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Nonprofit Radio for November 28, 2022: Thought Leadership & Content Strategy

 

Peter Panepento & Antionette KerrThought Leadership
Peter Panapento and Antionette Kerr co-authored the book, “Modern Media Relations for Nonprofits.” They share their insights on how to build relationships with journalists so you get heard as the thought leader you are. Plus, other media strategies, like crisis communications. This was part of our coverage of the 2020 Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 

 

 

Valerie Johnson & Katie GreenContent Strategy
Now that you’re an established thought leader, you need to produce multichannel content that’s relevant. Also engaging, actionable, user friendly and SEO friendly. Also from 20NTC, Valerie Johnson from Pathways to Housing PA and Katie Green with The Trevor Project show you how.

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:38.49] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. I hope you enjoyed your thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed the company of family friends, time for yourself as well. Lots of lots of good thanksgiving holiday wishes, I hope you enjoyed very much and I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of epidermal Asus below psA if you gave me the blistering news that you missed this week’s show. Thought leadership, Peter Pan a pinto and Antoinette car co authored the book modern media relations for nonprofits. They share their insights on how to build relationships with journalists so you get heard as the thought leader you are plus other media strategies like crisis communications. This was part of our coverage of the 2020 non profit technology conference and content strategy. Now that you’re an established thought leader, you need to produce multi channel content that’s relevant, also engaging actionable user friendly and S. E. O friendly. Also from 20 N. T. C. Valerie johnson from pathways to housing P A. And Katie Green with the Trevor project. Show you how Antonis take two. I’m still wishing you well. We are sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O here is thought leadership with me now are Peter pan a pinto and Antoinette car. Peter is philanthropic practice leader at turn two communications, Antoinette is part of the leadership team of women advance and ceo of bold and bright media. They are the co authors of the book Modern media relations for nonprofits. Peter Antoinette welcome. Yes. I’m glad we could work this out among the three of us. Thank you. And uh, it’s good to know that you reach well and safe in your respective locations. Okay.

[00:02:39.44] spk_1:
Thank you. Yes.

[00:02:51.33] spk_0:
Okay. I, yes, I see. No one within six ft of you. That’s good. Even though you are home, we’re talking about thought leadership and media. Let’s, uh, let’s start with you Internet. We can, we can use our leverage thought leadership and use the media to, uh, to influence those who are engaged with us, our constituents and even influence policy.

[00:04:02.66] spk_2:
So the media needs experts and non profits are on the ground there doing the work and they are the perfect folks to be experts in this conversation um, in particular and emergency Peter non talks about earlier about crisis communications and in a lot of situations the media scrambling looking for experts. If you have established yourself as a thought leader, which is what you should aspire to do. I know that turn to does the work in helping people to kind of establish themselves with the thought leader in this conversation. But right now we need people with good information and who can provide great stories for example and nonprofits can do that and they can do that work. And that’s why the thought leadership conversations important. Most nonprofits don’t see themselves needing to do that. It’s not the first thing we think about, we think about fundraising, right? Um, but not necessarily media friend raising. And so now is the time that you want to have those relationships and be considered as a thought leader.

[00:04:18.59] spk_0:
Because when there’s news that relates to your mission, um, your call is more likely to be taken, your email is more likely be answered. If there’s that pre existing relationship you mentioned. But if if everybody in the sector is calling all the, all the media blindly, then it’s just sort of a crapshoot whether they answer you or not or

[00:05:38.32] spk_2:
if you think about the media needing like, you know, going to a crisis example, like the media needing a source or an expert And they don’t want to quote the same person that’s, you know, something that I’ve learned from my media background and training. I’ve been working as a journalist since 1995. And you know, one thing that my editors say, you know, don’t quote the same person, don’t quote the same organization. So in a crisis people will call big box non profit sometimes. Um, and they’ll just see them as being the experts for a conversation. And that’s why establishing yourself as a thought leader is so important. So someone can say, you know, I’m a unique voice about this. We have an example in our book modern media relations where um, someone who an organization that worked with Children and families involved in domestic violence became very important in the conversation when a professional athlete in in Georgia was convicted of family violence and all of a sudden that person was called upon to be on radio shows and talk shows and they became a thought leader. But they done the work to position themselves as an expert. And so I know Peter you, I know you have some examples as well, but we just kind of dived in there and and didn’t talk about the whole broad concept about leadership.

[00:06:04.05] spk_0:
Well, all right, well, um peter, I was gonna ask you, how do we start to build these relationships? Um you wanna do you want to back up what thought leadership is?

[00:08:02.93] spk_1:
Sure, I’ll start with thought leadership defined and that and that’s really um the process of establishing one’s expertise in a in a specific area and and and doing it in a way where they are recognized beyond their own organization, in their own kind of immediate networks, as a, as an expert as a thought leader. Somebody who is driving the conversation and really really helping people better understand a key issue or a topic. So for a nonprofit or a foundation, a thought leader might be your ceo um who or executive director, somebody who um is at the front lines uh and and kind of is in a in a position where they um not only have expertise but they have some authority and being able to talk with some gravitas about a topic, um but um in order to kind of establish your credentials there um and get recognized, you have to do some legwork beyond just having that expertise. You have to be um you have to be comfortable talking about that topic. You have to um you have to spend some time kind of building the relationships and the and the and the the larger credibility that you are, somebody who has something interesting to say and the expertise to back it up. Um and the more you do that, and you can do that not just through the media, but through your own channels and through speaking at conferences and and all kinds of other things. Um the more you do that, the more you kind of become uh somebody who is recognized and is called upon to weigh in on important topics or or when news events call for it or in a situation like what, where we are now with with the covid 19 response, Somebody who can kind of come in and bring a voice of reason and perspective to what’s going on around us.

[00:08:31.98] spk_0:
So you have to lay the groundwork there, there has to be some fundamentals and you have to have your gravitas and you you need to appear bona fide and be bona fide not just appear, you have to be bona fide on the topic that you’re that you’re an expert in the mission of, of your, your nonprofit. How do you then start to when you have that groundwork? How do you then start to build relationships when there isn’t really a need for you to be talking about the subject?

[00:09:39.59] spk_1:
Sure, there are a lot of ways to do that one is that you, um, you start to build some personal relationships with media who are covering these topics. And you can do that either through, you know, somebody on your communications team that helps you, or you can kind of do it yourself, but you can, you can start to show up in, in their coverage of stories by, um, by um, positioning yourself and, and building relationships with individual reporters. Maybe even when they don’t need you by having an informational coffee or call so that they can get to know you and know what you stand for. Um, you can do it by your through your own writing and, and public speaking and making those things available and accessible to the media. Um, and you can, you can do it through your own channels to a lot of nonprofits have blogs, they have, uh, they have their own podcasts. They have different ways where they’re positioning their internal experts externally so that they’re kind of talking about and establishing their credentials around around a subject. And

[00:09:41.01] spk_0:
that’s your, that’s your owned media, right. That’s your own media versus earned media?

[00:10:12.00] spk_1:
Yes. Yes. And, and the value of that, is that the more you’re, you’re kind of demonstrating through your own media channels, your expertise, you’re not only building um some greater relationships and and credibility with your donors and the folks who are already kind of in your network, but you start to show up when people are doing searches or when people are on social media and seeing stories and articles that are passed around, if they may see something you’ve written or talked about, shared in another network, and it it sparks a light for them that you’re somebody worth going back to when they need, um when they need some, you know, somebody like you to weigh in on something.

[00:10:52.96] spk_0:
Okay, peter, I know you and Antoinette are both former journalists. Uh, so I’m gonna jump over to Antoinette for what Antoinette, what what what do these outreach, I guess, calls and emails to journalists to try to build the relationship. Uh what what do they what do they look like? What would you suggest people are saying to, to try to get the attention um to build the relationship, not, not when I’m looking to be quoted because there’s a breaking news, but to build the relationship.

[00:12:33.00] spk_2:
So, full disclosure. I’m a current journalist. Um so, yes, so I I still work for publications right now. Um and so people contact me on twitter and social media, which is a new thing. We talk about press releases. I’m a big fan of press releases, um yes, just full disclosure about that. But I still like for people to pitch me on social media, direct messages through twitter. If I’m using my company profile, it’s safe for nonprofits to contact me and say, hey, I have a story. I noticed that you’re interested in this concept, it’s always great when people know what I’m interested in. Like when they’re like, I noticed that you publish a lot of stories like right now I’m working on a story, a series of stories about missing and murdered indigenous women. And so when people see, oh, I notice you’re publishing stories about this and they pitch me on a direct message or um through facebook messenger even and say, hey, would you consider this the story and here’s the angle. Um or have you thought about, you know, I’ve had other people reach out and say I noticed you’re publishing these types of stories about, you know, missing and murdered indigenous women. Have you considered other stories about violence against women and it’s always a really great connection for me. So I think just kind of knowing what the journalist is interested in is really important, kind of, understanding their angle. Sorry, y’all, um understanding their angle and just flowing from there and saying, you know, here’s how we fit into this conversation is always a wonderful

[00:12:46.00] spk_0:
um so outreach by any of the social channels is fine too, you talk about twitter and direct message facebook, those are all

[00:12:56.47] spk_2:
yes and people tagging me like I feel like if a journalist is using their profile in a way that is professional then you’re safe to contact them and them in that way.

[00:13:11.60] spk_0:
Okay. Yeah, yeah peter anything you want to add to? Yeah, I think

[00:14:13.09] spk_1:
that I think is dead on about making sure though that when you do that, you are, you are, you’re you’re not coming with something that’s off the reporters beat or off of um what’s what, what you know, is um what they cover uh or the type of story they cover within that beat. Um you could spend a lot of effort reaching out to every journalist you see on twitter about your specific cause, but if they don’t cover your cause um you know, it doesn’t relate to what they what they do, then they’re probably either going to ignore you or or start to block you because you’re, you’re, you’re kind of almost spamming them. So um it’s it’s important to be targeted with who you reach out to as well and and make sure that you understand that journalists and their work before you before you do your outreach and come at them with a pitch that they don’t necessarily want. So yes, I think it’s really important to to do a bit of that homework up front um and respect that journalist time and if you do that and if you come at them with something that is actually on, on their beat and is of interest to them. Um, then I think you have a much greater chance of getting their attention and getting them to want to follow up with you and and help further, um, the relationship beyond that initial pitch

[00:14:32.47] spk_0:
and

[00:15:31.85] spk_2:
Tony, can I share a pet peeve like to Pet peeves actually is, um, if I write about a non profit and they don’t share the story on their own social, it’s just, it’s heartbreaking for me. Um, a lot of times I have to fight for these stories to appear and I have to fight with an editor to say, this is why this is newsworthy. This needs to be here. And then the nonprofit really doesn’t share the story. And I think, well, you know, I don’t write for my own, you know, just for it not to be shared. Um, and then the other thing is I love when nonprofits support stories that aren’t related to their particular story. So I’ll start noticing like one thing, um, Kentucky non profit Network, for example, before they ever shared or were involved in anything that I was involved in, they started sharing things or liking things that I would publish as a reporter and I didn’t know anything about them, but I thought that was interesting. So that when they pitch something, then you’re more likely to notice it as a, as a reporter, you’re more likely to notice because you feel like they’re really genuinely interested in the conversation, even if it doesn’t apply to them, you’re still interested

[00:15:51.29] spk_0:
Internet. Where are you writing now?

[00:15:58.07] spk_2:
I am writing, working on a piece for Guardian. I am for the Guardian. I am writing for Women Advance, which we have our own network. And then I write for Halifax Media group publications. So I’m on the regional circuit, doing all the fun things.

[00:16:13.38] spk_0:
Halifax is nova Scotia.

[00:16:22.99] spk_2:
No, Halifax is a media group in the United States. They own a series of their own regional newspapers across the country. So

[00:16:28.59] spk_0:
let’s talk a little about crisis management. You wanna, can you get us started with how you might approach crisis communications Antoinette.

[00:16:38.11] spk_2:
I thought that was Peter’s question. I’m just kidding.

[00:16:40.29] spk_0:
No,

[00:16:41.31] spk_2:
I’m just kidding. Um, crisis communications, I think actually Peter is a really great person to talk about this. My crisis communications conversation really has shifted with what we’re going through. So I don’t want to make it so unique to our current situation. Um, so I’ll let Peter start and then Peter, I can back you up on it if that’s

[00:18:50.46] spk_1:
okay. Yeah. So, um, with crisis communications, it’s really important to not wait until the actual you’re actually in a crisis to put your plan together. It’s really important to, to have a protocol that you’ve set up when you’re not in the middle of a crisis of possible to really kind of put together uh some protocols for not only what you’re going to say, but who’s going to say it and how you’re going to communicate during that situation. So um what does that protocol look like one? Is that you um upfront, you designate who your spokesperson or spokespeople are going to be ahead of time um and you spend some time ahead of that coaching them up in terms of what some of the key messages for your organization are, regardless of what the crisis might be. Some things that you would broadly want to try to reinforce and kind of a mood and a tone that you’re gonna want to take with what you’re talking about. Um do that 1st 2nd, is that you would really want to have a system in place for how you activate that for how you activate your crisis plan and your crisis communications. So that essentially means that you want to um you want to make sure that you know, kind of who who needs to sign off on what you’re going to talk about, who you’re gonna be involving in your decisions on whether you need to put out a statement um who how you’re going to communicate in what different channels, the more you can make those decisions ahead of time and have your structure in place, the better equipped you are to actually respond during a crisis situation and be able to get a quick and accurate and positive message out um in in in a situation and often crises are not their crisis because they’re not expected, but you can be planning ahead so that you you are able to react quickly and authoritatively during that situation. Um

[00:19:07.87] spk_0:
you’re you’re compounding the crisis if you’re not prepared.

[00:19:12.53] spk_1:
Absolutely,

[00:19:13.33] spk_0:
You’re scrambling to figure out who’s in charge, who has to approve messages, where should messages go? All, all which are peripheral to the to the substance of the problem.

[00:20:12.02] spk_1:
Absolutely. And in today’s world, where crisis can really mushroom not only in the media, but on social media, the longer you’re allowing time to pass before you’re getting out there with with your statement and your response to it, the worst the worst the situation gets for you. So you really need to position yourselves uh to be able to respond quickly to respond clearly and to respond accurately. Um and and it’s important to note that, you know, that planning ahead of time is really critical, but what you say in the situation is also critical to um you do want to make sure that you communicate truthfully. That doesn’t necessarily mean that um uh you uh u um reveal

[00:20:14.17] spk_0:
everything,

[00:20:14.72] spk_1:
reveal everything

[00:20:15.67] spk_0:
exactly

[00:20:18.45] spk_1:
do uh that you do reveal is accurate. It’s not gonna come back to bite you later. It’s not going to mislead people

[00:20:31.86] spk_0:
talking about complicating the complicating the crisis if you’re lying or misleading, it comes back. I mean, people investigate things get found out.

[00:20:36.17] spk_1:
Absolutely. And I, and I, and I was

[00:20:38.82] spk_0:
technically expanded your problem.

[00:21:42.71] spk_1:
Absolutely. And and you’d be surprised how, how many times when I was a journalist that people, if they had just come clean and and kind of got the truth out there right away, they may have taken a short term hit, but their lives would have got on fine after that. But the more you try to obfuscate or or lie about the situation, or or try to to spin it in a way where you’re, you’re kind of hiding the truth that the worse your situation is going to get. So be be in a position to be as transparent and clear and accurate as possible. Um, with that first statement, uh, knowing that in some cases you might have to say, you know, we don’t know. Um, but we’ll follow up when we do know, because sometimes a crisis situation is one in which speaking of, of when we’re in now, we don’t know all of the, all of the different twists and turns the covid 19 situation is going to take. Um, so, but but rather than trying to speculate, um or or or in some cases, as we’ve seen, some, some public figures do try to spin this one way or another, rather than just saying, here’s the situation here are concerns, Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t know. Um, it compounds the situation and in some cases it can be dangerous to

[00:22:01.82] spk_0:
people internet, You wanna, you wanna back up a little bit? I

[00:22:38.74] spk_2:
Did. So the, I think the statement, um, I love how people are putting forward these COVID-19 statements and I think we need to have more statements like that. I mean these statements are demanding and people feel like that. But I’m like we could do more of that. We could have statements as nonprofits on issues on public issues, public concerns, things that are um, emerging and urgent for people. I think about in the eastern part of north Carolina because tony I know you’re in, in my home state. I am

[00:22:40.58] spk_0:
in eastern north Carolina.

[00:23:26.54] spk_2:
Happy to have you here. And when we have um, hurricanes, when we have issues like that, if non profits would put out statements like they have with Covid 19 if they felt like they needed to say here’s where we are, here’s what we do here. Here’s, here’s what we have to offer before during after and just update them. You know, I feel like this crisis has brought forward a level of communication and and help people to see the necessary level of communication that we need to have. But we don’t have that all the time is non profits and people are looking for that. So I feel like in the eastern part of north Carolina where we had, um, you know, 100 year, hurricanes within three months of each other that we didn’t think would happen. You know what if people, what if people make covid statements like that? I mean, what if people and so I’m just gonna start calling the covid statements peter that I don’t have a better term for. But what if we felt like we needed to make these types of statements when there’s an emergency,

[00:23:51.92] spk_0:
um, Antoinette, I’m gonna ask you to wrap up with something that you said, which is contrary to a lot of what I hear. Uh, you said that you’re a big fan of press releases.

[00:24:02.00] spk_2:
Could

[00:24:03.26] spk_0:
you take us out with your rationale for why? You’re a big fan of them. I’ve heard that they’re pretty much obsolete

[00:24:10.20] spk_2:
from a journalist. I

[00:24:12.51] spk_0:
don’t know from a commentator. I

[00:24:14.37] spk_2:
don’t want to write that.

[00:24:17.47] spk_0:
I

[00:24:27.93] spk_2:
believe that. I believe that. Um, so yes, because I’ve been reading press releases for a long time and I feel like the who, what, when, where and how gets me past that part of it, then I can ask you all the interesting questions. So if you can give me that in a way that I can cut and paste and I will not butcher someone’s name, like tony

[00:24:43.54] spk_0:
It

[00:24:55.22] spk_2:
might be, it might be a challenge. So I can, we can get all of that out of the way. But a good press release gets me excited as a journalist. It brings me into the conversation and if you aren’t excited about your press release. I can probably tell on the other end. So I had a good press release. All

[00:25:15.51] spk_0:
right, thank you. We’re gonna leave it there. That’s contrary advice. Which which I love hearing. All right. That’s uh that’s Antoinette car part of the leadership team of women advance and ceo of bold and bright media and also Peter Pan a pinto, philanthropic practice leader at turn two communications and they are co authors of the book modern media relations for nonprofits, Antoinette Peter, thank you very much for sharing. Thanks so much. Thanks for

[00:25:28.62] spk_1:
having us. tony

[00:27:19.59] spk_0:
pleasure. Stay safe. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 N. T. C. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Well, as you heard lots of ideas about the relationships, the relationships that will help you be the thought leader that you want to be. That you ought to be relationships leading to thought leadership. Turn to communications. They’ll help you do it. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. It’s time for Tony’s take two. I am still thinking about you and wishing you well. I hope you had recovery time over Thanksgiving. If you’re in giving Tuesday, I hope you’ll be happy with your results or you are happy depending when you listened. If you are, if you did congratulations, celebrate what you achieved. Take that victory lap you deserve it. If you’re not so happy, keep your head up, you know that you did the best that you could, don’t let it drag you down. You have other successes that are gonna be coming and you’ll be celebrating those. So don’t let a disappointment drag you down going forward. You have all my good wishes for your year end fundraising this week and continuing That is Tony’s take two here is content strategy, which by the way, we have boo koo, but loads of time left for Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 N T C. That’s the 2020 nonprofit technology conference. My guests now are Katie Green and Valerie johnson, Katie is Digital Giving Manager for the Trevor Project. And Valerie johnson is director of institutional advancement at pathways to housing P A Katie and Valerie welcome.

[00:27:44.11] spk_3:
It’s

[00:28:07.84] spk_0:
a pleasure. Good to good to talk to both of you and glad to know that you’re each safe and and well in in Brooklyn and uh, suburban philadelphia. Glad you’re with us. Your NtC workshop was content strategy for donor engagement From tactics to testing, let’s start with you, Katie, what what do you feel was the need for the session. What are nonprofits not getting doing so well, they could be doing a lot better.

[00:28:57.87] spk_3:
Yeah. So we have this session this morning at the same time as we originally had planned, which is great. We were able to give it virtually. And I think what a lot of donor content strategy is missing is simply structure. I think a lot of people don’t know where to start and they’re intimidated by it and we Valerie and I provide it’s some real life examples on how you can achieve a donor content strategy that does get you closer to your revenue goals. However, the tone of the presentation changed a little bit given how the world has come to be our new reality. So we did talk a little bit about the crisis and what it means for fundraising and what it means for content strategy under a tight timeline, knowing that things are changing at a really rapid pace. So really just structure and storytelling are the things that we talked about in this morning’s presentation, which will be available for viewing later, we’re gonna have a recording available for those who weren’t able to make it. But yeah, that’s what we focus on.

[00:29:27.47] spk_0:
Let’s start with part of the a good strategy is using personas, user personas. Can you kick us off with that Valerie? How do you, how do you start to identify what persona looks like and what’s their value?

[00:29:54.36] spk_4:
Absolutely. So, a persona is really like a profile or a character sketch of someone that you need to connect with um and understanding their motivations and goals. So it’s a way of segmenting your audience. And rather than sending all of your messaging out into the ether, trying to tailor that messaging to a specific demographic or a specific group of people. So for pathways to housing P. A. We’re actually still developing what our personas look like. We have an idea of what it looks like, but we want to dig some more into the research and analytic side of things to see who exactly is supporting us right now and what um ties they have in common to help us build those profiles. I think Katie might be a little bit further ahead of us in developing this persona. So I’m gonna toss it over to her.

[00:31:18.60] spk_3:
Yeah. So uh user personas are something I’ve been doing throughout my career. I worked in an agency before I came to the Trevor project. So I was able to get a lot of industry knowledge on how we create user personas and user journeys. But what we did, when we started looking at our end of year campaign for last year at the Trevor project, we made sure we carved out some time to conduct a little bit of an audit of what our donors were looking like, Where were they coming from? What could we track? What could we track? We found out we had a lot more questions than we did answers. So in order to get user personas, something that’s really important is tracking and understanding where people are coming from and where their first and last last clicks are. So because of our ability to use google analytics and source code tracking protocol. We did get a lot of tracking during end of year that will improve what our users like going into future campaigns. But now we’re gonna be able to better tell what is actually inspiring people to give. What is the moment where they’re actually clicking that donate button. What is the first thing they’re seeing that starting their relationship with the trouble project? So that’s what we’ve been doing.

[00:31:45.74] spk_0:
What are the pieces of a persona? How granular do you get? What is it where they live to what they read or what what you give us some like depth of this thing.

[00:33:34.60] spk_3:
Absolutely. So the main important piece of a persona is to know what their needs are. So you can have a persona that’s as general as this is a donor. They need to know how to give that’s a persona. But what you’d like to do is get a little bit deeper in being able to tell what the values of that persona are. What’s what’s the name? What’s the age? What’s the key characteristics? What are the opportunities really? You know, I like to create fake names and really go into it. You stock imagery so that you can try to connect with who this person might be? You’re really giving a face to a name and a value to a person and you want to look at what donors are looking like. So for example, for the Trevor project, we have a lot of one time, first time donors and we have a lot of people who come in, they give their first gift and I’m trying to find where they’re dropping off. Right. What is causing that? So I maybe create a persona that is a one time user that’s not really convinced they want to give again a one time donor. Um, they may be young. They may be, um, like within our demographic, which is under 25 of the youth that we serve with our crisis services and suicide prevention services. Um, so you can get as granular as making and they, and an age and the demographic and the location and what devices they’re using. I think that’s a big one. Is this person usually on their mobile? Are they usually on desktop? What channels do they typically like to look at twitter? You can get as granular email. Are they just looking at your website? So you know, it should get as detailed as you can, but I would encourage people to get really creative with it. If the more details you’re able to get is just a, just a more clear picture of a donor that you’re looking to target. Just make sure it’s someone you actually want to target and not someone you’re gonna be, uh, that wouldn’t actually be coming to you? Like maybe Bill Gates isn’t going to be coming to, uh, a nonprofit website to donate. Um, but you can look at what those specific donors might look like that are more realistic for your campaign.

[00:33:56.12] spk_0:
Okay. Right. You’re, you’re basically on what’s realistic, not what your aspiration is.

[00:34:22.36] spk_3:
Yeah. To a degree, I mean, I think you can be aspirational aspirational in some facets of what you’re doing. I think it has to be somewhat grounded in in, you know, a realistic approach. We do get asked. I get aspirational myself when I’m creating donor personas. When you know, I am looking for major gifts, I am looking for people who are willing to process of 15,000 dollar credit card charge. And there are people out there that that do that. So when I do my donor personas, they may not be the number one target of my campaign, but I do want to consider what those people are interested in as well so that I can personalize content for them to the best of my ability.

[00:34:53.03] spk_4:
Yeah. The other thing to keep in mind is diversifying your donor base. So in looking at who’s giving two pathways to housing right now, they’re mostly middle aged, college educated white women who prefer facebook and giving on a desktop, um, which is fine. And that’s definitely one category of people that you would want to be supporting you. But philadelphia is an incredibly diverse city. So if those are the only people that were getting to with our messaging, then we really need to think about diversifying our strategies to build new donor profiles for people who don’t all look the

[00:35:36.72] spk_0:
same? Okay. And then once you have a bunch of personas and profile? I mean, it sounds like you could have 10 or 12 really different ones, different, um yeah, different characteristics of people, different types of people that come to you. And, and like you said, Katie, even people who leave, you know, you want to capture them back. So, so once you have these Valerie, then you’re trying to communicate to them. But how do you how do you turn your communications into targets to to these personas?

[00:35:46.68] spk_4:
So you really want to think about building content specifically for that persona? So you might be doing a campaign um that you want to hit a couple of different

[00:35:56.37] spk_3:
personas

[00:36:07.97] spk_4:
with, but you’re gonna tailor that campaign specifically to each persona and deliver the message to a specific segment of that campaign. So if you’re gonna do a mail campaign, um, you want to think about how you’re putting together that letter and what you’re writing into the letter and how you’re addressing the donors for each of the different segments for each of the different personas that you’ve put together to really help craft a message and to inspire them specifically to donate.

[00:36:32.48] spk_0:
Okay, right, like Katie, like you were saying, you know, yeah, you know what’s important to them. Um, but that stuff is, this is very uh amorphous to try to, you know, it’s not just what do they give and how much do they give? And what time of year do they give, You know, what’s important to them? What do they value? This? Is this is difficult stuff to suss out.

[00:37:10.42] spk_4:
Yeah. One thing our co presenter said this morning, Marcus was that donors are smart and they’re savvy and with the advent of the internet and all of the various channels that you can communicate with people now, they know what they want and they know what they want to hear from you. And if they’re not hearing from you what they want, they’re gonna go find someone else who’s going to provide that information and communicate to them the way they want to be communicated with. So fundraising and marketing for nonprofits right now looks very different than it did maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, um, and, and donors know what they want now.

[00:37:24.54] spk_0:
Okay, so it’s worth, you’re trying to suss out all this amorphous information as as best you can. Okay. Um, Katie, is there anything more you want to say about personas before we move on to being multi channel?

[00:37:36.13] spk_3:
Let’s go on to multi channel.

[00:37:40.11] spk_0:
Alright, Alright. Anything I don’t want to leave anything important.

[00:37:44.66] spk_3:
Okay. I think we’ve covered the main point.

[00:37:47.19] spk_0:
Okay. What’s, what’s, what’s important about? Well, I think we all know why to be multi channel, but how to coordinate those messages? What what’s your, what’s your thinking there?

[00:39:21.81] spk_3:
Yeah, I can jump in here. So I think what people often don’t do is they don’t coordinate messages cross channel at the right time. That’s what I’ve been seeing a lot with just by industry research. I mean, I’m always looking at what everybody is doing in the space because I want to be part of the best. Uh but they say being what I’ve heard at multiple conferences is that there’s a rule of seven. Right. So as a non donor, let’s say, I’m scrolling through facebook, I need to see an ask seven times before I’m actually likely to give. So if you’re seeing that ask seven times on facebook, that means it’s seven posts. That’s kind of a lot. And that’s gonna have to be spaced out through a certain amount of days, weeks, months even. So if you’re just increasing all the channels that you’re presenting that message on. So let’s say I’m seeing it on facebook, I’m seeing it in my email. I’m seeing it on my instagram. I’m getting a paid ad for it because I liked it on facebook. That’s gonna shorten the window of which I see seven points of that call to action. So I’m gonna be more likely to give if I’m seeing it in a wider spectrum on the digital space than I am in just one channel. So making sure that you’re saying similar things, but that are custom to what the channel is providing, Like social media has like paid ads have a certain amount of characters you can use. So, um, making sure it’s optimized for what channel you’re using, but still with the common thread is really important for increasing your conversion rate.

[00:40:05.59] spk_0:
Okay, now it’s a little clear to me why I see so many ads for the uh, pickpocket proof slacks. I see them across all kinds of different channels. I’m not, I’m hardly on facebook anymore. But um, I, I see them when I go to websites and I’m reading articles and because one time, I don’t know, I, I swear it was like three years ago I was browsing through these like CIA approved slacks with 14 pockets and it’s all supposed to be pickpocket proof for something and you know, they $200 slacks or whatever, they’re, you know, but

[00:40:08.62] spk_3:
I’ve

[00:40:09.74] spk_0:
seen ever since. Yeah. And I don’t know. I’m not even sure that if I bought them, the ads would stop, maybe

[00:40:16.43] spk_4:
it’s

[00:40:17.57] spk_0:
sophisticated enough. No, it’s not right. That would be right. Because now your brother needs to pay or whatever. All right,

[00:40:23.00] spk_3:
Valerie,

[00:40:24.15] spk_0:
anything you wanna, you wanna explain about multi channel and how, how important it is to reinforce and be consistent.

[00:41:16.62] spk_4:
I think the biggest thing for me is if you’re starting from scratch and you’re really trying to develop content and put it in the right places. Um, you really want to be thinking about who your audience is on those channels. So for, linkedin, the messaging that you’re putting out is gonna look a lot different than what you’re putting out on facebook. Most people use facebook recreationally and they use linkedin for professional relationships. So the type of information that someone is seeking on linkedin or more likely to respond to on linkedin is a lot different than what they’re more likely to look for or respond to on facebook. Um so for us, we make sure all of our job listings go up on linkedin and all of our industry specific information that goes up on linkedin, um just to kind of show our expertise in the area. But when we’re posting to facebook, we’re talking more directly to people that we know are supporters of us and want to do tangible things to support us. So the messaging is different, even though the information is really the same.

[00:41:31.44] spk_0:
Okay, okay, again, you’re consistent but consistent, but but different. Maybe different format even. Um Okay.

[00:41:39.99] spk_4:
Yeah.

[00:41:52.00] spk_0:
Um I mean, there’s there’s other format, you know, content papers, white papers. Um Again, depending for the right, you know, for the right channel research, um, do either of you use um, media, uh, working in working through thought leadership in developing thought leadership in media media relationships either of

[00:42:30.91] spk_4:
you. Yeah, so there’s a local media outlet here in philadelphia called generosity and they are focused on nonprofits and social enterprises and people who are making positive impact in philadelphia. So they’re super open to having folks guest post um, or write op EDS for them. So we’ve utilized that outlet a couple of times. Um, actually just last week, um, our ceo over wrote an article about the opportunity for kindness in the era of coronavirus. So it’s something that she actually wrote to communicate to our staff members and let them know what our stance on, you know, moving forward was going to be. And we thought it was something that would be beneficial, not just to our staff but to be at large. So we passed it along to them. They posted it as an op ed and that gave us um, a little bit more bang for our buck for things that we had already

[00:42:58.94] spk_0:
written. Um, Katie, are you doing much with earned media?

[00:43:03.08] spk_3:
I am not the Trevor project is, but Katie Green is not doing that. Okay, handled that.

[00:43:10.85] spk_0:
Okay. Um, let’s talk about some, some analytics. I mean, how do we know whether we’re being successful? Uh, and where we need to, where we need to tweak or pivot Katie, can you, can you get us started?

[00:44:29.28] spk_3:
Absolutely. So analytics is very hard for a lot of nonprofits because it’s such a scientific based skill set. And you know, that’s something that when I first came onto the Trevor project, is that the first thing I implemented was our source coding protocol. It’s so important to know where people are coming from that you can actually optimize, but we a B tested and continue to A B test absolutely everything. We do it through our website, we do it through email, we do it through our paid social and to see how things work. I think really we just test absolutely everything things you think you know you don’t and that’s what I keep learning through testing is what you think works today, won’t work tomorrow and we retest everything. A time of day test for example isn’t gonna for ascend for email, isn’t gonna be the same after daylight savings. It’s not gonna be the same as the seasons change and particularly not the same now that everybody is stuck at home. So you know they’re testing and optimizing really what you know is working. It just requires retesting re optimizing and testing literally.

[00:44:35.20] spk_0:
Could you, could you give some more examples besides time of day, what are examples of things you test?

[00:45:24.47] spk_3:
Oh absolutely. So on our website we tested, we have a little um call out box with questions on our donate form. We tested the placement of that. Is it better to have it right up next to the form underneath directly on top. So the first thing people see um we test there, we test what photos we use a lot does a photo of somebody looking sad versus somebody looking more celebratory and happy. Um we test a lot of pride imagery because we serve LGBTQ youth. We wanna see if Pride imagery actually helps get our word out there. Um We test our colors a lot because our our brand color is orange which is can be very cautionary but we see you thing oh it’s your brand color. Of course everybody’s gonna always respond to it. But that’s not really the case. Like sometimes things like our blues and purples and greens when it comes to see ta buttons. Um Gosh, I mean I can tell you every test we’ve ever run. Thunder tests um using graphics versus photos on the website. Uh you know the size, the width, the height of our light boxes, the width of our donation forms the amount of buttons we have. It just the list goes on and

[00:45:51.24] spk_0:
on.

[00:45:53.35] spk_3:
I

[00:46:13.51] spk_0:
heard one that just made me think of just one small example of what riffing off what you just said was testing the text inside a button instead of just donate or like uh review or something. You know, be more be more explicit about what the what the action is you’re asking for instead of just a single word. A little little more descriptive. Yeah

[00:46:32.93] spk_3:
testing C. T. A. Is is something that we do a lot just to give people some ideas. I think one that can be really helpful when it comes to fundraising is seeing how your donors react to the word give and the word support and the word donate. So so it’s all the same thing. We’re asking you to support our mission to give to us and to donate. But those three words have very different feelings when you’re reading them on your screen. So that’s one of the biggest tests we ran. Um, but yeah, I wouldn’t recommend always testing the C. T. A. When you have a new one especially,

[00:47:09.95] spk_0:
was it, was it act blue that or or change dot org? I think maybe it’s change dot org started calling it chip in. Could you chip in? Okay. Okay. Um, um, so Valerie, can you talk us through some metrics? You’re the director of institutional advancement? What what numbers do you look for to decide how you’re doing?

[00:48:23.15] spk_4:
Uh, we look at a lot of things. So we’re looking at the click through rates on our emails and on our post actually reading to the bottom and clicking the links that we’re providing. Um, we’re looking at how many people are interacting with things that were posting on social media and whether they are enjoying it or not based on how many people are interacting with it. Um, we do a lot of surveys to do, so, talking to our donors directly and asking them what kinds of things they want to see what kinds of things they don’t want to see. Um, I know Katie is doing a lot more with metrics than we are. So, um, this is my friendly reminder to smaller nonprofits where there’s just one person trying to do all of this. you don’t have to recreate the wheel. Um, so you can look at an organization like the Trevor project that does have the staff who can look at all of these things and do all of these testing and all of the metrics and see what’s working best and they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So you can look at what they’re doing and then borrow it. Um, so for an organization like me that has a smaller staff, um, we’re doing a little bit on our own, but we’re also looking a lot at what other nonprofits are doing and assuming that they’re taking the time to test things and we’re kind of, you know, copying what they’re doing because it’s obviously successful for them.

[00:48:36.00] spk_0:
How do you learn from them? Do you just create a build a relationship and then ask what, what kind of metrics do you look at

[00:48:54.20] spk_4:
sometimes? And sometimes it’s as simple as going to the Trevor project, websites donate page and seeing where they place things and what they name their buttons and what giving levels they’re putting up there. Um, because you know, you’re never gonna be exactly the same as another organization. So you definitely want to take a look at who you’re using as an example and use someone who’s doing similar work or in a similar location to you. But at the end of the day, there’s only so much you can learn through testing and after that you’re just gonna have to dive in and do something. So if you don’t have time for the testing, you can do a quick search of what everybody in your industry is doing and kind of take it from there instead,

[00:49:20.34] spk_0:
Katie, uh, since everybody’s stealing from the Trevor project, what, uh, what I assume you knew Valerie was doing this.

[00:49:28.27] spk_3:
I didn’t, but it’s, it’s such a compliment.

[00:49:31.09] spk_0:
It’s

[00:49:32.63] spk_4:
because you do a great job. That’s why we’re looking at

[00:49:35.06] spk_3:
you. Oh gosh,

[00:49:36.48] spk_0:
what do you want to add about metrics?

[00:49:59.95] spk_3:
Um, I think I just wanna reiterate Valerie’s point that there are so many nonprofits where one person is doing this. Um I’m the only person on the digital giving team. I’m the first person they’ve ever hired to do Digital giving. Um I’m still a team member of one, but you know, I do have the support of a very large marketing team that helps me with creating all of the tests that we do and anyone can tweet me email me whatever if like any nonprofit ever wants to connect. I’m always an open resource. But uh, metrics are increasingly uh important, just critical to donors, content strategy. So

[00:50:21.55] spk_0:
since you’re offering yourself as a resource, do you want to share your email and or your twitter, you don’t have to give your email if you don’t want to.

[00:50:28.72] spk_3:
Yeah, maybe twitter is probably the best way to reach me because I’m trying, I’m trying to learn how to tweet more as a digital person. I feel like I need to, that it’s at Katie Sue Green like one word, so it’s K A T I E S U E G R E N K T. Still green green, just like the color. Okay,

[00:50:51.53] spk_0:
Okay, thank you. Um it’s a Valerie, you wanna uh wanna wrap us up some some parting thoughts about uh content strategy.

[00:51:18.42] spk_4:
Sure. Um since I am kind of representing the smaller organization here, I just want to remind everybody that you’re doing everything that you can and it’s everything that you’re doing is important. So don’t try to do everything at once, really pick one thing to focus on and get to a point where you’re doing that well and comfortably before you try to add more um listening to a podcast like this or going to a presentation, like the one that we did this morning is overwhelming in the number of things that you could be doing and it makes you feel like you’re not doing enough, but you are. And just tackling those small hills one at a time is much much easier than trying to climb the mountain.

[00:52:42.29] spk_0:
That’s very gracious, very gracious advice. Thank you. Thanks very much. Um that was Valerie johnson, that is Valerie johnson director of institutional advancement at pathways to housing P A. And with her is Katie Green Digital Giving Manager for Trevor Project. Thank you very much for sharing each of you. Thanks so much And thank you for being with Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTCC in two weeks. Trafton Heckman with his book, Take Heart Take Action next week, I’m working on it. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were 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 is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for October 24, 2022: Make Friends

 

Dr. Marisa G. FrancoMake Friends

Dr. Marisa G. Franco helps you start and grow friendships, so you can enjoy rich, valuable, fun friendships now and throughout your life. She’s a psychologist, professor and author of the book, “Platonic,” a New York Times bestseller.

 

 

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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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[00:01:56.93] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of de extroversion if I saw that you missed this week’s show make friends. Dr marisa G franco helps you start and grow friendships so you can enjoy rich, valuable fun friendships now and throughout your life she’s a psychologist professor and author of the book. Platonic a new york times bestseller tony steak to planned giving accelerator. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. And by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome my guest an enlightening psychologist, international speaker and new york times best selling author. Dr marisa G franco is known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. She’s a professor at the University of Maryland and authored the new york times bestseller platonic how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. She writes about friendship for psychology today and has been a featured connection expert from major publications like the new york times, the telegraph and vice. She speaks on belonging at corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and universities today. She belongs on nonprofit radio she’s on instagram at d r marissa g franco and at D. R. Marissa G franco dot com. Welcome Marissa,

[00:02:27.00] spk_1:
thank you so much for having me. tony I love your energy.

[00:02:30.36] spk_0:
Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to have you. You get me excited to talk about friendship and you’re coming off. You just told me before we got started. You’re coming off a ted talk?

[00:02:42.03] spk_1:
Yes. Ted talk

[00:02:44.55] spk_0:
That is wonderful. Congratulations. Thank

[00:02:47.13] spk_1:
you so much.

[00:02:59.64] spk_0:
Pleasure. Look forward to seeing it. Friendship, Marissa unfortunately declining in the United States. What’s happening?

[00:03:48.48] spk_1:
Wow, that’s a great question. You know, it’s, it’s been declining since like the 1950s unfortunately. And um, there’s this really good book bowling alone and he analyzes all the factors that kind of started this decline in what he calls civic engagement, like engagement in our communities. He says it started with the television basically that before then leisure was something you did publicly, you did it with other people right? But with the creation of the television, you spent leisure at home and not only that watching tv triggers lethargy. So even if you want to get out and call someone, you’re like less likely to do it right. And then I think as we’ve continued technology like 2012 loneliness really began to spike. What happened in 2012 was the rise of the smartphone And it’s not that we can’t use technology to connect with people. We absolutely can. It’s just that the way that technology is now developed. It’s developed in a way to keep us kind of scrolling on our phones not engaging with other people, right in ways that continue to foster loneliness. So I think there’s also analysis that found that like in 35 out of 37 countries, kids in school were significantly more lonely than they were a decade ago.

[00:04:43.78] spk_0:
Mm So these uh, these technologies tv was tv was wonderful. Um, I think the belief was that I was gonna kill movie theaters, which obviously didn’t happen. Uh, Netflix was supposed to do that too and it didn’t um, blockbuster before netflix was supposed to. But so the technologies, um, you know, in some respect, especially the phone and social, the social networks, uh, that’s a lot of the promise was that it would bring us together and I know you’re saying it can, but we need to be intentional about our technology use

[00:04:55.72] spk_1:
exactly what I’m saying.

[00:04:58.12] spk_0:
Okay. And we’ll get a chance to talk, we’ll talk more about, uh, we have the whole hour together so we don’t pack it all into the first five minutes. Um, well let’s a little motivation for folks that might not recognize what what the value is of having rich fun friendships.

[00:05:50.23] spk_1:
Yeah, So we absolutely don’t recognize the value. Um, in fact there was a study that found that when people predicted how they’d feel, talking to a stranger, they, they thought they’d feel a lot more, a lot better just like being on their own and not talking to anyone that was their prediction, but the study actually found that people after they had talked to a stranger increased their amount of positive feelings and joy and more so they felt better than those who were just kind of sitting alone. And so we underestimate just how much connection will bring to our lives. But The researcher, the research finds that for example, loneliness is akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and its impact on our bodies.

[00:05:59.76] spk_0:
That, yep,

[00:06:01.66] spk_1:
yep, it’s that bad.

[00:06:03.58] spk_0:
15, 15.

[00:06:28.89] spk_1:
Yeah, it has a greater impact on our on how long we live in our diet or how much we exercise, so it really destroys us. Um loneliness, it’s it’s a chronic stress experience because when you’re lonely you think other people are rejecting you and you’re looking out for all these signs that people are rejecting you and your body is basically undergoing chronic stress when we’re lonely. Um so it’s really bad for us. And you know, friendship connection really helps. Like just like we need water, just like we need food to function. Well, we absolutely need connection.

[00:06:42.69] spk_0:
What do these connections do for us physiologically? That that bring down our, it sounds like raging cortisol and adrenaline if you’re if you’re lonely.

[00:07:43.62] spk_1:
Yeah, so when we are connected we release a hormone called oxytocin and oxytocin is considered a hormone that does double duty, it’s also looked at as the fountain of youth in addition to like the hormone of connection. So it both keeps you young and it keeps you connected because not only when we feel connected we release this hormone but also that you know, oxytocin actually makes us more friendly people that have higher rates of oxytocin, they’re more trusting of others more generous towards others. So it’s funny. It’s just sort of like, oh, the hardest time to make friends is when you’re lonely because of how it affects your brain and how you think about things. The easiest time to make friends is when you’re connected because it makes you friendlier and warmer and more open towards others. So kind of like our brains like sabotaging us a little bit right? Like when we really need the connection the most our brain is like actually we’re going to see everyone is very scary and weary right now and sources of threat.

[00:08:03.10] spk_0:
Okay, but we can we can overcome this. Uh and I think this is where the science of attachment comes in. So can you guess this is this is your work around the science of attachment.

[00:09:44.60] spk_1:
So as I was writing my book, I found something in the research that basically our personalities are fundamentally a reflection of our experiences of connection or lack thereof. Whether we are warm, friendly, trusting, cynical aggressive, right? These are all predicted by how you’ve connected in the past, but not only that those people that have those healthier connections. They develop an internal set of beliefs that fosters continued healthy connection. Right? So it’s like the rich get richer is kind of what we’re saying here. Um these people are what’s called securely attached. They had healthy relationships which makes them go into new relationships, assuming people like them, assuming people are their side assuming they can trust people, assuming they can be vulnerable to people, assuming people will be there when they need right? All of these assumptions really help them create connection. Whereas those people that have had difficult connections in the past, they tend to be insecurely attached. They can either be anxious, which means they go into relationships very scared that people are going to abandon them, which makes them see see rejection when it’s not there, get closed off and shut down or very angry at other people which then makes them um reject people, right? They don’t even realize that when we get really afraid of rejection, we reject people or they can be avoided only attached, which means because people have broken their trust in the past, they go into relationships with no effort, they kind of just withdraw. They’re not really trying at all. They’re very afraid of intimacy, right? And these set of beliefs that insecurely attached people will hold onto that people are going to betray me betray my trust or people are going to abandon me. They tend to become self fulfilling prophecies. They tend to become confirmation bias is where we all look out for signs that those things are true and ignore all the signs. To the contrary.

[00:11:31.17] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Their newsletter this week. Their newsletter is on message hits the importance of gathering different perspectives as you are preparing your communications. They proposed a water bottle image for a national advertising campaign for their community foundation clients nationwide. And that water bottle image didn’t feel too good to the folks in flint michigan and Jackson Mississippi turned to hadn’t thought of those, you know, those possibilities, those opinions until they did testing on their proposed images. Now of course they will develop something new. You can get their insightful newsletter on message at turn hyphen too dot C. O. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission now back to make friends. Marissa, do these have implications? It’s sounds like for for uh Children who grow up in not necessarily single parent homes, but because because single parent homes can be nurturing, but but grow up in homes where there’s uh I don’t know, I don’t know how to characterize, but like early divorce, a lot of abandonment do do kids. Kids must carry this then to their with them through the rest of their lives without some kind of intervention.

[00:12:54.10] spk_1:
Yeah. So absolutely. You know, going through a divorce as a predictor of insecure attachment. And we see that these anxiously attached people, the parents aren’t mean, but they’re just not prioritizing their kids. They’re like prioritizing themselves more. And so the kid feels like I need to like fight to earn your love. Right? Then that’s the sense that they go into in all relationships. Like I’m not inherently worthy. And if I’m not trying to prove myself all the time, people are going to leave me and then the avoidant lea attached people. And again, there’s a genetic component because some people may be like, my kid came out anxious. Um, but yeah, there’s also a genetic component that sort of intersects with the environment here. But um, and then people that are avoiding li attached, they kind of grew up with emotional neglect, like their parents fed them their parents gave them shelter but did not respond to their emotions and told them don’t cry, handle that on your own. People it on that, you know, put your emotions away, suppress your emotions, right? That’s the message that they got. And that’s why they feel like if I’m ever vulnerable people are gonna harm me or minimize me or I can’t like quite trust People with that level of vulnerability. And it’s shocking. There’s a study that basically found that our attachment as infants predicts how many inflammation related illnesses that we have like diabetes heart issues at age 32 and anxiously attached people I think were seven times more likely to have the inflammation-related issues. And avoiding the attached three times more likely than secure people.

[00:13:19.63] spk_0:
Holy cow from infancy,

[00:13:22.90] spk_1:
infancy. Yeah.

[00:13:34.21] spk_0:
Okay. Um, and and the first set of folks that you you you described, you know, if they’re they’re constantly reaching out and trying to be friends. I mean that’s gonna that’s gonna put people off, isn’t it? If you’re if you’re trying so hard, doesn’t that become apparent and a put off?

[00:13:49.33] spk_1:
Yeah, I would say it’s not the trying, it’s the pressure, like anxiously attached people.

[00:13:56.02] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:14:51.26] spk_1:
exactly. Like if someone pulls away from them, they double down there like you’re trying to take your space. I need to get you to like me, like they tend to try to create friendships with people that aren’t interested in them because again, that’s what they learned about love. Like you have to demand it and when it’s freely earned, you can’t quite trust it. Right? So the so I think I describe anxiously attached people when it comes to friendship as high effort, low reward. They put a lot of effort into creating their friendships they do initiate with other people, they try to maintain their friendships. But their fundamental problem is they are they feel so rejected and abandoned that they tend to see that when it’s not there and they tend to reject people back. You know, try to get revenge on people. They tend to not be good at letting people have their own lives and their own needs because it’s like you need to do all these things to show me that I’m worthy. So when you need space, right? When you need a little bit of distance, when you’re not able to hang out this one time, right? That’s triggering my worthiness ruin. Instead of me being able to see that you’re a separate person with your own needs and you’re not necessarily rejecting me. So that is, that’s their big struggle when it comes to

[00:15:08.92] spk_0:
friendship. Those are the anxiously attached,

[00:15:11.27] spk_1:
Those are the anxiously,

[00:15:12.35] spk_0:
anxiously attached and avoidant lee connected.

[00:15:24.33] spk_1:
Um, well, there’s the, yeah, it’s interesting, anxiously attached avoidant lee connected. Um, what do you mean by avoiding the connected?

[00:15:26.19] spk_0:
I thought that was with, I was just trying to summarize the two phrases to monikers that you put on folks actually attached and avoiding maybe I got

[00:15:38.43] spk_1:
attached

[00:15:52.13] spk_0:
attached. Okay, so let’s try to uh, I’d like to apply the, this your work, the science of attachment to uh, to, to making friends in in new jobs. We we know about the great resignation. Lots of people moving. Certainly impacting small and midsize nonprofits. Our listeners. If we’re in a new job understanding it may very well be hybrid. What, what, what applies, what, how can we help ourselves to build these platonic friendships? Platonic relationships.

[00:17:51.90] spk_1:
First of all, I just want to emphasize just how important it is to make friends at work. Um, when people rate how meaningful their job is one of the biggest predictors, even more so than like salary flexibility. Um all these objective measures of work is how connected they feel like that’s like the biggest predictor of how meaningful people find their work. And there’s like studies that look at data from like all these different countries and have people rate out of these 12 domains which winter the most important to you in the workplace and resoundingly across all the countries, people say having good relationships with other people. So it’s critical. I mean, you know, lonely employees, they’re more likely to miss work, their performance suffers less engaged, less likely to be retained, right? Like for us to be happy at work, we need to feel connected, right? It’s it’s no, it’s not just and I’ve been through this as myself, as a professor at an institution who was like, I love the work that I’m doing but I don’t feel like I belong here and I feel really isolated and I left right, even though I love the work because that connection is just such an important resource. And you know, there’s research that finds that when we estimate how steep a hill is when we’re with a friend, we see it as less steep, which suggest when we face challenges and we’re connected, like challenges at the workplace. They feel less challenging to us. Other research that finds that when you have a break to have a conversation with another person and you come back and you you fill out like a test similar to like an IQ test your score is actually higher because you took that time to converse with another person. So

[00:17:57.11] spk_0:
remarkable outcomes.

[00:17:59.96] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:01.62] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:18:54.77] spk_1:
So impactful. So so what that means is like relationships don’t get in the way of work, they’re part of what we need to facilitate it. And for us to be performing at our best, we need to feel connected. Um And so if you want to make friends at work, I think it’s similar, similar tips that I share. Um for outside of work, which is assumed people like you um because according to research on something called the acceptance prophecy, when people, when people are told that you’re going to go into a group and be liked even though this is a lie, they become friendlier, warmer more open. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy right? So assume that your co workers want to hang out with you and want to get to know you want to hear from you right? Of course if they if they say no or they’re disinterested then move along but make that you’re starting assumption right? And then you have to initiate

[00:18:56.30] spk_0:
because we underestimate that we

[00:18:58.51] spk_1:
underestimate yep

[00:18:59.87] spk_0:
underestimate people’s other people’s esteem for us.

[00:19:17.86] spk_1:
We do, it’s called the liking gap when strangers interact and estimate how like they are by the other person, they underestimate how like they are and not only that the more self critical people were the greater this underestimation so people like us more than we think

[00:19:20.89] spk_0:
like you people

[00:19:22.32] spk_1:
like you

[00:19:23.75] spk_0:
Smalley you know al Franken on saturday night live.

[00:19:27.52] spk_1:
Yeah

[00:19:28.54] spk_0:
dammit people I’m a good person and people like me or something like that.

[00:19:46.54] spk_1:
People like you. Yeah. Yeah and then you have to initiate, you have to say like hey do you want to get lunch sometime or hey do you wanna have coffee sometime? I totally love to get to know you more right. I don’t know why we think these things come off as weird. That’s

[00:19:46.91] spk_0:
the hard step taking that taking that affirmative step to say let’s move it to the next level

[00:19:53.81] spk_1:
which is not that

[00:20:50.23] spk_0:
big A. Level. It’s just like chatting in the office versus having lunch. It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the I. T. Buffet it’s the holistic I. T. Services solution where you choose the buffet items that fit your budget or your I. T. Appetite as it were like help desk, security assessment planning and budgeting. Moving to the cloud and there’s more, take what you want from the buffet line. Leave the rest behind fourth dimension technologies, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper let’s return to make friends. Why do we feel that That’s so that’s such the hard step to take

[00:20:54.71] spk_1:
after

[00:20:56.22] spk_0:
The five minute conversation that that went you know went smoothly and fun.

[00:21:20.30] spk_1:
Yeah. I think our fear of rejection is one of the biggest barriers to making friends, but our brains have a negativity bias which means that when we predict how our behaviors come off, our predictions tend to be inaccurate and more cynical than the truth, right? Like I already told you about the like and gap, but that is a finding that is across the board. There’s so many studies that find that people are perceiving us more positively than we tend to assume, right. And so if we can just remind ourselves of this like people like you, they’re less likely to reject you than you think it gets a little bit easier to reach out to people and say yeah, I’d love to connect

[00:21:45.42] spk_0:
sometime and I don’t know I am I am I oversimplifying if I say that uh people are over thinking like should I take the next step? Should I, should I say let’s have lunch or should get together after work? I mean are we are we doing that or am I am I oversimplifying if I am saying you know you don’t know what you’re talking about?

[00:23:07.61] spk_1:
No, I think so. I mean I think if you think it do it right, if you think, should we have lunch just ask let’s have lunch right? It’s you know, you don’t have to go back and forth with it if you’re rejected. Also like that’s okay. Like for there’s a study that had people basically read stories about people transitioning to college where people kind of said at first it was difficult making friends, but eventually I found my people right? And then to share their own story of like, oh, I was rejected along the way. But eventually I found my people so and that that fosters greater belonging when we are able to see rejection as part of the trajectory to belonging, right? Like if you want to belong, you put yourself out there, you’re taking a risk. Some people will reject you. Some people won’t, the rejection is not assigned to crawl back into your cave and carl black and tortoiseshell and never try again. It’s a sign that you’re doing everything right and that you’re on the path and this is a part of the path to connection is rejection, right? So I think that helps to remember that. And I like to tell people like if you’ve reached out to someone, you’ve succeeded because you can’t control their outcome and you can’t judge yourself by an outcome you cannot control. So if you did successfully what was within your control, which is reaching out to someone like you’ve already succeeded, no matter what they say.

[00:23:38.39] spk_0:
Now we’re getting into the realm of like, value yourself. You know? Think, think well of yourself people uh the the uh keep in mind the liking gap, you know, but it’s not a reflection on you. It’s they they it’s a reflection on them or maybe they really are busy for lunch already.

[00:24:03.58] spk_1:
Exactly, yeah, don’t take it so personally, I promise it’s not as personal as you think and the more you take it personally, there’s a theory called hypervigilance for social threat hypothesis, which is really clunky, but it’s just the meaning of it. Is that the more that we assume we’re going to be rejected, the poorer our relationships will be because when we assume we are going to be rejected, we engage in antisocial behaviors, right? I’m not going to reach out to you, I’m not going to try to connect with you. I’m not gonna be vulnerable with you. I’m not going to show affection towards you, right? Because I’m assuming that I’m going to be rejected.

[00:24:18.74] spk_0:
Thank you for defining that too, because we have drug in jail on non I’d hate to I hate to have thrown you in drug in jail, but you you defined you defined it.

[00:24:28.11] spk_1:
Okay.

[00:24:36.88] spk_0:
Um so is there anything else about new employee, new workplace, uh that advice that you have?

[00:24:40.15] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:24:41.23] spk_0:
or hybrid, maybe hybrid advice with, you know, I’m not gonna get to see these people live for several weeks.

[00:24:56.46] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, I think setting up a regular time to me is a really good idea because you’re not going to just kind of bump into each other, like asking people are you open to just like a weekly catch up or a bi weekly catch up. Right? And the other thing is when you do catch up, like stop talking about work, Like if you there’s a study that found that the more time you spend with your colleagues, the less close you feel and that is really weird, right? Because

[00:25:14.01] spk_0:
the more time the more time you spend with your work colleagues, the less connected you

[00:25:20.28] spk_1:
feel. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:25:22.38] spk_0:
How can that be?

[00:25:40.93] spk_1:
So my theory is that you know, typically we spend time together at foster’s connection but at work we spend time together and we’re only showing this work side of ourselves. So it’s like you only know me as like an employee, you only know my ability to fill out this data sheet and that’s all we’re talking about. So I think it’s really important if you want to make connections at work, like stop talking about work, tell them about who you are. I think some people think it’s like risky, but like there’s so many things you can share about who you are that are not risk, like what are your hobbies interests? Like what is your community, like outside of work, where have you lived before? What are you learning? What media are you engaging in recently?

[00:26:39.04] spk_0:
All these things that you can ask people about when you’re first meeting them, you know maybe maybe not in a work setting, but something social. I mean people have people want to tell their stories, you know, where like you said, where have you lived? What have you done? Uh are you married, you have a partner, you have Children. Where is your family? Do you know all that, all that stuff? Um Yes. Um what about uh new town if you’re in a if you’ve relocated recently, special advice for uh for a new new new place to live or someone who’s maybe uh I don’t know how many listeners this applies to, but a nomad perhaps on the road a lot.

[00:27:56.16] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. So, um, I think people move to a new town and they’re like, I hope to make friends and I want to tell you do not assume it’s going to happen organically, just don’t like friendship in adulthood, it doesn’t happen organically. Um people that think it does are actually lonely or five years later, according to one study. Whereas people that see it as happening based on effort or less lonely five years later. So my suggestion for you is thinking about something that you’re interested in and pursue it in community with other people. Right? So, I love learning different languages. I can take my spanish class, you could do your hiking class, your improv class, your meditation class, your, you know, whatever it is that you like, your class at the university. I think a lot of retired folks to do things like that, right? Because when you and then you’re you’re setting yourself up to see someone in a way that’s repeated over time and that does two things for you. First of all, when you see someone in a repeated way over time, we have an unconscious tendency to like them more. It’s called the mere exposure effect. So

[00:27:57.41] spk_0:
mirror

[00:29:06.61] spk_1:
Mirror. Yeah, mere exposure effect, yep. And so when researchers planted women in a psychology lecture, they found that, um, students liked the woman who showed up for the most classes, 20% more than the student, the woman that didn’t show up for any, they don’t remember any of these women. Um, but we also find something called like the anticipation of liking effect, which is the, the effect that when we think we’re going to see people again, we report liking them more. Then when we’re not sure we’re going to see someone again. So if I just show up to this lecture and this happy hour, it’s a one off event. I’m not capitalizing on those powerful forces of connection versus when I’m joining something that’s repeated over time, people tend to be more invested in each other, they come to like each other more. I think another implication of mere exposure effect because when I was in college, I like joined a club to make friends and in the first club, I didn’t feel like anyone reached out to me and I didn’t really connect with anyone and then I quit. But the implications of mere exposure effect is like you are going to feel uncomfortable at that first meeting. You’re gonna feel weary. You’re gonna feel like I don’t trust anyone, right? That is part of the process new, your exposure effect has not set in yet, right? It’s going to take a little bit of time before you feel comfortable and they feel comfortable around you. Um,

[00:29:18.96] spk_0:
that’s what you say, you’re, you’re doing the right things,

[00:29:48.91] spk_1:
you’re doing the right things. It may feel, you may feel uncomfortable along the way, but that doesn’t mean that you’re doing anything wrong. But the other tip that I share, because this was my other issue, I show up at this club and I wait for people to talk to me, right? And I don’t really try to introduce myself to anyone and I’m engaging in something called covert avoidance, which is when you show up physically, but check out mentally you’re on your phone, you’re in the corner, you may be talking to the host, the bar bartender, right? You’re watching the television, right? But to overcome covert avoidance, it’s not just about showing up. You have to engage with people when you get there, right? You have to say, hey, my name is Marissa, it’s so good to meet you. Like tell me more about your experience with this club, right? That’s that’s the sort of thing that really fosters the connection.

[00:31:37.05] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator. I’m just planting some seeds here. The next accelerator class is going to be starting in March and I really won’t be promoting it until january, february. Well in january and february. Starting in january, I’ll have some info then. So just like I said, planting seeds if launching and planned, giving fundraising program is something you want to do at your nonprofit or if you’re interested in it for professional development purposes, your own skill building plan giving accelerator, I’ll be able to help you in, uh, for either of those use cases. That’s it. That’s Tony’s take two, two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for make friends with Marisa Franco. This has a lot of residents for are a lot of our listeners who are professional fundraisers and so they’re, they’re, they’re naturally drawn to folks, uh, and relationships. Hopefully otherwise I think they’re in the wrong profession. They’re not, if they’re not naturally inclined to like people, but, but this is all that valuable reminders. I’m, as you’re speaking, I’m thinking of myself in a charity event, you know, a cocktail party or a dinner or something. Yeah. And, and there are the folks who are right talking to the host, talking, talking to your fellow coworkers. You’re supposed to be supposed to be talking to the donors and potential donors to the organization, not huddled with your coworkers for half the time.

[00:32:29.71] spk_1:
I wanted to just touch on that tony because everything that I’m saying about making friends applies to networking like networking to me is making friends with people. Um And when people go into a networking event, one study found that they spend so much more time interacting with people they already know when 95% of people that go went to this networking event reported wanting to meet new people. So literally everybody is there to meet you but everybody is afraid and we think if they’re not engaging with me they don’t want to meet me. But no they’re not engaging with you because they’re afraid just like you are right. And so you know I met this woman, she’s really good at making friends and her secret. Was that she her mom had always told her everybody wants to be your friend, they’re just waiting for you to initiate.

[00:32:59.75] spk_0:
I love that. In one of your new york times interviews I saw a comment that was a little disturbing, but I’m glad I saw it because I would not have thought of it. The guy said this doesn’t apply to men may be fine for women but this doesn’t apply to men can you? And I was first I thought it was unfortunate then I thought some in cell sitting in his mom’s basement or something. Uh tuna helper uh scrolling four chan So can we help this, Can we help this person can reassure us that it doesn’t matter. You haven’t said anything about gender. I brought it up. Can we can we reassure folks that it applies for everybody?

[00:33:32.75] spk_1:
We can we can engage in the complexities of gender, which is that this person is right. It is harder for men. Um we know from the research that men are half as likely to be vulnerable with their friends, half as likely to share affection towards their friends. What men are up against is something called homo hysteria, which is men’s fear of being perceived as gay. So a lot of the behaviors that foster yeah,

[00:33:57.98] spk_0:
hysteria,

[00:33:59.10] spk_1:
hysteria,

[00:33:59.95] spk_0:
afraid of being perceived as gay,

[00:34:45.59] spk_1:
yep, yep. And it’s like it can be very deep rooted and very unconscious, but you know, why are some men so afraid to say I love you to a friend, right? Or you know to even like have any sort of touch with a friend a hug with a friend. Right? And and I think that’s you know, this homo hysteria makes men feel like I can’t um I like I I can’t reach out to a guy. I can’t ask him to just hang out. We have to do it around an activity, right? And this home hysteria makes it so that I think it’s harder for men to find other men that are ready to be in deep relationships with them. That being said. I still think all my tips apply. I think they I still think all the tips apply. What I do think is that men who are specifically seeking friendships with other men. They might have to go through more of a sifting process, right? I told you rejection is part of the experience, right? Men just might have to meet a larger pool of men to find men that are ready for the deep intimacies of friendship, who aren’t as haunted by homo hysteria.

[00:35:10.79] spk_0:
And what about cross gender friends? Uh male and female? Is that that make it harder to I’m engaging in deep stereotypes here. Is it harder for men to to be friends with women? And this comes from when Harry met sally? You know, what what what what are the dynamics there?

[00:36:26.07] spk_1:
The dynamics are that men very much benefit from being friends with women. Like the research is mixed on whether men feel closer to their women friends or their men friends, whereas women in general report that the women in their life are the closest friends that they have. So so men and also men that are friends with women actually experience more intimacy in their friendships than men that are just friends with men. So, so I think men feel safer around women in some ways to get really vulnerable in a way that they don’t always feel around other men. So these cross gender friendships really give something to men in particular and obviously, you know, everybody gets the sort of new perspective that they might be looking for from someone of a different gender, which both genders report appreciating about these cross gender friendships. We also know though that these cross gender friendships tend to be more fragile, they’re more likely to end. And there can be, you know, people can feel threatened, right if you get into a romantic relationship or you have a spouse and oh you’re making friends with someone of a different gender. And what does that mean for our relationship? Right. And so I think some of those assumptions are part of the reason why it can be harder to make those friendships.

[00:36:44.49] spk_0:
That was uh what you just mentioned was the cause of my uh my a divorce once.

[00:36:52.25] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:36:54.09] spk_0:
Yeah. I my first wife refused to allow me to um have lunch with female colleagues

[00:37:03.93] spk_1:
at

[00:37:14.46] spk_0:
work at work. Um and then um then she she she thought I had had a lunch and devolved from there. But that was a deep, I mean to me it was an insecurity that you know, lunches with colleagues were were prohibited. Yeah.

[00:37:25.26] spk_1:
Can I speak to that tony because I think you’re raising a really important

[00:37:28.50] spk_0:
point.

[00:37:45.23] spk_1:
We sometimes really perceive friendship as antagonistic to romantic love, right? Like if you’re hanging out with your friends, you’re not hanging out with me. Like I only want you or I only want you to hang out with me, I won’t be the only woman in your life, right? But in fact people that have friends are a lot better spouses because if I make a friend according to the research, not only am I less depressed, my spouse becomes less depressed because

[00:37:56.00] spk_0:
like

[00:38:32.02] spk_1:
yeah, your own happiness in a relationship is going to impact your spouse’s. So anything that makes you happy is going to make your relationship happier, right? And and there’s other studies that find that when you get into conflict, your release of the stress hormone cortisol after the conflict is like dis regulated off, it’s off, it’s wacky. But when you have quality connection outside the marriage, that’s not true, your stress hormone release is still typical. And studies also find that for women that have particularly close friendship tend to have more close friendships when they go through difficulties in their marriage, they’re more resilient to them because they’re centering themselves emotionally and re engaging in this relationship from a centered place because they have someone else that they could also talk to about the issue. So, so I don’t think I wish that we didn’t see these two things as antagonistic because in fact they’re synergistic like your spouse making friends is going to make for a better marriage, a better relationship with you and

[00:38:53.77] spk_0:
you

[00:38:54.45] spk_1:
and happier you and happier spouse both things All

[00:39:04.79] spk_0:
right. Um you you encourage folks to share that with with their friends how they feel that they that they like their friends that they’re thinking about their friends. Why why is that so important?

[00:39:34.90] spk_1:
Yeah. So I think sometimes we have this misconception that oh, vulnerability burdens people, right? But in fact the research is sort of like clear that the more you disclose intimately about yourself, the closer that people feel to you, the more that they like you, right? It’s and the more that they disclose back. So it becomes again this sort of positive reinforcing cycle and fundamentally, you know, having someone to confide and being vulnerable with someone is really important for our mental health and well being. There is a study that looked at 106 factors that influence our depressive symptoms. Do you know what the number one preventer was?

[00:39:56.81] spk_0:
Vulnerability?

[00:39:59.39] spk_1:
Yeah, it was. And then having someone to confide in that was the number one, number one preventer of depression. Um and so

[00:40:07.59] spk_0:
100 and 600 and

[00:40:13.50] spk_1:
606. That’s the most powerful one. Yeah. So we need it for ourselves. We need it for our relationships like we need that vulnerability. Otherwise you’re going to feel like I’m friends with them but they don’t really know me. And I don’t actually feel that close to them.

[00:40:44.42] spk_0:
Listeners are gonna know may even predict what I’m about to say about vulnerability and leadership that I’ve I’ve I’ve always subscribed That vulnerability is a is a wonderful characteristic uh feature of of of leadership that you can open up vulnerability about, you know, not necessarily about your personal life but about uh you know that that you don’t have all the answers that the organization isn’t where we want it to be, but here’s how we can get it there vulnerability. Can are you able to speak to vulnerability in leadership and how that’s perceived by the people who work for that person?

[00:41:26.73] spk_1:
Yeah, I haven’t read extensively on this, but I know it does contribute to positive outcomes at work and I also know that as a leader, what you do disproportionately sets the culture and the tone of the place, right? So if you’re able to be vulnerable, you literally create an entire culture of people being vulnerable where now colleagues feel like, okay this is a norm. Like leaders are creating the norms. And so the people that are all working under you are all going to feel like, oh now I can be more vulnerable with other people and I can share more and obviously that’s going to help them create those workplace connections with their colleagues that we just talked about is so meaningful.

[00:41:46.37] spk_0:
So that that can absolutely trickle down

[00:41:50.27] spk_1:
from from from

[00:41:51.28] spk_0:
leadership.

[00:41:51.97] spk_1:
Whatever you do as a leader trickles down so choose wisely.

[00:41:56.89] spk_0:
Um I’ve been firing a lot of stuff at you, Marissa, what what would you like to talk about?

[00:42:01.68] spk_1:
Yeah, I’m wondering what has you interested in this topic?

[00:43:55.63] spk_0:
Uh Okay thank you. I’m I’m the connector among friends. Um Hi going back to high school, I’m 60 I still have deep friends friendship from high school um from college law school, the Air Force jobs I’ve been in like I leave a job, but I still stay in touch with the friends. I still, because I didn’t like the job. It’s not that I didn’t like the people. So I tend to be the ones my fraternity. I’m the one who organizes the, uh, the annual reunion around the spring carnival at the college. Um, I’m a connector. You know, I’m the one even even through and I don’t have, I don’t have Children. I’m married but don’t have Children. So even through the ages where, uh, my friends were, uh, saddled, had the responsibilities of Children, put it trying to put it as politely as possible saddled or burdened with parenthood. You know, we had the responsibility of childhood. So, you know, they couldn’t get away on a, on a reunion weekend, you know, but you, you wait out, you know, stay in touch and do what you can call instead of meeting, maybe, Uh, quick meeting instead of dinner meetings. You know, things like that. And then through the decades, uh, you wait 16 or 17 years and then the Children don’t want to be around because the parents are now humiliation and embarrassment. So if you wait out your friends, they’ll come back to you and then all of a sudden they can come back to the reunions and they can meet you for a weekend and a dinner because their Children don’t want to be seen anywhere near them. You wait it out, your your, your your you’re friends with, Children will come back. Um, so yeah, so yes, I saw you in the times. And the idea of deep friendships, relationships going back to high school, uh, resonates with me. I’m the connector.

[00:44:08.91] spk_1:
So you’re the one that will reach out and initiate and put in the effort. It sounds like,

[00:44:30.99] spk_0:
yeah, I keep the email lists for a bunch of, a bunch of different categories of friends. I forgot to mention Boy Scouts. My Boy Scout camp fellow coworkers and Boy scouts. Uh, yeah, I’ve got a bunch of email lists. I’m the one who initiates, but you know, it’s, it’s to me, I’m doing it for selfish reasons because it feels so good.

[00:44:36.59] spk_1:
It’s

[00:45:24.38] spk_0:
the, it’s the, it’s the cortisol regulation you talked about. I don’t know if dopamine is firing. Um, the oxytocin that you mentioned. You know, people thank me, but I’d say I do it for selfish reasons because it feels good to get to see 20 friends together for a reunion weekend and laughing like they can’t laugh in front of their families or their coworkers, because you know, we have bonds and we saw each other when we were stupid in college or in high school that that transcend these bonds, transcend all our other relationships. And so the persona is the personas are dropped, the facades are down and everybody’s just back slapping and laughing and enjoying each other’s company that we’ve known each other for 45 years in some cases.

[00:45:44.24] spk_1:
And I also hear that because I know sometimes people are like the one to reach out and the one to organize and they can feel a little bit resentful. Like people aren’t reaching out to me. But it sounds like maybe part of the reason why that works for you is because you’re able to be like, well, this is a joy for me. It isn’t, you know, the task to be the one that reaches out all the time. Or or do you sometimes feel resentful if people aren’t as intentional as you are?

[00:46:07.33] spk_0:
I used to. But that was that was probably 10 or 15 years ago or so. And I just got over it. A lot of it was because folks had Children. So, you know, so they weren’t as available. Um, but I, yeah, I got over it. I don’t You know, if people don’t respond to the, well, it’s not that nobody responds, but for the folks who don’t respond to the let’s get together over the reunion weekend at college. You know, they have their own things going on. That’s okay. You know? Uh, let’s let’s focus on the 25 who will, who will come.

[00:46:22.32] spk_1:
Yeah, it seems like you learn to not take things personally and that really helped you with your friendships.

[00:46:27.36] spk_0:
Yeah, enormously that

[00:46:29.15] spk_1:
security. That’s the secure attachment. We’ve been talking about.

[00:46:32.64] spk_0:
Okay, great. I’m talking to a psychologist. I’m doing my therapy. I’m doing my therapy and public here.

[00:46:40.41] spk_1:
I want to have my podcast. I love asking questions. I love turning the tables and hearing from people and we all have so much wisdom inside of us. You

[00:47:12.68] spk_0:
know I appreciate it. And obviously I had a story to tell why this all this your work resonates with me because I believe in deep rich friendships. You know the jokes that only we get You know that only we know because it goes back 30 years or something. You know those types of things that those inside things you know that it all it all resonates my synesthesia is kicking in because I’m getting goose bumps as I’m talking to you. Um You have a quiz we should encourage folks to take your quiz at. Uh D. R. Marissa. And by the way marissa is one S. D. R. Marissa G franco dot com. You want to acquaint folks with your quiz on on your site?

[00:47:35.11] spk_1:
Yeah so at dr marisa G franco dot com you can take a quiz. It assesses your strengths and weaknesses as a friend and also gives you some suggestions for how to improve as a friend if that’s what you’re looking for and you can reach out there. I do for any speaking engagements on connection and belonging

[00:48:13.70] spk_0:
you say dr marisa DeFranco people will spell out doctor. Okay well it’s the lawyer it’s the Air Force I guess. D. R. Marissa. however you want to do it just doctor is D. R. D. R. Marissa. Dr marisa DeFranco dot com. Um But what else anything else from from the book or from from your research, science of attachment or anything else you wanna you wanna talk about? You graciously turned to me. That was very

[00:48:15.58] spk_1:
thoughtful. You

[00:48:16.92] spk_0:
are very generous and thoughtful

[00:48:18.03] spk_1:
that way. What

[00:48:19.16] spk_0:
would you like to talk about that we didn’t cover?

[00:48:22.55] spk_1:
Well I think you know my niece read my book and one of her takeaways was that for friendship to happen someone has to be brave so be brave.

[00:48:35.03] spk_0:
Okay would you like to leave it there? I

[00:48:53.41] spk_1:
would like to leave it there and of course my book you know I appreciate if you read it I think you’ll really like it. It’s called Platonic how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. It’s a new york times bestseller. Or you can find me on for more tips outside of this. You can find me on instagram at D. R. DR D. R marissa G franco as well and hopefully we can connect more. But tony thank you so much. This was really pleasure and I really did enjoy hearing some of your insights especially because you know I’m a little younger than you so I’m like what is the future hold for me and friendship So it’s just it’s really helpful to hear your your wisdom.

[00:49:13.10] spk_0:
Oh thank you very much. I guess I guess I would summarize with wait out your friends,

[00:49:19.71] spk_1:
wait

[00:49:20.07] spk_0:
out your your weight out, you’re married, you’re married friends, they will come back to

[00:49:24.97] spk_1:
you. Uh

[00:49:26.49] spk_0:
and uh and Marisa’s book is at uh is that dr marisa DeFranco dot com? So that’s where you can find her book, platonic, Thank you, Marissa, real joy. I got more goose bumps. Thank you so much. Thank

[00:49:40.35] spk_1:
you.

[00:50:41.75] spk_0:
Don’t leave yet. I have to have to say goodbye to everybody. It’s time for um sorry, it’s time for me to tell you that next week what what next week’s show is gonna be ordinarily I would, but I’m working on it, I’m working on, I won’t let you down again. I mean, not that I have, I’m saying again that I won’t let you down. Not like I let you down in the past and now I won’t do it again. That’s not what I meant. 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. And by fourth dimension technologies I tion for in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and his music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation, Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit, radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%, go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for February 14, 2022: Fundraising Amid Polarization

Drew Lindsay: Fundraising Amid Polarization

From The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Drew Lindsay uncovers the details from his two recent articles reporting on the impact of political polarization on nonprofit fundraising.

 

 

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[00:02:25.84] spk_0:
mm hmm. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. It’s the valentine’s Day show. I hope you and your valentine or valentine’s can snuggle a bit and do something special together or at least share that you’re special to each other. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into para que sis if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show fundraising amid polarization from the Chronicle of philanthropy. Drew Lindsay uncovers the details from his two recent articles reporting on the impact of political polarization on nonprofit fundraising on tony stick to an example beyond polarization into conspiracy theory. Last week I said Amy sample ward would be on this week. You have no idea what it’s like working with these big time celebrities. There was a calendar mistake and it would be indiscreet of me to say who made the mistake. Amy, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o here is fundraising amid polarization. It’s my pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio Drew Lindsay. He is a long time magazine writer and editor who joined the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2014. He previously worked at washingtonian magazine and was a principal editor for teacher and M. H. Q. Which were each selected as finalists for a national magazine award for general excellence In 2005. He was one of 18 journalists selected for a year, Long Night Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. You should be following him. He’s at Drew Lindsay C. O. P. If he was Drew Lindsay COPD that would be chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But he doesn’t, he doesn’t have COPD. He’s at the Chronicle of philanthropy. So Drew Lindsay C. O. P. Welcome

[00:02:35.66] spk_1:
Drew, appreciate it.

[00:03:24.84] spk_0:
My pleasure. Thank you. We’re talking about two of your very recent articles in the Chronicle. one is donations in the balance fundraising in the age of polarization. The other is advice for fundraisers caught in the middle of political battles. I’d like to start with a quote from, from the second of those. And then, uh let’s let’s talk about what’s going on, quote at the extreme our episodes where blocks of disaffected donors protests and organizations position or work. But fundraisers report that even casual encounters with supporters can lead to challenging conversations about political and social issues. End quote. What does your reporting tell you what’s going on? Drew

[00:05:00.44] spk_1:
Well, it’s interesting how this story even came about in the sense that um for that I’ve been asked to do for six months. Very deep stories on fundraising. What’s going on. So, I’ve been talking a lot of sources, a lot of fundraisers, a lot of consultants just generally to see stories that I should pursue. And almost as sidebars, um, these individuals had mentioned and oh yeah, this is going on. This is sort of we’re encountering this daily. Um, and I also saw there were some stories where some of these, um, sort of collisions of politics in a sense popped up and became news stories. Um, so I decided this was sort of worth the story for us. And I think, um, importantly for us, I think we write for a audience that is largely fundraisers in the sense I have often is that they’re not very connected with each other. They often think their work and their problems and their challenges, they sort of face a little bit of isolation. So we wanted to talk about the daily experience as best as we could to sort of in one sense, make nonprofits, their leaders and fundraisers realize, hey, we’re not alone. It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong. Um, at times it’s that we’re encountering this because the way the country is and, and the way things are playing out. So that was our goal with this story, um, is to offer a glimpse. I don’t by any means suggests that my reporting covers at all and that this is happening nationwide. I do think it’s common enough that people are going to count encounter maybe just in a casual conversation and maybe something bigger. But we wanted to show that happening.

[00:05:21.54] spk_0:
Yeah. You know, you say in one of the pieces that non profits are bringing together large numbers of people who just reflect society’s divisions and the country is divided polarized. So nonprofits are sometimes in the Crossair. Um, you know, let’s talk a little about, you know, social media and what, you know, how things can inflame, you know, so quickly. And, but the anonymity behind that

[00:06:31.54] spk_1:
to, I think one of the interesting things, some of the veterans that I talked to about this issue said, you know, the, the country has, you know, this is not new to fundraising in the sense of encountering donors or others who disagree with the organization for some reason, but, and there are examples in the country’s history. Talk to one fundraiser who have been, you know, working since at least the civil rights movement, he said, she said, this is, you know, this, it’s been part of what we’ve dealt with a long time. I think there is some sense that social media um accelerates this intensifies. It amplifies it, um, that, you know, people are, as we all know, people are very quick on social media to be in their own camp one and two to react to whatever they see in the moment. Um, without measured thought without context. Social media itself is not a great, um, you know, a great means of conveying nuance of conveying, you know, um, deep background and context. So I think people are reacting sometimes too quickly to things that are not put forward in the right way, which just inflamed the situation in a sense.

[00:06:46.64] spk_0:
And then you have the anonymity to it. Also, you quote, you quote someone who wonders if the people there, that she’s talking to day to day, you know, it might be trolling anonymously, you know, and and inflaming

[00:07:55.34] spk_1:
I think that’s true. I think it’s unsettling for people that you don’t know. Um you can be sitting in a development officer communication office and you are putting forward messages from your organization and you can have um, what’s called clap back people reacting on social media to what you’ve done and you really don’t know. Is this a supporter? Is this, uh, alumni that is upset? Or is this someone from the outside? Is this someone who has no connection to the organization whatsoever will happen to see this and reacted. And so it’s a little hard as a um, you know, steward of your organization to understand how to react to those kind of things, because it may just be somebody who’s Who isn’t again, isn’t a supporter and doesn’t even know much about your organization just responding to those 160 characters in the tweet. Yeah,

[00:07:56.50] spk_0:
it could just be a troll threatening to stop giving who’s never has given and and maybe never even heard of your organization until they

[00:08:48.84] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think some of the in the advice piece, I think some of the folks really tried to help put that in perspective, that you can’t just assume that because you have a mini firestorm on social media, that that is all your supporters, that if someone on social media declares, I’m never giving you this organization again, that may not be true and maybe something I thought about it in the moment and so to try and also that it it often doesn’t represent had several organizations. Tell me, you know, something that happens on social media that probably doesn’t represent our whole constituency. It’s it’s maybe a small minority and you need to keep that in mind as you react as you respond. That isn’t all what’s on social media doesn’t represent your whole supporter base.

[00:09:45.14] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Thought leadership. Do you or your nonprofit want to be seen as leaders in a public dialogue, not merely participating in a conversation that involves your work. Wouldn’t it be delightful? Wonderful to have media call you to get your opinion on breaking news. It takes time to learn that credibility to build those relationships. But it’s eminently doable. Turn to can get you there, turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o now back to fundraising amid polarization. Yeah. You you say the group at M. I. T. The Free speech

[00:09:47.61] spk_1:
Alliance,

[00:09:55.04] spk_0:
You know, they based on your reporting or at least up until your reporting. You know, they had something like 500 followers but Almost 150,000

[00:09:56.36] spk_1:
alumni,

[00:10:10.64] spk_0:
but but a vocal a tiny minority but but vocal inflammatory and that you know that leads to um the potential of donations being used as a one of your 11 of the folks you quote says as the donations can be a screw that’s

[00:11:14.84] spk_1:
turned. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s um I think that’s one of the things that surprised me about it is that I knew that that you know, people sometimes talk about on social media and letters or you know, they’re responding, there’s an organization to a message that they may say in that individual response I’m never gonna give. It was interesting to me to see that some critics of an organization now have taken it and become more formalized since uh the M. I. T. Case. You you mentioned um the Free speech Alliance has not taken this step, but they are considering forming a donor advised fund in which they would encourage um supporters of their free speech issues to instead of giving to M. I. T. They would give to this donor advised fund. And then it would in a sense, be held as leverage as they try to convince the university to to pursue certain free speech principles that they adhere to. So um that somebody gets surprised me is that in some cases it’s become a little more formalized in terms of how you used donations as leverage.

[00:11:23.24] spk_0:
Yeah. You saw this at Washington. And lee also,

[00:11:55.44] spk_1:
that’s correct Washington lee the free speech group there um has I think 10 to 12,000 supportive followers. I won’t say supporters that, you know, they, when they sent out an email, they have a base of about 10,000 and they have encouraged repeatedly to their supporters to withhold their contributions to the university as a means of getting the university to pay attention to them. They feel the university we disagree that they feel they have not, their views have not been heard. And so they are trying to, in a sense, use donations as a way to make the university pay attention to them. Um, so

[00:12:15.24] spk_0:
yeah, at Washington and lee, it’s around the, the treatment of general lee, the, the administration took his name off the chapel and that, that seems to have incited ignited the, the, the organization called the general’s readout. That’s correct. I guess they’re the Washington and lee generals.

[00:13:05.94] spk_1:
And I think it’s, I think Washington is an interesting case study of this in the sense that, um, you know, it’s an older institution. Um, it has that history going back Washington lee or in the name and its current, there are a number of, of um, individual supporters, faculty alumni who would like them to consider dropping lee from the name of the institution itself. So they have that pressure at the same time as an institution, they made the decision to take the name of lee off of the sort of central chapel to the college. It’s now called the university Chapel. So, um, this, this generals readout is not, is not, I’m happy with the decision to drop leaf from the chapel name, but others are not happy with the university because it’s not taking lee out of the college name itself. So, um, in a sense, they’re feeling this pressure on all sides

[00:13:27.44] spk_0:
on 11 side believes they’ve gone too far on the other side believes they haven’t gone far enough. That’s correct. And then, and you know, non profits are caught in the balance. Um, and your reporting suggests this is, you know, across all missions. I mean, we’re talking right now about education, but you’ve talked to folks in the arts, social services, Environmental.

[00:16:32.74] spk_1:
It’s true. And it’s, um, that it was interesting to me and I think, um, the social scientists I talked to David Brubaker, um, sort of put this in context, in the sense that, you know, nonprofits, any, any organization in the country at this point, schools in particular, you’re seeing a flash point, any, any organization or group in the country that is bringing together large groups of people behind a mission. Um, it’s sort of subject to this because the nature of that mission now gets called into question. So yes, you see. Um, uh, so I think that’s one thing I think there’s another viewpoint we ought to consider in that, um, there are, there’s some pressure on groups, in a sense of taking it, you know, I’ll just say it’s their outside their lane, you know, since they may be doing environmental work, or they may be doing health work and if they take up an issue or cause um, I think the one that’s most, most, most top of mind for me is an environmental group, um, stands behind Black Lives Matter or takes up an issue like that. They even have some liberal supporters, people who are part of their constituency, kind of them saying you’re an environmental group. I’m not, I’m not supporting you for your stand on Black Lives Matter and supporting you for your work in the environment. So, um, I think it’s it’s across a lot of different cause areas, um, perhaps most, I would say it’s most intense, perhaps at schools, colleges, universities, um, in some sense, those are places where supporters feel a real personal connection to those institutions and they, in a sense, have much more invested in what they’re doing and how they’re doing than say, uh, supportive for a health group that is behind its mission to reduce produce cancer, to do certain things. So, um, and, and there’s a sense of belonging to those institutions. And so, um, a lot of talking to schools and colleges, that sense of belonging is sometimes hurt when or change, that’s their their relationship with school changes, um, when they feel like the mission is now, or the school has gone off and done something they don’t agree with. So, um, colleges and universities also see themselves as um, societal change agents in a sense. They may be seeking a change in, in the society that some of their online may say, Well, that’s not something I see as a positive. So I would say it’s most intense that I was surprised. Um, David Rubin acre put me onto this. Um, the number of clergy and churches that feel because of Covid caught in the middle in a sense and that they are, you know, obviously, you know, bringing large groups of people together. And the question of whether you have in person services, worship group meetings, kinds of things, whether you wear masks and things have become real contentious to the point that, Um, David pointed me to the survey, four and 10 pastors recently surveyed said they are considering leaving the field and this is a real distension. This dynamic is a real problem for them. So

[00:16:42.83] spk_0:
yeah, the masking is in churches is interesting, but I could see it in theater groups

[00:16:47.74] spk_1:
too. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:41.24] spk_0:
We’re gonna, we’re enforcing masking for the safety of our, of our patrons. Well, you’re going too far, you’re giving into fear. And then if they don’t have a masking requirement, then you’re not keeping us safe and we’re not. So for that reason we’re not going to come to the right to the congregation or to the theater. Yeah, It’s time for Tony’s take two drew and I are talking about political polarization, hurting nonprofits. There’s a story this week that goes even more extreme. It’s more extreme in what’s driving the pro driving the impact and in the impact. I can’t think of anything more benign than butterflies except maybe tofu butterflies at least you know, have have independent flight tofu, you shake the plate and just jiggles. So tofu might be more benign than butterflies, but butterflies are pretty darn benign. Not according to some conspiracy theorists who claimed that the National Butterfly Center, a nonprofit in Mission texas is a refuge of human smuggling and child sex trafficking. There’s no evidence to support any of these claims. It’s a, it’s a gross conspiracy theory. Sounds very much like the, the pizza parlor and pizza gate in Washington D. C. With the, with the theories the National Butterfly Center has had to close because they’re concerned about the security of their staff. I mean, I presume the butterflies would be safe, although maybe the butterflies are the ones, maybe they’re spiriting aliens across the border. Uh, so the center has had to close because of these concerns about safety. It involves the border wall. There’s, there’s a segment, there’s a segment of the border wall that’s near the, the butterfly center and, and the center objects to the wall being built through their property. That’s what seems to have given rise to the, to the theories claimed to be happening at the National Butterfly Center. So you know, you can, you can find that it’s again, National Butterfly Center in mission texas. It has been in the news just this week. So you know, Drew and I are talking about trends. I mean he’s a journalist. He, you know, he has dozens of people that he’s spoken to. I see this one case. I’m not saying it’s a trend. It’s not one case doesn’t make a trend, but it’s quite disturbing. And you know, it could happen to any nonprofit really. I mean, I don’t see how an organization can be exempt and I can’t think of one that’s more innocent than a butterfly center. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for fundraising amid polarization withdrew Lindsay listeners, you may notice a change in sound quality. That’s because we lost the internet connection and uh, I’m now on my phone. But non profit radio perseveres through technology, uh, disruptions and disappointments. But there’s no, there’s no, we’ve, I’ve been at conferences and had the lights turned off around me. So there’s no, there’s no stopping. non profit radio Drew, you had mentioned racial equity statements and black lives matter, but it could be something as seemingly innocuous as an auction item that incites people.

[00:21:40.34] spk_1:
Yeah, I think Auction finishing. I talked to some, some consultants and fundraisers in the west or some rural areas where 10 or 15 years ago, no one thought twice about Putting in, um, say an afternoon at the gun range as an auction item or auctioning off a piece of weaponry or some sort of accessory. No one thought twice about it now, 10, 15 years later with school shootings and other things starting raising the profile and issues concerning gun safety. Those are really questionable. Yeah. At the same time they’re part of the culture in some of those rural areas. So fundraisers think really wrestle. I think, you know, there are other things. Even something as basic as a holiday, email or video for any given holiday particularly say around the christmas season is a real cause for anger for people. How do you, how do you, um, write something that isn’t offensive at the same time? It’s not gonna gonna still has meaning still has something some some back. So, um, yeah,

[00:22:15.34] spk_0:
all right, interesting. You know, interesting times. Uh, important. I think just for consciousness raising. So uh, nonprofit leaders are aware that there’s the potential out there. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about advice for, for fundraisers, which, you know, draws from your second piece. And the first idea is that prepare.

[00:24:01.44] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think a lot of the folks that I talked to really want to put notice leaders on notice that this is part of your job as a nonprofit leader as an advancement leader is to consider this and prepare your staff. Um, part of, you know, the advice is often that a position the group takes or a new program or something needs to be firmly explained and put in context of the organization’s mission. And um, you know, that can be done at a high level. But the thinking and strategy behind it needs to be conveyed to the gift officers. That needs to be conveyed to the donor communications staff to steward folks. They all need to be prepared for even perhaps have talking points prepared for individual conversations with donors for putting out their own communications so that, you know, a stepped in organization takes that is rooted in mission. Those routes have to be made very clear to folks. Um, so that’s a little bit on leadership. I think leadership also has to look at gift agreements and look at, um, what those policies call for, what gives it that can accept what’s the contingencies for them. Um, that was something everybody suggested that the groups ought to take a second look at in in lieu of this kind of political context out there. Um, I think there’s also some sense that, um, Gift officers in particular needs some process put in place for them. That if they have really awkward, uncomfortable, even sometimes offensive conversations with donors that they have recourse, they have a process. They know what, how the organization will handle those situations. You can’t leave your Gift officers out there alone to deal with this and manage it on their own, that, that they have to feel supported backed up. So a lot of this starts with leadership and proper preparation.

[00:24:32.14] spk_0:
And your reporting suggests there’s there’s a shift away from donor centrism and, and into, uh, you know, you’ve, you’ve alluded to it a couple of times that the mission and values of the organization, that, that in the past this might have been something that organizations rolled over on just to appease appease donors, especially major donors, but not so much anymore. You’re seeing a trend away.

[00:25:17.94] spk_1:
Well, I, I think, um, and you know, put this in context, I think there there’s donor centrism that people embrace, say, 15, 20 years ago, some veterans in the field talked about, there might have been a time where the donor could call the shots on these things and this is a long time ago, but people have begun, I think, to move away from that strict and embrace of donor centrism and there was some sense that, you know, the gift that someone is giving you is for the mission and purpose of the organization. And again, your conversations have to tie whatever you’re doing into that mission and purpose of the organization. Um, so it’s perhaps, um, A little bit of a shift away from the focus on the donor and what they’re doing for the organization as opposed to here’s what the organization is doing. Um, so I think that’s true. And, and again, it was the veterans mainly talking about this and that there was a time again, 15, 20 years ago where donors called the shots. So

[00:25:46.24] spk_0:
and that also helps the organization root the, the controversy in, in its own, in its own work. And so that this is not, you know, just a reflection of the times. It’s not a whim that we, you know, we, we read a headline and we’ve taken a stand, but this is rooted in our, in our work, what we

[00:27:04.04] spk_1:
believe absolutely that and that folks may, you have to make clear when you make a change or you make a position, similar things you really have to read and strategy in your mission because people can too often see you as reacting to the headline, putting a finger to the wind, trying to react to the times. And you know, it’s one of the things about social media that was interesting in my conversations with both you for to hear two things you hear, you know, um don’t, there’s a temptation when you’re getting for the flap clap back on social to sort of pull back and not do as much and folks that, you know, you can’t do that. You’re not, you’re not, you know, you’ve got to continue to advance and promote what you’re doing in your cause. But at the same time you have to consider that social media is an incredibly condensed prism through which to view something and if you need to do the work to tie something into mission and to provide context and nuance, Keep dynamometer going to social social has to be done very carefully so that you can make the connections that are necessary for people to see how this ties back to your mission. Um, so that’s it sort of contradictory advice in the sense of you want to keep doing social, you want to resist the temptation to pull back, but at the same time you gotta be careful what you do and really craft it well. So,

[00:27:18.64] spk_0:
and then likewise, you know, having difficult one on one conversations with donors don’t, don’t shy away from them as well as its the advice you were

[00:28:09.04] spk_1:
hearing. Well, it was really remarkable and a lot of fundraisers, you know, there are some challenging and difficult conversations and um really they need to hear out from people some borders what the concerns are. And again the conversation is bringing about to explain calmly and, and you know, um, without reacting defensively, in a sense to how this ties to mission I think um, I was surprised and that a number of fundraisers talked about those difficult conversations actually leading to a deeper relationship with a donor and sort of getting you beyond some superficial sort of things and getting the donor perhaps to understand more about the mission of the organization. So that part of the advice that don’t shy from these conversations is there can be a real benefit from. Um, so, but at the same token, there are some people are gonna walk away, but that there are some benefits,

[00:28:28.04] spk_0:
it wasn’t it the ceo of the Salvation Army who told you that that when, when he has these conversations, they almost almost uniformly lead to, uh, an understanding across on both sides.

[00:28:52.64] spk_1:
Yeah. And I think that that suggests there has to be a process in your office for when perhaps you get an email back or you get, um, some sort of response or negative reaction to seek out a personal one on one conversation, those can often, you know, people are disarmed by those and suddenly you see each other as humans and things change, the dynamics change.

[00:29:08.24] spk_0:
So yes, considerably right, right. 11 thing that came out of the reporting that I was, I was surprised that was the idea of in these conversations sharing your own personal views.

[00:30:15.34] spk_1:
Well, attention that since the peace has gone out, that’s the most reaction I’ve got from people and some suggesting and that’s not what you should do. I think, um, I think as the piece suggests that there are some fundraisers who really feel like their job is not to censor themselves that, that in a sense, you know, they’re putting their whole self into the job and for them to censor. Um, I think perhaps one way to look at it is, you know, your personal view of why this fits within the mission of the, the, you know, I don’t think you need to sound off on things that are completely unrelated to the topic, but if you have a view of an organization position or program or what it’s doing and how it matches with your beliefs and what the organization should be doing. That’s a way to frame it. Um, as opposed to, you know, you know, if this conversation strays into say gun rights, it’s not like you have to pop off on that just because that’s how you feel. But try, you know, you don’t eliminate your personal, um, views when it comes to things that are really related to the organization and is said to make you a a more three dimensional person for for the donor, if you explained how your views high end to why the organization is important to you.

[00:30:22.94] spk_0:
Yes, you’ve, you’ve said it a couple of times relate how it relates to the, to the mission and values of the organization,

[00:30:28.74] spk_1:
right?

[00:30:29.27] spk_0:
Um, being willing to apologize when you when you do make a mistake.

[00:31:38.34] spk_1:
And I think that, um, you know, there are a couple example of, of organizations that perhaps did something that touched off something they did unintentionally. And I think, um, and again, I’ve had some response since the piece has been out, but being upfront declaring it a mistake, not trying to wrap it in some sort of pr gauze as if really this is what we intended and oh, you’re, you know, you the donor or not understanding how we came out, you know, just sort of upfront be upfront about it. I think some readers that I’ve talked to since the piece came out suggested that if a donor is offended by something, it’s not, there isn’t necessarily a mistake on your part and you shouldn’t be automatically apologizing for something. It’s, I think the piece and I probably didn’t frame it correctly is suggesting more where, um, you know, the organization truly has made a mistake in terms of language or something. And again, the the idea is to be upfront, um, to not try to hide that just leads to erosion of trust. Um, but by the same token, not to assume that every time someone objects to something, you’ve done that it is your mistake. Um, so if that makes sense.

[00:31:47.65] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah. And that’s a fundamental of crisis communications to and if if the organization has made a mistake,

[00:31:55.14] spk_1:
absolutely

[00:31:55.83] spk_0:
be out front with an apology,

[00:31:58.26] spk_1:
you know, right,

[00:32:04.34] spk_0:
yep, control of the, of the narrative. Um, and then, you know, finally you alluded to it earlier, but I’m gonna flush it out of it. Not to panic if people say they’re gonna withdraw their support.

[00:32:40.44] spk_1:
Yeah, I think that’s the case, and again, it’s it’s numbers and particularly looking at noise on social media or noise of, you know, phone calls or response, you know, keep in mind, um, you know, that you have a very large constituency and supporters, um, I know of, of a couple of nonprofits that had, um, something touched off, you know, phone calls or social media and they felt compelled then to write to their entire constituency about it. And then long behold their entire content. You know, 90% of the constituency had no idea what anybody was talking about. And all you’ve done is raise it to their attention. So keep the criticism, the protests, the concerns raised in context of your broader, um, set of supporters.

[00:32:58.24] spk_0:
What’s some of the other reader feedback that you’ve heard?

[00:33:46.34] spk_1:
Uh, it’s been it’s been good in a sense. I I described this as you said it to a glimpse of what’s happening. And, you know, I never in our reporting want to suggest that this is universal or anything we’re describing. And I really didn’t want this to be seen as a glimpse. Um, and, and this is not that people are seeking me out. But if I continue to talk to people for other stories, they will mention this story and said, oh, yeah, you know, you’re right, this is happening. And it’s often the what you and I have talked about in the small ways that this sort of tension is creeping into everyday work. There are some cases where individuals have mentioned, yes. Because of our stand on this, a million dollar donor walked away and, you know, that’s this is a reality. So, um, I’ve heard it just in casual conversations that I’m doing reporting on other stories. That a confirmation in the sense that this is an issue for a current in front of mine for a lot of people.

[00:34:20.44] spk_0:
All right, well thank you for making us aware and sharing some of the advice advice based on your reporting. Again. The pieces are in the chronicle of philanthropy donations in the balance fundraising in the age of polarization and advice for fundraisers caught in the middle of political battles. He is Drew Lindsay at Drew Lindsay C. O. P. Thank you. Thank you very very much.

[00:34:22.03] spk_1:
No, thank you for your time. I enjoyed it.

[00:35:36.44] spk_0:
My pleasure. Next week For sure. Amy Sample Ward returns to talk about the 2022 nonprofit technology conference. Talk about celebrity culture. But I will work through it. I’ll work through their booking agent, attorney Pr staff virtual assistant. I will get them here 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 is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein. Okay, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 3, 2022: Social Media Outlook For 2022

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Charrosé King-Mathews: Social Media Outlook For 2022

Charrosé King-Mathews reveals what to look for in the New Year around platform evolution and content trends in the social networks. She’s an instructor in communications at Howard University.

 

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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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[00:00:03.04] spk_3:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:00:13.14] spk_1:
big nonprofit

[00:00:14.26] spk_3:
ideas for the

[00:01:42.34] spk_1:
Other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast Happy new Year. I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with Lauren Jill papilloma ketosis if I had to say that you missed this week’s show Social Media Outlook for 2022 Sharos King Mathews reveals what to look for in the new year around platform evolution and content trends in the social networks. She’s an instructor in communications at Howard University. tony steak too. Lots of Good 2022 Wishes. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. Here is social media outlook for 2022. It’s my pleasure to welcome for her first time Sharos King Matthews, she is a strategic communications instructor at Howard University where she’s also pursuing her PhD in communication culture and media studies. She researches and writes about rest and creativity as methods of resistance and healing. Share Jose just left the faculty of N 10 after five years. She’s at Sharos CK Sure Jose. Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:01:48.94] spk_0:
Hi, it’s great to be here.

[00:02:02.94] spk_1:
Pleasure. I’m glad you are. I’m glad you are. But tell me tell us a little more about your your research and your writing on rest and creativity as methods of resistance and healing. What what what what does that work look like? What is that?

[00:02:05.89] spk_0:
So I am you know, starting out so I’m going to be discovering what that work looks like. But I’ve I’ve always been um very interesting.

[00:02:16.94] spk_1:
I’m sorry, what do you think it’s gonna look like? What do you hope

[00:02:35.04] spk_0:
it’s gonna look well where where I’m starting from is like um I’ve always been interested in in creativity and art and being able to express oneself through artistic mediums and helping other people to do that as well. Um and I think creativity is like a a huge social driver for for change. If we look at like music and art and fashion in the way that people are drawn into movements by the ways that we can use creativity in order to, you know, engage people and get them to think about different things. Um but also on the other side of that that you know, rest is so important to creativity. And looking at the ways that, you know, systems of oppression have stifled communities, abilities to produce creative work by with you know, low wages that require them to work, you know, constantly just to be able to afford a living and you know, um well in my case as a black woman having ancestors who are brought here specifically to work and how that has, you know, our relationships with work and and you know, as opposed to living in more creative and and pleasurable life and how we can, you know, move towards everyone being able to have those more um creative opportunities and how that can change our world for the better for everyone.

[00:04:14.14] spk_1:
Cool, All right. They’re they’re interesting tensions because you’re writing about rest and creativity. To me those are in opposite. I mean, you’re you’re you’re not you’re not at your most creative when you’re resting, creativity is, you know, is activity, stimulation and then and then rest. But then as methods of healing and resistance to me, those are in opposite to, you know, you I don’t they’re they’re, you know, they’re both they’re both critical, but I don’t see them as consistent. Like you when you’re healing yourself, you’re not in a resistance, you’re not in a resistance state state. Resistance to me is, you know, agitation

[00:04:23.78] spk_0:
and

[00:04:30.44] spk_1:
and and advocacy, you know, But that’s not that’s that’s in opposite to healing, right?

[00:04:31.15] spk_0:
Yeah. So it’s like I’m thinking like the balance of the two and how you you you know, need one to have the other and and that kind of thing and seeing how they are synchronous and you know, um I just I want people to everyone to have, you know, be able to live healthier, more fulfilling lives and, you know, all of that stuff

[00:05:12.24] spk_1:
healthy but also productive and resistant when needed. Absolutely, yeah. It’s interesting. Yeah. Like there’s it’s two different spectrums to me rest and creativity, healing and resistance interesting. Alright. This Yeah, I’ll be, look, I’ll look forward to your dissertation in how many years? How many years does this program take you, do you think?

[00:05:17.44] spk_0:
So. Typically about four. I will be finishing up my classes this year and then I’ll be focusing just on my um dissertation proposal and then my dissertation.

[00:05:44.34] spk_1:
Yeah. And research. All right, very good. Welcome. Alright. It’s glad to have you. So you’ve got some savvy ideas coming, coming out, coming off the n 10 faculty as well. So howard faculty and 10 faculty. Uh I’m not sure which is more prestigious. Well, you know, Well one is, one is prestigious in lots of respects and the other has its niche in nonprofit tech. So they’re both,

[00:05:50.89] spk_0:
they’re both prestigious. They’re both quite prestigious in

[00:06:08.04] spk_1:
their own. Yes, that’s right. That’s right. Um Not zero sum by any means. They can both be highly prestigious. So you’ve got some ideas around social media trends. What you see coming for 2022. What do you see happening with our social media platforms?

[00:06:11.84] spk_0:
Some things that I’m seeing are more audio only features um like on twitter on facebook, which would be great for people who listen to podcasts. Maybe that’s that fits in well. Um and even like um

[00:06:35.54] spk_1:
facebook is facebook is coming to audio only a little slow. I mean I’ve been I’ve been podcasting since 2000 10 where they’ve been, where they’ve been, where has facebook been

[00:06:40.13] spk_0:
has been around for a very long time has been around. Yeah.

[00:06:43.52] spk_1:
But where, where they they they’re coming late to the format.

[00:07:09.34] spk_0:
Yeah. And I think so. I think that happens like with technology sometimes we, we like jump ahead and it’s like sometimes we might lose things that were good before and we have to kind of rediscover them and they, they show up in a different way in in some ways, like we see here on, on like twitter and, and facebook also, Tiktok will be um, is working on streaming. Well, it’s released in, in some countries internationally, but it’s another example of, of a platform focusing more on audio only content. Um,

[00:07:24.84] spk_1:
wait, so, so Tiktok moving away from video,

[00:07:26.74] spk_0:
Not away by audio only also

[00:07:51.74] spk_1:
in addition. Okay, okay, Alright. So, alright, so let’s talk about this. This audio only trend. Then you’re saying facebook twitter, Tiktok uh, promoting audio only formats. What do you see? Non profits are able to do? I mean, how do you see leveraging that?

[00:07:53.64] spk_0:
Well,

[00:07:54.79] spk_1:
Like are they all short form like this, Tiktok, you know, like Tiktok audio format limited to 15 seconds.

[00:09:58.14] spk_0:
So on. I know, so each of them is, is a little different. Um, I know on, on twitter for example, you can have like, um, instead of like a live video that’s going on, you can have an audio room where people are chatting, anyone can listen in, but you know, only certain people can chat. So you might, that might be good for like, um, if you’re having a panel discussion or something like that and, and maybe video is not as important to it. Um and you can, you can do it that way, especially if you are uh you know, working, working virtually in people in different locations. Um video is not as important. That can be helpful and um also like when now they have a lot of different ways that they will appear on these different platforms. Um but I think as always, and I want to say this for for like all the transfer that we’ll talk about, you know, you want to think about how it works for your organization in particular because there’s they’re popping up with different features all the time. So you have to think about how, how do we best communicate with our audience. Um so I think, you know, in short form places you might, you might share like specific snippets of your podcast. If you have, if your, if your organization has a podcast, maybe you would share specific snippets or maybe particular quotes or updates that you could share like with the photo and then um like a message that goes along with that photo, which is also, I think the benefit of that is it’s a bit of a lower um you don’t need as much equipment or export technical, know how like you would need to do in order to create a video, you know, with the video, you need to to, you might need to do some editing or you might need to create some graphics, but if you have photos, you can use those in lots of different places and incorporate audio with them, you know, um, on certain posts to enhance the, the content.

[00:10:18.54] spk_1:
Okay, okay, very interesting. Audio, audio only. Do you, Do you envision that, that, that Tiktok audio only feature will still be limited to the, to the 15 seconds.

[00:11:16.34] spk_0:
Um I’m not, I didn’t, I don’t remember reading how long it would be um but okay, so, so Tiktok is also moving into like, because they use a lot of music and stuff on their platform. They’re also looking into Tiktok streaming, like having a streaming service that is a competitor to Spotify. Um and then you also have Spotify incorporating more social media into. There’s so you see a lot of, a lot of um, hybrid things happening um between between some of these like audio and social media in particular right now and I would say we did see this a lot with with video. I mean we had vine was huge and, and you know youtube, of course we still have Youtube. Um but a lot of these things are the things that we, we already used to communicate and they pop up in different ways depending on, you know, what features are available on how the different audiences communicate with one another. Um, on those different platforms.

[00:11:40.04] spk_1:
That’s interesting, you bring up vine, how come vine went away but tick tock. It is, it is, it’s flourishing.

[00:12:39.04] spk_0:
How come, what is that? Yeah, I know, I’m fine, it was right, so vine went away and instagram at that time started having short videos too. So it was like instagram kind of picked up that short video format and then vine, you know, wasn’t needed as much because you have, you have your photos and your video on instagram then, so then we lose vine, but we have olive vines, features on a different platform. Um and I think that’s something that we really want to think critically about when we’re looking at these trends and the different platforms that come up because there are a lot of politics behind it, you know, it’s something it’s, you know, which ones have the most money, like instagram is owned by facebook, so they have a lot more money and resources and facebook is everywhere all over the globe um you know, in, in nearly every country, whereas you know something um for as a, as a um you know, contrast, we have Tiktok which what has been threatened to be, you know, shut down in the US unless they, unless they, you know, sold part of their company to an american owner. So we have things like that that are going on in the background that, you know, we have to make um certain apps, you know, have more ability to reach more people. So it’s also, it’s about how we use them and whether they are service serving people’s needs and you know, that it’s fun to use and all of that, but also we need to think about, it’s not always just, um, the audience that determine which one is a successful platform.

[00:14:29.84] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, Your Communications Plan for 2022. Does it include social posts, blog posts, newsletters, your annual report, website updates, board reports, fundraising appeals. Acknowledgment messages, staff, communications, process documentation, training, documents onboarding or maybe those last couple don’t fit into your communications plan. They still have to be written. Do you need help with your writing in 2022 Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to social media outlook for 2022, does that mean that we should not be pioneers or even maybe early adopters when a, when a platform emerges, you know, that, that we not invest time in it when it may not, It may not survive? I mean like should we wait 18 months before we jump into a new platform?

[00:15:02.24] spk_0:
I that’s a really good question because I mean that’s what we’re talking about here, trends. We wanna know trend because we want to know how do we react to these new things. Um, and two that I, I would say like for if you’re a smaller nonprofit and I’ve worked at many, you know, you don’t have a lot of resources you want to, I would like to think of think of the social media, um, managing that as a, um, capsule wardrobe. So I don’t know if anyone familiar with the capsule wardrobe defined that we have, we have

[00:15:09.48] spk_1:
on non profit capsule wardrobe will definitely land you in jargon jail.

[00:17:48.74] spk_0:
So, right. So, and so a capsule wardrobe if you think of, so you can think, I think a great example is Fran fine on the nanny. She has a very, you know, dramatic wardrobe. However, if you pay attention, she’s pretty much always wearing a black turtleneck, black tights and black shoes and then she’ll put like a fun jacket or a fun skirt on top of those things. And, and so that’s um, you know, a way to extend a wardrobe on fewer, there are fewer pieces and just choosing like a statement piece. So the way I look at that is like, um, in with your social media, you want to have good bones, good structure. You wanna have, you wanna have some image templates that you can use. And then when there’s a, you know, I just talked about images before and putting audio with them. So if you already have great images that you’ve worked on and put a lot of care into curating, you can then add these other things on top of them as these trends change. Um, I would also say as far as new platforms coming up, I think it’s always worth your time to at least create an account so that if that platform becomes more popular in the future, you’ve already claimed your organization’s name on there. Um, so that it’s easy to find you and you, and it’ll be, you know, more cohesive part of your brand. So I think that’s always worth it because that doesn’t take a lot of time. Exactly. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. And that’s fine too. That’s fine too. Because you’re, you’re putting your time where, you know that your audience is and, and you know, what’s going to pay off because, you know, without a lot of time and resources, we have to be very smart about, um, where we’re putting our focus and social media because it’s so vast when you send stuff out, it can just go out into the ether and no one, you know, it might not get traction. So you need to be very smart about how you’re using your time. So I would say like, yeah, you’re right. So you have your, your core images and the kinds of messages that you know, that you can use. Um, also this might be referred to as evergreen content content that you can use all the time. Um, you know, no matter the time of year, but it’s always relevant to, to your organization. Um, I think that’s a very important thing to have in, in kind of your capsule wardrobe, um, of, of social media fashion, you know, your,

[00:18:30.84] spk_1:
your, your capsule wardrobe, your capsule wardrobe. Yes, I scolded your core capsule. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Um, well, I’m a guy, I want to be, you know, I want to be up. I want to be, I want to be timely. My, my time has long passed. Um, so, alright, Yes, absolutely, of course, evergreen content repurposing, you know, you want to be smart. You know, if something goes on your blog, maybe you can maybe you can pull a 12th, clip, an audio and quoted somewhere, you know, on twitter

[00:18:31.17] spk_0:
or facebook or, or,

[00:18:50.34] spk_1:
or, or Tiktok when, when the audio only features are, are, are available. Um, and then, you know, and then it could be part of, maybe it could be part of an email. Uh, maybe maybe it lives somewhere else on your website. You know, maybe it could be a social media post in print instead of audio. Um, right, so you want to be smart about

[00:19:01.84] spk_0:
right? And one um, uh, an acronym that I use for that, that I’ve heard is cope create once, publish everywhere. Okay, so like your blog post, you created it once. But then you’re using all those pieces of the blog posts in different places on your social media or your website and your blog and your emails and all of that.

[00:19:58.74] spk_1:
I love it create once, publish everywhere. So we got our capsule wardrobe. We have our, we have our cope. Okay, what? Um, all right, So this is interesting. This audio form. I mean obviously as a podcaster and I’ve been a longtime listener of radio and I think radio is just such a intimate format. It feels close. I mean, I got my inspiration for this show from radio shows. Um really interesting, you know, in one respect, it’s a, it’s a step back from, from the video because now you’re only getting really getting half the, not half the content really, but half the half the stimulation. I mean there’s the but but I don’t consider a step backwards, but but

[00:20:01.72] spk_0:
somebody, somebody could

[00:20:02.69] spk_1:
say, well, no picture anymore, what you know, but the video is the trending, but now, now now audio is trending.

[00:20:09.94] spk_0:
That’s why

[00:20:11.54] spk_1:
that’s why we need you on to make sense of this for

[00:20:14.27] spk_0:
us. For

[00:20:15.89] spk_1:
me, I’m not gonna maybe other people maybe more sad, but make sense of it for me please.

[00:21:19.44] spk_0:
So as you were talking, I was thinking, you know how you said like, radio can feel much more intimate than watching the video. And I it kind of reminds me of like reading a book versus watching a movie, the way you described it kind of like, and sometimes, you know, using our own imagination. And and with with the content that were there were there were reading or listening, using our own imagination. I think also helps us build a bond in some way. Whereas when you have a video, it’s like you don’t have to use your imagination, you can see what this person looks like and where they’re sitting and how they’re speaking and all of that kind of thing which I think takes away some of I think that’s part of like our creativity that makes us, you know, interested in having, you know, not knowing everything right away, you know? And and I um especially think like with audio, you know, you’re you’re very you’re not thinking about how you look, you’re just you’re just you’re just really um participating with the content,

[00:22:13.44] spk_1:
interesting. That reminds me of of a host I used to listen to on National Public Radio terry Gross. She she never wanted to be in the same studio as her guests, they always remote and and there was no camera feed. It would she she didn’t want the visual stimulation, she wanted to focus on the conversation and that’s it. She didn’t want the person in the room, she didn’t want to see them wherever they were, whatever studio they were in, she didn’t want to see them from there. It was just the conversation. Mhm interesting. Alright, of course I’m blowing, I’m blowing it here because I I can see you right now and we may put this on Youtube. Uh

[00:22:15.11] spk_0:
well you’re stuck with the lack of choice that people have the choice so to watch or or just listen,

[00:22:21.02] spk_1:
that’s true, you can turn your screen, you can turn off your screen absolutely, you could, you could go for the go for the creativity and, uh, and just listen,

[00:22:29.84] spk_0:
I guess it’s

[00:22:42.94] spk_1:
not so good to just watch though. That’s not gonna be good. Like don’t turn the sound down and try to read the lips that you’re, you’re missing, you’re missing too much content there, that I wouldn’t suggest doing it that way. All right. Um you think Tiktok is growing too, you have a, you have a prediction about Tiktok and instagram.

[00:24:08.44] spk_0:
Um, yeah, so I was reading this and I think, um, hoot suite that Tiktok is growing will surpass instagram um, in the number of active users. Um, and you know, that’s, I mean, we do see a lot of, a lot of the, you know, younger audiences on their like gen Z and stuff like that. Um, and, and I, and I was also reading about, um, okay, well, let me say so, I always want to be like, it’s great when companies can grow and it shows how popular they are. But I do also want to go back to, you know, what we just said about why certain platforms grow faster than others or might succeed where others don’t even though they have the same the same features, But, um, and so, and I start with Tiktok, um, and instagram and, you know, which one is popular is important for our organism, which one’s most popular is important. But we also want to look at where are our audience is in particular. So if you know that your audience is, you know, um this demographic, which is, you know, it’s um boomers who live in Arizona or, or whatever demographic it is, and it doesn’t, it’s not, you don’t see your audience on Tiktok, then it it doesn’t make um too much sense to go on there. But as we said, go and claim your account, make your space. So if you if it ever as the demographics change because that’s important to remember to demographics change over time. Um if we just look at facebook, for example, facebook was only open to university students. Um, so that was a very small demographic, but then it grew and grew. So, so we can see like these are where, where the numbers are for a moment. But that changes. And we can use that information to try to help make our decisions. But we should always remember that none of these are hard and fast rules. And we have to think about ourselves as the expert of our audiences and think about how social media is a tool to help us reach those people that that we know best

[00:25:17.84] spk_1:
and you’re good point, you know, knowing where they are and and knowing that that may shift as well, grandparents were not on facebook 15 years ago, but now it’s common. Well even before the pandemic for grandparents to stay in touch with grandkids through facebook. So,

[00:25:23.17] spk_0:
right. And, and a lot of my students do not use facebook anymore.

[00:25:28.01] spk_1:
Right, well their their grandparents around

[00:25:29.76] spk_0:
it, they don’t want exactly that’s going to look at pictures of your family and stuff, but not talk to your friends.

[00:25:36.74] spk_1:
Facebook is a perfect study in shifting demographics.

[00:25:39.69] spk_0:
That’s an excellent. Yeah, very interesting.

[00:26:26.34] spk_1:
The pioneers were driven off by the by, I think by their grandparents, they were alright, so if Tiktok Tiktok surpasses instagram, alright, so that it’s just, it’s just something I like to be aware of that Tiktok is growing in in audience size that way. And so it might be, might be a place for you to look. Um but maybe not, and we’re gonna get to the maybe not, you know, every right, every platform is not for everybody. Um but again, I love your advice about, you know, claim your claim your spot, get an account in your name, so nobody, nobody beats you to it and then you have to be creative or You know, be Tony-Martignetti two or something, you know,

[00:26:29.19] spk_0:
because

[00:26:38.74] spk_1:
they were the real tony-martignetti you know, All right, so let’s talk about creating, creating content this emerging short form audio

[00:30:11.64] spk_0:
with creating content and especially with short form, I think that’s definitely, you know, a challenge for a lot of social media accounts for a lot of our organizations, especially those that do very complex, you know, work and we want to communicate about it, but you know, this very brief, um, these very brief formats make it very difficult and I always try to emphasize with my colleagues and and reminding myself that social media is a place to direct people to more information. So like, yes, those clips are very short. But you want to make sure you’re using that to direct people where they can get more information. Words, you know, whether it’s, you know, signing up volunteers or donations or or what do you want them to do after? Well, and always have some kind of idea of what you of um, what each of your posts are doing for you. So you don’t wanna, you know, just put any kind of content out there. You have 15 seconds or, or however short the clip is and you want to make sure that you’re, you’re, you know, getting the most out of your time. So, um, when you are like, again, we will go back to the capsule wardrobe, making sure you have those solid foundations, creating some, some graphics that you can reuse. Um, but also, you know, look at what your, your peers um, uh, similar organizations are doing also what your audience is sharing, even if it’s not, you know, specific to your organization, you can see what your audience is interested in and how they are spending their time. Um, I often, you know, in my, in the course that I was doing with the intent, I would often talk about thinking about walking through the day in your audience in any of your audience members shoes and thinking about how are they spending their morning? You know, is that a good time to reach them and, you know, what kind, what are they doing in the morning and how might, you know, your work relate to that in some way. Like if somebody, you know, spends their morning, you know, watering their garden and you are, um, you know, an environmental organization and how you can um kind of show that you have common interests there and relating to what they’re interested in. So looking at looking at what what they are already interested in, but also looking at what some of your competitors and, and similar organizations to yours are doing, and, you know, identifying not just looking at what they’re doing and copying them, but looking at what they’re doing, identifying what works and what doesn’t, and also how you can put a spin on things for, for your brand, um, you know, there’s, there’s a quote, like good artists copy great artists steal that. So, so we want to, so it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, perfectly legitimate to look at what other companies are doing and and try them um, in your own way. Another thing is there’s nothing new under the sun, So all of these ideas are we’re regenerating and, and recreating and which is creativity, you know, thinking of these things from all these different places and they come together to make new things. Um, so when you’re thinking about about your content and how to make it, you know, engaging. You want to go back to the things, think less about the technology and think more about, you know, the very essence of good storytelling and, and you know what makes a good photo making sure that they’re good quality and all of those things can will take you a lot farther than thinking about um friends and and styles because they change so quickly.

[00:31:48.34] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. Yes. You have my good wishes for 2022 for the new year. I’m I’m always optimistic at the beginning of the new year. Even when all evidence maybe to the contrary. I still, I don’t know. Uh Pollyanna naivete, blissful ignorance. I I don’t know. But every year I’m optimistic. So I’m optimistic about the new year. And you have my good wishes For your 2022 for you, your family, your work, your nonprofit, all those, all those things that are important. I hope 2022 is very good to you for all of those things in all those different ways. That’s it. My good wishes for the new year. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo. But loads more time for social media outlook for 2022. Alright, that was a lot of excellent. So let’s start with calls to action. You want, you want, you want every piece of content to have some call to action, learn, learn more volunteer, donate, sign the petition.

[00:31:53.34] spk_0:
Even if it’s not a direct call to action, like, you know, sign up. Even if it’s, but even if you know the purpose like, okay, we are interacting with this audience member in order to, you know, build a better um relationship with our audience. Always make sure that that you know why you’re posting and you’re not just spending time sending things out because that’s that’s where you start to, you know, sink all your time into something that might not be paying off

[00:32:51.44] spk_1:
and in in short form audio. I mean if you want folks to go somewhere, maybe two learn more or you know, if there is an explicit call to action, learn more at a landing page, maybe you’re testing the, the, the outcomes so you have a landing page or whatever it is. Short form audio that you have to devote part of your 15 seconds to reading a web address.

[00:33:47.34] spk_0:
So with the, the short form audio, it’s always going to be um in a place they’re gonna have to be looking at something to click on it or have some kind of text with it in order to like it’ll come up in their feet or something like that. So whatever description um or you know, sometimes you, I mean in most places you can comment even beneath yourself. So wherever you see any opportunity to put in that information um is important um to do that. But as far as you know with audio as well, I think it’s also sometimes I see um and that’s actually not, this is audio and text but sometimes I’ll see like very long you RL’s um and I think it’s important to remember to use a U. R. L shorter I think um definitely. And when you’re doing audio, whether you know short for more or a little longer and you want to include a U. R. L. Make sure that you use like um Bentley dot com or something where you can customize it to be something easy to remember and you don’t have to say http excuse, you know, all of

[00:35:08.84] spk_1:
that. Uh I like to go even further. I have, I bought the the vanity domain, you know, tony dot M. A. So I could do tony through M. A. I think is Morocco. I’m pretty sure I bought that. I think I’m every two years I paid the country of Morocco I think I’m pretty sure that’s M. A. Um it’s not Mauritania, I think it’s more, I’m pretty sure it’s Morocco. So yeah, so tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant I can say, you know, non profit radio uh email sign up, you know whatever whatever. Alright so that may be worth investing in a little vanity vanity shorter too but but bitterly of course we like. Yeah, I like free resources. Absolutely. Um and then you mentioned peers, you know, evaluating what your peers are doing, what others see what other nonprofits are doing. So you mean literally looking at there at their feeds and and, and different platforms and see what they’re talking about and how they, how

[00:35:35.64] spk_0:
they talk, yep. And so you should definitely be following your pure organizations. Um, there are also a great resource for creating content. Not just, you know, if you, um, work together sometimes on on a shared project, um, you can help boost each other’s visibility on social media. But you do want to be following following your peer organizations also, you know, as a social media manager. Um, you tend to befriend the other social media managers because you know, you said, you know what other each other are going through. And so that’s actually a great community and um, following each other because then you can reach out to each other. Help. Help because you’re you’re in it for the, for the same cause. So it’s like you’re boosting the same content and and you know, helping achieve your mission overall that both of you want to achieve.

[00:36:27.33] spk_1:
That could even lead to some deeper collaboration. Maybe, you know, I’ve, I’ve had guests talk about the possibility of uh, like doing giving Tuesday, you know, combined campaigns. Mm hmm I don’t remember other examples, but but you know, just shared promotion. Pre shared projects, your promotion

[00:36:38.43] spk_0:
and one of the ones that I’ve had the most success with as far as partnership and shared promotion is um well I don’t see them as much anymore, but for a time there were twitter chats were pretty popular. Um I don’t see them as much as I used to, but whenever I’ve done them, I we would always get like tons more engagement um with our content. That was one of our I will put that on twitter chats and and tweeting at conventions. That is when we would get the most followers, the most retweets the most engagements generally. Um and now I’m thinking, you know, with the twitter um audio rooms and stuff like that. That could be instead of having a twitter chat where you’re typing it out, maybe you have people come in and listen to your panel discussion of experts talking about whatever the theme is and um introducing people to, to your brand that way.

[00:37:32.13] spk_1:
Cool. Excellent ideas. All right. You recommended paying attention to what your audience shares. Mm hmm. So you know what you want to you want to do more of what’s popular and less of what people think? Sucks. Right.

[00:38:48.32] spk_0:
So, um yeah, so, well, before I was a lecturer at Howard, I worked in the office of the Vice President for student Affairs and I was managing the social media there. Um and the school environment especially important to watch what your audience is saying because we didn’t need to watch for any problems that are coming up and stuff like that. Um but that’s the kind of thing I think you you want to look for generally and not just you know, problems um not doesn’t have to be something dire, but you know, what is, what is your audience concerned about that your organization can help answer and um you know, what are the problems that they encounter or the ways that see that they that they feel the issue that you cover, how that impacts their lives. So sometimes it might be looking at, you know exactly what they’re posting, exactly what they’re saying and sometimes it means more about like you know looking at overall and kind of observing, you know what you um you might even notice like challenges and things that come up that that your audience does not. Um but you can perhaps you know show how your work can help with these things that they may not even notice our issues um relating to your organization.

[00:39:06.62] spk_1:
What about the use of analytics to uh to evaluate what what your what your folks are sharing is that can that be valuable there?

[00:41:00.61] spk_0:
Absolutely. You should definitely be um keeping track of your analytics if you so if you don’t have a dedicated person who can look at the analytics every month, you at least want to be downloading them. So you have them um whenever I have started a new position as a social media manager. one of the first things that I do is to go to, um, all of those social media accounts and download as much of their um, analytical history as I possibly can. So if you’re already keeping and, and the thing is some platforms that you can’t go back any farther than a couple of years or a couple of months. So it’s very important to get that right away. Um, even if you can’t look at it consistently, because one day if you, if you do have someone who’s able to dedicate time to that, they have tons of content to go on where they can look at, you know, oh, we had a huge jump in in subscribers um, at this time and then they can go and look at, well, you know, what was going on at that time, What did we post? What was drawing in so much engagement? And so that’s why you really, um that’s why your your analytics are so important and it’s thus about like looking through them every day. Or I’m sorry, every month or so, um, because you know, if you don’t have a dedicated person for that, that takes a lot of time. But being familiar with, you know, around how many followers you have or being able to see the trend of, you know, what is normal engagement for us. So that then you can see when you do have a huge spike, you’ll be easily able to identify like oh here’s where that came from and here’s how we can duplicate that success also because that’s another thing you want to think about. How can we do this again? Um how can we use it for a different campaign or or in what other ways can we can we benefit from you know this content that we that did so well

[00:41:05.01] spk_1:
which are the platforms that you think have the better analytics.

[00:42:49.90] spk_0:
I definitely have opinions about that. Twitter, Twitter has great analytics um you will find so in um in a lot of communications scholarship like peer review journals and stuff when they’re when they’re talking about social media they will often use twitter twitter analytics because they’re the easiest to access. So twitter makes it very easy to to download all of your analytics from your account and put it in an Excel spreadsheet and then from there you can do whatever you want to do with it. Um there are on the on the other end I would say like for example instagram you cannot you have to go to like each individual post and see how many how many had right? So you have to type them in and yeah so and and that that allows um face meta now meta to have you know um more control over that content. Um The facebook analytics I are pretty good but again they are there, you kind of have to keep them within facebook Um So it’s harder to you know take them out and analyze them in different ways. So any platform that’s going to allow you to download them in an Excel spreadsheet is ideal. Um But you know sometimes I have had to go through and I’m writing typing them in individually from instagram. So and and that could that could also you know be a factor in deciding which platforms that you spend most of your time on because you know if you if you are focusing on if you make if you want to focus a lot on your analytics you wanna and and you want to have a platform where you can easily download them and it doesn’t take a lot of extra work. Um So you know these are all things to think about when you’re when you’re deciding you know what works best for for how you present on social media.

[00:43:15.50] spk_1:
What’s another one that’s good besides twitter Analytics one judging the analytics.

[00:43:20.00] spk_0:
I mean I do I like facebook uh the analytics that they that the way that they’re analytics

[00:43:27.47] spk_1:
are in the

[00:44:20.59] spk_0:
classroom right? You can’t export them. So um I’m thinking I mean for the most they tried there so you can I would also recommend. So I don’t know of twitter is the best ones, I don’t know of any other other ones don’t really compare to that but yeah but twitter is also starting to lock down um some of that like it’s not quite as much um data as you could get it before so um but there’s also you know platforms where like Hoot suite for example where you can have multiple social media platforms and see your analytics aggregated there. I do caution though that when you use um you use one of those platforms um the numbers might be a little bit different like there might be like some lag time between you know twitter and twitter on Hoot suite you know so um and also like the labels and the way that data is is labeled so you know on one platform a certain action might be called interactions whereas on another platform they’re called engagements and how they measure each of those things and what they’re called could could be different. So it’s just you know making sure we’re watching for those.

[00:44:52.69] spk_1:
Why would like a twitter start restricting the the robustness of the of the analytics the way you just said they’re they’re they’re tightening that up. Why would they why would they offer less?

[00:45:01.29] spk_0:
You want to charge for it? You want to start

[00:45:03.45] spk_1:
charging a fee to get it or

[00:45:29.19] spk_0:
you know what that’s and you know we we don’t know until they until it’s public. So that is 11 thing that could, I’m I haven’t um I’m not sure why it’s more difficult to get information but you know it’s beneficial to companies you know that information is money to them. So it is beneficial to them when they, you know, have proprietary um keeping content that that is valuable to them. I would um but twitter,

[00:45:43.49] spk_1:
they could have it too and share it with us too. I mean they’re they’re only sharing it with users. Users can only get there there little bit. The company is welcome to aggregate the hundreds of millions of users. They can do whatever you want with your proprietary data. But let me have my little share what are you taking in the era of transparency? What are you taking my little share away for?

[00:45:57.29] spk_0:
You would think, But I don’t know. All

[00:46:36.38] spk_1:
Right. You don’t have all the answers. Nobody does know these black boxes that we’ve all signed onto 2020 years. Sometimes they’re more annoyance than than than than additive but sometimes not not, I’m not, not saying I’m I’m opposed to social media obviously, but they can be very annoying, very annoying. We don’t even, we could spend a whole hour talking about facebook or a day about the annoyances behind facebook and in the shift from organic to paid, it’s just to me it’s just corporate green. All right.

[00:46:39.48] spk_0:
But I think a lot of that is, you know power from the users and putting it back in the hands of the company because users do have so much power and we have a lot of their ideas come from the users that are using the platforms. So I think it’s, you know, wanting to control how, how people use that platform and the information that you can get from it.

[00:46:59.28] spk_1:
Yeah, I mean,

[00:47:03.77] spk_0:
it’s

[00:47:28.88] spk_1:
exploitation. I mean, I’ll use, I’ll use facebook the most egregious example as, as the example, but you think goaded us all in, you know, they have 2.5 billion users now, a third of the planet is they, they brought us in and then they, and then they shepherd uh, you know, much less organic reach now. You want the same organic, you want the same reach, add pay for it, pay for it, pay us pay Goldman Sachs and uh, and you can have that, we have your reach back that we gave you originally and you know, it’s, it’s egregious. It’s uh, just exploitation.

[00:47:43.38] spk_0:
And I, I feel like social media has so much power for bringing people together and, and so that’s why I caution about like with trends and stuff we do need to be critical about, you know, is this trend, was this trend created because it’s something users wanted or because the company needs to innovate and grow. You know, so that’s another reason why you can wait and give yourself some time to see which trends are taking on and what makes sense for you because you don’t want to just be throwing your your time into this machine that is just there to make money for them. You want to make sure that you’re getting the best value out of that,

[00:48:37.77] spk_1:
what a beautiful segue to, to a closing section, let’s talk about, you know, every every platform is not for every non profit you know, you’ve you’ve made the point already, you know, you can uh squat on your account, you create your account and just and just squat it, hold it, but but every, you know, even the bigger platforms, we don’t have to be everywhere.

[00:48:42.07] spk_0:
Exactly, so,

[00:48:43.29] spk_1:
you know,

[00:50:17.66] spk_0:
you definitely right, so there are like you and this is something I say in my class to like in learning about social media and there’s constantly new stuff, you do not have to know everything about it, you do not have to be on every platform, your audience is not on every platform, no single person can manage all of the social media accounts that their social media platforms that there are. So I think the most important thing, you know, is to get back to that good structure and knowing who your audience is and um how to communicate with them and then, you know, using the different quirks of those social media accounts and different features to, to tweak that, but um as far as, you know, you might also want to think of as we’re talking about, you know, these big companies and what data they’re keeping and control and stuff like that, that might also be an a factor in deciding which platforms you’re on like um, back to N 10. Um, and 10 is no longer on Facebook because you know, the, some of the business practices that Facebook has used do um, do not, you know, does not work well with end transmission and the ways that they operate and you know, those are things you have to weigh that. Um, you know, if a lot of your, your audiences on facebook and that’s the only way to reach them, then maybe, you know, you do stay, but you know, you have this understanding of like um, that there are issues and were working around them and trying to make the best of these environments, but you know, they are businesses and so we need to be smart about where we’re spending our time.

[00:51:22.46] spk_1:
Excellent advice, very savvy. Thank you. All right. Sharos King Matthews, you’ll find her at narrows A C K. I’m gonna spell her name so you can find her C H A R R O S C King, Thank you very much. Great, great advice. Thank you my pleasure Next week, the log for j software vulnerability with Joshua pesky, eh, 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. It may be a new year, but some things never change. Our creative producer is

[00:51:23.54] spk_3:
claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is

[00:51:28.24] spk_1:
our web guy

[00:51:41.66] spk_3:
and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty. You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out

[00:51:43.14] spk_1:
and be

[00:51:53.36] spk_3:
great.

Nonprofit Radio for September 6, 2021: Turn Followers Into Donors

My Guest:

Adora Drake: Turn Followers Into Donors

Adora Drake has a strategy for converting your social media followers into donors. Let’s hear what it’s all about. Her digital marketing company and coaching practice is Adora Drake Marketing.

 

 

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

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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[00:00:02.84] spk_2:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit

[00:01:43.74] spk_0:
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 be forced to endure the pain of Kaif Asus if you twisted me around the idea that you missed this week’s show turn followers into donors. Adora drake has a strategy for converting your social media followers into donors. Let’s hear what it’s all about. tony state to planned giving in the pandemic era. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by sending blue the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. It’s my pleasure to welcome for the first time Adora drake to nonprofit radio She is a digital marketing strategist coach and consultant. She helps nonprofits feel inspired to take action, gain clarity in their marketing strategy and learn how to convert their followers into raving fans who want to be part of their mission with her unique coaching programs. Her company is at Adora drake marketing dot com and she’s at Adora drake on instagram. Adora drake. Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:01:46.94] spk_1:
Hi, so happy to be here.

[00:01:52.94] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure to have you Glad you are. Yeah, well where are you from? Where you zooming in from.

[00:02:00.54] spk_1:
So I am actually born and raised here in Dallas. We’re just unusual now because there’s so many different people here in texas but I am actually Born and raised native here in Dallas Okay right If you

[00:02:08.69] spk_0:
Live there more than four years, you’re a

[00:02:10.09] spk_3:
native. You’re

[00:02:14.23] spk_0:
a bona fide. Your bona fide.

[00:02:15.65] spk_1:
Yes. Like generation Texan here. Okay.

[00:02:19.93] spk_0:
I got a lot going on in texas now.

[00:02:22.18] spk_1:
Oh, tell me about it. Academic

[00:02:23.95] spk_0:
wise. Legal wise now, just a Russian abortion wise just

[00:02:28.49] spk_1:
today. Oh my goodness. Right. I’m like, wow, this is a big melting pot of stuff. Yeah,

[00:02:34.05] spk_0:
I don’t do politics on nonprofit radio We can do that off line, but good

[00:02:40.13] spk_1:
lot going. You’re

[00:02:53.74] spk_0:
in the news texas is in the news. It’s not to me, it’s not all good. I’ll leave it there. All right. Um, so you have a way of helping our listeners turn there social media followers into donors. Isn’t

[00:02:55.79] spk_1:
that right? That’s correct. That’s correct. I hope it’s correct for that. Yes,

[00:03:00.49] spk_0:
I hope it’s correct because otherwise we’re done.

[00:03:02.81] spk_3:
Okay,

[00:03:04.57] spk_1:
absolutely correct. tony

[00:03:05.71] spk_3:
Okay.

[00:03:07.45] spk_0:
I got one thing. Right, so far.

[00:03:08.65] spk_3:
Okay.

[00:03:13.74] spk_0:
You call this your scale method. Okay. What, why don’t you outline the elements of scale and then we have plenty of time to go into each, each step

[00:03:22.34] spk_1:
separate, awesome, awesome. So scale stands for social media content, audience lead an execution and like you said, we’ll go into each part of that scale method and how you can use that skill method.

[00:03:36.94] spk_0:
Okay. And you’ve obviously seen success with this with nonprofits that you work

[00:04:00.24] spk_1:
with. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I work with a small nonprofits all the way to midsize nonprofits and I’ve used a scale method on them. The process is very simple to follow. Um, as long as you really stick to that scale method, I know you’re gonna see some, some really good results from getting people from your social media and building that are all the way into getting people to donate, getting those funds.

[00:04:03.46] spk_0:
Okay. Well small and mid sized shops. Those are our listeners. Yeah.

[00:04:07.91] spk_1:
So

[00:04:11.74] spk_0:
Perfect. All right. So, um, social media, right For us. Okay. What do you have your principles here? What do you like to see done here?

[00:05:00.74] spk_1:
So one of the things that I know a lot of non profits and even for profits getting mixed up is they feel like they need to be everywhere. And that’s not always the case. So the first thing you want to make for sure is that you really hone down on that persona and your target of who do you want to have, um, come into your, your nonprofit or follow your nonprofit and who is that potential donor look like? Because that’s going to be really important when it comes to choosing the right social media platform. Each social media platform has their own features. Um, they attract different types of audiences. And so it’s important if you don’t know who that persona is, you might pick the wrong one and focus your efforts on the wrong one. So number one is to really hone in on your target, Once you figure that out and you choose a social media platform, that’s when the fun begins because now, you know, that’s where my audience is and this is where I can start putting out that content.

[00:05:09.64] spk_0:
Okay, okay, before we get to the content. So you want folks to look ahead to what the future donor is going to look like so that they’re on the right social networks?

[00:05:39.84] spk_1:
Yes. You have to know exactly who you want to attract. And for those of you who have already, you guys already have an organization going, you need to just look at the people who have already actively been involved with you, like who are the people who come to your events, who are the people who register uh, for your webinars or whatever your fundraising events are. Look at those people and see where would they particularly be on social media, That’s where you want to start attracting people who are already interested in your organization and picking more people, just like those people.

[00:05:48.64] spk_0:
Okay. Right, Right. Makes sense. All right. So, um, you know, be a little specific about some of the, some of the platforms, like, you know why my, why might you choose instagram over twitter for instance?

[00:07:24.74] spk_1:
Well, they’re completely different. If you were gonna go if you’re more visual, you really need to show your audience, you know, some of the projects that you guys are working on, you want to make sure that you have really good chris pictures and things like that, that’s really where you want to go to something like an instagram or Pinterest um those are really like I said really visual, these are, people are gonna be scrolling really quickly and often before they see your caption or before they see anything else they see this huge picture of something you’ve posted and so it’s really important that you get that right. Um if you are going to be showing some really visual type of content now, if you’re going to be sharing more like informational content, then you might want to lean towards something like twitter, twitter is, has its own legal system of people who are interested in information, they’re sharing information, they want to follow information they want to like, and they often click off of twitter and go to your website. Often more often they would on instagram and so if you are an organization there that’s trying to get an event for instance, out there to your audience, twitter might be a better, a better platform for you. So you just need to look at the different features and then get an idea of where can I find my target audience and how can I better create content for them? What your video is a big thing now, you know, video, especially on the other platforms are trying to adopt more videos, just like youtube, but youtube is the king of video um but also the other platforms you can do short video. So if you teach something or show something, you know, for two or three minutes posted on instagram are posted on twitter. That’s another way to show how to get in front of the right people on those platforms.

[00:07:47.74] spk_0:
You haven’t mentioned facebook now, there’s a lot of disenchantment with facebook as organic reach has plummeted. They just want your dollars to expand your reach. What’s your, what’s your thinking on facebook?

[00:08:23.54] spk_1:
So when, when people think of facebook, they do think of facebook advertising because it is probably have the best advertising if you are going to start. But that it is really good for organic as well. There are a lot of different groups. So if you know for sure that your audience is interested in, let’s just say feeding the needy or something like that, it might be really good for you to create a group specifically around that because you can later use that group, uh, to give out your information or get them on your email list. And so there are some ways that you can organically benefit from being on something like facebook.

[00:08:24.92] spk_0:
So you’re, you’re saying better maybe on facebook to create a group devoted to your cause versus versus using your nonprofit page to put content out. Is that what you’re saying.

[00:09:46.04] spk_1:
Yeah, and the reason why you would want to do this is because people don’t like to feel like they’re being sold to it. I don’t want to feel like, you know, you guys are just gonna want to follow me because I’m, you know, I’m gonna give you funds, you want to really build a relationship and build interest around your mission. And so if you are, we’ll just use the homeless shelter. For instance, if you are, your mission is to serve the hungry or serve the needy, let’s say you make a group about serving your community and serving the needy. You get all these different people coming in, they’re really interested in this topic there. They serve their community. They’re gonna be more likely to want to come off of that platform or want to donate or want to come to your events because they are already showing interest from being inside of this group. Now, the difference between a group in a page, your page is specifically for your particular organization. So if you want to show something that you guys are particularly doing that week or you want to share your employees are doing keeping them in the note, that’s one thing. But that group is going to really keep people engaged because they’re already interested in this topic and you’re giving out information and they’re giving information and now you have a relationship. So when you get on social media is about building relationships, that’s, that’s where that social peace comes in and so you want to make sure that when you’re on there, that you’re building a relationship that way, when you ask for funds down the line, they’ve been knowing you, they they’ve been following you all this time. They’ve been engaging with you. They know for sure that you guys what you guys do and how you guys help.

[00:10:06.44] spk_0:
And are you saying that reaches organic reach, non paid is easier to achieve through a group than it is through a nonprofit page?

[00:10:15.64] spk_1:
Yes, absolutely. That’s because the reaches its a lot better when it comes to facebook. Um, you know, the reaches a lot better.

[00:10:22.60] spk_0:
Yeah. In the group

[00:10:24.11] spk_1:
in the Exactly. Exactly. And it’s a lot easier to give people, you know, into your group. And so once you’ve got people into your group, it’s yours. It’s your group. You can start collecting emails, you can start sending out, you know, particular information and of course they can go and like your business page, but it’s not it’s not the same as actually engaging in coming in and sharing videos and things like that inside of a group. It’s a little bit more personal.

[00:10:47.04] spk_0:
Okay. All right. So that that’s advice I hadn’t heard before that you’re, you’re more likely to get better reach with a with a group than with a page.

[00:10:55.46] spk_1:
Okay.

[00:11:03.04] spk_0:
Okay. Um, All right. So then the content that that belongs in whatever it is, there’s facebook group or instagram or you know, whatever platform you’re choosing, what how do you select the right content.

[00:11:29.34] spk_1:
So your content should be based completely off of the interest, which is usually your, you start with the messaging of your organization. People come and they follow you because they believe in your mission. They believe in what you guys have to offer and then you want to create content around that. So don’t switch and do something. If you’re talking about homeless, don’t switch and talk about something about the earth or something like that, you want to make sure you’re Strictly focusing on your mission. Then you want to use that 8020 rule, it should be 80% information, 80% sharing about your events and things like that. Then only 20% asking for donations and money. So very little bit of actual fundraising and more giving and actually engaging with people.

[00:12:59.24] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They’ll help you find your voice and get that voice heard in all the right places. So many of the places that you’ve heard of, like the Wall Street Journal, the new york times, the Chronicle of philanthropy, fast Company and market watch. Many others you’ve heard me recite through the weeks to help you find your voice and you’ll get your voice heard. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O now back to turn followers into donors. I like to empower folks within the nonprofit to um, create content on their own. Yeah, It’s not all just from the fundraisers or the marketing, communications design people, but you know, folks who are actually doing the program work. Maybe there shooting short videos or you know, etcetera, folks on the ground doing the work. What, how do you feel about that? You know, empowering folks on the, on the ground floor, uh, to create their own content.

[00:13:41.24] spk_1:
I totally agree with that tony because that’s where the real content comes. Like when you can look on there, let’s just use instagram. I’m scrolling, I’m looking and I see a picture of people actually handing out bags of food or they’re handing out there at the hospitals and helping people. And I’m seeing people on the ground doing things. Then I know that that organization is serious, right? I know that they’re actually out there on the ground and they’re not just some huge corporate where I don’t know where my money is going. So I think that that is a good idea to always have like you said, people on the ground actually making their own content and they actually can actually get to know your audience to. So when the data comes up, you know, you can actually see what are people clicking on and what are they commenting on? What are they saying And what type of things are they, are they liking? You know, so these are all going to help you down the line as you continue to great continent to really see by looking at your analytics.

[00:13:59.94] spk_0:
Right, okay, excellent point. I wanted to ask about analytics. The analytics vary. You know? Uh some some sites will give you more, you know, a play of some platforms. I should say like a platform like linkedin. Uh you know it gives you very little you might you might not be on you might not be on linkedin for for you know volunteer and donor relationships. But that’s just one that I’m most familiar with because I spent a lot of time there. So I know that they are particularly uh

[00:14:23.69] spk_1:
yeah I think about the algorithm.

[00:14:35.14] spk_0:
I mean about the uh the analytics unless you know you start paying for the pro the upgraded um upgraded packages but you know so you’re kind of at the mercy what platforms or what what networks do you see? You know are more generous with uh with the analytics versus less.

[00:14:45.14] spk_1:
Well let’s just let’s just start with what analytics you should be looking for. So one of the things that you want to look for is you know, not only just the followers but like how many lives you are getting? How many impressions you’re making? So that means that your content is actually being seen

[00:14:59.13] spk_0:
the real you want really metric. Yeah, vanity metrics. Like how many I’m not talking about

[00:15:08.74] spk_1:
that shallow. Right. And of course followers. That’s good to have that because you’ll see you know how many people actually following you

[00:15:12.87] spk_0:
wanted, you wanted trending in the right place. But that’s not the ultimate measure exactly clicks and shares and uh shares and comments etcetera. Much more valuable.

[00:16:10.84] spk_1:
Way valuable because it’s going to help you, even when you decide to run ads down the line, it’s going to help you decide, you know, which type of people actually click who, who is sharing, who’s coming to my website. So these are all in a little that you can look and use and then you can see like especially on instagram and facebook, they’ve got their demographics down to a science. You can actually start building demographics around that. So like I said, it’s going to help you down the line as you try to run ads. You know, what age clicks, what’s the gender? What are they most interested in? What other similar pages do they follow? These type of analytics that are going to help you really target that that person over and over and over again. So yeah, looking at those analytics is going to be key. The best. Like I said, the platforms right now that are really good at analytics or are the big three really twitter facebook instagram if you are on on Youtube, they have awesome analytics as well. I’ll tell you how many views you have, How many people have like your videos, how many people share your videos. So these are things that you want to see and collect that data and see like, you know, how can I find more people that I want to attract? How can I find these donors online?

[00:16:27.44] spk_0:
But Youtube doesn’t give you the demographics though, does it? Of of people who have been watching viewing.

[00:16:32.52] spk_1:
It

[00:16:49.24] spk_0:
does give you give you a job and age location. Okay. You too does Okay. Good. Alright. Alright. Um All right. Um So you’re I don’t want to go through these two quick, but let’s say, all right, maybe we’ll end up coming back because you got a lackluster host, you know? So sometimes times I think of things later on,

[00:16:53.31] spk_1:
All

[00:16:54.42] spk_0:
right, we’ll cut we may end up coming back, all right, but we’ll get through. Okay, So a is your audience go ahead? What’s what’s your what’s your advice around audience?

[00:18:36.74] spk_1:
Audience is mainly finding those people who are going to want to continue to follow you, gonna follow you off of the platform. And so one of the main things like I said is you’re gonna want to look for that persona and then you want to try to mimic that persona over and over again. Now, people are looking at vanity measures like, okay, well, I have a lot of followers, but there are specific followers that never leave you. They’re gonna always continue to follow and be there. And so when you go in on these platforms and you’re looking for these people and you want to make sure that you have that one persona down, and you go to these different profiles on there and you follow them and you engage with their content. And so a lot of people actually miss that they post things and then they leave or they posted and they maybe answer one of their comments on theirs, but they never go back to someone else’s or engaged with their posts. And so that’s a huge part of social media. Another thing, another thing with audiences being found, right, So you’ve got this great profile, how do you get found? Almost all of the platforms use hashtags. And so these hashtags are really important there, the element that are gonna help you be discovered by new people. And so it’s very important that you at least research 15 main hashtag um that you guys can rotate out so that you guys will be found if someone searches for that particular hashtag. So, for instance, hashtag social change. For instance, if you use that in your post, when someone types in social change, your post will be in that large list of uh directory where people can actually click that photo and see where is it coming from, that will lead them back to your profile. So, these are all things that you want to make sure that you have in order to build your audience.

[00:18:38.48] spk_0:
Okay. Right. So you want to you want us following folks who are maybe influencers that are following us. Be generous. Be generous with sharing their content, not just engaging with them around your own content.

[00:19:06.34] spk_1:
Yeah. And even if you’re not sharing your your on their profile, you’re asking them questions, you know, what do they do or what, why do they like, x, y, z, you’re just having a really good conversation with them and most like, I don’t want to come to your profile and see what you guys have to offer, and that’s how you get a true follower that I want to engage with, you, not just somebody who will be going in two hours. And so it’s really important that you engage with these people and build relationships.

[00:19:18.14] spk_0:
Okay, so the relationship building and the use of the right hashtags,

[00:19:19.88] spk_1:
that’s how you get discovered related

[00:19:25.14] spk_0:
to your work, should be, should you be creating your own hashtags or better to leverage off hashtags that are already existing, but others have already you, I mean there’s maybe hundreds of thousands of people already using an established hashtag, so it’s better to go that way or better to create your own and try to build momentum there.

[00:19:56.34] spk_1:
You definitely those 50 hashtag that I’m talking about, you do want to do a little bit of both, but mainly you want to use the ones that are already already being used because people are actively using them, they can actively find you now, once you build a bigger audience, of course you can use your own hashtag then you can tell your audience, hey, my hashtag is hashtag fedora and they’ll know to use that hashtag then. But when you are just starting and you’re just getting your marketing up, you want to use hashtag that are already being searched and already being used that way people can come to your profile and that’s when we’re, those impressions come in that we were talking about earlier, you get more impressions?

[00:20:19.49] spk_0:
Yeah, okay, okay, better to start with the, with the established,

[00:20:23.74] spk_1:
definitely. Yeah. So that you can get found. Yeah.

[00:20:28.24] spk_0:
All right, your l you’re always lead. Right, yep,

[00:21:37.74] spk_1:
yep. So that part in between the audience and the lead is super important. So it is the information that you give your audience that’s going to lead them on into your email list. It’s important to have an email list which a lot of non trump is either have an email list and they don’t use it or they don’t have an email this at all. I just feel like it’s not important, but you have to be actively building an email list because these are your particular raving fans that are going to continue to follow you even off of the social media platform, even though we know social social media is not going to disappear. Um you just want to make sure that you have your own particular people that you can consistently talk to, that you can consistently share with and so that between the a and the ill you want to have uh an opportunity to give them information in exchange for their email. Now, this can be a video, this can be a live event registration. This can be um, a pdf just giving them some really cool information about what you guys are doing or why it’s important to care about your mission. Like something of value that they can give you that valuable email because that email is going to help you down the line. That way, if you don’t, if they don’t see your post that day, at least they can check their emails now because they have you have them on the list

[00:21:48.84] spk_0:
I’ve seen or is that I think put up too much of a, of a barrier when they’re asking for that email and I’ll ask, you know, for maybe first name, last name. I’ve seen phone number.

[00:21:59.67] spk_3:
You know, this

[00:22:00.87] spk_0:
is all information. That’s very nice to have because you can write the first name and last name and phone number. You can probably research the person. But I think I think the, I think you’re losing more people because people don’t expect, you know, I don’t have to give up don’t give up my phone number and my address.

[00:22:15.72] spk_1:
Yeah. And you shouldn’t have to, you should get your white paper

[00:22:19.62] spk_0:
on on your work, you know,

[00:22:21.04] spk_1:
so Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Asking for that type of information like your your email is very valuable to you anyway. Right. Because we don’t give our emails to everybody. We dont want spam, we don’t want people on our inbox. So when we decided to give our emails out, that’s already a big deal for us. And so it’s really important. Like you said to simplify that should just be a name and email. Nothing crazy and it should just be in exchange for whatever that value is really quickly. So we quickly get the information we need and then later on down the line if you need the name and address and all those other things, it’s because I registered for something, I registered for an event or I registered to come out and do something with you. But that’s later down the line and I know you

[00:22:59.94] spk_0:
like, like I’m happy to give email and first name.

[00:23:03.54] spk_1:
That’s perfect way

[00:23:14.94] spk_0:
this organization, you know, you can personalize my email you, my first name. You know, I might give up last name or I might just make up a last name but it gets beyond that when you get on

[00:23:16.96] spk_3:
that phone

[00:23:18.06] spk_0:
number, you

[00:23:29.64] spk_1:
know, I click away. It’s too much. It’s too much and you don’t even as a, you know, when you’re marketing, you don’t need that number. Most people don’t do calls like that anyway. I like I said ask for that down the line. If you know, you’re gonna need that. Um, you can ask for that during someone’s registration or something. But they’ve already expressed interest to you. They know you they’ve been following your content. They opened the emails, right? And so then, you know, okay, they’re comfortable with us. They can give us their phone number at that point.

[00:23:50.34] spk_0:
All right. Or if you want to do a text campaign, you can ask, you know, you want to opt in, you’ve been

[00:23:52.51] spk_1:
out of the option right on our email, do that the first one though, the first time you get them on there and don’t do that the first

[00:23:58.25] spk_0:
time it’s too much right.

[00:23:59.46] spk_1:
You would scare him off.

[00:24:01.66] spk_0:
They’ve been on the mailing list for a while and you know, we’re

[00:24:03.97] spk_1:
gonna that’s fine. That’s fine. You

[00:24:13.14] spk_0:
know what we’re gonna do a SmS campaign. So, you know, if you’d like to opt in, you know, here’s the place to give us your number or reply with or something. You know, exactly.

[00:24:18.56] spk_1:
You should always be simple as possible

[00:24:20.79] spk_0:
after you’ve already got some goodwill. I feel like

[00:24:55.74] spk_1:
Exactly. And since we’re talking about that tony we can talk about some of the metrics that you should look for in your email is especially like once you get them on their like, what do you do with them? And I know a lot of nonprofits get stuck there. So one of the things that you want to make for sure is that you’re consistent with your email. So don’t just take the email and they never hear from you ever again. Don’t make that mistake because oftentimes when we do that and let’s say event comes up three or four months down the line and we’re wondering why no one registered or nobody opened our emails. We have really low email rates. It’s because you’ve let them cold. Okay. So you want to be for sure that you consistently talking to your list and you’re consistently giving them information so you can still use the 80 20 rule. And I was telling you earlier,

[00:27:44.84] spk_0:
it’s time for a break, send in blue. It’s an all in one digital marketing platform with tools to build end end digital campaigns that look professional are affordable and keep you organized. They do digital campaign marketing. Most marketing software is designed for big companies and has that enterprise level price tag sending blue is priced for you, sending blue price for you, price for nonprofits, it’s an easy to use marketing platform walking you through the steps of building a campaign to try out, sending blue and get a free month. Hit the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in blue. It’s time for Tony’s take two planned giving in the pandemic era. That’s a webinar that I’ll be delivering graciously hosted by J. M. T. Consulting. It’s on Thursday September 30, 2:00 EST, naturally I’m gonna weave in my stand up comedy, keep this light and entertaining uh as well as informative, informative is important. We don’t miss the informative, but we’ll talk about it. But I will talk about what planned giving is, who your best prospects are, where you get started and how planned giving fits. In our pandemic era. You can go to J. M. T. Consulting dot com, click events and then click experts speaker series. They have a bunch of experts and me. But that’s how you make your reservation. JMT consulting dot com events and then expert speaker series. Or if you prefer, you could go to JMT consulting dot com slash events slash planned hyphen giving hyphen in hyphen the hyphen pandemic hyphen era hyphen with hyphen tony hyphen martignetti I I presume you could also just search JMT consulting tony-martignetti that might work also. But you choose your method, no judgments here is a judgment free zone. You choose how you want to make your reservation, it’s yours, it’s yours. I just hope you will. I hope you’ll be with me with me and jmT consulting thursday september 30th two o’clock eastern. That Is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for turn followers into donors with adora drake

[00:28:34.04] spk_1:
and some of the main ways to get that really high open rate. It starts with the subject line. So the subject line should go straight to the point. It should be really quick and grab the intention of your reader and then once they click on that uh that email, the content should be helpful. It should be informative and it should quickly let them know. You know why they should keep reading. So that’s a little bit copyrighting their, uh, when you’re thinking about that. But if you have a newsletter, it’s a great place to put, you know, what are you guys coming up with? Why? Why should we care to be on your list? You know, especially when someone is a brand new person on the list. I like to create something that caught a welcome series. So I just kind of welcome them in. You know, introduce them. Let them know what the mission is, what we like to see in the future and things like that and kind of really get them into the organization and get them excited for being there. And as well as exchanging for some value. How

[00:28:44.27] spk_0:
long is that welcome series?

[00:28:46.44] spk_1:
It varies. Um, I usually have a minimum of seven emails. Um, and it’s just going to walk them through the entire first week that they’re on the list. And then after that you, you can go to just like once a week or something like that, but you want to make sure that you’re consistent at least once a week minimum,

[00:29:02.54] spk_0:
but initially you’re doing one a day, seven days. Yeah. People don’t object to that.

[00:29:25.74] spk_1:
No. And one of the things that I get asked all the time what they unsubscribe. Fedora if they unsubscribe, but you have to think of it this way. If they unsubscribe, then they’re not supposed to be there. Um, they’re not one of the people that are going to eventually donate to you. They’re not gonna want to follow. You know, you don’t saying so you’re kind of just losing deadweight. Kind of hate to say it that way, but it’s kind of dead weight and so you want to make sure that your, your list is lean. Um, they’re actually wanting to be there. They’re actually gonna open those emails because those are the people that are gonna donate or volunteer your time later down the line.

[00:29:40.52] spk_0:
That’s also going to help you with your email service provider.

[00:29:43.94] spk_1:
Yeah. Safety cost using uh,

[00:29:47.55] spk_0:
if you’re using mail chimp or constant contact or something. I mean if you have a huge list, but it’s un engaged. That that hurts, that hurts you. And they

[00:29:55.92] spk_1:
might, it does or

[00:29:58.28] spk_0:
your your email service provider or the recipients might end up might put you in spam even though the person asked for your email, but you have a big fat bloated un engaged list versus having to say you’re saying having a lien list it is engaged. That’s more likely to end up in an inbox than a junk box.

[00:30:16.22] spk_1:
Exactly. And that’s exactly what the goal is, especially when you’re creating an email list is to make sure that these people actually want to be there because these are your fans, you’re gonna go to later down the line when you do ask for donations. They already know you and they’re warm already. So these are warm leads

[00:30:30.24] spk_0:
and listeners, we’ve had guests on this. So you know, if you want to just search, go to tony-martignetti dot com and search email delivery ability, I’ve had shows on going into depth what a door and I’m talking about right now about the algorithms that companies you pay are using against. You have a big fat bloated and engaged list.

[00:30:52.99] spk_1:
So true. It does

[00:30:56.23] spk_0:
deliver ability. So you can hear shows specifically on that topic and how to avoid it. Um, we’re just touching on it now, but it is important your own companies that you’re paying could be hurting you.

[00:31:14.94] spk_1:
Yeah, I’ve also created a pdf just for you guys. If you guys want to learn the top five emails that I use on my email list of my clients list, you guys can go ahead and download that to uh, that’s gonna be in my website. Adora drake marketing dash non profit radio So you guys can go get

[00:31:24.97] spk_0:
that. All right. So, uh if this, if this podcast doesn’t return,

[00:31:30.72] spk_3:
you

[00:31:32.01] spk_0:
got some land, she’s got a landing page for us

[00:31:34.33] spk_1:
uh podcast. You guys are

[00:31:36.85] spk_0:
going to hear from the door drake again. This is gonna be the last time.

[00:31:39.34] spk_1:
Oh no,

[00:31:40.42] spk_3:
not Okay.

[00:31:41.73] spk_1:
No, I mean I hope not.

[00:31:42.99] spk_0:
But you set upon landing page you got metrics against us.

[00:31:45.70] spk_1:
Matrix. Matrix. Yes, that’s right.

[00:31:48.46] spk_0:
What did you say metrics what

[00:31:50.07] spk_1:
always have metrics. That’s right.

[00:31:51.73] spk_0:
Okay. Like you like the metrics maven. Okay.

[00:31:54.72] spk_1:
I like that. You know, I

[00:31:57.96] spk_0:
love alliteration. You can use Metro. Alright, so Adora drake marketing dot com. Hyphen dash dash dash hyphen non profit radio all one word. non profit

[00:32:10.67] spk_1:
All one Word. Yes. No spaces.

[00:32:12.74] spk_0:
Okay. And that’s where we’ll get your top five email. What subjects?

[00:32:26.74] spk_1:
It’s going to be a top five types of emails. So I’m going to tell you the types of emails that some of them was that series that we were talking about. I’ll tell you the types of emails that you can send out to your list. Keep them engaged but really to keep them engaged and wanting to donate at some point.

[00:32:30.79] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. And I just want to make something very, very clear. So when you’re welcoming someone to the list, they’ve they’ve taken your content, whatever it is, video or etcetera, whatever white paper etcetera. Uh, they’re new to your list. So you you send an email each day for the next week.

[00:32:49.04] spk_1:
Yeah. Now this is this is not hard as you guys think. It’s not me going on there every day typing up an email and this is something that you can set up an auto response. You can schedule this out. Right.

[00:33:01.43] spk_0:
I’m just making sure that you don’t find that? That’s too much in the beginning.

[00:33:33.04] spk_1:
No. And I don’t want you guys to be scared in thinking that even if you do something one a day that is too scary. I mean if anything it’s like having a conversation with a friend every day or talking to your mom every day. Right. She wouldn’t get tired of you. So why would someone who’s who’s following you and want to be a part of your mission? They wouldn’t get tired of you either. They just want to know more and more to And so the more you show up, it’s actually the opposite, the more you have people wanting to be there. So people who drop off, they were going to drop off at some point anyway because they weren’t really your target. And so I don’t want you guys worried about what they keep unsubscribing everyday. Well, that means you need to continue to keep growing your list with real people.

[00:33:48.94] spk_0:
Right. Right. Keeping that that lean but engaged list. Okay, Okay. And then your advice is at least once a week after that first week, minimum

[00:33:49.81] spk_1:
minimum, at least minimum. Yes. At

[00:33:52.68] spk_0:
least you said minimum. Yeah,

[00:33:53.90] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s fine. Yeah,

[00:33:56.67] spk_3:
I

[00:33:57.79] spk_1:
don’t know what I’m talking about. You got

[00:33:59.46] spk_3:
it at

[00:34:00.29] spk_0:
least minimum

[00:34:01.36] spk_3:
minimum

[00:34:02.86] spk_1:
minimum. Alright. You have it out. You gotta go in a

[00:34:06.95] spk_0:
minimum minimum of once a week after. Right, okay. Yeah. Because when you’re event comes up and nobody nobody RSVPs, it’s because you haven’t been keeping in touch the people forgot about, you know,

[00:34:19.77] spk_1:
seriously? We have our lives. Right. Right. Right. And you disembark as long as like who is this? And why did I even get on the list, you know, so don’t be gone too long. Make sure you stay in front of them, let them know what’s going on. And when you show up and they show you show up in their inbox, they’re going to know exactly who you are. You want to open it. So stay consistent

[00:34:40.34] spk_0:
and then you build that relationship up. Maybe you get their U. S. Mail address. Maybe you can you do a print annual report. Maybe you can send that to that. You wanted to send them a little swag. But take your time build a relationship over

[00:34:54.20] spk_1:
the relationship. You’re right, Tony. Alright. That’s the main key. Is that building a relationship piece,

[00:35:00.24] spk_0:
Right? Because we’re trying to turn them into donors for God’s sake.

[00:35:02.79] spk_1:
Yeah. We’re asking for money here.

[00:35:05.67] spk_3:
That’s the goal. So

[00:35:06.81] spk_0:
our volunteers could be, you know, it could be maybe committed

[00:35:09.46] spk_1:
the other time, which is really valuable. Right? Valuable. Also. Absolutely.

[00:35:12.91] spk_3:
All

[00:35:14.13] spk_0:
right. Go ahead with your E. For execution, please.

[00:35:47.44] spk_1:
So execution is the main part is when we’re asking for money. Okay, So we’re ready to get them from the list and we’re asking them to give us a certain amount of money um for our calls. And so all of these other elements that S C. A. And L. They all lead up to the execution and so how do you do this? You’re gonna want to make for sure again that you’re consistent with that email list and when you ask for the sale or you ask for the donation, they already have a relationship with you and you’re really clear on where can they go and donate? Um What’s the timeline? Do they need to get on a call with you and talk about this more? You’re really defining out, you know how can they go about giving their money? Um Do they need to you know have particular people there or whatever the at the C. T. A. Is you want to make sure that you’re really clear on this and that’s that execution execution piece.

[00:36:15.43] spk_0:
And how long would you say from someone first joining the list to to asking them to make their first gift? What what what time period should that be?

[00:37:26.33] spk_1:
Um this is gonna vary by by organization but if you’re looking at the analytics and you’re seeing that people are consistently opening things that consistently clicking on your newsletter and they’re coming to your website. That’s probably a clear sign that they’re really interested. Okay so if they’re more interested in you’re seeing a 40% open rate uh They’re clicking is about a 20% click rate then it might be you can probably asked earlier but if you’re seeing that they need a little bit more time and not quite opening up the emails um then you’re not quite getting a click like you want, you might want to space that add a little bit more. So I always advise minimum uh to keep giving 80% and only asked 20%. So if you’re giving for four weeks straight, just straight information maybe on the fifth week, you can ask, hey, would you like to donate to our calls here and this and that. So it’s just about giving and balancing out that making for sure that they’re comfortable with what you do. They kind of see where the money would go. And then once you’re ready down the line, you say, hey, we’re needed to raise money for this or your money would go towards this. Cause how would you like to donate? And this is the perfect time to get started before the holidays because this is the time that you can create all the content, right? You can get them really comfortable with you and let them know what your messages and messaging is. And then you just ask for a sales. So you have plenty of time between this time in december to start getting that going.

[00:37:38.33] spk_0:
Yeah, because we are right. We’re coming up on the fourth quarter of the very important fourth quarter. All right. So, so you’re looking for you, you think 40% open rate and 20% click rate. Those are those are good numbers.

[00:38:53.02] spk_1:
Yes. And so I was talking to someone earlier. She was like, well I don’t have a 40% open rate and that’s fine. The averages around 30-35% open rate. That 40 is just a really good engaged audience. So they’re actually opening it. And it’s probably because you have a really good subject line. Right? And so I like to say that if you can get around 40, that means you have a really engaged audience, they’re not cold. Um, and they’re warm. And so Anything below that between 30, 30 and 35, that’s average, but below 30 is kind of bad. So you might want to either clean up your list or you might need to, um, you know, change your subject and kind of see, so that’s that testing piece. And a lot of people, you know, don’t know that about market, but marketing is a huge area where you have to test and kind of see what works for you, what works for your organization. And so you want to test and see what kind of subject lines do my audience open? Are they opening them at all or where did they come from? What’s the information that I gave them exchange for the email? And am I consistently making content around that or have I changed up something that makes them not want to open the email? So these are all things that you want to look at when you’re building an email list because like we said earlier, you don’t want to have a big list of people who aren’t really engaged already. You have a list of like 100 people, but they’re really engaged. They’re gonna, they’re gonna, you know, give you those funds at the end of the day,

[00:39:05.42] spk_0:
when you say, clean up the list, you’re talking about dropping people off who are chronically un engaged, you know, they’re not not opening the not clicking.

[00:39:45.32] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. It’s not gonna do you any good to have. It’s just literally vanity metrics at that point, before I clean up the list, I always just do you know a really quick check and say, hey, are you there? Or hey, would you like to continue to learn about X. Y. Z. If you get replies on those emails, you can keep those people on the list. The other people have not opened it or have not click anything. Those are used a clear sign that they’re not really, uh you know, people that you should probably keep on your list. And so before you clean them up, you can always just send out those quick little to emails that I just mentioned and kind of see, uh, you know, are you guys still wanted to be here? Or you can just drop those people who are not opening them,

[00:40:03.81] spk_0:
let’s make something clear. Just so there’s no listener that’s that’s got a question in their mind, uh the open rate that’s when someone opens, that’s opening your opening your email. Right? The open. That’s just that’s going from, you know, on your phone. That’s going from the little some little summary to tapping it to opening it up. And

[00:40:12.67] spk_1:
yeah, any time you open up email, that’s your open rate, your full

[00:40:15.45] spk_0:
message. Right? And then the click rate is just somebody clicks on anything in anything in the message.

[00:40:20.41] spk_1:
Usually you’re yeah, usually your newsletter, whatever link you have in there. So let’s say you have a link that leads back to your newsletter on your website or at least back to your blog or whatever is you have in there. It’s gonna catch that click and like you said, so that’s the click inside of the email,

[00:40:34.71] spk_0:
your call, your call to action

[00:40:36.40] spk_1:
called the action. Exactly.

[00:40:37.50] spk_0:
Someone. Okay. I just wanna make sure everybody understands the open right click.

[00:40:40.44] spk_1:
Ok. So those are the main two that you guys want to look at when you guys are running email marketing campaigns and those are the main things we look at. Two is how high those rates are because that tells me if my content is working or not.

[00:40:53.81] spk_0:
All right. So that’s the scale method. Um as I, as I thought might happen, I did think of a few things now require us to go

[00:41:02.81] spk_1:
back. That’s

[00:41:13.21] spk_0:
the lackluster host, like I said, that you’re stuck with going back to the, to the platforms, the social media. Yeah. Um let’s talk about ones that are no longer emerging, but they’re newer slack. WhatsApp Tick tock is their value there for nonprofits? Or does it does depend on who your, what your persona looks like as to whether you’re on one of the newer platforms.

[00:42:07.70] spk_1:
Yeah. So if, if you’re going to join one of those, you really do need to make sure that your audience is over there. So if you are targeting, you know, teenagers or younger people, then you might can look into something like a Tiktok, right? But if you’re targeting, you know, wealthier donors who are over 60, they probably won’t be over there as much. Not that they won’t be over there is that they won’t be over their majority. And so you want to look at a platform where they’ll be like facebook or linkedin. Right. And so it’s gonna, like you said, go back down to that persona. But you know, when you’re thinking about which platform, if you want to be on and what you want to target? Look at, you know, where would these people be? What is that demographics that we talked about and that’s going to help you decide which one is going to, you know, work best if that platform doesn’t work, you’ve just been using it for like two or three months and you’re not really seeing much change. Maybe you should try another platform. So it’s again, that testing and making for sure that you understand? Where is my audience before you give up.

[00:42:20.10] spk_0:
Are you seeing nonprofits on Tiktok? Do you have?

[00:42:23.18] spk_1:
Honestly, I have not, I haven’t, I have not. You know what? I have seen a few on. What’s the other new social media platform? It’s like an audio only kind of platform. I can’t think of it right now.

[00:42:36.17] spk_0:
Oh, I think I’ve heard of this to uh, yeah. All right.

[00:42:39.41] spk_1:
I don’t know. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. It’s just audio only. I’ve heard some nonprofit starting to do those because it’s kind of like podcasts and so that might be a really cool option for people if if you have a really good viewership, you want to turn them into listeners and that might be an option for you.

[00:42:56.20] spk_0:
Okay. Okay, slack. Is that is their value in uh, nonprofits on slack.

[00:44:04.89] spk_1:
Yeah. So slack is usually used to communicate which you can communicate with, you know, your volunteer. So that’s more like an internal type of software. You can kind of get in there and engage with people in your organization. So we can talk about that a little bit too. Like how do you kind of keep people engaged in inside of the organization? So something like a slag or Asana that’s going to help you really track your projects. Right. So these are, these are gonna be helpful for making for sure that those projects move along, uh, through the pipeline. So, uh, let’s say you guys are having an event and you want to start marketing it four months ahead of time, That slack kind of platform will enable you to put each team member in there that you guys can communicate, upload um you know, marking materials, schedule out those emails and things like that inside of that slack platform, so that’s what that’s used for and other ones are like a sauna or teamwork and things like that. Those are all kind of work on that capacity. Also when it comes to social media, which I talked, we had mentioned earlier like you don’t want to be glued to your social media right? So there are there are Softwares that can actually help you schedule out your content so you won’t actually have to be there every day at five o’clock scheduling on your content. So these platforms are things like you know, sprout social hubspot um plan only that you can actually upload your content and ahead of time and then schedule things out so that you don’t actually have to be there. All you have to do is come in still for about 30 minutes to come in and engage and making sure you answer questions and comments and things like that. So there is some pieces of automation that you can use

[00:44:35.89] spk_0:
Dora, what was the third one you said hubspot? I know I know sprout social and what was

[00:44:40.05] spk_1:
the social and what is called plan early and that one, I used a lot for instagram, for scheduling on instagram. Post

[00:44:46.39] spk_0:
plan, could you spell it for us?

[00:44:48.29] spk_1:
It’s called plan early. So it’s P L A N O L Y.

[00:45:00.69] spk_0:
Okay, cool. Thank you. All right. No listeners to be able to find it. Okay. Um you know, you got a little Dallas texas accent, so I wanna make

[00:45:02.80] spk_3:
sure,

[00:45:04.29] spk_1:
I don’t know I had next sent to someone said it the other, we got like, really

[00:45:07.51] spk_3:
got

[00:45:37.49] spk_0:
a little one man, I’m from new york. Uh how obvious is that? Just a little So, you know, I just wanna get folks to be able to hear through it. You talk about the subject line. What about, you know, uh lots of folks um encourage listeners to use that, that subheading uh right below the subject, like that summary that you see on your phone, you know, you get like 100 50 characters below the subject line. That can be used creatively also to encourage people to open. Right?

[00:46:11.08] spk_1:
Yeah, definitely. Um it can definitely be used to, but but mainly it is going to be the subject line record. That’s that’s what’s gonna make me click it and then the actual content inside of your email is gonna be the most important, but if you want to add, let’s say I’m having a contest or something like that and I want to make sure that people understand, you know, what, what they can expect when they open the email, then I might add a little bit of context inside of that secondary subject line that you’re talking about. Um, it’s not the most important, but it is, you know, something that you can add a little bit of extra information if you don’t have enough information in your subject line. Okay.

[00:46:20.18] spk_0:
Uh, why don’t you uh, story it’s story time. Did you tell the story of uh, you know, some non profit uh, that you know, maybe not, you know, step by step to the scale method, but nowhere you saw, you saw things where things are moving, you start to get some traction, saw some success converted to focus the donors and tell us a good story.

[00:47:47.28] spk_1:
Yeah, so one of the non profits I just recently worked with, they were uh mid sized non profit in boston and what they focused on is helping disadvantaged minorities find jobs. Um, they also were involved with feeding uh, their local community and one of their major uh, academies that they were going to try to open up was just to help younger teenage students to come in and learn how to volunteer and learn how to get back to their community and be really good students. And so they were trying to push that act that academy and they didn’t know how to do that. So most of their marketing was still done the old school way. So they were getting out there, you know, going to these different uh, local churches, going to schools and things like that on foot and not necessarily, uh, utilizing social media, they have been around for about 15 years. So they did have an email list, but they weren’t really using it outside of, you know, just letting people know like tomorrow we’re gonna be doing an advantage at X, Y. C. And so when they brought me in, they were like, hey, how do we uh, you know, really build some interest online and so that we don’t necessarily have to rely on doing these old school methods all the time. And so one of the first things I took a look at was that s of the scale method, which is their social media, which is almost non existent. Um, they have maybe one account, but it wasn’t used for like four years. So

[00:48:00.23] spk_3:
that

[00:49:52.47] spk_1:
is non existent. Yeah, I was like, okay, what’s this? So we really have to start almost from scratch their built their, all of their platforms, uh, to the point where people were actually following, we could actually, you know, see the analytics of them leaving the platforms and clicking their websites. We did get people onto their email list and then I taught them, you know, kind of what I was discussing here. Like how do you nurture those people now that they’re on your email is like, don’t just leave them hanging or don’t just let them know the day before the event, Like, hey, it’s tomorrow because you probably won’t get as much engagement. So I taught them how to use content inside of their email lists and how to, you know, get people interested before these type of events happen or before you, they want that call to action to happen so that they can really start seeing well, okay with this organization is really cool because they really do help their community. Um, or one of the, it was funny because during my time with them, one of the main uh, directors, he had an emergency outside when they were feeding the hungry that was actually featured on the news. And so I was like, hey, this is perfect for social media just to show that you guys, you know, not only you guys out there on foot, but you guys, you know, care about your community even when an emergency happens, you’re going to step in and so that just makes it just makes you look good as a brand and you can share all these types of things with your audience because they care to know it right. And so I walked them through the whole process, like you said, trained their team how to do this. So if you have an organization and you are, you know, you’re wanting to be a little bit more hands off. I do have the opportunity for you to, you know, come into my programs and do that. But they use that program where I kind of came in, set up all of their automation. So they don’t have to be glued to things and they can really focus on the mission of the organization. And so when I left them, all of their team was trained. They have the automation is in place and so they’re on their way now to, to bring in a lot of money less than I checked with With them up there in Boston. They had brought in about 50,000 into that new academy that I was talking about. Um, and that’s gonna be really focused, like I said on on these students this year, on how to make them really good students and make them want to study, make them want to volunteer and things like that.

[00:50:07.36] spk_0:
Okay. And that $50,000 was largely from the relationships that got built

[00:50:55.36] spk_1:
relationships in ways that we just talked about. Exactly exactly, strictly relationships really because you know, once you get them on the list, you got, you know, warmed up. A lot of people are asking questions as I was running a lot of their socials at the time. So I got to see people ask questions about, you know, how can I get involved or what do you guys do or how long have you guys been around? And that is a really good way to, you know, meet prospective donors, you know, get him on the list and share that information. Uh, one of the directors there, she also had a radio show. So she would do things every morning. Uh, let’s say on on Wednesday at nine o’clock, she would, you know, give her information. And I said, when I first came in I was like, okay, you’re doing this radio show. But what if I’m not listening at nine o’clock Eastern time because I’m here in central time. Alright, Am I never gonna see the show? And she was like, well, I don’t, I don’t know what to do. So I taught her how to repurpose that content. So where she can share it on her social media, she can also share that on her email list and more people get to see, you know what they’re doing up there.

[00:51:13.66] spk_0:
Okay, that’s a great story.

[00:51:14.93] spk_3:
All

[00:51:16.16] spk_1:
right, we’re

[00:51:19.14] spk_0:
gonna leave it

[00:51:19.49] spk_3:
there Drake

[00:51:38.26] spk_0:
actually, Dordrecht, digital marketing strategist, coach and consultant, you’ll find her at Adora drake marketing dot com if you want to hit the listener landing pages she set up for us. It’s a test now. So Dora drake marketing dot com. Hyphen non profit radio No spaces,

[00:51:40.96] spk_1:
no spaces. Thank

[00:51:43.12] spk_0:
you very much. Terrific ideas. Thank you.

[00:51:45.46] spk_1:
Thank you guys. It was a pleasure being here.

[00:51:47.86] spk_0:
Our pleasure, my pleasure, my pleasure, well, our pleasure to listen, my pleasure to talk with

[00:51:52.61] spk_3:
you

[00:52:25.05] spk_0:
next week, effective fundraising that’s Warren Mcfarland’s new book and he’ll be with me 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. And by sending Blue, the only all in one digital marketing platform empowering non profits to grow. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in Blue,

[00:53:01.55] spk_2:
our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Solomon is our web guy and this music is by scott steiner. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty you with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the Other 95%. Go out and be great. Mm hmm. Mhm. What