Transcript for 283_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20160401.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:29:17.880Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2016…04…283_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20160401.mp3.212944153.json
Path to text: transcripts/2016/04/283_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20160401.txt

Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s friday, april first. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the embarrassment of galata phobia if i heard you laughing as you told me you missed today’s show digital matrix there’s so much you can measure where do you start? Mika whitlock and rebecca reyes answer that and what data does almost every non-profit need to capture, which deserves weekly attention versus monthly or annual. Plus they have lots of resource is miko is digital communications consultant and associate director of communications at nass. Dad rebecca is digital marketing consultant at spring bdo strategies. We talked at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference last week, hosted by n ten non-profit technology network, and this will be the first of thirty two smart interviews that i got from also one q sixteen metrics world about metrics today. How did first quarter fund-raising go and what’s changed in the full year forecast since january? Atlas of giving has the data and ceo rob mitchell shares at all. Rob will be with me each quarter at the end for that quarterly analysis on tony’s take two. My blue pedicure challenge we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled. You’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com here are miko whitlock and rebecca reyes, and this is actually the very last interview that i did at ntc, but we’re kicking it off with them. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc, of course that’s, the non-profit technology conference in san jose, california, where in the convention center and this is also port of sixteen. Sorry of port of ntc conversations. My guests are miko whitlock and rebecca reyes, and their session topic is digital metrics. What to measure how and why we’re going to get to that very shortly. First after high like the and, oh, auntie si swag item for this interview, which is a t shirt from service analytics. Design there, you could see that there’s uh, some artistry to this sametz analytics swag final swag altum for the conference, this joins our swag pile unceremoniously thrown into the pile, and we are wrapping up our coverage of sixteen ntcdinosaur last of thirty two interviews, which will be playing over the next many months on non-profit radio with me rico whitlock he’s, digital communications consultant and associate director for communications at nass, ted and s t a t we’ll get to that masek and rebecca reyes she’s, digital marketing consultant at spring media strategies become rebecca. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Have you want non-profit radio? We call what is nasty? Nasco is the national alliance of state in territories, directors and that’s. Just a fancy way. Territorial aids directors, directors and that’s. Just a fancy way of saying that we are a national association that represents public health officials focused on ending hiv and hepatitis. Okay, so we work in all fifty states and the u s territories. All right, rebecca, how about spring dea strategies? Were they about? We do digital marketing strategy and campaigns for non-profits. Okay, focus on an environmental organizations. All right, all right. Digital matrix how do we know we’re back-up let’s start with you. How do we know what we should be measuring for? Our organization’s obviously varies across. It definitely varies. There are a couple of metrics that just every organization should mention measure in your website, email, social media. But it really comes down to what kinds of things are you looking for? What matters for your particular organization. Okay, what are your goals? Who are your audience? All right. And we’ll get to the ones that apply toe on what you say in this description. Almost every organization. But how do we know? How do we decide? What’s what’s? Best for us. It comes down to your goals. So we’re looking for gold. What were you trying to achieve with your website? All those channels you mentioned exactly. Okay. And i would extend that doesn’t so it’s essentially a formula, right? So you understand who your audience is? Our and a hint here is that the general public is not your audience, so you won’t be as specific as possible. And then the other part of his what rebecca said, which is? You want to understand what your goals. With the audience, what do you actually want them to do once you’ve identified them? And in the last part is what does success actually looked like? So when you bring the audience in the girls together, what a success look like when you’re able to figure those things out, then you know, roughly what are you looking for? Based on the platform that you’re using it as a metrix? Okay, so some of our outcomes might be more volunteers five thousand signatures on the petition exactly ten thousand calls to senators throughout the country exactly more dollars raised. What? Whatever whatever outcome is for our organisation. Maybe for a particular campaign and all those things i mentioned could be in our individual campaigns. Yes. Alright. What are we trying to achieve? And i guess in how long? Yes, maybe a timeframe. Ok? Yeah. So exactly. So you’re smart objectives, right? So you want to you want to make sure that you have focused goals, but that they are also time bound time. Marriageable, right? Was that sports chant for hyre? Measurable, right s measurable, achievable r i forget he is a time. Yes, yes, i remember. We’ll talk about smart, smart stand for i’m using smart lower case e putting on this clock. All right, i don’t know, but they have smart goal. Yeah, it z z o way to go. All right. Okay. What are the ones that every organization or to be measuring nico let’s go nufer this or nearly every organization should know something. Something yeah, so let’s, start with the basics. So if you’re an organization, you should have a website. The and the very basic right. And if you have a website, a couple of things you won’t be looking for, you want to know how many people are coming to your website. So that looks that you sort of unique page views. You want to know how long roughly people are staying on your pages? You know, are they digest in your content and you want to know where traffic is coming from? Is it coming from google? Is it coming from facebook? Do you have a partner organization that’s using a news owner that’s that’s promoting your materials and your partner’s got a really good job driving puts you a website. You want to understand those basic measures so that over time you can begin to understand how you make adjustments, so if you want to extend your reach and you have this party organizations really good job of pushing your things out, well, can you partner with a similar organizations that are doing as good a job of helping you drive people to your website? And again, you want to be very clear about making sure that the numbers don’t exist in a vacuum as well. So you want to go to compare them to a previous time here. So it’s not enough to say that we had five thousand web site visitors this month because we’re right previous month, right? So exactly so you want to compare to the previous point in time, okay? And if you’re just starting out it’s okay, if you don’t have those benchmarks, you’re gonna build that overtime. Yeah, all right, let me point out that there’s noise behind us because and t c sixteen is coming to a close as it is for cliffs pulling apart dahna boots and there’s there’s traffic back-up for that as banners get stored but non-profit radio persevere, we’re here, we’re here for the duration. We’re not back-up early. Like like are we are co located booth across the way i won’t. I won’t say which video, organization and site that is, but they’re huge on dh. They’re close to wrapping it up, not us, not radio. Go on, bek are staying with me. Thank you, hyre rebecca, are these things that it was my voice again, cracks like, i’m twelve these things that we could just describe, referring traffic and how long people staying on the site, etcetera, is this stuff we can all we could get all from google analytics, or, or or elsewhere. Absolutely. Google analytics is kind of industry standard. I’m there are a lot of tools out there, there’s, you know, you can get into really deep, you can get into reporting, you can, um, combined it with google sheets and put on adam for google analytics, so, you know, create those nice reports for yourself, but there also some third party tools that can really, you know, send them all of their great information to your emails. You don’t even have to go into google analytics to see that kind of information, but one thing is there are there’s a difference between the kind of data that you just monitor on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. And then there are some more advanced kinds of things that you want to take a look at it just kind of everyone started maybe quarterly or yearly whenever you get a chance so you can really dig a little bit deeper and take action on those things. Help us understand what, what we should be looking at weekly or monthly versus quarterly. Which one? So you want to kind of, you know, take a look at your bounce rate or your time on sight? How many visitors are you getting those air. Kind of some of the very basic things you just want to keep an eye on. And if you see a spike or you see a dip in the numbers that’s gonna be red flag, but you can go a little bit geever and look at those some of those basic analytics alongside some of the other kinds of metrics, like landing pages or exit pages. So you know what? Air you top landing pages. Two people spend a lot of time on those pages. What are your say? You have some really important sections in your website? Um, i’ve found websites, you know, have an average of, um, some the websites that i look at having average of, say, a minute and a half for overall time. But some very specific sections have maybe an average of five minutes, which is really great. And that tells you okay, there really? Digging into the information and really taking the time to learn about your organization. Okay. Okay. Now you mention the bounce, right? That is how many? Not how many people leave after viewing only one page. Is that the bounce? Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I know a little something not trying to take over fighting. Okay, you’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. Fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Now. Okay, wait. Record. You mentioned? You know how long people stay on the safe? That you know, a minute and a half? Two minutes might not be bad if the site has first of all, it’s not marketing anything. Maybe there isn’t. A donation function means an education type site. And the poster short or the videos are short. Maybe a minute and a half to two minutes. Maybe that’s not so bad that it definitely. You know, this is the time on sight. The average has slowly gone down, you know, because people spend more time just going jumping around two from site to site. Especially if your traffic, a lot of it is coming from, you know, paid ads or organic search there going to be really cold leads. And so you’re gonna have a lot of people that, you know, it might not be quite the right fit and they are going to leave. But so that’s, why? It’s important to dig a little bit deeper and to see. Okay, maybe a minute and a half. That’s not, you know, super awesome. But if you have really high time on sight for some of the internal pages that really matter. If you are able to convert a lot of those people, you know, it doesn’t matter if they only spend thirty seconds. Okay, okay. Go, go. Yes, toe after that, i think it’s two things important to keep in mind. The first is what? Your goals. So people come to the website. What do you actually want them to do? R are they filling out a form? Teo, sign up for the email list. Are they watching a video? And that has to be aligned with your analysis of the time on page. The other part of it is his relative, right? So you need to be able to compare it to something else, get it having the time unpaid in isolation doesn’t really mean anything. Well, your point earlier that compared tto what’s. The trend over over a year, six months, exactly. Doing yeah, you may have different. May have different goals for your sight in a different periods over exactly pains. Yes. So two minutes might not be bad if donations are on the run. If the donation pages seymour or traffic? Yes. Okay. What about it? Yeah. Okay. Think about this. Okay. Anything? More and want to say about the metrics that nearly every organization should be following wait, so we just talked about the website, but there’s also social media there’s there’s snusz fund-raising there’s video on dso in the session that we that we covered, we sort of walk through each of these types of platforms of sort of want people through here the basic metrics that you need and hear the advanced metrics so people check out the session, notes they’ll find the slides where we sort of breakdown all of this information, ok, where the session notes i’m so that if you go to the intern website and you start for our session of digital metrics, there is a link to it they’re so intend out orders where you want to go and search for our session, okay, and the title again digital metrics what to measure, how and why, and the session hashtag is sixteen dig metrics d i g metrics with dejan metrics yes, and lost a great information on twitter if you’re following the conversation using that hashtag oh really? Yes, did you get a lot of session? A lot of live tweeting during the session? Lot allowed treating a lot of a lot of feedback and actually will be sending out the slides and alerting people to that through using that hashtag okay, okay, excellent xero forgot. What did you promise people? Tools and processes for collecting, reporting let’s not talk about some tools, rebecca, you start to touch the surface a little bit scratched. Serviceable what other tools do you? You both recommend well, very basic tools like i’m either google sheets or excel spreadsheets. That’s a really great place to just start, you know, identify the top five or ten things that you want to monitor over time that really matter to your organization and your organization’s goals just keep it, keep trucking there and then you know, whatever email tool you use. You know, facebook hasn’t really great analytics, twitter, youtube, they all have really great analytics built into the system. So whatever social media tool you use, you know, check that out. Also scheduling tools like who’d sweet buffers about social. They all have some really great analytics built into them. So that’s a good place to start. Just it, you know, see all of your social media information in one. Place. Okay. Are there any analytics tools that you like beyond what’s what’s imbedded in each of the sites that that go go even deeper? Yep. There’s some reporting tools that i really like if you check out springing a strategies dot com i have an under the block in the tool section. Um, some free tools for facebook, twitter, youtube, um, and interest. So you can see it’s, um, there’s a lot of tools out there. So i tried together some of the really best ones. Um, a lot of them are either free or very affordable because non-profits obviously on a tight budget. Another tool that i recommend checking out is k p i dashboards. So that’s key performance indicators. So this will really help you track, you know, from beginning to end. What? Uh, truck conversion. So if you really care about donations you’ll be able to see, you know, across your platforms, what’s working and that’s gonna be really great tool to bring everything all in one place. Okay, how about you make you got tools so you could recommend? Sure. So i would just echo what were rebecca mentioned? So we do use koegler analytics. For our website way, love it way also use about social in terms of the management, and i’m a really big thing of keeping it simple. And so we use google drive and the google sheets a za way to track metrics. And so those are some of the favorite tools that we use and in terms of the just basic principles, i would encourage folks to keep it simple. I think sometimes we spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect tool to get the job done. And the truth is that there isn’t a perfect tool because the audience and the goals are different for each organization is sometimes even within the organism nation that’s going to vary from campaign to campaign. And so there is no one tool that tells all of that. And so, my my recommendations for folks to find a few good tools that work and you souls ok, ok, but ntcdinosaur coming down around us. Matt hall, there’s trucks, there’s forklift, there’s there’s a manhole. That man lifting up the ceiling! Take him down. That was hanging from another boot. But we’re persevering. Wait another five or six minutes ago, okay? But very good advice, teo. You recognize that each organization going to different and and really you know what i mean? Don’t be afraid to try something. Yes. I mean, this is analytics. Yes. So try try a tool if it doesn’t. It’s not yielding what you need, then scrap it. Try something else, right? Yeah, and hard to fail it. Exactly. So and don’t remit the will. Right? So there you are in a community of organizations that are doing work similar to you. Ask someone that’s what intimacy is all about. Have someone. And if you have something that you can share with someone, share it. We grow stronger together and intent is very good about that. Yes. Over communities of practice. There’s got to be community back-up around analytics. There is one for digital communications. Okay, so okay. Are you in there? I am apart. Okay. Rebecca, you in there to get alright. And ten. Very sharing. Okay, even if you’re not a member. You khun? Yeah. There’s so much you could get from intense. Exactly. Then the membership was so during inexpensive anyway. Yeah. Amy sample ward he’s gonna say it’s cheap it’s, affordable, accessible that’s. Accessible? Like seventy dollars for a whole organs for everybody in the organization, you’ve got to be a member. All right, that’s sufficient and ten shot out. Um, okay. We still have a few more minutes together. What else have we talked about from your session that we should. So we spent a lot of time talking about strategy and process. So we we talked at the very beginning of our time together today about understanding people goals in your missions of success. That’s going to be very important because today or tomorrow, you know, there might be another equivalent to facebook. Everyone is sort of jumping on the bandwagon for yeah, if you understand your people, your goals and what you want to achieve, you can understand why they’re not that flat from actually makes sense for you. The other part of the session that we talked about was process in terms of how do you actually make this work day today before we go. Teo. Rebecca. Anything else you want to add about? Sure. We got time. Thank you. I just wanted to give a few examples of how people can go a little bit deeper. Eso you know we talked a lot about ok, these are the basics for monitoring, right? But you really want to make sure you find data that you can take action on. So that’s where, you know, combining the time on site with the top lining pages, for example, also really good easy practice to do is to take a look at your top. Paige is most visited pages or pages with a highest time on sight or whatever kind of metric you want to compare it to that particular day and look at your top ten and your bottom ten and put them side by side because you’ll likely see some differences. You you might spot cem patterns between the most popular and the least popular in that particular category. So then you can really, you know, once you spot those differences, definitely take a look at all of the rest of your articles and see if that trend holds true throughout your sight. And then you can stop doing things that don’t work and start doing things that really do work. Okay, i love the idea of comparing top to bottom. You’ve seen this and you found correlations? Yes, so things like headlines, for example, you know, obviously headlines like numbers or how to do really well versus things like questions or things that are really long and not very descriptive don’t do very well, and the difference can be huge, you know, from just five or ten klicks to an article versus hundreds, yes, okay, so buy-in top five ways to increase your facebook ad revenue versus social media strategies exactly, and of course, you want to have a variety of headlines you don’t wantto have Numbers and every single 1 but at least, but i’m just, you know, stop my head, mention numbers, okay, so no interesting. All right? Topic. Comparing kapin bottom. Excellent. Anything you want, teo. So you had some you said you have a couple of examples of another. Another strategy example. Um, let’s. See? Well, for one of the organizations that i worked with issues, they have a lot of different issue areas that they work with. So it’s really important to track, um, you know, just kind of keep the pulse on the issue. Areas that are most popular, so could be education or health care or youth was kind of a unique non-profit in that sense, and so for us, since issues are so important, that’s one thing that we really track in those, you know, nice spreadsheets. And over time, you can see in the grafts, you know, sometimes issues creep up, and sometimes they kind of drop off and that’s a really great indicator of okay. Maybe we should, you know, step back from the issue, this particular issue for a little while and focus on this other one because you’re really listening to. Then what is your audience want? And you, khun, sometimes see some trends happening before theirs. A national event that occurs, dahna okay, become anything you want, teo. No. I mean, if we were ready to sum up, i can sort of give cem really quick sort of high points that people should start focusing. Not quite. Okay. You said you were a strategy and process. Yeah, probably. I cut you off. You wanted to go to rebecca because you have a strategy. Okay. What do you say about process? No. So it’s about keeping it simple. And so we we work in a space where many of us where many different hats and we’re doing many things. And so rebecca touched on something earlier about, like, how often you should be doing things weinger you know how often should be looking at. So how certain metrics exactly versus exactly so you’re once you sort of built up practice of doing this. You have what? I have some general benchmarks in your in your mind. So you’re able to do what i call a spot checking where you are, maybe on the on a weekly basis sort of looking at your website numbers you’re looking at what’s happening on social media, and then you were able to dahna really quickly say, oh, well, that looks a little off. From where we were last week, where we were last month, i wonder what this is and you can sort of determine how you invest your time. And i think the something else to keep in keep in mind is there are lots of resources that are out there, you know? So buffer has a really great block on they talk, i think, in a very nuanced than assessable way for folks about metrics, and although they’re one of the capital tools that help people manage social media platforms, they’re also really good about sort of talking about where they have sort of fall short and where other tools might be. Ableto pick up it’s over yeah, buffer. Okay, about for dot com they have a really wonderful block where they talk about metrics. Beth cancer has a wonderful blawg and john john death camp has been on this show many times, including from yesterday, yesterday and here it ntcdinosaur before through and john hayden is also he’s. A wonderful resource is well, so they both have resource is specific to this particular topic. Um, it had been on the show also including this year at ntc. Been on before yeah. Okay, now we can wrap it up. Okay? Let’s. See, rebecca, you want to get the final word, but, uh, what’s a measure of how and why digital metrics i just want to echo what mika had said earlier of you really want to look at your particular organization schools and contextualized your data there’s lots of tools out there that well, come and go. So that’s, why i don’t. I’m a little bit hesitant to recommend very specific tools because they’re here today gone tomorrow and tomorrow. There’s gonna be lots of other great tools out there. So as long as you know what you were looking for, you know, what do you want people to do? And, um, take that time every once in a while to dig a little bit deeper? Have those come couple basic stats, you know, five, ten metrics that you just keep an eye on, make sure things are going well throughout the year and then, you know, maybe quarterly spent some time looking a little bit deeper. Like i gave some those examples about landing pages and headlines just so you can find out what works for your organization, okay, we’re gonna leave it there. That was rebecca raya’s, she’s, digital consult. Digital marketing consultant at spring media strategies. And also miko whitlock, digital communications consultant and associate director for communications. At nasty on what, again is nasty at the national line. So state in territorial aids directors. Thank you very much, vic. Oh, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc wrapping it up with the, uh, the four cliffs and the people movers and the union guys are all here. Tto back-up sixteen ntc, thanks so much for being with us. Rob mitchell and one q sixteen metrics coming up first. Pursuant, one of their tools is prospector. It uses your existing data to find your highest priority. Potential donors. You know who to focus on it identifies which of your donors are most likely to upgrade their giving, which is cool. Because then, knowing that you can prioritize your cultivation, you got limited time. And you need to raise more money. Prospector shows you who to focus on that’s already in your database. Not bringing in new names already in your database. Check out prospector at pursuing dot com what’s going on at crowdster dot com they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners get thirty days free or fifty percent off, you can try a crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising sight completely free for a month or get fifty percent off. That means pay for a month and get another month free or sign up for two months and get two months added on free. You can claim your deal at crowdster dot com in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and choose your deal it’s that simple. Now tony’s, take two my blue pedicure challenge back in two twenty thirteen my dark age of social media when i thought facebook likes were the most important measure of success. Um, the non-profit radio page then had about one hundred fifty, likes, and since i was stuck on this vanity metric and it’s very suitable, but we’re just talking. We’re talking about metrics all day today, this silly metric i wanted more one hundred fifty seems it was embarrassing, i thought so. Two friends from high school, barbara massey and lisa martin, challenged that they would double the number of lights on the page, so they would get me to three hundred, and we agreed that if they did that, then i would get a blue pedicure. I don’t remember how we settled on that as the bet, but that’s what it became and they had to do it within. I think it was pretty short campaign was like two weeks or two or three weeks, and they did it, and so i kept up my side. I went across the street from the studio on west seventy second street in new york city, and i got a blue pedicure, and you can witness that because i shot video naturally, this is not something that you want to let go. I want to preserve this forever because it’s so important family memories. So the video is up at twenty martignetti dotcom my blue pedicure challenge that’s tony’s take two. I’m not really, you know, live listener, love podcast, pleasantries, affiliate affections. I don’t really feel it today. I don’t, uh i just, uh i’m sure they’re out there, you know, the live listeners, but no, no, i’m not. I’m not feeling up to it for on dh same thing with the podcast listeners your you know i know you’re there. Um, i’m not, and the affiliate affections, yeah, am and fm. I know you’re there, okay? You know, there’s, there’s, some gratitude. Rob mitchell, rob mitchell, you with us, right? I am with you, tony, i’m always with you. Thank you. You’re the ceo of atlas, of giving it atlas of giving dot com and of course, you’re also on twitter at philanthropy. Man, how you doing? Welcome back to non-profit radio. Hey, thanks, it’s. Always good to be with you, tony. Thank you. Always good. I think this is this the first time that you’re not in the studio. But on the show i said, i think this might be the second time i’m not in the second. Allright, i love coming to the studio for the whole new york experience in the upper west side experience. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s irreplaceable. But, tony, today, after the show, i’m leaving immediately to drive to houston to go to the final four. So that’s, that is my excuse today for not being in the studio with you. Final four is that is that is that one baseball? No, that that would be a collegiate. Basketball. Basketball. Ok, is that the one with the free throws and the field goals? Basketball is that grows field goals and lots of yelling, screaming and bands. Playing in-kind people being interested because they want to find out if they’re going to make money on there on their march madness brackets march madness. All right, that sounds like more like illness than ah then, uh, then something you better okay? You’re a sports guy. I, uh i’ve heard of sports. Okay? S so you’re going to come on every quarter now, the end of the quarter, and you’re gonna tell us what has happened in that quarter and then how that has affected your forecast? The atlas of giving forecast for twenty sixteen. So i’m very excited about this. Good. We’re going to use every quarter. That’s cool? Yeah, i’m excited about it, too. I think i think it’s a good way for listeners and listeners, whether they’re live podcast or or affiliate, i think it’s a great way to peak to keep up, keep their finger on the pulse of american philanthropy and that’s what we like to say we’re doing at the alice of giving we have an atlas of giving twitter page at atlas of giving as you mentioned my twitter pages at full answer, man and we have analysis of giving facebook page and google plus page. So there are a number of ways for people to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in american philanthropy. Okay. That’s ah, that’s. More self promotion than i generally allow. So that’s it. We cut that off. Now that we’ve cut off. All right, let’s, talk about some data. The number is not good for january. Through where we had january through march. Right? I assume january through february. Okay, just just finished march yesterday. Were quick, but we’re not that quick. Okay. Okay. So january february. The number is not good. No it’s, not it’s. Ah it’s. A disappointing number. The the through february e-giving as down nationally. One point, four percent, which some people would argue it’s flat some people may argue is yeah, but it’s not since since the atlas of giving has been around, um, since the depression, this is the first time we wait. Have we have seen two months of consecutive, um, downs down data? Altum and it’s there’s. Some explanations for it. Okay, it’s worrisome. Alright, first first time you’re saying the first time in how long? That way. So the first two months of the year have been down. When did this last happened? Two thousand nine. Okay. Depth of the recession. Okay. All right. So it’s gets down sector while yeah, nationwide. One point four percent. And what does that mean for the forecast for twenty sixteen? Well, the forecast has also taken a dip um, off of our original forecast and our forecast from last last month. The forecast today. And you have to understand that we we keeping our finger on the pulse of american philanthropy and the factors that are involved in charitable giving, including economic, demographic and event factors. We’re looking at a broad spectrum, and our forecast for calendar year two thousand sixteen is that two thousand sixteen, at least today is forecast to finish down to percent. Yeah. Okay. All right. And the point is, you know, this gets revised every single month. I mean, you’re you’re going to be coming on each quarter, but each month you revise the forecast. So, you know, this is the most the most recent data that you can analyze, which is up to one month old. Exactly. All right. And then next month, maybe maybe it’ll continue to decline. Who knows? But all right, now, what way? Not now. What was the forecast? Have to refresh? My recollection is you were on talking about it. What was the twenty sixteen forecast back in january? When when you were on the show? Well, it was a modest too. It was a modest two percent growth, two percent growth. Okay, so we’ve lost four percent from from then. Yes, because now we’re showing an annual decline of two. So okay, all right, well, you know, we keep our tracking the i mean, the news can always be good. And who knows what will happen at the end by the end of the year. But, you know, this is what this is, what data analysis is so people should be aware that the first two months were we’re tour. Okay? You have some suggestion as to why this maybe yeah, there there are several signal we’ve we’ve looked at the data, and we suspect that, um, the reason the forecasts has changed so well, i don’t want to say dramatically because that to me, four percent plus or minus i mean, if you think about political polls, they’re off four percent plus or minus so i don’t want to say dramatically that’s that’s that would be no being just keeping that stoploss that four percent of the reason that the forecast has changed from up to down is that, um, the the guy, the really smart guys who are looking at us gdp, gross sametz really gross domestic product have lowered their forecast for two thousand sixteen, and as every as most people know, gross domestic riel gross domestic product has a major is a major contributor, two charitable giving so that’s one reason. Okay, the expectations in the forecast for the united states stock market has been lowered. Also, not if you think about this time last year we were waiting for a correction, but instead of a correction occurring, the stock market was soaring at this time last year. And so instead of instead of revising numbers down, we were revised your number’s up. And so the the expectation and forecast of the stock market has been lowered so that that is that’s a contributing factor. Recent oil price increases now depends on where you live if you like that or you don’t like that. But for most americans, it’s being reflected at the gas pump, and what that means is that they’re paying more for their gasoline when they go to fill up and they have less disposable income. And since individuals account for seventy three percent of all giving, when when individuals have less disposable income, they have less to give. Yeah, so also get rob rob the objective gases such a a common commodity. I mean it’s like food. I mean, you know, in our car culture, you’re filling up, you know, once a week or something, you’re seeing this increase every week or maybe even more often, and it influences your your opinion of how much disposable income you have, it does absolutely, it does. The same thing is true for other things, like taxes when taxes go up, there’s less disposable income and i don’t care if it’s local taxes or national state taxes or national taxes. It’s, it’s all for individual givers, it’s all about disposable income, okay? And i’m just saying i’m pointing out gas because it’s such a a commodity that people buy so frequently that you know, people jog around and monitor oh, it’s one eighty seven there was one eighty nine over. At the place where i usually go to send mean people compare these pennies and if you see the penny’s going up week after week you ah, i guess you are less wealthy and you feel less well. Okay. Yes. Then then there is then there is the presidential political campaign and i have seen at least two reports from what i would consider to be reliable sources that say campaign e-giving does not affect charitable giving. I am. I am not in a position to say to you today that it does, though we are studying it and and are preparing a report to be released in june about the implications of political fund-raising on charitable giving. But what i would say to you is that campaign interest and uncertainty about future leadership is leaving potential donors on the sideline. Okay, all right, now, let me ask a question about that. How does the atlas of giving study this? How do you do that? Well, way. Have. As you know, tony, we have sixty five algorithms, and those algorithms are based on economic, demographic and event factors. And so, as as we look at each of those sixty five algorithms, whether they’re for a particular source of particular state or a particular sector durney we’re able to get a read on what is what is causing charitable giving to do what it is doing and that’s why we say, we’re keeping our pulse on american philanthropy, and right now, you know, if you look at if you look a campaign giving in terms of it’s out geever its volume in comparison with charitable giving, it’s it’s not very it’s, not very large, but when people are wondering what the leadership of the country is going to do, what taxes are going to do when there’s uncertainty, which there is a great amount of uncertainty today. Um, in both in both the democratic and republican parties, there’s talk of brokered conventions and so forth, people are more cautious, and they tend to stay on the sideline and and that’s what we’re seeing, yeah, so amazing in our algorithms. So it may not be so much the money that people spend on the presidential campaign. E-giving but the attitude of the feeling of uncertainty that’s what you’re suggesting absolutely ok, we’ll get a i think we’ll get where we’re going to. Is we’ll have you back in july because then that’ll be the end of the second quarter, and then you’ll be able to, um, talk about your june paper on on the impact of the presidential campaign on giving. How does that sound? Sounds great. Ok, we’ll take a break now we’re not wrapping up. I don’t want you think, tien, you got more to go, but we’re gonna take our break, and you and i are going to continue our convo, stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from a standup comedy, tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation. Top trans sounded life that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i am his knees. Carmela and i am his nephew, gino. Oppcoll no fools. My sweet niece and nephew. They listen to non-profit radio that they have no choice. But so that right, that that was really cool. Okay, rob mitchell, you want to share some other? Ah, some of the reasons so well is the oil and the gdp and the stock market forecast down the campaigning. What? You got other other other potential reasons or way exhausted our okay, what else? Give us one. Okay? So church e-giving, which is the largest sector accounts for the largest sector of giving in the u s that’s. Like was declining at a faster rate than the national e-giving right raid. The religion is what about a third? Right? Thirty two. Thirty three percent. Something okay now. It’s. Always it’s. It’s, i think. Now remember, tony, that about ten years ago it was about fifty percent. Yeah, well, that’s, sort of the point. I was going to make that you after year when you and i have been talking. I’m not sure it happened in twenty fifteen, but i know twenty, thirteen and fourteen. It was losing aa percent. It was it was losing market share one percent a year. I forget whether that happened in twenty fifteen i can’t remember, but i don’t expect you to remember, but but it’s been declining? Yeah, and now you’re saying it used to be fifty that was before me, but or before i used to pay attention to the stuff. So all right. And then so now, in the first two months, it declined. You think it declined faster than the one point four percent nationwide, right? I mean, sector across the how much? How much did church giving decline? Church e-giving declined. Hang on one second here, jesus was not church e-giving declined look at that rate of three point four percent three point four that’s more than double the one point four across all sectors, yes, wow! And since it’s the largest sector that we measure its impact on total national e-giving is bigger. So it is a very it’s, very significant to look a church e-giving look att gifts to religion and and really study what the trend is on trend has been that fewer and fewer americans for associating with congregations of any kind. They’re going to the they’re going to the church of trump. Well, they’re worshipping a new yorkers. So i’ll leave that worshipping at the feet of donald trump. I don’t know how relieved that you know, but what what what do you think you know this is this is because three new yorkers that are putting aside cruise it’s three new yorkers, but we don’t do politics. I’m sorry, let’s see, oh, the church giving. Why do you think church giving his declining thie elderly or dying and what the measurements have been very consistent over the last two decades, and that is that fewer and fewer people are so our affiliating with churches are attending. Church is are joining churches and altum if you’d like an analogy, look it look at western europe because i think we’re headed to the to the same. We’re sort of headed in the same places western europe. Religion is becoming less and less a significant part of american life, especially for younger americans. Millennials particularly, are not affiliating with churches at the same rate as their parents. Yeah, okay, okay. Let’s, see? All right. There’s. Some other things. Tony two interesting. Okay, but we also have to spend time with sametz commendations for what non-profits should do with this. So let me ask you all right? So let’s, move on me when we need to do that. Okay. Let’s, meet teo. I want to go now. Tio what’s happening across other sectors aside from religion, are things constant or or things changing there too? In the first two months that things are, every sector is down and giving dafs laid for two. Ok. One is the environmental sector which is up and the human service. And by the way, the environmental sector has, um, for the last five years been growing at a faster rate than any other sector. It’s call it. Call it awareness. Call it what you want. But the environmental sector, though it is the smallest giving sector is growing at the fastest rate. Um, the human needs sector are the human services sector is also growing off. All the rest all seven other sectors are in are in decline this year. Okay. Okay. Environment is that now that they have the smallest share i have your your pie chart here, environment is that two percent? Right? So so even a big increase how much is ah, how much is the environment up by how much? The environment is by two points up two point, two percent two point two and human services is up one percent. Okay, human services has about thirteen percent of total giving across all the different sectors. And that what we call an allocated, which also includes donor advised funds, is that zero percent growth. Okay, all right, let’s move to some recommendations for non-profits what? What do you suggesting? In light of what we know from the first two months of the year, it’s it’s time to use extreme caution and planning fiscal year budgets. Heimans as you well know, tony from the non-profits that you’ve worked with that you’re associated with or worked for, um, chances are the but the income budget is set by somebody sticking a wet finger in the air and saying, we’re going to do better than last year by x percent. Now, this is not the time to do that kind of planning. Uh, non-profits need to be especially careful in planning their fiscal year. Budgets it’s also time to consider delaying the launch of new capital campaigns until conditions improve. Lastly, i would say if you’re in, if you’re in mid year in your fiscal year, it’s time for you to modify you’re fiscal year budget in order to prepare for reality. So if your fiscal year, if you’re fiscal year budget was calling for an inn was with based on an increase in charitable giving of eight or ten percent now’s the time to welcome to reality it’s not gonna happen, mom now’s the time to adjust your budget to reality and to really situations. And so it means that you should cut back on your on expenses. How you cut back on expenses is a bonem organization by organization decision. But i would never recommend cutting back on fund-raising cost, because now more than ever you need your fund-raising staff out there trying to raise money for you. Yeah. Alright now, rob, we have just about a minute and a half left. So you need to keep that in mind. Now. What happens though if in the next quarter things rise and you know the forecast is now for, like a three. Percent increased for twenty sixteen. I mean hyre we can’t keep adjusting budgets down and then up, and we can’t work like that, either. Well, tony, i would disagree. I would say that the i s i would say that these organizations that are going to do the best in the future are those that are nimble enough to adjust their budgets toe what is really happening in the charitable giving economy. And so if i come back to you next quarter and say, we’re projecting that giving will be up three percent for the for the calendar year, i’m going to have a different message for you. But i do think that the the organizations that are nimble enough to to follow what is going on in the charitable giving economy are those that are going to have the best result. Okay, all right, we’re gonna leave it there. Rob mitchell that’s excellent. You’re going to back that’s a planet for july when we’ll talk about the second quarter and your paper on the political campaign and and and how it affects charitable giving, you’ll find rob mitchell at atlas of giving dot com and although also at atlas of giving, and he personally is at philanthropy, man, or is that like to point out at philantech roman? Either way, thank you very much, rob mitchell. Thanks, tony, my pleasure and watch for me on tv at the final four. Okay, i’ll, uh, i’ll be rooting for the mets next week. Next week, more from the non-profit technology conference amy sample ward on why non-profit technology network deserves your attention and volunteer training long distance what if all your volunteers can’t always come to your office? If you missed any part of today’s show, i don’t care what you do do whatever the hell you want, it’s april fool’s day and i know you didn’t buy that nonsense about live listen love podcast pleasantries and affiliate affections, apathy i know you didn’t my feeble attempt tio good, thank you. If you missed any part of today’s show, i endure you find it on tony martignetti dot com where in the world else would you go? I am still groping for the way forward. I don’t know. Maybe i need religion, but religions giving his down that’s a bad sign for me, perhaps responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. And our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.