Tag Archives: Stacy Palmer

Nonprofit Radio for June 27, 2022: The Chronicle of Philanthropy Will Go Nonprofit

 

Stacy Palmer: The Chronicle of Philanthropy Will Go Nonprofit

The Chronicle is taking a bold step, from privately held to nonprofit. Why? What does that mean for journalism that covers our community locally and nationally? What can you expect for webinars and professional development? Editor Stacy Palmer answers all the questions.

 

 

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[00:01:46.74] 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 bear the pain of borelli assis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, the Chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit The Chronicle is taking a bold step from privately held to non profit why what does that mean for journalism that covers our community locally and nationally? What can you expect for webinars and professional development editor, Stacy palmer answers all the questions. non tony steak too. This is show # 597. 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 4th dimension Technologies IT in for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is the Chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit it’s my pleasure to welcome back Stacy palmer to non profit radio she is editor at the Chronicle of philanthropy. She’s been editor since the chronicle’s founding in 1988. Stacey welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:01:49.19] spk_1:
delighted to be with you again it’s

[00:02:21.34] spk_0:
a real pleasure thank you, Thank you um and I want to Disclose to listeners that I was a podcast publisher For the chronicle of philanthropy for about four years I published their fundraising fundamentals podcast. So Stacy early May you, you had a little announcement, a little, a little thing. You leaked something out about the Chronicle going non profit So what’s this? What’s this little bit of news about?

[00:03:34.74] spk_1:
Thank you for asking about that. So we’re very excited about the fact that we’ve been working on a growth plan. Um, and one of the things that we realized we wanted to do more of is to influence how nonprofits are covered by the mainstream media. And so we are doubling down on a lot of the work we do to help nonprofit professionals, but also expanding our mission to do even more to make sure that other journalists are paying attention to nonprofits and foundations and giving them really the attention that they deserve. Um, so our mission is growing and our staff is growing. Um, and as a result of that, we decided that it was time for us to move out of the organization that now houses us, which is the Chronicle of Higher Education. We’re going to go independent and part of going independent is deciding that a non profit structure makes more sense that way. We’ll be in tune with what our readers are experiencing and doing every day. Um, and so, you know, it was sort of two separate decisions, how do we grow and what status do we want to have? Um, and we examined it pretty closely and decided nonprofit status was right for us. So now we have the I. R. S examining our requests to become a charity. So we are not officially that yet. We are in that waiting period.

[00:03:47.34] spk_0:
All right. You’re not just gonna be attuned to what nonprofits are going through day to day. You’re going to be enjoying it, enjoying it and suffering it with them. So there’s gonna come a day when there’s gonna be a donate now button on the Chronicle of philanthropy website.

[00:03:58.94] spk_1:
We haven’t decided what we’re doing about that piece of it, but money from foundations, mostly

[00:04:17.04] spk_0:
foundation. Okay, sure. Um, and you are going to be executive director of the new the new non profit Okay. How does that coincide with being editor of the Chronicle?

[00:04:21.91] spk_1:
So we’ll be hiring an editor to take my place. Um and obviously I’ll be working really closely with that person. Um, but we need to make sure that we have somebody else who is day to day thinking about our coverage. Um, so that I can do all of the things that the nonprofit needs to make sure we run well and do things and you know, develop these other partnerships. So I’ll be doing a lot of other things other than editing every day.

[00:04:49.24] spk_0:
Interesting. So that’s a huge transition for you.

[00:04:51.72] spk_1:
It is, it is

[00:04:52.66] spk_0:
gonna be you’re gonna be a nonprofit executive director

[00:04:58.84] spk_1:
Exactly. Learning how to do it. And one of the things I realized given the nature of our coverage. While we do a lot of advice. We also cover a lot of the ways in which things go wrong with boards and executive directors and those kinds of things. And so now I’m really putting my attention on what makes things go right. Um and realizing I need to learn a lot more about that,

[00:05:39.64] spk_0:
I see a stack of books that books about nonprofit management. No, I don’t know. All right, okay. So you’re you’re committed to increasing collaborations, increasing staff. You know, I think listeners are very interested in what this significant transition means for them as as readers as consumers of your content. So what what do you see around these collaborations? The staff increases?

[00:07:53.94] spk_1:
Yeah, I would say for nonprofit professionals, there are several things that are important about what we’ll be able to do. Um one is that we know we need to provide more tailored information depending on what job you have what size your organization is. And we have been doing a fair amount of research. Um some of it got interrupted by the pandemic to better understand what our audience needs and especially as the field is changing. Um so one of the things we want to do is provide much more tailored information. So, you know, newsletters that are geared to the kind of job kind of organization. Um making it easier on our website to find things our webinars, you know, that you can decide whether you need an advanced level webinar or beginner level webinar. We have people at all stages um and their organizations of all sizes. We, you know, provide information to one person organizations and to organizations that are as big as Harvard the nature Conservancy, those kinds of organizations. So we need to serve everybody according to their own needs. So our growth is going to be geared at, you know, making sure that when you have a need, you can turn to the Chronicle of philanthropy and we will be better able to serve you rather than right now. We’re a bit of a one size fits all kind of publication and we know that needs to change. The other thing we’re really looking at is how do we make sure that we reach the next generation of nonprofit professionals, a lot of people who have grown up with the Chronicle um we deeply appreciate, but we know we need to expand out to all the people who are coming into the field. That probably means more video, more audio podcast. Yea, um that will go back into doing things. So as we step up, we plan on expanding the skills that we have in the range of ways that we can reach people. One of the things that have just been enormously popular, especially during the pandemic are our live briefings um that are freely available, gathering experts to talk about really important topics. Um and we’ve been just delighted by the response to those. It’s a very easy way for people in one hour to get a lot they know on a specific topic. So we’ll probably expand those kinds of things too. So people shouldn’t think of us as just this old fashioned print publication. We’re not that anymore, but we’re going to be even less of that, I would say in the days to come.

[00:08:13.04] spk_0:
So you see greater investment opportunities than then you saw as a part of being owned by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Yeah,

[00:08:55.74] spk_1:
I mean part of it was just the capabilities that we had with it being within that organization were 1/6 the size of the Chronicle of Higher Education. So that just meant that we couldn’t grow as much as we wanted to. Um, but the, this is a very friendly separation, the Chronicle of higher Education, I knew that we needed to grow and basically encourage this because it was the only way that we would be able to serve our audience well. And one of the things we found, you know, a lot of our readers are in higher education and that’s it’s so natural that the Chronicle of higher Education spawned the Chronicle of philanthropy, but colleges and universities are now very different than not many nonprofits. And so the things that we used to have in common about serving our audiences, we don’t find those with the case as much and sometimes they’re so different that, you know, if we do something that the Chronicle of Higher Education does and we try it with our audience that just falls flat and vice versa. So that’s one of the reasons we decided that it’s better for us to go independent.

[00:09:41.24] spk_0:
You know, I’ve been seeing for years the decline in, in non profit coverage. So I, you know, I remember when Stephanie strom had been non profit beat the new york times and I think it was Melanie West had donor of the day in, in the, in the in the Wall Street Journal. I mean there were, there were, there were non profit beat reporters and I don’t know of one now any anymore.

[00:10:01.84] spk_1:
Well now there is, this is interesting actually. I mean the Times has David Fahrenthold who’s covering non profit fraud and you have nick Kulish who is covering billionaire philanthropy and those are the two areas that the Times has said is what it needs to cover and that’s the vote on the things that matter most. So

[00:10:09.35] spk_0:
did

[00:10:09.82] spk_1:
not know that when you know, we decided to go ahead, we started our planning long before those appointments were put in place, but I feel like that’s a call to action of all the other things that news outlets need to cover and especially one of the things we’re very excited about is working with all of these non profit news organizations that are sprouting up to cover either specific communities or look at specific issues, the marshall project, you know, looks at criminal justice for example, talk looks at education. Um, there are all of these nonprofits, you know, that are just starting to figure out what their coverage areas are and we want to make sure that they embed coverage of non profits as part of what they do all day. So that’s where we’ll be working most closely

[00:10:56.53] spk_0:
interesting. So you mentioned, even on the local level,

[00:10:59.14] spk_1:
yes, definitely.

[00:11:00.36] spk_0:
Much more local than like propublica or Center for investigative journalism.

[00:12:51.64] spk_1:
And you know, propublica has done a lot to go local as well. And so we’re following what they’re doing in terms of some of that, but you know, philanthropy is so local. Um, and that’s what people really need to understand these things. Um, and so that’s why we, we would like to work there. Um, you know, we will work nationally to. Um, but one of the things that we started last year um, is a fellowship program for local journalists. And so we have four fellows that are working on various projects. We’re teaching them how to cover philanthropy in their communities. So there’s a nonprofit news organization in Boulder that’s looking at all the money that came in after the Wildfires there to the Community Foundation and asking questions like how do, who decides how that gets spent? Where does it go? How do they raise money? What do they do? And it’s an unprecedented sum for that Community Foundation to have that flowed in because it was the nature of the disaster was so intense. But we were really excited that they had a pitch where they actually knew what community foundations were, they wanted to explain. You know, that this is how it works, um, and investigate that sort of thing. So we hope that assuming, you know, these fellowships go, well, we’re in the early stages of it, but then we’ll do a lot more of that where we work intensively with local organizations today in journalism. There are a lot of these one off seminars on nonprofits. Some of your listeners may have been asked to speak at those things where, you know, an hour on what makes nonprofits important or something like that. Well, that doesn’t have a really long lasting effect in changing the coverage. Um, and we’re hopeful that by spending an entire year with these news outlets that that will make them decide this is important and this kind of coverage needs to continue and we hope that it will be more sophisticated coverage than we’ve all been used to seeing. I think, you know, I know the number of nonprofits that send me notes every once in a while, say, can you believe this news organization set X or y or Z. And they clearly don’t understand how nonprofits work. And so we want to do something to change that.

[00:13:09.14] spk_0:
Alright. I’m still bothered by the fact that the new york times hyphenates. We

[00:13:12.50] spk_1:
we follow New york times style. So I get the angry letters about their style all the

[00:16:52.04] spk_0:
time. It’s time for a break. The only one of the show turn to communications have you got your crisis communications plan in place so that you know who’s responsible for message creation. Is it the one person or is it a couple of folks a committee who needs to approve that messaging who’s authorized to speak on behalf of your non profit who’s gonna brief internally and who’s going to brief external audiences. There’s more to a crisis communications plan than that. Turn to knows what all belongs in there and they can help you create yours so that you’re ready. When the crisis comes. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C. O. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra in a box. It’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest behind. That makes it your I. T. Buffet but why is this a budget friendly buffet because you pick only what you can afford from the buffet selections, your budget can’t afford shrimp and lobster, have the tuna salad, no rack of lamb just get the mint jelly, choose what’s right for your I. T. Situation and your budget. Fourth dimension technologies. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. It’s time for Tony’s take two. This is show # 597 woo. But don’t celebrate because the big celebration is coming in. Just a few weeks, three weeks to be exact because that’s when The 600th show is Coming out on July 18 of course we’ve got the live music coming from Scott Stein, you gotta have that with the live playing of cheap red wine and a couple of other songs that he will do for us, naturally the co host for every milestone show, Claire Meyerhoff, she will be with me, we’ve got our esteemed contributors, Amy sample Ward and Gene Takagi, they’ll be with us as well. The sponsors are coming sponsors turn to communications four D technology, they’re all going to be with us. So it’s the blowout show coming in just a couple of weeks, three weeks to be exact, the 6/100 it’s on its way. That is Tony’s take two, we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the Chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit with Stacy Palmer, we’ve got the boo koo because I grouped the sponsored messages and the tony state two together. You see how it’s all structured for your benefit so we can do the boo koo. It’s it’s hard, I feel bad when it’s just a just just a butt load when you’ve got the boo koo but loads then you know your set, I mean, I mean that’s the ship when you got the boo koo. So that’s where we are, you, you you’re doing something now with the so thinking nationally now with Associated Press their partnership with them. What’s that

[00:17:01.94] spk_1:
about? So the lilly endowment made a very generous grant to our organization, Associated Press and a group called the conversation, which does terrific work to get um scholarly articles out to the public in very accessible ways. So we’re all working together to put the spotlight on philanthropy. So the Associated Press hired to reporters um who are now covering philanthropy, we’ve hired three reporters who, and so as part of a collaboration, we worked together um, to provide more coverage is aimed at the general public. You know, a lot of these stories appear for our readers, but you know, when we when those reporters are looking at it, they’re saying what’s of interest to local news organizations, what’s gonna cause um a local outlet to republish this kind of thing. And really the Associated Press obviously is global. Um, so what’s of interest to them. So the fact that we have now added five reporters focused on helping the general public understand it’s just enormous. I mean, what we were just talking about before is how the coverage has dropped so much. Um and the fact that now we have people paying attention to this all the time. It’s just fabulous. Our articles appear on the Associated Press feed. We published some of the Associated Press articles and we were working on some ambitious projects together. One area that we’re looking in, especially right now is gun violence and we started this, you know, long before Vivaldi and Buffalo, um, to put the spotlight on what philanthropy and what nonprofits are doing to curb gun violence. And so you’ll see a lot of stories going in depth on that topic over the next year.

[00:18:41.64] spk_0:
You, you promised to build a public commons for debate. How can people, what does that look like?

[00:20:02.54] spk_1:
I would love to hear from listeners, um, what they would like to see that we’re in the earliest stages of developing that. But I would say, you know, as, especially when I talked to funders, the thing that bothers them most and that they’re working on and that they want to solve. And they would like us to be a part of it is bringing together the polarized sides in philanthropy itself. I mean obviously they’re working to bridge the divides in the country. Um, but philanthropy has a lot of challenges talking to itself, um, lifting up voices that often aren’t heard. Um, conservatives often feel that their ideas are run over by progressive philanthropy. Um, you know, there’s great concern that there’s not enough attention to rural voices to people of color to younger voices. There are just so many challenges of getting people to express their views to hear each other to do well reasoned essays to debate each other. Um, and to figure out where they have common bonds, which they have a lot more of than they realize, but our work is going to be to help people overcome that. Um, and also, you know, we plan to cover that area to what are the non profits and foundation efforts that are successfully bridging divides. So they’ll be, you know, a multipronged effort on that. But we really would love to hear from as many people as possible about what, what gaps they see that we can feel. We don’t want to duplicate what other people are doing. Um, you know, we should be additive. So whatever we can do on that front, we’d love to do.

[00:20:24.04] spk_0:
Gosh, I I hear a lot of opportunities for podcast since you mentioned it. That’s that, that’s, that’s a rich one I think.

[00:20:31.32] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely is more

[00:20:34.09] spk_0:
live events. You, you anticipate more those, you, you they’ve been well reviewed. Your, I know your webinars do well.

[00:22:17.24] spk_1:
Our webinars, our, you know, our webinars are geared at professional development and very, very well attended. Um, and you know, we bring in, you know, we work hard to get experts who, you know, know what they’re talking about can give real great case studies and examples and help, you know, help people understand what it is that they need to do in an area maybe that they’re not familiar with. Um, so those are very popular and then the live briefings are a little bit different. Um, in that there will be a topic, you know, one of the ones we’ve got coming up, um focuses on a new report that’s come out about how to reach diverse donors. And we’ll be spotlighting some of that research, for example. So there are a lot of different opportunities. I don’t know whether we’re getting to the point where we’re gonna be able to return to in person events. We hope so at some point, um, we’ve got some inquiries from folks that want to do some things in the fall. I I just don’t know health wise whether that’s going to be a safe thing to do. Um, so we expect to be virtual for a while, but we definitely do a lot live. And this partnership that I mentioned with Associated Press in the conversation, A component of that also is live online briefings. So, you know, we’ve done a number of different topics will be getting into climate philanthropy will do something on the gun violence package I mentioned. Um, we did, you know, as soon as the Ukraine war erupted, we did something to help people think about both the short term and the long term aspects of giving because we didn’t want to have, you know, there was such a rush to give, which is wonderful, but we know in all disasters you need to think about the long term. And so we gathered some experts who could talk about why it’s smart to start thinking about that now.

[00:22:33.54] spk_0:
So, you know, I’m hearing, uh coverage and professional development expansion of the the expansion of the work for the nonprofit community, but also, you know, in these partnerships and the fellowships, you know, expanding coverage about the nonprofit community to the, to the general readership.

[00:24:01.84] spk_1:
Exactly. And obviously for nonprofits, that’s usually important because they aren’t getting the attention or understanding they deserve. So while you know, you can talk about those things being different, they sort of our version of the same thing is we see it as an extension of how do we better serve nonprofits? We help get their stories out. And one of the things I think the Chronicle has always been very good at doing is helping nonprofits tell their story. Um, I wish nonprofits invested more in being able to do that themselves. I hope maybe we can help them in more ambitious ways than we do now. Um, but a lot of times when Chronicle reporter contacts and nonprofit, it’s the first time that they’ve had a chance to gather the photos to get the examples to get the data and the evidence that they need to show why what they’re doing is super effective and worth other people knowing about that often then allows them to take the story to their donors, to other people to know about them. Um, and so, you know, I think the more we can do with that to help get the word out about what nonprofits are accomplishing get people engaged in that. Um, we hope that that helps, it’s another part of the democracy and divide building, you know, is that if people knew that nonprofits are solving more problems, we hope that that allows the nonprofits themselves to be more effective.

[00:24:13.54] spk_0:
You’ve got some ambitious goals that you published double revenue and subscribers in five

[00:24:42.34] spk_1:
years. Yeah, we expect to be able to do that in part because what will be investing in is a staff that spends all of its time thinking about those things right now, we don’t have that. Um, and so, you know, once we add more people who focus both on our business and technology, we think it will be pretty easy for us to expand our revenue. We’re very excited that we have strong foundation support, but we want to make sure that we’re earning our own way, um, and that were sustainable and have very diverse revenue sources. Um, and so that’s what we’ll be working on building like every Good non profit needs to do.

[00:25:03.24] spk_0:
And then right on the heels of that comes the conversation about transparency and the separation between uh, fundraising and, and editorial. So why don’t you reassure folks?

[00:26:12.94] spk_1:
Yeah, no, that’s I thank you for raising that. What’s part of what we’ll be working on really intensively over the next few months before we become a nonprofit, um, is to strengthen some of the guidelines that we have now that we use when we’re accepting gifts and disclosing right now, we’re very good about that. We receive a very small amount of foundation support right now, and we’re grateful for all of it, and we always disclose it, but we want to be more transparent about how we make decisions about stories. Some foundations have asked me questions about, like if they’re supporting us, can they still pitch stories to us? Um you know, and how do we handle that? We probably will do webinars and other sessions where readers can ask us questions about Our coverage and make sure that if they see anything that bothers them, they can let us know. Um I think, you know, we’ve had nearly 35 years of publishing in this field, I think our integrity is pretty strong, but we want to make sure that we keep it that way and that there’s no perception of any influence. And one of the things I’ve loved in the conversations I’ve had with foundations seeking their support is how conscious, they are that they no way want there to be any perception that they’re influencing our coverage. And, you know, a few foundations, if they said no to us, it was out of that concern that they think that it’s impossible to help, you know, that perception is gonna be a problem and they didn’t necessarily want to be part of that, and I really respect that.

[00:26:30.49] spk_0:
Is it. Is it much different than the separation between advertising and editorial.

[00:28:18.04] spk_1:
Glad you asked that No, it’s not. And we have always had to be conscious of, you know, influences, you know, a lot of our advertisers provide services to the nonprofit field or their foundations that want to, you know, talk about a specific project, you know, and they’re doing it with their advertising dollars. Um, so it’s not different. You know, the other thing people often get in a not about advertisers or foundation support if we alienate our readers are subscribed or revenue is hugely important. And the fees that webinar, you know, each person is individually paying a subscription and it may not feel like a huge amount of money, but it adds up to being a significant sum source of our support and the reason for our being so if we do anything that tarnishes that we are in trouble. So that’s who we put first is our readers, um, and thinking about their needs. And I have found that, you know, as we’ve been going into this nonprofit work, I have become much, much more aware of the challenges that nonprofits face. I mean, I knew it from our coverage, but you know, I do, I already feel living it every day. Um, I understand much better what challenges they face. And I think that will be a good thing for all of all of my, all of the audience and for all of our staff, which will get to know that more transparency is something that is very different than the private company we’ve worked for. So, you know, we’re excited about, you know, really, you know, doing our 1st 9 90 making sure that it’s clear doing annual reports, all the kinds of things that we haven’t done before. Um, but we know that we need to meet the highest bar in terms of transparency. So we’ll be looking at that and I hope others will hold us accountable for some reason we fall short, but we’re gonna try to do our best not to

[00:28:23.64] spk_0:
what’s on your mind as you’re, uh, and uh, an imminent executive director. You know, what kinds of, you know, what’s keeping you awake? What are you thinking about?

[00:29:27.54] spk_1:
Oh, all of the things related to the transition. Um, as you can imagine, it’s, there’s just a lot of work to make sure that we do this really well. Um, and that my staff is really excited about what we’re doing. So, you know, the next thing we’re doing, um, is, you know, really sort of outlining our values as a team because we will have this new organization that we can build. Um, right now we follow what the Chronicle of higher education does. Now we get to say what happens when we build our own culture and our own organization and how do we do that? Well? Um, so, you know, it’s pretty thrilling to be able to reinvent an organization that’s as old as ours is, we’ve got the strong backing of the Chronicle and the organization that we have, but we are reimagining almost everything and and that’s just the most thrilling thing possible. But it is scary when you say what keeps me up at night say, which piece will we get to first? We have a lot to do. We have an ambitious agenda. Um, and how do we make sure that goes well?

[00:29:34.00] spk_0:
You already have your board, you have a core

[00:29:37.35] spk_1:
will be expanding the board when when we actually get charity status from the I. R. S will expand the board, but we have four independent board members now. Um, and then two people from the Chronicle of Higher Education are also on the board. So that part we’ve done and we’ll be expanding later.

[00:29:55.14] spk_0:
What would you like to leave listeners with Stacy?

[00:30:36.64] spk_1:
I really welcome all the suggestions about how we can serve the field better and what this transition means. If you had a chance to say what the Chronicle needs to do more as we grow. We want to hear from our audience about what’s most important, what do you need most um, and what can we do for you? So please um feel free to drop me a line. I’m Stacy dot palmer at philanthropy dot com. I don’t always answer as fast as I’d like to as tony learn setting up this podcast. But I do read my mail pretty carefully and I really would, we’ll probably do some sessions to actually, you know, webinars or other things to open it up to readers but feel free to drop me a line anytime I I truly love to hear from people about what we can do to serve you better. All

[00:30:40.34] spk_0:
right, and again, Stacy dot palmer at philanthropy dot com.

[00:30:43.54] spk_1:
Exactly alright,

[00:30:44.69] spk_0:
Stacy dot palmer, thank you very much.

[00:30:46.60] spk_1:
Thank you All right to be with you. Thanks

[00:31:48.84] spk_0:
very much next week. The future of fundraising. 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 4th dimension technologies I thi 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. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein. Mhm. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty, You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for December 4, 2015: Ask When Not Asking & What Are The Wealthy Thinking?

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Marci Brenholz: Ask When Not Asking

Marcy Brenholz at Fundraising Day 2014

Strong, real donor-centered programs will save you money because you’ll hold onto existing donors rather than having to find new ones. Marci Brenholz knows how. She is director of development at the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention. (Originally aired November 21, 2014 and recorded at Fundraising Day 2014 in NYC.)

 

 

Stacy Palmer & Glen MacDonald: What Are The Wealthy Thinking?

Glen Macdonald & Stacy Palmer at Fundraising Day 2014
Glen MacDonald and Stacy Palmer at Fundraising Day 2014.

Stacy Palmer & Glen MacDonald dish on the changing landscape of philanthropy: what giving habits persist and what new trends are developing. Stacy is editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Glen is president of Wealth & Giving Forum. (Also from November 21, 2014 and recorded at Fundraising Day 2014.)


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s, our first show of the last month of the year happy december, we have a listener of the week it’s tracy kramer she is vice president of development at habitat for humanity new york city, she writes on linked in to lawrence paige no ni i just heard your interview with tony martignetti i wanted to tell you i am rushing out to buy your book everything resonated can’t wait to read it. Tracy kramer, don’t waste money buying great guests books. Just listen to the show if you listen to non-profit radio. That was an hour with lawrence paige, no knee. You got everything you needed. I’m sorry. You’re spending your money on the book. It’s. Just it’s. Just not necessary. Tracy kramer. Listener of the week. I love it. I love that it all resonated with you. Lawrence pack. Tony was an outstanding guest. Cool. Congratulations, tracy. Oh, you know, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of neuro core oid itis if i saw that you missed today’s show. Ask when not asking strong riel donor-centric programs save you money because you’ll hold onto existing donors rather than having to find new ones. Marcy brenholz knows how she is director of development at the ralph lauren center for cancer care and prevention, and that originally aired november twenty first, twenty fourteen, and it was recorded at fund-raising day twenty fourteen in new york city. And what are the wealthy thinking? Stacy palmer and glenn mcdonald dish on the changing landscape of philanthropy? What giving habits persist and what new trains are developing? Stacy is editor of the chronicle of philanthropy, and glenn is president of wealth and giving forum that’s, also from november twenty one last year and recorded it fund-raising day last year on tony’s take two thank you. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com here is ask when not asking with marcy brenholz welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen, we’re at the marriott marquis hotel in times square, new york city with me now is marcy brenholz her seminar topic is howto ask when you aren’t asking. Morsi is director of development for the ralph lauren center for cancer care and prevention. Marcy brenholz welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Good to be here. Thank you. What a pleasure to have you how, teo latto ask when you aren’t asking what are what are non-profits not quite getting right about stewardship. Well, i think you know, in this day and age, we have a lot of focus on acquisition and acquisition is really expensive, so there’s direct costs like buying lists if you’re doing direct mail there’s also staff costs for prospect research and things like that it’s a lot less expensive toe hold onto the donors you already have, but not the easiest thing to do. So in the seminar, i’m going to kind of break it down into two things that you can do. What is getting your house in order at your organization? So meaning your acknowledgement processes streamlined, you have a great way of recognizing staff might redo your cash reports, some kind of really boring things like that make an assessment of what kind of stewardship each department is doing. If you’re a bigger organization on dh, then the more fun. Part of it is to think about what you have to offer to your donor’s that’s really special. Do you have access to celebrities? And that doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, beyonce and jay z, it could be an expert in the field where you work. It could be a great event that you do. You could add on opening session for special donors there could be travel any number of things that you can do to make donors really feel like they’re part of your work. All right, so why don’t we start with the the more dry but still important? Yeah, right? You’ve got to get yourself in order before you could go outside. Yeah, we have a good amount of time together. So that’s, where should we start with assessing? I mean, how do we figure out where we’re what do we need to look at? You figure out where we are and then we’ll look at where we gotta go? Yeah, well, i think it depends on the size of your organization. So the case study that i’m going to use is from the u s fund for unicef, where i worked for about three and a half years it’s, a bigger organization, a bigger staff. So what we did is we put together a working group. I mean, people hear the word words working group and just generally roll their eyes, but sometimes they can be effective. We made sure we had representation from all of our departments. And during the first meeting, we just talked about what we thought would be challenging for donors. Attention. So at a place like the us fund, for instance, we acquired a lot of donors to emergencies, the indian ocean tsunami, the haiti earthquake, et cetera. And then we really struggled to have plans about holding on to those donors. Okay, so we talked a lot about whether we were being donor-centric as an organization. So on a two inch of you, you’re my second of you so far from the first one was all about donor-centric zm he was ceo of food for the poor in florida on concerned about donor-centric sametz well, but trying to make it true not just not just a flash phrase that doesn’t really have a meaning behind it. Yeah, it’s kind of a buzz word, but you know the way i think about being donor-centric and if it’s not kind of resonating for you, every fundraiser kind of has low moments, you know why i did it? Why did i become a fundraiser? Why am i doing this on dh for me going back to being and it can make you feel better in a way if you think about why donors are given to you and how much of their time and personal resource is there devoting because they believe in your cause, it makes you want to be donor-centric it makes you want to be a good friend in a way, you know, if you have a friend who’s, incredibly supportive and thoughtful, who remembers your birthday always asks you about important things in your life, you know who shows up at your party with a great hostess gift every time, and then you do nothing in return, you’re not being a good friend, so that’s like being donor-centric if the donor is so generous to you, but you’re not respectful of his or her wishes, you know, you’re just not doing the right thing, there’s such a thing is doing the right thing so well, where should we? Look, specifically to determine whether we are doing the right thing well, our marketing communications our, which includes the website print and, you know, let’s, let’s, drill down to some some of the things we should be looking at. Specifically, i think probably where to start is financial accountability that’s also kind of a buzz word these days, i think, but making sure that you’re letting your daughter so and this is the drier stuff again, this is the getting your house in order, making sure that your donor’s know where their money is going and making sure that you’re respecting where they told you they wanted it to go. You know, there’s some great donors who say here’s, some money, i don’t care what you do, it could be operating costs, it can be salaries, and then there are other donors who say, no, i really wanted to go to the specific program, and we have to make sure that we’re being a accountable to the donors on and i liked your work too respectful, yeah, respectful of what their wishes when when they do don’t make a designation right back to the friendship example, you know, it’s just what’s the right thing in the friendship in the exchange you mentioned website it’s a great point. You know, there are all of these charity rating organizations now, including charney navigator, who look at two things they look at your your finances so they’ll read through your audited financial statements in your nine nineties. They also want to see certain things posted on your website, and that includes your audits and your nine nineties on dure leadership staff. And you have to really be telling donors how you run your organization and not be afraid of letting them in. I think we’re often afraid that donors will find something out about us that they don’t like and that’s what marketing communications has forts it’s for telling the story, but you really do have to be pretty open with your donors. I think in the more sophisticated days where we live, so making sure that that stuff is up on your website is great for ratings on charity navigator, but again, it’s just the right thing to do. Also interesting parallel about not not fearing letting donors in. I think of a parallel with social media. Know what everybody’s got? A facebook page now, but the early fear was, what if donors post comments that we don’t like right? And there haven’t been many instances of that, and when it does happen, it’s an open communication and if it’s, of course, if it’s blatant and doesn’t belong, there could always be eliminated. Deleted but but that’s that’s, the that’s, the that’s, the rare rare exception yeah, no it’s it’s a conversation, right? It’s it’s a dialogue, and so we shouldn’t fear the openness. And now facebook pages are rampant but seven hundred whatever five or seven years ago, probably steven’s many, seven, five, four, five years ago, the fear was when we can’t let donors post on our what are our new facebook page? They might say things we don’t like, right? Yeah, reputational risk is obviously huge, and the problem with the google accessible world right, is that you confined if there was a faux pas non-profits passed it’s just like any person going to be on the internet, so if some risk to your effort reputation occurs, it lasts forever, so it makes a lot of sense that we’re apprehensive, but i think you’re making a great point if someone comes out whether it’s on your facebook page or if they send you a private message and says, i’m really worried about some aspect of your business practices. I’m really worried about your program design it’s a great opportunity to be able to say, you know what? This is how we really do it. Let’s, let’s have a conversation. So yeah, i mean, it’s a lot to manage its a lot more to manage than we’ve ever had, but i agree it’s a good opportunity to be out there and that person who’s saying that to you cares about you? Yeah, if they didn’t care, they were just written you off and said they’re screwing it up, you know? I’m not gonna bother, but they do care enough to to learn and maybe and they’re even trying to help, yeah, and just to bring it back to donor intention to kind of tar tar topic, if someone cares and they have a concern and you address it, you probably have that person for life, right? I mean, you, if you’re honest, if you’re open, if you’re thoughtful about how you’re telling your story, you’re going to be able to hang onto two donors and it’s better in the long run for your business? What else should we be doing in internal e-giving getting our own house in order? Welchlin look, so i think once you’re kind of clear they are out there that you’re financially accountable, then a lot of what i encountered when i was looking at stewardship again, i’m using the us fundez and fundez an example, but there’s this’s applicability other places, too, is how motivated staff were to retain donors, so sometimes that way organisations put together their cash report or the way that they recognize fundraisers might recognize acquisition more than it recognizes retention. So just making sure that you’re you’re making sure that it’s really a priority for your staff and they’re being recognized and evaluated on the right, the right kind of metrics, right attention as well as acquisition? Yeah, exactly an internally a lot of organizations have started to measure their retention, but they don’t necessarily measure upgrades or donorsearch atis faction and i’m just going to name check here because this is that not something that i thought of this is actually from karen osborne of the osborne group and these are her recommendations specifically to measure retention upgrades and donorsearch atis faction as a wayto make sure that you have a healthy stewardship for donor relations program going on, so some organizations are not even measuring retention necessarily. So that’s a great place to start, but measuring how often you’re moving, the donors up the pipeline that’s also really helpful, and then whether or not donors think that your mission is crucial whether they feel that you’re one of their top five organizations, how committed are they to you that reflects on how you’re communicating with them? How do you how do you judge these things? Well, if you have a donor database again, i’m talking about a little bit of a bigger organization. You can actually run reports on these kinds of things you can set them up in, and i’m sorry. That’s what i meant donors feel that your mission is critical. Are you one of their top five charities? That’s got it all be done by survey conversation. Yeah. So if you want to do, you can do a doner satisfaction survey with smaller donors. You can do it online, but you can also sit down. When you’re talking about major donors are board members, you can do individual interviews with them where you’re really not asking them. So why i called the session howto ask when you’re not asking, i hope everyone doesn’t show up and think, oh, good, i don’t have to solicit anymore marcie’s going to tell me how it’s more, what are the moves that you’re doing in between? The asks that are making the donor feel really good and really invested in you? So sitting down and talking to them about what they think about the organization without asking them to write a check is could be a good move, you know that old saying if you want to ask for money, ask for advice, it’s like that? Yeah, so you would do it face to face or you could do, you know, an online survey or something like that and agree maybe to do it every two or three years, you know what i’m talking about really takes a lot of resource is and not every small organization, so now i’m a one person shop at my new job on dh this kind of thing is probably going to be a little bit more challenging than it was when i had more research. Resource is at a bigger place. So there’s that, too. But you’re going, you’re going to find a way. 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. Oppcoll now, so one person fund-raising shop, you are talking to donors a lot. Yeah, so some of these questions could weave their way into your daily conversations with donors. Maybe not everyone, right? But you can sample, right? Yeah. And one of the things that i’m doing so there was ah, one year gap between development directors at the ralph lauren center. So some of the things that i’m doing there are sort of resurrecting some relationships that we had before. And i’m making sure that there’s no stone unturned if you’ve given money to us before, if you cared about us before, i’m going to try to bring you back. You can’t be successful all the time. You’re gonna lose some donors. People’s circumstances change. It might have nothing to do with your organization. But it’s really important to make sure that you’re being very methodical about renewing let’s let’s, switch to the more fun the donor side of good donorsearch worship. Yeah, so i had a great experience again at the u s fund for unicef. Where i put together are a major donor e-giving society now abel he managed by another colleague at the us fund-raising donors. We decided to talk to our board members about what they might like to see, so when you structure a major donor e-giving society, you’re basically putting together a list of tiered benefits and that’s also an important part of putting your house in order. What are you offering to donors? A different levels is a consistent who are the donors that your leadership and board members need to be involved with? And do you have plans for howto steward those donors? So with us one farina’s have is lucky they have a lot of board members, so they have a national board and then seven regional board. So some people may say that’s very unlucky, that’s true. Thankfully, it was thankfully was fortunate for the for the us fund. These board members are great. I’m a board relations person, so right, i think that’s great and some people think it’s a nightmare. Now i have an eight person board, so i’ve, you know, i’ve gone on, but they have about probably about one hundred twenty five port members between all those groups, and we did some surveying of them and i’m not saying that these air the answers you would get from every a group of board members, but this is the kind of thing that, like on your terrible worst day, you just think about it and feel good. These board members were like, i don’t care about recognition that’s fine, i just want to be more connected to the mission. I just want to talk, teo, the workers in the field and really understand what you do. They were looking for these really meaning for awful engagement opportunities. It wasn’t like, oh, yeah, i’d like a tote bag or i’d really like to meet beyonce when i’m named checking her. Maybe she’ll call me, uh, you know, they really wanted more programmatic depth, and they also wanted to network and connect with each other. So we tried to build benefits that felt a little bit less transactional and more in-kind of life affirming. Like what? What? What were a couple of examples? Well, you know, again, this is not something that everyone can offer, but travel to the field is an example at a certain ok, but a small organization, maybe maybe it’s not travel to on exotic country, but maybe welcome to the to our office. Yeah, to the place where we’re serving people that you’ve never seen, you know, we internally take it for granted because it’s on the floor below us who’s down the hall, but our donors have never seen it however modest you may think it is. It might mean the world to the donor. Yeah, to be invited. Absolutely, i mean, at the ralph lauren center. So i work on site at the cancer center it’s in harlem on one hundred twenty fourth and madison. I’ll be honest, a lot of donors don’t go up to that neighborhood very often because of the involvement of ralph lauren. The center is really beautiful looking, and i love walking in there every day and seeing the patients in the in the waiting room, not it’s, a very unhappy time for the patients, but i feel really connected to them into the mission, and we do a lot of site visits at the ralph lauren center. Before unicef, i worked at a education non-profit called learning leaders, and we did school volunteerism, so we used to do a lot of site visits to schools, and that was great. And whenever i was feeling kind of disconnected elearning leaders. I would get up and go to a school and be like, okay, this is why i’m doing this, so yeah, the travel with units of the will sexier, right? But every charity has got someplace that you can come. Yes, absolutely. Or some meeting that you can come to that you haven’t previously been invited too. Yeah, something is going on at your charity. I just went teo, a special events training session at robin hood. So the ralph lauren center is a robin, but grantee on the special event staff was sharing that their donors love to come to their office and just see where the work is done. So just just the administrative, like, ministerial type officers. Yeah. I mean, the stuff that people who work there take for granted every day has no interest. I mean, it has interested them, but it would never think of inviting an outsider. But you got it. We got stop thinking like that. They’re not outsiders, they’re insiders, and we want to welcome them. Welcome to the workplace. Yeah, you do it one day a month. Who have a bunch of invite a bunch of people. And have a breakfast and maybe you know that that half a day a month becomes more donor-centric yeah, then the other nineteen and a half workdays that you have in the bunk. Yeah, absolutely. And i think that’s why i found the responses from the board members of the u s funds so encouraging, they were saying exactly what you’re saying. We want to know how you do your work. We want to really drill down with you. We’re not necessarily looking for a lots of glitzy stuff we want we want the day to day, and it kind of relates financial accountability. Also, fixing your marks were full of table, right? I’m i’m getting violent with my mike. I’m better that way. Yeah, although we’re close enough, you could, but i appreciate that i appreciate your not breaking down that you haven’t done anything. Yeah, it’s been it’s been ok? Not feeling well. I’m mind myself across the line either of this relates back to financial accountability again, if we’re afraid to let donors in, then they’re not going to come closer to us and we want them to be closer. That’s not every single donor, but the important ones and the ones who care. So yeah, that’s. The interesting part that was so us fun for unicef. It was travel abroad. Make clear that it could be traveling to your administrative office. Yes. What else? What else did you do on the outside? It could be also in individualized porting. So back to how donors want their money spent. You know, a lot of us do kind of ah, general operating support report, which is okay, but at certain levels, you really want to make sure that you’re doing an individualized report and, you know a lot, i think most of us do this, but that was included because unicef being such a big place, sometimes people were getting a more generalized report and not feeling like we were really drilling down into the program that they wanted to support. Then we did a couple of other things, like at the higher levels dinner hosted by a boardmember dinner hosted by the global unicef executive director. So that thing that i said about celebrities before a lot of people think that tony lake, who is the executive director of unicef globally, is a celebrity in the world. Of, you know, international charitable work. People really want to meet mr lake and he’s more of an academic than he is anything else but that’s really interesting to donors. So we did travel to see unicef’s work in the field, and then unicef has some other interesting international properties to visit there’s, a research center in florence there’s a supply division in copenhagen, so travel to those places also, which is again inner workings. Okay, way covered travel. Yeah, but but your phone is ringing. I think it was beyonce. I heard a phone ringing. This is more important. I mean, i’ll get to her after i agree. You’re everything in the world in your life has brought you to this moment. Exactly don’t want to surrender it to be on no side. It might have been someone else’s phone. I heard that you could actually be calling. I always keep mine on site could be calling somebody i’m sorry, it’s. All right, you’re next on the list. I’m sure i’m sure i’m sure what else? Wait put on there. So receptions before big events for having a gallery you don’t spend a lot of money to add a small reception before you’ve already got the space, the caterer is already coming. Yeah, marginal cost buy-in before or after reception every great, especially when you’re putting on a bigger event on that gets to the donors wanting to network with each other and to know each other, they don’t always get to be in the same place either. And, you know, a boardmember meeting or another kind of meeting isn’t always the best place to network. So something like that, which is probably a lot a lot of my my work is planned e-giving consulting way. Do a lot of those vips receptions before the larger event? Right? Another thing that doesn’t cost much is v i p seating at an event. Yeah, because nothing because the a couple of strips of masking tape yeah, mask often area and and have vips seating for an event you’ve already paid for the tickets, for you’ve already got the seats rope off ten or twelve seats for vips. People feel like the world way because the i p c yeah, and, you know, what’s funny about that. We’re already doing it right when you think about it when you’re doing your gala seating you are putting your most important people in the front, but they don’t know that we’re not revealing our methods. So if you make that a little more open and say by the way we’re going, we’re gonna give you the best seats here this important, i think, you know, we’re continuing on that theme of tell your donors what you’re doing, and it might make them feel good, so yeah, great. Ok. Ok. What else? We still have a couple minutes left. Marcie. What? What else? What else can we talk about? Well, we could talk about volunteer opportunities. Maybe i think that that is a big saying. That’s emerging volunteers helping with stewardship donors having volunteer opportunities to make you feel more engaged because i think it’s emerging as a theme because corporate supporters often are asking, well, how can my employees come for a day and do something and it’s a little bit difficult for some organizations to figure out how to do that? I had the luck. This is back tio sometimes stewardship moves are a little easier at one place or another. A little more obvious when i worked in a volunteer organisation. I got a lot of my donors and my board members through a pipeline of one particular volunteer program, which was an art program, and it just attracted the kind of volunteers who were also able to be donors. Not everybody has that. So ralph lauren center does a lot of stuff with our physical plants, having people come in and paint having people come in and plant flowers outside. You know, i just think it’s important to make sure that you have at least a couple just up your sleeve and ready to go a couple of volunteer opportunities in case either of corporate supporter asks or, you know, a group of boardmember xero group of donors say, i don’t really feel like writing another check. What can i do so that’s? You know, i think that’s big and a lot of donors also want to do things that involve their children and family. Family philanthropy is such a big emerging topic. So if you can think of a program or a volunteer opportunity where people can bring their children that’s also huge. We have just a couple minutes left. What about the board’s role in the stewardship? Yeah. That’s a really good question. Okay, come up with one. Twenty. Only took me about twenty four minutes. Well, i mean, this is like a house in order. It’s you know, it’s, the more kind of the more boring stuff. So i had mentioned that bored hosted annual dinner could be an interesting big storage it move. Thank you calls. Thank you notes all those kinds of things. I hear that from a lot of guests. Just get the board together, do it for an hour before a meeting right? Dahna and they’re going to get a great feeling from it themselves. And you’re just right. Just calling to say thank you, thank you. Nothing else. Don’t do don’t do anything more you don’t i’m not asking for anything more. I’m just calling to say thank you, and and a donor has gotten a call from from a pipe and the organization it’s a boardmember it’s really big it’s big you people. A lot of people in the international world love teo support the carter center because the carter center does great work, but also jimmy carter calls you. I’ve had a bunch of donors like president carter called me. Okay, so not everybody has jimmy carter, but it’s still important to hear from, you know, a leadership voice if you much you mentioned the executive director who’s not not really thought of as a celebrity in-kind, in a way, popular media, but within the organization within that mission he’s very well known. Yeah, so it could just be somebody in your office. Exactly. And also, i didn’t mention loyalty recognition. I think calling donors and thanking them for gift that they’ve just given is fantastic. Don’t take that off of your roster, but five years in a row, ten years in a row recalling their thing irrespective of the size of the raft, is that kind of loyalty? Yeah. Recognition for for the that history. Yeah. How gracious and thoughtful is that? If you just say thank you for giving to us for five consecutive years, we really appreciate it. That’s it and we didn’t care how much it was. Marcie, thank you very much. We have to leave it there. Thank you. My pleasure. Marcie brenholz. She is director of development for the ralph lauren center for cancer care and prevention. Thank you very much. More. See again. Thank you you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen what are the wealthy thinking? Is coming up first pursuing they’re perfect for our listeners, small and midsize non-profits they’re fund-raising tools are ala carte, and they’ll help you raise more money. It’s just that simple. You take the tools you need, like velocity, which is a fund-raising management tool keeps your fundraisers on task day to day and measures time against goal. Plus, it has a lot more analytics and you just take the tools that you need. They will help you raise shopping carts more money. I’m not talking about those handheld ones they hold on your arm or carry at your side. I’m talking the monster jobs and bjs that seat. Two kids comfortably have headlights and back-up cameras filled with money pursuant dot com now it’s time for tony’s take two thank you. I’m grateful for all the ways that you support non-profit radio listening, getting my weekly e mail alerts telling you who the guests are going to be tweeting, retweeting loving the show on facebook however it is you are enjoying non-profit radio i thank you and my thank you. Video is at tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday, it’s a simple one fourth of december forty fifth show of the year. Here are glenn mcdonald and stacy palmer welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen we are at the marriott marquis hotel in times square, new york city with me now are stacy palmer and glenn mcdonald. Their workshop topic is whatthe wealthy. What are the wealthy thinking now? It’s a question, not a statement. We’re going to answer that question. Stacy palmer is editor of the chronicle of philanthropy and glenn mcdonald is president of wealth and giving forum stacy glen welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Pleasure to have you, glenn let’s, start with you. What? What? What is this topical? About? What? What? What are the wealthy thinking now? Well, the first thing i want to say as a preface is that we like to categorize the wealthy as a homogenous group. But in fact, that’s really not fair of anybody are very diverse. I’m just like any covert group that you would mention they spend this political spectrum young and old. You know, that wealth can be minute very quickly, especially in silicon valley and and interestingly enough with on that topic, you know, it is young generation that is spurring you trans e-giving um, and the number one trend right now is thinking about their philanthropy across everything they do not just in the check, right? Meaning how they invest their portfolio and what sort of for-profit cos they invest in ones that they believed that they could be transformation on society, and i think that’s really the number one trend that i see on they are shifting the thinking of their parents and grand parents to be quite frank. And when you say the young, are we thinking of people in their thirties, you know, early, early twenties coming out of college and thinking about the business choices they make the careers, they want to be involved with the types of companies they want to work for, they want their doing good and doing well and making money to be integrated into one it’s no longer separate, and i think that’s a trend that’s here to stay, and i’m sure we’ve read, you know, in the press in the chronicle of philanthropy wall street journal that socially responsible investing and impact and interesting are considered alongside of the donations and grantmaking that foundations are making right now. Stacey, what do you have to add? Early on, i agree that’s one of the big trends, the other thing that some people are starting to talk about is whether there’s a whole third wave of philanthropy coming among the young and whether mark zuckerberg really kick that off and he’s, not even thirty yet. But by giving so much money to the silicon valley community foundation rather than setting up his own foundation, he said a model for the other ways of thinking about giving, not institution building, but really saying, i want to do this differently and others may be following his model. So i think we are seeing a pretty big shift. Yeah, glen a third wave. I agree wholeheartedly, i think even before mark zuckerberg, warren buffett said look, rather than build a new private foundation, i’m gonna give my money to bill gates. I respect him. I trust him. I like his work. I like his team he’s built. Why start over? I think you know station. I would probably agree that the proliferation of new foundations and new non-profits, when a lot of great organizations have already been and built a small and large and everything in between already available to donors and in some respects by giving to the community foundation what market burton zuckerberg is saying, staff is there, there’s, a lot of programs already in place, and we can be flexible because the community foundation structures allowed for flexibility, not only in the way they given the timing e-giving, but also in the number of programs that are available. Now. Those watching a video will note that the room got darker, durney martignetti non-profit radio is continuing. The overhead lights are flickering, a little bit of that coming on off, but it makes no difference. We persevere here non-profit radio, absolute. Nothing stops us earthquakes, bring them on. We will continue. We are not leaving this set until until we flush this out. Let’s see, let’s, talk a little more stacy about this this third wave, what else? What else characterizes this? You know, i think in addition to things like impact investing, we also see growing interest in merging political giving and philanthropic e-giving and thinking about the various ways that you can use your money to influence change and of course, as came pain finance limits are basically going away. It’s easier for the wealthy to think about doing that when you think about the scale of their political giving compared to philanthropy, it’s so much smaller anyway, but they’re definitely looking at both ways to do things. I think that’s got good sides and bad sides. The good side is that they’re getting engaged to the bad side is people are starting to worry about whether the plutocrats are setting policy and are starting to hear more about that. I think that could kick back on philanthropy in some pretty serious way, so we have to talk about, you know, sort of are people going to be accused of trying to sway public policy through their philanthropy and the wealthy, setting the setting, the agenda, setting the research research priorities? Indeed, but the flip side of that, of course, is that we all know that you can’t create change unless you change some systems we’ve everybody influence if he’s been talking about about that for so long, so in some ways you would think that they might be applauding the two billion years for finally getting more engaged in public policy. But yet we don’t see that going to see you nodding a lot. Yes, absolutely agree, and i think that, you know, in some respects, there is some advocacy and political influence of the wealthy that are looking to take care of themselves by not having more taxes or limiting wreck regulations on businesses, and i think they’re the coke brothers are a big example, and tom style on the other side of the fence would say, well, yes, but i’m advocating on behalf of those who don’t have but you know that the challenge there is that while i think tom’s tires is well intentioned, that sometimes the billionaire’s advocating on behalf of those that are less fortunate don’t really see the issues at the depth that the underbelly really does and that they should be advocating for themselves, and the only way to do that is, you know, frankly, this is getting bleeding out of philanthropy and into a political commentary is through true democracy. And so i think there is an issue and stacy’s spot on and saying, you know, by philanthropy and the ability to raise dot org’s toe, advocate and influence the political process, the challenges that will philanthropy get, you know, a little bit of a black spot when there’s so much goodness like in this room, you go upstairs, there’s a thousand organizations that are doing are wonderful things that nobody hears about it, and you don’t want the non-profit charitable sector and philanthropy world to be a viewed as to to link tio, you know, just the wealthy influencing the way the political game happens because the real truth is so much goes on beneath that’s. Wonderful. Yeah, yeah. Stacy looked like you wanted to add. Well, and i also think part of it too is that there’s so much influenza b that doesn’t have anything to do with politics. And so that is we need to bear keep things in context. Yeah. What else? What else are you planning to? Your session is this afternoon. What else is on your minds for the for the audience? I think one of the things we’ll be talking about is the different ways to appeal today’s donors and to talk about what kinds of things draw them in it’s not enough just to say that they’re motivated by a particular cause, but what kind of language do you use, teo, get them engaged, you know, do you need to talk about financial metrics when you’re appealing to an investor? Do you need to talk about how you’re fixing things when you’re talking to an entrepreneur? I was talking to a wealth advisor the other day who said she was advising an ophthalmologist, and he looks at everything through what people aren’t seeing because that’s what he does all day, you know, and so trying to think about donors in those ways, um, and what their professional obligations are, that that might shape what it is that they want to hear about how you draw them in and get them engaged. So we’ll talk about tips for doing that so segmenting absolute across your constituencies will want to share and share some of the some of those tips let’s not hold out on listeners. Well, again, i agree with stacy. You know, you know, the real challenge is that i say that that every individual who is a donor giver investor in for-profit solutions to social issues has his or her own own formula for wanting to give. And it involves the head in the heart and summer, morehead oriented and rational thinking about. And they focus on outcomes and measurement more than thie emotional joy of that comes sometimes from giving and everything in between. And i think that to stacey’s point and wealth advisers have the same challenge in managing money. They have to figure out what makes the person tick. And i think the most important thing and i think everybody in this room would agree, is what’s most important is the discovery processes, the listening and then the appeal khun b couched in the framework of the individual not in some standard way of of soliciting money. Ask the listening, the list listening, whether that’s done through social media channels right at our one to one conversation with a survey. Yeah, i think that’s that’s something that i hear on. The show often is that we’re not active listeners. And you love listeners. I have read of nine thousand of them. I do love them, and i listened to them. But they are sometimes not listening the way they need to be less exactly to their various constituents, whether that’s vendors on one hand or donors on the other, yeah, sametz tryingto watch that. Okay. Background noise, bleeding in. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up 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 naomi 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 guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. 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When further thought i’d be interested in stacy’s perspective on this is i’m just getting to know her that comes to mind is, is that i’ve seen that the most committed philanthropists that really followed through on the long haul on and staying with with the, um, developing a strategy and then really staying through with an organization or an innovative non-profit leader that’s starting something new or social issues to address is is the ones who really do stay the course and have great impact and have patients for the outcomes, the right outcomes are those that have been introspective and been thought and taking a step back and not do something that’s trendy, but something that really means something to them or their families, but that takes a certain kind of investment and investors who are in for the long term and, you know, dan pill latto had a lot to say about that correct perfect example way all know that one of the things that goes wrong in philanthropy all the time is that people follow the trendy they want to start new organizations and get excited about the next new thing instead of staying for the long haul and in some ways, what we need to change the culture of philanthropy is to say, there are some of these organizations that are doing great work already if they just had more money and more support from their board members, they could do even more on and that’s not to say that you organised dilgence shouldn’t get started, but i think when people come into philanthropy, they just get excited about. I’ve got this innovative idea, please back me instead of saying, wait a minute, who’s already doing terrific work and how can i get involved in the board and that’s? One of the things that non-profits really need is committed born members who will get involved and do that kind of thing is, well, it’s not enough just to write a check there’s some sentiment that the that the passion takes over and are are you system allows people to start a non-profit as long as they could meet some some not very high threshold requirements from the irs and that we never end up with the proliferation of charities duplicating overlapping rather than the person going through an existing charity and saying, if you don’t have an opening for me on the board? Can we can i partner some other way with you exactly about this proliferation of ah non-profits means that you see that hurting us? Well, i think the stacey’s point at the beginning of this session that you know, mark zuckerberg and i added, you know, maura buffet to the mix and there’s more more that are saying, no, that isn’t the right thing, and i think they’re setting that example, um, that others are starting to take a step back and ask that question, which is a good trend, and i also think there’s some consulting firms that are starting to encourage non-profits that think about partnerships and merging and consolidating programs into one and gaining scale and leverage across that that’s starting to happen. It’s we need more of it, and some of it was by necessity and some in our great recessional, exactly the wayto nine crisis forced with lower funding and some issues that even someone doubt doubt organizations, you know, at poor performance on your operating budget suffered that that forced the issue, but it’s, it’s, it’s a trend that starting and what we need more of. It you know, no question, yeah, we have an op ed in our current issue that’s actually arguing for that and saying that, you know, really their needs be more of mergers and acquisitions business in the non-profit field thie incentives are totally different than in business, but we need to find ways to think about ways for strong organizations to work together, not just because the financial crisis caused it, but for reasons to extend the mission and to think about it that way. And sometimes, you know, we were just talking before about board members it’s often the board that gets in the way of a merger because they don’t want to give up their boardmember ship, we’ve got to find some other incentives for them because there’s plenty of roles for them to get involved. There are precious few consultants i’ve had one on sabrina lamb, i think sabrina lamb consultants doing what advising around merger, acquisition and or even just joint ventures, partnerships and not always for fund-raising purposes, but for longer term, you know, just mission, a mission achievement, there’s that that overlap is, uh, can be hurt can’t be hurting us. What other? Any other strategies around the the topics of listening i think one of the things that many fundraisers find challenging is that even if they are the ones who are doing the listening, getting the ceo, getting other people on the staff to do that, listening is much more of a culture shift on dh. So one of the messages i think well, while i talk about today, is how to engage the chief executive and other people in the organization to see that talking to what a donor cares about doesn’t mean sacrificing your ethics or, you know, getting in the way of letting the donor dictate the mission it’s just saying, how do you talk to them in a language that they understand and that appeals to them? And maybe they do actually have some good ideas about how you run your organization differently that were worth listening to, but i think you know so often that’s one of the challenges fundraisers have is they get it, but not everybody in the organization does corrected. On the flip side, you might be talking to a donor who is really it’s, a patriarchal nature, our or maybe even the son. Or daughter of a wealthy family on dh sometimes the whole family’s going to be part of the decision process. So it makes that dynamic and challenge a little bit more complicated, because sometimes family members they seemingly be on the same page, till the time comes for the check to be ripping and then there’s some some. Well, wait a minute, that’s ah, that doesn’t really have ah, is not in concert with the mission of our private foundation and one orders yes, and the other guard there’s no, and so look fundez that that’s why this is a profession i mean fund-raising is a huge challenge. You’ve gotto work the organization on the one hand and stuff, as stacy pointed out, on the other hand, sometimes the dynamics of the emotional dynamics of the one individual donor end or the family dynamics associated with that donor is makes it an interesting challenge. If we’re seriously interested in listening, then we have to be asking questions the answers to which we need to be willing to hear couldn’t and they’re often not, and they’re often not couldn’t have said it better. I mean, you know, that’s, why i mentioned the discovery process, if that’s not part of the question set, whose else involved in this decision process? I know you have a private foundation to have professionals on the part of the private foundation that are going to influence this. Do you have other family members of yours come to going to come and weigh in on the decision on dh should be leading with them and and so forth there was absolute a lot of times, you know, for smaller and maybe even midsize shops they you need often, i think, an outside adviser to help facilitate this thiss process and a lot of the smaller shops, you know, they don’t just don’t have the wherewithal to bring someone in to facilitate a conversation on the board or conversation among among donors down, you know that, and they and they’re so insular in their work that they’re not able to ask these these challenging questions. I think one of the things all non-profits no matter what size they are can seek out is professionals who want to give their time to facilitate something like that must be people would like to help in organization in various ways and you know, we don’t think about the sort of skilled volunteering enough in the ways that people can help out. So i would say, you know, an organization of any size can really reach out to people who can help in that process on dh should be creative and thinking about that rather than just asking for money because you’re right, sometimes you need more that kind of coaching and that sort of thing. Clint, i think one of the things you talked about in our call was thinking about mentors for people who so, you know, thinking about the way people in their profession want to meet other people in their profession and that that’s a good way for non-profits to think about how to find new donors and volunteers, you had a couple of a couple of things on that was, well, we believe wealth e-giving form we believe in pierre learning, so wait really existed encourage greater philanthropy, and in that regard oh, our sweet spot is emerging philanthropists, but we have other philanthropist comments tell their stories about how they developed their own form of forgiving and struggles and challenges. They asked themselves about how much to give and what’s the direction of my giving and how dowe i involve my family and how do i ensure that when i’m i’m not going to get dahna fatigue and so forth and so on? And it’s really, i think peer-to-peer learning in any field of endeavors hugely important. That’s why there’s a lot of, you know, organizations like young presidents organization for ceos and so forth and so on, but even for non-profit professionals, i mean, there’s a great couple of organizations that are just i don’t know if you’ve heard of catch a fire. Oh, sure, when stacey was talking about going to mention catch afire. Volunteermatch right, so in order to get, you know, if you need an accounting accounting or you need your having board challenges where you’re having, you know, they will find professionals who can help come in and advise non-profits on those issues and challenges, and one new one i just heard about was inspiring capital that i mean, really just organize this year to help non-profits think about in election schnoll capital and capabilities they developed that might be a source of revenue stream because they developed this expertise you know, i’ll give you one example a year up national, you know, organization that helped inner city youth find a pathway to self sustaining, you know, income and a great career, and, you know, they’re they’ve become very well known, but they’ve really developed over the past fifteen years a great capability to only train young adults in inner cities, but also to staff them properly and be on dso, you know, they have a model that’s that can compete with robert half, so they’re, you know, thinking about a revenue stream off of that that can help fund the organization, and i think more and more non-profits are gonna start doing the same thing. Stacy, we have just a minute or so left wanna leave? Ah, parting thought something we haven’t we haven’t talked about that you plan to share one of the things that is clear and giving trends overall is that the affluent are the ones that are powering givings growth in america. We just saw the giving us a report come out and were it not for the wealthy, i don’t think we would have seen the good numbers that we saw so making sure that every organization of every size reaches out to these individuals is really important, rather than focusing on things like special events and other kinds of things. I think almost every organization has the capacity to get what is for them a major gift, and there really should be thinking about that and important for them. For them, everybody doesn’t need to be going after seven, seven, eight, nine figure give exactly a ten thousand dollar gift might be a big gift for you. Go for it. Excellent. We’re gonna leave right there. Well, but i love that alright. Stacy palmer, editor of the chronicle of philanthropy, and glenn mcdonald, president of wealth and giving forum thank you both very much. Thank you for having us. Thank you, tony. My pleasure, tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen. Thank you so much for being with us next week. It’ll be a good one. Is there another kind? If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go? Responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits whatever type of work you do to improve our world pursuant dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin doll is our am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by diner russell, while susan chavez is on maternity leave and our music is by scott’s dying. 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. Amador is the founder of idealised 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 and, uh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected 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.

Nonprofit Radio for November 21, 2014: Ask When Not Asking & What Are The Wealthy Thinking?

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Marci Brenholz: Ask When Not Asking

Marcy Brenholz at Fundraising Day 2014
Marcy Brenholz at Fundraising Day 2014

Strong, real donor-centered programs will save you money because you’ll hold onto existing donors rather than having to find new ones. Marci Brenholz knows how. She is director of development at the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention.

 

 

 

Glen Macdonald & Stacy Palmer: What Are The Wealthy Thinking?

Glen Macdonald & Stacy Palmer at Fundraising Day 2014
Glen Macdonald & Stacy Palmer at Fundraising Day 2014

Stacy Palmer & Glen Macdonald dish on the changing landscape of philanthropy: what giving habits persist and what new trends are developing. Stacy is editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Glen is president of Wealth & Giving Forum

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure scleroderma if i had the itchy feeling that you missed today’s show ask when not asking strong riel donor-centric programs will save you money because you’ll hold onto existing donors rather than having to find new ones. Marcy brenholz knows how she is director of development at the ralph lauren center for cancer care and prevention that was recorded at fund-raising day two thousand fourteen this past june. And what are the wealthy thinking stacy palmer and glenn mcdonald dish on the changing landscape of philanthropy? What e-giving habits persist and what new trends are developing? Stacy is editor of the chronicle of philanthropy and glenn is president of wealth and giving forum that’s, also from fund-raising day on tony’s take two thank you, responsive by generosity. Siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks here is my interview with marci marci brenholz on asked when you’re not asking. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen, we’re at the marriott marquis hotel in times square, new york city with me now is marcy brenholz her seminar topic is howto ask when you aren’t asking. Morsi is director of development for the ralph lauren center for cancer care and prevention. Marcy brenholz welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Good to be here. Thank you. What a pleasure to have you how teo latto asking. You aren’t asking what are what are non-profits not quite getting right about stewardship. Well, i think you know, in this day and age, we have a lot of focus on acquisition and acquisition is really expensive. So there’s direct costs like buying lists. If you’re doing direct mail there’s also staff costs for prospect research and things like that. It’s a lot less expensive toe hold onto the donors you already have. But it’s not the easiest thing to do. So in the seminar, i’m going to kind of break it down into two things that you can do. What is getting your house in order at your organization? So meaning your acknowledgement processes streamlined. You have a great way of recognizing staff might redo your cash reports, some kind of really boring things, like that make an assessment of what kind of stewardship each department is doing. If you’re a bigger organization on dh, then the more fun part of it is to think about what you have to offer to your donor’s that’s really special? Do you have access to celebrities? And that doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, beyonce and jay z. It could be an expert in the field where you work. It could be a great event that you do. You could add on opening session for special donors. There could be travel any number of things that you can do to make donors really feel like they’re part of your work. All right, so why don’t we start with the, uh, the more dry but still important? Yeah, right? You’ve got to get yourself in order before you could go outside. Yeah, we have a good amount of time together. So that’s, where should we start with assessing? I mean, how do we figure out where we’re what do we need to look at? You figure out where we are and then we’ll look at where we gotta go. Yeah, well, i think it depends on the size of your organization. So the case study that i’m going to use is from the u s fund for unicef, where i worked for about three and a half years. It’s a bigger organization, a bigger staff. So what we did is we put together a working group. I mean, people hear the word words working group and just generally roll their eyes, but sometimes they can be effective. We made sure we had representation from all of our departments. And during the first meeting, we just talked about what we thought would be challenging for donors. Attention, soda place. Like the us fund, for instance, we acquired a lot of donors to emergencies the indian ocean tsunami, the haiti earthquake, et cetera. And then we really struggled to have plans about holding on to those donors. Okay, so we talked a lot about whether we were being donor-centric as an organization. So on a two inch of you, you’re my second of you so far from the first one was all about donor-centric zm he was ceo of food for the poor in florida on concerned about donor-centric sametz well, but trying to make it true, not just not just a flash phrase that doesn’t really have a meaning behind it yeah, it’s kind of a buzz word, but you know, the way i think about being donor-centric and if it’s not kind of resonating for you, every fundraiser kind of has low moments, you know? Why did i why did i become a fundraiser? Why am i doing this on dh for me going back to being donor-centric can make you feel better in a way if you think about why donors are given to you and how much of their time and personal resource is there devoting because they believe in your cause, it makes you want to be donor-centric it makes you want to be a good friend in a way, you know, if you have a friend who’s, incredibly supportive and thoughtful, who remembers your birthday always asks you about important things in your life, you know, who shows up at your party with a great hostess gift every time, and then you do nothing in return, you’re not being a good friend, so that’s like being donor-centric if the donor is so generous to you, but you’re not respectful of his or her wishes, you know? You’re just not doing the right thing, there’s such a thing is doing the right thing so well, where should we look specifically to determine whether we are doing the right thing? Well, our marketing communications our, which includes the website print and, you know, let’s, let’s, drill down to some some of the things we should be looking at. Specifically, i think probably where to start is financial accountability that’s also kind of a buzz word these days, i think, but making sure that you’re letting your daughter so and this is the drier stuff again, this is the getting your house in order, making sure that your donor’s know where their money is going and making sure that you’re respecting where they told you they wanted it to go. You know, there’s some great donors who say here’s, some money, i don’t care what you do, it could be operating costs, it can be salaries, and then there are other donors who say no, i really wanted to go to the specific program and we have to make sure that we’re being a countable to the donors on and i liked your work too respectful, yeah, respectful of what their wishes when when they do don’t make a designation right back to the friendship example, you know, it’s just what’s the right thing in the friendship. In the exchange you mentioned website it’s a great point, you know, there are all of these charity rating organizations now, including charney navigator, who look at two things they look at your your finances so they’ll read through your audited financial statements in your nine nineties. They also want to see certain things posted on your website, and that includes your audits and your nine nineties on dure leadership staff. And you have to really be telling donors how you run your organization and not be afraid of letting them, and i think we’re often afraid that donors will find something out about us that they don’t like and that’s what marketing communications has forts it’s for telling the story, but you really do have to be pretty open with your donors. I think in the more sophisticated days where we live, so making sure that that stuff is up on your website is great for ratings on charity navigator, but again, it’s just the right thing to do. Also interesting. Parallel about not not fearing letting donors in. I think of a parallel with social media know what? Everybody’s got a facebook page now, but the early fear was what if donors post comments that we don’t like, right? And there haven’t been many instances of that, and when it does happen, it’s an open communication and if it’s, of course, if it’s blatant and doesn’t belong, that can always be eliminated. Deleted but but that’s that’s the that’s, the that’s, the rare rare exception yeah, no it’s it’s a conversation, right? It’s it’s a dialogue, and so we shouldn’t fear the openness. And now facebook pages are rampant but seven hundred wherever five or seven years ago probono heimans many, seven, five, four, five years ago, the fear was when we can’t let donors post on our our our new facebook page, they might say things we don’t like, right? Yeah, reputational risk is obviously huge and the problem with the google accessible world right? Is that you confined if there was a faux pas non-profits passed it’s just like any person it’s going to be on the internet? So if some risk to your effort, reputation occurs it. Lasts forever, so it makes a lot of sense that we’re apprehensive, but i think you’re making a great point if someone comes out, whether it’s on your facebook page or if they send you a private message and says i’m really worried about some aspect of your business practices, i’m really worried about your program design it’s a great opportunity to be able to say, you know what? This is how we really do it. Let’s, let’s have a conversation. So yeah, i mean, it’s a lot to manage its a lot more to manage than we’ve ever had, but i agree, it’s a good opportunity to be out there on that person who’s saying that to you cares about you? Yeah, if they didn’t care, they were just written you off and said they’re screwing it up, you know? I’m not gonna bother, but they do care enough to to learn and maybe and they’re even trying to help. Yeah, and just to bring it back to donor intention to kind of tar tar topic, if someone cares and they have a concern and you address it, you probably have that person for life, right? I mean, you if you’re honest, if you’re open, if you’re thoughtful about how you’re telling your story, you’re going to be able to hang onto two donors and it’s better in the long run for your business. What else should we be doing? Internal e-giving getting our own house in order? Welchlin look, so i think once you’re kind of clear they are out there that you’re financially accountable than a lot of what i encountered when i was looking at stewardship again, i’m using the us fundez and fundez an example, but there’s this’s applicability. Other places, too, is how motivated staff were to retain donors, so sometimes that way organisations put together their cash report or the way that they recognize fundraisers might recognize acquisition more than it recognizes retention. So just making sure that you’re you’re making sure that it’s really a priority for your staff and they’re being recognized and evaluated on the right, the right kind of metrics, right attention as well as acquisition? Yeah, exactly and internally, a lot of organizations have started to measure their retention, but they don’t necessarily measure upgrades or donorsearch atis faction and i’m just going to name check here because this is not something that i thought of this is actually from karen osborne of the osborne group, and these are her recommendations specifically to measure retention upgrades and donorsearch atis faction as a wayto make sure that you have a healthy stewardship for donor relations program going on, so some organizations are not even measuring retention necessarily. So that’s a great place to start, but measuring how often you’re moving, the donors up the pipeline that’s also really helpful, and then whether or not donors think that your mission is crucial whether they feel that you’re one of their top five organizations, how committed are they to you that reflects on how you’re communicating with them? How do you how do you judge these things? Well, if you have a donor database again, i’m talking about a little bit of a bigger organization. You can actually run reports on these kinds of things. You can set them up in an ornament. Sorry. That’s what i meant. Donors feel that your mission is critical. Are you one of their top five charities? That’s gotta be done by survey conversation. Yeah. So if you want to do, you can do a doner satisfaction survey with smaller donors, you can do it online, but you can also sit down when you’re talking about major donors are board members you, khun do individual interviews with them where you’re really not asking them? So why i called the session howto ask when you’re not asking, i hope everyone doesn’t show up and think, oh good, i don’t have to solicit anymore marcie’s going to tell me how it’s more, what are the moves that you’re doing in between? The asks that are making the donor feel really good and really invested in you? So sitting down and talking to them about what they think about the organization without asking them to write a check is could be a good move, you know that old saying if you want to ask for money, ask for advice, it’s like that? Yeah, so you would do it face to face or you could do, you know, an online survey or something like that and agree maybe to do it every two or three years, you know what i’m talking about really takes a lot of resource is and not every small organization, so now i’m a one. Person shop at my new job on dh. This kind of thing is probably going to be a little bit more challenging than it was when i had more research. Resource is at a bigger place, so there’s that, too. But you’re going, you’re going to find a way. 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, so one person fund-raising shop, you are talking to donors a lot. Yeah, so? So some of these questions could weave their way into your daily conversations with donors. Maybe not everyone, right? But you can sample, right? Yeah. And one of the things that i’m doing so there was ah, one year gap between development directors at the ralph lauren center. So some of the things that i’m doing there are sort of resurrecting some relationships that we had before. And i’m making sure that there’s no stone unturned if you’ve given money to us before, if you cared about us before, i’m going to try to bring you back. You can’t be successful all the time. You’re gonna lose some donors. People’s circumstances change. It might have nothing to do with your organization. But it’s really important to make sure that you’re being very methodical about renewing let’s let’s, switch to the more fun the donor side of good donorsearch worship. Yeah, so i had a great experience again at the u s fund for unicef. Where i put together are a major donor e-giving society now abel he managed by another colleague at the us fund-raising donors we decided to talk to our board members about what they might like to see. So when you structure a major donor giving society, you’re basically putting together a list of tiered benefits and that’s also an important part of putting your house in order. What are you offering to donors? A different levels is a consistent who are the donors that your leadership and board members need to be involved with? And you have plans for howto steward those donors. So with us one farina’s have is lucky they have a lot of board members, so they have a national board and then seven regional board. So some people may say that’s very unlucky that’s true. Thankfully, it was thankfully was fortunate for the for the us fund. These board members are great. I’m a board relations person, so right, i think that’s great and some people think it’s a nightmare. Now i have an eight person board, so i’ve, you know, i’ve gone on, but they have about probably about one hundred twenty five port members between all those groups, and we did some surveying of them and i’m not saying that these air the answers you would get from every a group of board members, but this is the kind of thing that, like on your terrible worst day, you just think about it and feel good. These board members were like, i don’t care about recognition that’s fine, i just want to be more connected to the mission. I just want to talk, teo, the workers in the field and really understand what you do. They were looking for these really meaningful engagement opportunities. It wasn’t like, oh, yeah, i’d like a tote bag or i’d really like to meet beyonce when i’m named checking her, maybe she’ll call me, uh, you know, they really wanted more programmatic depth, and they also wanted to network and connect with each other, so we tried to build benefits that felt a little bit less transactional and more i’m kind of life affirming. Like what? What? What were a couple of examples? Well, you know, again, this is not something that everyone can offer, but travel to the field is an example at a certain ok, but a small organization, maybe maybe it’s not travel to on exotic country, but maybe welcome to the to our office. Yeah. To the place where we’re serving people that you’ve never seen yu know we internally take it for granted because it’s on the floor below us who’s down the hall, but our donors have never seen it however modest you may think it is. It might mean the world to the donor to be invited. Absolutely, i mean at the ralph lauren center. So i work on site at the cancer center it’s in harlem on one hundred twenty fourth and madison, i’ll be honest, a lot of donors don’t go up to that neighborhood very often because of the involvement of ralph lauren. The center is really beautiful looking, and i love walking in there every day and seeing the patients in the in the waiting room, not it’s, a very unhappy time for the patients, but i feel really connected to them into the mission, and we do a lot of site visits at the ralph lauren center. Before unicef, i worked at a education non-profit called learning leaders, and we did school volunteerism, so we used to do a lot of site visits to schools, and that was great. And whenever i was feeling kind of disconnected. Elearning leaders, i would get up and go to a school and be like, okay, this is why i’m doing this, so yeah, the travel with units of the little sexier right, every charity has got someplace that you can come. Yes, absolutely. Or some meeting that you can come to that you haven’t previously been invited too. Yeah, something is going on at your charity. I just went teo, a special events training session at robin hood. So the ralph lauren center is a robin, but grantee on the special event staff was sharing that their donors love to come to their office and just see where the work is done. So just just the administrative, like, ministerial type officers. Yeah, i mean, the stuff that the people who work there take for granted every day that has no interest. I mean, it has interested them, but it would never think of inviting an outsider. But you got it. We got stop thinking like that. They’re not outsiders, they’re insiders, and we want to welcome them. Welcome to the workplace. Yeah, you do it one day a month, who have a bunch of invite a bunch of people and have a breakfast and maybe you know that that half a day a month becomes mohr donor-centric yeah, then the other nineteen and a half workdays that you have in the book. Yeah, absolutely. And i think that’s why i found the responses from the board members of the u s funds so encouraging, they were saying exactly what you’re saying. We want to know how you do your work. We want to really drill down with you. We’re not necessarily looking for a lots of glitzy stuff we want we want the day to day and it kind of relates financial accountability also fixing your bike so it doesn’t fall off table, right? I’m i’m getting violent with my mike. I’m better that way. Yeah, although we’re close enough, you could. But if you should appreciate, you’re not breaking down that you haven’t done anything. Yeah, it’s been it’s been ok? Not feeling your mind myself across the line either of this relates back to financial accountability again, if we’re afraid to let donors in, then they’re not going to come closer to us and we want them to be closer. That’s not every single donor, but the important. Ones and the ones who care. So yeah. That’s. The interesting part that was so us fund for unicef. It was travel abroad. Make clear that it could be traveling to your administrative office. Yes. What else? What else did you do on the outside? It could be also in individualized reporting. So back to how donors want their money spent. You know, a lot of us do kind of ah, general operating support report, which is okay, but at certain levels, you really want to make sure that you’re doing an individualized report and, you know a lot, i think most of us do this, but that was included because unicef being such a big place, sometimes people were getting a more generalized report and not feeling like we were really drilling down into the program that they wanted to support. Then we did a couple of other things, like at the higher levels dinner hosted by a boardmember dinner hosted by the global unicef executive director. So that thing that i said about celebrities before a lot of people think that tony lake who’s, the executive director of unicef globally, is a celebrity in the world of you. Know, international charitable work people really want to meet mr lake and he’s more of an academic than he is anything else but that’s really interesting to donors. So we did travel to see unicef’s work in the field, and then unicef has some other interesting international properties to visit there’s, a research center in florence there’s a supply division in copenhagen, so travel to those places also, which is again inner workings. Okay, way covered travel. Yeah, but but your phone is ringing. I think it was beyonce. I heard a phone ringing. This is more important. I mean, i’ll get to her after i agree. You’re everything in the world in your life has brought you to this moment. Exactly don’t want to surrender it to be on no side. It might have been someone else’s phone. I heard that you could actually be calling. I always keep mine on site could be calling somebody else. I’m sorry, it’s. All right, you’re next on the list. I’m sure i’m sure i’m sure up. What else? Way put on there. So receptions before big events for having a gallery. You don’t spend a lot of money to add a small reception before you’ve already got the space, the caterer is already coming. Yeah, marginal cost of that before or after reception, especially when you’re putting on a bigger event on that gets to the donors wanting to network with each other and to know each other. They don’t always get to be in the same place either. And, you know, a boardmember meeting or another kind of meeting isn’t always the best place to network. So something like that, which is a lot of my my work is planned e-giving consulting way. Do a lot of those vips receptions before the larger event? Right? Another thing that doesn’t cost much is v i p seating at an event? Yeah, it costs nothing. It cost the couple strips of masking tape. Yeah, mask often area and and have vips seating for an event you’ve already paid for the tickets. For you’ve already got the seats rope off ten or twelve seats for vips. People feel like the world way because the i p c yeah, and, you know, what’s funny about that. We’re already doing it right when you think about it. When you’re doing your gallus eating, you are putting your most important people in the front, but they don’t know that we’re not revealing our methods. So if you make that a little more open and say by the way we’re going to, we’re gonna give you the best seats here this important, i think, you know, we’re continuing on that theme of tell your donors what you’re doing, and it might make them feel good, so yeah, great. Ok. Ok. What else? We still have a couple minutes left. Marcie. What? What else? What else can we talk about? Well, we could talk about volunteer opportunities. Maybe. I think that that is a big saying. That’s emerging volunteers helping with stewardship donors having volunteer opportunities to make you feel more engaged. Because i think it’s emerging as a theme because corporate supporters often are asking while how can my employees come for a day and do something and it’s a little bit difficult for some organizations to figure out how to do that? I had the luck. This is back. Tio. Sometimes stewardship moves are a little easier at one place or another. A little more obvious. When i worked at a volunteer organization, i got a lot of my donors and my board members through a pipeline of one particular volunteer program, which was an art program, and it just attracted the kind of volunteers who were also able to be donors. Not everybody has that. So ralph lauren center does a lot of stuff with our physical plants, having people come in and paint having people come in and plant flowers outside. You know, i just think it’s important to make sure that you have at least a couple just up your sleeve and ready to go a couple of volunteer opportunities in case either of corporate supporter asks or, you know, a group of boardmember xero group of donors say, i don’t really feel like writing another check. What can i do so that’s, you know, i think that’s big and a lot of donors also want to do things that involve their children and family. Family philanthropy is such a big emerging topic, so if you can think of a program or volunteer opportunity where people can bring their children that’s also huge, we have just a couple of minutes left. What about the board’s role in the stewardship? Yeah, that’s a really good question. Okay, we’ll come up with one. Twenty. Only took me about twenty four minutes. Well, i mean, this is like a house in order. It’s, you know, it’s, the more kind of the more boring stuff. So i had mentioned that bored hosted annual dinner could be an interesting big storage it move. Thank you calls. Thank you. Notes all those kinds of things. I hear that from a lot of guests. Just get the board together, do it for an hour before a meeting. Right? And they’re going to get a great feeling from it themselves. And you’re just right. Just calling to say thank you, thank you. Nothing else. Don’t do don’t do anything more, you know, we’re not asking for anything more. Just calling to say thank you. And and a donor has gotten a call from from a pipe and the organization it’s a boardmember it’s really big it’s big you people. A lot of people in the international world love teo support the carter center because the carter center does great work, but also jimmy carter calls you. I’ve had a bunch of donors like president carter called me. Okay? So not everybody. Has jimmy carter, but it’s still important to hear from, you know, a leadership voice if you much you mentioned the executive director? Yeah, who’s not not really thought of as a celebrity in in in way, popular media, but within the organization within that mission. He’s very well known. Yeah, so it could just be somebody in your office. Exactly. And also, i didn’t mention loyalty recognition. I think calling donors and thanking them for gift that they’ve just given is fantastic. Don’t take that off of your roster, but five years in a row, ten years in a row recalling their thing irrespective of the size of the raft. Is that kind of loyalty? Yeah. Recognition for for the history. Yeah, how gracious and thoughtful is that if you just say thank you for giving to us for five consecutive years, we really appreciate it. That’s it and we didn’t care how much it was. Marcie, thank you very much. We have to leave it there. Thank you. My pleasure. Marcie brenholz. She is director of development for the ralph lauren center for cancer care and prevention. Thank you very much. More. See again. Thank you. You’re listening. To tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen. Live listener love we got fort lee, new jersey, brooklyn, new york, jersey city, new jersey hutchisson in new jersey might that’s when my dad was born and raised in greenville hospital and has to live on mcadoo have in jersey city, but you probably that’s old jersey city, new york, new york, washington, d c live listener love to everyone let’s, go abroad paris, france bourgeois iran is with us live listener love to you. So is toronto, ontario and king city, ontario in canada, of course, tokyo connie chua beijing and she on in china. Ni hao and seoul, korea on your haserot we have a couple of others too, and they’ll be later on generosity siri’s you know them because they host five k runs and walks and i talk about him often two weeks ago. I am seed. They’re new york city event. Last week they were in philadelphia. Nine charities in philadelphia came together, raised seventy five thousand dollars, had a very fun event. The key is none of the nine are big enough to have hosted their own five k run walk. It just wouldn’t have enough people participating, but when the community comes together, great things can happen. Seventy five thousand dollars raised that’s what generosity siri’s does puts charities together in these events, and they have them coming up in new jersey and miami. Devlin is the ceo. Please tell him you’re from non-profit radio you could talk to dave lynn it’s seven one eight five o six nine triple seven or generosity siri’s dot com i thank you very much for supporting non-profit radio. We’re almost at ten thousand listeners each week very close and i thank you very much for being with us. There isn’t a thanksgiving show next week, so i’m giving my thanks this week to you very much for your support. I have to give a special mention to our outstanding monthly contributors maria semple, jean takagi and amy sample ward. They are so generous with their expertise for the benefit of all of us very, very grateful for them as well. Again, no show next week. This week i thank you very, very much for your support of non-profit radio. And there is a thank you video at tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday twenty first of november forty sixth show of the year here’s my interview with stacy palmer and glenn mcdonald about what the wealthy are thinking. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen we are at the marriott marquis hotel in times square, new york city with me now are stacy palmer and glenn mcdonald. Their workshop topic is whatthe wealthy. What are the wealthy thinking now? It’s a question, not a statement. We’re going to answer that question. Stacy palmer is editor of the chronicle of philanthropy and glenn mcdonald is president of wealth and giving forum stacy glen welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Pleasure to have you, glenn let’s, start with you. What? What? What is this topical? About? What? What? What are the wealthy thinking now? Well, the first thing i want to say as a preface is that we like to categorize the wealthy as a homogenous group, but in fact, that’s really not fair of anybody are very diverse. I’m just like any cohort group that you would mention they spend this political spectrum young and old. You know that wealth can be minute very quickly, especially in silicon valley and and, interestingly enough with on that topic, you know, it is young generation that is spurring new trends. E-giving um, and the number one trend right now is thinking about their philanthropy across everything they do not just in the czechs, they write, meaning how they invest their portfolio and what sort of for-profit cos they invest in ones that they believed that they could be transformation on society. And i think that’s really the number one trend that i see on day are shifting the thinking of their parents and grand parents to be quite frank. And when you say the young, are we thinking of people in their thirties, you know, early, early twenties coming out of college and thinking about the business voices they make the careers, they want to be involved with, the types of companies they want to work for, they want their doing good and doing well and making money to be integrated into one it’s no longer separate, and i think that’s a trend that’s here to stay, and i’m sure we’ve read, you know, in the press in the chronicle philanthropy wall street journal that socially responsible investing and impact and interesting are considered alongside of the donations and grantmaking that foundations are making now. Right now. Stacey, what do you have to add? Early on, i agree that’s one of the big trends, the other thing that some people are starting to talk about is whether there’s a whole third wave of philanthropy coming among the young and whether mark zuckerberg really kick that off and he’s not even thirty yet. Ah, but by giving so much money to the silicon valley community foundation rather than setting up his own foundation, he said a model for the other ways of thinking about giving, not institution building, but really saying i want to do this differently and others may be following his model. So i think we are seeing a pretty big shift. Yeah, glen a third wave. I agree wholeheartedly, i think even before mark zuckerberg duitz warren buffett said, look, rather than build a new private foundation, i’m gonna give my money to bill gates. I respect him. I trust him. I like his work. I like his team he’s built. Why start over? I think, you know, station. I would probably agree that the proliferation of new foundations and new non-profits when a lot of great organizations have already been built, small and large, and everything in between already available to donors and in some respects, by giving to the community foundation what market burghdoff burgers saying, the staff is there, there’s, a lot of programs already in place, and we can be flexible because the community foundation structures allowed for flexibility, not only in the way they given the timing e-giving, but also in the number of programs that are available now. Those watching video will note that the room got darker, durney martignetti non-profit radio, a cz continuing. The overhead lights are flickering, a little bit of that coming on off, but it makes no difference. We persevere here non-profit radio, absolute. Nothing stops us earthquakes, bring them on. We will continue. We are not leaving this set until until we flush this out. Let’s see, let’s, talk a little more stacy about this this third wave, what else? What else characterizes this? You know, i think in addition to things like impact investing, we also see growing interest in merging political giving and philanthropic e-giving and thinking about the various ways that you can use your money to influence change. And of course, as came pain finance limits are basically going away. It’s easier for the wealthy to think about doing that when you think about the scale of their political giving compared to philanthropy, it’s so much smaller anyway, but they’re definitely looking at both ways to do things. I think that’s got good sides and bad sides. The good side is that they’re getting engaged to the bad side is people are starting to worry about whether the plutocrats are setting policy and are starting to hear more about that. I think that could kick back on philanthropy in some pretty serious way, so we have to talk about, you know, sort of are people going to be accused of of trying to sway public policy through their philanthropy and the wealthy, setting the setting, the agenda, setting the research research? Priorities indeed. But the flip side of that, of course, is that we all know that you can’t create change unless you change some systems with everybody influence if he’s been talking about that for so long, so in some ways you would think that they might be applauding the billion years for finally getting more engaged in public policy. But yet we don’t see that going to see you nodding a lot. Yes, absolutely agree, and i think that, you know, in some respects, there is some advocacy and political influence of the wealthy that are looking to take care of themselves by not having more taxes or limiting wreck regulations on businesses, and i think they’re the coke brothers are big example and tom style on the other side of the fence would say, well, yes, but i’m advocating on behalf of those who don’t have but you know that the challenge there is that while i think tom’s tires is well intentioned, that sometimes the billionaire’s advocating on behalf of those that are less fortunate don’t really see the issues at the depth that the underbelly really does and that they should be advocating for themselves and the only way to do that is, you know, frankly, this is getting bleeding out of philanthropy and into a political commentary is through true democracy. And so i think there is an issue and stacy’s spot on and saying, you know, by philanthropy and the ability to raise dot org’s toe, advocate and influence the political process, the challenges that will philanthropy get, you know, a little bit of a black spot when there’s so much goodness like in this room, you go upstairs, there’s a thousand organizations that are doing are wonderful things that nobody hears about it. And you don’t want the non-profit charitable sector and philanthropy world to be viewed as to to link tio, you know, just the wealthy influencing the way the political game happens because the real truth is it’s so much goes on underneath that’s. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Stacy looked like you wanted to add. Well, and i also think part of it too is that there’s so much influenza b that doesn’t have anything to do with politics. And so that is we need to bear keep things in context. Yeah. What else? What else are you planning to your session? Is this afternoon, what else is on your minds for the for the audience? I think one of the things we’ll be talking about is the different ways to appeal to today’s donors and to talk about what kinds of things draw them in it’s not enough just to say that they’re motivated by a particular cause, but what kind of language do you use, teo, get them engaged, you know, do you need to talk about financial metrics when you’re appealing to an investor? Do you need to talk about how you’re fixing things when you’re talking to an entrepreneur? I was talking to a wealth advisor the other day who said she was advising an ophthalmologist, and he looks at everything through what people aren’t seeing because that’s what he does all day, you know, and so trying to think about donors in those ways, um, and what their professional obligations are, that that might shape what it is that they want to hear about how you draw them in and get them engaged. So we’ll talk about tips for doing that so segmenting absolute across your constituencies will want to share and share some of the some. Of those tips, but let’s not hold out on listeners. Well, again, i agree with stacy. You know, you know, the rail challenges that i say that that every individual who is a donor giver investor in for-profit solutions to social issues has his or her own own formula for wanting to give, and it involves the head and the heart and summer, morehead oriented and rational thinking about and they focus on outcomes and measurement more than the emotional joy of that comes sometimes from giving and everything in between. And i think that to stacey’s point and wealth advisers have the same challenge in managing money. They have to figure out what makes the person tick. And i think the most important thing and i think everybody in this room would agree, is what’s most important is the discovery processes, the listening and then the appeal khun b couched in the framework of the individual not in some standard way of of soliciting money asked the listening, listening whether that’s done through social media channels right at our one to one conversation with a survey. Yeah, i think that’s that’s something that i hear on the show often. Is that we’re not active listeners. And you love listeners. I have read of nine thousand of them. I do love them, and i listened to them. But they are sometimes not listening the way they need to be less exactly to their various constituents, whether that’s vendors on one hand or donors on the other. Yeah, someone’s trying to watch that. Okay. Background noise, bleeding in. 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Duitz one further thought i’d be interested in stacy’s perspective on this is i’m just getting to know her. Um, that comes to mind is, is that i’ve seen that the most committed philanthropists that really followed through on a long haul on and staying with heimans developing a strategy and then really staying through with an organization or an innovative not-for-profits leader that’s starting something new or social issues to address is is the ones who really do stay the course and have great impact and have patients for the outcomes. The right outcomes are those that have been introspective and been thought and taking a step back and not do something that’s trendy, but something that really means something to them or their families, but that takes a certain kind of investment and investors who are in for the long term and damp latto had a lot to say about that correct perfect example. Stacey, wait, we all know that one of the things that goes wrong in philanthropy all the time is that people follow the trendy they want to start new organizations and get excited about the next new thing instead of staying for the long haul. And in some ways, what we need to change the culture of philanthropy is to say, there are some of these organizations that are doing great work already if they just had more money and more support from their board members, they could do even more on and that’s not to say that the organization shouldn’t get started, but i think when people come into philanthropy, they just get excited about i’ve got this innovative idea, please back me instead of saying, wait a minute, who’s already doing terrific work and how can i get involved in the board and that’s? One of the things that non-profits really need is committed born members who will get involved and do that kind of thing is, well, it’s not enough just to write a check there’s some sentiment that the, uh, the passion takes over and r r system allows people to start a non-profit as long as they could meet some some not very high threshold requirements from the irs and that we never end up with a proliferation of charities duplicating overlapping rather than the person going through an existing charity and saying if you don’t have an opening for me on the board? Can we can i partner some other way with you exactly about this proliferation of non-profits means that you see that hurting us? Well, i think the stacey’s point at the beginning of this session that, you know, mark zuckerberg and and i added, you know, maura buffet to the mix and there’s more and more that are saying no, that isn’t the right thing, and i think they’re setting that example altum that others are starting to take a step back and ask that question, which is a good trend, and i also think there’s some consulting firms that are starting to encourage non-profits to think about partnerships and merging and consolidating programs into one and gaining scale and leverage across that that’s starting to happen. It’s we need more of it, and some of it was by necessity and some in our great recessional that’s, exactly the wayto nine crisis forced with lower funding and some issues that even someone doubt doubt organizations, you know, that poor performance on their operating budget suffered that that forced the issue. But it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a trend that starting and what we need more of it. You know, no question, yeah, we have an op ed in our current issue that’s actually arguing for that and saying that, you know, really there needs to be more of mergers and acquisitions business in the new non-profit field thie incentives are totally different than in business, but we need to find ways to think about ways for strong organizations to work together, not just because the financial crisis caused it, but for reasons to extend the mission and to think about it that way. And sometimes, you know, we were just talking before about board members it’s often the board that gets in the way of a merger because they don’t want to give up their boardmember ship, we’ve got to find some other incentives for them because there’s plenty of roles for them to get involved. There are precious few consultants i’ve had one on sabrina lamb, i think sabrina lamp consultant’s doing latto advising around merger, acquisition and or even just joint ventures, partnerships and not always for fund-raising purposes, but for a longer time, you know, just mission that mission achievement, there’s that that overlap is, uh, can be hurt can’t be hurting us. Back-up what other? Any other strategies around the the topics of listening? I think one of the things that many fundraisers find challenging is that even if they are the ones who are doing the listening, getting the ceo, getting other people on the staff, teo do that listening is much more of a culture shift home. And so one of the messages i think well osili talk about today is how to engage the chief executive and other people in the organization to see that talking to what it don’t cares about doesn’t mean sacrificing your ethics or, you know, getting in the way of letting the donor dictate the mission it’s just saying, how do you talk to them in a language that they understand and that appeals to them? And maybe they do actually have some good ideas about how you run your organization differently that were worth listening to, but i think you know so often, that’s one of the challenges fundraisers have is they get it, but not everybody in the organization corrected. On the flip side, you might be talking to a donor who is really it’s, a patriarchal matriarch, or maybe even the son. Of daughter of a wealthy family on dh sometimes the whole family’s going to be part of the decision process. So it makes that dynamic and challenge a little bit more complicated, because sometimes family members they seemingly be on the same page till the time comes for the check to be ripping and then there’s some symbol, wait a minute, that’s. Ah, that doesn’t really have it is not in concert with the mission of our private foundation and one orders yes, and the other going there’s no, and so look fundez that that’s why this is a profession i mean fund-raising is a huge challenge. You’ve gotto work the organization on the one hand and step, as stacy pointed out, on the other hand, sometimes the dynamics of the emotional dynamics of one individual donors end or the family dynamics associated with that donor is makes it a interesting challenge. If we’re seriously interested in listening, then we have to be asking questions the answers to which we need to be willing to hear couldn’t and they’re often not, and they’re often not couldn’t have said it better. I mean, you know, that’s why i mentioned the discovery process if that’s not part of the question set, whose else involved in this decision process? I know you have a private foundation to have professionals on the part of the private foundation that are going to influence this. Do you have other family members come teo going to come and weigh in on the decision? And should we be meeting with them and and so forth? There was absolute a lot of times, you know, for smaller and maybe even midsize shops they you need often, i think, an outside adviser to help facilitate this, this this process and a lot of the smaller shops, you know, they don’t just don’t have the wherewithal to bring someone in to facilitate a conversation on the board or conversation among among donors, you know that, and they and they’re so insular in their work that they’re not able to ask these these challenging questions. I think one of the things all non-profits no matter what size they are can seek out is professionals who want to give their time to facilitate something like that. Most people would like to help in organization in various ways, and, you know, we don’t think about the sort of skilled volunteering enough in the ways that people can help out. So i would say, you know, an organization of any size can really reach out to people who can help in that process on dh should be creative and thinking about that rather than just asking for money because you’re right, sometimes you need more that kind of coaching and that sort of thing. Clint, i think one of the things you talked about in our call was thinking about mentors for people who so, you know, thinking about the way people in their profession want to meet other people in their profession and that that’s a good way for non-profits to think about how to find new donors and volunteers, you had a couple of a couple of things on that was, well, we believe the weapon giving form we believe in pierre learning, so wait really exist to encourage greater philanthropy and in that regard now our sweet spot is emerging philanthropists. But we have other philanthropist comments tell their stories about how they developed their own form of forgiving and struggles and challenges. They asked themselves about how much to give and what’s the direction of my giving and howto i involve my family and how do i ensure that when i’m i’m not going to get dahna fatigue and so forth and so on? And it’s really? I think peer-to-peer learning in any field of endeavors is hugely important. That’s why there’s a lot of, you know, organizations like young presidents organization for ceos and so forth and so on, but even for non-profit professionals, i mean there’s a great a couple of organisations, they’re just i don’t if you heard of catch a fire. Oh, sure, back when stacey was talking about going to mention catch afire volunteermatch right, so in order to get, you know, if you need an accounting accounting or you need your having board challenges or you’re having, you know, they will find professionals who could help come in and advise non-profits on those issues and challenging than one new one i just heard about was inspiring capital that i mean, really just organize this year to help non-profits think about intellectual capital and capabilities they developed that might be a source of revenue stream because they developed this expertise, you know, i give you one. Example, a year up national, you know, organization that helped inner city youth find a pathway to self sustaining, you know, income and a great career and, you know, they become very well known, but they’ve really developed over the past fifteen years a great capability to only train young adults in inner cities, but also to stop thing properly and be on dso, you know, they have a model that’s that can compete with robert half, so they’re, you know, thinking about a revenue stream off of that that can help fund the organization, and i think more and more non-profits we’re gonna start doing the same thing, stacy, we have just a minute or so left one leave ah, parting thought something we haven’t we haven’t talked about that you plan to share one of the things that is clear and giving trends overall is that the affluent are the ones that are powering givings growth in america. We just saw e-giving yusa report come out and were it not for the wealthy, i don’t think we would have seen the good numbers that we saw so making sure that every organization of every size reaches out to these individuals is really important rather than focusing on things like special events and other kinds of things, i think almost every organization has the capacity to get what is for them a major gift, and there really should be thinking about that and important for them for then everybody doesn’t need to be going after seven, seven, eight, nine figure give exactly a ten thousand dollar gift might be a big gift for you. Go for it. Excellent. We’re gonna leave right there. Well, but i love that alright. Stacy palmer, editor of the chronicle of philanthropy, and glenn mcdonald, president of wealth and giving forum thank you both very much. Thank you for happiness. Thank you. Turning my pleasure it’s tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand fourteen thank you so much for being with us. Thanks to everybody at fund-raising day two thousand fourteen next week happy thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy your time very much with loved ones and friends take the time. Enjoy take a nap over the long weekend. I’m a big fan of naps indulge no show next week if you missed any part of today’s show, find it on. Tony martignetti non-profit radio no finding on tony martignetti dot com non-profit radio just rolls off my tongue, it’s it’s in my sleeping. Then i’m saying it. You’ll find info at tony martignetti dot com generosity siri’s, good things happening when small charities work together. Generosity, siri’s, dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. This week’s line producer is janice taylor. Shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. 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When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Hani door is the founder of idealist. I 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 offline as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. 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