research from public radio when people would call in to public radio to make a gift, they were greeted with something along the lines of thank you for being a kind supporter or a loyal supporter or a generous supporter, and she had different adjectives and tested different adjectives against outcomes and eyes, particularly among women. The right adjectives. Would increase the the women’s giving through the through these phone calls. Does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, absolutely. And what you’re talking about there, of course, is one kind of identity you’re talking about moral identity. Okay, so, you know, a lot of giving might be because i’m saying adrian is a moral person. I might also be saying i’m a father, i’m a parent, i’m a cancer survivor, i’m a patriot, i’m a liberal i’ma environmentalist, i’ma, i’ma, i’ma and when you understand the identity that’s being articulated, then you make people feel good about that, right? Because if they’re going to give one that that kind of person let’s, tell him it’s, good to be that kind of person and give him the kind of content that really reinforces that i don’t see it makes them feel good. Remember we said earlier in this conversation, i think you know, one of the things we need to do moving forward if latto worry about hitting the meat of our beneficiary, so sure, but we could be at least this concerned with how good we made our donors feel today on one of the keys to unlocking that. Is to understand what they’re saying about themselves when they give to our organization and what that report of us ruling means to the sense of who they are. And i was saying that the relationship deepens people away, so what that really means for them and who they are on dh, we start to be looking for relationships over time to meet some of our hyre orr durney and by that i mean, connectedness personal growth fulfillment, yes, but what is my support? My five years support your non-profit organization say about my personal growth and how connected i am with people that are important to me and where i am, incomes of myself fulfill it, andi, if we start to think about right that there are longer term supporters are maybe we can help them make some of those reflection on feeling better about their support of our organization because actually, when we communicate across more than any other sex er we should really be concerned with maximizing how good we can make our supporters feel ok, adrian, i i have to stop our our substance because we’ve got to move to next steps, and we just have a couple of minutes left, and i want to get to both parts of this. So what can a non-profit do with this wealth of information? Well, if you visit if they visit the pursuing website, there we are, download a copy ofthe there really two key volumes to the research? One is lessons from relationship marketing. One is less in some social psychology, andi, they could trial some of those ideas for themselves and their fund-raising so that’s the most obvious thing that might be able to do it the end of the call go to the website, haven’t reports and see if there’s anything there that they’re interested. Okay? And again, that it’s pursuing dot com slash relationship fund-raising that’s where you’ll find the four volumes. But, adrian, you’re recommending the first two as being most valuable. Sounds like that they’ve suddenly covered most of material we talked about today, okay? And there’s a lot of other ideas from social psychology on the other thing that’s so might like to do if they’re in an organization of of a reasonable size. We’re planning on doing a serious of field experiments over the next two years. Yes, well worked. With a number of non-profit partners, andi blitz there don’t know find it too. One half would continue to get the communications that they get now the other half would get communications that being tweaked in some way to help build up foster that sense dahna relations okay, very quickly. What type of organization are you looking for? We’re looking for organizations that have, um, groups have donors that are above six hundred people, so we’re not looking for organizations that are necessarily massive, but we’re looking for organizations that have a reasonable number of donors in each of the segments they want to study. I will be willing to work with us bearing the cost of doing those experiments. Okay, we’ll get the impact of that relationship approach on money raised, but also on how good people feel, okay? Oh, excellent. Getting to the feelings what’s your email address if people would like to submit their organization or talk to you more about being on you in the research. It’s adrian dot, sergeant a d r i n dot es a rg e a n t at plymouth a y m o u t h dahna a si dot. Uk. Excellent, adrien, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much, so much valuable information. Thank you, thank you. Cheers next week, your little brand that can and the future of email. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant wagner, cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps dot com stoploss accounting software, designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com and tell us credit card and payment processors. Passive revenue streams for non-profits tony dahna, slash tony tello’s, our creative producers, claire meyerhoff family boots is the line producer show social media is by susan chavez, and this very cool music is by scots diner brooklyn. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. 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