Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer from neuromyelitis optica if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up? Hey, Tony, this week it’s the Art and science of fundraising. James Meisner explains what he sees as the right and left brain activities of your nonprofits. Fundraising. There are relationships and data, stories and metrics, motivations and outcomes, emotions and systems and more brain interactions. Your objective is to balance the art and the science. James is CEO of the Kebos group. On Tony’s Take Two Tales from the train were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Here is the art and science of fundraising. It’s a pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio, James Meisner. He is the founder and CEO of the Kos Group over his career. He has facilitated the raising of hundreds of millions of dollars to support nonprofits. He’s a trusted expert in fundraising strategy, staff, culture and implementation. James focuses on small and mid size nonprofits engaged in direct service. That’s our target audience right here, small and mid size listeners. His company is at the Kos group.com. Kos is K IP OS. So they’re at the keep Posts group.com. And you’ll find James on linkedin, James Meisner. Welcome to nonprofit radio, Tony. Thanks so much for having me. I am excited about this conversation and hopefully we get to share some uh good value and wisdom to the other 95% the small and mid size nonprofit executives out there. Thank you for picking up on that. Absolutely. Yes, that’s uh that’s those are our listeners in the small and mid size orgs. So we are talking about the uh the art and science of fundraising. Uh I know you want these two to work together, not be exclusive of each other. Let’s just give a high level overview. What, what do you see as the art and the s versus the science, which they’re not working. Of course, when I say verses, they’re not working against each other. I know that’s key to, to uh what we want to talk about, but just define them for us, the art and the science. Absolutely. Most nonprofits think of this as a problem to solve. We either have to be completely data oriented, scientific buttoned up and rigid. It’s on one side and the other is we have to be free flowing. We have to be passionate, we have to be uh innovative and in tune. Uh and most people think of this as a problem to solve. And instead it’s really just a tension to manage. And I think the magic happens in nonprofits, especially in marketing and fundraising. When you blend both of these things seamlessly together, bring the left side of the brain, the right side of the brain together. uh allow your teams to bring their whole self to work and uh and dive into both. That’s, that’s what I get excited about seeing. Uh people of both sides of this come together to bring their best to their organizations and to their givers. So you want this to be a symbiotic relationship. It has to be not parasitic, not one feeding off the other symbiotic, they’re living together in harmony. It, it 100% has to be OK. Let’s think of the the science side for a second. OK. Science is linear think of the scientific method, right? We all learned that what in first or second grade, my, my my kids are doing it right now. Science starts with questions and observations. So what questions you know, could a small and mid size nonprofit leader be asking, why are my donors lapsing? Why aren’t we raising more money right now? OK. That’s the first step in a scientific process. And then you observe and then you develop a hypothesis and then you set up an experiment to measure that hypothesis. And at the end of that measurement period, you then say, hey, was my hypothesis right wrong. Was it directionally? Right? Directionally wrong? And, and you hone it as you go, I see a lot of nonprofits skipping that entire thing, especially in the small and mid size space where there’s not a lot of capacity, there’s not a lot of staff and maybe the attention span for risk is two weeks and that’s not enough time to develop an actual experiment and to measure. Um And we can dive more into this on the art side. OK. Um The artistic process is messy if anybody tries to linearly create an artistic process, chances are they’re not an actual artist. Um And when you think of art and you think of let’s just use Renaissance art for a second. Most of it comes out of deep seeded pain and struggle. There’s this story. Uh I think Malcolm Gladwell did on a podcast one time that the Swiss created clots which are precise and they created chocolate which is scientific. Uh No great art came out of Switzerland during the Renaissance because was neutral, they were wealthy, there was no pain or struggle but the surrounding countries were full of artists. Most nonprofits, especially those who are doing direct implementation, they are dealing with something that is painful. They see kids that are not living until the age of five, they see refugees on the move from persecution and war, they see kids in the US be it in rural, you know, Appalachia or in urban centers who are just not thriving uh you know, into their high school years and into their adult years, you can’t with science and linear processes, describe that story to another human being without being deeply in touch with emotion. And that’s the art side of this. All right. So let’s dive in a little uh a little deeper on, on how these two work together. Uh I, I think we should, you know, we should probably talk in more detail about each of them and then, and then put them together in this symbiotic uh relationship. You started with the, the science side. So let, let’s approach that, let’s uh let’s drill into some detail. What, what are, what are the elements of the scientific side of fundraising that we’re later gonna put together in this symbiotic relationship with the, with the art side? And we’re gonna, we, we’re gonna see, we’re gonna see fundraising, we, we’re, we’re pushing fundraising nirvana, right? Is that right? Is that where we’re, is that where we’re, is that our objective when we put these two together, let’s just follow it up into the right growth and uh let’s, let’s dive into it. So the first thing you have to have an observation, most people would observe, especially right now in our climate that they are not growing like they would wanna grow. So then let’s ask some questions and develop a hypothesis. I think a reasonable hypothesis for most small and mid size groups would be we need to do better major donor cultivation. OK. Uh So then let’s set up our experiment. What do we believe would lead to better major donor cultivation? It’s not just measuring the number of meetings, it’s not just blasting out emails. We’ve tried that all before. Uh So let’s say it’s a really great donor development process that we then measure. So let’s figure out that process first. You need leads. OK. Uh So how do we find them? Probably three or four main ways we get referrals from our existing major donors or we look in our small and mid size portfolio and do a well screen and say, hey, we think these people could become major donors. So we measure that. How many do we actually have? Well, then what do you need to do after that? You actually need to meet with them and qualify them. So let’s do that, set up those meetings, qualify them. The goal there is to figure out, hey, could they become a major donor or no? If the answer is no, it’s fine, you know, move on. Don’t waste your time. You don’t have that much time. Uh If you’re small and mid size nonprofit. Uh so ask some questions about what they’re passionate about. Don’t just tell your story uh to them uh ask them questions, see how they respond. And at the end of that conversation where they probably talk 80% of the time and you talk 20% of the time. If they’re still in great, they qualify, then let’s journey with them, send them great content, bring them to the site, engage them with other major donors in community. If they’re still there, eventually you earn the right to ask a question. Does it seem good and right to you that I could bring next time we meet together a proposal for how you could deepen and expand this work that you seem to care so much about. You’ve done all that right? Chances are they’re gonna say yes, you bring the proposal and you get to measure each step of that. Uh And this isn’t short, this isn’t a two week experiment. This is a 69, 12 month experiment to see, hey, does measuring this hypothesis actually work. Uh And the end result is dollars go up into the right. They stay flat or they decline. But by measuring it, you get to see each step along the way. Is it the process that’s broken? Is it how we communicate in each step of the process? And you get to dissect it? Uh But if you follow a process like that 89 times out of 10, it’s gonna work. That’s the scientific side of doing it. And you hear a lot of people that say, hey, you can’t measure meetings anymore. That doesn’t work. I say that’s, that’s crazy. You have to measure something instead of just the end result, but you can’t end there. You need to add the art side uh into this uh for the true magic to happen. Let’s do that actually, you know, let, let’s, let’s deal with a couple of different points. Uh Science, art, science, art, instead of what I had proposed a few minutes ago, let’s talk all about the science and then let’s talk all about the art and then put them together. So I think, I think it’s, it’s more, it’s easier to follow. So we, we’re uh, I mean, I, I’ve been doing plans giving fundraising for 27 years, but I want you to explain what you see as the, the art of the, the relationship side. Where, where, where, how do you, we, we talked about the art, the science, some of the science side. How do you, how does that contrast with the, the relation, the, the art side of the, the relationship? Let’s talk about the art side when you’re in that qualifying, meeting with the giver. If you’re only thinking about your numbers and your metrics and you’re not attuned to what that person is feeling and thinking, it doesn’t matter what your numbers show, you’re not gonna make progress with it, you’re gonna have to attune yourself to what painful thing are they dealing with in their life. Did their kid just leave for college and they became an empty nester and their emotions, you know, are all over the place right now. Did a parent uh just pass away? Uh That’s the art side. No amount of numbers and metrics are gonna tell you how to engage with that when you ask them, hey, what do you long to see change in our world? No numbers or metrics are gonna tell you uh how to respond to that. You’re gonna have to be empathetic. You’re gonna have to experience a little bit of that longing of that pain, of that desire to see something changed in the world uh with them uh to be able to engage appropriately in your space. Tony. You’re talking about plan giving. Some people don’t like to have conversations about the end of their life. Not that plan giving is just that, but that’s a big component of it. If you’re not using art, using emotion attuned to, hey, this person is really uncomfortable talking about end of life uh decisions right now, you’re just gonna offend them. Who cares if your numbers are, are in the right space. Uh Another part of this is uh storytelling is so important. People give to a story, uh broad, big narrative stories and storytelling is an art. I don’t care how many meetings you have and how many um you know, conversations you track in your metrics. If you can’t tell a story human to human, either across the zoom call or across the coffee table. Uh You’re never gonna build the, the real human connections that cause people to make big giving decisions. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds, both online and on location, so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers, just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to the art and science of fundraising. I agree. Uh II I think uh my, my flaw is probably uh I’m, I’m more of the, the art and the, the uh the human side of fundraising and not enough of the metric scientific side. Uh So I, I hear you, we, we do have to measure uh we, we have and you know, with different clients, I have KPIS and things like that that I’m responsible for. Uh But I, I still probably it, it’s just, it’s, it’s the reason I entered nonprofit fundraising and plan giving specifically is because I love the relationship work. So I, I tend to default to, to the more of the art. So this is valuable, this is, this is valuable for me. Um, all right, let’s, let’s talk a little more le let’s go back to the science side now again. Uh, another, you know, um, you, you talk about, uh sustainable revenue engines but, but you know, what, what are we, what are we talking about there? What are we measuring there back on the science side? Yeah. Uh, let’s just talk about the, the most horrible number. I think that exists in the nonprofit fundraising space right now. And that’s retention rates, you know, on average right now, every year, between 40 45% of donors stay year to year with their nonprofit, which means that more than half actually stop giving to a nonprofit. Ok. That on the science side, that should blow people’s mind. That’s like a showstopper right there. We’ve had guests talk, talk about even as high as 75%. We’ve had some clients that have come in to only keep 20% of their donors every year. Ok. What in the world? We need to analyze that and figure out what the heck is going wrong. Ok. So we need to measure that and then figure out how do we fix this. Um And, and see if we can’t get that, if it is, you know, 20% 25%. Let’s get that to 30 let’s get that to 50 let’s get that to 70 because if you’re churning through your donors over and over and over again, uh that is not, that is not helpful, that is not sustainable. So, the science side of that is OK. Well, why are they leaving? What’s the hypothesis? And for most organizations, your hypothesis should come down to. We’re actually not letting these people know where their money is going and what good it’s doing in the world. But I’m engaging with a client right now and I actually got them as a client because my family gave to them. Uh We have an adopted kid. This is a foster care organization, uh foster care adoption organization we gave to them and it wasn’t a small gift. It was a, a good mid size, you know, mid-level gift. I got one letter letting me know where the money was going. Just one and they’re literally two miles down the street from my house. So I, I called them up and said, hey, I would like to keep giving to you, but I need to know what you’re doing with the money. Uh They had other donors hundreds that weren’t professional fundraisers and didn’t have 2025 years in this space. Uh I went in and I analyzed their, their data. They were sending four communication pieces a year or you know how many times my kids, school texts me when they have a half day. So I don’t forget to pick them up. It’s something like 11 or 12. If I can’t remember to pick my kid up after two text messages. How the heck am I gonna remember your nonprofit from four communication pieces a year? Talking about a size major gift too. Yeah, a good for them. It was a, it was a high level mid-level gift, you know, for that organization. And sadly, that is more the norm uh that I think any of us in this space would like. Um So we need to go in and fix that. That’s the science of OK, what’s our communication cadence? How are we uh how are we building this out? What content do people actually desire? Um And you do that through interviews, you do that through asking uh them. Uh And on the art side, some of these people are probably pretty ticked off that they took your 10 grand and didn’t do anything with it. Wait, go back a sec asking them asking them what, what, what, what are, what are we surveying? What are we asking them in conversations? Yeah. So if 80% of your donors or 50% of your donors are leaving, you need to go back and actually have a serious conversation with your high net worth givers. It needs to be face to face if they’re willing uh with your small and mid size donors, probably a survey and saying, hey, we think we goofed, we think we messed up here. We need to, you know, understand how to get better. Can you help us get better because we all care about this thing and ask specific questions. Uh Why did you stop giving? Did we communicate with you enough when we did communicate? Was it the right type of communication? You know, we need to ask that kind of stuff to our donors and own. We don’t always do things right. You’re, you’re even suggesting surveying folks who, who are no longer donors who left a absolutely. How, how scientifically would you figure out what caused them to laugh? Leave unless you ask them and for a person to leave? I do think, and this is the art side that probably an apology is needed. Uh I think we did something wrong here. That’s where you get into the art and the empathy and the pain because people don’t give just because they have spare money lying around. People give because they want to see something changed in the world and they’re deeply passionate about the areas that they give to. So if as a nonprofit, you’ve done something wrong, uh you need to, you need to own that. Uh And that’s art not science in terms of how you own that mistake. You also can uh uh on the science side can be surveying your, your existing donors. You know, how do you wanna be contacted? Uh What, what, what do you want to hear from us from uh about, do you, are you interested in our events or you’re not? Uh can we send you solicitations and how should we do that? Do you prefer postal mail, texting, you know, uh, email, um, or do you just want to do it on your own calendar? You know, or do you want reminders? You know, these are the, these are the things that can also be surveyed and then of course, the all important, uh, not, not just follow up but the, the honoring of the, of the preferences when you ask somebody something and they tell you what they prefer and you don’t do it, you don’t follow through on it. Um You know, talk to your partner or your spouse. Hey, what would you like to do this weekend? And they tell you and then you completely ignore it and go do something else. It’s not a great weekend. Say with your givers, if they say, hey, I wanna be contacted this time, I want one meeting a year, remind me via text message. My email inbox is too crazy. You have to follow through and do it, which means you need to have your systems uh built efficiently in the back end, which is more of a scientific, you know, thing than an artistic thing. And, and then honor what people have told you. I always think of, uh, related to that, uh asking what someone’s birthday is, you know, if they’re gonna share their birthday or you might just ask birth month, you know, but if, if they, if you’re asking for any kind of birthday info, then the presumption is that you’re gonna remember their birthday or their birthday month. So you need to do that. You need to have a system in place that sends you a reminder a week before everybody’s birthday that you’re gonna send a card or the day of that, you’re gonna, you’re gonna call them if, if they’re, if they’re well enough known that you, you can place a happy birthday call. Uh, You know, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna survey those things that you’re saying, you, you need, you know, you need to, uh you need to, you need to follow through on what you’re asking about. Um It just, it feels empty to ask someone’s birthday and then ignore it, they never do anything with it. That’s right. What was the point? Yeah. All right. Um Let’s, let’s, uh this is, uh I’m enjoying this now, this uh compare and contrast the uh the science with the art. What else to tell us some more about the science side, the, the, as I as, as I, the uh relationship, you know, default guy, the art, default guy would say uh the cold, hard, the cold, hard, scientific uh side, share some more of that side. Let’s talk about um teams. OK? And how teams can, can uh bring the art, art, art and the science together. One of the most important functions that I think as a, you know, chief revenue officer that I’ve ever hired for is, you know, the development coordinator. Ok. Um, people call it different things, but this is kind of the grease at the elbow position that makes sure everybody is putting their information into the CRM that’s giving you your weekly and your monthly reports as a leader, these hires are deeply scientific people. Um, the best one that I ever hired people called him. Uh, I won’t share his name but they, they had a nickname for him that was close to robots. Uh Just because the guy was so, you know, is very robotic in terms of how he, he does stuff. It was the most valuable position that I’ve ever hired for. Uh because like you, Tony, I also, I, I gravitate towards the art side, the relational side, the engagement side with people. Um I needed a development coordinator to show me what true North was scientifically. Um I am horrible in CRM. Si need someone to sit down and, you know, tell me to input my information. Most major gift officers are, uh I needed someone to do the calculations of year, over year fundraising. This is before, you know, every CRM had that automated, you know, into it. Um He needed to be that true North for the rest of the team and to have the, the hard conversations sometimes about, hey, we’re not doing so well. Right now, we’re not actually meeting our metrics every month. We need to figure out how to solve this on the other side because I am more art. Uh like you are, if you, if you leave every donor meeting and you are an artist and you feel, oh my goodness, they’re judging me. I didn’t do that right. And because artists are sometimes you know that way uh you need the data people, the science people to say actually your numbers were trending in the right direction. You’re getting your meetings, you’re asking the right questions, the the gifts are coming in. Uh Hey, it’s not all about you and how you feel right now. Uh On the flip side, the, the art people sometimes need to tell the data people. Hey, I’m with the person. I know we want a big gift right now. Uh But someone passed away in their family or their kids going through an addiction crisis. I need you to lay off me right now on the numbers because I’m dealing with a real human right now and I’m helping them and adding value and guiding them through the situation. Hey, number one, it’s the right thing to do. Number two, it’s gonna pay off but not for a year or two. So I need you to calm down, you know, science guy. Uh when you bring those two things together on the team and there’s mutual respect and the leader facilitates that mutual respect. Uh Really wonderful things start to happen and people begin to appreciate uh different giftings and abilities on a team that are usually kind of, you know, uh, butting heads with each other. I wanna pull on a thread that you, you said it sounds like it was transformational for you that, that you, uh, the development coordinator you hired, helped you find true North. What, what were you looking for in a, in a development coordinator? You when you were making this hire? Oh, this is a great question. Finally, finally, we’re half an hour in finally, a great question. All right. This is great because I was unprepared for it. Numbers when they’re not interpreted by people who are numbers, people can tell you any story you want to tell. We’ve all been there, right? When you’re doing the development meeting, you’re with your staff and all the numbers got pulled the wrong way and uh no one’s entering stuff in the right way and, oh, I didn’t know. So your numbers get messy. Uh I needed someone to cut through all that noise. I could manage the relationships, uh with the team. It was a, you know, 4050 person team at the time, but I needed someone to actually do that back end work so that we sat down to have the real meetings, uh the individual one on one performance meetings, the team debrief meetings that we didn’t spend 90% of the time complaining that the numbers and the data wasn’t right. So I needed a person to come in and, and, and operationalize all of that for me and I often encounter uh heads of fundraising that are, are one or the other. They are the systems people, let’s build the machine or they’re the one that’s out there and they’re managing the top 50 donors. It’s very hard to find a senior leader that has both of those things together. So if you’re the science, data, build a system, build a machine person, you need some really strong high eq people around you who are gonna go out there and deal with the uh the other humans that make the magic happen. If you’re like me and you, Tony and you’re, you like to be out there, you like to be engaging with individuals, you need someone behind the scenes to be building the machines and making sure all the cogs are turning. But at the same time, it’s very hard to find people who can live in both spaces. Usually you can bungee to both spaces for a few hours, but you’re, you’re in one space just because of how you are and how you are created and designed in your upbringing. And you really need to get support uh for yourself. I know that’s hard for our audience, small and mid size people, but it works when you get that right. The introspection is important. You, you need to know where you fall, what your skills are. You know, as you said, how you’re wired and either hire an employee or, or employees or, or get help as a, uh, on a consulting basis with, with the other side that, you know, the, the, the, the scientific, the, the numerical, the analysis, if you are more the relationship side, that’s, that’s 100%. Right. One of my, uh, bosses at one point in time, gosh, I was probably in my twenties, pulled me aside and said, here’s your Achilles heel and you’re gonna have this for the rest of your career. You run really fast and it’s good because we were in the humanitarian space and you need to run fast when things are happening. You need to hire a world class process person to help everybody else catch up with where you’re running as a leader. He was absolutely right. And even in our company, I need that today because I’m still running fast. Uh It’s just who I am and I need a process person, you know, to come behind me. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. This week it’s tales from the train because I’ve done some Amtrak travel lately and it reminds me that Amtrak is so much more comfortable uh uh more pleasant travel experience. So if you have the option, I would urge you to look at Amtrak as, as a possibility for travel instead of flying. Now, I know in a lot of parts of the country you can’t, I’m, I’m, I’m near the northeast Corridor. And when I was up in New York and I was traveling from there. So, you know, between Boston and Washington DC, I think that’s 80% of the trips and the revenue that Amtrak gets because it’s the most populated part of the country that they serve. So I know it doesn’t make sense in, in a lot of other parts of the country, but just consider it because when you’re on Amtrak, you always get wide seats like first class, the first class with seats, um, they’re comfortable big. There’s leg room, there’s never a middle seat. Amtrak doesn’t have three seats. Uh on one side, it’s always two and two, there is never a middle seat that you get stuck with. Um, every Amtrak seat has a, a plug power. You don’t have to worry about seatbelts. You don’t have to put a bag under the seat in front of you. All the luggage goes overhead, but you, there is room. If you want to have a bag at your feet, there’s a lot more room than airplanes. Um Some of them, even some cars even have foot rests. That seems to be kind of a on and off. Uh I’m not sure how, you know, but occasionally there’s foot rests that, that fold down. Um The, the aisles on trains are wider than the aisles on planes. You have a cafe car that you can walk to anytime you don’t have to worry about uh, seatbelt signs coming on and you know the pilot saying we’re in turbulence. So now you can’t get up, you can get up any time you like use the bathroom, go to the cafe car. Um, you don’t have to check luggage unless you have really like four or five pieces or something that more than you can carry. But pretty much I, I really don’t even know what the luggage policy is on Amtrak. It seems to me if you can carry it on, you can bring it with you and put it in the overhead. Uh and, and a lot of cars have storage space at the, at the end of uh the car also for extra, but I think it’s pretty much whatever you can carry. You’re welcome to bring it on. So you don’t have to worry about like two bags only. And um and then also arrival when you take Amtrak, you arrive downtown. Think of, think of where the Moynihan train hall is in New York City uh where Union Station is in Washington, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Uh the Wilmington station, the Joe Biden station in Wilmington, Delaware. These are the ones I know best. Oh, but also Boston, I’ve been up to Boston. Um not the back bay but Boston Maine, these stations are downtown. So you don’t have to a, a long Lyft or Uber or shuttle to get to where you wanna go. If you’re going downtown, it’s not like you’re 30 miles away because that’s where the airport is. You arrive downtown. So consider it. Ok. That’s a, that’s a long thing on Amtrak, but think about it because especially arriving downtown, you might save time even though trains go slower than planes. But the time you’re gonna, you spend in traffic getting to the airport and then you have time, you wait in the airport because you gotta be there early for security, obviously. And then the travel time back from the airport to where you’re, you might need to go. If it’s in the ci city center of a city, you might actually save time or it be equivalent, uh, on Amtrak and you’ll have a much more comfortable ride. Ok? That’s enough on Amtrak. And that is Tony’s take two. Ok. Frequent Amtrak rider used to take Amtrak all the time from New York City to, uh, down to Wilmington to get home right to get home for Thanksgiving Christmas. And then I think right before our, our spring break. So I took it a good maybe borderline 20 times. Yeah, and that was like a span of two years. So I thought it was awesome. I mean, everyone was really quite too because it was kind of night time when I would ride. Um, and everyone was respectful. It might have been a little bit crowded at some points. Um, when I would take coach, it would be kind of hard to find a spot. But that’s also because I went during the holidays. Um, we talked about that once you have to be, you have to just be a little assertive and ask people, may I sit here when they have their luggage or their pet, you know, sitting on, uh, another, uh, uh, on a seat. But, you know, planes can be crowded. Planes can be crowded too. But, yes, I, I like Amtrak and I like that. My feet. It’s on the ground. I’m not up in the air. Yeah. Ok. You made me think of one other thing. The quiet car, every Amtrak train, at least in the northeast corridor has a quiet car. It’s usually the second to last car from the rear and there you’re not allowed to have cell phone conversations. You, if you’re, if you’re talking to your seat mate, you need to whisper and they’re pretty good about enforcing it too quiet car. But it’s just one car. The whole train, it’s like eight cars or 10 cars in a train. One is the quiet car. So sometimes I opt for the quiet car. If I know I don’t have to make any calls or anything like that. I haven’t been in one yet but I like the concept of it. Well, we gotta get you back on the train. But, yeah. All right, we’ve got Buku but loads more time. Here’s the rest of the art and science of fundraising with James Meisner. Is there more, uh, is there more, uh, science and art that we can, we can compare and contrast? I, I think we can, but let’s talk about how these can come together. Um, would that be ok, Tony? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I’m always struck by is, uh, in Jim Collins book. Good to Great. Uh, I just listened to an episode of your podcast from November and you guys were talking about Jim Collins in, in Good to great. Uh One of the greatest things he talks about is the power of knee hand and that organizations and companies uh are often saying, hey, we have to choose A or we have to choose B and that is often a false dichotomy. And I think we’re, we’re talking about this in the, in the, in the, in the fundraising space. You get CEO S and heads of fundraising who say we have to be this, we have to be scientific, we have to be buttoned up, it has to be metric driven or do you have people on the other side? Just uh hey, wind me up and let me go tell stories. Those are false choices. And Jim Collins says that leaders who bring out the best of a and leaders who bring out the best in b are the ones who actually uh thrive and they’re the ones that actually grow uh their organizations. And I think in the nonprofit space, uh you see this happen all the time. You have a uh a CEO who comes up to the program side and they bring all the science and the monitoring evaluation and just want to slap that on to, you know, fundraising without bringing out the emotional storytelling, art side. Or you have a CEO come up through, you know, fundraising and marketing, who forgets all the monitoring evaluation and auditing and accounting. Um especially in small and mid size nonprofits. We need to say, let’s get the best of A and the best of B and bring these together. Uh So we’re not making a false choice. We’re managing the tension instead of choosing between two things that are uh uh falsely dichotomies against each other. OK? The, the power of the and the power of the end. All right. Um So let’s, let’s uh this is, this is our, this is our up into the right fundraising objective. This is where this is where we want to be, where the, the two, the two are coming together. Um Le let’s say more about, you know, systems um maybe have some examples of teams that, that are excellent at both. Yeah, there, there’s a team that I’ve gotten to work with for the past uh 1015 years or so on or off. They have mastered this, they’ve mastered it. Um They spent years becoming world class storytellers. How did they do that? You don’t become a world class storyteller by accident. You become a world class storyteller uh by deeply figuring out the emotional hooks in a story that are gonna cause people to respond to it. That was the art side. Well, how did a team of 50 people get really good at it? They brought the science site in, they practiced their storytelling and they still do to this day every single week. No one goes to a major giving meeting without practicing their story and having it evaluated by at least three other people inside the organization. Oh, really? Oh They do this like a role, well, not role playing, but you’re rehearsing, you’re rehearsing, they rehearse, they rehearse and they get that feedback. Um The, the leader of the current leader of that team jokes. I don’t care if you figured out the best wine or the best croissants to bring to that meeting. Uh You can show up with the sunny water for all I care, but you will practice your story before you go in. Um And there’s beauty in that because other people can critique it in a safe environment and say, hey, you forgot to ask AAA powerful question. At the end, you’re gonna have a hard time transitioning from this story into a conversation afterwards. Oh my goodness. You forgot this hook. I heard that story the other day in another meeting and you, you forgot this detail. Uh That’s really gonna um make it, make it s what this team noticed is as they implemented a process to get better at storytelling. Donors started responding, more zeros got added to gifts as they went. Um The art and the science uh coming together. Uh Another great example of this is uh I love mid-level fundraising programs. People forget, you know, they’re mid-level donors. Uh But I think mid-level donors are really fun in the future. Uh of most uh nonprofit uh fundraising programs, the science can tell you what your zone of opportunity is. Hey, we have this many people who we think can give between 1000 and $10,000 normal, you know, mid-level range. Um And there’s nothing there. The art side comes in and figures out what kind of community do these people want uh to come together. There’s another team that I’ve worked with for the past two years. They built a wonderful mid-level program. Um And the interesting thing that happened was their mid-level program has actually stayed flat. It hasn’t increased in revenue, it hasn’t decreased in revenue, but you know what’s happened? Their major gift program is off to the races. Uh They through great art through great questions and conversations figured out exactly what their mid-level audience wanted. And then they built the science side. How do we get our high uh higher annual funds, small donors to be into mid-level? And how do we bump up our mid-level people into major the science? What is some of the, what they did for the mid-level community that they created. They were the most transparent organization I’ve ever seen in their mid-level communication. They told their mid-level donors exactly what they were gonna get. Hey, we built this community for people like you. Here’s what people like us are. You know, you get between 1000 and $10,000 a year. There are this number of you. There’s, I forget the number 792 of us together. We’re gonna report to you more. We’re gonna ask you less. They literally said that we’re gonna tell you where your money’s going. And we’re gonna ask you for money fewer times a year. Within six months, they were off to the races. People just ate it up, they love the transparency. Um And uh we, they did a President’s weekend as part of a capital campaign a while ago and half the room was from their mid-level program. Now graduating from giving 10,000 to, you know, high five figures, low six figure gifts because somebody just said, I’m gonna tell you what’s happening here. I’m gonna tell you exactly what we need. I’m gonna stop bugging you with, you know, annual fund type appeals. And I’m gonna ask you when it really matters and people ate it up, Tony, they ate it up. What was the work of that organization? They were in the humanitarian space. So they were doing, uh you know, global poverty alleviation, conflict zones and refugees All right. So sort of build up that program. They sounds like they asked a lot of questions about, you know, what you would want from the community and what, what do you want as a mid-level donor? How can you know, how can we make this experience more valuable for you more meaningful, make your giving uh not make you giving more impactful for you and, and it sounds like folks came back with, you know, we’d like to know more about where our dollars are going. Yeah, they sent out a very simple, you know, almost um envelope size survey. It was a postcard, it was very low tech um and it was check boxes, mail this back to us. Uh They had something like a 40% response rate to that. It was really wonderful. Um And, and people told them exactly what they wanted to hear about, you know, when you’re working in disaster zones and with refugees in the US, you start to wonder what the people you know, really want to hear about. The donors just told them and they tagged it for him. So these people got refugee stories, these people got, you know, disaster response, conflict zone stories and something like 80%. We’re just like we like all of it, just keep telling us all the stories. Um The other great thing that happened and this is so important for small and mid size organizations is by telling that broad story. People stop designating their gifts. They started giving more money and they started giving it unrestricted or semi restricted, which gave that organization degrees of freedom that they had never imagined before all because they asked and 80% said we like it all. Um ok, so when you give these, you know, three or four things happened, their unrestricted revenue went through the roof. Mm What uh what else, what else can, can we uh can we talk about um AAA about around bringing these two together? Um You know, you mentioned uh the systems using, again, putting the science together with the art, using, using systems to uh move, move donors along in relation, you know, in a, throughout their spectrum of giving. Yeah, let’s, let’s talk about how they got annual fund givers to become mid-level givers and then mid-level givers to become major givers chronicles. The philanthropy actually wrote up a case study two or three years ago on this organization because they were so good at the, at the science side of it. So what chronicle what then, what’s the name of the organization? Shout them out. Oh, yeah. So it’s World Relief uh Global Humanitarian Organization based in the Baltimore, Washington uh region. Uh Karen Bryant at the time was their mid level uh director, she’s moved on and now is at a um climate change organization uh but great, great, great leader. Um what they did was they set up a system, a quarterly system where anybody that gave a single gift of $500 or more uh would be flagged in the system for the mid-level team to actually reach out. And thank because they had a hypothesis that if you’re given a $500 1st time single gift, you probably have more money to give, which, you know, nine times out of 10 is usually true. Um And then what they did every quarter is they actually invited those people to explore and join the mid-level program. They did a direct mail and phone call. A very simple campaign. Um Hey, we have something for people like you, uh that we think that would actually really increase uh your experience with us. And they told him exactly what it was, they invited them to it. But it was the simplest thing in the world and you know what people were like, yes, there were a few things here that made it sing quote unquote. Uh First was it happened quick. The systems in the back end flagged it quickly and you weren’t waiting 69, 10 months till somebody forgot about you to invite them into something. They were thanked really quickly and within 90 days they were invited to the next thing. Ok. Uh That’s really important. If somebody gives you a gift in December of 2024 and you don’t do anything to try to engage them until September of 2025 you’ve already lost them, they’ve moved on to the next thing, uh you need to be quick with this. Um And it worked dramatically. The next thing that they did is they would continually research using donor search and other, you know, well, screen engines, uh their mid-level portfolio and the mid-level team identified the top third of people that they thought had significant future potential for the organization. And they would start to treat them like major donors. They wouldn’t just throw them over to the major donor team, but they would do the birthday calls, the handwrit notes, they would invite them to some special events. Uh So they got used to having one on one attention because many mid-level donors if you go from, hey, uh we’re getting emails, we’re getting newsletters, we love this community and the quarterly, you know, online events and hey, do you wanna have coffee that jump is so hard for them because they don’t think of themselves often of being people of, of, of means of wealth. Uh So they started to condition or train their mid-level daughters to expect that and then what they did and this is the brilliance of this art and science coming together is four times a year. They would identify the people that they were, they thought most likely to become major givers. And they asked them if they wanted to become major givers, they would say, hey, we’re actually looking for 10 or 15 people from this mid-level community to come up and do more with us so that we could do XY and Z in our program space and they let them raise their hands and every time they did it, they had more hands raised than they needed at the time. Wow. What, what else were they enticing them with? What, what was there more of an enticement or was it all just program related? You know, if, if 15 people join us at the, at the major donor level, you know, we can do this with humanitarian. Uh That was the main hook because the, the message for mid level was, hey, uh we’re gonna ask fewer times and tell you more. So these people started really to get uh deeply engaged uh with the organization, but there was also uh a communal enticement. You know, we need 15 you to do this. And hey, when our staff come from overseas, we’re actually gonna get you together either in person or on zoom. So you can meet these people. Hey, when we are in your city, we’re gonna show up and we’re gonna, you know, have lunch and coffee and dinner. This is gonna become a big part of your life. Uh What we do together. So there was that communal aspect, I’ve never been a big fan of some of the um the T chay, you know, type incentives for, for givers a, get a book, join this club, you know, those types of things, uh, get, you know, elbow time with the CEO um, givers like community with other givers is what I found. People like to be with people that care about the same things, uh, that they do and the other things just naturally happen, but you don’t have to sell them on it. You saw them on the impact because people give through your organization to make a difference in the world, they don’t give to your organization. Yeah, through to make the difference that you, you, that they want to see. Absolutely. All right, this is excellent. Um Wrap it all up, you know, leave us with uh inspiration for putting together the uh the art and the science so we can have that, that uh the growth that we’re all looking for. Yeah, I want to end by talking about leadership. OK? I think the nonprofit space has a crisis of leadership. We’ve all talked about the, the great resignation after the pandemic. We’ve talked about burnout a ton. There’s new studies out, you know, even, you know, Q four of 2024 about just the next wave of nonprofit leader resignations. But in the fundraising space, this does not happen by accident. OK? It takes a leader to bring these things together and to create the conditions for team members to bring their best, whether it’s on the art side or the science side, this just won’t happen by accident. A, a leader needs to know, um that they have the responsibility to create the conditions for success for every team method, whether it’s a database and analysts were a front line fundraiser to bring their best every single day. And I see people abdicating that responsibility more and more as the world gets more and more stressful. So in ending teams that grow teams that move up into the right, the, the 2% of nonprofits that eventually break a million dollars in revenue, it doesn’t happen by accident, it happens because a leader says I’m actually gonna do something different. Uh Now, um I’m gonna ask the harder questions. I’m gonna uh invest in my team. I’m gonna create the art side of this organization and storytelling and questions and EQ and I’m gonna create the science side of this organization and invest in data and systems. And I’m gonna make sure through my leadership through how I model this, that these people start working together more. Uh Every year we talk about not enough nonprofits are breaking that million dollar barrier or that $10 million barrier. And I don’t think that bigger is better, Tony. OK? I think that bigger just means that you’re better funded, that you figured the funding side of things out. Uh I see so much innovation happening in the small and mid size space uh that I want this community of people uh to develop those leadership skills to bring the best of art and science together so they can move the needle and change some of these problems that have been plaguing our country and our world. Uh, for decades, if not generations, James Meisner, founder and CEO of the Kos group, tell us what Kos is K IP OS. What, what’s the, what’s the, what’s the? Yeah. What’s the Kos group about? Where’s that from? Yeah. Kebos group is the Greek word for garden during the pandemic. My kids and I planted over 1000 plants in our backyard because we were bored. Uh and we got into, into gardening and within six months, people were stopping by to take pictures uh in our yard, you know. Um And so when I started this company, I wanted to create something that helped uh people grow something beautiful. Uh and gardens are beautiful and they provide, you know, food for you if you, you know, grow vegetables and fruit and stuff. So, uh we want to help people grow beautiful things in their nonprofit. So, um that’s where the key plus group came from, James Meisner. You’ll find the company at the Kos group.com. You’ll find James on linkedin James. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing your thinking. Thanks, Tony. It was great to be here with you today. Next week, Amy and Gene return to share what they’re looking at for 2025 on our last show of 2024. Can you believe this last show? It’s the next two weeks or after that, uh we have next week and then next two weeks after that, we’re off. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you to find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box dot org. Oh, that alliteration, fast, flexible, friendly fundraising forms. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Marinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.